Meliora Designs at the Casita de los Jirafas

A Castle that was also a Kingdom, Surrounded by a Moat

2011-08-15T23:09:00.002-05:00

Morning by Maxfield Parrish - 1922

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." Oscar Wilde

Faced with the impending beginning of another school year, and the rapid ending of another glorious summer, I decided to share with you my dreams. Dreams that I hope will soon become my reality.

Great Cranberry Island, Maine - Summer 2011

In many ways, I doubt my dreams, or somehow, feel guilty for them: as if I don't deserve them or they are too romantic to be borne. The romanticism of my dreams may be something that others don't understand or share, but I have come to the realization lately that no one else matters when one considers the dream-place or the dream-house or the dream-vocation (or avocation, for that matter).

Great Cranberry Island, Maine - Summer 2011

I have been reading an amazing book that has added to, subtracted from, questioned and reinforced my dreams. This book is "We Were An Island: The Maine Life of Art & Nan Kellam" by Peter P. Blanchard III. I bought this book at Sherman's in Bar Harbor last month as a present to myself and as a way to explore one of my romantic dreams: the one about living and teaching on a small Maine island.

The Kellams at Homewood on Placentia Island, Maine

Now, Art & Nan Kellam were more adventurous, daring and self-sufficient than I. They bought an island called Placentia off the back side of Mount Desert Island in the 1940s with the goal of isolation and independence from the larger world. Upon arriving on Placentia, the couple built a house named Homewood, and lived on the island for about 40 years, only leaving for supplies but never leaving due to weather or simply, loneliness.

Giant Fern Fronds on Great Cranberry Island, Maine - Summer 2011

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the idea of abandoning the path most traveled, who loves the coast of Maine, or who, like me, would love to live on an island one day. The Kellam's life was extreme in the truest respect: they all but refused to engage the outer world and only tolerated visitors rarely. This I don't think is for me, because I love people and sharing time with others and cooking and eating dinners.

Daddy house, Momma house, Baby house - Great Cranberry Island, Maine

That being said....the dream is alive in my mind like it never has been before. The dream is to teach in a small island school: probably to teach multiple grade levels in the same room, together, like in the olden days. The dream is to take a boat from home to work, and from work to home, and to watch the changing of the water at different times of day. The dream is to live in an old house that is warm in winter and cool in summer, a house that has a garden with areas of sunshine for vegetables and flowers and shade for lounging, space for chickens and 2 - 4 alpacas. The alpacas I really, really want. They love the Maine winters and have incredible fur that can be spun into amazing yarn. The dream is to live in this house with another person who also wants this life, who is willing to have the quiet times over the busy times, who wants a family and who likes to keep busy with projects and books and is not motivated by aspects like money, status, and the distractions of the city life. Someone who loves to have fun but can make fun wherever they are.

Hamilton Pond - Mount Desert Island, Maine - Summer 2011

Many years ago, immediately after her death, I became very interested in Tasha Tudor and her eccentric approach to her life. Believing that she was the reincarnated spirit of an 1800's sea captain's wife, she chose to live out her dream life as if she remained in that time. I would like to live in similar ways to this, with the focus of life being on creating beautiful things, making food with friends, and spending time with family, but I do love my creature comforts of electricity, water, heat and the internet.

Tasha Tudor at her home in Vermont

The dream begins this year with my new teaching job in Philadelphia, with eyes and heart set out to the future and a desire to make my dream happen. I will soon receive my out of state teaching certification packet from Maine and will transfer my license and then wait for the job to appear. I will stay here and teach and explore this strange, decaying city until the door or window opens and I can leap out and see where the dream takes me. How amazing would it be to go from teaching in inner city Philadelphia to teaching and living on an island in Maine?

In a word.....dream-like. Of course, I would then have to write all the stories down, and discover how it all happened the way it did.

How to Mulch a Steep Hillside

2011-08-07T17:44:00.000-05:00

Greetings after a long, long absence. I have been in Maine with my family for the past few weeks, spending most of my time with friends and relatives, celebrating birthdays and everydays. Soon I go back to the city, and for the first time I almost stricken with a sinking feeling: as if it is not the right place for me and I should stay here. I know I want to be here, but I also know this is not the perfect time....perfection will come when I get a teaching job here and am able to live confidently and in a way that makes me happy....

Obviously, this trip has been about soul-searching, and I do my best soul-searching when I am metalsmithing or when I am gardening. During this vacation, I spent my time gardening.

When I started this project, I could find mixed bags of information on how to mulch and solarize a steep hill, so I combined advice from fellow gardeners, information from internet forums, and my own ideas and I think made something that will work amazingly well. Just in case you ever need to do this: here are the instructions.

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The situation: a large hill about 50 feet by 20 feet that lay at a 45 degree grade on my parents' property. The grade is so steep that it is near impossible to mow, and has to be weed-eated. It is a giant pain in the butt, and is on the edge of the leech field so it can only be planted with non-edibles.

The goal: kill all the grass and plant the area with creeping juniper and other recumbent and creeping plants so that the area never needs to be mowed again!

Here is the only before shot that I could find, since I forgot to take one!

Note the steep-ness....the area is to the right in this photo

Procedure (I am a science teacher after all)

1. Purchase high-quality DuPont landscaping fabric in 100' rolls. Figure out how much you will need by measuring the distance from top to bottom. The fabric is 3' wide, but you need to overlap about 6-8", and fold the fabric at the top (and bottom if you are particular like me). Get more than you need. I bought 6 and ended up using 5.

2. Purchase long sod stakes.....the really long ones are good. Purchase a box of 500 and then be prepared to use more. In the end, I used about 675!!!

3. Find a metal mallet or other strong metal tool to knock the staples in, and get a pair of scissors.

4. Starting at one side (move left to right or right to left depending on preference), fold the landscaping fabric along the top in a nice, straight fold. Use three sod staples, one at either edge and one in the middle, and anchor the fabric at the top of the hill.

5. Start rolling the fabric down the hill, and staple every 6-12 inches on both sides. The fabric will begin to look quilted.

6. At the bottom, cut the landscaping fabric to length and fold again. The folding is going to help with water run-off and it looks nice! Once you have folded, use three sod staples and pound them in (side, middle, side) just like you did at the top.

7. Climb back up the hill. (your legs become much stronger after this project!)

8. For the second piece of fabric: overlap about 6-8 inches over the piece you just stapled down.

9. Shower, rinse, repeat....in other words, did what you did for the first piece making sure the second continues to overlap all the way down. I found it challenging at the beginning to keep it relatively straight, so sometimes I had to fold it and bend it a little bit.

10. Keep going until your hillside is covered!

Quilted!!!

11. Take care to wrap around tree trunks so that no grass can escape!

Make a tight collar to eliminate weeds growing around the tree trunk and wrecking your efforts!

When you collar the trees, you may have to "patch" the area to make the fabric fit.

Here you can see some of the folding that happens....pull the fabric as tight as you can and you will minimize this...

12. Landscaping fabric is guaranteed for 15 years if it is covered with mulch. For this project, the most cost effective mulch was mulch hay. So go to your local feedstore and buy STRAW, not hay (hay has weed seeds and you will be sad later). I bought 5 bales but probably should have bought 6. You want it to be thick on top of the fabric.

13. Using your skills of balance, honed after many years of walking, you need to take large armfuls of straw and walk down your fabric-covered hillside and start dumping it all over the fabric, taking care to cover it fully and thickly. Having a friend to help you with this step makes it more fun!

In process....this is the stage where you will fall and slide alot.

Almost finished!

14. Once all the straw is put down and you are satisfied with its thickness, you need to install something to hold the straw in place. Otherwise, you are going to wake up on some cold, rainy morning with a giant pile of soppy, rotting straw at the bottom of your hill.

15. The solution (I think) is bird or deer netting. I suggest deer netting because it is the same thing as bird netting, comes in larger packages, and is cheaper. Buy enough to cover the whole surface but remember you don't have to overlap. I bought 2 packages of 7' by 100' and had a little bit extra.

16. (You need more sod stakes for this step). One friend holds the roll at the top of the hill (working from side to side again) and stakes the netting in place, stretching as wide and tight as possible. Once it is staked at the top, throw it down to the friend at the bottom of the hill. Pull, stretch tight and stake in at the bottom.

17. Repeat all the way across, making sure that you also stake along the sides when you are finished. It is helpful also to throw some rocks around to hold it down in the middle where you can't reach.

18. Last step!!! Find some heavy logs somewhere and set them up next to each other along the top of the hill. Use 12" landscaping spikes on the downward-facing edge to stop them from rolling down and ruining your neighbor's yard and/or car. According to my research, this helps with run-off because the snow/water will run over the logs versus under your straw....who knows if this will work. This remains to be seen come winter when there is a ton of snow and ice and bad weather and mud. We shall see.....

See the deer netting?

Finished!!!

Et finis!!!

The next stage is to let the fabric and straw mixture to sit till the spring. Hopefully, the grass will be killed and we will be able to cut into the fabric and plant new plants. This is the hope....and we all know that hope springs eternal when it comes to gardening.

I hope this is useful to someone!!! This project was very difficult and labor-intensive, but in the end, I am proud of myself and I think it is going to work. Also, gardening helped me to calm down and realize that everything is well, that all will be fine, and that I am excited for a new year of school.

Coming back from Radio Silence

2011-07-04T10:06:00.002-05:00

Over the last 2 months.....tragically I have been missing for THAT long....I have been in the process of moving across the country and have more or less safely landed in Philadelphia...

I am still settling in and about to begin setting up my jewelry studio here....when I first moved in, there was a serious issue of smell in the basement, that I have now almost fixed. I am also almost finished unpacking and getting used to city life.

So....a little bit more radio silence until I get back into the groove of creating, but meanwhile....I am dreaming of my Halloween costume for this year....torn between the following three ideas:

Rachel from Blade Runner

Brian Eno from the mid-70s....still playing with Roxy Music

Victorian Cyclist - from Laughing Moon Mercantile

Ultimately, Halloween will be chilly if not cold....and I would like to make a good costume this year as last year's was a little bit thrown together at the last minute....

What do you think? I'm off to finish unpacking......wish me luck!

By Hook or By Crook

2011-04-30T14:37:00.001-05:00

On my way back from Philly, I was lucky enough to be routed through Detroit Airport! The best airport in North America...just for the crazy colorful tunnel

Inspired by my friend Megan, I have decided to make a list of my *must-reads* of Summer, 2011. Summer 2011 promises to be one of great changes and heartache, as I leave my beloved Austin, Texas for points north. As I deal with the fact that I am about to say goodbye to my friends who are family, in only a few short weeks, I am struck with nostalgia and also with the pangs of knowing what is about to happen...

But I digress....

Summer 2011 Reading List of Patience Meliora Blythe (just in case, if you want to read them with me, all Amazon.com links are included for your ease)(or get them used!!!):

* A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews: a present from my friend Craig
* Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood: because I did not know of this book till 5 minutes ago
* My Life in France by Julia Child: because I really loved "Julie & Julia" and also cooking
* Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry: for the second time
* The Red Tent by Anita Diamant: I cheated and already started this
* A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin: a recommendation from my friend Ned
* Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
* Modern Top Down Knitting by Kristina McGowan: this is less of a reading book rather than a project book, but I will take what I can get!
* Loud Bones: The Jewelry of Nancy Worden by Susan Platt and Michelle LeBaron: I am so inspired by her jewelry right now I can't stop thinking about it...
* The (In)Complete Metalsmith by Tim McCreight: because I need to reference it, despite its flaws, while building up my own studio....

Werkbench....please notice the necessity that is Iced Coffee

In metalsmithing news...lots and lots of bits and pieces lay about the bench these days, in preparation for summer consignment. I have a large consignment order due to be shipped out May 15th so am scrambling to get that done. I also have a custom order ring and a necklace to do....so much to do, so little time! :)

First step of the custom necklace....The Cat That Walked By Himself

Due to the sky high price of silver at the moment (come on, y'all....in the event of apocalypse, this metal is NOT going to save you from the killer hoardes, or substitute for money, or whatever you think it is going to do. So STOP ALREADY! You are just hurting craftspeople), I dug through every crack and crevice of my various jewelry boxes the other day and poured two ingots, all by myself!!! I felt quite skilled and clever for doing it, and promptly added an ingot mold and crucible to my studio list.

More in progress pieces....can you tell what I am doing? 'Tis a surprise

Inspiration for a custom order to be started ASAP....the bird, not the screen door!

Links pour vous:
++++Nancy Worden Jewelry is incredible
++++Tom Castor Jewelry is amazing to look at, and better to try on, so go to his gallery in Lambertville, New Jersey
++++You Grow Girl talks about repurposing for the garden....definitely something I shall do in Philadelphia's small spaces!

Off I go to fold laundry and get ready for Psych Fest tonight!

Soy un Pescado Fuera del Agua

2011-04-24T00:23:00.001-05:00

Photo by Richard Burbridge

Ho hum.....it is very hot right now in Austin, Texas. It seems as if the summer snuck in, right under our noses!, and took spring's place....

With the move to Philadelphia pending (so soon - 5 weeks away!), I am spending lots of time thinking about what I want my life to be up there, and how to manage all this pesky change.

One of the things I plan to do is to set up a jewelry studio in the basement....as I posted earlier, I am ready to have a studio of my own, especially as it seems my jewelry business keeps getting steadily busier. Right now I am working on two custom orders and two consignment orders, and I just don't have enough time with a full-time job unless I dedicate 3 evenings a week to the process. Now, with a home-based studio, this wouldn't be a problem: but having studio access in a shared classroom space makes it a bit harder.

Scary basement.....pre-studio

So....the home studio in the basement. Currently, the basement looks really scary (at least from what I can see in the IPhone photo)....but I think with some paint, elbow grease, lots of can lights, possibly some Christmas lights, tables and a couch, it will be fine! More than fine! That and I have to install some duct work and an extractor fan to get rid of all the toxic solder additives...

