Month: January 2006

Art, Crankypantsing

Dirt on the Slide

Shelly

I finally replaced my dryer yesterday, after engaging in a game of musical appliances that involved moving three–count ’em, three–dryers. Not by myself, mind you. But still, it was w-o-r-k. It was well worth the effort, though, or it will be after I finally get to dry my jeans. You see, they are so loose they’re threatening to fall off me, onna count of they haven’t been properly dried in months. I very nearly rewashed them, so that I could dry them, but I decided it would be a silly waste of water and electricity to wash and dry clean clothes.

The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele
The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, Oil on wood, 141 x 176.5 cm (including frame), 1434-36

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I’d like to commence with today’s Art History and Rules to Live By Lesson.

Once upon a time, when I was a wee lass, I took an art survey course which comprised, in part, the study, comparison, and contrasting of Medieval and Renaissance art. To wit, Medieval art is highly symbolic and not terribly concerned with the natural rendering of forms, while Renaissance art, though still highly symbolic, fetishizes the pursuit of naturalism. In other words, Medieval art appears–to our eyes–to be two-dimensional and stilted while Renaissance art appears to exhibit depth and shading and all those things we like to think make art look “realistic.”

The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, detail
The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, detail

So, anyway, one day in class, Dr. StuffyPants was interrupted in the midst of mumbling about Jan van Eyck’s Madonna with Canon van der Paele by a student who asked, quite reasonably, I thought, if the apparent deformity in the Baby Jeebus’ right foot was due to the artist’s ignorance of anatomy or if it was a naturalistic rendering of the model’s malformed foot. Dr. StuffyPants blinked, and replied, “It’s dirt on the slide.” At which point, the entire class of about 200 students cracked up laughing. Which caused Dr. StuffyPants to become unglued. Which made my day.

The moral of this story, because you know there is one, is that it is generally good policy not to make up shit when you don’t know, or can’t think of, the answer. Not that I don’t believe he didn’t know the answer. The man was stuffy, certainly, and arrogant, for sure, but ignorant of the subject matter he was not. He was simply unable to think on the fly, and when a student asked him a question he was unprepared for, he couldn’t pull the answer out of his ass with a compass, a map, and two extra hands. No ma’am. Not if his life depended on it. If he’d just fessed up to his momentary mental lapse, all would have been well and he would have likely finished the lecture with his dignity intact. “I don’t know” is, after all, a perfectly acceptable answer. But, no, he told an obvious lie in order to save face, and it backfired, damaging whatever respect his students had for him. (And, lordy! I just looked him up, and he’s still teaching intro and survey classes.)

So, my secondary point is to share the source of my little giggle fest this afternoon. I overheard someone complaining that there was “dirt on the slide,” which in my world is code-speak for “someone is talking out of their ass.” Heh.

Art, Journals

Soul Mapping: Chapter 3 Finished

Shelly

Hand

I spent most of yesterday working on the writing portion of Chapter 3 of Soul Mapping. Today, I did the visual part, which involved a bit of finger painting. Appropriate, I think, as this chapter dealt with education, which sent me on a tangent about an experience I had in kindergarten. I remember, during coloring time, getting disgusted that the white crayon didn’t make a very satisfactory mark, so I colored the clouds blue and pink and orange and purple. I thought they looked perfect, but my teacher told me I’d done them wrong. “Clouds are always white,” she said. I remember thinking it was sad that she’d never seen a sunset.

That experience ruined art classes for me throughout grade school and most of high school. No matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to be able to finish my art projects “correctly.” I realize now that the problem was not mine; that it was my teachers who were crappy at the art of education, and not me who was crappy at art. Some people really should not be allowed anywhere near kids.

Soul Mapping: Chapter 3
Soul Mapping, Chapter 3
acrylic, gel pen, oil pastel, and collage in composition book

Crankypantsing, Pets

A Crack in the Sky

Shelly

Dear God! When, oh when will I ever learn not to drink acidic beverages right after I’ve brushed my teeth? Ugh. I will say, though, that Santa Cruz organic, not-from-concentrate lemon juice is to die for. When not chasing toothpaste, it has a wonderful burst of flavor that is nothing like the single-note sourness of RealLemon and its kin. It tastes a bit like a mixture of lime and orange. I don’t normally splurge on the good stuff, but it was on sale at the co-op this month, so I bought some.

Okaythen.

I never did accomplish much yesterday. I think I’m still in the two-day weekend mentality of having to be productive the whole time. The whole point of having a three-day weekend, and of working my behindermost off doing four long days to enable such, is that I then get to have an ass-sitting day.

I did get a couple of things done, which will make it easier to get to work today. I went through my hard drive and made a play list of random, inspirational music. It’s an odd, eclectic mix, with about 500 songs in all, so it should be awhile before I get tired of it.

