PhotoCard: Oh, Those Boots!

Podcast with Teesha Moore

Yay! At last! I finally talked Teesha into talking to me for a podcast. Sheesh--it took me long enough.

Teesha is absolutely one of the most creative people on the planet. It's not just that she makes really cool stuff, although she does, indeed, do that. 

Copies of Teesha's 'zines from Artfest 2010

And it's not just that she runs the oldest and largest of the mixed media art retreats, Artfest. It's something else, something that few people realize: Teesha and her dream of a creative community were the catalyst for what we know of as the contemporary mixed media community. Her 'zine was the first large-scale publication, her retreat was the first major mixed media art retreat. 

She's been at the forefront of pretty much everything mixed media, and I've been trying to get her to do a podcast with me forEVER. I finally convinced her, in the countdown days before opening day of Artfest 2011 (next Wednesday). Go here to find out more about her, her art, and her events. 

Thoughts Provoked by Jacqueline Howett

I don't know how many of y'all might have had any reason at all to see this week's very public meltdown of self-published author Jacqueline Howett. Thien-Kim tweeted me yesterday, saying it might interest me because of my interest in (read: tiny little obsession with) writing and grammar and Stuff. I took a few minutes and read the comments, and oh, my. So many, many things have filled my head.

One: thankyoujesus for editors. Goodness. There's a reason we need them, and this illustrates why. Here's a big XO♥ to mine!

But here's what really has my brain going about this whole thing: what technology has wrought. Blame it on the internet, blame it on technology. Blame it on whomever or whatever you want. But here's the deal:  once upon a time, you had to be able to do something well before you had a chance to foist your efforts on the public. To get your stuff published, you had to convince a publishing company or a newspaper or a magazine that you 1) had something to say and 2) could say it clearly and coherently enough that an editor could help you shape it into something graspable. You know? If you had some vague, amorphous idea floating around in your brain, you had to take a little bit of time and try to shape it into something that made sense before you could begin the process of putting it in front of an audience.

Not any more.

Now anyone can publish anything. And, going even further, anyone can put anything out there in front of anyone. So you've got people writing books and writing reviews and doing podcasts and making movies and taking photographs and, and, and. And some of them are very, very good. And many of them are simply execrable. People delight in the internet's enabling them to bypass the traditional paths, those monolithic empires that are the Keepers of The Gates to fame and public acclamation. They revel in Everyman's ability to get his stuff Out There in front of an audience--perhaps an audience of millions, if only he can Go Viral--without having to bow and scrape to The Powers That Be. So, yeah, that's cool. It's really groovy that we can bypass The Man and go straight to The People.

Right on.

Except. Except that there is a reason there are editors and copy editors and publishers. Well, there are many reasons, and most of them, sure, have to do with money. Doesn't pretty much everything? Money and power. Yeah, I get that. But some of it has to do with keeping people from looking like total amateurs, clueless in their craft, incoherent due to their lack of effort to work and polish and perfect the art they hope to put in front of the public.

I love the internet, I truly do. I love blogs and videos and, well, tons of stuff. I think it's wonderful that people can put their stuff out there and I can go see it. For free! But--oh, and this is such a huge but!--I really do wish the people putting it out there would slow down and take some time to do a little work first. You know, like, um, actually learn some skills. I've read reviews by people who have no clue what a review should be (I'm not a reviewer, so my "reviews" of books and magazines are "here's why you might like this," rather than any attempt at a critical evaluation = I know what I suck at and try to avoid it (yeah: I know the things at which I suck--but I spared you that convolutedness)). I've seen videos by people who should really just wait until they learn how to focus a camera. I've read blog posts (oh, lord) that are not only unreadable in their total lack of structure and theme but are so boring as to provoke one of those forehead-slapping, "Huh?" moments, when you're reading something and you're thinking, "Why, exactly, does this exist?" You know: in a perfect universe, something this botched and banal would have been sucked into some whirling vortex the moment it left the author's brain.

Self publishing. I know it's becoming ever-more-popular, and I understand why. For one thing, if you self-publish and do even moderately well, you stand to make a ton more money than you would if you were having to "share" it with a publisher. And, you know, money is what everything in life is all about.

Truly, though? The only reason I can think of to self-publish is if you have some grand idea that involves stuff a publishing company doesn't want to tackle:  you've got this cool idea for something interactive, or with pop-ups and fold-outs, or with photos on every page, or whatever. For most self-published works, however, I'm guessing that the reason they're published by Self is because they were rejected by everyone else. And if you've got an idea and it's been rejected by a bunch of companies, maybe instead of saying, "Damn you, you insensitive bastards! You can't keep me from Being an Author! I'll forge ahead and go it alone!" maybe you need to stop and ask: "Why? Why does everyone seem to think this is a bad idea, a non-money-making idea?" If you can figure that out and answer the question, and if your answer is something like, oh, "they don't understand the appeal of a how-to book about naked shadow puppets," and you still think it's fabulous, then maybe you should go for it. But if, on the other hand, you can't quite figure out what it is, you should ask. Ask people who know, friends who have a clue, your brother-in-law. Maybe it's that your proposal makes no sense. Maybe it's that--oh, who knows? It could be thousands of things. The point is: if no one will publish it, it's not that they're out to thwart you. There's a reason. I'm not saying you shouldn't self publish; I'm saying you need to figure out why no one wants to publish and take care of THAT first. Then go ahead with your plan.