Anyway --- two things.....First and foremost is money. Money, money, money. I am trying to keep it all as cheap as possible, but there is that darned rolling mill! Second is time....time, time, time. I think, though, that if I indeed put the horse before the cart, that building the studio should be the first goal and all the other things will fall into place.

This brings me to the subject of this post: monetizing. How does one do this? I would love to monetize the blog, and I think it would mean I would attract more followers, too. I also want to monetize my website but the PayPal process seems too cumbersome.....Advice?

This post is rambling and it is late. I have to deal with the fact that the reality of moving is now making me feel very scared: very fish out of water....I have no idea what I am getting into, but I've passed the point of no return....onward and northward I go, with all my earthly belongings and a slew of good ideas.....

Illustration by Iker Ayestaran

p.s. I really, really want a new tattoo....and end to life in Texas tattoo. A tattoo that looks like this:

11:11 Make a Wish!

2011-04-20T22:52:00.001-05:00

Quick post for now.....I haven't been updating as I should. Here are some photos from my last custom order. I am super busy making 2 custom projects and getting a large consignment order ready for the summer! Woot! So exciting to be busy.....and I am moving across the country in 7 weeks....wha?

Sterling Silver Cuff - "11:11 Make a Wish" - Oxidized Sterling Silver

Custom Order

Bottom View....

Hanging from a Tree Branch View

Interested in a custom piece? Email me at patience DOT meliora AT gmail DOT com, or contact me via my website....Meliora Designs

****Editorial Note**** My other jewelry designer friends and I implore you: do not rip off people's designs for your own profit. Use inspiration, freely design, and come and visit us at shows, at our studios and at our homes....thanks

More to come later.....P

Referential Soup

2011-03-26T12:41:00.002-06:00

Hawthorne Cultural Center

After a whirlwind week or two, I am back in Austin. My trip to Philly was fraught with disasters --- my cab came to my house an hour late so I missed my flight!

So....Philadelphia. Such an American city: so many people crammed together, a little bit ornery. So many shapes and colors and styles and textures, so much trash on the streets. So much hardwork, so many bums drinking hooch out of paper bags on the stoops of churches. Produce trucks, taquerias, outdoor markets, Italian cheese and sausage stores, cute students in Catholic school uniforms, kids running around cussing in the neighborhoods. The Cambodian neighborhood of South Philly looks like a mini-Cambodian city now, with the buildings and businesses changed and recycled, reinvented, dotted with satellite dishes, decorated in beautiful script. Delapidated but vibrant, the city of Philadelphia.

Italian Market

Old, delapidated house near the Broad Street Subway Terminal in South Philly - I really want to know who lives here

More mosaics by Isaiah Zagar

Isaiah Zagar's mosaics are all over South Philly, which is something I really love about the neighborhood. Most of the time, they are on the walls of businesses or community organizations, but some lucky people appear to have them on their houses: a dream of mine. I LOVE mosaic artwork in cities: I love how it breaks apart the monotony of concrete and brick, asphalt and iron. I love that it shows us that no matter what, cities are built, maintained, and grown by the people who live in them, and by what is important to those citizens.

A closed and abandoned city pool off the Italian Market - No running, diving, horseplay

Beautifully carved frontispiece for the closed pool. Makes you wonder why they just don't reopen it?

Despite all the concrete, there is lots of color

Luckily for me, my friends took me to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the Roberto Capucci exhibit, which was amazing!!! I was so inspired by the dresses there that I immediately wanted to see if I could recreate all those pleats and folds and fans in metal. Of course, I have no studio (yet) in Philly, so I had to wait.....His dresses are so wild and crazy - sometimes even too wild and crazy for me! But, I found them architecturally incredible: as if the layers of fabric were just balancing on each other, held together in the air, floating. This is why I have to try and create something similar for myself.

Don't you want to know what it does?

So on Sunday, my friend took me to Lambertville, New Jersey, a very lovely little town just a hop, skip and a jump from Philadelphia. We went through the most amazing flea market that I have ever been to; we kept walking and I kept gawking until I had to stop and turn away. There were so many beautiful things, and so cheap!!! The excitement of being able to furnish our new house by fleaing got to me and visions of an amazing antiquey-junque house swirled in my head. Just think: enamel-topped tables! Display cabinets! Russian china! Strange, hazey old photographs! Cabbage-shaped teacups! Old steel cabinets! The possibilities really are endless....

I have been kicking myself for not buying this every day since I got back

Box of dolly heads with eyes that open and shut? Check!

These last 5 images were all from the same vendor, who, when I told him I was a jeweler, pulled out tons of photos of jewelry made with the strange objects he sells. He seemed thrilled to be part of the jewelry process, and this made me like him even more than his insanely reasonable prices!

Our last stop was in Lambertville, proper, for a tour of the town. My favorite spot was the amazing jewelry gallery of Tom Castor, whose incredible mixtures of iron, gold, diamonds and silver were, well, fantastic. I had a really great time talking about jewelry with him, and he was very sweet and let us try on anything we wanted, including a $78,000 green and black diamond and platinum ring. Pretty fantastic! Nothing beats his mixed-metals combinations....I would love to work for him. 'Tis a dream to learn how to do all of that.....and his pave is incredible.

All in all, I came back refreshed from my vacation, a little unnerved by the prospect of actually moving across the country and uprooting my entire life, but excited, too. I like the idea of making jewelry in a new city, and I like the idea of living in a huge city and getting used to that. I like the idea of having picnics in Fairmount Park, and cycling through city streets that are laid out as bike lanes.

I am really inspired to make jewelry right now, and it is a good thing as I have three custom orders sitting on the workbench right now: a bracelet, a ring and a pair of earrings. Let's see how Philly inspires this new season of creativity!

Spring Fling

2011-03-12T15:25:00.000-06:00

Downtown Philadelphia Post Office - a long while ago

Tomorrow, I leave Austin and its throngs of SXSW hipsters for the cooler climes of Philadelphia. I am going with a goal of getting a new teaching job, and am applying to 2 charter schools and 2 public schools. So wish me luck! I am really excited about my soon-to-be new life in Philly, and about teaching inner city kids in a huge, old, American city.

But.......on to more interesting topics!

I finished my first knitted sweater last weekend! This is very exciting to me, because knitting, before this year, was very frustrating for me and I would usually just give up. I had almost convinced myself that it was a craft that I didn't LIKE TO DO, which doesn't really make sense. But, thanks to many knitting epiphanies and the help of my Saturday morning knitting group, now I am obsessed and dreaming of opening my own LYS.

Right now I am knitting my first shawl, which has a border shaped like waves, out of this purple wool-silk yarn that looks like silvery dust is suspended in it. It is beautiful.

One of the plans for the week in Philly is to assess the LYS situation for 2 reasons. #1: I am moving there and need to find one that is both easy to get to and comfortable to be in. #2: to establish if there is a good market for me to open one there sometime around January 2013. (It's the obsessive planner in me that schedules my own 5 year plan by the year).

Other plans for this week include: house hunting, neighborhood walking and exploring, visiting the Franklin Institute and asking if I can volunteer there, visiting the The Dream Garden and the Magic Gardens, attending the Roberto Capucci Fashion Exhibit for a members-only preview on Tuesday, and getting lost in my new city.

Radiolab: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Links por vous....

The Yarn Harlot writes about the importance of still declaring ourselves feminists.

When a Genius Turns out to be a Jerk on Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing (one of my new favorites)

I would like this beautiful Kimono Dip Dye Dress for spring. Thank you.

I dream of the day when I will find the killer real estate investment of the century, fix it up and then have fancy photographers and writers from New York Magazine come over.

Wishing for a happy, safe, and easy flight.......P

The Birth of Spring!

2011-03-03T19:25:00.001-06:00

Ahhhhhh spring appears to be back! Although our last frost date isn't for another few weeks, we here in Central Texas are always teased out of our winter doldrums by a couple of weeks that feel like the beginnings of summer! Hot sun, bright sun, crisp breezes, cool nights. It is divine, and makes me dream of geraniums and coleus and determinate tomatoes...

Determinate tomatoes is a fancy way of saying "bushy tomatoes", or the varieties that are good to grow in pots. For the last year and a half, I have been a renter with no desire to permanently change the landscape of my cottage, so I plan, again to grow tomatoes in pots. Also, the weather here in Texas can fluctuate between fantastically wonderful and horrendously scorching within days....leading to last year's terrible disaster that was the tomato non-harvest.

Despite my desire to plant, I must wait, knowing in my heart that there is one more frost to hit us this year: always is, and this year has been a remarkably cold one.

And so, I return to my current passions: my loves of the winter (oh really, any) season: knitting and sewing.

The Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet

This is my first sweater! Isn't it fantastic? I am so proud....and hopeful that my knitting skills are much better than I thought. Next up: a skirt and a shawl! I am obsessed and plan to visit yarn shops in Philadelphia when I visit in less than two weeks.....

At the moment I am endeavouring to make my first bag in years, out of a great graphic print upholstery fabric. It is shaping up well and needs to be photographed. I am also busy at the jewelry studio making a series of stereoscopic image-inspired works that also deserve photographing.

Damn my documenting skills!

The design partnership behind The Family Trunk Project are much better at it. Check that website out: I found it really inspiring! What a creative process! I really want to write some stories and send them to her as trade in payment for her family-inspired patterns.

And another amazing website, sent to me by my friend Rodi a few days ago, is the unestimably amazing STEOTCH....a site dedicated to showing the most fantastic and irreverent needlepoint samplers that I have ever seen. Is it the best website I have ever seen? YES. (Well, in the top 5, for sure). You can also buy the pieces and/or patterns at their Etsy shop.

So.....my last but definitely not least item on the agenda for your perusal today, the last piece of linkage I put up before starting dinner and getting back to knitting the sweater and watching part three of Downton Abbey, is this....

This film, called "My Urban Garden" is by Polly Bennell and was made in 1984. In this short, instructional film, Ms Bennell describes my philosophies about gardening so succinctly it is incredible! She also has wonderful ideas that I had never thought of....can't wait to get a small yard in Philly to try it out!

Enjoy the weekend!!!!!

Seeking Input....

2011-02-23T23:09:00.001-06:00

It is strange, in a way, to ask for input on a piece of jewelry. I say this because jewelry-making is so personal, and these ideas of mine come from the ethers, or the dark recesses of my brain, or a bit of both. Sometimes, alot of times, I don't know how to explain where these ideas come from, because I really don't know. It's almost like I have little control over what I make: it just comes out.

On this piece, however, I am a bit stuck. I know it will be a necklace with a hand-made chain, but little else do I know...

It is made of an old glass eye, bought from a strange antiques dealer in Mexico, and a pair of stereographic images. This particular stereoscopic card was one designed to help strengthen control on focus and sight, hence the numbers to focus upon.

Any suggestions? Ideas? All are welcome.....as long as you notice that the bezel is designed to look like a bear trap!

Links por vous:

Yes, there is an entire Etsy shop that sells nothing but amazing Japanese masking tape and other products...

Creature Comforts has a fantastic inspiration board of wonderful colors for Spring...add in some blue, and you have my perfect spring colors!!!

The new mayor of Chicago wants to expand cycling routes!

The Yarn Harlot discusses the new-to-me stainless steel and wool yarn, and says it is actually soft, bendable and formable....I first encountered this yarn at Hill Country Weavers, and then this weekend found out that Mr D.F. bought some at the New Year's sale but wasn't sure what to do with it. I will be sure to tell him it can be shaped into a form-fitting Barbie brassiere...

Philadelphia --- Here I Come!

2011-02-19T14:50:00.000-06:00

Me at the Edgar Allen Poe National Historic Site last May

I just found out, via ETS, that I passed my PRAXIS science teacher exam! I am so relieved! For some reason, I had such massive test anxiety that I gave myself a subconjunctival hemorrhage the next morning. I have never failed a standardized test before, and don't ever plan to, but this one was a doozy!!!

Apparently, though, it was meant to be, and/or I actually do know what I am doing, which I think is refreshing! Off I go. The Pennsylvania Department of Ed has my application, various people I know are helping me find a job, so all ye of the blogosphere, help a sister out and keep your fingers crossed that I am making jewelry and fighting the good fight in Philly soon!

Studio - Woe is......Me?

2011-02-18T19:11:00.002-06:00

My old studio room in my old house

Let me start of with saying that my studio space here in Austin, is absolutely wonderful and amazing, cooperative, full of tools and supplies, and to top it all off, cheap. Amazingly cheap at about $84/ month. All bills paid even in summer, the owner has been in the space for about 30 years and has fabricated most all of the tables, soldering stations, work areas, polishing cabinets, etc. Everything is wood and copper, and strange and wonderful curios are tacked to the walls and hang from the ceiling.

My current, amazing, shared studio space

All of this on top of the fact that I love the studio's owner and credit him with saving me in an emotional sense when I was going through my divorce a couple of years ago. He is a constant friend, co-collaborator and advisor.

But lately, as I have realized that I now know many more skills than I had in my toolkit a few years ago, I really want my own home studio in addition to going down to South Congress. I have lots of tools myself, but am missing a few key pieces. It is my intention to build up a home-based studio in Philadelphia, because the ultimate problem I am having at the moment is a problem of access.

The current studio, as I said, is cooperative and shared between about 20 people, but the problem lies in the fact that much of the time, there are classes in the studio and I can't go and work during class. This is why, as the interest grows and the desire to do this full-time begins, it is best to start putting pen to paper, or in this case, pixels to the screen, and planning out My Own Studio...

Now, for the most part, I use metals, metals, metals and very few stones. I enjoy the look of metals and most of all, the texture-play of hammers on metal surfaces. This leads me to the #1 object I desire....

