Choose Love

This just in from Nancy Lang. Isn't it cool?? I was going to blab on and on about recent life lessons, and how I'm just not cut out for corporate life, but let's just leave it at this, choosing love is easier said than done sometimes. worth trying though.

is it illegal?

I went out to get the newspaper saturday morning, walking by my car, I noticed there was a giant, and I mean really big,(bigger 'n dallas) phallus drawn in the dirt on the side of my car. At first, I was really freaked out, I mean eeeuuu. Then I remembered i'd been to a bar the night before to see a blues band and so rather than someone creeping around in my driveway drawing on my car, it was more than likely some of the young punks that were out in the parking lot expressing themselves. And for sure they got a powerful point across. Nothing says "wash me" like a giant penis on the drivers side door! It still occurred to me to call the sheriff. (ok I'm in the city limits so I'd really call the police, but it sounds more western to call the "sheriff".) But then I'm wondering is it illegal to draw in the dirt on a persons car? It didn't scratch the paint, a wet rag removes it, and yet, it's objectionable material. Or is that a matter of taste really? I wanted to call the police at least to get a humorous posting in the police blotter of the newspaper. In this town, this topic could start quite a local controversy along the lines of "is it art?". In the end I washed it off with a little 409. I noticed then it was signed, the initials were tucked quietly around the top of my tail light.
The photo is of a necklace I made recently. It says "bless your heart". I'm hopelessly bad at taking photos.... but anyway, I say "bless your heart" to the little burgeoning artist who graced my car with his expression of bad taste.

Politics

This is a photo I took of the Barack O'Bama rally last night. really. I guess I should have studied my camera manual before attempting a night picture... So use your imagination. It was wild! I decided to go to the rally with my pal Mary, and we left plenty early, but I think just about everyone in town decided to go too! A normally 10 minute drive took an hour and 15 minutes. It was the biggest traffic jam I'd ever seen here. Once we finally got there still an hour or so early, the line outside was way way long, and just kept getting longer. People kept standing in the line even knowing full well we weren't going to get in. It was so dang cold too. amazing. The other thing that was amazing is that they weren't blasting any songs or chants or anything, but never the less the people stayed in line just in case... Mary tried to get people in the spirit by singing "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.." No one could get into it. (including me, frankly) Anyhooski.... There were thousands of people who did get in and thousands of us who didn't, so Barack came out and talked for a couple minutes to the frozen throngs,(see photo above..,use your imagination) and it was great. I hate to put my enthusiasm behind anyone anymore, as it seems if I like a candidate, TV show, etc it's the kiss of death.


This is why I'm supporting my dog Sparky for president. She is hardworking and has strong family values. She's all about recycling (she'll eat anything!) and she's all about "change". More on this to come...

the shadow side...

This picture has nothing to do with anything except that my horse has trouble facing his "shadow side". Note the suspicion in his eye...
I was going to blab on and on about people angsting over whether or not you can call yourself an artist if you don't show in the galleries. (prompted by a panel discussion on "living the creative" life I attended on sat.) But all I have to say about this really is call yourself a sprockethead if you want, and just get in your studio and make stuff!! My horse says, "snort at the dark side".

coming to a mailbox near you

I opted out of the lunar new year last year since I couldn't quite bring myself to get into the pig... but for god's sake I'm all about lunacy, in fact I've been referred to as a lunatic, so I can't go another year without some sort of recognition of the day of the loons. This year is an homage to Banksy a London graffiti artist. Now, there's a guy who can really capture a rat character eh?

holiday driving....

It's a regular winter wonderland out there this morning. I think the top hand is going 2 hour delay for work today. Which reminds me of my drive home from colorado on sunday... It was cold cold cold (about 10 degrees), and it had snowed about 6 inches of powder the morning I left. The streets were fine though thanks to the competent road crews. I'm headed out and doing fine. However, the windshield got pretty gross from the sand and general road gunk. I hit the wiper fluid and nothing. The wipers are going just fine, but no cleaning fluid is coming out. So I pulled over and cleaned up with snow. Then after just a brief bit of course I had to do that again. Stop # 3 or 4 I went into an auto parts place and got some more fluid. Then when I checked it, the reservoir is full. OH HELL, the thing is just broken. Off I go again and sure enough I'm pulling over every little bit with my windshield completely occluded. I stopped at a rest stop and a trucker helped me, or I should say tried to help me. We determined that everything was hooked up right and like that, just not working. The final diagnosis was, this sucks. So I thought, "what would McGivor do?" I got a sock out and soaked it with the washer fluid and put it on my windshield wiper. I was pretty proud of this solution, which worked for about 15 minutes, then froze, or dried out, or whatever, stopped working.
So next stop 7-11. I bought a bottle of 409. I practiced in the parking lot, driving and holding my left hand out the window squirting the windshield. Much harder than it sounds especially going 60 mph. That sort of worked enough to clear a 3 inch square of vision. As it turns out 409 is kind of greasy and didn't seem to be working that great. Another stop and I dumped the 409 and filled the bottle with the windshield cleaner. I got pretty good at all this and it included leaving the wipers going on intermittent. Every so often my hand holding the spray bottle would get hit with the wiper and got all scraped up. Remember it's cold as hell out and I'm getting washer fluid all over everywhere. So now I'm bleeding all over the place so I put my scraped up finger in my mouth, eeeuuu. Oh yeah, nothing like the taste of antifreeze. That can kill a dog right? There are dogs that weigh more than I do. I couldn't decide whether I should go to a dr or a veterinarian if I started to show signs of eminent death. I stopped again. Had to wash my hand and guzzle a ton of water to dilute the antifreeze in my system. Now I'm certain that this is plenty of evidence to support the long held theory held by many in my family, that I'm an incompetent nincompoop. I went back to the car and for some reason tried the washers again and eureka, they worked. The sun came out and the mist coming off my tires reflected little rainbows. From my vantage point, there were all kinds of colors coming off the back of the chevy. I knew I was going to make it home.


This is a raven out in my front yard probably saying "just because you made it home and didn't have to go to a veterinarian, doesn't mean you aren't an incompetent nincompoop...."

a loose screw

Yesterday morning I was checking out Kieth LoBue's holiday sale page and saw that he was making post earrings out of phillips head screws. These are post earrings with either surgical steel or sterling silver. I don't do that well with posts in the first place and there was no way to specify which you wanted and I'm wildly allergic to the surgical steel. So, I'm thinking, I wonder if I could come up with a french wire version. I found some old screws in the stash of hardware and started to hack away at one. 2 saw blades and no progress later.... OK, gotta hit it with heat. The creme brule torch does the trick.Then how to hang it with wire so that the thing doesn't fall apart . I made the screw into a rivet of sorts And on and on, you get the idea. Next thing you know, hours have passed, I'm still in my jammies but I do have an earring. The piece has some technical and aesthetic issues, but I did make a wire version never the less. The point is, and really this is the point, doing stuff like this keeps a person in the moment now doesn't it? This is perhaps what keeps most of us making "art" really.