Month: January 2006

Art, Journals

Soul Mapping: Chapter 4 Finished

Shelly

Chapter 4 was much shorter and less involved than the previous chapters, so it went really quickly. I finished it this evening, along with the visual exercise. The chapter’s theme was re-creation, in the context of rebirth and synthesis. Most of the exercises dealt with exploring the things that feed the soul and recharge the body and mind.

Many of the exercises seemed to be geared more toward people who have trouble discovering what to do with their free time–something that has never been a problem for me! I don’t know the meaning of the word boredom. I can thank my mom for that. When we were kids, if we complained that we were bored–or even if we just looked at loose ends–she’d find us something to do. Something usually involved cleaning, so we learned at a young age to occupy and entertain ourselves. That sounds like such a simple thing, but I’ve been surprised at the number of adults I’ve known who’ve had no concept of how to make use of and enjoy their free time.

Soul Mapping: Chapter 4
Soul Map, Chapter 4
acrylic, anatomical illustration, dictionary page, ticket stubs, and magazine clippings

The symbolism of the elements in this piece is tenuous. The book suggested perusing a bunch of magazines for imagery related to our responses to the written exercises. I had a hell of a time finding anything useful, and what I did find, I really had to massage to turn it into what I wanted it to be. Because of that, most of the elements are doing double, or even triple, duty.

Now, on to Chapter 5!

Crankypantsing, Meta

Mutant Roommates

Shelly

In a mad fit of obsessive compulsiveness, I cleaned the microwave last night. This morning, when I went to heat up water for tea, I nearly dropped my mug. The whiteness of the clean microwave was blinding! So that’s what it looks like under all the gunk? Who knew?!

Today’s daytime teevee observation (really, I do have a job, only today is MLK Day, so I’m off work): I wish Delta Burke would get a hobby. She’s hawking some sort of medication delivery service. Apparently, she’s been “living with diabetes” and is really excited about having her syringes, etc. delivered to her door. And, who wouldn’t be? It’s just that I object to that phrase, “living with X.” It makes X sound like some sort of mutant roommate. “Hi, I’m Delta Burke, and this is my platonic life partner, Diabetes.”

I finally finished moving all my image files from Blogger to my domain. Boy, was that ever a pain in the behindermost! I would recommend to any Blogger users that, if you think it’s possible that you might ever, in your wildest dreams, want to skip town, have your images hosted at your own domain or by some disinterested third party (I unreservedly recommend Flickr). Otherwise, you will regret it.

I also added categories to all my posts. That was a time consuming pain in the arse, as well. One thing I learned is that I do in inordinate amount of crankypantsing. It’s by far the largest category, though that’s partly due to it being a bit of a catch-all.

That’s all for now. I think I may have a wee cocktail[1]. And, perhaps, do some arting.

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[1] If that’s not an obscene word, I’m the Pope.

Pets, Photography

A cap of lead across the sky

Shelly

I woke up this morning to the sound of some sort of unholy wind keening through the trees. And hail. Lots and lots of hail. Only, when I looked out my front door, I couldn’t see any hail. Hmmm. I thought maybe I was imagining it, but then, when I looked out one of the back windows, there was a layer of white covering the ground. It was hailing on one side of the house, but not the other. Very weird. It’s been gross and rainy and windy all day, so I haven’t wanted to do much of anything but curl up on the couch with a book.

The sun tried to make an appearance, bless his heart, but the clouds were just too heavy.

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Because it was such a horrid day, I didn’t think there would be much in the way of a sunset. It wasn’t as spectacular as it could’ve been, but I managed to catch one of my neighbor’s horses grazing on the crest of the hill, silhouetted against the golden sky.

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This is why I had to velcro my computer speakers to the top of my monitor. Some old cats think they should be allowed to sleep wherever they want, and who am I to argue? I love the way her little paw is folded under.

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Photography

The first-born lash of dawn

Shelly

There are some fringe benefits to dog ownership, aside from the obvious companionship and entertainment value of living with canines. This morning, I slept in a little later than normal, because last night I’d stayed up way past my bedtime. Harriet, who will usually sleep in as long as I want to, woke me up at 7:30. I had a headache and a sore throat, and could’ve slept a little longer (and eventually did, because I went back to bed), but I’m glad she woke me when she did. When I went outside with her, there was the start of a gorgeous sunrise.

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\r\n\r\n

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Meta

Image Gallery News

Shelly

Like suddenly deciding to jump ship and migrate from Blogger to WordPress, I dove into setting up a Coppermine image gallery on my website. There aren’t any ready made templates that I’m 100% happy with, and the one I chose doesn’t go with the look of the website or the blog–not at all–but it’ll do.

I don’t know what I’m going to do integration-wise. That’s a headache I’m putting off until tomorrow. For now, though, the gallery is up and running parallel to the website, with content duplicated both places. (Except for the photo portion, which I’ll upload at a later date.)

