Happy Samhain 2015!

Like the dead, I rise to write again. What kind of goth wouldn't post on All Hallow's, anyway?

Samhain (or Samhuinn) is the Gaelic festival to mark the end of harvest and the beginning of the darker months; as with all transitions, it's an open threshold, where the boundaries between worlds are thin as paper - which has both benefits and dangers. I'm going down to Edinburgh to join in with the pagan celebrations this evening, and to remember departed loved ones (coincidentally, my gran's birthday would have been tomorrow. I clearly got the witch gene from someone). I might even dook for apples!

Though I've really missed posting on here, I've found it difficult to find a suitable place to take pictures in my new flat (in part due to the fading light), and thus despite wearing a lot of on-point outfits I've not been able to chronicle them. I'm loving this split skirt, however, and my brother got me one amazing hat for my birthday.

So I hope that, regardless of how you're celebrating - or even if you're not! - you stay safe and happy, and your winter is even better than your autumn. Here at An Honest Drug, I've got a lot of exciting things lined up, including the blog's first interview, so stick around for that.

And if you're out after dark, make sure you look scary enough to frighten the monsters!





Fiona C.

Life: Opening Windows

New hair, new course, new glasses. We're halfway through september and at the start of the academic year - and having moved flats (photos to come) and just started a year's research project, I was feeling like somebody had opened a window for some air.

I haven't had hair this short for years now, and if anything I'm excited to cut it shorter. I've also been growing my nails out, and the contrast between the two aspects of my appearance is interesting (even if I spend every waking moment terrified of breaking them). Playing with femininity and how I appropriate that has been fascinating me for a while now, and I've been influenced significantly in this by hard femme identity in lesbian culture; androgyny is great too though, hence the hair cut.

This year I'm taking a break from medicine to do some clinical research; it's a big change for me and I don't know how I feel about all the statistics yet, but I'm excited to learn how to incorporate evidence based medicine into my practice, and contribute in some small way to the research community. Between this and settling back into university life however, it does mean life will be somewhat hectic and blog updates might be spotty for a while.

As for the glasses, the stars aligned and I found the frames by chance for £30 in my optician's sale. Cat's eye frames are something I've fancied for a while now, but that doesn't mean that there was any forward planning. 

Has anyone else had changes in their life recently, big or small? How is autumn (or spring, depending on hemisphere) going for everyone? Let me know below.

Fiona C. 

Review: Karma Se7en Jewellery

There's a lot of reasons I don't particularly plan on getting piercings - above all, an irrational dislike of committing to anything regarding my appearance. This is revealed at its most absurd regarding the only piercing I have seriously considered; a septum piercing, probably the easiest to hide and the most easily removed. I accept all judgement you heap on me, piercing aficionados. 

Karma Se7en recently sent me some (very well packaged) faux septum clickers along with an ear cuff (some of which you'll have seen already if you've got me on instagram or twitter), and I'm really happy with these pieces. They're much more difficult to bend and get in than the septum ring I reviewed from Body Jewellery Shop - gosh, that was a while ago - and do wobble slightly on account of being heavier pieces (like a real piercing, how high/low these sit depends on your own personal anatomy, and some suit me better than others), but they're well made and have a range of designs I really love, and all for buy-one-get-one-free. All designs are available for pierced noses too. The ear cuff is even better, being comfortable and easy to bend around your ear.

And what's the point of going through the hassle of a piercing when I can just pop one of these beauties in and carry on with my day? I'm lazy, but that doesn't mean I need to compromise.

Single point ear cuff  -  Opal clicker  -  Royal filigree clicker  -  Rose gold imperial filigree clicker  -  Celestial clicker

Fiona C.

Barcelona: Four Days and Four Nights

Sun, sangria, and so much art. On exiting the airport, I was immediately accosted by the most Spanish of smells: drains. Yet it wasn't detracting - Barcelona is a city that sits balanced between decay and vitality, with the numbing heat made bearable by the cold saltiness of its seafood. Nowhere is this more perfectly found in the mordernisme buildings of Antoni Gaudi, where bones and living forms are used equally, and the underlying geometry of nature's undulating shapes revealed. Even as a long time lover of brutalism and bauhaus, I cried whilst visiting Casa Batlló it was so lovely.

