Loooong Day

The synthesis of my day came at 2:30 when Dee texted me to let me know she and Todd had landed (they flew in for the art fair this weekend) and I wrote back that they couldn't have landed because they weren't due in till 5:00. Her response? "You are such a hot mess this week". Yep. Yep I am. I am juggling lots and lots of stuff--not all of it having to do with the art fair. Christmas is coming, I start an intense two-week technical-writing gig next week, and then we head out of town for the week before Christmas. Hot mess is probably putting it kindly. On the other hand, I am still consistently throwing the best pottery I have ever done, and I no longer have the fear that's it's accidental and I'm going to wake up and not be able to do it again. I can finally feel the clay--not feel the sensation of the clay in it's state of inertia, but actually feel the intention of the clay and know where and how to move my fingers to make it do what I want. It's a heady feeling.

Tomorrow I get up and unpack all the work I moved from Atlanta and the work that Todd recently made and shipped here. Then we'll go through it and decide what to take to the festival this weekend. Then we'll dig through everything to find display furniture and maybe stands and table cloths. At some point we're going to have to price it. And I should probably have business cards. Oh fan me, I feel another hot mess coming on.

Though I am a bit embarrassed that recently the blog entries are barely longer than Facebook posts (and some of them could almost be tweets), I am nonetheless to tired to write more. I need some ice water and to crash next to my already snoring spouse. Tomorrow will be killer.

The Christmas Season is Officially Here

The tree is trimmed, Christmas music is on rotation for the next four weeks, and tomorrow the stockings will be hung by the chimney with care. Tomorrow the lights go up around the windows too--and Dee and Todd arrive to do A Fair of the Art! I am very excited to see them both and to do a little festival again. I haven't even unpacked all the work I moved from Atlanta yet so I'm not sure what all I'm going to sell, but I know I have plenty! And Todd shipped me three boxes of wire and glass so we are set there too.

Tomorrow is also ceramics class--we didn't have one last week due to Thanksgiving, and I missed it sorely. I have a Christmas present or two in process--and I still hold out hope for finding the rice bowl I made Jessie for her birthday, oh, quite some time ago. I understand it can take a long time to fire pieces, but come on! It's been almost two months since I put it in for the glaze firing! The school has a very clear No Production Work policy, but there are definitely people who are making quantities of pieces to sell. It's very frustrating for those of us who only make a couple of pieces a week--at best--to not have our work fired because some people have way more than their fair share of the kiln space. I know I sound whiny, but I made that piece last spring and put it in to glaze the second week of last session so I'd have it in plenty of time for Jessie's birthday the first of November, and it still hasn't come out. I hope the one or two Christmas presents I made can actually get fired in time.

I can't believe it's already 11:00! The Barenaked Ladies are singing Three Ships, and that is a good place to end the night. Peace on earth, goodwill towards all.

I Have Done What I Can

I have Liked, I have retweeted, I have updated the Featured Artist on the website. I have sent out booth numbers and requests for load-in times to artists. I have monitored the sign-up sheets for volunteers to make sure we're covered there. I have communicated with food vendors. I have done all I can do--including making my own art!--to get ready for this weekend.

Today was a beautiful day here--sunny, cool, a light breeze. In short, it was perfect studio weather so I succumbed to the urge and made glass. I filled the two larger kilns with pieces for Todd to wrap, and I'll do it again tomorrow. I wish he were staying longer so I could put his little fingers to work and get a bunch of new pieces to photograph and launch before the winter markets. If we're going to do this whole not-do-shows thing we really need to get the website working for us! Maybe I can get him to stay just 2-3 more days. I could send him home Thursday and have a LOT of new glass work to put up.

But for now, I keep my nose to the art fair grindstone, and I look forward to this weekend being over.

Austin City Limits Taping

I think you're not supposed to take pictures of the musicians,
but I just couldn't resist this shot of the lights above the stage.

I was fortunate to be invited to be a friend's guest at the Austin City Limits taping of Dan Auerbach tonight, and it was amazing. At one point he was joined on stage for a couple of songs by an older black man wearing black leather pants, a long, black leather duster, black cowboy boots, a black leather cowboy hat, and dark sunglasses. He was wearing a shirt too, and it was nice, but the rest of his ensemble was extraordinary. And then he sang. He had the most beautiful voice! I wish I had caught his name. It's not on the program. Man oh man, he rocked those leather pants! And his voice! He really had personal style and charisma, and he had the audience howling for more.

The rest of today was pedestrian in comparison. I took the child to school. I got a B-12 shot. I worked out. I took the child to lunch. I swept the floor. I worked on A Fair of the Art. Some days are like that. And some nights are like tonight--great Italian food and live music with a friend.

A Thing of Beauty

A few days ago I posted that I had had an epiphany about what constitutes art. Tonight I went to see Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing Missouri with my spouse. I am so overwhelmed with the sheer beauty and artistry of that movie that I am compelled to finally put virtual pen to virtual paper about art.

Some people might claim that something is "art" because it evokes an emotional response in the viewer. It isn't about beauty, it's about the message and the visceral reaction. There is a scene in the Square where a floor cleaner accidentally sweeps up some gravel that is part of an exhibition made up of piles of gravel on the floor. The message that goes with the exhibition is that "you have nothing". Okay, fine. The artist had an idea that (s)he wanted to convey about the superficiality of our consumption-based lives or some such. And it might be a valid message. And the piles of gravel might be thought-provoking. But it's not art. An article in the Telegraph about the film just after it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year mentions the same scene and ties it to real-life:

"In one scene of the film, a cleaner sweeps away an art installation by West's character.

It echoes a real-life event in 2001, when an installation by Damien Hirst was thrown away by a cleaner at the Eyestorm gallery, London, who had mistaken the piles of full ashtrays, empty beer bottles and newspapers were the remnants of a party the night before."

Yeah, okay. ashtrays, beer bottles and newspapers arranged artistically are not art. They can be (and probably were intended to be in that instance) artistically arranged to maximize the statement--but that still doesn't make the installation art.