The Durston Deluxe DRM C100 RE Combination 100mm with Reduction Gear & Extension Rolls!!!! (and the angels start singing). Is it a little ridiculous to contemplate spending $1000 on your first rolling mill? Not, I think, when it will also be your last....as in, it will last forever and will never warp, or crack or do other bad things.

On to object of my desire #2:

The kiln o' my fancy.....Paragon Portable Kiln Q-11A. You can plug it in to a regular socket, no re-wiring needed and it comes recommended by my fabulous friend and jeweler, Ms. Joanna Nealey.

What else? What else does one put in the studio of one's dreams-that-are-about to become reality? Well...

1. Soldering station with good ventilation, a nice lazy susan with firebrick on top of it, a good quality Crock Pot full of fresh pickling acid, a glass jar of pre-flux, a couple of copper tongs and a couple of steel tweezers, some German and American charcoal, zig-zags, third-hands, some solder, solder bowls, paintbrushes, binding wire and yellow ochre. Oh yeah and a tea strainer for not losing small pieces in the pickle.

2. A couple of good-sized hardwood stumps on legs

3. An anvil made out of a piece of a traintrack. These are amazingly easy to find.

4. A swivel vise!!! Ok probably two. One small and one large.
5. Hammers. Oh, hammers. Lots. Some for silver, some for smashing.
6. German sawblade handles and lots of sawblades of different sizes.
7. Files. Large, small, steel and diamond. These can come new, or used from The Tool Barn.
8. Lastly.....accoutrements.....shape stencils for drawing shapes on silver. Steel wool and dowels. Scissors and Sharpies. Mandrels, mandrels, mandrels. Mallets and more hammers. Shaping tools and stamping tools. Lamps and lights. A stereo system. A comfy place to work at a nice, tall, strong bench.
9. Lots of storage
10.Maybe a polishing wheel, but in general, I don't use these.

Of course, there is more that I am forgetting. But this is a start. To Philadelphia and the soon-to-be studio! (Keep your fingers crossed).

In Stereo

2011-02-12T13:40:00.000-06:00

Antique Stereoscopic Viewer Ad

As a collector of all things old and strange, especially curiousities, I am a huge fan of stereoscopic viewers and cards. Antique stereoscopic cards are easy to find in junk shops and on eBay, and usually they are very cheap. Occasionally you (or your wonderful boyfriend) will find some really special ones that may set you back about $40, but, for the most part, these are wonderful pieces of ephemera that are easy to find and wonderful to explore.

Munising Falls,Grand Island, Michigan

A few years ago, while at home on Mount Desert Island, visiting the family, my mom and I took the tiny ferry to Swans Island and visited Saturn Press, a small letterpress card company that rebuilds and uses antique letterpresses and forms the most beautiful cards that I had ever seen! The other wonderful aspect of Saturn Press was the eccentricity of the owners, who had built the building in the style of the Arts & Crafts era architects Peabody & Stearns. Their house is next door: a perfect replica of a now demolished Kragsyde, a house, well really an estate, previously built in Massachusetts.

While we were there, Jane, the business director, took me on a tour of the second floor of the business, where she showed me file cabinet after file cabinet of ephemera. Along every wall in a gallery-like second floor are file cabinets filled to the brim with old photos, old ads, old trunk labels, etc. An amazing collection, to be sure, and one that inspired me to begin my journey of collecting bits of old paper that others may think of as unimportant.

Charles Street, Boston Common, 1897 - 1904

So...back to the topic at hand. Stereoscopy refers to the process of combining two almost identical images with a viewer so that the human eye combines the images to form a 3-dimensional rendering. The effect is amazing and, when you look at these images in a viewer, you are transported back in time to the place where the photos were taken. Oftentimes, these images were bought as souvenirs from interesting places traveled to, and were brought back and put in boxes for many years, until younger family members find them and, usually, sell them off.

The reason that I love these images so much is definitely part antique-obsession, part time-travel, part addiction-to-past moments. I love the detail of the photos, and how, in many of them, people's faces and actions are captured in a moment in time, a time that came and went over 100 years ago.

Right now I am working on some jewelry projects using these images, but the projects are not quite complete. Stay tuned, and hope, for me and for you, that they capture the beauty of these images in a portable form.

A stereoscopic viewer very similar to the one gifted to me last Christmas

What type of ephemerata are you interested in?

Just for you.....Stereoscopy.com....for more information

2 Things

2011-02-08T23:44:00.000-06:00

Firstly, I am in the process of stopping biting my nails. This is no laughing matter: this is very hard for me. I remember being a little girl and biting my nails. I remember being an adolescent and biting my nails. I remember being a young adult, and then a real young adult, and now a thirty-year-old who still bites her nails. Embarassing.

It is....embarassing. Today I tried on a co-workers great grandmother's engagement ring (because it was just too beautiful, from the early 1900s with a rose-cut diamond in platinum) on my ring finger and my poor, little, chewed off stubby nails thinly veiled in nail polish just looked pitiful. In the vain hope of better jewelry, and perhaps an engagement ring in my far distant future, I realized that it is time.

This realization is akin to the realization I had this past August, after Meredith died, that I had to quit smoking and quit smoking now, and that no amount of drama or mental anxiety justified the habit that I had just watched kill one of the most important people in my life. So, I quit.

And today, I declare that I quit. Day 1 of No More Nail Biting. February 9th, 2011.

And what is the strategy you ask? Well.....it is two-fold.

The first front is dogged self-determination. Self-determination should be my middle name, although the legal middle name is Meliora. (it means to make something better, I think. Meliora was a Celtic war queen who rid her town of smallpox during the Roman invasion.) My friends and family look at me with a sense of bewilderment many times because when I set my cap at something, it generally gets done come hell or high-water. Doom, gloom, but mostly delight and success.

So.....#1 self determination. #2 - knitting.

Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet - in process

I found that when I quit smoking I attacked my nails with a vicious passion. Now, the poor old fingernails are almost gone. That is, until I just taught myself how to yarn-over and knit a cardigan in-the-round from the top down.

This is my strategy --- knit away the nail biting. This will, no doubt, result in a whole new set of orally fixative obsessions. Who knows what that means in the context of knitting, but......

Noro Kureyon in many, many colors. I am making a patchwork-knit blanket.

What's on the DVD Player?
(I just finished Season 5 of Bones and I am dismayed. How is it over?....until the next season is out)
- Julie & Julia

Links por vous:
The Yarn Harlot - knitting, Canada, all the good things together

Lovely Bicycle just started a bicycle parts exchange on her site! Making her bicycle site just a little bit more wonderful

Forgotten Bookmarks is one of my favorite newly found blogs, and not just because I am incredible jealous of the author's job.

P.S. You may be asking - what is the 2nd thing? (I kinda trailed off there). Thing #2 is a project a-brewing between myself and my friend in Philadelphia. We are trying to start a cross-country exchange. Details to follow, but it's in the steeping stages. Let it be known that I am excited! And hoping this is the beginning of more of a dedication on my part to documenting creations....

P.P.S. I have not posted jewelry up here in a donkey's age. This is my fault - it is laziness and technological inefficiency. BUT I just figured out this magical new thing on my camera that makes it much easier to post! So....photos manana. Yo te prometo...

Inspirations vs. Duplications

2010-10-17T11:33:00.001-05:00

Ancient African Jewelry

My friend received a letter yesterday from a rather famous, or at least well-known, jeweler asking her to cease and desist production of several pieces that she claims are direct copies of her own work. While an exact copy is obviously illegal and unethical, especially when labeled as a knockoff, pieces that stem from inspiration from others' works or are just (albeit amazing) accidentally similar, are inevitable, especially in the world of craft jewelry.

Ancient Saxon Ring

This article from The Art Newspaper goes into great detail over this issue: one that really begs the question of how can you sue over inspiration? "...Recently there has been a much greater interest in how copyright law protects visual art and the rights of artists to prevent others from copying their works. This reflects an increasingly advertising-led visual culture and also a greater awareness by rights holders that they have legal rights they can try to enforce. Cases where artists have sued or threatened to sue infringers are increasingly common...".

Bulls at the Cave Paintings in Lascaux, France

As far as any of us knows, jewelry, or personal adornment, has existed for as long as humans have been self-aware. Art itself seems to be something that even the most ancient humans sought to create, whether we can say it was a way of making their mark on their world, or simply a form of decoration, it has existed for many thousands of years, and the problem of the copy is one that I am sure has existed since then. Perhaps there was no moral outrage or path to monetary gain until "civilization" i.e. the exchange of money for goods and services existed, but the idea of artistic plagiarism has always been something that artists have had to deal with.

An example of artistic plagiarism, discussed by Loreen Neville "Latitudes in Transit"

One of my fears as an artist who publishes a website and sells her work to individuals and galleries is that someone will copy my work. But this risk is one that I have to take, because jewelry, like any other product, becomes part of the marketplace of ideas and of commerce as soon as it leaves my studio. While of course I would take issue with a fellow artist who literally copied my work, if someone draws inspiration from my pieces and makes something stemming from that inspiration, I feel that I have no right to tell them to stop. I would hope no one would tell me to stop doing my artwork, either.

I believe the most important thing to remember, when we as artists go out and create and brush off the fear of being copied, or just plain outmoded or rejected, is that only our generation is able to sue others for copyright infringement. We all take inspiration from antique jewelery, whether it is ancient african stone necklaces or gold pendants, Roman beading, granulation, enameling, etc., or Victorian or Art Nouveau artists like Rene Lalique. This inspiration informs our interest, inflames our passions to hone our craft, and enables us to make beautiful jewelry to share with others. Those who are dead, our antique or ancient forbears, cannot travel through time and sue us, only our fellow contemporary, living artists can do that.

Perhaps what is important to remember is artistic ethics are paramount: stick to your own designs and don't copy others. But, if someone draws inspiration from you and designs something a little close to home, remember that it is another push from the ethers to go forth and do better, make something more intricate or interesting, difficult or diverse. Don't fall back on lawyers, keep pushing on with your art.

Speaking of, off I go! - Patience

Nuevos Proyectos....

2010-10-14T22:30:00.000-05:00

I just finished this cuff in a lickety-split amount of time.....less than 6 days! Yes, that may seem like a long time, but when you have another job that requires you to go about 50 hours per week, it means most of the weekend spent in the studio.

Last weekend as I was working away, diligently trying to finish the piece before Monday's UPS deadline, I realized how happy it makes me to be there, to be working with metal. I love teaching, bien sur, but this year especially, the weight of teaching 140 children is, well, a burden. At the end of the day I am very tired, and I have found that the only thing that brings my energy back is to go to the studio and make jewelry for so many hours that I get lost in it.

I dream of the day when I will have my own studio in my own home, when I will hopefully be able to work part-time somewhere outside my house so that I can come back inside my house and make jewelry as my real job. The prospect of moving to Philadelphia being so daunting, I considered getting a second job. Then I realized....why not make that second job working for myself? In that vein, I have spent almost every day there lately, working on production pendants, ordering chain, designing a production line that helps me make more in less time. (I also started an art jewelry piece, but that's another day's story...)

And so...off it goes. The bracelet to Qatar, and me to make new and more wonderful things. I am seeking commissions so please, drop me a line if you are in the market! I am also doing custom sewing again....right now it is a dress inspired by the greatest of all Christmas dresses....

Photo Courtesy of The Face Michelle Pfeiffer

That would be the Michelle Pfeiffer Christmas Tree dress from Grease 2.......inspired, but not copied.

Do I have links today for you??? Do I!!!

Bicycles with Style, from the Sartorialist

Poolga - amazing!!! free!!! Artist-designed wallpapers for your magic mobile device!

Radiolab - Falling - the second story is so...well, you'll have to listen for yourself

Enjoy the Indian Summer before all the leaves fall and we are left with crackly skeletons and cold breezes....

Folding laundry,

Patience

If Only....

2010-10-11T01:12:00.000-05:00

All weekend, I have been working on a very quick turn-around project for the friend of a friend. It's a sterling silver cuff with hammered texture and a pierced design....tomorrow I finish polishing and send it via UPS 2nd Day Air to its destination, Qatar. Truly, this is my first international destination! Life continues to make me gloriously happy....

Whenever I make things for others, it makes me dream of the life I lead where the only job I have is making jewelry. I figure that, in order to be comfortable, I have to make $2000 a month. That is at least 20 pieces per month. I could do this, right?

I dream of my studio....all set up....similar to the current set-up, but in my house. All it would take would be...

1. kiln and enamels
2. soldering torch
3. mini torch
4. a lazy susan or two
5. a crock pot & pickling solution
6. german charcoal & iron zig-zags
7. a third hand
8. a rolling mill
9. a drill press
10. etc, etc......

Ahhhhh the dreams of a studio!!! The dream that is not too far out of reach....Photos manana.....

Now...sleep.......Patience

Cells of Glittering Glass

2010-09-30T23:19:00.002-05:00

Rene Lalique - 1860-1945

Lately, I have been learning how to enamel, specifically focusing on a technique I have loved since I was a little girl: cloisonne. Cloisonne is "an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects, in recent centuries using vitreous, and in older periods also inlays of cut gemstones, glass, and other materials. The resulting objects can also be called cloisonné. The decoration is formed by first adding compartments (cloisons in French) to the metal object by soldering or glueing silver or gold wires or thin strips placed on their edges. These remain visible in the finished piece, separating the different compartments of the enamel or inlays, which are often of several colors."

When I was a little girl, my father traveled alot and was rarely at home. He went all over the world to negotiate big oil deals on deep ocean oil rigs: rigs that were very similar to the one that would come to explode in the Gulf last summer. As a small child, it was hard to understand why our father was never home, and also hard to understand him as a person when he returned, but my brother and I did appreciate all the interesting things he would bring home with him! Later, he stopped traveling, but that is another story.

