every-single-day

Butterflies, rain and sounds...

On my way into the house on Monday, after 5 inches of rain the day before, a Monarch Butterfly sought shelter in our rhododendrons! Hooray! Purdy, i'n't she?

Oddly, I am in love with CocoRosie. That link takes a while to load, unfortunately. This is a sister act, they are moody, experimental and hard to describe. It isn't for eveyone, but you'll like it is you like it!
That last sentence is like saying, "It will stop hurting when the pain goes away".
The last time I was in Other Music, I got turned off from CocoRosie because of thier cover art. I judged an album by its cover and have been proven wrong.
I think this is going to make me give a second chance to Joanna Newsom, whose voice initially turned me off but whose music is really quite good.

Finger Update? It is healing really well though sewing bindings hasn't proven to be an easy task!

Enough About Human Rights

What about bug rights? slug rights?
Want to know more? Check out Moondog. Better yet, buy this album and listen to track 31. :)

So JJ and I had another great day. I don't know if I have mentioned that the Goodwill is now my new favorite shopping adventure, but, well, there you have it.
We bought a one gallon sac of plastic animals, came home and promptly reverted to a genuine state of 8 year old bliss.

And well... I sort of have a thing for Schliech brand plastic toys anyway. There were a few in this large haul and deeply coveted at that!

We split the bag, I seem to have gotten the larger part of the mix. (hmmm). And am happy to say that the elephant herd stayed together. They don't like living separately anyway.

As an aside? Read White Bone

Music, plastic toys and books all in one post! Damn.

More Playdates plus!

My Gal Pal Lisa Chipetine came over this weekend for a playdate in my dye studio. She doesn't (yet) dye but paints on cloth in her own studio. We had alot of fun and she taught me quite a bit. I love her.

I have been working on the small nudes. This photograph is a detail shot of the upper left hand corner of the purple nude (click the link in the last sentence to go to the older post).
I wish to all hell that Brienne, my buddy in crazy stitches, had a web site, because I have two of her pieces hanging in my home. Yesterday I was gazing at one of them thinking of how much control she has with her machine. This morning when I went to stitch the geese, I conjured Brienne saying, "If she can do it, so can I".

Finger update: No skin graft needed! YEAH! They gave me a dainty plastic brace and told me to keep it moist, covered and to quietly let it heal. My finger nail may not have the ability to reattach to my finger but it will grow back. My solution, if this is the case? Super Glue.

Watch this Episode!

This week has been an action packed episode. JJ and I went to Burlington Vermont, had a grand time, shopping, relaxing, eatting, dancing and being ourselves together.
We saw these long horned cows (?) both male and female had horns. Does anyone know what we saw?

And because it is all still so new for me, this is another picture of me and my short hair. I have been called sir a few times now.
My response is, "That is Mrs. Sir to you!
But one day I got called sir and ma'am within the same hour... Does that cancel the whole deal out?
Yesterday I went and bought myself an outfit to match the hair. I figured I would try to go as androgynous as possible. I figured it out. I always thought 'my girls' were too big to pull off the androgynous look. Nah!

And then? I shaved off the tip of my finger yesterday. I am going to get gorey. I was using a shredder, you know how cheese graters have the long thin part for thinnly slicing, say, cheese? Well I was using that to slice apples because I wanted dried apples. Well that tool also slices fingers.
I am prolly going to have a divit in my right pointer finger and my nail may not grow back correctly. BUT! I have full use of my finger pad, which as an artist, is very useful.
JJ and I had plans to go to dinner and a Redbeard concert. So the emergency room and pain weren't in the plan for the night. But they gave me drugs and I felt fine! We did everything we planned!

Hey! Go buy Redbeards album! I can vouch for the whole album. It is that good. And they are two fabulous female fellas who have the andrgyny thing down to a T.

And then there is the small piece of art I was able to finish over the weekend.

I'm missin' my Man, fierce like...

Shirking the Cloak of "Femininity"

I cut my hair. I thought about doing it yesterday, told my Man about it, woke up and did it. My Man cut it for me. I vacillate between sheer panic and giddy joy. It is short. I sometimes get the feeling that I have it in a french twist, at least that feels like the balance of it.
The good thing about hair is that it grows.
In an effort to categorize and then shelve my fear:
I fear that unenlightened men will make untoward comments.
I create a large box (if only in my spiritual center), and place this fear within it. This box will gather dust from disuse and inattentive uselessness.
The last time my hair was this short, my life was out of order. I'd left home and went to seek myself. Washington, California, Oregon. I did some fabulous stuff during that time, which helped to formulate who I am today. And some crazy stuff happened too.
That was so long ago; and I a different woman.

I have been thinking; I am not my art, I am the experiences that help to create my art. But I am not my art.
I am not my hair either. This is my 'warrior haircut', which is what my Man called it as he cut it away.
Anyway!

I need to go sew.

Wandering in the Garden

We didn't get to go to the Zoo this weekend. My Man's poison ivy was too much. It would have been itchy hell and neither of us would have had the fun experience it should have been. Oh well. Shoot! Life is good though! This weekend we were given free tickets to the Mets game. I love going to ball games. I like to cheer for everyone who has done something good. My fellow fans get confused by my behavior, but I think they could use to learn some new behaviors.

My new thing in the dye studio is to use the same motif and try as many different techniques as I can think up. These two pieces are actually the best of five that I did using a small version of the nude seen in this post and this one too.

These little nudes are probably 10 by 14 inches or less.
In the green I used freezerpaper resist, direct dye paint, and monoprint. In the purple piece I used direct dye painting, monoprint, wax and stamping. The two of them are going straight up to the studio to get stitched.
I will be going away with JJ next weekend and I need a car oriented project, I have no clue as to what I will do with these pieces but I am hoping they will need a finishing technique by that point.