vignette
\vin-YET\ | noun

1 : a running ornament or design (as of vine leaves, tendrils, and grapes) on a page
2a : a picture (as an engraving or photograph) that shades off gradually into the surrounding paper
2b : the pictorial part of a postage stamp
3a : a short descriptive literary sketch
3b : a brief incident or scene (as in a play or movie)

The only meanings of this word I ever knew before were the last two. I kind of really love that the picture on a stamp is a vignette, and I love the “shades off gradually into the surrounding paper” one too. I don’t know why but I feel a story in there somewhere, an artist who does nothing but vignettes.

I’m a writer (if you can call me that) who writes nothing but vignettes. I’ve had a couple of ideas for stories with actual plots and chapters but I can’t seem to make them work. I’m a scene girl it seems, through and through. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’d be nice to write a full story and that you could even think vaguely about getting published.

I swear I don’t go looking for New Zealand connections, not at all. But it’s something in the air that just draws them to me.

It is apparently the Auckland residence of the Bishop of Dunedin (it’s the building in the middle). The page its from is entertaining for the very austere and old fashioned language. I’m glad writing has loosened up a bit (and won’t I feel silly if this was written recently *g*).

I was going to see this as free reign to post pictures of Dunedin or Auckland but I’ll save that for another day. There are actually a ton of lovely pictures on Flickr for vignette. I’ve put a few thumbnails here, but to get the full effect please click through to the originals. Some of these are more than worth a look.

credits (l to r) top row: © Hamed Saber, © paveita, © Mike Bartley
middle row: © Rosemary McKevitt, © johnnyalive, © johnnyalive
bottom row: © Sebastian Fritzon, © Philipp Klinger, © monkeyleader

I don’t know why most of these are tagged ‘vignette’ but they’re lovely finds all the same.

© 2009 With the Passing of Time