Enamel by Carl Faberge, Moscow, c. 1905

One of my favorite objets d'art that came home in the black, canvas-strapped suitcases was a large, dark green cloisonne bowl covered with patterns of paisley and dragons and flowers. It had a metal lid and a wooden base. I spent so many hours poring over it, taking it apart into pieces, wiping dust off it, running my fingers over the slightly raised cloisonne wires that covered its surface. My parents still have it, and it still sits, empty on an overstuffed bookshelf.

As an adult, I became fascinated with the Art Nouveau Period in art and design. I think it matches my aesthetic to combine city life with natural elements. If you were to come to my house you would see a hodge-podge of antique furniture and pictures with plants and tiles and strange plates hanging on the walls. One of our greatest heritages, Art Nouveau design and artwork linked the natural world to new technology in craftwork, especially in jewelry. Artists like Rene Lalique and Alphonse Mucha combined their loves for beautiful women, natural elements and the technologies available to them to create stunning pieces of artwork and jewelry. It is my dream one of these days to see some of their works in person....I cannot believe that you can walk through the museums of Paris and Prague and find whole rooms that Mucha designed!

La Primevere, Alphonse Mucha

Well....I digress. In my studio, lately, I have embarked on a long and no doubt laborious pursuit of cloisonne enameling. I think the jump into cloisonne stems from a desire to recreate and reinterpret the objects of childhood that I found so fascinating. I definitely have a sensibility that lends itself to making things rather than just buying them. Also, I find that lots of people think that cloisonne is just those round, brightly colored Chinese beads that you can find at any mass-market hobby store, but of course, like all other things, it is not.

Unfortunately, The Borrowers have been in my tiny little cottage and have made off with my camera cable so I can't show you what I am working on till they bring it back (tomorrow would be nice...), but suffice it to say, it is an experimental pendant that looks vaguely like a spider's web. In future, I would like to extend cloisonne to be a little bit more flowy, less constricting as far as creating cells and spaces. It seems like cloisonne wire could be used to just suggest the feeling of eddies on a pond surface, perhaps, or the vaguely-visible trunks of fir trees on a mountain top.

Anyway, I now have a wishlist of items that I need for my own studio in order to fully explore enameling and really see where cloisonne, and other techniques, can take me. I love the ability to combine color and depth, translucence and grain to metal. Being a jeweler that often does not use stones, it is absolutely amazing to find a technique that uses color but still uniquely highlights the metal itself.

Wishlist!!!

Kiln - Paragon Q11-A. Perfect size, low power use, great temperature control, and recommended by the wondrous Joanna Nealey

Enamels - a selection of opaques and transparents from Enamelwork Supply Co. or Thompson Enamel

Tools - Sifters, trivets, stainless steel mesh, spatulas, paint brushes, scissors and tweezers

Materials - Cloisonne wire in fine silver, gold, and copper (just to see what happens), foils and patterned sheets for texture, Klyr-fire for wet-packing and "sticking" enamels to clean surfaces, and of course the chemical whose name I have forgotten that stops firescale from showing up on your counter-enamel surface...

This stuff won't run me but about $700.....and that 30th birthday is just around the corner.....where are you, benefactors? ;-) More photos to come soon, but for now it's....

Off to dreamland, (but first....check out this great jewelry blog!!! Talking Jewellery)

Patience

Daydreaming of the Future....

2010-09-27T11:18:00.001-05:00

Images Courtesy of Urban75.org

Today is the most beautiful day of 2010. Well, not really I suppose, but the nicest that I can remember after many months of amazing, incredible Texas heat. Our first (albeit baby-sized) cold front came in yesterday afternoon and last night the Mad Cyclist and I took a bicycle cruise through central Austin and were downright cold (!) when biking home at midnight. 57 gloriously crisp degrees came floating in through the windows all night.

I took the day off today to visit my local USCIS office and renew my much expired Greencard. When I made the decision to move back home to the Northeast about a year ago, I realized I was going to have to transfer my teacher certification to another state. I went ahead and looked at my Greencard only to realize it had expired last year! Oopppsssss...this morning when I was being interviewed and asked if I was missing any fingers (what?), my interviewer looked at the card and said, "so...it expired in August of '09?" I smiled.

Surprisingly short and sweet, I was in and out of the office within 30 minutes. The last time I renewed, in 1999, I renewed at a huge INS Office in downtown Houston, where the building and the line around 2 sides of the building was so long that the adventure took all day. I suppose that one of the benefits of our ramping up of Military Power post-9/11 is that the process is a bit more streamlined and, it seems, designed to reward those who are trying to do the right thing.

So.....here I am, in the backgarden of my cottage, wishing I had a really nice table to write this upon, but resting the laptop on my knees and staring at the newly washed fabric destined for baby clothes is not so bad. Getting the Greencard renewed means that I can actually start my Out of State Prepared application to transfer certification, and get myself one step closer to actually getting a job in the School District of Philadelphia, or one of the surrounding impoverished burroughs, and try to make my mark on public school in a large, urban district. It is my hope that somehow I can make a difference there and start to fundamentally change the course of public education. It's a small goal, but....

Today, though, I find myself utterly distracted by the romantic angle of moving to another place: a city which will be foreign to me, where I will have to explore and make my own experience absent of long-time friends and well-worn city routes. I am very excited about this. I love Austin, but have lived here for 12 years and see it as my college place, my small city, my urban oasis in a state of crazy, backwards conservatism and over-dependence on cars and big-box stores. Philadelphia, being the old, old, old city that it is, with its history of American idealism, history of civil rights leadership, proximity to the ocean and New York City and D.C.. strikes me as a wonderful place full of opportunity. People keep telling me that I am crazy to want to teach public school there, and maybe I am, but I think of all places in the United States, Philly needs and may be more open to progressive ideals in education. (Check back with me in 2 years about that). As always, I wear my heart on my sleeve and, as many colleagues say to me, "hope springs eternal" in this mind of mine.

The other things that excite me about living in a city like Philadelphia are: being a part of one of the oldest American cities, visiting ancient (to the U.S.) museums, biking through a huge city that is almost totally flat, going to the banks of the Delaware River and trying to imagine what it must have looked like to people during the American Revolution, witnessing the impacts of de-facto segregation, the flight of manufacturing jobs, and the resulting "suburbs" that instead of looking like swathes of identical homes stretching in perfect tracts away from city centers of Wal-Mart, Target, and other strip mall enterprises, look like old, worn-out, tired factory towns desperate for.....something. I don't know what it will be......only that it will be a Behemoth.

Today I found this entry on Atlas Obscura, one of my favorite websites for all places weird and interesting, and now have many more places to add to my itinerary for the first summer in Philly, Summer 2011. The plan is to move up sometime in June, and therefore have 2 months or so to explore the city while still getting paid from the lovely and obliging Austin Independent School District. Ahhh the joys of the summers off.

This morning, I heard that President Obama wants to extend our school year by a month, a policy that I totally support, especially in Title 1 schools like mine. I hope that he is able to convince teacher unions that this is a necessary change, and that they accept this change with an agreement to raise teacher pay significantly in order to accomplish this. I would teach an extra month for about $5,000 more, being that my current monthly salary is $3,300 before taxes and everything else that gets taken out of our checks. I think that most teachers would do this as well. I hope....

Lately, I have been struggling with teachers on my campus that seem to only want to collect a paycheck and not do what is best for the students themselves. I find that alot of older teachers are this way; they have been doing the job for such a long time, sometimes 30+ years, that they find the institutional and cultural changes that are happening to be threatening and annoying, and refuse to comply at the expense of their campuses and the learning levels of their students. I am not saying that old teachers should be kicked out of the classroom, but if they are unwilling to accept change and especially adapt to the ways of learning research is showing kids need, then they should retire and give someone else a go.

I suppose here I am again, daydreaming about the idealistic possibility of future greatness: a greatness that I truly believe has a probability of success if more people believe in it as well. For today, though, all I can dream about is the new life that is coming down the path toward me, and start that out of state prepared application!!!

Procrastinating with coffee and sitting in the sunshine,

Patience

Links pour vous!!!

America's Oldest Operating Theater in the Philadelphia Hospital

The huge Masonic Temple of Philadelphia

Beside the Curtis Center lies the Tiffany Glass Mural "The Dream Garden", a place that just rocketed to #1 on my list of attractions, being a combination of Tiffany Glass and Maxfield Parrish design

Isaiah Zagar's Philadelphia's Magic Gardens....no doubt akin to the Watts Towers in spirit, also no doubt to be one of my favorite places in my new city....all of the photos in this post are of this public space.

Old Fashioned

2010-09-25T22:52:00.000-05:00

My sister had her first baby last month....on August 7th. Since then, I have had lofty plans for baby, including quilt making, pillows, blankets, whole outfits....and have even bought patterns for vintage baby booties and a winter suite.

But there is always a difference between what you want to make and what actually gets made when one factors in time and energy and screaming hoardes of 7th graders that keep you at your job 10 hours a day.

I digress.....

I made these over the past week or so and they are beautiful!!! I love their simplicity, their softness and the cuteness of my appliques.

Until this morning, when I finally trekked over the post office to send them off, these baby bibs were an explosion of cuteness in my living room. I loved every minute of making them....ok, that is a lie. Sewing the rib knit into the neck of each was kind of a pain, but did get easier with each one I made.

I decided to make 8, mostly because the hand towels came in packages of 4 at Target. Here's how you do it....

1. Fold your towel one third of the way down and mark this line with pins.
2. Cut a 5" circle in the middle of this line...this is your head hole. I found a bowl in my kitchen that was 5".
3. Cut a piece of rib knit (in the knits section of Jo-Ann's) 3" by 10 5/8". Sew the ends together to make a circle. Then fold in half.
4. Pin this into the circle cut out of the towel, centering along your fold line and marking each fourth equally. Mark each fourth of the rib knit with pins. Match the pins. You will need to stretch the rib knit to make this work. Don't be nervous about stretching it.
5. Sew with your sewing machine using a very small stitch length, a zig-zag stitch, or by serging. (I wish I had a serger).
6. Revel in the adorable baby bib you now have!!!

7. Now for the appliques. Get about 1/2 yard of Wonder Under and follow directions using your favorite contrasting applique fabric. I used flannel with snakes and lizards and bees.
8. Cut out whatever shapes you like and iron them onto the baby bibs.
9. Embroider around the edges for maximum strength. Use a line stitch with 3 threads of embroidery thread. You may NOT want to use flannel because I noticed that sometimes it frayed and I am worried about applique longevity.

Behold!!! The adorable-ness.....

I think the owl is a little cock-eyed....but it's handmade, right???

I hope you enjoyed the Guide to Making Old Fashioned Towel Baby Bibs. And I hope the mom and baby you make them for loves them more.....

On to making baby booties,

Patience

Links por vous....

The Value of Repetition in Education from Toxic Culture

Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur is now available as a free high-res download via Wikimedia Commons

More on Nita and Zita, creative maestras and muses of New Orleans

The Nezinscot Guild, beautiful wooden boxes, "providing employment to people with developmental disabilities, autism, mental illness and traumatic brain injuries, in a successful small business."

Creeping Toward the Fall

2010-09-18T11:23:00.002-05:00

Hamilton Pond is just across Route 3 from Salisbury Cove, Maine, my family's stomping grounds and, in general, my favorite place in the world (so far). This pond is home to super scary alligator snapping turtles and the beautiful, eerie call of loons in spring and summer, and completely freezes in winter, becoming a community skating spot....though, in warmer winters, sometimes you don't want to go skating there unless you want a very cold bath!

As the weather in central Texas slowly, slowly, sometimes at a molasses' pace, creeps toward fall, every morning I wake up hopeful that I will feel the coolness, the difference in smells on the wind, and the sounds of crisp leaves about to litter the road. This morning, the coolness was there but I can tell it's still a tease! Where are you Autumn, most beautiful season of our year?

Yesterday afternoon, after I pulled myself from school at 5 o'clock, I went out with some friends for a celebratory Friday cocktail, and as I was returning to the car, I noticed a huge vine of Old Man's Beard growing on the fence. This plant has been one of my absolute favorites for many years, and I am hopeful it will grow in the Northeast as well. Its flowers are always a sign to me that fall is a-comin'! I learned last night while I never have been a fan of Mexican Martinis, but that is another story...

The day at the Casita is shaping up to be a quiet one of embroidering baby bibs, a jaunt to the post office, repotting some houseplants, and planning the fall garden. I need to make a trip to the Natural Gardener, but am trying to be a good girl and save my pennies until I get paid in a week or so....I made the unlucky discovery last week that I was issued a ticket last year, which was sent to my old address and therefore I never received it. Well, the police called and said they were going to lock me up in the pokey unless I paid up! So pay up I did, alot, and now need to cool my heels in the capitalistic realm....

Loon Calls

and some Humpback Whale songs....

Dreaming about being on my island,

Patience

Here are some links por vous!

- The stunningly beautiful and talented Lulu Letty....she also has a wonderful Etsy shop!

- Check out all the wonderful guest posts over at Let's Go Ride a Bike, and then read all the regular posts too!

- I am making a bunch of these for my sister and baby today!

- The Homesick Texan posts an easy recipe for my favorite Mexican dish, Chiles en Nogada!

- I am officially in love with Creature Comforts

- FYI.....the Texas A&M guide to vegetable gardening in Central Texas

Updating....

2010-08-08T15:32:00.003-05:00

Just updated my jewelry website, making it, I hope, more user friendly for art fans and gallery-owners alike!

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Meliora Designs

Nap-Time....

2010-08-07T16:08:00.000-05:00

It is a slow day around nuestra casita....

I, like others, are dreaming of fall days, nights, and mornings. I miss the crispness of the air, the golden-quality of the light, and the way everything smells different. This morning I was struck by the anticipation of snow; in one year, I will be living in Philadelphia and watching the trees begin to think about changing into fall colors, and slowly, but surely, bring in the winter. I can't wait for snow, even though I know its companion is nasty, dirty icy slush!

