in!

I've been invited to join this motley group of crafters:

http://www.craftmutiny.com

bye bye artomatic!

here are some photos from my installation.
I'm going back tomorrow to finish taking it down. i am really going to miss it.
I would definitely say that this has been my most favorite artomatic yet. i got an email from an online webzine about showing my stuff on their site. it looks like a cool site too, so i'm excited. i hope it really happens.

man, i have to get to work. i have a lot to do before monday...i don't know when i'm going to get everything done.

I'm about the business

In case you haven't, I really urge you to go to itunes or the mp3 purchasing site of your choice and download at *least" "chuck baby" by Chuck Brown.
At least do that. It will be the summer jam for sure.

Do it. Do it now.
I'm not lying.

prop pod

also, in a show i'm working on, there are 3 ipods. hamlet gives ophelia a big pink one.

that they throw on the floor every night.
i'm not giving those asses a real one when they can't even keep their hands on a 10 foot length of rope.
so i made this.

(it's a chunk of plywood that inset a piece of plexi glass, and then photoshopped a screen and copied it onto acetate and laminated it to the "pod" and then coat the whole thing with "triple thick" varnish.

I have to say, it looks really good.

the song choice? "you're my miss washington DC" by nation of ulysses....naturally...

new painting

i made this little guy saturday.
i'm pretty in love with him

great sunday

I would have liked to have spent today with my mom, but i got to spend it with rania and sean and colleen at art o matic.
i also got to see the most awesomest kid that ever awesomed:
that's him with my collection of monsters. i hope his mom brings him to fort reno this summer. as you can see, he's the coolest and most adorable 6 year old ever.
he told me all about the monsters that he's going to create- i can't wait to see them at the next artomatic.

it made me think, this time around, artomatic wanted people to do little workshops with them....maybe i'll do a monster one next time...

oh my god, what's happening? i like kids???!?!???!?


also, here's my table


and lastly- look at the size of this fucking poisonivy plant!!!!



i am beat but i need to unpack the car

but i just heard 3 gun shots, so i'll wait to go outside....they vertainly didn't sound like they were outside. but still....kinda close.

oh well...

win some most, lose some.

didn't get into pile of craft. i'm sure sean and rania will, so i can at least go visit them.

there's a few more shows i'm going to apply for- CB, adam's morgan day probably.

I think if i don't get into either of those, i'm going to pack it up.
i'll leave my etsy page up until that stuff sells, but really....

i have no business trying to make stuff apparently.

SHOWS!

This Sunday I'll be back at the Marketplace at ArtOmatic.

http://www.artomatic.org

In june i'll be here: http://www.xindc.tv/

They asked if I wanted to partake, and i think it looks pretty cool! it seems a little ultra-cool/slick so i'm honored to be asked.

I think tomorrow is either the deadline or announcement of acceptance for pile of craft. so fingers are crossed for that.

coming up:
i have to post pictures of the GINORMOUS poison ivy plant in my back yard.

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by miss moogan of moogan creations, to spill 7 little known things about me.

I kinda feel like there's very little to not be known about me but here goes:

1) The reason I feel like there's little to be known about me, is because I've actually been "blogging" since february 1999. I don't know if blog was even really a word then. It's funny and humbling to read entries from when I was 25. It's mostly embarassing- particularly when i check the stats and see what/who people googled and found me. I don't tell people about that blog, since that's where I vent about my job and boys and music and whatever. although i know a lot of them know about it. i don't mind. it's kind of nice, really. like a diary that talks back and offers advice

2)I'm a chronic incompleter. i have so many half-finished projects that are just gathering dust. I'm a ditherer. A dillatante.

3) I tried skateboarding when I was in junior high. Mid throes of a crush on Mike McGill. I sliced my leg on a slide which started me on the path of worrying about hurting myself. Until then, i rode horses, did tricks on my bike (i called it bike ballet, where i would stand on the cross bar with one foot and then hold the other leg out at some weird angle. actually, there are pictures of this from college too)
I also use to be more brazen with powertools. I've ripped entire 4x8 sheets of luan by myself when i was in college. The key was having a good run-off table.
Now you can not get me near a table saw.

