Month: April 2005

Uncategorized

Scent and Memory Revisited

Shelly

I normally buy my shampoo and conditioner from the co-op, but I forgot last month so I picked up some cheap Aussie stuff to tide me over until the next co-op delivery. I used it this morning and was wafted back to the apartment Ms. Lea and I shared on West Charles. So, when I got out of the shower, I decided to listen to Opal.

We lived on West Charles during spring semester, so by the end of April we were both apartment hunting and beginning to pack. I remember that spring as being sunny and warm–warm enough that I walked home from the Earth Day celebration barefoot. That day, I was wearing a vintage red paisley mini-skirt I’d gotten from Jayne, along with a black hat that belonged to Chicken-Legs Darren.

Ms. Lea and I were unable to come to an agreement concerning reasonable visiting-with-friends hours (it was also The Semester of Very Little Sleep), but we were able to reach a compromise on music. That spring was filled with Opal, the Velvet Underground, Jesus and Mary Chain, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Nine Inch Nails, T. Rex, Sisters of Mercy, and the Birthday Party.

That was also the spring that Pandora (this blog’s namesake) was born. She’s sixteen now and brimful of piss and vinegar. I had no idea she’d be with me so long when I brought that itty bitty kitten home.

Uncategorized

Mowing the “Lawn”

Shelly

I had planned on spending the day arting, but when I got back from my morning grocery run, I was suddenly motivated to (finally!) mow the, um, “lawn.” (That’s a euphemism for a cocktail of Johnson grass and various noxious weeds. Landscaping, much to my neighbors’ dismay, is not high on my list of “Important Things.”) When that sort of urge hits, it doesn’t pay to argue with it.

Altogether, it’s about two acres. Ugh. I have no idea what crack-addled demon spirit possessed me when I decided to make the dog yard 1.5 acres. Would y’all believe that it didn’t occur to me that I’d have to actually *mow* all that grass? Duh. That’s one silly mistake I’ll *never* make again. Or, at least, not until I can afford to employ a tiny herd of tiny cows to mow it for me.

On the bright side, the cut grass smells yummy. There are tons of weeds, including mint and garlic, so it’s kind of like making a ginormous tossed salad.

The grass was so tall that I had to mow it on the highest setting. So, it’s still pretty tall. And not very evenly cut. But it’s done, done, done, and not a minute too soon. It started to storm as I was finishing up.

Spring marches on…

Altered Books, Art, Collage

Color Erratica: Orange and Copper

Shelly

Recursive Jumprope
Recursive Jumprope
acrylic and collage on paper

Flying the Sun
Flying the Sun
acrylic and collage on paper

Cathy used an appointment diary, so I guess her journal is also an altered book. She chose copper and orange. Have I mentioned how much I love metallics? Oooh, shiny!

Top: This spread incorporates more yearbook photos, along with obituary photos from our local newspaper. The little cut-out girls are made from phone book pages. The little orange I ended up using is in this spread–coloring the cut-outs and as a base coat. I’m not completely happy with the little jump rope squiggles. I should have used a lighter pen. The ropes are too dark, but there’s not much to be done about that now.

Bottom: Yet another appearance made by me in my tutu. I’m standing on the moon (thank you, NASA). The drawing of the sun was done with cheap metallic gel markers (made by RoseArt). I have yet to find a surface they won’t write on. I didn’t stick as faithfully to the color scheme with this spread (gold is kinda like copper, right?). I had been wanting to make the sun out of copper leaf, but just couldn’t make it work. I ended up pasting a piece of newspaper over my colossal oops and starting over again. The result isn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it’ll do.

I was supposed to get this sent off on Friday, but as anyone in the US knows, that was Post Office Hell day. So, I’ll be stopping by the PO on my way home tomorrow, God willing and the creek don’t rise, as they say. I’m just relieved that I managed to finish my pages without making an unfixable mess or slopping paint all over someone else’s pages. Now, if I can manage to get on-line to post this, all will be well.

Art, Collage, Poetry

Epitaph for Eula Strange

Shelly

Epitaph for Eula Strange
watercolor, antique curtain fragment, metallic wax, bone, Gepe mount, yearbook photo, and ink on paper

Epitaph for Eula Strange
I dread for me
living one mute day every time
an allusive and subtle communication
an ever present affliction
clutching to me
an old thought to gnaw on.
I am afraid
Out of worth
without words
caught and reduced and disorganized
like dreaming of sleep
and the taste of dry bones.

This is another of the watercolor collages I’ve been working on. I added a bit of antique Swiss dot material from a curtain that belonged to Pinkie Gray. She’s a watercolor artist who lived in Metamora. The jaw bone I found along the river in Muncie while walking my dog. The photograph is from another old yearbook.

Art, Collage

Remembering Beatrice Stone

Shelly

Remembering Beatrice Stone
Remembering Beatrice Stone
watercolor, ink, gel pen, Gepe mount, yearbook photo, metallic wax, and doll parts on paper

This is another of the small watercolor collages I’ve been working on. The background is acrylic wash on paper. I used ink to make the hand print, then applied the Gepe mount and drew around it with silver gel pen. The doll parts were covered with metallic silver paste.

Pets, Photography

Spring

Shelly

100_0094

The weather has been almost unbearably pretty the past few days. The birds and bugs are back with a vengeance and the trees have a green halo of freshly opened leaves. I took some time yesterday to get a few photos of the new growth, as things change so quickly.I’m also still figuring out this new camera. I love the camera itself and am happy with the pictures, but I’m not so happy with the software that came with it. I ended up uninstalling it, which might have been a mistake. It appears that, if I do not use Kodak’s software to do the initial cropping, Hello will upload the uncropped image as the thumbnail. The thumbnails above do point to the correct, cropped images, though, so it’s not as bad as it could be.I thought I’d get around it by uploading this set of photos to Flickr, instead, but Flickr seems to be cranky today.

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The new grass is tender, and must be especially sweet and tasty. The dogs spend hours grazing. They’re quite businesslike about it: rip, chewchewchew, rip, chewchewchew. I love watching them grab the blades in their tiny front teeth and the sound as they pluck the grass from the ground.