What self-publishing means for the rest of us--for the readers, the consumers--is, sadly, this: it confuses us and, ultimately, makes us grouchy and suspicious. When we spend money for a book or a magazine, we expect to receive a certain level of quality in what we've bought. We expect, you know, content. Grammar and Stuff, at the very least. While we may be happy to read poems by our nephew Howard that contain no words recognizable to human beings on this planet, our expectations are a little different if we've shelled out actual money. Then we expect things to be maybe a little more polished. Maybe, you know, making sense and stuff. We expect the author (and if you've been around The Voodoo Cafe a while, maybe you're beginning to detect a difference between "author" and "writer") to have maybe, oh, I don't know, taken a course in writing? Grammar? Have a theme?

Something.

I, frankly, am overwhelmed by the glut of stuff out there. The poems, the books, the magazines, the blogs, the videos, the music and photographs and reviews and, and, and. While some are, assuredly, quite good, there is a continually growing pile of crap, and I don't want to wade through it trying to find the good stuff. What it all comes back to is a rant I've pitched before: there is nothing--NOTHING--wrong with the concept of hard work. With the idea of self discipline. With the notion of mastering a craft. Just because you have a keyboard doesn't mean you can write. Just because you have a camera doesn't mean you can take photos. Oh, sure, it may mean You. Can. Take. Photos. It doesn't mean you can take photos that are good enough that anyone will want to spend time looking at them. (Taking photos: one more thing at which I suck quite spectacularly, which is why you don't get a lot of them here. You know, that's one of the benefits of age and experience:  you know the things you don't do well and aren't really interested in sufficiently to make working at them worthwhile in the larger scheme of your life. I have a whole list of those. An imaginary list, because I don't much care enough about them to write them down, but it includes writing critical reviews and taking great photos. Also cooking. Singing. My god, it's a very long list.)

So here's my advice:  just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should* do it, and just because you want to do something doesn't mean that you're ready to share it. If you care about writing or painting or taking photographs or reviewing books or making movies, you owe it to 1) yourself, 2) your potential audience, and 3) (the most important) the craft itself--to practice. Work at it. Make mistakes, experiment, improve. You should do all those things before you ever, ever, put it out there. Why? Because if we're inundated by tons of horrible books, books we've bought or downloaded or whatever, and they keep being really, really sucky, guess what? Pretty soon we're going to quit buying books. We'll read only what someone else, someone we trust, assures us is good. And if the reviews we read are poorly done, misleading, incomplete? We'll quit reading those. If the blogs we visit are boring and trite, filled with whining and incomprehensible sentences and blurry photos? We'll burn out on even trying to read blogs. In short, the more crap there is for us to have to wade through to find something worth our time, the less likely it is we'll ever make the effort to search. No one wants to wade through crap.

I have more to say, but I think it's a separate rant. Maybe not--but I'm going to spare you having it all together here. Go. Read something pleasant--something less grouchy than this. Read Mary Oliver. Read the NYT book reviews. Read something good and send your compliments to the writer who took time to practice the craft.

XO

Fabulous Give-Away!

No, not here! Over here, at CreateMixedMedia.com, where you can enter right now to win books, supplies, and bling. Jen Cushman's brand-new book, Explore, Create, Resinate, Susan Lenart Kazmer's Making Connections, packages of ICE Resin, bezels, and a fabulous piece of jewelry. But it's only until this weekend, so you've got to hurry. Leave a comment, following the instructions (you can tell them where you found out about it, if you like), and BE SURE TO CHECK BACK, PEOPLE! I don't know whether they'll (meaning: the editor who's in charge of Give-Away Stuff) send an email or just expect you to show up, but either way, check back to find out if you win. And there are TWO winners, so that's really cool.

Go here and sign up now. And good luck! XO

Monday, Monday

I want to show y'all some photos from this weekend, from a fabulous concert we went to, but it's going to have to wait. You know how it is:  the end of the month is Deadline City, and while I usually schedule things weeks ahead, sometimes that's impossible when other people are involved. Today's all about getting a really good draft of an article (yes:  due this week! Aieeeeeee~~) and doing a podcast that it's taken me, literally, over a year to set up. Lots of wheedling on this one. You'll thank me!

There's a new blog post up over at CreateMixedMedia.com--I'm writing about "time" over there this week, so even though y'all have already heard what I have to say on the subject, it's a new post (no copying-and-pasting-of-old-posts), and if you feel the need for a kick in the pants about organizing your time, you might want to follow along with us over there. You'll want to check out The Week as Art by Seth Apter--love him! So cool.

