Cinema is very good at capturing life. It’s death that it finds tricky. The problem isn’t that death is undramatic, but rather that it doesn’t conform to the tidy demands of narrative. In life, death is untidy and unpleasant, seldom accompanied with a noble sacrifice or a secret-revealing speech. There’s rarely a good time for death to come, so it rarely does. Instead, it arrives without warning, in the middle of the night, or on a bus, or in the frozen foods aisle of a supermarket; or maybe it drags out endlessly, over weeks, months or years, accumulating misery and tedium in equal measure.

Alexander Payne’s new film The Descendants is about such a thing: a death in slow motion, as inconvenient as it is devastating. What makes this more complicated is that it’s the death of someone the audience don’t know: the dying woman is only seen in the film’s opening shot, smiling gleefully moments before the boat crash that will put her in a coma. What follows in its wake is scene upon scene of her husband Matt King (George Clooney) visiting family members and friends to announce the death of someone who is a stranger to us.

By not having an emotional investment in Elizabeth, the film sidesteps what could be potentially maudlin and instead contemplates the idea of inheritance and legacy. The imminent death of his wife sharpens Matt’s mind, revealing to him a lifetime of missed opportunities and mistakes that it just might still be possible to make up for. Played with lumpy desperation by Clooney, Matt learns in the most painful way possible that there is a better person inside of him. Grumpy and awkward, Matt King is reminiscent of the protagonists of Payne’s other films, from Paul Giamatti in Sideways to Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt: completed flawed but wonderfully, heartbreakingly human.

The Descendants is buffered from predictability or cliché by its Jim Rash and Nat Faxon’s sensitive screenplay, as well as a host of fine performances: in particular Shailene Woodley as Matt’s daughter Alex, taking the overly-common trope of a disapproving teenage daughter and turning it into something tender, angry and real. Even moreso, it is the unusual setting of Hawaii that makes the film seem fresh. The story is a familiar one, but the unhurried, relaxed nature of Hawaiian life (where powerful people “look like bums and stuntmen”) makes it feel different.

This foreignness doesn’t dilute the emotion: Matt explains in his opening voiceover that living in a paradise doesn’t protect you from the pain that life brings. The film and its protagonist come to the bittersweet conclusion that perhaps it’s okay that so much of life is rubbish and painful: what’s important is learning to endure, so that we can protect and pass on what was passed on to us. It’s a realisation that might seem trite in other films, but here is one that is well-earned.

If Zoolander's Slashie Awards were a real thing Ismay Ozga would have won a bunch. Not satisfied with simply being a successful artist, illustrator and blogger this Worcester-based lovely recently set up jewellery label Paper & Chain with her childhood friend Naomi. What better business partner could you have?

Her jewellery is simple and pretty, feminine but not too girly and exactly what I wear every day. Her drawings are raw, fragile and overflowing with wonderful women and her blog is a dreamy combination of new artists and designers, soft photography, great music and pictures of her kittens. Her aesthetic is coherent and beautiful, gentle and inspiring.

Intriguing, yes? Ismay took some time out from her many creative pursuits to answer some of our questions.

Photo: Ismay and Naomi - BFFs and founders of Paper & Chain.

You recently started a jewellery company with your best friend, is this something you have always wanted to do together? Did you make friendship bracelets in the playground when you were little?

Yes, we did! We used to make those really complicated ones where you wrap different coloured threads around each other in different patterns! We have always wanted to do something together, we weren't sure exactly what it would be until more recently, we just had a dream that we would create something special together.

A jewellery company made sense for us as it's something we both love, and between us we thought we had the skills to make it work- Naomi studied Jewellery and Silversmithing and I have an interest in design and fashion. We design everything together and make everything by hand.

Your jewellery is simple and beautiful but surprisingly affordable, is price accessibility important to you?

It's an incredibly important part of what we wanted to achieve with Paper & Chain. We found that most of the jewellery available to us at an affordable price was not of a very high quality- the kind of stuff that turns your skin green after a few wears! The options seemed to be either cheap jewellery that lasted a couple of weeks or lovely jewellery that was way out of our price range. We knew we could create beautiful things at a price people like us could afford.

