favorite comics

Local genius richard Thompson's Cul de Sac

Art Star in Philadelphia!

Hey guess what? I got in!

Hey, guess what else? I have a supreme headache so i'll update about it later!

want

Um....may birthday is in a month.

Just say'n.

See the planes in person

here's a map if you're in the crystal city area (or on a long layover at Regan national airport-it's about 5 minutes away)
Mine is #25

whale of a whale

I finally finished a whale.

I'll probably list him today or tomorrow on etsy. he's made from recycled sweaters (a great & blue sewn together)
I wish I could find more argyle sweaters.
The back is a grey & blue toile with the standard embroidered heart

Build a little birdhouse

I'm kind of obsessed with birdhouses. I partially blame seeing these from J Schatzprobably about a year ago and probably on Design*Sponge who always knows best about everything. Since then, I've tried to keep an eye out fo great 'houses on Etsy. THere was a seller who had some amazing work, but he flew (ha ha) to a store in Minneapolis and took his houses with him and sells them at "a store". If by some grace of god, anyone has any idea which store, please let me know. I still think about those houses which were kind of found-object-ish, but....oh...so amazing.
This Feeder is also out of my price range, but isn't it beautiful?
And of course Jonathan Adler has a ceramic version as well.
For the uber-modern Robin in your life, there's This house which is so great, I wish they made human sized versions.

More stuff I'm proud of...

4 years ago, my friends Sean and Rania tied the knot and they asked me to help with their flowers. I'm stealing this photo from Rania's facebook page, but this bouquet made of ranuculas, chinese lanterns and I think china berries (? I'm not so good with names of flowers) remains one of my favorite things I've ever done.
Not just because of how it turned out but who I did it for.
Aww...

Off to Philadelphia!

I'm going to Philadelphia today with the rest of the Pub.Art kids to look at Philly's mural program.
It's really impressive and as a kid who grew up outside of Philly, I'm even more excited to meet the people who have worked and are comntinuing to work on the program.

Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but I think the makeup in this commercial is gneius. I particularly can't stop laughing at the fluttery hair when the pinata man turns around at the end.

the jet! the jet!

too tired to string many words together- here are pictures of my plane for Crystal City. Although today one of the artists working on their plane had never seen me working on mine, and said "I thought there was some guy working on this one!"

I didn't know what to make of that comment. Um...thanks? Girls aren't supposed to like space or robots? Mine involved minor carpentry? Whateves. I'm really happy with it.

HOLY CRAP!

My eyeballs bugged out of my head then I readthis

We are reaching a new low

Two weeks ago, FOX debuted two half hour episodes of a new Amy Sherman-Palladino show- The Return of Jezabel James. I'll admit, there's a hole in my life from the void of Loreli Gilmore. I had avoided that show like the plague (and really, all one-hour programing until about 6 years ago) because i thought it looked too "chick-lit" but the fast banter, non-stop coffee consumption and XTC and Siouxsie Sue references kept me coming back.
So I looked forward to seeing the new project (Parker Posey is attached!) even though I was a bit doubtful (oh, lauren ambrose is also in this...)
It wasn't great. It wasn't dreadful. It did lean more towards bad...but it doesn't matter...it's canceled.

Maybe this will free up the palladino's to work on something better? Something with more Ed Hermann? In this case, it's probably better to have no Amy Palladino that that show.

Speaking of guilty TV things-



Really? Oh Tyra...is there no business venture you won't attempt?

Next time, could we suggest a few? Like a Rebecca doll that collapses on her own? A Tiffany doll with a string that when pulled says "That bitch poured beer on my weave!!" A shandi doll that will make out with anything?

dorky art

sometimes i play Bingo with friends at the VFW on the hill (i know, it's a very fancy life i lead...)
I have finally found a use for my losing bingo cards!

Sooner or later, your legs give way you hit the ground

When I was in college, I was really (really) (really really) involved with the radio station. It was nice to have another world to retreat into when theatre got too mucky- as it often did. But I passionately love and believe in radio. Even today. Mostly my dial takes solace in 103.9 WRNR when I can pick it up in my car because of moments like Tuesday when they played the English Beat.