OK--let me get back to work so, with luck, I'll have time later on to show you some of The EGE's photos of this very, very cool guitarist we listened to~~

XO

PhotoCard: Not Quite What She'd Had in Mind

PhotoCard: Not Our Kind, Dear

"Big Pink Blanket" by Hundred Little Reasons

My current favorite song. Thanks to Susan Aldrich for finding this for me~~XO

Find more artists like Hundred Little Reasons at Myspace Music

PhotoCard: Nina Regrets Her Visit to Aunt Sally's Farm

Medical Ignorance

I told y'all about when I got my ear pierced last week and the young girl assured me that pain, redness, swelling, and pus don't mean you have an infection. Remember? And I said "Really?" And she said that people think pus means you have an infection, but it doesn't, not at all.

And I've been thinking ever since, "Who spawns these people?" Because what completely baffles me is how people can be so completely, totally, astoundingly medically ignorant. Now, I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on tv. And the only reason I can put my hand over the area where my spleen is located is because I just now googled "where is my spleen" (no, you don't have to use the "?") and found this. OK, so I have some significant gaps in my own knowlege. I know that. But I know lots of useful stuff that helps me out--like I know where my ascending, transverse, and descending colon areas are, and I know where my stomach is and that it's not down there by my belly button, where most people think of when they say, "My stomach hurts." They should say, "My transverse colon hurts," but hardly anyone ever says that. I think most people like to pretend they don't actually own intestines.

Also last week I had someone's mom explain to me that the reason you get dizzy when you stand up is because your "body dumps all the sugar." This was news to me, and I'm still not sure what information she mangled to come up with that. Although googling just now and reading some of the forum posts makes things much, much clearer. Holy moly. I *hate* forums, I really do. So much misinformation presented in a format that encourages people to believe they're getting facts and useful advice. Yikes!

So yesterday we were at Starbucks talking to two women--I think one was one of The EGE's former students--mother and daughter. Both a little overweight. Smokers (at least the mom was), coming in for a caffeine and sugar hit to get them through the rest of the day. The daughter was drinking an "energy drink," which I think is just a canned coffee drink pumped with some extra caffeine--and she said that she'd read that if you drink one every day, it will decrease your life by ten years. And they both laughed and agreed that that was OK with them. And they said something about smoking and about caffeine and sugar for energy and how it was OK if it killed them earlier.

And I'm sorry, but I just snapped. I went into rant mode. I could see their eyes widening and the look of concern on their faces, but I couldn't stop. Here's kind of what I said, waving my hand around and talking in a rather loud and impassioned manner:

"But that's not what happens, that you just do whatever you want and then when it catches up with you, you die. It would be great if that's the way it worked, because then you could enjoy everything and then check out when it begins to take a toll on your body. But what actually happens is that it catches up with you and starts affecting how you feel and whether or not you can walk, or--like my parents--breathe on your own, and then you have another 20 years of living with those effects. That's the part no one thinks about:  the part between the time your bad habits catch up with you and the time you finally die. Unless you're going to commit suicide or somehow luckily just drop dead, you're going to have years of living with the effects of smoking and eating bad food and not exercising. So it's not when you're going to die; it's how you're going to feel every day between now and then. And 'then' could be a long, long way off."

Like I said, they were kind of stunned, the way you are if you say, "Hi, Grandma," and she goes into nutso mode over how you're just like your Uncle Charley after he came back from The War and started talking to the aliens on that radio he rigged up in the basement. You can't really say anything; you just sit and listen and think, "Where the hell did *that* come from?"

But I can't stand it. I really can't. I can't stand that people don't realize they get one body--just one--and that it has to last them their whole entire life. Oh, I understand that kids and teenagers don't get it--they're immortal. They have to be to navigate toward adulthood. But after you're about 30, you've gotta have the sense to stop and do some thinking about what you want the last couple decades of your life to be about. Do you want it to be about oxygen tanks? My parents never thought of that when they were smoking several packs a day. Do you want it to be about multiple amputations and a wheelchair as a constant companion? Our friend didn't think of that when he was rolling his eyes at the prescribed diet and weight control for his diabetes. Do you want it to be about ill-fitting dentures or just a pretty much total lack of dentition? Someone I know didn't think of that when I was urging him, 20 years ago, to get some good dental care and forgodssakes FLOSS. 

Nope. We don't think of that. We think we can do whatever we want, and then one day it will catch up with us, and we'll drop dead. Maybe a decade early, but happy for having eaten pork rinds every evening after dinner, along with a 32-oz Coke and some M&M's. We smoke because, we say, we enjoy it. Also because we're sick and tired of people nagging us to quit--it's our body, and we can smoke if we want to. It's no one else's business whether or not we "choose" (because we always think we're still making the choice) to smoke. 

[This, by the way, is true only if you smoke only in your own house with all the windows closed; go read some of the findings about the dangers of third-hand smoke. And you thought second-hand smoke was your only worry.]