So what makes art? I believe that in art you can see the anima, the spirit force, the soul of the artist peeking through. There is something of the artist in the art--something more than a message. An installation can be as slick and polished as wet marble in its presentation, but that doesn't make it art. In fact the whole notion of an installation flies in the face of art to me.

And yet there was art in the movie The Square. It wasn't all mocking of modern art. The protagonist was a man who clearly believed passionately that the installations in the museum were art. He was sincere in his attitude that the art was in the presentation of the message. But a statement alone, a message alone is not art. Art can make a statement, but there has to be some art there, not just the statement. The movie was art--it had soul and life and humor and pathos. It made a statement about art in an artistic way.

Three Billboards is also a piece of art. The acting, the direction, the script, the music was all beautifully interwoven. I'm listening to Just Walk Away Renee by the Four Tops (one of the most powerful musical pieces in the film--and that's saying a lot as it's up against Townes Vandt and a beautiful operatic piece) right now as I write. I don't know if the movie has a message per se, but it pulls your heart from your body. It's one of those rare movies in which almost everyone is flawed, but you really care about them and can relate to them all anyway. In the course of writing this post I have watched the trailer below three times--and I just saw the movie. Soul. Anima. Art.

Today I am a Web Master

I have spent entirely too much time on the computer today to do a post now. I reworked the entire A Fair of the Art website in preparation for the event itself next weekend, and I am really pleased with it. I left the applications up, but I will take those links off-line tomorrow. I also slipped the new Siyeh Studio website up last week with no fanfare. I don't know if email is working (a good thing to have, email)but the rest of it is up and functional for now. Tomorrow is soon enough to talk about the upcoming holidays and their decorative impact on our abode.

G'Night All!

Friday Was Not Black Here

I did shop today, but it was to buy a wreath and a couple of red chili swags from a lady and her son in a pick-up on the side of the road. I did not enter a store. In other shopping news, we didn't get around to buying a Christmas tree, but I'm going to roust everyone out of bed in the morning so we can beat the crowds and get one tomorrow. And that's enough about shopping.

This past week has been a time of profound thought for me, but my thoughts haven't done more than swirl around in my head and peek out a bit in my writing. I'm not sure if it's that I'm still processing them, or if I'm just too tired to reformulate them coherently at the end of each full day, but I need to get at least a couple of them out before they fade back into obscurity. The first big one is that I am finally able to articulate why I don't think piles of gravel arranged on the floor in a grid, or an led light cable put into paving stones (both in the movie The Square) are art--even though they might be in an art museum and have a fancy artist statement behind them. I have also (finally) fully synced my mind with both my body and my anima, and it is not only the most liberating feeling, but it also affects my every interaction with people around me.

Both of these streams of thought and the resultant realizations are worth exploring here on virtual paper. Tonight, however, is not the night. Maybe I'll post earlier tomorrow. I wish I weren't so tired and the spouse weren't waiting for me, but I am and he is. I wish I had time to puzzle through that last grammatical construction a bit more (subjunctive in English) as he weren't feels much more awkward to me that I weren't, but I believe both are correct.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This lovely day began with leaving Las Vegas, and though I was sad to leave friends old and new, I was glad to get back to the bosom of my family. We shared a lovely meal with three generations of friends, and are home ready to snuggle into bed. I didn't go wild on the cheese plate--I teetered on the verge, but I pulled myself back and served about half of what I got (which was still way too much). It was appreciated, and I anticipate many evenings of cheese and gaming in the coming weeks. The spouse is calling (figuratively), and I must go.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night!

Austin Bound

Last night in Las Vegas, heading back home for a family Thanksgiving before dawn has even cracked tomorrow. It was a good day, it was a good trip. I was somewhat reluctant to come (even though it was a big thing to get the invitation) because I was hesitant to leave my family right before the holidays. But this trip was an unexpected growth experience for me. On it I returned to my jubilant younger years when I loved to meet people and socialize and spend time with them. I contrast this pre-Thanksgiving time with last year's ore-Christmas time (the holiday party for Dave's company) and it's not just night and day, it's a different time stream. Last year I remember not wanting to talk to anyone and going off to basically hide in a corner while my husband trooped up to sing karaoke with everyone else. Talk about a reversal of roles! This year (this trip) I was enthused to meet new people, learn their stories, probe their ideas, experiences and philosophies, and to share mine with them. It's hard to reconcile myself then and now as being the same person.

So now I go home to my family whom I missed a lot even as I was having fun, and to socializing again--this time with known friends. Thanks to the past couple of days, I feel much more confident in my ability to enjoy it and not stress out. Thank you Zaga-Jackie for inviting me on this marvelous adventure!

Las Vegas Love or Hate

If someone asks you what you think about Des Moines Iowa, you may or may not have an opinion. But everyone, it seems, has an opinion about Las Vegas--and a strong opinion at that. There are many things about Las Vegas that I dislike, but also many things I really like. What I like most about Vegas is the humanity. This is a sybaritic town devoted to enjoyment and pleasure so the majority of the people who live and work here are in a service industry. All around you all day are waiters, receptionists, store clerks, dealers in the casinos, valets, housekeeping personnel, and a host of others working day and night to make sure we visitors have a good experience. What I have noticed the most this visit is how happy and friendly the vast majority of them are. Maybe it's where we're going and what we're doing (craps seems like a very happy game for the most part), but the dealers last night all went out of their way to help Gina and me learn craps--even reminding us to place specific bets and to turn some of our bets off at certain points in the play. All of our waiters, receptionists, store clerks, spa personnel--everyone, in short--has been smiling and friendly. This is not a place where the surly make it. The other people you trip over everywhere are the tourists. I could happily sit and people-watch here all day. This is the world's great melting pot with all races, ages, and sexes represented.

I could talk about the disproportionate number of homeless people and drug addicts here. I could focus on the extravagant waste of water and resources that go to support this town in the desert. Both of those are real, but so is the contented joy of the people I have interacted with over the past day and a half. There is a good side to Las Vegas, and I am enjoying it to the fullest for these few days. I wish I weren't so happily exhausted because I could make a much more compelling case, but my eyelids have closed so so must the laptop. 