And once, they played not one, not two, not three, but FOUR songs by the Jam.

Those tiny magic pockets of radio are enough to keep me going.

Your two cents!

Ok, so since December or so, I've really been contemplating a name change. I hastily chose Magpie DC because I like shiney things, but also because I was hurrying and couldn't really think of anything good. And I think my name sounds clunky.


A few months ago the words TIGER FLIGHT got stuck in my head along with a very clear idea for a logo.

I like TIGER FLIGHT for a number of reasons mostly because it's not tied geographically to a city that I'll admit, I'm giving hard thought to leaving.
It's likely not going to happen any time soon, but at this point, I'm pretty sure it's inevitable.

So, you'll see a poll to the right.
I can either make a clean switch entirely, make a new etsy shop where more people won't buy my stuff, keep the etsy shop name but change the banner and all my stuff to 'tiger flight'...you get the idea.

my humour gauge is off I guess

Is this supposed to be a parody?


if it's real, it makes me sick to my baby-less stomach

Reading

I finished Joan Didion's 'The Year of Magical Thinking' last night. I'll save you a review, except to say that I....liked isn't the right word...felt for her maybe. I could see where the book walks a fine line of emotionally engaging and overly privilaged. But it's as elequent and spare a reflection of devastating loss as I think I ever want to get.
This morning I'm changing gears and started this:
Interviews with Jonathan Adler and Lotta Jansdotter. So far there's been some good advice. Some of the um...prose between interviews and tips is a little too precious (i.e. "it's not uncommon when you ask a gal where she got the baubles strung around her neck for the answer to be a business card and a handshake" - I'm paraphrasing (slightly) there but it's still too precious)

I have a headache that's one part sinus, one part coffee-deprivation.

Attempts to make some art this weekend were moderately successful.

stuff to do: next few weeks

For your ears:
This weekend, Bob Mould is playing an early show at the 9:30 club. Doors are at 6:30. I haven't decided if i'm going or not. Right now, the needle is pointing to 'not likely' because of my morning/afternoon plans and the fact i *really* need to haul ass on my plane.
For your eyes and brain:
One of my favorite writers Elizabeth Crane is coming to DC for a reading at the Dupont Circle Olsson's on March 31.

For your eyes and closet:
The Adamson Gallery on 14th street is showing photos of the coolest/best/most humbling fashion-y blogs The Sartorialist. I want to go to this show *so* badly, but I'm too afraid to- with my glaring lack of personal style.

Maybe that's why i love the sartorialist blog so badly. It's all about the vicarious living sometimes.

There are a bunch of other great shows happening soon too- the mountain goats, jay reatard, les savy fav....
and on the 26th of march the new Night Marchers record comes out- from the ashes of Hot snakes and Rocket from the Crypt although, I've heard the leaked preview and it's slightly more hot-snakes than RFTC. it's great.
They're playing May 10 in Baltimore at the Ottobar. Nothing's keeping me away from that show. Nothing, no-how.

Oh yeah....

I forgot to show any pictures of the show i worked on with sondra!

here's our wall from the Peace Now! show at the warehouse...it's before we put the barbed wire on the top

Color finally on the plane

On saturday, I finally began laying some color on the plane-


Hey, it's a start. I have to thank the super nice people atGlobal plastics for agreeing to wave their $60 minimum order and sold me just one dome so i can make a 3-d robot for the plane and then cover the whole shabang with a clear dome. I'm most excited about that!
Right now the half-moon for the bottom looks like this:


Although it's in my dining room. I found wire to slice all the way through, but it's pretty fragile so it keeps breaking. Hopefully it won't rain saturday and i can yank it back outside and finish cutting it in half.

