Faces

 I have been enamored of faces lately. Our brains are actually hard wired to see faces, even when they're not there. We've all seen faces in wood grain or a cloud or a pancake. Emotional responses are easily conjured up from faces; they can either pluck our heart strings or strike fear in our hearts. Nobody ever said "I never forget a foot" or "the back of a head". It's the faces we never forget.
This necklace is my favorite latest piece. I painstakingly cut this face from a ceramic virgin Mary figurine and mounted it to a beautiful silver-plated jewelry finding that had a perfectly complimentary shape to serve as a foundation. I carefully formed her crown from another vintage jewelry finding and fitted it and the silver horns to fit her head perfectly. I love using found object and unconventional materials in unexpected ways. Taking disparate elements and blending them together in a harmonious way is like the visual equivalent to solving a riddle; it can be infinitely more pleasurable an activity to me than making things from scratch. I find things that I love to hold and look at, I study on it. I find a way to put the puzzle together in a pleasing fashion.
This piece conjures up ceremonial, mythological, iconographic, pagany idolatry. The fact that her eyes are closed really interests me. Eyes closed means rest, dreaming, meditation, prayer, deep concentration, shutting out this world and going within. When we're being formed in the womb ours eyes are closed. Many animals are born with eyes closed and they remain so for weeks, so young and vulnerable, not ready to look out onto the world yet. Eyes are closed in death too, or at least that's how we prefer to present our dead. Think of all those beautiful plaster death masks; a face frozen, eyes forever closed to the world.
I think her eyes are closed because she is a Shaman in a trance state, interacting with the spirit world. Shamans treat ailments that show up in the body or in the tribe by mending the soul; they find a spiritual solution in the supernatural realm which in turn manifests itself the human world.
She looks peaceful, calm, confident; she is studying on it. She'll find the solution she seeks, I have complete faith in her.

Ghosts

My very first best friend ever grew up in this house. I first spent the night here at age 5. I went up to Brandon at the beginning of Kindergarten and asked "Do you want to be my best friend?" and we were thick as thieves after that!
Mine was the first family to live in our little house, it was all new in the 70s. But this one was my first real taste of historic architecture and it made a huge and lasting impression on me.

It is now at the end of its long decagenarian life. It had two stories and seven fireplaces, high ceilings, single pane windows, beveled mirrors, glass door knobs, Victorian shingles, ten inch wide pine planks, and a vibe and smell all its own. It was scary at night yet comforting all the same. The floors creaked, it had the aura of multiple cats all about it and was chocked full of beautiful antique things that also left me with a lifelong appreciation of them.

I was about this age when I first came here:

 I made a pilgrimage to the house recently and walked all around, where we used to play in the dark sandy soil and thick cedars, in the shade and in the sun, racing her pony and her Arabian all around their circular driveway. Also my first taste of living with horses in your own backyard; lifelong impression number 3.

I am working on going with the flow, resistance is pain and this hollowed ground is a magical happy place. I feel lucky to have had the chance to go say goodbye to the old stomping grounds. I will hold it like a  historic landmark in my hear, intact forever.
I had a dream about the old house across the street from my own family home, years and years after it was torn down, years and years after I had last been inside. It was a powerful, lucid dream in which I was physically walking, eyes shut, through the psychic blueprint of the Walker's house, every single detail faithfully rendered by my mind and I knew if I opened my eyes it would vanish.
I know this one will live on in the brain of Dusti, but I wouldn't mind going for a few more pictures while it is still in this world. It's startlingly beautiful in it's dilapidated state.
That ground will always remain haunted by it, this house is its own ghost.

Mississippi pilgrimage Part I

I am a lifelong Mississippi visitor. The trip has been a family pilgrimage all my life. This time was to surprise my Mimi with Mom & Cassie for her 87th birthday!
This is "The Boob & The Butt Peach" in Gaffney S.C. as my sister & I named it when we little. A cool landmark and giant sculpture of a peach, it looks like a big butt from the interstate and has what looked like a boob near the bottom to our juvenile minds. We have passed on a sense of anticipation and reverence for The Peach to my sister's kids. When you see it on the way down, it's the first Mississippi roadtrip landmark; good times are inevitable once you set your eye on this monument!
Seeing it on the way back home, you know you have nearly made it and you will soon be back home, it's a happy close to the end of a long journey.

We were all prepared for the 600 miles of fun armed with snacks and sandwiches with our names:

Cassie felt like a queen with the entire backseat to herself, a rare luxury. She is a spectacular traveling companion; initiating car games, asking questions, taking pictures for me when she sits in the front, talking about what all she's looking forward to once we get there and "just tryin' to keep the conversation goin'" in general. Rest assured, she will keep the party goin'.

As we rolled up into Mississippi, it was just before dark and gorgeous. You always roll down your window once you cross the Mississippi state line no matter how hot or cold it may be. Nothin' like that first blast of Mississippi air!

We got into Laurel a little after dark.

My Mimi lives in the renovated home of my great grandparents in the country. My Aunt Suzi and her family live there and Mimi just had her suite built onto it about a year ago. Suzie had planned a surprise "88th" birthday party for her...actually it was her 87th! She's still a spring chicken. Apparently, she's never had a birthday party in all 87 years! Suzie invited us to come for the long weekend but Mimi didn't know. The guise was, Suzie was throwing a baby shower for a friend-on Mimi's birthday. My Mom told Mimi on the phone "Suzie does so much for you, but I just think it is tacky to throw a baby shower on your birthday!" Really rubbing it in.
We walked into the house while Mom was on the phone with her, and as Mimi heard her voice on the phone and in her house at the same time, she thought "Well I don't know what button I mashed on this phone to make it sound like this!"
Cassie was so excited to be executing the surprise!

We walked into Mim's kitchen and surprised her, she was nearly speechless, and Cassie can mimic her reaction perfectly. It was a huge success!

I wrote in my journal, the old fashioned way, every night so I wouldn't lose a thing in my leaky memory.
We sat up and visited and recounted all the hilarious things that occurred on the drive down.
Mississippi Part I, complete!

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!