Viva Las Vegas!

It's 9:00 pm, we have been tucked up in our adjoining rooms for at least a half hour, and I am going to do a quick post before closing my eyes for the night. I am in Vegas till Thursday morning with my friend/neighbor Zaga and a bunch of her friends. Tonight was just Zaga, another friend of hers from Boulder, and I. We hit the buffet about 4:30 for dinner, and then went into the casino to play some craps. Zaga already spent an evening teaching Jessie and me the rudiments of craps so I could maneuver my way around a little. I must say it was exciting! I got to throw the dice a couple of times and the first time I had a really long streak. I managed to throw an all small roll and there were two people betting on it. It pays 34:1 so I was pretty popular for a moment!

Back in the room I took this picture of the bathroom. Directly in front of me at the end of the tub is a window that looks out into the main room and then out the window to the Strip in the distance. To the right _in the middle of the mirror_ is a television! In the mirror! The shower is behind the glass door ahead front left, and the toilet is in another glass-doored room just opposite the shower. What incredible luxury. I can't help but be impressed.

But back to craps. I like craps. I know that it has the worst odds for players and is considered by many to be a sucker's game, but it's great entertainment when a shooter is on fire and everyone is betting on lots of different numbers and combinations. I won a ton tonight on hard six and a couple of times on hard eight (two three's and two four's). I love the way everyone at the table cheers for each other and gets into the superstitions of betting and rolling. Tomorrow I'm going to take my $3 in winnings out for a spin. I even have a marquee card which the casino uses to track how much you play in order to decide who should get comped rooms and meals. We're in comped rooms now--thank you Zaga!

Now sleep before more food, drink, gambling, and excess.

Friends Around the Table

There are few things as satisfying as welcoming friends into your home who have traveled a long way, feeding them, and providing them a cozy place to stay. Tonight we were so privileged as to have four wonderful people from Atlanta arrive at our door on their way west to the Grand Canyon for Thanksgiving. It has been so long since we've had such a lively crew sitting around the table laughing and sharing stories and wine over a good meal. Tomorrow morning they are off for a 10 am showing of Justice League at the Alamo Drafthouse, and I leave for Las Vegas before they get back. But I'll see them for breakfast. Jessie is going with them to the movie even though she's already seen it.

So Las Vegas! I have been invited by Zaga to join a small, eclectic, dynamic, opinionated group of women on their annual Las Vegas Thanksgiving revelry. I'm only staying till Thanksgiving morning and then coming home for the rest of the holiday with the family, but I have a feeling the three days I'm there are going to be a wild ride.

For Thanksgiving my spouse asked me to curate a cheese and charcuterie plate to take over to some friends' house for dinner. I may have gone a bit over board. I have 19 kinds of cheese, three kinds of thinly sliced smoked meat, two kinds of sausage--duck and wild boar, two pâtés, three fruit spreads, three kinds of pears, two kinds of apples, four kinds of olives, three preparations of almonds (including marcone almonds in honey), three kinds of crackers, pumpkin seeds, ginormous grapes, and a pomegranate. I think there are six adults and four kids. We'll be having another games night/party (or five) (or ten) with the leftovers.

As I think of how to layout this marvelous spread of munchies, I picture a 7 feet long 2 X 12 plank of some interesting wood (maybe blue pine!) that runs the length of a dining room table and has a beautiful inlay pattern in it. Everything would be laid out on the plank and would meander the length of the table. Oh that would be so cool! But not this time. At least not for the inlay...

I Was So Tired I Forgot a Title!

What a beautiful, windy, fall day! I have lots of windows open, and I wish I could have the door in the jewelry studio (greenhouse) open, but the cats are hanging here with me and I don't want Pavlova to develop a hankering for outside.

For those of you who have heard and been curious about my neighbor/friend Zaga, now you can see her for yourself! She was interviewed on ABC this morning about her customizable children's book "The Adventures of Princess Insert-Name-Here" That's me and Gallifrey on the right. (Okay, "I". "That is I". Ultimately though it may be grammatically correct, it still sounds pompous. However "That's Gallifrey and I sounds fine--and is also grammatically correct so I guess I should have just used that construction instead of meandering down this obscure path.)

After a quiet evening at home playing Five Tribes again, then watching a really good movie (Predestination with Ethan Hawke) and eating an incredible cheese and meat platter (again) for dinner, it's time to go to bed. I actually just dozed off for a second sitting up on the couch with a cat in my lap, and when I woke up there was a line of periods (like this: ............................................)  after the word "Bed". Must. Close. Eyelids.

The Oppressive Weight of the Holidays

The week has ended. Today is truly a TGIF day. I love Saturday because it's an everybody's-home day and it feels like we start with a blank slate. For me Saturday is both the end of the week (because you feel like you get to enjoy yourself after finishing a hard week) and the beginning of it (because the hard week is in the past and it's all green grass and high tides forever in front of you).

Next week is not a normal week. It's Thanksgiving week. The week of giving thanks for all our many blessings. It's also a time when we make too much food that we couldn't possibly eat in a week of Sundays, some of us shop till we drop, and others of us begin the Christmas decorating. It is the beginning of the most stressful season of the year. It's a season full of excess--in fact it epitomizes excess: Excess in eating, drinking, spending, decorating, and celebrating. This year I dread it. I don't feel physically well enough for the ordained whirlwind--especially with all the restrictions I am discovering I have with eating and drinking. And yet I also don't want to give up the traditions I have held onto from my family--many of which involve excess. It's a conundrum.

Tomorrow the family needs to sit down and put together a plan for what we're going to do... no, that's wrong. The family is not the problem--I am. So here's my plan. Here's what I'm going to do. We have been invited by friends for Thanksgiving. Dave will cook a little, but we'll keep it low-key, and our fridge (and ourselves) will not be overstuffed at the end of the day. We'll get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, and trim it and decorate the house on Saturday. What we get done Saturday is what all we'll do and the boxes will be put away until it's time to take it all down. There will not be what seems to be unending decorating for Christmas. I will pick a thoughtful gift or two for those I love over the next couple of weeks, and then I will stop. I won't keep frenziedly buying right up through Christmas Eve. None of us need more STUFF. I'm not going to try to make everyone something from my hands.