Bunches of stuff

I moved things around in my spare/craft/crap room to see if I could get better wireless reception (RCN? you stink. On ice) And I re-found this:


This is a rock I painted for my grampa. Probably I was 4-ish. When I was growing up, my dad let us paint on the sheet-rock walls in his studio where he threw pottery. He painted (in my mind) a magnificent scene of a train emerging from a rock bridge/tunnel. My grandfather was a huge train enthusiast and I tried to emulate my father's work on a river stone for him.
It sat on his mantle for years until he moved to the Rydel Park retirement village outside of Philadelphia and it went with him. Infact, my cousin threw that fact in my face over some petty spat where she made it a point to mention he brought it to his tiny room and proudly displayed it for years.

When my grandfather passed away 5 years ago (in two weeks it will be 5 years) I asked my Dad if I could have it back. it brings me a lot of comfort actually.

And actually? My renditions of trains haven't really changed that much

more on the missing garfield

I really, truly, think that is genius. The aforementioned Garfield without Garfield. If for no other reason, I never before noticed how much apparent trouble John has with pants.

I had a super crafty weekend, I began knitting a cool-patterned scarf, made a creature with big thums and toes, and oh yeah, worked on that public-art thing I need to have finished by the end of the month.

Good thing I was uber-dorky and photographed it all. I'll post them soon.

New-found hilarity.

So, here's the thing. I love comics. Not all comics- like garfield. I was never overly fond of Garfield. Until today. Today was the first time I've ever actually laughed at a Garfield comic because someone realized the comic gold of Garfield sans Garfield.
I'm particularly fond of this one


So kudos to you Mr (or Mrs)Garfield Minus Garfield.

It's the best obtuse comic since Zippy the Pinhead.

Baby Steps

This weekend I painted kids faces for almost three hours. Whooo. It was tiring.
Afterwards I stepped out into the mall and checked out payless shoes (they had supercute sandals in the window, ok?) and found these which are surprisingly comfortable.
I'm calling them my starter heels.
Which for a girl that doesn't really wear heels is probably ok.

As for this week, here's what you should do:
Monday- Perfect Souvenier are playing tonight at DC9
Tuesday and Wednesday- Wilco are at the 9:30 club.
Thursday- Aerialist and Statehood are at the Black Cat. I'm so happy that Larry/Aerialist are playing shows.

I don't know if I'll be able to hit all those shows. I already have tickets to Wilco.

You should check out the glass school show if you haven't. If anyone went friday for the opening because of me, um...i'm sorry? The opening was apparently Thursday. I should learn to read.

I'm Julie, your cruise entertainment director!

There's so much stuff happening this weekend!
So buckle up! There's no reason to rest your chin on your fist and sigh about how bored you are.
Friday:
The Warehouse has its anual War/Peace show. I was tapped by ondra Arkin to help with a 'check point' installation. Incidentally, if you'd like to don some khakis and reflective sunglasses, we're still looking for security guards.
The (in)famous Sean has himself a show with other glass type people. My tired eyes skipped a word in the info and read it as "quite international". You should go.
As if that's not enough, my favorite new gallery Art Whino looks to have a super fun opening. I'm still raving about the Rick Reese show there in November.
For your ears, Travis Morrison & the Hellfighters are playing a show at the Black Cat . Travis moved to Brooklyn. Which seems to be the norm now. Once upon a time I'd be sad. But I'm not. DC is begining to wear on me too. And I've only been here for 10 years.
But let's keep this positive...
Saturday Rock 'n Romp is at McGinty's and not only will I be there face painting kids who want me to draw on them, the real attraction is Neal Pollack signing copies of his book 'Alternadad'.
Saturday night, back at the Black Cat for Daniel Johnston where the only thing I will be doing is drinking.
Sunday is for me and none of your bid'ness.

Hope to see you somewhere!

plain plane

plain plane
Originally uploaded by tigersscareme

this is the begining of my plane install for crystal city.

where people mostly walk underground.

no lie.

Also...

At the risk of scaring away casual readers who aren't my friends, this is me and my plane after one coat of gesso.

It's also proof that I should wear makeup always.

New owls!

Well, maybe new to you. They've actually been around for a month. I'm going to list them on etsy today.
Their names are Arthur , Minerva and Judy .