4)Speaking of scars- I was born with a hernia. It ruptured and started to turn gangerous when i was in kindergarten. I remember skipping across the room and then falling down in pain. When I was taken to the hospital, I remember an asian doctor pressing on my stomach and asking if it hurt and i croaked out a "noooooooooo" and my mom smacked me and said "tell him if it hurts!" i had to wear a bandage on my stomach for three weeks and i remember the doctor saying that the scars would fade by the time i was married. the scars haven't really faded and i'm not married. i wonder if it's related.

5)When I was little and we went away on vacation, i would make sure my room had nice displays in it, so if anyone ever broke into our house, they would see these magical arrangements of Byer horses and ceramic dogs and horseback riding ribbons and go "this looks so nice! i can't mess with this" and develop some weird empathy and leave my room (and hopefully my house) alone.

6) my great grandma Cad died when i was 5 or 6. i inherited a bunch of her costume jewelry. i thought pirates might try to steal it (apparently i had a lot of issues with theft when i was little) and buried them in the ground. with some star wars toys. a few years later (3 or 4) i was convinced i was going to get a pig (i had just read charolette's web) and was trying to ready a part of the yard by my playhouse and found the storm trooper.

7)I'm apparently completely un-hirable anywhere but where I am now. So i play the lottery every week to see if i can hit a portion of the jackpot so i can go back to school and learn some skills to get me out of here. I'm really good at my job, but i really *really* don't want to be in theatre anymore.


I don't even know if anyone reads this thing, really, so i'll tag:

rania
selena
sean
tina
beck
colleen
*you* (if there's someone reading this i don't know)

shazam!

I was at target earlier this week and found some kinda brilliant plastic pegboard. and some 2-prong hooks. I thought it might be a nice way to get some stuff up off my table if (when?) (if?) I do really start doing craft shows.

hahahahah....i'm pretending like people are going to let me in and i'm going to do shows and people will buy my stuff.....hahahahah.

I've applied for Baltimore's Pile of Craft. and in the fall is Crafty Bastards.

this sunday is another art-o-market. I'm helping Rania set up, and hopefully selling some things.

I know at the very least, two people want to buy dolls.

Tonight is meet the artist night. i'm nervous, but i'm going.

I'm going to be logging a lot of hours this week with art-o-matic.
Tonight and saturday I have my remaining 5 hour volunteer shifts, Friday night is meet-the-artists, so I might go to that and sunday is the Market.

Whew.

Must remember to wear comfortable shoes. The new cute slip-on airwalks from payless weren't doing it sunday.
but look how cute they are:


go here if that photo doesn't load which i think it might not.
i'm embarrassingly bad at this whole computer thing
http://www.payless.com/Catalog/ProductDetail.aspx?&TLC=Womens&SLC=WomensAthletics&BLC=WomensAthleticsTrendy&Width=Regular&ItemCode=55667&LotNumber=053846&Type=Adult&Popularity=309&DescriptiveColor=Black

also file under "bad with technology": I got the name wrong of the girl the guy at artomatic mistook me for.

she is http://www.mypapercrane.com
ok, that should work now.


last night i cut out and stitched the bodies of 5 Astro-NOT's. It took about an hour and a half, so maybe that's ok. I still have to stuff, sew closed, and then embellish them.

It probably takes me about 45 minutes to make each one at this point. I'd like to see if I could get it down to more like half an hour. Probably with practice sewing will be easier.

Art-O-Market

Yesterday at the Art-O-Market was fun.
I think my favorite part of these are meeting the other vendors.
And bartering!
I got an amazing little book from the adorable Bookwurm...oh i don't have her card on my so i can't post her site.

I met two amazing kids who said they were "big fans of your work downstairs".

It made my week. month. year.
almost enough to make me want kids.

it was so much fun that i'm helping rania of goshdarnknit fame set up *next* sunday too.

another person asked if i was the woman that makes the smores dolls. i said no. i may have said no too quickly because he appologised and i felt bad. it's a huge compliment to be compared to her (www.papercrane.com)
I had to look at her shop again because then i became worried my stuff was too much like hers, but it's not.

i mean, i guess the tone is similar but subject matter/execution is totally different.

i think....

anyone?

