OMGosh BAM

Before I even open the WASH studio door this morning, I can see Nic's ring made from cardboard because it will barely fit out of a supersized garage door. It still needs work, but, dang it all, good for Nic on ambition.

Then at lunch time Alexandra hands me this. BAM OMGosh WOW. No it is not the approximate size of a basketball, it is precisely. She studied the half geodomes online and decided to use this system and then designed her triangles each with a slide slit and created a slightly angled a joint piece. ummmm and she had to break out some of her understanding of geometry and such to calculate sizes and angles and excellence in cardboard crafts{wo}manship. BAM you go! She'd like to be an animator. I can see her ability to imagine and construct objects in space using geometry and such will definitely be an asset to one who wants to animate in cyberspace! I didn't happen to snap a shot YET of her other two spheres...one skeletal and one emphasizing surface/skin. They definitely put a smile on my face for craft and ambitious scale.

today's arugula harvest

and another

another full load for my WASH

I've presoaked them with nightmares, fantasies, dots, spheres, sound performances and human tableaus all in just two studio days! no one has cried uncle yet!

 

they created three kinds of spheres without guidance other than go do it--sphere one was to be created considering surface/skin, sphere two was about internal structure, kind of architectural, sphere three was simply defined as no glue or adhering devices or substances.

 

crispy again

textabating

new word (perhaps it is already in use).

textabating is when you reach with both hands under the table as to service your... phone, with the illusion that this self stimulating lap moment of self edification is private and goes unnoticed. textabating in public is always noticed and considered somewhat rude and self serving. will I get credit for the creation through hybridization the term textabating. I hope so. never textabate in class. never textabate at the dinner table. etc it is rude to virtually stimulate yourself in the presences of actual human companions.

ninety nine percent of us that know how to text, have done it. the other one percent are liars.

prepped for faculty show.

opens on Thursday, January 27
Artist talk (me) 5:00 room 108e
Sam Houston State University

crispy evening

like driving into dream worlds

I hate hematomas on my tibialis anterior. ouch!

I over work my art; I over work my body; ouch. rough cut 4x4 oak hurts when it bounces to the ground grazing my shin. I have never figured out how it is my jeans don't rip but what is beneath...ouchy!

I tried to make a small piece for faculty exhibition...is 6' deep x ~5' wide x 8.75' tall count as small. dang it all, I did try!

I was thinking a little about Judd gone wrong when I was framing this out.

And I ended my day stumbling onto my dad's love letters to my mom (this set he wrote to her after they were married not the usual before--I especially liked where he called her "my princess!"--to heck with liberation, I like that.) I didn't read the rest of it, thought it too invasive since they are both still alive. will read someday. then I found a series of report card from both my great great great grand father dating 1879 and his future wife. :)

meant to sew a tire nipple but

instead ended up with a male body part. hmmm, how did that happen? dang. hope it isnt offensive since it's headed for an AIDS fundraiser.



http://www.aidshelp.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AFH_event_list

Art4Life
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Celebrate Art4Life featuring internationally and nationally acclaimed artists in a curated silent auction with entertainment and fabulous cocktails & food by Blue Apron Caters. When the auction closes the dancing begins!

Featured Artists
Rupert Garcis · Joe Havel · Donald Lipski · Joe Mancuso · Mie Olise.

Nearly 50 renowned artists have donated exquisite artwork to create a unique collection for this very special evening.

spectacular

i feel like a rat to the glittery!

my mom's antique (great?) grandmother's junk, oops, I mean fine costume, jewelry, that, I really like. I've always been an unjewelry person, but I really like all these glitteries. I can't decide if it is the ancestral emotional umbilical cord that links me to the "stuff" or just the glitteries. perhaps it is because it is like my art materials, harvested junk with a naturally aged and worn patina. though unlike my tire tubes these glitters may or may not have the monetary value of junk, so I am unsure as to whether to wear it or not since loosing a stone or chunk of glass is a serious possibility. the dirt is so thick upon this one, I can't even begin to guess, glass or cut stone. glitter, glitter, I feel like a rat.

grungy potential glitter view

only later did I realize my mom had spent the late afternoon crying. ooooh. she'd asked me to help her go through one of her dressers to separate the precious memory linked objects from stuff more just trinket-hoodish (to give away). it's something I witness people do as they age or begin winding down--the de-cluttering and hoarding of "stuff." each object whether linked to a strong memory or trinket-hood had an associated story to go with it. I did this with my grandmother in 2007 and now do it with my mother here in 2011. I enjoy the stories but catch myself becoming short in waiting on the tales associated with even cheap plastics from the mid 70s. I have to re-orient myself to focus on being present with my mom and her associations and not rush forward with my own. it is hard to remain open, patient, and present. though I worked on being present with her all afternoon, i discovered later that as she scooted back and forth in her motorized chair when all had been put away that I failed to notice her tears. I am so sorry I mentally went away when I thought we'd finished. I didn't really consider what this process must be like for her, this strange winding down and de-stuffing. I wish I had known how to remain more present with her. ouch for both of us for totally different reasons. ouchy.

and then on top of that I had a little too much wine, as I prepared our dinner, to drive her back to the nursing home. she really wanted me to come even if I didn't drive. but I am tired and didn't go with her and my dad. this really hurt her feelings even though I said I would be the one to take her back tomorrow.

i understand that there is this weird specialness the elderly derive from having their loved ones seen by their peers in the nursing home. it makes them feel loved and special; it makes all the losses associated with living there just a little more tolerable. and my mom so makes the best of it that I hate to disappoint her. but in some weird way I need to assert my me-ness. (notice how much if you say that aloud it sounds like meanness.) agggh no more wine while I cook or writing blogs in the aftermath--makes me too selfish.