Month: December 2006

Crankypantsing, Doodles, Photography

Sunrise and Sunset and a Brand New Year

Shelly

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Sunset, Owen County, Indiana

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Sunrise, Owen County, Indiana

I mentioned that I’d given my mom my SLR? Well, she told me a few weeks ago that I’d left film in the camera, and that there were a couple of pictures on it of either sunrises or sunsets. When I was there over Festivus, I had her dig them out for me. I’m glad I did! The sunset photo is one of best I’ve ever taken. My scanner is in awful shape–it’s making unhealthy grinding noises and is scattering white specks across everything–so this is not the best scan, but it’s not too bad. The frosty winter sunrise photo turned out kind of nicely, too, I think. I don’t remember taking either of them, which shows what sort of Swiss cheese my brain is made of.

Below: This is one my mom took. While I was on the phone with her one evening, she said there were some weird cloud formations. I told her to get the hell outside and take some pictures (duh!), which she did. We’d had the same storm system earlier in the day, complete with mammatus, but my photos didn’t turn out anywhere as well as hers did. (That line along the left is an electric line, and the dark section at the bottom right is the eaves of her house.)

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Mammatus clouds, Muncie, Indiana

And now for a couple of mindless doodles. We’ve had a barrage of staff meetings and training sessions over the past couple of months, in preparation for a major upgrade to our cataloging software. I’m not good with meetings and training sessions. They bore my brain into the danger zone for implodiation. So, I doodle. I don’t care if it makes it seem like I’m not paying attention. I am. I just need to keep my hands busy or my brain will atrophy.

Staff Meeting Doodle
Staff Meeting Doodle

Staff Meeting Doodle
Staff Meeting Doodle

The obligatory New Year resolutions:

I haven’t got a long list of resolutions, because I don’t tend to keep them. However, I’m going to make a concerted effort to try to do some art every day. I’m also going to try to eat more greens and drink less caffeine. Not killing Mr. Upstairs or beating the Bumpuses upside their heads with their dog’s tie-out stake are on the list, too, but alas, they aren’t my first priorities. I may spend 2007 in jail, if my neighbors don’t stop being assberets.

Art, Artist Books, Collage, Journals

New Journal Pages

Shelly

Hemp Bound Journal: Not
Not
collage (raffle tickets, sand paper, and dictionary page) with brass brads
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 inches

Hemp Bound Journal: Articulation and Attachment
Articulation and Attachment
collage (altered Polaroid, poplar tree leaf, and fragment from anatomy text) with photo corners
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 inches

Open Here
Open Here
Composition Book Journal
collage (raffle tickets, paper cut-out, glassine, and veil) with acrylic paint
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 inches, 26 December 2006

Pets, Photography

Festivus

Shelly

I went to visit my family for Christmas, something I haven’t done in a few years (visiting at Christmas, not visiting in general). Harriet, of course, went along. She appointed herself as head of Neighborhood Watch, and spent a good deal of time at the windows, keeping an eye on things outdoors. There’s not a whole lot of foot traffic by my mom’s house, which is probably a good thing. Every time anyone walked past, even if they were on the other side of the street, Harriet told them to go away, please.

And, in case you weren’t aware of it, Harriet is a rare variety of Pocket Boxer. Or so she thinks. She was perfectly happy to be picked up and carried around by Andy. I think she secretly enjoyed the higher vantage point.

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Harriet also spent a lot of time sleeping (supervising an entire neighborhood is hard work!), which, of course, meant she was well covered.

Photography

Treasures

Shelly

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While taking a break from cleaning, Ms. Lea whipped out a baggie of rusty bits and asked me if I wanted them. She found them while going through her mom’s tools, and thinking of me, asked her mom if she really need them, of if she could pass them on to me. It is most excellent to have friends who scavenge items for my art stash! So, we have flat, handmade, rusty nails, some small gears, and the ittiest, bittiest wrench I’ve ever seen. Seriously. It’s about 1 inch long.

Also, Duck!

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A few years ago, I visited a family friend to take photos of her corn snake and the exterior of her house. While exploring outdoors, I found a concrete duck on her patio and carried it into the woods with me. I took several photos of Mr. Duck, and that would have been enough to make me happy. He’s a pretty spectacular animal, I think. However, since I liked him so much, the owner offered him to me. So, now, Mr. Duck lives with me. He’s not so delightfully mossy now. He’s been living in the sun, which has killed the moss and bleached his color. However, he will soon be residing on my very shady and damp back patio, so he will hopefully regain some of his lost patina.

Music, Photography

Everything never happened

Shelly

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I spent Saturday afternoon helping Ms. Lea with post-move cleaning. When I got there, it was warm and the sun was shining, so I took a few photos. The large granite rocks flank one side of the path to the pond, which is just visible at the base of the left-most tree.

As I was driving out to Owen County, I listened to Lloyd Cole’s Easy Pieces. Music is closely linked to many of my memories; I can place when things happened in my life by the music I was listening to at the time. So, as I was driving, I was reminded of listening to Lloyd Cole on my Walkman while detailing the interior of a neighbor’s ancient VW Microbus. As Why I Love Country Music played, the memory of scrubbing the seats with Lysol Tub & Tile cleaner and a toothbrush was so clear and immediate that I could smell the cleaner and see the stitches and the rolled bit of red piping along the edges of the white vinyl seats. Scrub, scrub, scrub as years of dirt and grime were lifted and washed away. Jane is always fine… Brand New Friend played as I washed the interior of the windshield with vinegar and a crumpled piece of newspaper. Polish, polish, polish away the streaks, while Lloyd sings about walking in the pouring rain with Jesus and Jane. She tells lies most of the time…

Of course, I also thought of Jayne, who introduced me to Lloyd Cole (and to Nick Cave, actually) when we were in high school, and I wondered where she is and what she’s up to. Jayne was not always an easy person for me deal with–we’re very different personalities–but she had a huge and positive impact on my life. I find that I have occasion to think about her frequently, and to hope that she’s doing well. I worry about her, though.

So I guess this post is a reminder to be glad of those little moments that don’t seem meaningful, because you cannot predict which ones you’ll look back on and identify as small events and which you will recognize as important ones, or when or how you’ll remember those moments.

Photography

Cornbread

Shelly

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I’m heading out to the real OC in a little bit, to help Ms. Lea do some post-moving cleaning. I thought, since the house is pretty much empty, and because we’ll want something to eat, I’d make something to take with me. A crock pot of 15 bean soup and some cornbread seemed like an excellent idea. The cornbread turned out most excellently, so I thought I’d share my recipe. It’s tender, with a crispy crust, and a nutty, savory flavor. (I really don’t like sweet cornbread.)

  • 1 1/4 C flour
  • 3/4 C yellow corn meal
  • 1 tbls sugar
  • 4 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 egg
  • 2/3 C milk
  • 1/3 C melted butter or vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 425F. Lightly coat an iron skillet with oil and place in the oven while it’s preheating. The preheated skillet is secret to the crispy crust.

Mix the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl. In a separate container (I use a Pyrex measuring cup), mix the wet ingredients. If you measure out the oil and milk, then add the egg, you will not need to dirty another measuring cup. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix thoroughly. By this time, the oven and the skillet should be hot. Remove the skillet from the oven. Pour the batter into the skillet. The batter should sizzle when it hits the hot pan. Return the skillet to the oven, and bake for 25-30 minutes.

When it’s done, the edges should be slightly brown and be pulled away from the pan. You can also test it with a fork.

You can add things like corn (drained canned corn works fine), parsley, garlic, onion, cheese, and chilies to the batter, but I like it best plain.