I don't have to make this stressful for me or anyone else. Let's see if I can stick to that resolution.

P.S.--The workout wth the trainer went GREAT today! I'll see her again next Friday. After getting the Christmas tree.

Bacon Ice Cream and Turducken Burger

We come down to the last day of the work week heading in to the weekend before Thanksgiving and a week-long holiday (9 days with the weekends) for the J. Today was a day with many moving parts. It started with dropping the J at school and going to ceramics class at the Art School at the Contemporary. Then I managed to get home for 15 minutes for a quick bite, and off with Zaga for a haircut.

Zaga took me to the person who cuts her hair, and when we arrived the first thing I noticed was that all the signs on the wall were in Korean. The second thing I noticed was that everyone in there was Korean--customers and staff. The guy who cut my hair did not speak any English. Zaga said she used Google translate to communicate with him, but the receptionist came and interpreted for me. Eugene, the stylist, did not wash my hair or even wet it--he dry cut it. Zaga compares him to a hummingbird lighting on your hair for a snip here and a trim there. It took him an hour, and at the end I had a third less hair without losing any length! He was pretty amazing--and never said a word to me. I like the cut  and am looking forward to seeing what it does after I wash it. There are so many different length layers that it might go all curly on me.

After the haircut was a full leg wax. It may sound silly, but because I'm starting to work out tomorrow and want to go in the pool and/or the hot tub at the gym, (I know, TMI!) I had to have the hairs on my legs ripped out from the roots. I probably wouldn't have even mentioned it here, but I spent almost the entire time on the table processing a UPS shipment of work from Atlanta to Texas for the upcoming A Fair of the Art. First I had to talk to Todd (I didn't scream at all). Then I was on-line on my phone entering the shipment. Then I had to call UPS to arrange for a pickup. I'm afraid I let loose a bit of a shriek squeak in the ear of the UPS representative when my esthetician was over enthusiastic about how much she could take from one (very tender) spot at once.

As parts were moving, Zaga dropped me off at the waxing salon and drove my car home for me. Dave picked Jessie up after school (a couple of blocks away from the salon) and they then came and got me so we could go see Justice League. Both in between haircut and wax, and wax and movie, I could've made it home, but then I would have just had to turn around ten minutes later and go back to the same area of town so it made more sense to do it the way we did. However it meant I/we had an hour between activities to hang out. Zaga took me for ice cream after the haircut at Lick and I had a scoop of the roasted beets and fresh mint (Clean, crisp garden mint flawlessly complements the slightly sweet, earthy flavor of roasted Johnson's Backyard Garden beets), and a scoop of breakfast bacon (Maple syrup adds a sweet contrast to the smoky delicious pepper bacon from our friends at Salt and Time). I kid you not; those were the flavors and the were INCREDIBLE!



After the wax Dave, J and I went to HopDoddy Burger Bar for dinner. I had to have the special burger: a turducken burger on a stuffing roll with cranberry sauce, tempura green beans, and fried onions, with a side of gravy. Apparently HopDoddy is also in California and this burger was featured on a local tv channel there. This was definitely the day of weird food for me! After dinner we strolled a couple of doors down to Dragon's Lair comics and games and payed a couple of games of Tsuro--they have a couple of demo-the-games tables. Dave and J each did a bit of shopping comic and book shopping too, and then it was time to head to the next parking lot down for Justice League at the Alamo Drafthouse Anderson Lane.

When we got to the theater and I got out my phone for the electronic tickets I discovered that the cherry on top of a really surreal day was that I had managed to buy tickets for two different movies at two different Alamo Drafthouses for the same time tonight. We saw Justice League--and really loved it--and we got rain checks for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. What a day!

Friends

Ah it is good to have friends! Friends near, friends far, friends never met but greatly, gently supportive! Dee, I hope you are coming out SOON. Bill, it is the busiest time of the year for a handcrafter (gifts to make, doncha know) so I'm not sure if I can devote a whole week to the glass studio--but I bet I can dedicate two more days to the jewelry studio and get it done in that time. Ellen, I haven't even managed to divest myself of the baby sweaters (four of them) I started for Jessie before she was born. I don't think I have a chance of getting rid of crafts yet untested. Alex and Lynne, I don't know if I can do things one at a time, but it's worth a try.

‘Shifting Sands’ (Detail) – 2012 by Steve Royston Brown

My biggest problem is that I have a large passion* for EVERYTHING I do--why else would I do it? I still thrill to the feel of thick, rough paper and the vision of it cut, ripped, punched, and stitched into books. I avidly watch woodworking and jewelry videos and dream of the pieces I want to make using the techniques I learned. I itch (no pun--really) to spin my own fiber into my own yarn, to knit into a sweater or coat of my own design.

There are still several batik fabrics I have to sew into shirts for Dave, scraps from them to make into a quilt, and worn out shirts I made him years ago to weave into rugs. A corner of the jewelry studio has been set aside for enameling, and a corner of the glass studio has been set aside (in theory it's there, under mounds of boxes) for ceramics--including a studio pottery kiln. Isn't it sad that the only passion I don't really have anymore is fused glass? I am over glass blowing too--too hot, too heavy, too steep a learning curve. I am still interested in doing some casting, some 3D screen-printing ( à la Steve Royston Brown above right), and some stained glass pieces, but sadly I don't have new directions driving me in fusing.

And then there are the combined media--wood with steel and copper, wood with glass and enamel, fiber with glass, silver and copper with glass, glass with stone...

Lucky for me I haven't taken on anything new in the last 24 hours that's going to take up more of my ever-dwindling time. Oh wait... Because of health and weight issues and the urging (nagging--mostly because of yesterday's post) of Zaga next door, I joined a gym today. Costco had a 50% off membership for the 24-Hour Fitness near me, Zaga belongs, and (yet more theory) we're going to work out together a couple (three?) times a week. Oh yes, and because I went by myself instead of with Zaga, I got talked into some sessions with a personal trainer to get me jump-started. Working out starts Friday...

