the day after my 8 month day

hey old worldy world! here's another attempt from me to get back on the bloghorse. It's been a stale couple of months, and not much worth reporting. Infact, I'm beginning to think that just using this to show off creations would be a better function for it than trying to communicate with words.
So let's put this up: here's the tuna dress of the fortnight, completed with Jim's old bike mechanic's shirt. for those of you who don't know, he just returned to England. Coincidentally, the dress is made out of his blanket. The whole ensemble could be seen as a sort of ode. The parameters of tuna dresses is that they can't take more than an hour to make, must be out of a textile i already have, and must be created between when the tuna is prepared and when the guests arrive, and that i only wear them once. this dress was gifted to a chick named kimba.

we'll see how this goes. no promises, but i'll do my best to get an image up here everyday or so.

september!

Oh Boy! I have a show at Red Wing Cafe, 1700 SE 6th, here in the PDX. I even made show cards of the widgeon. Post your address here and you'll get one in the post! how novel! Right now I'm house sitting, hence no photos of the new set up. However, the background, made of yolo paint swatches, and lovingly crafted by ted and myself, is so cool. soon i'll have an image up. you know, maybe in october or something...

throwing up

Here's some more images of things covered in sequins, because someone might come to this blog and wanna look at them. oh, the mysteries! i really think red stripe isn't worth whatever whoever left it at my house paid for it.

painting teeth is hard.

I've decided that, from now on, everyone i will be atttracted to will not have a toothy grin. I think it's much harder to paint typically handsome people. general frustration ensues, and then there's no desire to continue the project. blah blah blah.

last night went to the Ditty Bops: way so cuteness! i want to wear a dress that looks like an artichoke and sing pretty songs: no more of this mushy paint stuff. Musicians have it made: nothing outside of recordings are permanent. people pay them to do the same trick over and over, preferably the same way, but tolerate it if they wanna switch things up. I feel constrained!

Just realised today that I only have 2 weeks until my next hanging, and ten days until i'm set to climb Adams with my father, grandfather and cousin. Agh! Acutally, though before i realised all these things, i was musing on how great life is, and how relaxed and ready for anything i felt. so, go figure.

Finished The Alienist. Great book for providing excuses not to do anything but eat frozen chocolate chips and read while sitting with cats in sunshine. life is good. just going too fast!

one painting almost done!

yey! it's of Nicole Mournian, who i miss terribly. it's going to be more of a sketch book series, i guess. but attractive. as it fleshes out i'll try to get more conceptual. There are still 4 kitties around, and I'm most of the way through the alienist.

So sorry for the slowness!

Now I'm at G-nehl house, with cable, so no more excuses (except the lack of camera) until next wednesday. Updated photos include : finished floor, my duct taped fingers and a very large beetle, and two sunset pictures of the area out by my mom's place. this space burned off last spring, so it really is dark in the forground. have to go buy groceries now.

Greetings from Seattle!

Up visiting Pam and David and casing many a small gallery here with ted. no picts because i left my camera in tri-cities, and this is pam's computer. it still makes nice tight clicking sounds. so full of beer and ribs and so happy. Just for the record, i made 9 attempts yesterday to stay connected at mom's long enought o show floor progress. but no luck. see y'all soon.

a work in progress

well, this is what i've been working on this weekend. but, ofcourse, it's completely different now. i'm down to typing with only my middle fingers, which are wrapped in duct tape.

I have been trying to make this work since 8/1

So, don't be mad at me, Andrew! I've been trying! I've also been to the beach and gotten very sun burned, and rode the Amtrak with this fantastic girl named Sandra, and now i'm in Tri-cities, trying to focus on what to do here. This morning i got a Hermes portable type writer and 2 bikinis at the value village. My mother has bought herself a motor scooter (?), and left for the beach, so i'm all alone and disoriented here. I need to get to work on something, i'm sure, but all i wnat to do is eat salmon soup and take naps. iyiyi!~ Anyway, sorry world that it has been so long between posts. blame the wifi, and my laziness. i've been busy, just not so that you'd notice. but i'll make up for it in the next three days, once i get the momentum going to get the ball moving. Oh, here are 2 hearts, one from Dick and Jane's from the heart of Washington, and the other is the shirt i drew to wear at tuna.

it works it works it works!

Mostly Lesli talking, and that's Brian Long's leg in there for a second. stay tuned for new edits! yey! exciting!

a video?

this is from a colaboration with Lesli Larsen. We'll see if it actually works:




go!

Night Hawks Circle at Night, Pelican's in the Morning

And a Dog and a Baby in the house. Life in tri-cities always proves to be less resourceful and productive than it should be. however, i did finish a neew step up to our back door, which, when we get a cable, will be featured here.

it's great to watch Gretchen and Hasan with their baby. And their dog. As long as all involved stay a healthy distance away from me.

to seattle and back again!

and i've lost or mislaid my camera cable on the way up here, and my mother has misplaced hers, so... no pictures for all y'all. However, we did go to the Seattle today, and mom is now a happy walker! we even walked around green lake. Mom bought a scythe today, which i'm sure i will be getting to use in the near future. We shopped and drove and listened to RCRUmbs comp that accompanies his book of illustrations of blues, country and jazz musicians of the 1920's. And we went to the Valley cafe in ellensberg, and had a fabulous waiter named Mickey who spoke like some sort of bizarre David Lynch character, but who seemed pretty swell. We stopped by Dick and Janes, which is what all the pictures would have been of.

and yesterday i ended up riding a train bus, but i'm too tired to talk about that now, so..

oops! Missed a day!