Anyway....this is where I would like to nap this afternoon. After my nap, I intend to write a proper post detailing developments here at Meliora Designs, most especially including my newly-repaired beautiful sewing machine. Until then....

Ditte Isager for Bloomingdales

Links pour vous....

Nervous System - Experimental Jewelry

Random Banksy - in Alabama?

Drool......the J. Crew Fall Lookbook

Skirt Guard Design

2010-07-28T09:58:00.001-05:00

This morning it is rainy and gorgeous and I can almost convince myself that summer is winding down.....even though I know summer is here for at least 6 more weeks, it feels great to have no A/C on, door open, listening to the rain fall and the cars speed by, gliding on water.

I have been working on designing the skirt guard. I am using Gimp2, a free Photoshop-esque program (because I cannot rationalize the $400 for the real program [education discount]). It does ALMOST everything that Photoshop does, but has some quirks that I can't figure out.....like the magic wand tool? Where is it???

Anyhow....latest developments....

The image is actually 24" x 30" right now which is almost right. Next steps are: resizing to perfect proportion, go to Kinko's and print on large format paper, cut out and trace onto cardboard, et voila! A pattern for fabulous, vintage-style skirt guards for me and my friends. Off I go to the land of many copiers!

New Work, New Ideas

2010-07-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

Here we are in jewelry land, where the earrings I made many weeks ago finally appear for all of their fans! These earrings are on their way to FX-18 in Taos, New Mexico! My friend Libby, lately of Taos but formerly of Austin, runs the show over there in that little gallery and I hope she is super successful, and despite some issues of getting the pieces there, they all sell and we all make lots o' bucks and people wear beautiful jewelry that they love!!!

On to the pics.....there are more to come, tomorrow, as I also have completed a pair of custom-made earrings that were featured in an earlier post...

Double Ovals - Textured Sterling Silver with 18 Karat Gold Earwires & Jump-rings

Large Polygon & Oval -Sterling Silver & 18 Karat Gold

Triple Oval - Sterling Silver & 18 Karat Gold

Small Polygon & Rectangle - Sterling Silver & 18 Karat Gold

Keum Boo Rectangles - 24 Karat Gold, Sterling Silver, & 18 Karat Gold

Wish me luck! I am sending these new earrings with some older, bigger pieces. I hope they all sell and make some customers very happy! Unique jewelry for all!!!!

In other news....I have decided to try my hand at making some larger metal-work pieces. Lately, I have been somewhat obsessed with cycling blogs, custom frame builders, and really great cycling accessories. I have also found that there is a growing market of womyn seeking great bling for their bikes and I am excited to enter into this market.

Here comes the newest project: the Meliora Designs Skirt Guard.

An antique Elgin Skylark Skirt Guard from the 1940's

Upon reading about beautiful Dutch-style bikes and deciding that I *desperately* covet one, I realized I have to save up the almost $2000 to buy one. Most of these bikes come with skirt guards, beautiful pieces of metal or leather that guard women's skirts from being snagged in the rear wheels of their bikes while commuting.

I searched the internet for skirt guards for an entire weekend, finally finding one at Morgan Imports for $10. Part of me said, "wow! $10???" and the other part of me says, "How about I make one myself?" I am a skilled, well-dressed weldress of copper, brass, steel, iron, silver and gold, so why the hell not???

As the future progresses, I will post up pictures here of my progress in making copper and brass skirt guards. After that, I plan to branch out into copper and brass chainguards, and then........I would like to make my own bike! That's right. I said it.........

Stay tuned!

Links pour vous!!!

Yum Yum Yum Yum.....Bacon Couscous?

Cycle and Style - An Online Women's Cycling Magazine

New Shoes!!! Check OUT those Timberlands!

Un Peu de la Deep South

2010-07-21T18:00:00.001-05:00

Photo from the oh-so-wonderful Morbid Anatomy

In two weekends, the Mad Cyclist and I will hop into the new car for our first road trip together, a la New Orleans. About a handful-and-a-half of my oldest friends are converging on the city for a weekend of seeing each other, now older, now with wives and husbands and pets and children or just with ourselves. I can't wait! I haven't seen some of these friends for years and years, and we are sprinkled and flung all over the country doing half a dozen different tasks. These people are friends from those formative years; they are the people who I associate with so many big events, and they all fundamentally changed the way I saw the world and the way I speak.

Needless to say, I am very excited. I haven't been to New Orleans since the summer after I graduated from high school, when I hopped in a rented Lincoln Town Car with a friend who I thought then was a boyfriend, but I now know never really was. We were headed to see Phish in Atlanta (of course), and decided to stop the night in a somewhat seedy motel in New Orleans and see the sights. He was 30, I was 18, wide-eyed and putting up a pretty good front of knowing what the hell was going on. We walked around, I had my fortune told, we got beignets and coffee from Cafe du Monde. I honestly don't remember it very well. I do remember going there for debate tournaments in high school as well, and going to bars with our debate coach that had peanut shells all over the floor.

But this trip will be all different as I will remember it fondly and go with the man I love and see many people I will always love. We are staying at Ursuline Guest House, which came to me upon recommendation from a friend and native New Orleanian. I am very excited about bed & breakfast and afternoon wine and cheese!

Of course, we are bringing bicycles with which to navigate the city. It seems the wise thing to do, being that everyone suggests that we drink mad amounts of cocktails (much better than driving - plus, we want to experience the city not drive through it!). Since we'll be in the French Quarter, I think we'll be really close to pretty much anything....

My hopes are to find some really interesting, weird places during our 2 and a half days there....such as, gnarly old antique shops, the old house of Nita & Zita, delicious drinks in strange bars, and decrepit beaches. Any suggestions? On Friday night, we are all meeting up for dinner at Oceana Grill, a restaurant that looks, at least from its menu, delicious.

OK....well with all this impending adventure, it is time to run off to the studio and pour some ingots for the jewelry making. I have lots of new ideas, not enough time....such is life.

Links pour vous!!!

{SUCKA PANTS} Incredible photography

She's Crafty A short essay on the womyn's posts in the blogosphere

Zucchini and Ricotta Galette As soon as it gets cooler in the kitchen and I can turn on the oven again....

Snake and Jakes This place looks promising....

Cities of the Dead!!! Cemetery tours by me on foot? Yes please!!!

Exit Through the Gift Shop....?

2010-07-18T17:12:00.001-05:00

Last night, the Mad Cyclist and I went to go and see the Banksy film, "Exit Through the Gift Shop". I have been a fan of Banksy's street art for many years, since my friend Mercedes who lives in Mexico but hails from the UK, told me about him. We spent many hours in her house trolling the internet for picture after picture of his graffiti art. The first time I saw his work, it was the paintings he had done in New Orleans after the waters of Hurricane Katrina had pulled back, and I was stunned! How was one man able to inspire that many thoughts by simple stenciling? It was the beauty of working within the cracks of the city and the cracks of the psyches of the cities' inhabitants....

So...you get the idea. Go forth into the interwebs and find more of his stuff and be amazed!

....when I was a senior in college, I went to New York City with my then-boyfriend. We spent several days walking around the city, and I spent most of my time looking at the walls of old buildings and photographing all the street art that was EVERYWHERE. As you walk through New York, you can't help but see glued-down posters of beautiful things, traditional spray-paint graffiti, and many more styles of late-night artwork that people have put up to decorate their neck of the woods. Here in Austin, my favorite street art has now been painted over, but it was a series of stick figures falling down the side of a parking garage in downtown.

I couldn't find a picture of it on the internet, but did find this photo of Austin's most iconic street art...the Hi, How Are You creature by Daniel Johnston.

Painted sometime in the 1990s when this store was a record store staffed by misanthropes, the manager, Craig Koon, paid Daniel $50 to paint the painting on the side of the building. Daniel promptly went around the corner to the Eckerds and spent all the money on candy. In the past, this painting was surrounded by many other graffiti-style street paintings, including an amazing Frank Kozik painting of alien armadillos gnashing their teeth, and a grainy rendition of Jack Nicholson's "Here's Johnny!" scene from "The Shining". All but Daniel Johnston's painting was covered up or removed when Sound Exchange closed in 2004; pretty funny since this "iconic painting" was simply a doodle painted on a random afternoon, and is no more or less important than the other artwork that graced the walls of the now-defunct Sound Exchange.

So...getting back to "Exit Through the Gift Shop". I wanted to see this film because it seemed to me it would be some sort of amazing documentary about the street art movement, and it was, but it also seems like a new Banksy joke. The story documents Thierry Guetta's rise as a defacto documentarian of street graffiti artists in the early 2000s. Thierry, a French man, is cousin to Space Invader, an artist famous for putting up small panels of mosaic characters from the Space Invader video game. Thierry, a vintage clothing seller, became obsessed with street art and, seemingly, abandoned his family and business to rove around the world filming people painting and postering cities. His footage is comprehensive and amazing; he seemed to be very brave and very invested in his work. But later we learn that he was doing nothing with his footage except boxing it up and storing it in his house....

Time passes. Banksy and Thierry become friends. Thierry lives in London for a time, it seems, and helps Banksy with some of his stuff. Banksy encourages Thierry to make his footage into a film finally as it is the time when street art becomes "hip" and collectable, and many people start buying what used to be just graffiti. Thierry's film is terrible, so Banksy sends him back to LA but keeps his footage.

The mystery begins. Banksy sends Thierry back home and tells him "why don't you have a little art show". Thierry, being the mildly obsessive man that he is, decides to change himself into Mr Brainwash and have the hugest gallery show of "street art" ever seen in the U.S. or anywhere else. But the trick is, Thierry isn't making any of the art. Supposedly, he mortgages his house, hires a crew of 20 or so people, starts making art on Photoshop and large scale screenprinting machines, and calls it street art.

So here's the thing. Thierry is nuts and is disorganized, makes all his employees furious with frustration, is a megalomaniac, and ultimately, is not really an artist. He has no craft, no process, no timeline of work. He simply sees an opportunity and hires college students to produce posters on a grand scale. BUT, he makes over $1 million dollars in the first four days of his show. Earlier in the movie, Banksy states that his frustration with the moment when street art became commodified and auction houses like Christie's were auctioning work that, in its natural state, would have been on a wall in a city somewhere, is that "all of a sudden, it became all about the money and it was never about the money".

My contention with this film is that it is a mockumentary; a film designed to show how ridiculous it is that street art became collectible, that we do not really appreciate art, only stuff to hang on our walls. That we can be told that anyone is a huge "underground" artist and believe it, buy it, support something totally fabricated. Mister Brainwash's show, Life is Beautiful, is marketed so skillfully that it becomes advertised on the cover of L.A. Weekly. Thousands of people attend and buy "artwork" created on computers, artwork with a style that is stolen from many other artists.

I think that the power of Banksy's artwork out on the street is that it makes us think about assumptions we make about spaces and people, about politics and decision-making. He makes people think about why are these things the way they are, and could they be different? Why is it problematic to live in a society that maims, kills, hunts, tortures, bombs, and controls the world (and I am linking up the UK and US here), but yet pretend that our governments are by the people, for the people? Why is it wrong for us to not look deeper? I think his film is successful in that, if you get this level of it. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think that, alot like the damask-printed elephant from his L.A. show several years ago, he has placed something huge and immovable in front of our faces: the truth of our insatiable desire to have, to contain, to hold and own things that are, ultimately, meaningless.

Pimp My Ride

2010-07-18T04:47:00.001-05:00

For the last week, I have been teaching summer school. Teaching summer school was a deal I made with myself this past year when I made the decision to relocate to the Northeast next summer: I needed extra dough. And then, I bought a new car and extra dough also needs to be applied to the impending doom that is the car payment!

But....my newish hobby is bicycle riding. Dating a Mad Cyclist who clocks about 200 miles a week on his various bikes means that I have more of a reason to bicycle, and since I am the woman that I am, I like to decorate and detail all of my possessions. And so....I have decided to pimp my ride and make my basic post-apocalyptic librarian bike the best bike it can be....

Here is what I started with, 4 years ago...

The KHS Urban-X is your average, run of the mill hybrid bike that is great for commuting and bopping around town. At about $400, it is an affordable bicycle for a public school teacher. Downsides to this bike are: sizing is S, M, L, meaning that you cannot get a frame sized for your exact height. I also bought one that is a M when I really needed a L, but I digress. Other downsides are the saddle is terrible and plastico-fantastico, and the handlebars are mountain-bike style with rubber grips, meaning they hurt your wrists if you are mildly arthritic, like me, and the rubber is sticky, sweaty, and not pretty.

The plan:

I replaced the crappy original saddle about a year ago with a saddle called The Seat, which is actually designed as a nose-less saddle for men. I like it alot because it forces you to work your abdominals while you ride, but it is not the prettiest or possibly the best saddle for riders like me. So.....here comes the Brooks B18 Lady Saddle...

At about $150 each, these saddles are not cheap. But, they do have an almost unlimited lifetime, are handmade in England, soften over time to fit your butt perfectly, and this one specifically is designed for women off an original Edwardian-era saddle design.

On to....handlebars....

When it comes to handlebars, right now the Urban-X has mountain-bike style straight-ish handlebars with just a slight curve. This not only is not super comfortable, but doesn't really fit with the geometry of the bike. So, I plan to change them to....

The classic, European-style curved back handlebars. These are pretty typical on the new-vintage-style bikes really popular at the moment. They are comfortable to handle while riding and give your back and shoulders a relaxed posture while riding. A new bar will run you from $60 - $100. I also plan to install the Brooks grips shown above, for about $50, and if for some reason that does not work out, I will install cork or leather grips.

Here come the......accessories...

Panniers

The Axiom Grocery Bag Panniers are great for many reasons. First, they are cheap at about $50 a pair. Secondly, they fit a standard grocery bag in each side, and lastly, they are waterproof and quick release with Velcro.

Lights....

The Sunlite Low Rider Bullet Headlight retails for about $25 and has a great vintage look. I'll either use this one or an LED equivalent.