But in spite of all the tearing of hair, rending of garments and salting of fields--no, wait, that was something else (and we haven't even talked gardening or BEES lately!)--I am feeling better today about my journey and actually living long enough to fully enjoy all of it. Really, we're talking weeks of dedicated work--not years--to get all my spaces set-up. It just feels like years right now. Today I was happier--even though I still didn't make anything--because I went through two on-line jewelry video classes. Maker porn always gets my engine going and makes me happy. Tomorrow is pottery in the morning so I will make tomorrow, and Friday morning Becky and I are going to do a virtual craft morning. We used to get together one day a week (when we could manage it) in Atlanta to do some craft activity, and Friday we're going to FaceTime it. I'll be in the jewelry studio.

Franzeska, if you're reading this, you should come visit for a long weekend so we can play in the studio. I do still have a passion for teaching and sharing glass, and maybe helping someone else down that road will reignite my spark.
___________________

*or at least a medium passion.

Closer to Death

It was a good day and a good evening, but without even having to squint I can see myself dying before my work spaces are all set up and fully operational. What a depressing vision. Up until today when I thought about the future I'd see myself strolling into a studio in the morning with a mug of coffee, steam from it dancing with the dust motes in the sunlight coming in through the windows. I'd sit down at a fully-equipped and organized bench with all my tools and materials in place and ready for me to make something. At the end of a long artistic day, I'd put away my tools and leave the room clean and ready for next time. I wouldn't have to clean, straighten, unpack, organize and set-up for hours before I could get to the creativity part. I wouldn't have to wend my way through stacks of boxes and unsituated shelving racks to get to my work table, sewing machine, pottery wheel, table saw, jewelry bench, loom, etc. The only pick-up-and-do-ready things I have going right now are spinning and knitting--and that last one is iffy. Everything else can be done in the middle of a chaotic mess or not at all.

As I was driving back from dropping Jessie off at school this morning (she finished shooting her film, Yay!), I thought about what I had planned to do each day for the past few weeks, and what I actually had done. There was a remarkable pattern to the data, but the pattern was not in what I had planned matching up what I had done. No, the pattern was that each day I had planned to do some studio/workspace set up so I could then do some creative activity in said studio/workspace, and each day I had put off doing the set-up in favor of something else so consequently I never did any creating either.Even in Atlanta, I never had my studio completely set up the way I wanted.

Now I have four studios and one tool space to unpack, organize and optimize. At this point it's more likely that I will quit doing an activity before I have the area and all the tools and materials I've collected ready. That's especially true in the glass studio. Even after selling off huge swathes of hoarded materials, I still have far more than I could use in a lifetime. I need to continue to sell the excess off--yet one more thing between me and actual creating.

I have reached a special place in life (a new special hell): the place where you see that the stash you've accumulated for special projects is measurably greater than the time you have left in your life. Every crafter faces that moment, but not every crafter has to face it for glass (for stained, fused, and torch-worked projects); spinning fiber; knitting and crocheting yarn; book-making papers and cords; weaving yarn; jewelry findings, stones, and metals; scrapbooking supplies; rubber stamping and card-making supplies; wood; sewing/quilting fabric; Kumihimo thread; clay and pottery tools; and soap/bath product ingredients and packaging.

Dave said a few months ago (and I think I wrote about it here) that it's time for me to divest myself of all my moribund hobbies. But I hadn't thought of them as anything approaching moribund until today. (Heck, when he said it, I didn't even know what moribund meant.) Now I see that they are moribund in part from the inertia caused by their individual masses. I have to find the tools before I can use them, and it seems I spend all my time looking for them and then deciding where to store them.

Good thing we had cheese for dinner tonight (really) (we had a cheese plate) cause I have obviously still got a lot of whine to go with it. Wish I could think of a way to get through the inertia.

The Film, Like the Beat, Goes On

I spent so much time tonight on other things (playing a board game with my spouse, tucking my daughter into bed--that one takes a LONG time, and answering A Fair of the Art email) that I don't have time or energy to write the latest update on the film saga. Suffice it to say that no filming happened after school today in spite of my having picked J up from school so she wouldn't have to wait through a long bus ride to get home before she could film. Now we're at the point where I am keeping her home tomorrow morning for first period (which happens to be her AV class) so she can film. The reason she couldn't film today was that she didn't have the light. Tomorrow she is going to start from scratch (I believe even with a new script) (!), and it will be all done. Then I will take her and all the equipment (lights, sound, camera, etc.) back to school. Whew! I hope tomorrow's post is interesting and can report the end of the film.

Filming, Pizza, and a Hot Tub

Kaiju by Jessie

The big question of the day is, "Is the filming done?". And the answer is, "No. Of course not!". We're not even on the same script anymore (though the falling-backward-into-water-scene from an early iteration of the original script is back in). I'd say about half of a 2-3 minute movie is filmed, and it took all day. Tomorrow or Tuesday night the last half (including the falling-back-into-the-pond-while-wearing-the-camera shot) will happen.

Jessie and Jig selfie

The biggest thing to come out of the filming is Zaga and Dave's reaction to Jessie's reset of the hosue. She left a few knick-knacks, but she was pretty ruthless in doing away with clutter. Almost every surface is empty, and to me that's just wrong. Zaga and Dave, on the other hand, thought it was incredible and wanted to know if we were going to keep it that way. Snort. The only reason to have surfaces is so you can put something on them. What use is an empty table I ask you? Besides, now I don't know where half of my small stuff is. Jessie said she'd put it all back, but I can see that job is squarely in my future.

The evening ended with familial pizza-making (mine had alfredo sauce, mozzarella, thin pear slices sauteed in butter and turbinado, prosciutto, roasted pistachios, cream cheese, and a drizzle of reduced balsamic vinegar. Mine was the clear winner for perfection of flavors. After dinner (and an episode of Stranger Things), I went over and hot tubbed with Zaga for an hour. What a perfect way to end a day!