Why, you ask? Because, though HTML coding isn’t difficult, it’s a tedious pain in the arse to update the site as it’s currently set up. Coppermine has a similar functionality to Flickr, which makes uploading and sorting easy peasy. It also includes a bunch of Flickr-y bells and whistles, like viewed stats and individual image comments.

Uncategorized

Space Food Sticks

Shelly

I periodically wrack my brain, trying to remember a particular candy treat from my childhood. They were little chocolate-y sticks, wrapped in a foil tube. Aside from that, all I could remember is that they were vaguely connected with space or astronauts. I was starting to think I’d hallucinated them, because everyone I described them to gave me a look like I must be smoking crack. Maybe I was. But noooooo! I finally tracked them down: Space Food Sticks.

I believe my day’s work is done.

Art, Journals, Ladybusiness

Femme de Chambre

Shelly

Femme de Chambre
acrylic, oil pastel, and collage in composition book

I finished another spread in my composition book, this one in the Vessels theme. It started with blue paint that was left over from one of the Soul Mapping exercises. I couldn’t let it go to waste, so I did some finger painting in my composition book. The checkerboard stamp–made from an eraser–came from the same place. The pattern is supposed to represent institutional floor tiles–the sort found in many US schools–but I’m not sure it translates well, given the color scheme. I like it, though, and I think the concept of pattern fits well with the general theme.

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The theme and title come from the fragment of dictionary page. I was struck by the juxtaposition of femur with female, and the inclusion of “femme de chambre” (chamber maid). There was certainly a lot to work with there: vessels, chambers, women’s work; the idea that women are empty receptacles, awaiting the indoctrination and training that will allow them to conform to the traditional female role (mother, wife, living loving maid, if you will).

And, just because I can, I thought I’d include a current photo of my work space. It’s actually pretty clean, here. Usually, I leave piles of stuff sitting out, which Pandora sleeps all over and shoves off the edge of the table.

Also, because I can, I scanned and uploaded a real photo postcard I found at a yard sale last summer. It’s not in very good shape (creases, and some pencil marks on the front, and the corners are all bent), but it was really cheap, so I bought it. The back is inscribed in pencil with several names. It also bears the inscription “Norfolk Neb.”

Real Photo Postcard: Two Men Recto
Recto

Real Photo Postcard: Two Men Verso
Verso

Crankypantsing

A Salmagundi

Shelly
  • The Throat Clearing. Dear God, please make it stop. Pleeeeeeease. Between that and the woman with the gooey-wet smoker’s cough, I may lose my mind. Or vomit. Or both.
  • I somehow managed to get soy sauce on the bottom of my jeans this morning. Only, I haven’t been anywhere near soy sauce in days, so where the heck did it come from?
  • I’ve been playing around with redecorating the website, and have updated the sections with subdivision pages (painting, sketchbooks/journals, gluebbooks/collage, and the main page). The images for the links on the left will change, and I may rearrange/add some categories, just to see if I can break Teh Internets, but the rest of it is basically how I want it. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to work on the rest of it this weekend.
  • I also finally looked at the new blog template in IE and eeew! I don’t know if it was the settings on my machine, or if it’s just how it was translating universally, but it had a grey background and white text, which was really foul looking. That’s been fixed.
  • Thirdly, I need to specify link colors, and specify color change and underlining when hovered over.
  • For one horrible minute, I thought it was Monday.
  • Someone on Paint_L mentioned Art Spectrum Colourfix Primer, which sounds like it’d be really handy for collage. They claim it can be used as an adhesive, as well as a primer for both acrylic and oil. Bonds aggressively? Sign me up! I can’t wait to give it a try.
  • It’s windy. Really windy. I’m not going to complain, though, at least not too much, because it’s also pretty nice outside.
  • I lost another earring, so I gave up and took them all out. I never wear anything but studs, so it’s kind of pointless to bother with them, even though they’ll grow over quickly.
Art, Artist Books, Poetry

Hemp Bound Journal: Three Things (reworked)

Shelly

I really didn’t like the way this page originally looked. It was nothing but silver, which worked better conceptually than visually. The only parts I ended up keeping were the coin, mirror, and key. Everything else was gessoed and collaged over. It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge improvement.

Hemp Bound Journal: Three Things (reworked)
collage (fragments from old patent book, key, coin, and mirror fragment) with oil pastel, Neocolors II water soluble wax crayons, instant coffee, gesso, and india ink
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches

Three things
Are not four things.
Three things
Are sharper than knives,
Silent famines of thought that
Shine silver like moons in the dark.

Three things are perfectly cold
By intent
By design
By the deadliest scheme.

Three things are ancient wheels
That turn in the night,
Near misses and reflections.

Three things
Are stitching thought to flesh to deed,
Bone drawing blood slickened sinew.

Three things are problematic monsters
Ministering, waiting, and watching.