I love coupons.

Today I purchased a slew of linoleum block printing materials, and I began working on more mixed media pieces. With what is surely enough craft and print/pattern paper to cover several walls and enough string to knit a full body technicolor suit, I think I am ready to craft away and hand in the application for Craft Chemistry's Salt City Urban Market.

...that is, after the road trip, part II.

Now there are linoleum shavings all over my bed and my bedroom floor, including inside of the ukuleles. I will have an EP by the end of this year (this year being the Julian year, not the academic year because I don't operate by that anymore). And these two stated facts are equally factual. You can take that to the bank.

Fashion Drawing

A commissioned piece for a bride-to-be. The Amour Brooch gown by designer Maggie Sottero. Congratulations to Jen!
I was inspired by a drawing done for Eva Longoria and it got me back into light washes and drawings.

There was another done with gouache that I really liked. I think I'll continue to do more fashion drawings, trying different mediums. Not having space for an adequate oils studio pushes me to use other mediums and work smaller. It's a fun change.

"What are you sinking about?" and I just finished Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Transitional phases are mind boggling, motivating, and impossibly full of uncertainty. Things that keep my head from exploding:
Godiva Dark Mint Chocolate Pearls (thank you Aunt and Uncle),
running,
biking,
swimming,
fiber-arting (which includes staring at the embroidery floss bins at Jo-Ann Fabrics),
the "plunk plunk" sound of a ukulele,
spending two minutes in a photo-booth taking the least serious pictures possible with people I love,
framing them,
framing anything,
and automatic writing and doodling.

When this song blasts from my speakers, it makes decision-making possible.

And I think this commercial is hilarious. Still.

Chirp tweet chirp rawr

Finches are my favorite sky animal.

They beat out the Pterodactyl.

I like my dinosaurs evolved and in miniature form.

Doddles and doodles.

I was thinking a lot about the anomalies of Time today. A funny coincidence. Unfortunately though, no matter how hard I tried, I could not figure out time travel.

What I need is Hermione's time turner necklace.

That is the easiest solution.

Fine Craft Art

I love birds.

A lot.

And frames.

But I hate cages.

And birds in cages.

Hence...

there was a whale in my ethos water...

so we went for a swim.

The finches weren't outside of Starbucks today, which was disappointing. I threw pita pieces to no one in particular, and hoped for sunnier warmer days soon,

and I doodled....with this song in my head (don't know why or how).

Job hunting continues. Or rather, it has officially begun. And life is full of things-that-must-be-done. And everything seems to take priority over creating. I imagine there could be no end to this stream of things-that-must-be-done...until I force one.

Frustration builds.

And I hold my sketchbook dear.

Thunderstorm and html coding.

So it's up! It will be changing a bit (probably a lot) in the near future, but this was step one...completed. Wonderful. Next will be the photography site.

Credit

These are some pieces I've been given by friends. And I love them all. Some I asked for, some I begged for, and some were surprises. I have more, but they're all packed up; these were the ones kept in sketchbooks so I had easier access to them. Just some of the things that inspire me: other people's thoughts, doodles, ideas...other people.

Oil Spill and doodling

A quote on the inside of my Honest Tea bottle: "In a moment the ashes are made, but the forest is a long time growing." -Seneca

I'm assuming the "Seneca" is a tribe.

I disagree with them. I do not think fire, nor ash is instantly made. In our scientific exploration, we have learned the chemical process. The ability to create fire at will was one of the greatest accomplishments of humans. (And every later like-discovery the next great accomplishment). Even before the existence of humans, fire has existed and operated under the same laws as it does now, and its commitment to its laws is what allows us to understand it. It is not a mysterious phenomenon; it is a recreate-able progression of cause and effect...we can manipulate fire, make fire, stop fire, prevent fire. We understand circumstances that are prone to combustion, we understand differences between types of fires. We understand that to make fire is a process and a result of certain necessary circumstances. Some preventable, some not. We recognize its power of destruction as well as its potential for benefit. But we have not yet realized that we do not have the authority to tell it which to be.

Why then, since none of this ever changes, do we keep creating the necessary circumstances for fires, unnecessarily, thinking we will be able to control them? Because we created them? That way of thinking has always, and will always be flawed. Natural processes, though we've wrapped our heads around them, do not necessarily yield to our desires, if our desires do not follow in the vein of nature. To be this greedy is unnatural. And no board of directors, no policy makers, no round table or stadium seated group of arguing bureaucrats are going to be able to "cap" our sense of "control" over the natural world, nor can they cap the natural world's fidelity to its own laws. And so the natural world will keep spewing out its destructive power (which we sought after for its potential benefit...profit) without regard to borders, man-made hierarchies, resolutions, politics, or its effect on our species more than any other, even if we let it loose with optimistic (or arrogant) intentions toward bettering our situation.

What I'm saying is that maybe some things should be left as phenomenon. Should be left as mysterious. We can never have a total control over the natural world, because we did not create it. It is not ours. We need to stop thinking of it as ours. Nature cannot and will never understand, empathize, or support bottomless greed.

The Gulf situation makes me nauseous.

This is an "art blog" and so I was going to try and keep it from being a sociology/philosophy/psychology/policy and so on blog. But it is impossible to separate any of those topics. Art should be and is all and any of those things, in any kind of combination and expression it can be.

Synthesis

So there are lots of ideas...I think I'm going to attempt to put together a booth's worth of little affordable art and craft pieces...based on birds...and apply for a booth at the Salt City Urban Art & Craft Market, which takes place in the early Fall.

Aha! moment

Interconnectedness. My sketchbooks have been overtaken by this idea.

...and smartplates.

...and linoleum blocks.

...pray that the printmaking department will let me use presses even though I'm not a student.

...it is safe to say I am making more art now than I ever have. And I'm also working 40 hour weeks, still in the middle of the biggest moving and cleaning process I've yet had to endeavor, and I have limited access to art supplies. The challenge is fantastic. I think I am more inspired when I am presented with limitations and obstacles than I am when I feel I have unlimited access and resources. I like it when it isn't easy. It makes me remember how much I love this. And how much I need this.