A Bevy of Swans

People sometimes ask me what my internet pseudonym "Orange Swan" means, and the answer is that it doesn't mean anything. Back in 2002 I selected it in five minutes because I wanted to join Metafilter.com and needed a username. I'd seen other usernames that consisted of a colour and an animal that I thought sounded catchy, so I picked one of each and went with it. Orange is not actually my favourite colour, though I am fond of it. I would have preferred to go with turquoise, but Turquoise Swan doesn't sound as well. I posted for years under the Orange Swan username and a whole community of people came to know me by it, so when I launched my book review blog in 2006, I named it The Orange Swan Review in order to capitalize on the name recognition. Then when I bought my house late in 2006, I named it Swan's End and began to collect swans. The swan had become my personal symbol.

A friend of mine warned me when I first named my home not to tell too many people the name because they'd all start giving me lots of swan stuff, and most swan stuff is tacky. She was quite right. Most of the swan stuff I come across is atrocious. And I definitely don't want to get too carried away with swan decor items because theme decorations can soon get overdone. But I do occasionally find or make interesting and beautiful swan items.

I thought I'd step a little outside the scope of this blog and do a post about the 30 items in my swan collection in this post. Only one item in this collection is handmade, but I can't resist showing off my little bevy of swans.

Above is a photo of the one handmade item in the collection, a counted cross-stitch cushion. The pattern, which is based on Walter Crane's famous Art Nouveau wallpaper design, is from Cross Stitch Art Nouveau by Barbara Hammet. I love both swans and Art Nouveau, so this was a find for me. It took me a year to do the cross-stitching, and then about six months to find a piece of fabric for the backing -- it's an odd shade of green. I finally found some raw silk for the back that was reasonably close to the green of the aida cloth. It cost a little more than I had hoped to pay, but it seemed to me that if anything justifies the use and expense of a luxury fabric backing, it's a piece of needlework which took a year to embroider. I found the task of assembling the cushion to be a bit frustrating and remember working on it for three or four hours stratight (the addition of the gold cord and a zipper made it challenging), but it turned out fairly well. I was even able to make the zipper I put in along the bottom very unobtrusive.

When I was renovating and decorating my attic workroom five years ago, I decided I wanted to compile a collection of swan postcards, have them framed, and hang them in a collection on one wall. This is one of those cards. It's a carte de visite dates from the 1860s and is a black and white photograph of Venus in her swan-drawn Chariot in Raphael's frescos which decorate the ceiling of the Villa Farnese in Rome.

This postcard is from 1910. I liked that it was period appropriate for my 1912-built house.

This is a vintage postcard of swans swimming on Lac Léman -- better known as Lake Geneva -- in Switzerland.

This one is not a postcard and isn't vintage, but is a small, contemporary art card. I don't normally care for fantasy/horror artwork, but the one fantasy archetype that does fascinate me is the witch, and this image was so amazingly freaky I just had to get it.

Another contemporary art card. You can see the framed collection of swan cards here (and the attic renovation post it's in here).

This postcard features an illustration from a Russian fairy tale. This was the very first postcard I bought for my attic wall grouping, and then I ended up not using it for that purpose after all because it didn't go with the rest. I suppose I'll think of a use for it eventually.

This is a silver-plated swan picture frame I got at a Salvation Army store circa 2010 for $2.

Mid-century brass swan music box I bought online. It used to play a song I haven't been able to identify. Then one day when I was flipping the mattress of my bed (an awkward task given the small size of my room), one side of the mattress knocked the swan music box off my dresser and broke the plastic bottom of it. I fitted the pieces back together, but now the music box no longer works. Sigh.

Solid brass bookends, purchased on Etsy. These bookends went on a shelf in my guest room.

This swan candelabra was my very first swan purchase. I found it in a thrift shop, priced at $5. I couldn't decide whether it was cheesy or awesome but had to have it regardless.

Brass swan candlestick. This was another Etsy purchase and it sits in my guest room.

Swan cake plate I bought at Value Village for $14.68.

A glass swan bowl I picked up at Savation Army thrift shop for $4. It goes very well with the cake plate and could be used to hold a garnish for the cake, such as berries or whipped cream.

Swan jar. There were a few chips out of this jar so I wavered about buying it via Etsy, but it was still too lovely to pass up.

An Orange Swan mug I saw in a shop window while strolling down Roncesvalles one day in May 2014 and just had to buy, because how could I not?

Back in 2007, I found four of these napkin rings at Value Village priced at $2. I almost didn't buy them because there were only four and my custom is to buy tableware in sets of eight. But I thought, oh well, I do usually have just one or two or three guests to dinner, not seven, and I got them. Then not a month later I found another set of four swan napkin rings at a Salvation Army. I hate to think how I would have felt if I hadn't bought that first set of four!

A tin box featuring the 1900 painting "The Swans", by French artist Joseph-Marius Avy. This was $2 at Value Village.

This swan teapot was a Christmas 2011 gift from a friend, who claimed it was a "no-brainer" gift that she bought the second she saw it.

When I needed a mousepad some years ago, I did an image search on "swan mousepad". This came up, and I wasn't long in deciding to order it. Given that it also has text on it, it's the perfect mousepad for a swan-loving editor and writer.

A swan bookmark my sister gave me for my 40th birthday in August 2013. It was a decorative item attached to a box of chocolates.

Carved agate swan pendant. I bought a ribbon necklace to wear this on.

Rhinestone and pearl swan earrings. I often see swan earrings on Etsy and elsewhere, and usually I pass them by without hesitation. I've never liked "object earrings". They're cheesy, and having little animals or telephone receivers or Christmas trees dangling from the ears always makes one look silly, even though those same objects might look fine as a brooch or pendant necklace. Anything whimsical placed on the head always looks sillier and more comical than it does anywhere else on the body, perhaps because it's so close to what the person says or thinks.

But I made an exception for these earrings. They are abstract enough to be barely recognizable as swans, and they are rather elegantly rendered. I could wear these with a suit or with a cocktail dress.

Celtic swan ring. This is one of the few swan items in my collection that is neither secondhand nor handmade, and at more then double the cost of the next most expensive item, it is by far the most expensive. It's meant to be a wedding band, but I just wear it as a regular ring. Swans are symbols of love and beauty in Celtic mythology. Swans mate for life.

A cloisonné swan pendant, purchased on Etsy.

A Monet swan pin. I love Monet brand jewelry, so to find this Monet swan pin was doubly exciting. I think it dates from the 1980s.

This is a Soviet-made pin. Apparently little pins like this sold for a few kopeks back in the day. I bought this pin from a Latvian seller on Etsy, and it probably references an old Russian Baba Yaga tale, "Swan-Geeze". I love Baba Yaga, so that was a bonus. I saw this pin on Etsy back in the spring of 2010, and wanted it, but waited too long to buy it and someone else beat me to it. I spent about eight months kicking myself before finding another on Etsy in December 2010.

This bracelet was an Etsy find. I saw a matching necklace on there not long after but didn't get it. This piece works better as bracelet for some reason, perhaps because the swan, being curved, looks better when it spans the top of one's wrist then when it's just hanging in the middle of one's neck.

The swan on this headband is just like the one on a bracelet just above. I doubt I'll wear them together.

Nice simple brooch that I got on Etsy. It's marked DFA for DuBarry Fifth Avenue. It was gold tone, but I don't like bright faux gold effects, so painted it silver. The gold tone shows through a little, but I rather like the effect.