We won't go into the costs to taxpayers, including increased insurance premiums, to cover the health care of people who haven't taken care of themselves or prepared financially for the care they'll need. We won't even go there. Because my point is this: it's everyone's job to know about their bodies, what they need, what's good for them and what's not, and what they need to do to be able to live the rest of their lives in that body with a minimum of pain and horror. (And if you think I'm exaggerating, think of the emotion you'd feel if they told you there was no saving your leg and you realized that, if you'd made other choices 20 years earlier, it wouldn't have come to this. Horror pretty much describes it.) Sure, most of us are going to need help as we get older. Some of us will need rather a lot of it. But most of us can make choices now that will help make those last years enjoyable rather than just a long, slow, painful creep toward death. When I see people my age who are still treating their bodies like they're nothing--it makes me crazy. 

And then I think, "Whoa. Making yourself crazy isn't any better for you than Cheetos." That's when I quit ranting and just smile and hum to myself, drinking my decaf soy latte, no sweetener. What is it they say? No cake tastes as good as skinny feels? Something like that. Well, that decaf soy latte doesn't taste as good as a triple caramel coffee frappacinno with extra caramel (which The EGE gets some days and  shares, in small bites), but it tastes way better than worrying about the effects of Splenda and caffeine mixed with whipped cream and chocolate and three extra pumps of toffee nut on a daily basis. 

That can't be good for your spleen.

PhotoCard: Nature is So Overrated

For You From The EGE & Miss Clarice

There's nothing I can say about this.

Simple Bravery

I read this over, and I think, "My god, you sound like one of those women who obsesses about her hairstyle and thinks the color polish on her toenails is a topic of global concern." Yeah, it sounds a little like that even to me. But I have a point, so I'm soldiering on with it, never mind how that voice is my head is going, "Goodlordalmighty, you are a shallow person. Did you know that? Also slovenly. Because I happen to know--even if no one else does--that you haven't yet taken a shower today. I think I'm going to rat you out."

So~~soldiering on:

I was a weenie kind of a kid, anxious and worried about everything, never a risk-taker, content to live in my imagination. I don't think I was like that as a little kid--it seems, in my faulty memory, to have happened when I started school and started trying to fit in, an impossible task since we moved constantly and I was always The New Kid, or, really, The Weird New Kid. If you're a smart kid with a funny (Texas=funny to the people of the frigid north) accent who also dresses weird, well:  trying to fit in is mostly an exercise is smushing yourself flat and being really quiet.

So no feats of bravery for me, the timid kid. Plus you know how people are divided into those who seek thrills and thrive on the adrenalin rush and those who say, "Eh. I don't think so. Where did I put my book?" I was the one looking for the book. It didn't help any that the first time I had a tooth filled I passed out. And again the day I turned 14 and my mother took me to the family doctor to--finally!--get my ears pierced, and I woke up on the floor of the exam room.

So I finished growing up assuming I was a total weenie and figuring I must have a pain threshold at about floor level. Possibly subterranean. It wasn't until I was much, much older that I discovered that I'm not particularly chicken and actually have quite a high tolerance for pain. All that other stuff was about anxiety and not knowing how to deal with it as a little kid. Turns out I'm just fine, just as brave as I need to be.

Or so I think. But every once in a while, I feel the need to check and make sure. Now, given that I have no desire to jump off anything or parachute out of anything, my chances for checking my bravery are limited. Seeing as how, you know, I totally do not get the thrill of the sensation of falling, and for good reason. Falling usually does not equal Good For You.

Bravery is relative, though. I've told you before about the first time I ever saw a woman with really short hair. I mean REALLY short; less than an inch. A buzz is what we're talking about here. My immediate thought was, "How brave!" Remember? And then it turns out she wasn't so much brave as just rich and bored:  a friend of hers told me she just started going to the stylist every week and having him cut it, and pretty soon there was nothing left to cut.

Nevertheless, her hair haunted me. I loved the way it looked, and because for decades I'd had this long, long hair that demanded a lot of attention from me and about which I had these Dreams of Responsibility:  how was I going to keep it clean and brushed in some post-apocalytic world, for instance, it was a terrifying but intriguing idea:  buzzing my head, cutting off all but the barest sheen of hair. What would it be like to be so exposed? Could I do it?

So it's come to this: whenever I need to prove to myself that I haven't become complacent and timid, I 1) cut my hair shorter and 2) get another hole in my ear(s). When my mother was declining and I was overwhelmed with stress and worry, I got holes in my ears. I wanted more, but any more and I'd have to start getting holes through the cartilage, and everyone said, oh, that hurts like crazy! Don't go there! And that just irritated me no end: that I wanted something but was afraid to do it.

Last week I cut my hair. There's not much difference to anyone but me, and the difference is this: I have these ears. When The EGE first met me, he called them Baby Dumbo Ears. Remember? And I fell in love with him anyway? Go figure. It was because I already knew I had Ears--surely there was never a lack of kids pointing this out to me in a self-entertaining and jocular manner, all throughout my not-fitting-in childhood and years of subbing. Omigod, the opportunities for hilarity! Etc.