Instead

I'm not really big on the whole "love" thing, so instead, why not look at the lupin du Art et Carly.

They are so cute, you will want to stick forks in your eyes. But in a good way.
Oh, the CUTENESS. I particularly like the white one that has eyeliner like Margot from the Royal Tenenbaums.
But the bunny's name is really petunia.

Snow Day!

Not really...I wish. Just a lot of ice...and a nail in my tire which added up to me being an hour late.

I hope everyone's tailbones are in tact after last night's ice-scape. good grief.

stuff i get obsessed with

I'm not sure why, but I LOVE Patent Abstracts. I think maybe it's because I've always been a bad (read: Lazy) drafter. I couldn't care less about line weights.

There was a technical director student when I was in grad school who drafted by hand and the teacher asked what CAD program he used. When he said 'I don't, I draft by hand' she was impressed to the likes I'd never seen before. But both of them were like machines. And not necessarily in ways that I thought were particularly useful. Or Humanistic.

But when I look at old patent abstracts, they are human.

new!

I'm reading Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. I can't recommend it enough.
It's making great images in my head, so I've been drawing a lot of side-show type stuff lately, one of which I cute-ified and made into a card-

it's up at my etsy shop

When blogs collide...

Last night was the unvieiling of the planes for Crystal City's Crystal Flight public art project. I've been telling people 'it's like the Pandas...but with planes". Crystal City has a blog about it here. There's even a window where you can watch the artists working on their planes. I'll be working on mine nights and weekends, so no one will probably be seeing me. hah-hah.
I am pretty impressed with the efforts the Crystal City BID is making to improve its artistic foothold. Arlington County has long been a leader in public art and the effort that I see Crystal City taking to lure artists and attention to their streets makes me embarassed a little for DC which seems to want to cross its arts and say 'no' to projects.
Although, I will say, Crystal City urban planners? what were you thinking? Driving around that area is nothing short of ridiculous. However, after 4 pm, the parking is free, and there's a metrostop within the building the planes are housed. Yes...Crystal City even thought about giving space for the artists to work. Kind of amazing huh?

I'll post pictures of my progress. But right now, I'm concentrating on having new stuff for the crafts and kisses show this weekend. Yipes!

It's funny 'cause it's true

things to look forward to:

It's overcast and slightly rainy today. I wish I could have another day off. I'm afraid these holidays are making me greedy!

So I'm going to list some future stuff to look forward to:

Two Wilco shows. And to ice that cupcake, John Doe is opening.
4 day work week
I may have found a playstation 2 for cheap...guitar hero, here i come!

Women in comics

the counter culture festival was great. only 2 ugly doll comparisons....which continues to bring me down, but it happens.
and one person called them 'the anti beanie baby' which i guess they are.

I'm mostly happy to see so many women making comics. And good stuff too.

It really makes me wish Kelly Seda did more stuff....or really anything since 'rare creature'. Unless maybe she is doing stuff and I'm just missing it which would be a hue shame since rare creature is one of my favorite stories ever.

Shout out from the Going out Guru's

Editorial Review
Readers of this column and the Going Out Gurus blog may be getting their fill of items about the closing of Dr. Dremo's, but since the Arlington institution is closing on Jan. 27, you won't have to hear about it much longer. Saturday is the annual Counter Culture Festival, which combines a craft market, local clothing designers, authors, comic book artists and other creative types with live music and a sideshow. You can browse Tina Seamonster's awesome notecards and shirts and then see carnies hammer nails into their noses and walk on glass, or pick up one of Beth Baldwin's funky stuffed animals for your girlfriend before rocking out to the reggae band Lucky Dub (listen) or one of six other acts. Admission is free. The market runs from 4 to 8, and the performances start at 8.

-- Fritz Hahn (January 2008) or read it here

Another view of Tom Sarris

First floor
Originally uploaded by pasq242

This is the first...well, actually middle, floor since there's a basement.

You might be able to see why i loved this place.

Singing "Hello Dolly" was never an option. It was a mandate. In the Carol Channing voice.