And lastly.....the bike basket....

The Nantucket Bike Basket company does a really great job recreating antique-style bike baskets that are high quality and cost only about $40. This basket is the perfect size for the front handlebars and will carry a purse, small collection of groceries, or possibly, a chihuahua!!!

Right now I am working on finishing the Pimp My Ride process. I am guesstimating that my entire renovation of my bicycle will cost me approximately the same cost it did to buy originally. Meaning....total cost is about $850. Finished photos to follow....

For right now....links pour vous!

Frivolous Lola.....pretty Italian girl bicycling with her undies showing!

http://lovelybike.blogspot.com/ Lovely Bicycle is my new favorite bicycle blog...

http://www.thebicyclemuse.com/ The Bicycle Muse - Cycle Accessories to Inspire

Fence Sitter Treasury!

2010-06-29T23:17:00.002-05:00

My barbed wire ring has been included in an Etsy Treasury!

Find it here....Fence Sitter by Stella Pearl on Etsy

One Who Is Transitory

2010-06-28T16:23:00.001-05:00

is one like me. I travel, alot. At least I think of my traveling schedule as frequent, and therefore, fun. I like traveling: seeing new places, meeting new people, and visiting with old friends. It helps that my family lives across the country from me (I am in Texas and they are on an island in Maine).

This morning, while on my first leg from Austin to Washington D.C., I was chewing a piece of gum and wanted to be a "good" passenger and find a piece of paper to put the ol' piece in. I dug through the pocket in front of me and discovered the ubiquitous barf bag. Little did I know till this morning that barf bags are actually made of plastic! and do not want to tear easily....no matter, turned out I had a scrap of something in my purse.

Right now I am stuck in Washington-Dulles International Airport due to some nasty thunderstorms that keep zipping and zapping around the atmospheres. Whenever I fly I feel uprooted and have a hard time remembering where I am during the in-between times. It's as if I know where I have been, and I think I know where I am going, but I am never sure that is really the place until I get there.

Clip from the documentary "Rivers and Tides" about Andy Goldsworthy

When I first saw the documentary above, I was struck that Mr. Goldsworthy shared alot of the same opinions as myself in the sense of feeling "plucked out" of my world when I travel and plunked down somewhere new. He says in the film that it takes him a little while to reconnect with where he is, and that process of reconnection often involves creating a sculpture in the place.

For me, my reconnection ritual is to take a walk alone, with no IPod or book, nothing to distract, just a walk around to feel the air and smell the smells, hear the birds and discover something secret about the place I am in. Even though I travel to my island at least twice a year, I still do this, and every time I find something small and new.

How do you feel when you travel? Is it exhilirating? Debilitating? Enabling? Confusing? A little bit of all of these?

Links for a rainy traveling day...

Art Donovan Home Design

Madagascar Politico Update - no we're not talking the movie, folks

Le Love! how I love this blog....it helps, I think, that I am in le love...

The Selby...is in your place! When I have my crazy house in Philly up and running, I have a dream of The Selby coming to photograph my haus...

Chase a Day! Thunder and Lightning!

Cancer in the South

2010-06-20T02:41:00.002-05:00

The last three years have been a doozy. Death, birth, divorce, marriage, new relationships, oil spills, hypercommunication...sometimes I wonder if I didn't spend all this darn time on Facebook, that I would get alot more done. I used to feel so much more engaged in my world; now I just feel as if all of these things are just happening and I am no longer inextricably linked to their outcomes.

Cancer is the leading cause of death for those people under the age of 85!?!?!?!?!

I have a friend who is sick with cancer: she's 59 years old. Since she does not have health insurance, and does not fall within the convenient categories of Womanhood defined and declared by the state of Texas, she has to make less than $208 dollars per month in order to qualify for Medicaid services. One might ask: how did that panel of government statisticians determine that $6.94 per day makes actual sense as far as living in today's world. I ask you: how many of you have heard of an apartment that costs $50 per month to rent? Not to mention all the other costs, like electricity, water, natural gas, telephones.

How is $208 per month a realistic cut-off for income for women between the ages of 45 and 65? I sat with my friend in the ER yesterday and when I asked the ER doctor if she could really look at this woman and not immediately admit her for treatment, she said, "I don't understand all of this stuff. There is nothing we can do for her here, but she can talk to the social worker." The social worker said, "well, MAP may not be great, but at least...."

Then a nurse told us that it was time to move to France.

So here's my question. In a state where apparently we don't need Federal funds for education or pretty much anything else, how are we letting people just die because they are SOL for insurance?

I am choosing to move to another state at the end of next school year to be closer to my family and to expand my teaching horizons. I know, also, that the state I am moving to has put in a policy plan to make situations like my friend's here in Texas impossible there. Living in Texas and living in the South is a consistent reminder that those people in power have little to no regard for actual people's welfares. They do not care that my friend is 59, dying of cancer and has no insurance. In their minds, it is her fault that she is in this situation at all.

Or at least that's how I see it. You may disagree with me, but give me good arguments.

Links pour vous!

The Southern Educational Foundation report that states today the South is the only region in the nation where low income students are 50 percent or more of public school enrollment.

Huffington Post's BP Oil Spill: 7 Secrets BP Doesn't Want You To Know

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Texas has the nation’s highest percentage of uninsured residents.

According to Rankings & Estimates, produced by the National Education Association Research group (May 2004), current expenditures per pupil in Texas are $7,330 for 2003-04. The national average, by comparison, is $8,156. This ranks Texas 32nd among the states in spending per pupil.

The Mysterious Oklahoma Octopus

2010-05-30T13:52:00.000-05:00

Image by Bernardo Barbi via the CG Society.

Last night, I went with some friends to the Queer Dance Party at Cheer Up Charlie's on East 6th Street, a precursor to next weekend's Queer Bomb. As the night wore on, and many Glass Elevators (a concoction of sake and kombucha...not my thing. I stuck to beer.) had been imbibed, we started talking about Octopi. The origin of this discussions stemmed from my new Keum-Boo earrings, which were rolled over an etched drawing of an octopus to get the effect in the silver and gold.

As we began our discussion of the ins and outs and amazements of octopi, my new friend told me about the Oklahoma Octopus, a much mythologized creature who lives in three lakes in central Oklahoma and attacks and kills swimmers from the depths. He believes that the octopus stems from a need to explain the abnormally high numbers of swimmers who die in these lakes' waters.

As we spoke about the mystery that is octopi, I told him about my trip to the Edgar Allen Poe House in Philadelphia, and how I met a wonderful park ranger there who was very knowledgeable about Mr. Poe and all of his literary diversions, one of which being animals who live in the depths. It is her belief, and it is a belief shared by many, that Poe originated Science Fiction as a genre in modern short stories, and one of these included a character of an octopus-like creature who lived in the swirling gyres of the North Sea.

Granted, Poe had never been on a boat in the roaring depths of a cold sea like the North Sea, but as was evident in much of his work, he was an avid reader of newspapers and had a galloping imagination that could always connect the dots between his imaginings and stories from around the world.

Octopi seem to be so interesting to us because we don't understand how these creatures can live at the bottom of the ocean or at the top, how they can change color and mimic their surroundings, how they can open doors and latches better than some humans, and how they can stretch their bodies to move through spaces the size of our big toes! Historically, it seems that we have used these creatures, creatures we struggle with understanding and simply must stand in awe of, as characters who haunt cold or empty waterholes, who will clamber up on submarines and ships, who will suck the life out of us with their giant tentacles.

Octopus Ballet

Ye Olde...

2010-05-26T20:48:00.000-05:00

My workplace is embroiled in lots of drama of late. The principal of my school seems to have an attitude of aggressive contempt and dislike for the older teachers, and is doing everything he can to both deny their feelings and to intimidate them when they are brave enough to speak.

I mean, don't get me wrong....there are some teachers at our school, and I am sure at all other schools, who need to retire, who are hanging on just to hang on, who don't have anything else but teaching, who are afraid of the next step because this step has lasted so long. To them I say: tough beans buddy! Change is the only constant, and if you refuse to adapt to changes in children and policy, it's time to move along....

But, in the case of this specific situation, it does interest me that when I looked around at the group of newly hired teachers who surrounded me in the library last August, that all of us looked the same. We each had that quirky sexy librarian style, all had about the same length hair, all were about 30, and all were white. This was the part that struck me as really odd: the whiteness. I had just come from a campus where white teachers and administrators were the minority, but most of us were young.

So, I have been in union meetings for the last 3 days, trying to decide a strategy of communication and solution, and every time I look around at the ladies who sit with me, who are older than me and have so much more experience than me, it really makes me think of age, and its benefits and weaknesses. What I see in these ladies is wisdom coupled with a fear that their "time is up", that their wisdom is no longer respected, and that their personhood is no longer acknowledged as positive or even acceptable.

As I sit in these meetings, I wonder if I can do this job for this many years? If these women sat in meetings like these thirty years ago and looked around at the elder teachers of their age and wondered the same things?

In 6 months I will be 30 years old! 30 years old, 5 years as a teacher, still asking all these questions that have no answers. Still wanting solutions to all of these problems. Still fired up with righteous indignation, still geared toward changing policy, still cute, and energetic, and, for the moment, quietly observant.

Mortality, beautifully

Links pour vous!

Amazing live video from BP of the ever-changing efforts to stem the worst oil spell in history

Art:21 - Barbara Kruger

BrainsBreaker is a great site where you can make all of your photos into puzzles, either really easy or really difficult. I like it for really late at night when I am bored and restless...

Insects and Screen Doors

2010-05-20T21:37:00.001-05:00

Painting by Randy Elrod

I had a brilliant quote in mind for here, the beginning of this post, but alas, there are all of these june bugs and beetles, mosquitoes and mosquito hawks, buzzing through the living room and they distracted me...

At this time of the year, the heat of summer is just creeping in on the edges of the atmosphere, as if seeping under a doorway into the days and nights of life. On these nights that waffle between being still and sweltering and refreshing and cool with nighttime breezes, I leave both doors open and allow the winds and the insects to invade and fly around the house in swirls. It is better than air conditioning.

It reminds me of a favorite book of mine, A Girl of the Limberlost, a book about a lonely but driven young woman who struggles with a haunted mother and a quest to better herself by hunting the swamp surrounding her family's land for moths and arrowheads and selling her treasures to the Bird Woman. In the book, the Bird Woman is, assumedly, a scientist or at least a natural historian working on the history of the Limberlost Swamp. Her character is interesting, aloof, rich and mysterious. I have often wondered while reading this book who her character is based on.

Of course there are many bird women....

The Sirens...

Sacajawea

Buffalo-Bird Woman

and many more, including...

"Kurangaituku (the Birdwoman) was as big as a tree and her fingernails were so long she used them as spears. As she was out hunting for food she spied a pigeon sitting in a tree. As she speared the pigeon with her fingernails Hatupatu, who was on the other side of the tree, speared the same pigeon.

Upon seeing Hatupatu, Kurangaituku decided to capture him alive and keep him as a mokai (pet) for she had never seen a male human before.

Kurangaituku treated Hatupatu very well bringing him all the food that he could eat and keeping him in the place of honour amongst her large collection of pets.

Unfortunately, being a birdwoman, Kurangaituku did not cook her food so that Hatupatu had to wait until she was gone so that he could cook it.

While Kurangaituku was out Hatupatu had plenty of time to explore her home and instantly fell in love with all of her possessions deciding that he wanted to keep them for himself. So that is exactly what he did..." from The Legend of Hatupatu and the Birdwoman.

Many years ago, I visited the amazing Glacier National Park in northern Montana, and spent about half a day at Bird Woman Falls. Somewhere in the stacks and stacks of photos there is a really good one of me sitting at the top, 20 years old, with a shaved head and rainbow sandals, on a terrible roadtrip through many beautiful places.

I think, perhaps, that the Bird Woman is more like this...

Painting by Susan Seddon-Boulet

Anyway, I digress.

I am incredibly inspired to make jewelry at the moment, and am almost finished with a pair of interesting earrings that remind me of little mushrooms poking out of the forest floor...

The tops are keum-boo soldered to sterling silver tubing...see the mushroom?

Here, you can see how the tubing fits together to create the tilt of the mushroom against the bezel-set rose quartz.

This is the, currently, very rough back of the earrings. Amazingly, all this will be smooth and shiny and 18 karat french wires will be soldered to the back.

This is close to what they will look like when finished, except that of course they will be polished and hung on 18 karat french wires.

Ahhhhh jewelry! How happy it makes me. I have been slacking due to too much work at the "real job" and owe a shipment to FX-18, my friend Libby's new-to-her shop in Taos. Thank goodness there are only 7 more teaching days until the summer!!!!

Nouveau Keum Boo

2010-05-15T12:17:00.000-05:00

I just finished two keum boo projects, one a bracelet and one a pair of earrings.

Keum Boo is a very old technique of fusing 24 karat gold to sterling silver, and then removing portions of the gold to reveal organic patterns in the two metals.

Fusing is a process where you heat two pieces of metal, whether the same material or different, to very close to their melting points, whereupon the surface becomes close to molten and the metals "stick" together.

Keum Boo is wonderfully easy and fun to do, and you can create endless patterns by using a rolling mill to create highs and lows in your metal (for example, you could use a screen or pieces of another metal like nickel), and then file off the highs to remove the gold, thereby creating a pattern of sterling and gold. You can then oxidize (like I almost always do...but I think it's an acquired taste), and end up with brilliant, bright gold and dark, deep sterling silver.

Voila!

Keum Boo, Sterling Silver and 18 Karat Gold Earrings

Keum Boo, Sterling Silver and 18 Karat Gold Earrings, detail

Keum Boo and Sterling Silver Bracelet

Both items are available in my etsy shop. And if you like these but would like something custom-made, please contact me!

And here are some links for your Saturday enjoyment........