I've had my hair at a length that seems becoming to me, kind of blending with my ears, but what sticks in my head is my mother and her attitude toward her body, even in the last year of her life. She'd poke her arm and say, "I hate my skin." Or she'd say she hated her feet or her nose or her ears. That made me sad. Also irritated. Like, you want your mother to be the wise old woman, right? Not the one who hasn't managed, in almost 80 years, to make peace with the only body she's ever had.

Was I brave enough to flaunt my ears by cutting my hair and having a hole poked in the part that sticks out the farthest from my head, the part they say hurts the most, through the cartilage? Would I do it? Well, let's find out, shall we? I've come to realize that once an idea gets in there, I'm on a path I'm compelled to follow.

Now, all of this sounds self-obsessed and silly, even to me. I fully realize that haircuts and piercings are hardly life-defining events, and I fully realize that there are people all over the planet doing really brave things and making really life-altering choices without doing the whole navel-gazing thing. But I talk about this because sometimes showing yourself what you're made of is a good thing, and that demonstration doesn't have to be life-altering or life-threatening. You don't have to jump off a building or out of a plane. You don't have to sell everything you own and hitchhike to Alaska. Sometimes what you have to do is just pick something that scares you, something that's in the back of your head--my wishing I had more holes in my ears for jewelry but being afraid of the pain and what I would see in the mirror--and just doing it.

My husband scoffs at this. When I tell him I feel the need to prove to myself that I'm brave enough to do anything I want to do, he doesn't get it:  to him, I'm brave. He doesn't live in my head, where the self-doubts sometimes pop up and go, "Hey, there! Missed us?" You know, where the little kid lives who still thinks everyone else is braver and more confident, tougher and cooler and just generally more together. Every once in a while, I think, I need to show that little kid self that I'm every bit as brave as I need to be.

PhotoCard: My Sister Did It

Podcast with Judy Wise & Stephanie Lee

I've been trying to set up a podcast with these two for MONTHs. Talk about some busy artists--they're harder to catch than moonbeams. Finally, though, they had a spare moment, and I called them up and asked them about plaster. What's up with plaster, I wanted to know. Because, frankly, I couldn't imagine:  how could that lowly white stuff, that stuff from kindergarten, be the hottest new art supply? Really?

After talking to them, I think I understand. When Judy said it's like drawing on the surface of an eggshell, well: wow. So here's my little intro, with all the links:

Judy Wise and Stephanie Lee have just collaborated on a huge, huge project. Not only did they do a book together--Plaster Studio, due out in May from North LIght Books--but they're teaming up again for an online workshop in conjunction with the book. The workshop begins on June 13th, so you still have time to hop over and sign up. First, though, you can listen to Judy and Stephanie talk about the collaboration, their friendship, why you need cross-generational relationships, and why they love plaster so very, very much.

And here's Judy--I have actually met both Judy and Stephanie, and this is a photo I took of Judy at a little coffee shop in Portland when The EGE and I went up for Artfiberfest a couple years ago:

And here's Stephanie:

And here's the podcast--enjoy!

I ♥ Maru!

And I love the song by One Hundred Little Reasons on the other Maru video, the one with the line about wrapping up all the people you love in a big pink blanket and sticking them to yourself with glue. Great video, fabulous cat, cool song--what's not to love?

Thanks to Susan Aldrich for sending it along~~XO

So You're Going to Do a Podcast

At "The Creative Life" over at CreateMixedMedia.com this morning I talk about preparing to be interviewed for a podcast. On Friday I'll do Part II, where I talk about being interviewed for print. Even if you're not going to do a podcast, you'll want to know the weirdest thing anyone's ever done while talking to me on the phone. Weirder than The Very Famous-At-the-Time Artist who chewed either carrots or an apple in my ear the entire time we talked (and we'd had the interview appointment time sent for weeks, so it wasn't like I caught her unexpectedly). No, that was nothing compared to the truly weird.

Imagine me listening to this person talk and hearing sounds in the background and going (to myself, of course), "Huh? What's that? No. Noooooooooo! You're kidding me. Ack!"

On the one hand, you want to ask if it's a bad time (right in the middle of an hour-long conversation) and if you should maybe call them back later, and on the other hand your own good manners prevent you from letting on you've noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Here it is. Read. Imagine. Laugh.

PhotoCard: Mr. Midnight

Fabulous Interview with Roz Stendahl

Cathy Johnson's book, Artist's Journal Workshop, will be out in June. I don't know Cathy, and this is the first I've heard of this book, and you can bet I'll be snatching it up as soon as it's available, because one of the contributors is my friend Roz. Y'all know how I adore Roz and her brilliant and creative brain, and I am thrilled to send you over to Cathy's blog to read her interview with Roz, posted last Friday. I read it last night and immediately tweeted it--I hope you'll help me spread the word because I think what Roz has to say about keeping a visual journal is so, so important. So go here, read what Roz has to say, and pass it on, please.

PhotoCard: Maybe, Maybe Not

See? This is Why!

OK. It's Monday noon, and here's what I'm going to do: the first person who 1) tossed their name in the original give-away for the Keith Lo Bue DVD and 2) posts a comment here and 3) sends me an email with their mailing address, YOU will win. I will also love you. A Lot.

