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Monday, July 31, 2006

and on and on

Howdy do. Urgh, I sure am getting sleepy earlier these days. Oh, right. That tends to happen on a monthly cycle. My best friend is real tired right now too.

Well then, here's a short synopsis of my day. There are hordes of


fruit flies in my kitchen. What's the lifespan of these lil' buggers? Soon the place will be littered with fruitfly corpse husks.

I made another Tarot Card, this time The Fool. It's definitely bigger than ATC-sized though......and I like the red....I can always do a print, photocopy it, and do the ol' gel transfer method after reducing the photocopy size. Or, I could just reduce my original sketch down and trace over it with a pencil, transfer that on to another soft block and make another carving.....




And more Cake!!!





And also:



For Manekineko over at The Small Mail Art Project.

It's time. The time is now. No time like the present. Hie me to bed I will!

Sunday, July 30, 2006

here, there, and back again



I think I still need to tinker a bit with this, but I wasn't satisfied with the block ink print method, so I tried a new one: acrylic, on some cheap black construction paper. Just fiddling around, trying to loosen up, and play, dammit! hee hee. Feeling pretty topsy turvy and all the last couple days or so. My friend Becky said she wants to send me an ATC tarot card, The Devil. Can't wait to see what she did with that. So I said I'd send her one back, and this is what I carved, from a picture I took of myself a couple three weeks ago. At first, I was going for The Fool. But this isn't the Fool. No. This is The Magician. Pretty pertinent stuff, this. Am I on my way to making a full deck? Dunno. But certainly traveling along the fool's journey.

Maybe The Fool will come a-knockin' tomorrow and I'll carve that out.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

skirting the issue


For a hand-carved stamp ATC swap biddy bop bop a doo wop, yes, still.
It's a bit like Mr. Cake....where will the pointing finger be pointing next?
What will it be doing?
Have you seen one in your neighborhood?

more buggin' bejimminnies

I wish that chick, what's her name, Kiera Knightly? Did I spell that right? I wish she'd get a new face. I mean a new look. I mean for crying out loud every magazine cover and picture I see of her, it's the same halfly parted lip schtick, like what is she...reaching for a straw....?

Friday, July 28, 2006

and then she said

Here's another ATC with the hand-carved pointer/picker finger stamp collaged on. Ha.



And here, I tol' you that these ten-second scribbles would find their way into my art. An ATC for who knows who yet....gesso then acrylic background, gel transfer for the figure, and tissue paper sunslivers collaged on at the last.



Sooo.....feeling kinda sorta no actually really tenderized today. Potential for some lovins and sparkins, trying to retain balance and blah blah blah all that but damn I am human and I need to be loved just like everybody else does (that is a nod to The Smiths, give cred where it's due, it's one of my favorite songs)....and both my mom and my bro died young and I'm wondering well hell. Am I going to live in ways I want to before I die? Some of that is up to me, and some of that is circumstantial, fortuitous, whatever. Am I going to trip the light fandango with someone before I knock off this place? I once wrote that art is my lover. Well, it is. Now I'd really like a warm body please, and not just any body...........

Thursday, July 27, 2006

things that bug the bejimminies outta me

A trash can and a recyling bin, cheek to cheek, and the trash is full of recylables.

Wuz gonna post pics earlier today but no bloggie go-go. At work now, and thought to see if systems are green-lit.

Stay punchy, y'all.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

breaking the wave

Made another cake-a-riffic mail art for Haddock yesterday! hee hoo!

Also, some bookmarks for a swap over at Swap Bot:






The above here is hand-drawn with a silver gel pen, the kind you shake up like a spray paint can. Oh no worries, they're totally environmentally safe. Then I daubbed on some red bits. I like the contrasts.

For the above, I glued on a portion of some acrylic and gel medium stuff I'd smeared together and then let dry - cool huh! I just fingerpainted some colors together, mixed in with gel medium, on a big plastic lid that came with a yogurt container (handy, that - lids!). Then I let it dry and it peeled off in one big sheet!

Here's the backside of it, using some samples I got from Strathmore (you can email 'em, they'll send a parcel your way):



Now this here is my favorite, I think. I used a sample of paper made especially for acrylic. I had a heyday fingerpainting with 'em (my friend Jacque permanently loaned her acrylic collection to me...weeeoooo!). Then I laid down a coat of gel medium to prep it for the gel transfer you see, the heart, which is from CrapHound, basically a cool clip art book. The issue I pulled from is Hands, Hearts, and Eyes.
YES!! I must make more!