Of course, there was some time spent drinking silly cocktails on the beach and trawling overpriced tourist shops, but I was touched by just how much the Catalonians cared about their art and civic spaces; graffiti and sculpture were treasured side by side, and I listened and danced to a live jazz concert on the roof of the world heritage site La Pedrera. You can see more of my photos from this brief break on my Instagram (where I also post lots of things that don't make it to the blog), and maybe again in future if I manage to make it back.

Have you visited another city recently? What's your opinions on art in public spaces? Let me know below.

Fiona C.

Bones you have thrown me: Skull Collection 2015

As you can probably guess my camera has been repaired, and I've been putting it to use by photographing a few pieces from my bone collection. I've mentioned previously that taxidermy isn't really my thing, and that still holds true; the anatomist in me appreciates the stripped nature of bone, and their endurance.

Most of the bones I've collected were ones I'd found, specifically in the highlands, but this jackdaw skull is one purchased from The Fox Den I received for my birthday last year. I specifically asked for a jackdaw as I have fond memories of a tamed young jackdaw I knew from when I was a kid sitting on my head and trying to eat my hair (it's really no surprise to anyone that I turned out the way I did), and wanted a way to remind me of him. It fits perfectly in my smaller glass cloche, and it was fun making an arrangement for it.

One of the advantages of being friends with the river bailiff (aside from local gossip and occasional free fishing for my dad) is how he called us completely out of the blue one day to tell us that there was a deer skull beside the river if we wanted it. It absolutely stank out the car on the way back, but it now sits proudly in the garden waiting to be cleaned and mounted.

My most recent addition is something I've coveted for a while, and so fragile I'm afraid to touch it - a complete mole skeleton. I got it on eBay for £30 (my mum shook her head and said I needed supervision for going online when I told her), and the skull is so tiny and perfect, like a baby's fingernail. It really deserves a display to showcase it, but until I either articulate it or frame it (the latter more likely, due to its delicacy) I'll share this.

Do you collect bones or curios? Anything you'd particularly like to see? Let me know below!





Fiona C.

Why I dress the way I dress

I'm returned from the highlands, readers, fresh and prepared for life again. It's good to be back; I feel energized and ready to take on projects, so watch this space.

I was featured in the inaugural edition of Qoive, an online fashion magazine, earlier in the week, and it's very humbling to appear alongside other significantly bigger bloggers. I was posed the question, 'how do you describe your style?', and it was actually a very interesting exercise in self analysis. From gender to privilege to your taste in films, I think it's really important to dissect how you relate to the world around you, even if it's only to put the pieces back together, the same as before, safely at the end. I gave the article the following quote about how I relate to the clothes I choose to wear -

"I see my clothing choices as being influenced by the eighties, the early twentieth century, modernism, and futurism, depending on what day of the week it is; a limited colour palette does not equal limited options. It reflects a fierceness within me, whether I’m wearing my grandmother’s pearls or a patch-covered jacket I fished out of a pile in Amsterdam, and a complete rejection of looking passably normal. It’s your mother’s style, but put through a meat grinder."

The way a person dresses and interacts with what they put on their body tells you a lot about them. Black is a blank canvas for me to play my influences and ideas across, wherever that takes me, and clothing - inherited, found, created, destroyed - has served as a means both conscious and unconscious to express alienation from normality. Neil Gaiman, in the wake of Terry Pratchett's passing, posted an old article he wrote about the driving anger behind his fellow author's work, and though it would be egotistical to compare myself to its subject it was intensely relatable; the artist Eliza Gauger describes the key to art making as being a 'berserker state' of compulsive need, and it's this fierce energy that makes me get dressed in the morning. Then, of course, post it online.

I want to know; what makes you dress the way you do? What prompts you to curate your appearance? Please, let me know - I'd be very interested to find out. 





Fiona C.

Wish you were here: Sutherland, Scotland

A few select photos from my family's hermitage up in Sutherland, Scotland. Sinking my feet into sheepskin rugs, rural junk shop finds, and the buzzard's nest outside my window are what I'm all about right now.

Hiding out from the whole world is great, and I've been putting the relief of a holiday into good effect - the clear air makes a great feedstock for hatching new plans. What do you think of the new site design, by the way? Two whole days were eaten up doing the sodding coding; no blog design service for me, no sir.

Oh, and I made a new friend. His name is Buddie, and he loves sugar cubes and chin scratches.





An Honest Drug will be briefly running on auto pilot for the next week, so don't expect much in the way of posts or responses until then. You can still find me on Instagram and Twitter, however!





Fiona C.