It's All About the Film

Today is a cinematic day, and it has been filled with hard lessons. I left my day kind of fluid and unstructured so I could help the J if she needed it. She told us at breakfast that she wasn't going to shoot during the day because she wanted it to be dark outside for all the indoor shots, and she needed access to the neighbors' Porsche for the outdoor shots. They weren't home today so she was planning to do the outdoor shots tomorrow. I asked her to please go through her shot list and her plan for filming to make sure she had everything she needed and to maybe do some test filming during the day to avoid last minute snafus as much as possible. She got rather exasperated with me and defensive when I pushed her for details. I tried and failed, to convey to her (with my decades of hard-won experience) that she needed to not leave everything till the last minute thinking it would work out and she had everything covered. So I too my friend Mike's advice, I stepped back, I breathed through the impulse to push (more) and I left the room.

I spent my day cleaning and unpacking in the studio. We have owned this house for 25 months, I have lived here for 16 months, and I am still not even close to unpacked! There is still a substantial number of things I have been looking for and can't find. A friend told me once that I would never make it as a military wife as you have to be able to unpack and get settled quickly. I'd still be putzing around unpacking when it was time to pack up and move again. Of course if I were a military wife I wouldn't have so much STUFF. Tomorrow I plan to keep working out there and, though I don't have a specific stopping point goal in mind, I hope to get a LOT done. I also have to stay out of the J's way. Her father has that one down: Every time I start to talk to her about her film or her homework, he "leaves us to it" and goes into the bedroom. Right now we're both hiding out in there while she does a bit more filming tonight.

At Jessie's suggestion, Dave and I went on a date night tonight so she could film in peace and privacy. She said she doesn't even like us in the next room when she's practicing piano or having a lesson so she really didn't want us around while she was filming. The plan was a movie, then dinner, then pick Zaga up at the airport at 10:00. As with Jessie's plans, ours went a little wonky too. I picked the movie: The Square, a Swedish film, this yea'r winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes. I didn't pick it because it was an artsy fartsy foreign film, I picked it because of the trailer. I didn't realize it would be in Swedish (as it didn't really sink in when I watched the trailer that it was a Swedish film and artsy fartsy. I also didn't realize it was two hours and 20 minutes long which completely screwed up our plans for dinner and getting Zaga from the airport--we managed neither. Luckily there were Twizzlers and Uber (one for us and one for her).

But about the movie... I LOVED it. It was beautifully shot, witty, articulate, funny, poignant, and completely non-Hollywood. The characters were oddly real and believable--oddly because they were, well, odd. I hadn't realized how many of the movies I look forward to seeing at the cinema are from Marvel or wish they were. Had it come from Hollywood, this film would have been pared down to under two hours. Maybe an hour and a half. But it was better for the slow, thoughtful pace. It didn't feel pretentious or full of itself in any way, and the lead actor gave one of the most amazing performances I have seen in a long time. It doesn't hurt that he is also 6'4" and handsome à la Pierce Brosnan in the Thomas Crowne Affair. As is often the case with life and European art films, the end wasn't so much an ending as a stopping point, but that's a statement too, isn't it?

I'm not going to write any more about Jessie's film and filming process tonight because it's still a journey. I don't know if it will ever be a destination, but she will get through the journey and I hope there will be lessons learned and wisdom acquired. That's all I can ask for as a parent.

Would You Like Some Cheese and Crackers with that Whine?

Apparently I was more than just carsick last night. Today has been a waste of time--and I didn't even enjoy it! If you know up front that you're going to feel crappy all day, you can snuggle into bed in your jammies with some hot tea and ice water, and read, sleep, and knit as feels best. The problem comes when you get up in the morning, get dressed, and try to get things done--all the while hoping you'll feel better soon, but you never really do. Now I'm hoping that today was a one-off day and tomorrow I'm going to be back to my perky, energetic, not-nauseated self. If not, maybe I'll at least be less whiny.

Tomorrow is Saturday and J is filming her noir film for class. It's already a couple of weeks overdue, and I am worried that she's going to run into problems that she won't be able to solve quickly enough to get it all filmed in two days. But I'll try to stay optimistic. I think it's also better if I don't plan to work on anything of my own because I can see having to do set arrangement for her all day--including moving all the furniture out of the great room for one scene. I have a feeling this is going to be quite a lot of effort for a 2-4 minute film.

As today was a blur of bleh, I don't have much to say tonight. I only spoke to three people outside of my family in person today, and those exchanges took a total of 10 minutes. Oh yes, I also gave an order to the clerk at the McDonald's drive-through for the J after school. If I were Cynthia Morgan I would have a long and fascinating story about one of those three people, but they barely impinged on my consciousness. I blame the nausea.

Continuing the 365 Project on Tookapic is also dragging me down. There has been a rumor flying around that the site is going to close down because there isn't enough money to keep it going even for the rest of the year. Just reading that news took the wind out of my sails for my project. How disheartening would it be to have them shut down before the end of the year, before I had a chance to do anything (like make a book) with my project? I don't even have an accurate list of the photos I've used each day as there were last minute substitutions and photos posted from my phone that didn't make it into the folder on my hard drive. I was counting on Tookapic being there. Ooh, listen to that whine! Time to pack it in and go to bed. Sleep (and time) cures all ills (and whines).

Ugh

Uggghhhh. I don't feel well. I let the child sit in the front seat on the way home from the movies because the front seats are heated, she was cold, and I am a good mother. But right now I am so carsick I can't post. I know it's wimpy, but I'm going to bed. I'll try to post in the middle of the day tomorrow.

Cold as a Supernatural's Mammary in a Metal Holder

A cold rainy night means a lap full of cats

If last night was a good night for the hot tub, tonight is PERFECT for the down comforter. Every fall when the weather starts to change there is one day when you just freeze. Your hands are cold, your feet are cold, your nose runs, and you can't help but think you'll never make it through the winter if you're this cold and it's only down to 50 or 60 degrees. Well today was that day for me (and Jessie too). I have fuzzy black pants on along with a sweater and sheepskin slippers, and I'm still cold! Every time I turned around tonight Jessie was putting her (freezing) hands on my neck or up under my sweater on my back or my tummy. So I am not much longer for this verticality: it's time to get horizontal under the Mr. Big down comforter from Three Dog Down. Their comforters are hands down (hah! pun!) the best I have ever used with lots of loft and they're extra wide and long. No cover-stealing spouse is going to freeze me out.