The boys painted my front door this morning. I made zucchini bread so they'd have some brekkie -- one of the guys gave me two huge zucchinis from his garden the other day (and some beans too....yummers!). So away went the stars I'd stencilled on but I requested some touch up paint so that I can paint more stars on my door and then just paint over 'em if anyone said anything about it. I am loving the stencilling schtick. The crew worker came by and said I'd tag anything - true dat! He asked if I would stencil their outhouse (which is sitting right down there by our parking spots, it's rather sweet actually, among the trees and pompous grass or however you spell that). I have the perfect idea.

Off to clean up zee kitchen and schtuff.

back online


ooh! Blogger is uploading photos now! Yah schweeeet! Here is a very happy bird. Needed to do something fun, gestural, and naive. This was last night's carving fun fest.

And something ve-e-e-ry interesting. Unrelated. Was looking at my stock of contact lenses. One box has one lens, the other has two. Now tell me how the heck that happened?! Socks becoming singles, sure okay, I'm rather used to that even though I still consider it a phenomenomenah. But - contact lenses? I almost believe in gimpy trolls living under bridges now.

Illustration Friday - Opposites

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

So here it is - finally an illo fryday! I did this ATC for a swap over at ATCards, for a hand-carved stamp swap actually....then realized I could do a dual-citizenship card. I collaged the pointing fingers on after studying my own pointing finger to draw (amazing how hard that can be sometimes....practice, practice yeh yeh yeh). Watercolor and Millenium Zig Pen for the drawing portions.

testing one two

just to see if Blogger is actually publishing......have a slew of photos to upload, but no go, they're not uploading. So poo. Guess we'll all have to wait for the next installment!

Monday, July 24, 2006

heat wayvey

oh ugh okay I still love summer but....ick. 34c at 9pm??? COME ON!!!

Sunday = skinnydip in river. Good. Very good. Today = cold shower, good, but not as.

I gots a big ol' twitch in my getalong! Tried to draw, and okay I did but then.....poopy. So then I tried to do something with that, and now.....it's just way too obscure. But, a good representation of where I was, so, okay fine:



(ATC sized)

and then, the poor little grasshopper who lived hanging upside down on the kitchen ceiling finally gave up the ghost and is still lying prostrate on top of the fridge with friends in background giving eulogy:



Worked on some decos, no pics right now (I finally did loosen up and make something I really like though). Sleep.

oh but wait! I helped a friend's daughter set up a blog yesterday. If you wanna visit, you can highstep it over this-a-way.

now sleep.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

doot de doo

No doubt these doodly doos will work into a variety of mail artables. Today at work (damn City workers! don't they ever really work?!) I cracked open a Communications Art magazine and had at it with a Uniball pen. I needed to loosen up and do something unrefined. Hence:



(I made her deliberately not pretty)



(same here)



(why did I add those squares?)



(he was a perfectly ordinary Kerry-lookalike until I got a-hold of him)



(someone's shadow monstery face for the inspiration and I took it from there)



(this looks like one of those 'are you an artist?' tests you find in magazines....original graphic was Mao...now it's like...Tom of Finland ready to reel 'em in)



(and this one, just came outta nowhere, was just making a line, and then it looked like shoe (the left one) and then.....huh)

This was taken this morning before leaving for work, I was lying on the floor of my bedroom, pondering the meaning of life, hormones, and everything. Origami cranes suspended from the ceiling.....many folds, many meanings, grasshoppah.



And then I looked behind me.....had to park my mountain bike in here because of the apartment painting and so-on.



Time for some early zzzzz's so Jacque and I can beat the heat in the morning with a bike ride!

some kind of



Started out trying to make a bunny shadow but now........I think it looks more like a snail with a pretty good-sized underbite.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

all in a day's

I think I need to make a Mr. Cake Blog now. I'm a blog-a-holic. The first step is admitting it, but......who needs a cure? Unless I favor blogging to real-time company, which I don't, well - um - no really I don't. So I'm safe. But since I got more great mail art from Haddock, including Mr. Cake-ness and I had fun doing another one for him this morning before whooshing out the door. I was feeling kinda constipated with my art, trying too hard sort of. Taking myself a wee bit too seriously. I need to stop that now, and roll around in the grass with my limbs kicking up like horses or dogs do. My sense of proportion in figure drawing is seriously skewed and all akimbo, so I guess I'll go with it. So Chuck and I are talking about demons and fire and how water (since we are both water signs) (hey now, that shtuff has some merit, just don't live and die by it) puts out...you might say eliminates fire so I had to make this today on lunch:





(here's the demon.....made him awhile ago though)

Peeing and picking your nose......how satisfying is THAT?!