Do you see why I've quit trying to give things away here? This plus the almost-$2000-in-postage from 2008 have broken me of that, let me tell you. Apparently I suck at giving things away.

Sorry to vent, but, man! It's ridiculous, you know?

PhotoCard: Little Patriots

PhotoCard: Just Say "No"

A Little Handstitching Video

I thought I ought to do something useful this morning to, you know, justify my existence on the planet and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, I'm still working on that--on the idea that all I have to do is exist and breathe. Maybe in my next lifetime.

Anyway, this is a little video I made for y'all--for anyone who maybe thinks slow, intricate handstitching would be fun. It *is* fun, and I want to hook as many people as possible because it's a constant joy for me. No, not the hooking of people into new obsessions, although I guess that is kind of fun. No, I mean the stitching. I love it. It's how I relax, it's how I work out ideas, it's how I document things in my life (road trips, stuff we see, people we meet, and the more mundane things that I want to preserve because, as we all know, I have no functioning memory, not like other people).

Enough nattering. Here's the video. I hope you enjoy it and are inspired to grab a pen, some floss, and a favorite garment~~

XO

Hey, A Mess of Things, You Win!

Well, that's a funny-looking post title, isn't it? But A Mess of Things is the winner of the Keith Lo Bue DVD, and if she gets in touch lickety-split this morning, the DVD will go out today. Provided, of course, I can wheedle The EGE to go to the post office for me on his last day of Spring Break.

Congratulations!

Podcast with Jen Cushman

I met Jen at Art Unraveled in Phoenix last year, and I loved her right away. I love her energy and enthusiasm and ideas. So I was thrilled when I got to work with her over at CreateMixedMedia.com. She knows a ton of stuff about social media and marketing, and since so many people want to know more about that, I snagged her for a conversation about Facebook and Twitter and all things social media.

As always, you can listen here, over at CMM, on iTunes via "Notes from the Voodoo Lounge," or over there in the sidebar.

And I think I'm going to quit listing all those because, you know: whew.

24-Hour Give-Away: Keith Lo Bue

I've been meaning to do this ever since the first of the month, when my profile of the fabulous Keith Lo Bue came out in the current Belle Armoire Jewelry. But time has gotten away from me, and this DVD

has been sitting here by the keyboard, waiting. Keith gave it to me as background for the piece, and I loved it and thought it would be fun to pass it on to someone else who loves Keith's work.

Here's the deal: it's Spring Break here, and I'm going to see if I can get The EGE to hit the post office for me tomorrow; so this will be a very, very short give-away. Meaning: I'll pick someone tomorrow morning. You have to comment here, at the blog (not on Facebook), to enter. Bonus if you say something about Keith and/or his work. You can see it here on his website, or you can go here and listen to my podcast with him. Check back tomorrow--I'll pick, post the name, and wait to hear from you with your address by email (no, do not post your address in the comments! Aieeeeee! You know better than that!) so we can get this in the mail.

Quick, sweet, and fabulous~~just like you!

The Big Project

I've been feeling ready to dive into a Big Project. You know, one that will take not hours or days, but weeks, maybe months. I love Big Projects I can work on and sink into and settle down with (with which. . . .) Sometimes I just want to make something--anything: a book, a necklace, a bag. I don't really care what it is; I just want to start something from scratch and see what happens. But other times, I want something that's ongoing, that I can think about and ponder when I'm doing yoga or falling asleep or any of those times when my brain needs something to mull.

I've made Journal Skirts before. Lots of them. You've seen them. Here, perhaps. (And, whoa--do I need to go do some repairs to my website or what? Yikes--I have no idea what happened there, but I'm going to have to take a day and fix it. Sorry about that.)

Anyway, I have very few of those skirts left (which means that the "fixing" of the website means taking down those pages, since I have neither the skirts nor photos of them). I sold almost all of them except the ones I couldn't bear to part with--some of the ones I made on trips, for instance. The problem with them is that they're straight skirts:  they'll hike up when you sit down in them, and you have to sit Like a Lady, meaning I can't sit cross-legged, which is how I usually sit. So I'd quit wearing them almost entirely.

For a long, long time I've been fascinated by gores. I don't know why, but I adore them. There's something about a hidden part of a garment that expands to create more space, almost like the pages of a book. Here for a couple of months I've been wondering about making a skirt from Levi's and adding gores. Now, a normal person would go find instructions for adding gores to a skirt. Look online, maybe. I went to the fabric store and found the simplest pattern that had gores and looked at it and said, "Nah". I decided I didn't want to know how to do it The Right Way; I wanted to see if I could make it work my own way. And, boy, isn't *that* a surprise.

I had a pair of 501's that needed some serious mending, right at the knee. I'd been avoiding it because I hate mending that area--unless you open up the leg seam--and I'm way too lazy to do that--you have to squeeze all that leg up on the arm of the sewing machine. Ick. Plus this pair had some funky glitter stuff I bought at the quilt show in Houston years ago that turned out not to be as permanent as they touted but way, way more permanent in a bad way:  the ugliness stayed, but the cool glitter look faded quickly.