So that's the night. But what about the day? Today started with all the dewy promise in the world, but by 4:00 I was wondering where the time had gone, and why I hadn't accomplished anything on any creative projects. Or bills. Or cleaning. I gave good website, that's about all I can say. Oh and I drove Jessie back and forth to school and to the camera store.

The evening was moderately better as we had a family games night and played Dr. Who Clue. I was River Song, Jessie was Clara, and Dave was Strax. There is no Dr. character, and all of the objects used are not weapons. In fact only a couple of them are lethal. I'm not sure what the backstory behind the game is, but Jessie was very happy we got it, and she even won the first game. Now I'm primed to start playing games in the evening with Dave again--Settlers of Catan (if it can be played with two), San Juan (the two-player version of Puerto Rico), and the newly acquired Five Tribes, just to name a few.

The rain is coming down harder. Time to get under the covers. Maybe a hot shower first...

Hot Tubs are Good

Today I successfully shipped the USPS package I failed at yesterday, and I went out to lunch first with my husband and then with my daughter: I was having lunch with Dave when Jessie texted me to see if I had shipped my package and might be interested in having lunch with her in conjunction with shipping it. I didn't have the heart to tell her no so after Dave and I were done, I picked her up from school and we went through the Wendy's drive-through (which is coincidentally right across the street from the post office).

Today was a much calmer day--and I DID get some housework done: I vacuumed and mopped the floors. I also got the first nibbles from the parents of prospective emerging artists after putting out a Call for Young Artists on Next Door.

The afternoon ended with creating the back of the postcard for A Fair of the Art--Meredith, our wonderful graphic designer-parent did the front--and getting the postcard in for printing and delivery Thursday. Zaga came over for dinner (Dave made adobo chicken, yum) and then she and I sat in their hot tub drinking wine and talking for a couple of hours. A hot tub is a wonderful, marvelous thing, and I am wondering why we don't have one. We might need to work on that. We're at the point now in our marriage that we could easily buy a hot tub as our anniversary and Christmas gifts to ourselves. Maybe next year.

Now some more spouse time and off to, you guessed it, bed!

Blogging from the Future!

I won't call this a cheat (though it is) because I already have had one of those. No, this is me coming back from the future to post for yesterday, er, today! Honestly I would've posted today but I broke my fingers on A Fair of the Art. First I did all of the acceptance letters for the first round of jurying for the established artists. Then I updated the website with all of their photos and artist bios. by the time I was done with that I not cleaned a bit of my house, nor had I put away Halloween decorations. I had shipped a package UPS by flagging down a driver on the road and handing him--no, to be fair, he hopped out of his truck and came over to my minivan and unloaded the package himself--a glass shipment for Todd. I had also failed to ship a package to Hawaii USPS because I found I didn't have my wallet after getting all the way to the end of the shipping process at the counter. I diddled around for another 15 minutes trying to make Apple pay work (the postal clerk thought it did) or get my husband on the phone to see if he was close enough to get to the post office to pay for my package before they closed (he never answered--his phone was dead).

After the pressures of the day (not getting the house cleaned at all was actually very stressful--it is a pit) I was very glad that the spouse suggested playing Five Tribes after dinner, even though it kept me from posting. He and I sat at the kitchen table and played this wonderful board game for almost two hours and it was PERFECT. No tv--no media of any kind. I didn't have the heart at the end to say, hey, I have to post. I figured I'd just go to bed with my wonderful spouse and post from the future. The way he puts it is, "It's not lying, it's telling a truth from the future."

And Now, Thanksgiving

Jessie's birthday flowers from her father

This weekend marked the end of the birthday, Halloween, and anniversary season and the beginning of the countdown to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Tomorrow I'll pack up the Halloween decorations and try to find some place to store them for the year--all except for the tyrannosaurus. We've decided she needs to stay up and be decorated for the season--whatever the season may be. For Christmas she'll get a little Santa Claus hat. For Valentine's she can be holding a big (bleeding) heart. For St Patrick's Day she can be eating a leprechaun. For Easter she can carry a basket full of eggs and wear bunny ears. Oh the fun I can have with this one!

Today we spent all day (Jessie and I did) on a film shoot for one of the girls in her cinematic arts program. We started at 8:00 this morning and got home just after 9:00 tonight. I mostly hung out on the couch and worked on my laptop, but it was exhausting even for me. Or maybe it was exhausting giving Thor back. At 3:00 this afternoon we returned him to the rental car lot. Jessie likened it to sending a foster puppy on to his forever home: It breaks your heart a little bit. I told her Thor did not follow us home, and we cannot keep him. (Thor was the red Corvette Stingray convertible I rented for her birthday weekend.)

Now it's time (again? already?) for bed. Dave made and incredible fesenjan for dinner tonight with rice pudding with rose water and cardamon for dessert. Sadly he didn't like it so I'm not going to get it regularly. More's the pity: It was so yummy I am stuffed to sleeping!

Little Red Corvette

It was a wonderful 16th birthday for a truly wonderful girl. She celebrated all of it with just her parents--not friends, no party--but I think it was just about perfect for her. We went out for breakfast this morning (she and I were in the Corvette and Dave led in the Leaf), and then we went to Dragon's Lair (the comic book and game shop) where she found some good manga books and Dr. Who Clue. Next we just drove around a bit. In circles. In a parking lot. Wink, wink. Then we came home for a wee rest before heading out again to Thor Ragnarok. Now she's chatting with Uncle Ed and Aunt Susan, and when she's done she'll blow out the candles on her cake while we sing to her. I don't know if anyone will eat any cake tonight as we're all still pretty stuffed from the movies (dinner AND a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse).