Have you seen the latest Harper's Bazaar? Oh my giddygod's underpants. I take that back. There are no underpants on the cover. In fact, it's shocking, even to my sensibilities, which is to say although I have them, they're more lenient than most people's I think.

So do you want to see?

I bet you do.

Oh, all right. But, it's......well you be the judge. Great, it's on the stands/in our room for an entire month.



No! I can't believe it either! I mean come on. On the COVER of a magazine......even AT ALL, it is just not right. Is nothing sacred? And please. That's not her. They're severely photoshopped. Believe me, I've seen alll the rags, since I process these boogers every day, and Britney did NOT look like that a few weeks ago in US and People.

Okay. Done. Next! The trees are podding! Isn't this cool?



Right then. I am gonna git and go hydrate.

daze end

I am such a crazy goose. I can't not blog even though I'm sick with tiredness. I have to barf onto a page some more before I can go to sleep, I guess. No artwork to show though...did a couple fun thingies in the journal that Haddock and I are nursing along, got a super postcard from him too which I will endeavor to post on the morrow. Having a real pisser of it with my left and right brain and heart, with life and art and the whole shebang....mama said there would be days like this. Rode the bus in to work at 3:30, it was real hot, and I was all of a sudden real hungry, yick. Dove into a mostly-eaten bag of ya-ya-popcorn sitting on our department table by the sink, shoved it into my mouth so much that it spilled and I looked back and there was a trail of popcorn crumbs leading over to our work area. Oh here, have a picture then, it's the aftermath of another journal I made yesterday for Chuck and I to collage in. And goodnight....for reals........



okay one more thing, I decided that I was trying too hard on that one print a couple days ago...sigh...but you see? we're all messy and beautiful. So it's all good, as the kids these days say.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

as yet



'nuff said. For now. This girl is beyond tired. Tenderized, I daresay.

another glory day

I am officially entombed. All the windows and doors are masked off and the boys are gonna paint. They were scraping away at well before 8 this morning - and jacking up Pantera before the stroke of 9!! Cheeky monkeys. They're good blokes though, so it's cool. And despite my late late late night and waking up at a quarter of eight I am a perky peach. I have no business being this wide awake. It's great though. So I've sequestered myself (with the help of Rusty and his crew, as I mentioned) inside this treehouse tent and am listening to some Jackie O MotherF....which is actually the best acid jazz experimental jam rock not glam rock folk but not bluesy twangy shit either....I love it so......and am letting some artilagenous ideas percolate in my brainpan.

Yesterday was all golden. Did a leetle mailarty for Rael, put your mouse on this.

Went for stupendulous bike ride too, up the McKenzie River, got some sun on mah skin and had a stowaway too....thought the lil' critter had jumped ship when I first took off but I got home and there he still was tucked up under the handlebars!



Mucked about in the kitschenstudio all day listening to hours upon hours of tuneage, and rreeeeally late night early morning (like, 'til two o'clock) did a carving although I think I'll need to do another because this one - it's almost there -



and a little collagey ATC sized somethingorother I'm not sure where I'm gonna use this although I do have a few idears:



Looks like someone finally escaped the city.

On with my day here, time to hunt down breakfast with a butterknife.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

slow down



Such a great day. Ace bike ride this morning while it was still cool enough to not get all red-faced-sweaty and overheated, I guess my chi was really flowin' through the channels today because I just felt energetic and GO-ey. Love that!!! Fixed a great breakfast and did art all day, listened to music......right now it's my pal Chuck's collaborative effort with a friend of his. Chuck who introduced me to Dirty Three. I love this CD of Chuck and Phil's oh my GOD it's so golden. Makes me wanna cry. Which is good.

So I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to carve....now could I? Of course not. The above is ATC-sized. Also did some more Mr. Cake mail art and stuff today, which, being the librarian/OCD-er that I am, had to archive next door.

That's a warp. Or wrap. Either way.

s'more



I tried and tried to fit the figure into the allotted space, ATC-sized, and kept running off the page. Having a tough time with proportion and perameters. Well so then I thought about bending the knees a bit more but that looked totally funky. And then something looked like......smoke! I always wanted to be a genie. Actually I've always been fascinated with big spaces in small places. Like Oscar's garbage can - there was a whole world in there, I was always sure of it. And I used to have a dream as a kid, where I would crawl inside a small cardboard box and wormhole to this really cool house. A big light airy house, inside this corrugated womb.

okay, back to the drawing board with me I go.

i-i-it's my party

I didn't see the Princess today, I avoided all pomp under all circumstance. Ha. But I heard other people got all decked out, and I saw the cop cars surrounding the entrance when I arrived for my shift. Someone said something about false imprisonment, the no-exit-no-entry business.....hmmm, yeah, not everyone has a prox card that'll let 'em out the back way......