To the chase:  I cut apart the jeans just as I would for a regular skirt, but instead of making a straight skirt, I added in gores made from some of The EGE's falling-apart-to-shreds jeans. Here're some photos, taken at Starbucks, of course--my new plan is to take this everywhere with me and stitch on it all the time. I love doing that--it's much more sociable than reading because you can talk to people while you're doing it. So here's the skirt:

You can get an idea of how it's constructed. 

I had a heart I'd cut out long ago, made from some velvet--either silk or rayon or, most likely, a blend--left over from a dress my mother made me when I was about two (that I gave to my niece, who wore it when she was a baby). I've beaded it heavily and will have to remember to get photos of that. That elastic loop above the pocket on the right is for holding a pen in the pocket for when I wore the jeans out walking. It keeps the pen upright and secure, theoretically. 

I've begun stitching some of the joins of the seams to get them to lie like I want them to. 

Wardrobe Break! Here's a linen tunic (clearance last year at Old Navy), tie-dyed and shortened. I actually saw these for the first time at Starbucks--a friend was wearing one, large and loose and white, and I started hunting for them, knowing they'd be perfect for dyeing. I ended up with quite a few and have given some away. I love these jeans so much I bought three pair when they were on sale. The shoes are, of course, Borns. From Nordstrom's Rack or, maybe, on clearance one year at Dillard's.

Back to the skirt:

Then when the tsunami hit last week, I was watching a video taken from a news helicopter. It was the eeriest thing I've ever seen: the sky was gorgeous, the sea was lovely, this huge beautiful wave was rushing to shore, silently (from that height), beautifully, inexorably. I watched it for what seemed forever, knowing what I was seeing but unable to reconcile the beauty of the wave with what it was going to do, imagining so vividly being someone standing on the shore, knowing what it was that was coming and unable to do a thing to change it. Horrible in that beauty.

For as long as I can remember, I've periodically had a nightmare in which I'm in a large building, like a gymnasium, and I'm backed against one wall. In front of me, rising up and up and up, is a huge wave, cresting, preparing to crash. When it does, the room will be filled with churning water and I will die. There's no escape. I stand and watch the wave get higher and higher and higher and stand, terrified, open-mouthed. This brought that dream back very vividly.

The news footage haunted me, and I remembered this Japanese woodcut. The title is

 The Great Wave at Kangawa

and it looks like this:

I found it and printed out a black-and-white copy. I knew I wanted it to face the other way, on the panel of the skirt that had the icky glitter remnants. I could open it in Acorn and flip it, but then I couldn't get it the right size. (I still haven't gotten Photoshop Elements for Mac. Sigh.) Long story: I finally printed it the size I wanted but facing the wrong way, went over Every. Single. Line. with a Sharpie, then flipped it and used carbon paper. I tried using fabric transfer paper, but it was all too light. I wasn't about to go buy anything--this was doing what I wanted to do without having to have fancy supplies. So I tried the carbon paper I had, but it was either too old or just too funky. Getting a little pissed by then, I got out some old iron-on transfer paper, from the days when I did a lot of that. I printed it out on fast print, so it was pale and black and white, and when I flipped it to iron it on, it was facing the right way. Yay! To get rid of the slick polymer, I ironed the image to the denim and then covered it with waxed paper and ironed that and peeled it--I did that 3-4 times. This is the trick I learned and used to teach when I did workshops. Once you get that polymer melted into the fabric, you can use fabric paint. So I did that--and this all took forEVER--and then painted. The paint was ancient and dried up and funky, and so I was mixing with water and mashing lumps with a popsicle stick and grousing. I finally got that done and then let it dry and heat-set it The Right Way (my YouTube video shows that--how you don't just run the iron over it but iron it for several minutes on the hottest setting to let the paint bond with the fabric).

Then I mounted it on stretcher bars.

I've gotten quite a bit of stitching done since I took these photos. Yesterday afternoon our best and oldest friend showed up and surprised us, and we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the front porch with him, just like we said we'd do 25 years ago: we'd said that when we were all old, we'd still be hanging out, sitting on the front porch talking. Indeed. He was our kid for a while--while we never wanted children, we were happy to have him around when he was a teenager--he had a key to our house and had dinner with us maybe a couple times a week. While he's not technically young enough to be my kid, we were happy to claim him, and after he left yesterday, The EGE said, "We did a good job helping raise that kid."  I would say he's become a fine man, but he was always a good person, so it's not like he's changed a lot. He and his family live far away, so we don't get to see him often, but yesterday we picked up right where we've always been, talking about everything. There aren't a lot of people with whom I can be myself, voluble and opinionated about politics and sex and religion and race and gender, without worrying about giving offense or toning it down so I won't inadvertently hurt someone else's feelings. You know, when you can use the big words without someone thinking you're uppity and you can voice opinions that make other people sigh, like when you say, "No, I still don't like kids; you were just special." You know. He grew up listening to us argue about everything from education to sports to politics, so it's normal to him.