I also did some cleaning, so I don’t have to mess with that today. I have a really hard time working on other things when the house isn’t clean. Since I hate to clean, that might explain why I often have a hard time getting anything done. I also blame some of it on the weather and the time of year. Mid-winter is difficult for me. I like the cold, but the lack of light–made worse by the endless Indiana clouds–is depressing. The days are getting noticeably longer, though, so there will soon be an end to that particular excuse.

And, look, the sun’s come out to play, so I can stop thinking about making paper boats.

Here’s a tip!

If you ever have to use adhesive velcro strips or dots, you know it can be difficult to get everything lined up properly. What I do is peel-n-stick one piece of the velcro to one of the objects, then peel-n-stick the opposite piece of velcro onto the first piece, velcro-y sides together. The glue-y side of the second piece(s) of velcro will be facing out. You can then press the object to the surface you want to stick it to, and all the velcro strips/dots will be perfectly aligned.

I only mention it because I just got done velcroing my computer speakers to the top of my monitor. Pandora likes to nap up there, and I’m sick and tired of her knocking the speakers off. One of these days she’s bound to break one of them, and since I splurged on nice speakers, I’d rather avoid that if I can. And, whaddya know, I only just finished and Pandora is already back on top of the monitor. I guess I should be appreciative that she waited until I was done? Cats are some sort of pain in the ass, I’m tellin’ ya. But she’s 17 and I think that’s permission enough to do pretty much whatever she pleases–including sleeping on my monitor and walking across my printer and turning it on and off–so I’ll do what I can to accommodate her.

Pets, Photography

Silly Saturday Dogblogging

Shelly

For some reason, Harriet has a thing about oatmeal. It’s one of only a few foods she’ll actually lose her brain over. Because I’m a big meanypants, I teased her with my flying oatmeal spoon while I got pictures of her brain implodiating. She’s a ridiculously funny dog, but she has very little sense of humor about some things. Like food. I suspect that it’s a Very Good Thing that I’m the one with the opposable thumbs and not her, because she does not look amused. But, not to worry, she was handsomely rewarded for being a good sport.

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100_1159

Photography

In the Sun

Shelly

I feel like I haven’t gotten anything accomplished today. I got my W2 problem sorted out yesterday, and was able to file my federal return today (state isn’t accepting e-files until the end of the month). That’s something, I guess. I also got some photos of this morning’s extra lovely sunrise and uploaded them, along with some sunset photos from earlier in the week. That’s about it, though.

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Sunrise

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Sunrise

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Pylon at Sunset

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Sunset

Art, Journals

Soul Mapping: Chapter 2 Finished

Shelly

I finished Chapter 2 last night, including the visual component. At the rate this is going, I’m going to be filling up several composition books before I’m finished. Whew. But, it’s interesting to see how things sort themselves out, as well as seeing trends and themes emerge. I guess I find it especially impressive, because it seems so chaotic while I’m going through it. To have a moment of clarity at the end of each section is rewarding.

Soul Map Chapter 2b
Soul Mapping, Chapter 2
9 3/4 x 15 inches
collage (Gepe mount, brass brads, copper wire, worry dolls, paper towels, hair, dress pattern, knife blade, key, fortune, sandpaper, fragment from algebra book, magazine clipping, cork, and acrylic paint) in composition book journal

Crankypantsing

It’s Random Thursday!

Shelly

And now, some random randomness:

  • Our vending machine candy bars have gone up to 75¢.
  • I backed into a Hostess delivery truck this morning, when I stopped to get my morning caffeinated beverage. No harm, no foul, as far as both the driver and I were concerned, but damn, how on earth did I not see something that ginormous? My defense is that the truck was white, and it blended in with the huge billboard at the Pepsi plant across the street. All I have to say is, hallelujah for rear-mounted spare tires. They’re bouncy
  • Finally, after much swearing and nerve shredding, I have achieved W-2ness. My PIN still wasn’t working, even after having it reset on Tuesday. I tried it again yesterday. Nada. So, I called again this morning, and today’s customer service representative, who was condescending as all hell (yes, I know what a freaking PIN is, and what SSN stands for), did manage to sort out the problem. Whatever on earth the problem was. She wasn’t saying anything except that “You aren’t entering it correctly.” “It” and “correctly” were never defined. But, whatever. If she wants to try to make me feel like some sort of jackass, that’s fine, as long as she says the proper incantation on her end. Which she did, apparently, because I was finally able to access my W-2s. Praise be!
  • I finished 8-9 pages of journalling from Soul Mapping yesterday. One observation: I started out with a regular gel pen, and by the time I was finished with the first page, my hand was aching. I’m sure part of it was due to the fact that I don’t do all that much writing by hand, at least not large amounts of it at once. I switched to a dip pen and India ink, because I was in a mood for brown ink and couldn’t find a brown pen. After switching, my hand stopped hurting. The pain must have been mostly due to the pen, or how I was gripping it. Apparently, the dip pen I was using is Just Right. I’ll have to keep that in mind.
  • Another writing issue, related to pens, is that I tend to write so fast that my hand can’t really keep up. The result is a cramped, thoroughly illegible hash of chicken scratches. It’s not pretty. I think the dip pen made me slow down enough that I was able to gain better control over the micro-movements of my hand. And, of course, slower means less stress on the hand and more legible handwriting, which are both pluses.
  • There is a rock in my shoe and it’s annoying the shit out of me. Not enough to actually do something about it, mind you, but still.
Art

