Sianara February!

It only just ocured to me this morning that February is almost over, tomorrow is the 28th!
Where I ask you, the-Hell-does-the-time-go? I have a big show coming up in April to build for, and it will be upon me faster than a jackrabbit on a hot date.
I am so spoiled and lucky to make my own schedule and answer to no man, it's a necessary luxury for me; one of the perks of having MS. I can do a whole lot in bursts, stress slows me down, exhaustion comes on without warning and the only thing I can count on is everyday being different.
So I make hay while the sun shines!

I am building three trumeaus, my goal being to use as much recycled material as possible. I am loathe to have to actually go out and purchase materials like a commoner. Every good artist should be able to conjure up what they need with their own resourcefulness, not from Home Depot.
Taking a break in the studio, I stumble upon the spoils of RR hiking from long ago. I got it bad for those rail tracks. I moved away from my favorite ones about a year ago, I used to walk there every day and not only was it a beautiful naturey escape from the city but also a cornucopia of material riches! Beautiful things, deer bones, iron in various forms, bountiful lumps of coal, and bless all those poor reptiles, sunning themselves on the hot rails. In summertime I'd sometimes get three terrapins in a week, fresh snakes, all tragic sunbathing accidents but at least they didn't go to waste.

I have had a good February. I love the changing seasons, and spring is so exciting!
Of course I wait til the end of winter to buy new jeans. By the way, I'm never buying anything other than Levi's again. I feel so fancy!

And speaking of feeling fancy, I got my nose re-pierced this week. It's been five long months, that time failed to "fly by." I'd gotten it pierced for my 34th birthday but lost it last September during my hip surgery. Monday was the first day my hip felt significantly improved, it's hard to tell because the healing is so slow, but on this particular day I was zipping right along! Normally I am a fast walker, not a dorky speed walker, but I don't ass around, I get where I'm going quick. All this hip hoopla has really slowed me down. I hate that. But I'll take any little improvements I can get. I'll take 'em and sashay this bionic hip right into the piercing parlor and celebrate with a little nostril bedazzling.

Good bye February, I'll always remember the Cabin Fever show, the slight movement improvement, making new friends and buying new jeans and nose jewelry!

Cure For Cabin Fever II

Days of bein' holed up, still getting the studio together, rearranging, working, crashing.

A last minute final touch, the scroll making. As part of our Rasputin inspired event we decided to serve "cyanide tea" with cakes, his last meal. I used a small collection of tiny glass vials as vessels for handwritten fortune scrolls, cutting the paper long enough so it would stick out of the top for easy retrieval.

 I inscribed ten different predictions or proverbs on each and stuck the vials in cake squares, like birthday candles.

And served them in coffee filters on a silver tray for studio visitors. They were adorable! And the homemade chocolate cake Brandi baked was delish! I don't know that each and every one was appreciated as I had intended, but I know one was. A friend's little girl told her Daddy "I want to take it with me to Momma's house", proving her appreciation. If the fortune scrolls only reached one little girl, it was worth it!

Up in the gallery Thorin, a fellow Clearwater artist did a cool instalation in the fancy old elevator cage. It was mirrored on four sides with a ghost lit up on the floor and extension cords repeating infinitely in the surrounding reflections.
It was so inviting, just being there with a big gaping open door, looking all exciting and interesting and I invited myself and Vanessa to stick our heads right in for full effect! We attempted some pictures and "ooh'd and aah'd" and just as we were retreating-BAM! A blow to the cranium! The ghost nailed me in the head with a piece of plywood, it seems a certain sister had left the door open, it was not intended for you to stick your head in, guillotine style. Fortunately my skull is built like an interior combat helmet and I was unperturbed and unharmed.

Friends came by, wine was imbibed, scrolls were unfurled, merriment was made. Another longtime friend Sally slings fire, poi like balls of flames on two chains that she slings around vigorously in a decidedly groovy fashion. She performed for us right in our own building! It was the fanciest. All while we sat around our fancily rearranged parlor area and I did not take the first picture! I normally take pictures almost compulsively, but sometimes you just have to be, just exist in the now and enjoy being fully present for the moment, and that's what I did.
It was great.
Here's to many more!

Cabin Fever I

Cabin Fever is the name of our studio event this Friday, the 22nd.
The last little bit has been getting ready for this, and I've had a wintertime cold type thing for days.
I went in today to wrap up one of the projects, a planchette for the custom OUIJA board. Very fun stuff.

At the bandsaw today, tragedy struck; the power coupler for my Shopsmith plum busted! The nerve. Not to worry, I can replace it for about $30, but damn, thanks timing.

At some point during the nose to the grindstone I took a break to just be sick and enjoy the snow! One could not ask for better layin' around weather.

We also take breaks while shuffling to and fro for gyppy WHATABURGER soft serve for everybody. Cassie is quick on her feet, dashing in and out and divvying up cones to all. She's make a great carhop!

Back to the studio with a carload of kids and a belly full of chocolate and vanilla swirl.
Bran & I worked together on the mirror. She is fast at knockin' out a tracing and I love the tedium toiling of painting the etching acid onto the glass. What a quality OUIJA board, it will be the finest in all the land!

Back among the civilized to spend the night in Charlotte and rest up for the home stretch starting tomorrow!

Irons in Fires

I am exhausted in that particular way you are after of day of creative production.
I've got a short time until our "Cabin Fever" open studios and after party coming up on February 22. I am finishing up several necklaces. This piece already has suitors lined up, lots of interest already.