Oh god I'm sleepy, but you know, I just had to finish what I started.



The above it ATC-sized, mixing elements of collage and pen/ink drawing, watercolor, and those two guys I drew and then cut out of construction paper. Jessye sent me some paper scraps, those in the talk bubbles.



I was dancing to U2's The End of the World. It's juuuust a little bigger than ATC-sized, I tried to make it fit but as it often happens, I run off the panel. So I dunno...I really like it!..but maybe I'll end up doing another smaller so I can print off some ATCs with this one.

time for BED.

Friday, July 14, 2006

art in the afternoon

I did a quick sketch and carve and stamp on lunch today. We're all feeling a bit grumbly about this whole Princess visit. I mean, we even had to get a red carpet. And the throne I told you about, right? And we are being asked to wear dresses below the knee and long sleeved shirts (very gender-specific-stereotypic dress, that is). Uh...sorry...I don't own any of those things. Ok, ok, there are some long-sleeve shirts in my wardrobe. I can try for that. Or just keep my bare elbows out of eyeshot. Charity, who I work with, said that if she was a dignitary and went to Thailand she wouldn't expect the people to greet her with Birks and a Big Gulp, to honor our diversity and try to make her feel at home. Good point.

No one will be able to pass into or out of the building between 10 and noon tomorrow, either, in the interest of....security?? No one has explicitly said WHY, only hints and allegations. It's weird, I tell you. Ok so you have the great good fortune of being born into Royal Blood. Who decided these things anyway. I suppose if you are a generous leader that is cool and all, but...the whole royalty thing leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Humans. We are so egotistical. Meh. Anyway. Thus, the image, and I made 'calling cards' today and handed them out to the largess:



We saw a picture in the paper today of the Princess being greeted by our locals, I guess at the airport (she 'alights', she doesn't just 'land')...and she was wearing a suit dress...that alit above the knee!!

I am sure she's not really into all this pomp and circumstance. She's got to be kidding herself if she is. Hell no I wouldn't really want to be a Princess...although I act like a haughty B sometimes.

Worked extra hours tonight so home later than usual - it was great though. Got to hang out and shelve with one of my favorite people, who I hardly see anymore since we now work on different floors and extra hours aren't a real regular thing for me to join the crew downstairs. Chuck brought along some tunes (we shelved after hours, no populace) - Dirty Three's Ocean Songs. Wow did that ever hit the spot. I think I just may count them among my new favorites. Perfect pitch. Chuck says it's sad, clean, and pure. I agree...but said that it is also sultry music. The kind that makes me feel boneless. The kind you want to create to. However you create.

art in the morning



So last night, going to bed at a reasonable hour....could not fall asleep. And then, a mosquito. Barnstorming. Over and over. Finally I pulled the cover over my head and left a breathing hole for my nose. And finally I fell asleep. And was up at 6:30, one hour before the alarm.

???

So, some art. His lover returns to the sea and he cannot follow. It's as much the size and format as an idea that comes from who knows where that informs the tableau. Was trying to think of a way to convey distance in a small space. And as a kid (actually, still to this day) I loved to swim underwater and it's always been my great disappointment that I don't have gills anymore.

good day!

Thursday, July 13, 2006

honey bucket

There is now one of those port-a-potties standing underneath the trees over by the cars down below...the boys are powerwashing this week, the apartments are really really gonna be painted! I made a 54 song CD while they were sogging away out there yesterday, I call it The Powerwash Mix. It rawks. In a techno-electronica-whacky-downtempo sorta way. I got myself a nice big bruise on my upper arm, it's really quite a beaut, and I guess I must have whacked myself a good one dismantling that little roof thing that Jacque made for me, that covers (covered) half the porch. I don't remember doing it, yet there is the evidence. My body is taking a beating the last week or so...I keep cutting my fingers and stuff.

Anyway...the moon is HUGE and yellow, it rained hard the other night in the middle of it, smelled SO damn good the next day I couldn't stop taking in great big lungfulls of air just for the summer rain smells.

The Princess of Thailand is visiting Eugene on Saturday. Now this is a BIG DEAL folks. She is holding court at our little library!! And we had to hunt down a throne for her. And we are being requested to wear formal attire, which basically in Eugene consists of anything more than Birkenstocks. Maybe we'll all shave our pits, too. (yeah right) Alas and alack, as I have already informed my friends, I have no formal attire (I also don't even have Birkenstocks). So I will just stay well out of eyeshot. I'll be a lurker, stick to the stacks and shadows.

