Friday, April 22, 2011

Go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself



Yeah, I laughed and learned a few things.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Dirty's Last Hurrah







Yes, Dirty is now a changed white boy, he won't be running his game on the female cats that live here and these are the last of his kittens. I have thousands of photos of them because they are so cute it's hard not to look at them and play with them and kiss their pink little bellies. They are already promised out to people waiting to love them and make them the center of their universe and parting with them will be a little sad. Ive made them butterfly wings and unicorn horns and even little ballerina dresses. They like it, I swear they do or they don't even notice because they are chasing kitten things. Oh to be a kitten.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Rock Opera



The first day of warm Spring weather and it seems almost criminal not to be driving somewhere fast listening to loud music. I was thinking about that this morning loading up my ipod and looking for something and stumbled across Meatloaf.

There was a beauty living on the edge of town
And she always put the top up and the hammer down
And she taught me everything I'll ever know
About the mystery and the muscle of love

The stars would glimmer and the moon would glow
I'm in the back seat with my Julie like a Romeo
And the signs along the highway all said,
Caution! Kids At Play!

Those were the rights of spring and we did everything
There was salvation every night
We got our dreams reborn and our upholstery torn
But everything we tried was right

She used her body just like a bandage,
She used my body just like a wound
I'll probably never know where she disappeared
But I can see her rising up out of the back seat now
Just like an angel rising up from a tomb

But it was long ago and it was far away,
Oh God it seems so very far
And if life is just a highway,
Then the soul is just a car
And objects in the rear view mirror
May appear closer than they are
And objects in the rear view mirror
May appear closer than they are
And objects in the rear view mirror
May appear closer than they are
And objects in the rear view mirror
May appear closer than they are
And objects in the rear view mirror
May appear closer than they are
And objects in the rear view mirror
May appear closer than they are

How I love the Rock Opera and who does this better than Meatloaf? He's been a favorite of mine since the old Rocky Horror Picture Show Days, yes I was one of the troubled youth that found their way to the local theater to see Rocky Horror at midnight on Friday Nights. Meatloaf is one of those guys that got better looking as he got older and when he sang those terribly long songs about love and youth and sex and drugs and rock and roll I was singing along. When I was sure that Best Friend just needed to hear this music and she'd be as enamored as I was, I gave her a cd of bat out of hell. Needless to say it's still in pristine condition and I don't think it's ever been played. I am a sucker for romantic rock opera especially if the singer is a bad boy and meatloaf always seemed on the edge of bad boy for me and then he appeared in fight club and that fascination was over.




I Took Woolf Seriously












I remember when I read the first of Woolf writing of Judith Shakespeare, the fictional character she developed, a sibling to the bard, unable to study, the first Yentl of sorts, beaten for wanting to marry for love, forbidden to read because she had too many household chores to attend. The importance for having a space that was just mine to write or create or even just read seemed of vital importance. I have been working to organize the billions of beads that are in my studio along with another desk I'd filled with papers, pages of french literature, tiny pictures of birds, rubber stamps, glitter, tiny tubes of glitter. I had filled yet another space to be creative and I had room so why not make that room even more my own? I had thought on this long and hard not wanting to take over too much space with my creative pursuits hearing from more than one person, "you need fewer interests." especially when they saw my desk, the desk that sits right outside my kitchen, where I could sit and paint and still watch over a cooking pot of soup.

And Woolf was right, of course she was right, I was so excited about having more space to make a soft place to paint where the light would be just right was more than a lingering thought, but a mission I guess. I looked at desks, hundreds and hundreds of desks, not really impressed with the modern pressboard issue of a desk. So I wandered over to a 2nd hand store and found a dining room set that was gently loved but worn well and used thousands of times. The table makes for a perfect desk, lots of room, no fear because of how little I paid for it that I would ruin anything with paint. It came with 9 pieces, but I asked them to keep the chairs and resell them because I wanted the chair to be wicker, wicker felt like summer to me.

You can see from the photo that the china cabinet sits on the back perfectly well. It felt to me that the set was only biding time as a dining set and waiting to be my painting desk. I have filled the buffet that sat under that china cabinet with paints, and more paints and brushes and things I love. I will post photos of that when I am done with the lamps. I think I want to make lamps to put on top or perhaps take some lamps I've found apart and make one tall lap with giant bubble bases made of wondrous glass that they just don't make anymore. Yes, I love old things, repurposing them, wondering who or what used and loved these things and delighting in finding my own way to use them. The piece came with a pretty carved buffet that has wheels on the bottom. I had them put it in my living room it just feels good there, a place to hold art books and my Spring collage, filled with images from old magazines, photos I've taken, little garden magazine clips and set in an old barn window on foam board so I can change it out when I am thinking all I want to see is summer flowers or fall leaves. I can't wait to fill the shelves in the china cabinet with little boxes filled with this or that, something to ponder on a summer afternoon while painting, pausing to finally make a decision about what I am going to do with a box of glass buttons. I found the bunny at the 2nd hand store as well. He's handsome and he is marking the days until easter. After I think I will put him in the garden and let him keep watch there. Yes, a garden, it's almost time to plant and after the longest winter I can remember, I am ready, oh so ready.



The Indigo Girls, how they do amaze me, telling a story about a published diary and how it can change one heart, one woman, one thought at a time, creating rooms all over the world.