Oh Tom Sarris....

IN!

My design for a Crystal Flight jet plane was accepted! This will be my fourth public art project. I'm so excited!

Good Sign!

When I'm lucky enough to roadtrip, I have a silly rule- only eat at places with great signs.
I just do.
There's one place that locally perhaps inspired that rule and last night was my last time at the Tom Sarris Orleans house. I've only been going there for the last 7-8 of its 54+ glorious years. I will miss that place tremendously. The balcony. The mysterious bright green house salad dressing on the salad bar shaped like a steamboat

The whole design of the place is so fantastically visionary.
it closes forever tomorrow. It's going to be torn down for new, shiny office buildings.
It breaks my heart that anything with character in this area is being squashed in favor of shiny luxury. it's gross.

It is a small world afterall

I was googling a DC artist yesterday, since I decided to make it my business that people know more about the art that is hanging in their offices, and stumbled upon their flikr page. I added her as a contact since I think her work is totally ace.
She sent me an email last night saying that for Christmas, a good friend of hers bought and sent to her (she has apparently moved to Atlanta, Georgia) one of my Astro-NOT's! And she'd been meaning to look up my web site and when she saw my little Flickr contact photo thing, she knew exactly who he was!
I was so delighted and honored that she has a piece of my art by her computer. It was a nice little mutual-admiration-society moment.
I love it when the world becomes a little bit smaller.

Things I like

For the last two days, I've driven to work. Which is bad, but with the street cleaning suspended, it's a little easier to find parking (super princess parking, BOTH DAYS!) and I've stopped off to get coffee at a new-ish cafe that's the big bear cafe
It's really comfortable, and the coffee is good.
Then, today I read this on Pitchfork.
I love the crap out of Jay Reatard. Just straight up, three-chord 22 songs in 15 minutes type stuff.

And today I'm wearing these shoes:
but in black from this place
Ma Petite Shoe in Baltimore.


Can you tell I just figured out the hyperlink thingie in the tool bar?

kokeshi doll

kokeshi doll
Originally uploaded by tigersscareme

being sick has its advantages- i sort of finished (well, the front anyway) this doll.

She's based on a doodle i did on the 1st of January. I was racking my brain to think of a way to affordable reproduce a blank kokeshi doll and i thought 'hey, just sew it and paint it!'.
it's not as even as i'd wanted to this one will be mine and then i'll make a smaller version to maybe sell on my Etsy shop perhaps.
She's actually pretty big- she's 16 inches. I think others will top out around 10-12

Hey, so i just learned how to do this poll thig- loo to the right and vote!

happy new year!

2008 is already off to a great start! On January 19 I'll be at Dr. Dremos for the DC Counter Culture festival, and February 3rd I'll be at the crafts and kisses show at...I forget the exact name of the building, but I'll post it tomorrow.
I've set my sites for at least 8-10 shows this year, I'm going to aim for 10...and hope for 12, so we'll see.

Right now i have something in the works that is either going to be the best thing i've ever done and a new direction of my work, or it's going to be a big stinkin' failure.
Either way, I'll be sure to post pictures.

new year

I love resolutions. I do. I'm kinda lazy about enforcing them (like the year I vowed to cut back on swearing) but I enjoy making them. I think because I like making lists.

So this year I'm going to try:

*Get organized
*Keep going to the gym (because i joined and it turns out i actually like it. weird right?)
*dress better


My usual new years eve partner dropped out on me so i'm undecided if this is an excuse to a) Wander around this city solo and see what happens
b) Wander around NYC and see what happens
c) ring in the new year with my cat at my house
d) do something i would never do, but am actually kinda considering it, but i want to keep it to myself, cause a girl's gotta have some secrets, right?

back to work! (well, sorta)

After a bit of unscheduled (err... unplanned) stuff at work this morning, today is looking to be really slow, so I might take this opportunity to update the blogs I like to read and the policy stuff for my etsy shop.