Had fun doing some ATCs for an All For One Collaboration, in which our illustrious hostess paints a 'vague and secret' HUGE painting, cuts it up into over two hundred ATCs and sends 'em out in lots of six to those who want to doodle paint collage and whatever-else-have-you onto them, then she'll reassemble them into the painting again and send us prints. Here is one:



And the rest are in a little album over at Yahoo. I had fun with stencils, gel transfers of my drawings and portions of my prints, and collage, also some hand-drawn little guys. That was fun. I wanna do more assemblage like this, I've been on a kick with it.

adieu, y'all

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

tripping




This is how I felt today. Flub, fook, hell, dang! Ahhhhhhh................clunk. All day. I think that Etayne's spill down her stairs definitely inspired me to embody the same sort of grace and just had to do one small carving before zzzzzzzzzzzzzsville. It's an eraser, so it's purty small.

Hope your tookus and everything is feeling better, E! Crikey!

good
night

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

evenin' to ya

I was just informed that this time, for real, and for almost certain, the apartments will be powerwashed tomorrow. Which means I gotta haul the rest of the stuff off the porches. Where am I going to put two bikes? How to dismantle that roof - and where am I gonna put THAT? Somehow, these things alway find ways to fit places but honestly...

Well then, guess I better get crackin'. Did an ATC for a collage with hand-drawn element. Meh. A gesso'd background so that I could gel transfer the japanese text makes for an uncertain canvas on which to draw. I don't know if you can see the wire, but I affixed bent wire to the surface too. Meh. It's that kind of day. The barometric pressure dropped, that's what I'm blaming it on. No bike ride today either. Just didn't feel like it, so I'm not gonna force it. Maybe I'll get the porches excavated, clean up the art space, make some cookies, then pop a huge batch of popcorn and watch a movie. That sounds like a lot to do, I wonder if it'll happen? Movin' kinda slow t'day.......


We love Kiki

Just can't get enough of making art dolls! Here's Kiki. She's flying out to Canada tomorrow, a surprise for a fellow Nervousness-er (ah...I decided to keep the Voodoo Mama!).

(click to see Kiki more up close and personal..she's not shy, she's a ham)









And here, you can see Kiki Dance.



So far that's what I've been up to today. Talk about the good life. Listening to an awesome CD mix I made...wow I am loving it.

Monday, July 10, 2006

e full gence

where am I? who am I? what is going on? why do the days keep melting in to each other and whizzing by so fast? is this the way it's going to be for the rest of my life?

On the way home tonight I wondered if I have an unrealistic expectation that things will 'return to normal'. What the hell does that mean?! When summers stretched for what seemed like an eternity? When my sense of time passing was slower. What makes that happen? Because the minutes ticking by when you are younger take up more time proportionately to how long you've been on the planet? Maybe I need to eat more root vegetables, to like, ground myself, man.

Maybe meditation really does work for grounding and slowing it down. I try to be aware of what I am doing all the time...not hyper aware...just, like, aware, man. Even aware of when my brain is just chattering and nattering away, taking up synaptic power, blah blah blah. I guess it's called being 'present'. The being aware, not the blah blah blah.

It's like...when I do art. Time does a wonky thing. It slows down in some ways and speeds up in others. I love being absorbed and focused, that gives a real sense of time passing. And I can look at what I've done, too - evidence of time passing. But also, there is a timeless quality to the focused-ness. And I look up and oh my god, two hours have passed? Wow.

So last night I started on some stuff that I can't post quite yet...oh okay, I'll post the picture of the art doll I made! It's more like a zuni fetish voodoo art doll. I think it will be a complete and utter surprise for the recipient (gulp). I think I need to make MORE MORE MORE!







god, now it looks like she fell from a high cliff - she's okay, no worries.



camera had trouble focusing...maybe I will be able to snap some better shots tomorrow, with natural lighting. I really loved making this crazy girl though!

Also did a carving and a print, ATC-sized. Based on a panel from Michael Manning's graphic novel - Cathexis:




Also replaced the Mail Art stamp that finally gave up the ghost - dang but I love carving up erasers!



And now, one last glance at the gorgeous moon (quite big-looking and glowey yellow here tonight) and then conkers la la land for me, I'm sleepy. Went over to some friend's house tonight, we all sat around and did our art. Was so nice! Would've been nice if it was winter too, but...I LOVE SUMMER!! All the doors open, bare feet with toes curled on linoleum while I concentrate, Josie asking in her talking voice (not barking and yipping...Josie dosn't yip) for a W...sorry Josie, no walk tonight....what a great evening.

nighters all