Tomorrow she is is crewing a movie for one of her cinematic program compatriots, and I have to return the Corvette. It's going to break my heart. I love that car! Zaga and I took it out for a ride this afternoon while Dave and Jessie went to get her cake. I asked him if he wanted me to call and have him put on as a driver and then he could take her to get the cake in it, but he said no it's not his thing... How can a perfect, luscious, sexy, new red convertible Corvette Stingray NOT be someone's thing?!? But, whatever. Zaga and I drove out to the Oasis on the lake for a drink (diet coke for me), and we had fun valet parking the car. When we came back out, the valet had put it right in front at the end of a line of three cars: a Porsche, and *two* new red Corvette convertibles. I must admit it felt pretty cool to hand the ticket to a different, bored looking valet (who was clearly expecting to fetch a minivan or SUV for me), and to point to the line of cool cars and say "It's the one at the end with the top down".

________________

Cake is finished and it's time for bed. Hugs, smiles, and kisses made their rounds, and now we're all heading off to collapse into our eyelids. I can't you how glad I am daylight savings time ends tonight! My daughter's birthday was on my favorite day of the year this year.

Fresh and Powerful

I was sure I had already folded this song into a post as I often think of it at this time of day--especially after a week like this past one--but I haven't so I'm going to put it here as accompaniment for the rest of the post. For tonight I chose the fresh, powerful version performed in Hyde Park in London on June 7, 1969 when the song was new instead of the more mellow, polished version from the Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2007.



The week was just PACKED with activities and deadlines and responsibilities, but I made it through. And it officially ended when I picked Jessie up from school in a 2017 red Corvette Stingray convertible (rented for one day for her birthday tomorrow). Talk about fresh and powerful. Jessie was over the moon excited, and I have to admit I was pretty jazzed too. When I was her age I also loved Corvettes--though today was my first time in one--and driving on 2222 in it with the top down, the sun shining, and the tunes playing was magical. It might have triggered a mid-life something in me. It's not a crisis as I don't feel like I have missed out on anything and thus have to change my life drastically before it's too late, but there was definitely a feeling of having automotively settled over the past 18 years. I am on my third Honda minivan for criminey sake!

Thank you Zaga for the photo...

That Corvette... It rumbles. It roars. It doesn't screech or whine. It's low, and throaty-sounding, and more enjoyable overall than any car I've ever ridden in. I was a little intimidated when I first drove it thinking it would be drive differently than other cars and I would have to be careful not to accelerate too fast or turn too sharply. I guess I was expecting it to be a lot more responsive than it is. Maybe the rental place has some kind of child safety device on it dumbing it down so that renters don't do anything stupid. In any case, it wasn't tiring to drive (as a super responsive car could be), and it fit me like a glove--once I was able to get into it. It's about 6" off the ground, the seat has a deep recessed bucket surrounded by door and console, and let's face it I have old knees and a less-than-trim silhouette. Getting out is even more... fun. And yet, in spite of the difficulties getting in and out, it's a dream car. Once you're in, you never want to leave. You don't even have to go fast in it to feel a thrill. Because you're so close to the ground, going from zero to 21 gets your blood pumping, accelerating to 35 miles an hour feels like flying, and taking it from there to 50 will have your passengers white-knuckling the dash. Sixty was my top speed today. Tomorrow I might get out onto the freeway where the speed limit is 75 to see what it feels like.

So here I am over the mid fifties hill and lusting after a red muscle car that doesn't have a place to tuck my purse, which holds either my daughter OR my husband but not both, and in which Gallifrey absolutely will not fit. It has about 1/3 the interior room of the Mini Cooper convertible. As Dave says, sexy as hell for a car you can't even imagine having sex in. It's ours till 3:00 pm tomorrow. Guess I better live the fantasy now or resign myself to getting a full-time well-paying job to pay for my car habit. Heck, it could be clothes, it could be shoes, it could be jewelry! But no. Like daughter, like mother. I have a car problem.

A Day of Perfection

It's late, I'm pooped. I am in full getting-emerging-artists mode right now with all the fervor that goes with convincing some poor young person that a life as an independent artist doing festivals and self-promoting might be a reasonable idea. I actually wrote to the visual art teachers at McCallum tonight and offered doing after school workshops to help students fill out their applications and put together a good body of work to sell. We'll see what comes of it.

Today was an extraordinary day on other fronts too. I had ceramics class this morning, and for the first time EVER, everything I threw turned out beautifully. Each piece was better than the one before it. After ceramics I took the cats to the vet, then came home and got Todd's airline ticket to come out and do A Fair of the Art with me (as an artist, not as a promoter). Next accomplishment was getting in a kiln load. On the rental front, we got another review today and then we got an inquiry from a potential full-time renter. Sweet!

I ended the evening with website updates for A Fair of the Art (we have contracted with all the food trucks) and an email to all the parent volunteers. Now it's time to go to sleep. Thank you Meredith Efken for another incredible poster!

We Are Proud, We Are Amish

Not really Amish, but tonight it almost feels like it. The Internet has been out for the past few hours which means that our Smart Things hub doesn't work, which means Alexa won't turn our lights on and off on command. You'd think that wouldn't be a problem, but I can't remember where many of the light switches are. Really. So we sit in the dark (or the light, depending where we were when we lost network). This is a seriously first world problem. It did keep me from firing in the studio tonight however, as I really DON'T know where the light switches are out there and I just didn't feel like futzing around to find out. Spectrum says it's a statewide problem, but Dan and Zaga next door are streaming a movie (and laughing at me) just fine. Dave just sits in the dark looking at his phone.

Today I met a friend for open studio at Creative Side Jewelry Academy and almost finished the locket I started in my 201 class. I did get all the soldering done, now I just have to clean up the silver and tube-set the sapphires and the topaz. The sapphires are stones I sifted from gravel from the mine in Montana this past summer and had cut. Now I want to make pieces with prong setting for the two large sapphires. However carving out time for to work on jewelry in the next couple of months is going to be tough. I have A Fair of the Art, my own glass orders, J's birthday, Christmas (yes, I'm thinking that far ahead already), and a couple of trips coming up.

Tomorrow it's ceramics, glass, and the vet--this time with the cats. Another crazy day when I don't have time to breathe and end up exhausted and slightly grumbly (like today). Guess I'll take my grumpy self off to bed so I can get up early to go pick up styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap before going to ceramics.