Photo: Jewellery from Ismay and Naomi's collection.

You have already proved yourself as an illustrator, a jeweller and a blogger, which of these is your favourite persona and what could possibly be next?

Oh gosh, who knows? I really do like to have my fingers in all the pies! I am so excited to be working on the jewellery with my oldest and dearest friend, it's a dream come true and it's something I hope to be doing for a long time. At the same time I have been drawing for as long as I can remember and I absolutely love working as an illustrator - getting exciting commissions to work on is the best feeling. I see blogging as another creative outlet, so how could I choose, I guess I'm greedy - I want to do it all!

On your blog you post a lot about the work of other artists, do you think blogging helps to foster artistic communities? What are your favourite aspects of blogging?

My favourite part of blogging is sharing things that I find inspiring, it's great when you find something (whether it's a piece of art or a photograph) and you instantly want to tell everyone about it - having a blog is a brilliant way to do that. Blogs are a fantastic place to find inspiration, and inspiration is key for artists, so yes I do think blogging is really helpful for creative people.

How do you integrate blogging into your life and how you decide what to write about?

I make blog posts about things that catch my eye: artists I find inspiring, street style shots I like, whatever takes my fancy! I try to post on my blog as often as I can, whenever I can find the time - nobody likes a neglected blog.

Photo: Ismay's 'Beth' print - available at her shop.

You make amazing monthly mixtapes, what are you listening to on repeat at the moment?

Thank you! Right now I can't stop listening to Gotye - Making Mirrors, and also Cults - their album is really good. I always find myself listening to Arcade Fire too. Oh and secretly I absolutely love Beyonce's new album!

What is your party trick?

Hmm... I can't say I have one! I can meow pretty much exactly like a cat though - does that count?

How do you take your tea?

Well, Earl Grey is my favourite tea, and I don't have any milk (weird, I know). Sometimes I have a little bit of sugar or lemon.

Our issue eight cover girl is Juliette Fazekas, and she has stolen our hearts with her smile. 

Born in Florida, USA Juliette moved to France aged six years old. Today, she lives by the coast in Brittany and has a calm air about her that comes, I imagine, from long walks by the sea. 

Juliette told me that when she has a bad day, the best cure for it is her close friend sending a voice message and singing a tune. She doesn't quite sing well, so that never fails to make Juliette laugh! She's also a big fan of carrot cake, and let us know her favourite way of baking it:

You will need: 

250g grated carrots

125g sugar

2 eggs

60g chopped walnuts        

125g melted butter

200g flour

11g baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of powdered cinnamon

One. Preheat the oven to 150.

Two. Whisk the eggs with the sugar. When the mixture has doubled in size and become frothy, gradually add the flour and melted butter, continuing to whip together.

Three. Mix in the cinnamon, baking powder and, finally, the grated carrots and walnuts. Stir will.

Four. Pour the mixture into a cake pan and bake for 1 hour. Let it cool before taking out of the dish. Enjoy!

More portraits of Juliette are on Flickr.

Clare Gallagher is a still life photographer based in Ireland. You might remember her work from Issue five of oh comely where we featured images from her Domestic Drift series. She photographs the quiet moments of everyday life: the shadows, patterns of light and familiar objects that have a simple beauty about them, if only we stopped to notice it. 

Clare's most recent photographic series is called Verges, where her subject is weeds and overgrown city plants. They're the sort of botanicals that no one cares too much about but under Clare's lens, become full of life and characterful disorder.

What were your initial points of reference for the Verges series?

My garden (with chickens, veg and lots of weeds), seeing my kids create little worlds for themselves with unprepossessing materials, memories from my childhood when anything could be fascinating, and ideas about impermanence and equanimity: everything changes, nothing is permanent. 

What's your working process? Do you spend a lot of time searching out locations?

I wanted to look hard at the most banal surroundings I could imagine – the ones that are so familiar that it’s hard to even see them at all. I limit myself to only photographing the places I see everyday when I'm walking the kids to school, on the way to work, or in the supermarket car park. If I photographed places that had a sense of excitement or novelty to me, I feel like I would be cheating.

What is it about overlooked, everyday places that catches your eye and curiosity?