Suggestions for blog-reading gladly accepted!

honeymoon over

and now it's time to go.
i miss my house and my mess and most of all, my fantastic cat. i'm going to be totally queer and put a picture of her here, cause i can, and cause i like falling into cliches such as 'blogging about cats'.

document the moment

right now i'm sitting in a rickety four-poster bed at my parents house, looking out the window at the sun rising, various animals outside,
warm laptop balanced on my leg.
it's christmas morning and everything feels right.

merry christmas!

finding inspiration everywhere

The haircut was successful! Unlike me linking to the picture.
I've been to Dino at Bang on U st. twice now, and I don't know how else to say it, but that man has great instincts about hair.
Plus, everyone *everyone* at Bang is hot and tattoo-ed. I remember last spring when I was there, one of the women had a Descendants/Milo tattoo, which is obviously a good sign.
I've been thinking a lot about clothes, and through etsy found this blog:
http://theblackapple.typepad.com/somegirlswander which is so totally inspirational on so many levels.
And through that blog i found this sweater:

Which might be an inspiration for altering some clothes i have around.

chop CHOP!

with my hard-earned craftin' money, i'm getting a haircut tonight. I think maybe something like this:

This is an article from the NY Times yesterday, it's mostly about Etsy, but it raises some good points about the indie craft community.

One of the subject breaks is titled: STEP 1: Weave Do-It-Yourself Spirit Into a Community. That's something I'd like to see my little craft-group do. For most intents and purposes, we tried to do that with the show we put on Saturday. And I think it showed. We raised almost $200 for the food pantry for the church we held the show in, and the turn out was great.
I wish more people believed in that philosophy. It is as simple as not littering in your neighborhood. If you think about your community and its space and its people, you're more likely to take care of it.
I think too, this is maybe part of the answer to a question posed by a friend of mine a few weeks ago. Why in certain neighborhoods public art projects tend to be "community involvement" instead of finding one, great artist that represents the neighborhood.
I couldn't answer it at the time, but I've been thinking about it, and I think perhaps it's that some neighborhoods have been neglected by their cities and their services so the residents feel a little neglected and they inturn neglect their own neighborhood with trash, letting abandoned cars sit, not reporting (or contributing to) graffitti-tags. Sometimes it takes a community effort to involve people and make them wake up to the place they live, and once residents feel like they've made (even a small piece of) change, attiudes begin to change and citizens can reclaim their neighborhood and effort and pride are exerted in their communities.
Anyway, read the article. Be inspired by something. Make stuff.

So much press!

The other ladies of the Craft Mutiny have been busy busting their humps to get a lot of press for the Holiday Booty Market. It's pretty incredible. We've had ads in the City Paper, DCist, the Post, etc...Now I'm afraid I'm going to be woefully unprepared for tomorrow...yikes!

I hope people come out...and don't haggle.

just added:

To my Etsy shop:

come out saturday!

This saturday is the Holiday Booty Market
5 Thomas Circle (the big circle at M &14th, near the farragut west metro)

It's in the ground floor of the City Church's free-trade gift shop. Entrance is on 14th street, north of the circle, on the west side of 14th.

You ever have one of those days where you have a hard time getting started?

yeah, today is one of those.

great weekend

wow.

the craftacular was awesome. I was next to Diana and Liza from Make Workshop http://www.makeworkshop.com/ who could not have been sweeter.
the vendors were so nice, the crowds were plentiful and wonderful. And not once did someone try to haggle with prices.

it was fantastic.

and the rock and shop at the black cat last night was great too! one person tried to haggle over the price of the cards that i was selling on tina's behalf.

seriously, people of DC. what is that? it's not a flea market. We make stuff, we price it at what we think is fair. You buy it.
i don't understand why people think it's ok to undervalue artwork. i guess maybe because of chain stores and mass-production, but still.

whales!

DSC00209
Originally uploaded by tigersscareme

I've made two whales out of a blue argyle sweater. i have another sweater that's the same shade of blue, but it has a grey stripe- for this one i sewed a piece of a grey sweater to the bottom.
the back is plaid wool