Either the WIFI was on and I wasn't or I wasn't on and the wifi was. That's alright, the last two days have been more productive, but still just not getting done everything that i should be able to in a 24 hour period. Sure, I'm finishing books, and painting up my helmet, but I'm not completing anything portfolio-wise. I went out to breakfast with Sara Kaviani yesterday, and tried to explain just how odd it feels. i mean i was predicting that i wouldn't be able to get much done in this first week, but i wasn't really thinking i would feel quite this hummingbird-like. I flit from project to project very happily finishing nothing. I have to forgive myself and try again, not turn into a big ball of frustration.

Yesterday I was supposed to get on a train bound for Tri-cities, but it turned into a bus bound for tri-cities, so I skipped it and stayed here to work on a dress made out of hankercheifs. with any luck it should get done today. Dress making really isn't the sort of work i want to do, though. It's more of a supporting role. Or, really, it's more like a writer doing crosswords: it may use the same tools, even the same knowlege, but it's not the same thing. just a puzzle. Still, it's fun and feels vaguely vocational. If i could just accept that all these things feed each other and work will come, and start to come easier and easier.

On Monday i hung out with the applecheeked Ellis (actually Elyse, as it turns out.), and helped her carry oxyaceltalene stuff around, and ate burritos. It's great to see her, she's so happy and busy and young and up. I met her adorable cat and saw the beginnings of her studio. Apparently we may do Last thursday over on alberta, so look out world!

There's a wren ripping grasses out along my weeded walk. Nest building again, I guess. amazing how many he can get in his beak at one time.

so, the next contribution should be in a different state! till then!

Monday! Rah!

OK! it's monday! I have to get to work! A lot of yesterday was spent (suprise) being social, but the social was oso nice! Played with Brian a little, and then rode bikes over to J&M and had breakfast with Daniel, the bearded, bespectacled blonde of grocery store fame. Such a good talker. So nice to ride bikes and be rewarded with stories and thoughts about books. and to be able to have thoughts about books. i like books. (( apparently i have to read the alienist. However, i got home and restarted "my family and other animals" and "wild Forests" with ted.)) Learning people is a lot like reading books. If they are interesting enough people then the details stand out and are memorable the same way. Daniel's definately memorable. it's been so long since i met anyone who was both thoughtful and talkative. it's wonderful to listen. now, if only i could get to listen more often.

Other than that, I drew on the big drawing, and played with the sock monster, who has now doubled in size, but who i am not so satisfied with. i think there is going to have to be a lot of wires involved with keeping the sock monster from stretching too much, but they will also make sm rather clumsy. or maybe not. I might have time to figure that out today. The big drawing is slow going, but big drawings tend to be. Today i have to start work on another red teal, or pull a switcheroo, or something. to be debated later.

Right now it's grey, and I'm hammock sitting. in a minute i will run out and buy a compost bin. it'll be a full and lovely day. more work more work!

hurry up, it's morning!

Well, two posts a day might be pushing it.

So, very little actual work done yesterday, either, but lots of quality time spent with good people/ peers. Why can't I rationalize that talking to preston about art is an equally important part of my process to making it? Because, ofcourse, it is. There just seems to be a lot more time involved with talking, drinking beeer, laughing, cooking, etc. than there does actually recieving feedback and opinions. but the opinions i recieve are valid. i dunno...

So, there's a brian long asleep in the hideabed down stairs. it's odd to hang with someone formerly so intimate, and now so almost foreign. there are grooves that we get into that are so good and healthy, very familiar and familial. the cooking groove. the talking about family groove. but there is so much there that i don't know now. it reminds me of unwinding the fingerknitting ball, and seeing how much of it i have forgotten when i made it or where it came from, but still knowing it went around my fingers.

the bells over at the church are starting now. i love living within hearing range of bells. it's one of those things i didn't grow up with, but has now become such a big part of my quality of life. Even without thinking I know that it is sunday, and that it's 8:00, just because of what's pealing. appealing.

i went to visit apple cheeked Ellis (whose name I can't spell) at the farmers market yesterday. I really like that one. I'll have to see if she has a website i can link to. She offered me a job (tentatively) making Ruby Jewel Ice Cream Sandwiches (they must have a website) iin the fall, when I've completely run out of money. it's very reassuring that there are jobs out there with people i respect, but still not retail or art related. I'm going to help her set up her studio on monday, which will be a learning experience for me, but won't directly contribute to me finishing anyone project.

Going with my instincts of what is important is tough. I gave preston a wallet yesterday, and I know it will come back to me. he's that kind of person. I'll help Ellis tomorrow, because she's that kind of person, too. These things matter. These people are who i want to be relating to, artistically, aesthetically. that feels really good.

