The making of 1902

This photo was taken circa one hundred years ago (1900). This photo actually inspired me to build my blog around the theme of time.

Wherever I go, I use the local bus possibly at all times. The reason is because it is on the bus that you happen to meet the most interesting characters. This also helps me with my illustration commissions; when I have to create new local characters. Apart from the character I observe what the local wear. It is interesting to note that whatever modern accessories they might be wearing, there's always that something vintage. Every object that replicates something antique, always carries a story with it, that goes back a couple of decades, even a hundred years.

What else, after a good day shopping, people go to some Valletta cafeteria or a restaurant in one of the characteristic alleys in the capital to have a cup of coffee with a couple of pastizzi (local cheese cakes).However they're not quite aware that the place they're sitting in for some shade is a place that recounts tales and a history. Or even, the objects inside the place were once owned by someone, God knows who, whether it was a prostitute, or an ideal mother with ten offsprings, or maybe someone noble...!

I chose 1902 for no particular reason at all. However it is a date that even though it might not be important at all, still, many things might have happened on that day for many families, people who got born on that day, or maybe it was the first day of work for someone, a couple just got married, a grandfather just passed away, a boy stole a xelin, a policeman just had a normal day at work.

But what if I had to invert 1902 to 2091?

A photomontage with ink drawings of the same place (above photo), today.

Now that's a different story! Fashion, culture, religion, attitude, Malta's topography; everything has changed. Though, what if people treasured still some objects of earlier times or what if these objects turned up to be in a museum, only for tourists to see and admire?