Strange Associations

Shelly

I was recently reminded of someone I went to college with. He was a fellow art student, studying drawing. I was only in one class with him–a disappointing watercolor class[1]–so I really didn’t have a good idea of what sort of work he did. His watercolors were nice, but pretty mundane. I recall lots of still lifes and landscapes. Certainly not anything to get granny’s knickers in a twist.

Imagine my surprise when, on viewing his senior show, I was confronted with dozens and dozens of large-format, carefully rendered self-portraits of him–nude, mind you–with all manner of fantastical equines. Male equines. Very obviously male equines. The drawings themselves were in Prismacolor, and had a distinctly Precious Moments Meets Black Light Velvet Painting feel about them. The horses, unicorns (yes, unicorns), and centaurs (yes, those, too) were all of the large-, liquid-eyed variety, with exaggerated Arab heads and delicate feet.

Can you just imagine it? A room chock-a-block with homoerotic bestial fantasy art? Don’t you think, at some point, someone would have taken this poor kid aside and told him, “Dude, your kink is not okay”? Hard as it is to believe, I have to assume that this guy was actually graduated. The thought that such work would earn him a degree in fine art is more than a little mind-boggling.

As a funny aside, the reason I even saw his senior show is that it was held at the University Museum of Art, where I worked, and I happened to be on duty that weekend. Weekends at the MoA were when folks from the local community stopped by. Old folks from the local community. Old folks who were really not amused by the My Little Porny Exhibition. We got more complaints about that show than any other, including Sylvia Sleigh’s nudes, which made the local patrons all sorts of pearl-clutchy and cranky.

So, anyway, now, whenever I see fantasy art that involves equines, I think of My Little Porny Boy. Which is a roundabout way of saying that, when someone on Paint-L mentioned centaurs, I started giggling uncontrollably.

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[1] I think I’ve vented my spleen about the unsatisfactoriness of that class in the past.

Crankypantsing

Customer Service

Shelly

I got an e-mail notification that my W-2s were available on-line. The only problem is, I signed up for e-W-2s two years ago, and it’s a service you’re supposed to re-up on a yearly basis. Because I had such a terrible experience last year getting my W-2s (as in, I was unable to retrieve them electronically, and did not receive the requested paper copy through the post), I declined to enroll in it again this year. I just didn’t want to go through that mess again. So I was mightily surprised to find out that my enrollment had been carried over without my permission. Damn!

I decided to try to make lemonade with lemons, and tried to download them. Only, A) in place of user ID, they want my SSN. I suppose that’s somewhat logical, but in every other place, when they want SSNs, they explicitly ask for SSNs. They do not call them “User ID” numbers. So, I got that figured out, only to find that my PIN is not working properly. I used their web form to reset it, and got the new PIN via e-mail. And, it was the same damned PIN I’d already tried using. And, it still didn’t work.

I called their customer service number, only to have their auto response system request, yes, you guessed it, my SSN and PIN. The same PIN that did not, has not, and as far as I can tell, will never actually work. You have got to be fucking kidding me! So, I tried the handy trick of calling back, but not responding to any of the auto response prompts. If you do that, most computer systems will assume you’re on a rotary phone, and will put you through to a real, live human being. Not that that did me much good, because the real, live human being gave me the same damned PIN. I tried to explain to her that it’s never worked, and that I went through this exact same song and dance last year, but she was totally unhelpful.

Crankypantsing, Meta

Flickr Weirdness

Shelly

Here’s a strange thing. The images from the previous post were uploaded to Flickr, so I figured I’d just link to those files, instead of uploading duplicates to my website. But, I noticed something odd. Apparently, some of the “medium” size images that Flickr provides have a larger file size than the original images. WTF? How can they shrink a file, but make it larger? I’ve done a spot check, and it doesn’t happen with all images. Why it would happen with any of them is a mystery to me.