Ok, gotta go trim grapevines before it's too hot.

so i missed an evening

I made no art yesterday! None! Argh! First full day of Art-hood, and all I did was take down one show, take slides of it, and redistribute it somewhere else. Which is to say, it was a full and concentrated day, but i did not get to make anything new. grrrr.... But check out my super ghetto slide set-up. I shot both slides and digitals, and i certainly hope that my slides turn out better than the digi's did. ofcourse, can i find my tripod? hell no! So probably all those 1/2 second exposures look like flamingoes viewed while enebriated. I also took care of a bunch of stuff in the garden, and went out to play cribbage with clem, and did a bunch of visitting and showing off flamingoes and ducks. There are lots of people who don't get out to see shows (not that I do my part by actually providing enough information on where, when and what), but they are very appreciative when i bring stuff around.
People are being so nice to me. Andrew and Erin came to visit me and bring me my coffee cup, ted and jim went to waffle man and got me a blueberry waffle. Jennifer Anable called me from Montana to make sure i was comfortable dropping off my work. So great.
It is really scary, though, to spend money like this. Buying lights and backdrop set me back everything i didn't put into rent and savings from my last paycheck. Oh well!

toast tastes good!

So, it's the first full day with no planned income, and i woke up later than i expected, but still early enough to take the trash out, and after this i will attempt to fill the yard debri bin. Gardenning is now part of the "job" of finding food. I'm going to be trying to garden all through morning edition, though that does mean that i have to be ready to go before 7:00, which was not the case today. But close. And then the plan today is to go grab the birds from Night Light Lounge, photograph them, and then return them to Legares Community Center (16th and Clinton) where they will be for the rest of the month, atleast. I hope to have time to stop in and visit Gina at Bolt, and work on postcards with Tyler. Oh, I also need to take the bottles in and, dammit, eat some meat today.

old work, unattained goals

OH my goodness! setting such definate goals, and then everything goes haywire! well, not haywire, really, just, well, ok, i forgot the goals. i did pay bills, i did say goodbye to john schrag, i did clean 6 places today... and that's about all. well, i mean, i worked on the sock monster some more, and watched howls moving castle, but definately didn't really celebrate because everyones sleepy. i drank some ipa, and called it good.

But the big news is that my papa made it to the top of Raineer on the 3rd! hooray! i need to go to montage in his honor! oldest man up that mountain. i'm so proud of him.

John Schrag showed me some amazing images of saddles today. maybe i should make some sort of saddle work...

and images are taking forever to upload, so i'm going to bed...

Good morning on this last day of my being employed! ofcourse, i'm cutting it close to the last minute, watering and doing dishes, eatting breakfast and blogging all at the same time. breakfast, btw, is the rest of the clafloutie. i love me some good clafloutie. anyhoo, goals of the day: pay my bills, apply for health care, find out more about food stamps, make a burger and work on the sock monster (here photoed on day 2), drink champagne and, oh, clean 1/2 dozen houses and businesses. saying goodbye to John Schrag today: so sad! he's been such a dear!

let's not let successlessness get the best of us.

So, I'm setting up this blog basically to keep myself on task throughout the next couple of months. if there is an anonymous eye watching me, i'll be more likely to get up early in the morning and stay on task thoughout the day. there will be less napping, beer drinking, and/or lolly gagging because i will be keeping better track of what it takes to be an artist. How much "spare" time do i really need? How many social endeavors? How much money do i need to be spending? How good are my sales? What are the "true" costs of being an artist? Where are my shows? am i succeeding? blah blah blah! But I have other goals besides the artistic. Can I make a smaller impact on the planet? Can I get in "great" shape before this day two years from now, when i want to start thinking about having babies? Do i really over-mommy my roomates? Am i ready for graduate school? Am i really a reader?

So, since it's sorta a diary of all that crap, let's set it up thusly. I'll document in the morning what my goals are, and in the evening whether or not I met them, as well as any other acheivements. I hope it's not tremendously tedious. And then I'll discuss briefly some thoughts. maybe. or not. I'll put up a photo of what I'm working on, or worked on, every day. The photo's will probably be more interesting than the text. but, hey, who says I"m doing this for anyone anyway?

So, I spent $7 on food today, made Claflouti that was shared by 8 people, and spent almost 4 hours cleaning the house. Worked on the Sock Monster ( to be fotofeatured in the morning) for almost 3 hours. I have an incredibly sore back, and besides walking to the grocery store got no excercise. I am watching fireworks in our backyard. I had one cat sitting, for which i expect to get paid around $25. I set up this blog, and a my space page. I worked on a puzzle. I awoke to Lesli Larsen in my house, and getting to spend time with her and Sara Tripodi is always awe inspiring. Now Iam tired, ted is sick, and I'm going to go clean the house some more.

things are exploding everywhere. it's july.

this is turning out to be a lot more complicated than it originally looked.

July 4th

A very happy quarter birthday to myself, today in PDX. Goal du jour: to create an online persona, complete with images and excitement. Keep in touch for further developments of ducks, flamingos, penguins, tie dresses, and pillowcase shirts. Welcome all.