The Sad Hatter - Isabella Blow. Isabella Blow has been a style inspiration to me since I was a very little girl, and this article, written just after her death, is quite lovely...

Ganoskin is a wonderful informational resource for jewelers worldwide. I just discovered it, and I think it's my new jewelry encyclopedia!

and...Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video....is wonderful...although I think she "borrowed" a little from Guillermo del Toro...

no?

April is the Cruellest Month,

2010-05-14T18:49:00.000-05:00

breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

April was a cruel month, to be sure. May has been much better. Having decided to take on this blog as an almost full-time project, with the hope of connecting it to my jewelry business and eventually accomplish the goal of working from home on my own projects, here we are.

I just got back from a wonderful trip to Philadelphia. D and I went for his brother's wedding at the amazing Cairnwood Estate in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. Bryn Athyn is a fabulously beautiful and definitely mysterious small town mere minutes from downtown Philadelphia.

Originally, the land and therefore the whole town belonged to John Pitcairn, an amazingly industrious industrialist with a flare for invention and architecture as well as strong religious direction. Not only did he build the beautiful Cairnwood Estate for his young wife Gertrude, who died a mere year and a half after its completion, but he built Bryn Athyn Cathedral and was one of the inventors of modern day plate glass for industrial use.

Alongside the family times at Cairnwood and at the Morris House Hotel, where we stayed one night and also hosted us for the rehearsal dinner, we went to the amazing and fabulous Mutter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Unfortunately, they do not allow you to take photographs inside. I had been saving my camera battery for 3 days to do this and was woefully disappointed.

If you go there, and you most certainly must, you will be able to treat your eyes to: a soapified woman! shrunken heads! dissected human bodies! a jar of babies! a wall of skulls! many, many skulls of people who had syphilis! and soooooo much more.

Photo by Wandering Eyre, who somehow got photos that I didn't!

The Mutter Museum made me really thankful that they found a cure for syphilis. That is all I can say, you gotta go for yourself.

I also found out, to my delight, that the Mutter Museum has an amazing museum store, run by an incredible lady named Marie Fury, who is also visitor services supervisor. The store in-the-flesh is much more exciting than online (of course) and she has done an incredible job of stocking it with lots of handmade, crafty items from local and national artists. We spoke alot about art and craft and she was super wonderful and knowledgeable. I ended up buying 2 great prints, one of femurs and one of hip bones, a wonderful pad of paper with a skeleton in a sleeping bag, a keychain with a siamese baby skeleton, the ubiquitous Chang and Eng refrigerator magnet, and an I HEART (with anatomical heart, natch) Mutter bookmark.

So, on the recommendations for a Philly vacation are...

- Going to Rittenhouse Square Park
- Walking. ALOT.
- Going to the Italian Market in South Philly.
- Checking out the Mexico-style triangular blocks in South Philly.
- Looking at the trees in Jenkintown and Bryn Athyn
- Attend a wonderful wedding with a wonderful extended family.

Oh yeah! And my fear of fears, job loss, was just solved in that I didn't lose my job but get to continue to teach in my same school next year.

On that note, it's Friday night and time to get out and about!

Spring Has Sprung...

2010-04-03T23:42:00.001-06:00

After much hard work, i.e. rearranging of cinder blocks, shoveling of soil and mulch, and the positioning and planting of small plants, the veggie patch at the Casita de los Jirafas is finished!

Today I alternated my time between finishing planting the garden, spray painting the newly found lidded basket rustic red (found as a cast off on a nearby street, the wicker was all kinds of weathered and required a new coat of paint), tending to the flower garden, potting houseplants and napping. Perhaps the napping was the best part, but I doubt it.

The cat skull I found while building the garden sits regally at the back of the patch.

I cannot wait to see these small plants grow and change as the weather grows brighter and warmer! I also cannot wait to munch on fresh veggies that come from only as far as the bottom of the cement steps of my stoop.

Today I found this video while exploring the interwebs. I love how Jamie Oliver speaks about the need for all of us to teach people how to cook, how to use food, and to enjoy fresh foods again. I often am struck, in my school, by the poor excuses for healthy options available to children in the cafeteria. Last week, one of my students complained that the cafeteria gave the teachers better food. This is not true, and I told him so. It wasn't until later that I realized that this child didn't know which items to choose to make himself a great lunch.

As a result of seeing Jamie Oliver's speech, I have decided to integrate a basic lesson on basic foods during our Making Healthy Choices curriculum that starts in 3 weeks. The basics of fruit, vegetables, grains and proteins so that my students can learn how to eat from somewhere.

This is a photo of one corner of my tiny kitchen. I love cooking in it, despite its lack of counter space. Most of the time, I chop veggies on a cutting board on the stove, roll out pastry on the tiny section of usable countertop, or wash dishes in the old sink. The drain is rusting and will one day just...drop...out! But for today, my wonderful windowsill still looks out into the backyard. Under the window are three plant pots with tiny plants in them: one a hens and chicks, one a jewel orchid, and the other baby morning glories. The windowsill is also decorated with old cooking implements found somewhere, a stained glass panel, and a Johnny Cash calendar.

I am really beginning to love it here.

Recipes for the End of Winter...

2010-03-21T19:33:00.000-06:00

Late in the morning, I begin dreaming about what to cook for dinner. These ideas usually are created when I am reading a book on the back porch, feeling the sun on my shoulders, and, honestly, there comes a point in every woman's book reading when it's time to move on to the next activity.

Out of this sense of delectable boredom come these 2 recipes. My goal with cooking is to create meals that are both delicious and economical. Enjoy!

Miraculous Sausage Soup for a Rainy Night

2 pork sausages of the Polish variety. Or, WFM Pork, Garlic and Pepper sausages
Olive Oil

Sautee the sausages in a tiny bit of olive oil till they are more solid. Slice into medallions. Set aside.

In a large soup pot,
- 2 T olive oil
- 1/2 yellow onion
- 4-5 squished cloves of garlic (you could probably chop it, too)

Sautee onion in oil till soft. Add:
- 1/2-3/4 tsp cumin
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg

Cook for a few minutes

Add:
6 cups cold water
2 1/2 T Better than Bouillion - beef

Stir

Add:
- 1 small zucchini, sliced
- 1 small yellow squash, sliced
- 1/2 medium sweet potato, diced to the size you like
- 1 large Yukon Gold potato, diced
- 4-5 sliced shitakes
- 10 ish sliced criminis
- 1 large carrrot, sliced
- 2 parsnips, sliced
- The sausage and the olive oil from the frying pan
- 1/2 handful of Zatar (middle eastern herb mix available at middle eastern grocery stores like Phoenicia in Austin)

Cook for about 3-40 minutes and then EAT IT WITH BREAD!!!

Splendid Post-Music Festival Roast Chicken to Eat with the One You Love

2 Tbsp Olive Oil - Pour into a 8x13 casserole dish

1 Roasting Chicken - Place in the casserole dish and sprinkle with:
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- small handful of Zatar
- small handful of lavender
- small handful of coriander seeds
- 1/4c red wine (leftover please!)
- 1/4 c water
- 3 Tbsp butter...freeze first and then chop into pieces and sprinkle on the chicken

Chop or Cube:
- 1 turnip
- 3 carrots
- 1/2 sweet potato (leftover!)
- 2 large red or Yukon gold potatoes
- 1/2 onion
- 4-5 cloves of garlic

Arrange the veggies around the chicken. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350F for 45 minutes.

Remove the foil and bake another 15 minutes or until chicken is done.

Serve with bread, steamed broccoli and mac 'n' cheese!!!

MAKE THEM BOTH!!! THEY ARE DELICIOUS!!!!

Sundays

2010-03-21T14:06:00.000-06:00

This morning, I woke up to a sunny, cold morning. Following yesterday's 35 degree wintery cloudfest, the blue skies and singing birds were a lovely eye-opener.

Today we are moving more stuff between my and Senor Jirafa's house, so it's a little quiet on the internet front, and the project front.

But, for now...enjoy this piano solo and I will enjoy the sunshine and the veggies and flowers sprouting...

Happy Spring!!!

2010-03-20T17:07:00.001-06:00

After spending a few days this spring break building the veggie garden and planting flowers in the front yard, we were greeted this morning by a last-minute ARCTIC BLAST!

Today I spent all day in bed watching movies when I should have been finishing the bag o' sterling silver textured earrings awaiting my attention. Perhaps it will happen tonight?

Lorena Turner - Made In China

2009-12-24T12:57:00.001-06:00

Trolling the internet when one is bored at one's parents house is an absolute joy to me. Today is my birthday, and I am spending it sitting on the couch listening to music and going down many rabbit holes.

Here's a good one....Lorena Turner's "Made in China" Photography Series

Lorena Turner found objects marked "Made In China", dusted them for fingerprints and then photographed them under blacklight.

Artist's Statement:
"When we purchase basic consumable items, we have a perception that they are clean, untainted, absent of a history. Made in China asks us to reconsider that.

In touching and interacting with objects that workers in China make for us, but we are blind as to what happens before these objects are put on store shelves and brought into our daily lives. We are unaware of the human factor in their production. Made in China is an attempt to reveal this invisible history. For the project, items made and enclosed in packages in China then sold in the US, were purchased, dusted for fingerprints, then photographed. The images evidence another's touch, another human’s relationship with them.

It is generally not a part of our job description as consumers to be concerned with where the items we buy come from, and at what cost to the environment, human experience or culture. It makes us better consumers to be abstracted from that process. Made in China is not intended to comment on the scale or absurdity of our consumptive practices, but to remind us that we are only one factor in that equation."

Fernando Vicente - VANITAS

2009-06-05T12:54:00.000-05:00

Fernando Vicente of Madrid, Spain is an illustrator and painter whose series "VANITAS" explores ideas of beauty and vanity by combining anatomical cut-away illustrations on the bodies of models who appear to be in the fashion plates of magazines like Vogue.

You can find all his works at the site above, or access his blog (if you speak Spanish that is!) here. Thanks to Humandress LJ Community for the link!

Carne d'Amour

Presentimiento

Interiores

Beso sour

Fumando espero

Iris

Materia rosa

Humo

Tatuajes

If you like this artwork, you may also like this new blog discovery of mine...Morbid Anatomy.

Julian Beever Chalk Paintings

2009-05-30T13:36:00.000-05:00

Recently, I was teaching my students about optical illusions on a day when I wanted to divert from the normal curriculum and ask the kids to think about how their brains work with regard to spatial relationships. During Day 2 of brain science, I asked them to find some optical illusions that they really liked and to try to explain how they worked. Their Google-enhanced researching brains moved from illusions to surrealism pretty quickly, and one of them found the paintings of Julian Beever. I think he is incredible, and I hope you do too!

Julian Beever "Anamorphic illusions drawn in a special distortion in order to create an impression of 3 dimensions when seen from one particular viewpoint"

Isabel Jewelry & Open Source Embroidery

2009-05-30T13:30:00.000-05:00

Isabel Jewelry is made by trying new ideas and finding stimulation in all aspects of life.

Also...check out the Open Source Embroidery Exhibitions. "The Open Source Embroidery exhibition presents contemporary artwork which uses embroidery and code as a tool to investigate participatory production and distribution methods. The project explores how the open source software development model has been incorporated into the language of cultural participation, involving interdisciplinary approaches to skill-share and collaboration. The exhibition includes material and digital works that make visible the physical characteristics of technology and social communications networks."

When It Rains, It Pours

2009-04-20T23:03:00.000-05:00

Lately, I have been working on a large sculpture in my backyard. It is a giant umbrella, made of rebar and copper wire. I started with 4 pieces of 12 foot rebar, bent them using my body and some rocks laying around, then started weaving them together using 12 gauge wire. The lattice of the umbrella panes is made by weaving 14 gauge wire in between the rebar poles. The curves at the bottom are 8 gauge copper.

Eventually, the umbrella will hang from an old pecan tree in the yard. Hung with prisms, it will glitter in the sun and drip in the rain. Underneath I will plant a bright blue plumbago bush...

The Eidophone - Part 2

2009-04-17T18:03:00.001-05:00

An Eidophone by Nick Laessing at Arquebuse Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland.

A few years ago now, I posted here about an instrument called an Eidophone. The article cited was taken from a very old book called "Voice Building and Tone Placing" by Henry Holbrook Curtis, published in 1896. You can find the entire text here thanks to Google Books...

Anyway...I digress!!! A new friend emailed me today all the way from my distant birthplace (England) to tell me that he has developed a way to construct an eidophone using coffee grounds and cardboard tubes and I can't wait to try it! I thought I'd link to it here, so that if there are any crafty people in the audience, you can try it to! I promise to post pics after my own experiments!

On that note - its raining outside and I need to go wander around my garden...

Museum of Arts and Design - Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary

2009-04-09T22:19:00.000-05:00

see more at the Museum of Arts and Design...

"Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary" is the inaugural exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in the new building at 2 Columbus Circle, which opened in September 2008. The exhibition features work by 50 international established and emerging artists from all five continents who create objects and installations comprised of ordinary and everyday manufactured articles, most originally made for another functional purpose...

"The exhibition surveys the rich artistic landscape of much contemporary art, in which hierarchies among art, craft, and design are disregarded. In addition, the exhibition examines the ways in which artists transform our world, respond to contemporary cultural paradigms, and comment on global consumerism."

Willie Cole, Loveseat, 2007

Andy Diaz Hope, Trinity (Grandma), 2007

Johnny Swing, Quarter Lounge, 2008

Paul Villinski, My Back Pages, 2006-2008

Courtney Smith, Psiche Complexo, 2003

Antler Magazine

2009-03-30T15:04:00.001-06:00

This new online magazine is full of great photography and interesting articles! Let's hope they keep it up...

Go directly to Antler Magazine

Anatomy and Automata

2009-03-08T11:42:00.000-06:00

While drinking coffee this morning (hooray Sundays!), I found these two artists for your musing and enjoyment...