Yesterday I was honored to be the featured seller on tina seamonster's blog
http://www.ilikeseamonsters.com/

which was awesome. I also had a shift at Art O Matic where I sold a doll (someone contacted me about buying one after the show opened and sent her sister to fetch the doll)
so that felt nice, i think. That was the first astro-NOT i've sold. I've sold a few batty's and one ghost at a previous craft show and etsy. No one has yet to buy handsome devil. maybe i need to make him more debonair?


Sunday sean of scenic artisans has put together a market so I'm going to try to sell some gocco prints there as well as finish some more dolls. They don't seem to be selling on etsy, so I have to unload them somehow.

Tell-tale signs of spring

My first tell tale sign of spring is that i always always ALWAYS get poisonivy on my chin. Always.
This year is no exception.
I think sadie must find it and then bring in the oil on her fur, because she does like to rub against my face as i'm trying to sleep, watch tv, do my taxes, what have you.

Art O Matic is open! And i think it went fairly well. I've had at least 4 people contact me about my dolls, which is nice. I do think they probably represent better in person than on etsy.

I'm not sure what to do about people actually buying the things in person. We can't remove them from the installation prior to the show closing...that I understand. But I kinda feel like I need to have some assurance they'll actually buy the thing before I mark it sold so i'm not missing out on a sale, just because someone may have had three beers so my stuff looks good then, but they're not really serious about buying.

Anyone with more experience want to help a girl out? What would you do?

With taxes done, Titus and Artomatic open, I need a new deadline....
Goal for this week: Better Etsy photos! And hopefully list one or two of the gocco prints I've done.

photos from my corner at art o matic












here's a close up of the bear



and this is the guy kc and i saw at the stooges show

new painting

worked on this the last two weekends.
i call it "narcoleptic cowboy".


i have to re-do the face.

Nice tin

It could be the fact I'm so tired, but I was in CVS buying some stuff and looked down and saw this tin and thought "that's a lovely design"

(um whoops)

i made some gocco prints tonight.
even 'tho i have grant and taxes deadlines looming.
the grant is due tomorrow. yipes.
the prints came out only ok i think. i tried to switch colors on the screens and ended up fucking the screens up a bit. i don't have the hang of it yet.

i started white (and used way too much ink which sucks since that stuff if hard to find now)
and then tried to make it darker.
i should consult rania who is a genius with that thing.

but I feel pretty sure that I have at least two of each that are show worthy for art o matic.
meanwhile, my dining room is a disaster

be glad you're not my roommate.

sadie was underfoot through some of the process and sums up the evening by yawning as i was trying to ake her picture

she is now lying next to me snoring.
while i'm being lame and blogging about my cat, here's this picture too. she likes to burrow under the covers and play.

A day in the life in pictures

three weeks ago, I purchased a little tiny greenhouse from Ikea. Last week I planted some seeds (mostly left over from last year, mostly zinnias, two morning glories, some basil) here they are now:
there was a small mushroom looking thing growing in the big pot of basil, but today when i returned from work it was gone

then today at work, I had to sew a different head on babydoll. the doll's body needed to be lightweight (i'll explain later) but the baby needed to um...not be white. , so i introduce you to frankenbaby


the reason the body needed to be lightweight, is because i needed to make it squirm on its own, so i found a remote control toy to take care of the motion. in hopes to strengthen the radio wave reception, i sewed an antannae to the baby's belly


another project of mine was the meat pit titus feeds to tamara which has her boys inside.
the pie in question is a 20" diameter pie with a thermal plastic crust

which breaks away to reveal



here's a close up of one of the faces

growing

something in my room smells like clay.
i can really only smell it when i'm laying in bed.
i almost don't want to investigate what it is because i love the smell of clay since it was a big part of my childhood.


i bought a small greenhouse from ikea and started some seedlings. I'm kind of amazed how fast the little seedlings grew in the house.

My tuplips outside look weird and stunted. Most likely from the super mild January.