The landscape, both urban and rural, is becoming so manipulated and stage-managed that it is difficult to find any wilderness at all. For me, urban weeds express a little of that wildness, creating pockets of growing, flowering, propagating and decaying life, where it’s not supposed to be.

I think that photography is often entwined in a search for the exotic or dramatic: special moments that seem remarkable enough to be recorded. So much of contemporary life is driven towards the pursuit of the extraordinary, shiny and new that there are whole chunks of life – the ordinary, everyday, mundane parts that take up most of our existence – that don’t get recognised for their value to our lives. To a large extent, capitalism is responsible by generating dissatisfaction with what we have and breeding desire for what is new. I believe that the potential for resistance to that is all around us. The challenge is in really seeing what’s already there.

Verges is a work in progress but what will be the finish to the series? 

My intention is for the shooting to take place over an entire year, to record the transformation and transience of the plants and the actions to constrain them. After photographing so intensively in such a confined space in Domestic Drift, my last project, I really wanted to get out more! I don’t however think of them as quite separate – to me home and urban landscape are subjects whose very proximity makes them difficult to really look at.

If you'd like to know more about Clare's work, head to her website.

Charlie May only started her blog, Girl a la Mode, in 2008 during her second year of studying Fashion Design at university. Since then, not only has she graduated and worked for fashion designer Thomas Tait, she has established her blog as a must-read for many and started her own fashion label, Charlie May. She presented her first collection in September and the next one is in the pipeline. That is a whole bunch of achievements. Some people might be gob-smacked by this and a tiny bit jealous. Some people might include me...

You can't be jealous for long though. Charlie's enthusiasm for brilliant and interesting design is infectious. Her blog gives you an insider's view into an East London fashion fantasy - behind the scenes glances at her creative process, photos from press events for other young designers, her favourite designs and editorials. Her beautifully shot personal-style pictures go far beyond awkward self-timers and the latest Topshop dress and make some people want to purge their wardrobes and move to Belgium. Again, some people might include me. Obviously I wanted to know more.

Photo: The lady herself, Charlie May, in a jacket of her own design.

Despite SS12 being your first collection it feels very mature and coherent. You seem to have a strong design identity already. Have you always wanted to be a designer or were there other childhood ambitions?

Thank you! As a child I never felt very creative; art at school wasn't inspiring to me, I always loved fashion so at college I studied business, thinking I would open my own boutique. It was whilst studying I starting getting into punk and riot grrl music, I began customising and making my own clothes and quickly realised it was a creative path I needed to take. Studying Fashion Design in Bristol really grew my passion and now I can't imagine not designing clothes; it was a random path to take but now here I am.

It is quite brave to go it alone. How did you make the decision to start your own label? Has it been scary at any point?

It was more exciting than scary, there aren't any jobs out there at the moment and it felt good to take a risk on starting my own brand.

Do you think your background as a blogger gave you an advantage in launching your label?

Without a doubt I couldn't have launched my label without my blog, I've met so many amazing people along the way that are supporting me now, I'd feel lost without them.

Looking back at your early posts, your style has developed a lot. Has blogging helped to hone your aesthetic or is that something that would have happened anyway?

My blog wasn't a style blog in the beginning, it was just a place to share inspiration and design; I think in my final year traveling to Antwerp and falling in love with designers like Ann Demeulemeester and Haider Ackermann helped me to start understanding my own style, then I began sharing my outfits on the blog.

Photo: Charlie May S/S12 collection - shot in an abandoned hospital.

Your personal style, which is often showcased on your blog, clearly has a big impact on your designs. Who and what else is inspiring you for next season? Can you give us any clues?

I think my next Autumn/Winter collection is going to be very rich compared to the last, it will still have the clear minimal Charlie May aesthetic but with a less muted colour palette. That's all I'm giving away for now!

Who would you be most excited to see wearing your designs?

Tilda Swinton.

What is your dream breakfast?

Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, so anything with eggs. Probably a full English with some fruit, yogurt and granola on the side!

Charlie May A/W12 will be showing in February. In the meantime, keep up with Charlie's exciting fashion adventures over at Girl A La Mode.