Dirk Staschke of Vancouver, BC, describes his work: "As a species, our arrangements are centered on organizing the planet to fit our needs and desires. We arrange our finances, property, affairs, health, and our eventual end. Along the way we rearrange material resources, usually transforming them into wealth. The cycle is complete, or is it?

In the studio I arrange shape and form, creating opportunities for light and shadow (and perhaps wealth). These arrangements are informed by the mundane ritual of eating that is long celebrated in ceramics. Unlike the potter whose empty dishes present an opportunity, my settings come prearranged as opulent, inedible meals that are simultaneously beautiful and disgusting. In this process, sustenance becomes merely a concept forever locked in its sculptural form and eating becomes a metaphor for excessive material consumption.

Like an extravagant meal, the arrangements we make to further our desires can come with painful unintended consequences. My recent body of work explores notions of gluttony and cultural excess."

From It Takes a Village...

In a different world, but in a similar vein, artist Dexter Nyamainashe lives and works in Zimbabwe. He makes incredibly detailed, expository kinetic sculptures that all work together to form a Global Village of Peace.

Unfortunately, he has run into problems and pressures at home because "Dexter says he has had a difficult time promoting his art locally for the following reasons:
a) The local city council has called his art nonsense and refused to give him a license to operate. He has been chased away and even arrested for "illegal" vending.
b) Locals are spooked by his "Global Village". He says some people think it might be related to witchcraft so he has to explain to them by demonstrating how it works.
c) He used to work with the local art gallery but their commission was too high leaving him with very little.
d) He managed to gain the support of a local shop owner who tells the city council that Dexter is part of their own store display. This means he can display his work free of charge, avoid police harassment and avoid costly flea market charges.

Dexter promotes peace because he is concerned about the direction the world is headed. He says God made us all so we have to learn to tolerate one another and work together for a more peaceful world."

The Topiary Gardens of Pearl Fryar

2009-03-07T11:05:00.000-06:00

Find more information on Pearl Fryar's 3 acre topiary garden here.

Pearl Fryar's topiary garden is in Bishopville, South Carolina. This garden just joined my list of places I must visit soon...from the site:

"Pearl Fryar began work on the 3 acre garden in 1984 in an effort to win "Yard of the Month" for his home on the outskirts of Bishopville, SC. The well-manicured, sculptural plant forms that comprise Fryar's living vision of peace, love and goodwill often times began as salvaged seedlings from a local nursery. Recognized by art and botanical enthusiasts, the visually whimsical garden is maintained year-round by Fryar for visitors from around the world. The Friends of Pearl Fryar's Topiary Garden has been organized to help care for and preserve the garden and assist Pearl as he educates and inspires others to achieve their creative potential."

Christian Faur's Crayon Art

2009-02-26T12:33:00.000-06:00

from Christian Faur

"My earliest memories of making art involve the use of wax crayons. I can still remember the pleasure of opening a new box of crayons: the distinct smell of the wax, the beautifully colored tips, everything still perfect and unused. Using the first crayon from a new box always gave me a slight pain. Through a novel technique that I have developed, I again find myself working with the familiar form of the crayon.

Because of the three-dimensional nature of the crayons, the individual surface images appear to change form as one moves about the gallery space. The images completely disappear when viewed from close up, allowing one to read the horizontally sequenced crayon text and to take in the beautifully colored crayon tips -- all the while being reminded of that first box of crayons."

Blue Boy

Scan Lines

Crayon Boy 1

Where the Sidewalk Ends

President's Day Cupcakes & The Value of Hard Work

2009-02-21T11:55:00.000-06:00

President's Day Cupcake Installation!!!

from Cake Wrecks.

On a different note...listen to Mary Seton Corboy speak about the value of hard work. I agree with her...you should check out her website, GreensGrow Farms.

On that note...it's off to build a cairn, sprout some seeds, enjoy the spring!!!

Museum of Ephemerata - Wondrous Instruments

2009-02-15T12:27:00.000-06:00

Last night I went to the Museum of Ephemerata's Wondrous Instruments exhibit and the magical array of artifacts was wondrous (and fun!) to behold!!!

From a bass fashioned from an old oar to a player piano, a banana holder to a plasma ball, a tobacco pipe fashioned from an old seashell to an alligator (or was it a crocodile?) plastered to the ceiling, the circuit bent Speak and Spell that was haunted by a strange spirit who would say bizarre non-sequitor words interspersed with mechanical fuzz, the array of wondrous instruments was well worth the trip. As was the yellow balloon game that we discovered was an accidental by-product of being surrounded by so many wondrous instruments!!!

Every time I have been to the Museum of Ephemerata, I walk away inspired to create more strange and wonderful spaces in my own home, my own Brixan Manor museum. Go and visit and be sure to spend several moments in the impermanent collection...you will love it!

Roberto Kusterle

2009-02-15T12:03:00.000-06:00

This morning, I made biscuits and I ate them with marmalade while drinking coffee. I found this amazing photographer, whose photographs made me filled with wonder and also giggle alot.

Who knew that trees need to clean their ears, too? Well, of course they do...

Roberto Kusterle photography

"I wanted to do something big and I did it"

2009-01-25T14:27:00.000-06:00

About two and a half years ago, I went out to LA to visit my friend Lauren. One day, after dropping her off on the set of her TV show at an old, closed-down hospital, I drove to one of the most amazing places I have ever been, the Watts Towers.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip. I spent many hours there, wandering around the towers and talking to the ladies that ran the art center on the property. Lots of good community work is being done there...you should visit!

The Towers were made entirely by hand, using simple tools like shovels and putty knives. Simon Rodia bent the metal used to form the towers' skeletons by using the railroad tracks that ran along the edge of his property. He found old pieces of tile and china on the street, in the garbage, and in his own home to decorate the towers. He would hoist himself up using a tool belt and some rope, working from the bottom up. Despite not having blueprints, power tools, or any other forms of technology, the Towers are perfectly plumb and perfectly round.

During the Watts Riots of 1965, the Towers were not damaged at all and in fact were purposefully left standing as a monument to the community.

Simon Rodia is an huge inspiration to me in my own creative journeys. The most interesting thing about him, to me, is that one day, he just walked across the street to his neighbor, dropped off the key to the front door and said he was going to visit his children. He never returned to Watts.

Industrial Decomposition

2009-01-25T11:53:00.000-06:00

The first time I saw the film "Alien", the ship was striking yet disgusting to me,. in that everything looks greasy, old, and shoddily put together yet has a certain balance and beauty to it. Years later, when I saw the film in its re-release in the theatre and could finally see all the sets in huge, wide format, I truly noticed that the combination of industrial decay and a designer's eye can result in beautiful images that resonate with brass tones, grease marks, rust stains, rotting wood, and split plastic.

Patrick Boland's Cockatoo Island Project is another good example of this idea. His photos, to me, are beautiful and eery and I can almost smell the strange combination of chemicals, oil, rust and metal that must pervade Cockatoo Island.

Lady Lavona's Cabinet of Curiousities

2009-01-23T21:04:00.000-06:00

I am a huge fan of cabinets of curiousity, and indeed make it a habit to create my own wherever possible. I stumbled upon this amazing example, and thought you would enjoy it too!

Lady Lavona's Cabinet of Curiousities...

Carla Bedini

Collette Calascione

Jewelry by Giselle Ganne

A New Hive by Derrick R. Cruz

There are so many incredible artists out there today, creating amazing things drawn from their imaginations and interactions with their environments. My inspirations for 2009 are drawn from them, and if I am truly lucky, I will be blessed with a year of prolific creative expression.

Enjoy!

The Eidophone - by Margaret Watts Hughes

2006-06-12T15:30:00.001-05:00

In 1885, while seeking means to indicate readily the intensities of vocal sounds, I first met with these figures, and, owing to their variety both in form and production, they have since absorbed much of my attention. The apparatus I have employed I call the eidophone. This is very simple. It consists merely of an elastic membrane, such as thoroughly flexible soft sheet-rubber, tightly stretch over the mouth of a receiver of any form, into which receiver the voice is introduced by a wide-mouthed tube of convenient shape.

I would add that my experiments have been made as a vocalist, using my own voice as the instrument of investigation, and I must leave it for others more acquainted with natural science to adjust the accordance of these appearances with facts and laws already known. Yet, passing from one stage to another of these inquiries, question after question has presented itself to me, until I have continually felt myself standing before mystery, in great part hidden, although some glimpses seem revealed. And I must say, besides, that as day by day I have gone on singing into shape these peculiar forms, and, stepping out of doors, have seen their parallel living in the flowers, ferns, and trees around me; and, again, as I have watched the little heaps in the formation of the floral figures gather themselves up and then shoot out their petals, just as flowers springs from the swollen bud – the hope has come to me that these humble experiments may afford some suggestions in regard to nature’s production of her own beautiful forms, and may thereby aid, in some slight degree, the revelation of yet another link in the great chain of the organized universe that, we are told in Holy Writ, took its shape as the voice of God.

Can Commerical Production Work be Copyrighted?

2006-06-01T10:24:00.000-05:00

Glass Artists Face Off in Court

The question I pose today is: can art be copyrighted? Can craftwork be copyrighted? Can someone who physically does not interact with her/his materials and commercially produces pieces for the sole purpose of financial success sue other artists who seek to create artworks stemming from similar points of inspiration? Chihuly, Inc., makes beautiful glassworks, however, I have heard that his ethics toward artistic creation leave something to be desired....

Imagination & Embroidery

2006-05-18T10:35:00.000-05:00

Helen Li (Hellebelle) mixes it up with embroidered and knitted video-game creations. The first: an embroidered Katamari Damacy prince! The next: a Super-Mario character scarf!!! Fabulous!!!

Scoring & Folding

2006-05-18T10:32:00.000-05:00

Richard Sweeney folds and scores simple sheets of paper to create these amazing sculptures. Not a bad photographer, either, for that matter.

Excellent Developments....

2006-04-26T18:09:00.000-05:00

Have you ever read "Make Blog"? If not, well then, you should. The people who put it together have a seemingly unending desire to create beauty and structure and practicality out of seemingly random objects, or things you simply have lying around the house.

But! They have come up with something even better!!! Coming this fall is the Craft: Make Cool Stuff zine that promises to be a delicious addition to the folks at Make Magazine. Check them both out! You won't regret it!!!

Recent Travels...The Forge

2006-04-23T20:36:00.000-05:00

Recently, I have traveled to many cities for work. At first, the trips were interesting, but soon, they devolved into horrible chores that I hated to accomplish. Getting on planes and shifting back and forth across the country is definitely not my cup of tea. But...that being said, two of my latest trips were great and fruitful in my quest to document those people who create and those who appreciate their efforts.

The first trip was actually not for work at all, but for play entirely. I visited my friend's parents' home in Fredericksburg, Texas. They live in the old general store, and have one of the most amazing, comfortable, home-y homes I have ever been to. And, in the backgarden, Roy has built from the ground up, a forge that stretches up through the maples, oaks, and pecans like the giant, ribbed throat of a deep, black, very hot monster.

A landscape shot of the front of the forge: you can see Roy and Ezra's word- and shape-play in the metal cut-outs.

A better example of wordplay in action. These letters were used for signs, but Roy and Ezra chose to arrange them in ways to see how many words they could form out of a string of letters.

Inside the forge, Roy has arranged and stacked old plates and extra shapes along the windowsills.

You can see the growth of plants that have taken the 25-year opportunity to creep up and around the body of the forge.

By far my favorite aspect of the forge are the back doors.

The doors showcase the ideas that flow through the world of metalsmithing, from stories that influence a piece's creation, to the chemical make-up of iron molecules.

The doors are two large plates, probably 5 by 10 feet each, covered with notes, calculations, quotes from poems, and drawings. The forge belongs to and is run by Roy Bellows, Fredericksburg, Texas.

Origami Joel

2006-04-14T11:06:00.000-05:00

I found out about Origami Joel through a friend's LiveJournal Post...You will LOVE his amazing folding tricks and talents.....

Great Recipe #1 - Nada's Green Beans

2006-04-13T23:24:00.000-05:00

This recipe comes from the warm kitchen of my friend and advisor, Nada. Nada comes from Lebanon, and many of her dishes reflect her Middle Eastern origins. This is one of my favorites: it is a great accompaniment to meat or poultry, or is excellent as a warm salad for lunch. Try it! I know you will love it.

Ingredients:
- 2 shallots or 1/2 yellow onion, sliced into rounds or diced (as you like it)
- 2-4 (or more) cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- A good handful of fresh green beans per person (about 1/2 lb for 2 people) {DON'T use frozen}
- 1/2 small can of diced tomatoes - I like Muir Glen, but you can use whichever really.

Directions:
1. In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the sliced shallots/onion and garlic and saute till softened and slightly caramelized - about 5-7 minutes. Don't burn the garlic.
2. Add the green beans and stir to coat in the oil. Saute till they turn bright green and begin to roast in the oil - about 5-7 minutes.
3. Add the 1/2 can of tomatoes (or the whole thing if you want) and saute till heated through. If you like you can sautee for 2-3 minutes more, this will soften the tomatoes and mix the flavours a bit better.
4. Serve alongside portabello mushrooms, chicken breasts, fish, pretty much anything really. It is also great on its own, sprinkled with a good helping of feta cheese.

Enjoy!

Introductions

2006-04-13T10:21:00.000-05:00

I have devoted my life to learning crafts and skills that some people believe are out-dated or unnecessary. I love that so many others have similar leanings, and so, I wanted to create a blog specifically focused on exhibiting the crafts, skills, and lifestyles of myself, my friends, and fellow crafters and artisans that I meet.

I believe that the internet provides a unique, never-before-seen forum for the display of humanity's innate desire to create beauty out of the chaos of life. I hope to display many different examples of that here, and that they are all interesting, unique, and approachable. Ultimately, I want to inspire others who do not create to imagine and build their own hobbies and creations!