Brandi and I got a lot done on this piece for an installation in the gallery elevator. Here as we were setting up for projection. You'll have to wait and see what it is...

So hard to keep WIPS under wraps before a show...definitely requires a cold one or two. I am so damn fancy I put my beer or chandelier crystals in the cooler. These were found in a dumpster, when I asked Bran why the Hell anybody would throw away a treasure chest full of crystals she replied "'Cause all they know how to do is purchase".

Well Gods bless 'em, that's my valued customer. Purchase my wares!

Valentine's Day

A few things about Love today.
No matter your current relationship status, remember:
You were someone's first love.

You are someone's pride and joy. You are a spark in a long line of family tradition, you are the light of someone's life.

From birth, you are a miraculous gift who changed lives for the better, forever. You are the center of someone's universe.

You are someone's peamite, sugar plum or pumpkin seed.

You were a first best friend, a sibling, aunt, father, partner or hero.

There are people who would walk over hot coals for you in a heartbeat. You are the object of someone's undying affection. You are someone's muse. You are the unobtainable heart's desire to some poor soul. You are the person many people depend on and love, admire, respect and desire.

Not everyone else except you, you are. So any time you might find yourself suffering from poor-ol'-me syndrome, you think about that.
There's more love for you than all the tea in China.

Today I was farm bound.

It was my very favorite kind of weather, cold, misty, foggy, moody.

The drive out there is a one hour, 35 mile meditation, a tradition dating back to about age 5. Once you turn off Hi. 601 it is country the whole way out. And while a lot has changed, it still offers gorgeous views as far as the eye can see. I soak up all the familiar landmarks, like my own personal historic markers.

Driving out there alone, on a day so easy on the eyes, listening to favorite music, I don't speed. I am in no rush for the ride to be over, my minds wanders to all kinds of enjoyable places. And it is like a ride, there are steep hills and curves, and somehow the drive guides your mind to wandering.

I headed back home just at dark. The very last sliver of light in the west is a little wisp over the horizon. Even in the dark, it is a beautiful drive.

I took my sweet time, coming back to boring old Charlotte which I am awfully non-nostalgic about for my hometown. It's as if traveling between the city and the Farm requires an hour adjustment period, so you don't get the bends, like a built in decompression chamber.
So I crank the heat up, roll the windows down, and listening to the early spring tree frogs chirp in the cold, another kind of meditation, another kind of ride.
Preparing to leave wonderland and head back to the land of traffic lights, discarded cigarette buts and pharmacy chains.
And it's still magic.

Livin' The Dream

More stuff organizing, it is something that is never ending. It's Zen-like to me and a great way to get a little inspiration, pilfering through the stock.
This little dollface has been staring up at me with eyeless sockets for a couple of years now, it's time to get her together. I cut a mask shape off the head of thrift store doll to use in necklaces. I love faces and using them in jewelry. 

I have filed and sanded and shaped the plastic to fit perfectly in this gorgeous gold bezel, looks very "Catholicy" to me. I haven't yet started on all the rest of what this piece will be, but I know this face belongs in that bezel. The epoxy is setting right now...I can hardly contain my excitement!

Wish I had gotten a picture before I left of all my epoxied assemblages that will be set up and ready to go upon my return. The anticipation of coming into the shop after glue is set and clamps can come off furniture and epoxied metal is ready to be worked is absolutely intoxicating!

I have 4 or 5 things setting in 6 hour cure epoxy that I wanted to do last night before bed so I could get right back on them this morning but when I hit a wall, I hit a wall and I am done. I am always sad to wrap things up at the end of the night and start my long, nearly neurotic, necessary  bedtime ritual.
One last longing look at my workbench before bed!

I had a fairly productive day and as per usual once I got into my zone things were falling into place, in that natural, nearly effortless way that is so pleasurable. Didn't even bust my first saw blade until about 10:30!

My sister and I often discuss our process. The more I make art, the more interesting I find each person's particular process and experience of flow. I find that when I sit down to work and am uninspired I can simply engage in any type of "grunt work" relating to what I'm working on and get some things done while I await inspiration to creep in. I might organize my stash and tools, or start rough cutting some metal, or lengths of silver fretwork for cuffs. Brandi who makes paper mache sculpture, often creating hollow spheres around inflated balls, so she will just make a bunch of hollow forms when her creative gumption is lacking. Then at least you are being productive and usually by the very act of dipping your toe in those creative waters, sooner or later you get swept away in the current.
Then next thing I know I'm covered in a thin layer of dust and aching all over.
By the way have I mentioned lately how much I love our new studio? It is a constant ongoing process of getting this place together, but rest assured that I am going to go ahead and throw some fanciness together amidst the chaos. Finally, surroundings befitting of my to die for art deco buffet and mirror with gorgeous lamps casting a warm glow on top. In my last house-which I adored-I had a really gyppy dining room where this vignette went and took up an entire wall, it was just so cramped, but in this gorgeous old brick carriage house, it finally has room to breathe.

I am a make-do-with-what-you've-got-when-you've-got-it girl from way back, but it is so wonderful to finally have the space to create and conjure, work, live, breathe.
I feel like an absolutely spoiled queen and I'm afraid from now on I will accept nothing less than a combined working and living space.
It's not too bad having entirely attainable dreams.