Anyway, so we sat for hours, and I got a lot of stitching done. And my new plan is, as I said, that I'm going to carry this with me and work on it, and then I'll wear it for a while and then work on it some more. It's a big skirt with a lot of room for embellishment. I'm going to use it as a real Journal Skirt, not planning what to do but just doing it as it strikes me. I can't wait. The other thing I'm trying to do is my on-going effort to get everything in my life well-enough organized that I have TIME to do this. Just typing that makes me laugh. If I haven't gotten it down by now, it's probably never going to happen, right?

Time for yoga~~XO

Stuff You Need to Know

My blog post today over at CreateMixedMedia.com is all about grammar and stuff you need to know if you want to write for publication. You can also watch me review my own book, Creative Time and Space, just in case you missed that video when I posted it here. I did post it here, didn't I? 

Oh, who knows?

I'll be back later--I have photos of The Big Project I want to share, but this afternoon is Tax Day, and I still have some stuff to prepare for that--yiiiiiii! I meant to have it all tied up and neatly ready yesterday, but our Best Friend in the World showed up unexpectedly, and we spent the rest of the day sitting out on the front porch visiting, just like the three of us said we'd be doing 25 years ago, when we were all young. It was lovely, but we're a little behind around here this morning.

Back later--XO

Wardrobe Someday

I call it that because I have no idea when this was. The EGE takes the photos, and then every once in a while the camera card will appear next to my keyboard. I'll import them into iPhoto and go, "Ooooh! I like that! Wonder when it's from?"

So here's some thrifty goodness for you. 

$3 cotton tights, cheap cotton t I tie-dyed, my favorite Born boots and bag from New Orleans (the only external (non-underwear) parts that are *not* thrifted. Sweater I think I've shown before--it was green and got dyed in golden yellow to spark it up. The leather coat is the one I repaired--you've seen it. And then the brown linen skirt:  that's the fun part. I had a pink wool coat I fulled in the wash and then dis-assembled long ago. I used a circle template and cut out tons of circles and then appliqued them all over the skirt. I used green embroidery floss--this time of year, I'll all about pink and green (my toenails alternate pink and green, exactly the colors of this skirt and sweater, now that I think about it). I'm thinking the coat and skirt and sweater, all together, were a little less than $10.

You can click on any of these to see them larger and in more detail, if you wish.

I'll try to post another ensemble (woo-hoo:  I used "ensemble") soon. Tomorrow is Tax Day; wish me luck, please!

XO

Kelly Rae Rocks!

I get to work with just the nicest people. That rant last week about where the nice is? It hardly ever applies to the artists I get to talk to (and we're not even going to go to the places where it has applied; those are the ones we just never, ever talk about ever again. Few and far between, thank goodness). They're professional, on time, prepared, easy to work with. And just really, really nice. Like Kelly Rae Roberts, who is always just a delight to work with. There are a lot of reasons she's had such success, and her professionalism and kindness are surely a big part. Who wouldn't want to work with her?The profile we did came out in the March/April issue of Somerset Studio, and yesterday this thank-you surprise came in the mail:

Isn't she just the sweetest? Thank you, Kelly Rae~~

Writing for an Audience

I wrote about this--about knowing your audience before you write--over on my blog at CreateMixedMedia.com, The Creative Life. It's a continuation of my posts about writing for publication, so you might want to go back and read the earlier one if you missed it.

I'm going to try to post a reminder here when I have a new post over there, but since I'm posting over there at least three times a week, there's a good chance that I'm not always going to remember. You know how that goes. At any rate, they're not duplicate postings--I may cross post at some point, but I don't really see why I'd do that: it's never like I don't have anything to say. Snort.

I'm going to try to get some photos up here, but I don't know when that will be. I'm trying, really I am, but in less than 48 hours, we have The Tax Meeting. Yiiiii. I have major stress issues about income tax filing, for reasons I can't begin to fathom. Was I tortured by IRS agents in a previous life? Do I secretly have a huge stash of unreported income I don't know about? Am I a member of a huge international crime family involved in nefarious financial dealings? Somehow I suspect that if any of these were true I'd be leading a much more exciting and hair-raising life than I actually am, but something has to account for the terror I experience every year when we go to have our taxes done. Eeeeeee.

So keep me in your thoughts on Wednesday, please. I hope my head doesn't catch fire between now and then.

Life on The Society Page, or Hangin' with The Hog. (Or, Um, Sow?)

So last week people kept telling us that we were in the newspaper. We finally tracked down a copy of Monday's paper at 7-11, and just let me say this:  if you think the shoppers at The Dreaded Wal-Mart are scary, try going into your local convenience store late at night. I think this is where you shop for potato chips and Chapstick when your driver's license has been suspended.

Anyway, so we got the paper, and sure enough, there we were, on what I think is The Society Page, or at least the page that gives a run-down of who was seen where doing what with whom.

See?

And then I looked more closely at the rest of the page and laughed out loud.

Only in Midland, Texas.

PhotoCard: Jeremy's Feeling Jaunty