On New Year's Eve....

.....party till you're Monkey-drunk!!!!

Then call a Chimp-mobile to take you home!!! Have a safe New Year's Eve, and if you're in high spirits, for heaven's sake, STAY OFF THE ROAD!!!! Go swing from a tree, or a chandelier, or just pass out.

Now for the back story. These photos are from years ago, and the man in the left photo is my uncle, who would be duly MORTIFIED if he knew this picture was out in cyber-space, where basically anyone can see it. As I recall, there was a small bar in Mexico, Indiana and the bar owner had the pet chimp. This was in the day of treating the pet just like a human, and the little guy liked his beer! I recall being there once (I was VERY young--maybe 4?--monkey size?), and the chimp grabbed me by the hand and off we ran down the road with my irate mother following. I thought it was great fun!

Anyway, if ANYONE knows anything about the name of the bar or who owned it, I would love to know more to fill in the mental gaps!

Have a happy one tonight y'all!!!

Old Art........

......is better than NO ART, so today I'm selecting something I did last year to post. I have a load of work ahead of me and if I don't do this the lazy way, I will have nothing to post about. Have had a lot of computer work to do; you know, suddenly, you have a pile of e-mails, business, etc. and it all needs attention at once. That was yesterday afternoon and evening.
This is one of the 4"x4" canvas panels the Community Artists Co-Op put out into the community on our first round last Spring/Early Summer. All the members did work---it was an eclectic mix and was fun to see people when they "found" the art and the little note that it was theirs to keep!
I hate to admit I had a hard time parting with this one.....there was just something about the color and glow that kept saying "Keep me......" And, I discovered, it was most difficult to photograph!
It is mixed media; the poppy is watercolor paper that has Prismacolor pencil on it, then applied to the b.g. with Golden Gel Medium. I used fluid acrylics too, and ink and acrylic craft paint. It is one of those odd combos that WORKS...once you figure it out, or, just quit worrying and DO it!
So I hope you enjoy this little piece of Summer in the depths of this weird and wicked Winter. Enough already! Let's just have cold, and a bit of snow, and move on!

PROGRESS!!!

Things are going fairly well. If you read "D-Day" then you should recognize the following photo as the wall-of-doom, uncluttered. The chair still needs the seat and arms upholstered, but that is for Spring. Just close your eyes and pretend that it is done in a lovely fake leopard print......yeeeeaaaaahhhhh!!!! (because that's what I have for it!) I bought some sheer curtains to hang over the shelving area--really neat . A white b.g. with these intense bright circles on them! FUN! It should help to keep the stuff on the shelves clean. (yeah, right, Anne. you bought them because you loved them and that was the only place to put them....)

While we're at it, I am including the cleaned out bathroom, which is excessively small, so the angle of the photos are wonky. Yes, I did the tile floor. That was not a pleasant job for someone with long legs......I could barely walk, plus it ended up costing me a fortune. Every piece, hand set........

I sponged and wiped the walls with a bronze paint, then stenciled silver Fleur-De-Lys. I painted the baseboards fancy too; don't know if they show up here.

So finally, since 2001 when this studio was constructed, I will have it all in order.

Which means the top half will fall apart any minute!

This is the back of the basement, which is overflow storage and has turned into an efficient area. Before it was just junk piles on a little plastic table (useless!!!!) and then on the floor. Now it is stuff actually worth keeping and up and in something of a state of order.

I did the small quilt on the right wall when I was working in a fabric store years ago. Uh huh, like having an alcoholic work in the liquor store.

I quit for my bank account's sake.

And I still wanted to have a place to live...... ;)

Now, the sad part of all this is I have DH home all next week,so I suppose my progress will be bits and pieces as time allows. I do a lot better with whole days to slave away!

Okay, enough.

Wow.

You got to see my latrine.

Have to go water the parakeet before he pulls his bowl off the side of the cage.....

How to torture yourself......

Well, the basement rehab is going well. I'm pitching, giving, sorting and I am happy even if not able to move. Lugging heavy boxes up and out of the cellar is really hard on an old fart. Harder yet was getting the old plastic shelves out in one piece without wrecking something---namely, me.

So to further humiliate myself, I find, in the rooting process, a photo of myself from YEARS AGO. I mean, young and thin and with a waist and legs up to THERE! It was taken when I was painting nose art on a B-17 at Grissom Air Force Base that was in the restoration process. I think I was 24 and still single and just full of myself! (ah! youth!)

Anyway, here it is for a laugh. Vintage cheesecake!

Where did that body go???? It must be buried in the cellar somewhere.....I need to keep rooting. Or maybe I was abducted by aliens and left in this plump, sagging specimen I loosely refer to as *me*. I'm crossing my fingers that I find THIS girl down there!!! And if I do, I'm abducting her and we're off to the plastic surgeon..........

In the meantime, back to the work at hand.

Ick.

D-Day

....I guess I should call it "B-Day" because I will be in the basement all day working on trying to get mountains of JUNK moved so I can get new shelving up and the old stuff out and dispose of things that I have collected for heaven only knows what reason. (because my alter-ego is "PACK RAT WOMAN---SAVER OF EVERYTHING!!!!) Sadly, that is true and something I have been working to correct. So believe me, this is major trauma doing the basement. But, I need the space more than the junk and hopefully it will look nice and be usable when finished.

Here is where I work now:

Here is what I am up against:

(click the photos if you would like to see anything close up, though why, I don't know.....)

I think I would just like to run screaming naked through the yard and get arrested and then maybe the Basement Fairy would have pity on me and come clean up my mess. Do I hear someone say "Fat chance"???

Dang.

I thought so.

If I don't re-emerge to post in a couple of days, please send Law Enforcement to look for me.

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!!!

Yes, Idiot Stick is going to town to fight the masses and see what is left of Holiday decor at a very discounted price.

This is PROOF that your gentle author is completely and utterly mad. (those who know me already were aware of this fact, but I share it with you early on in the blogging stage.....so you can run if you wish!) One of my friends had given me a sticker I have on my studio door that says;

"Scream and run away now. It will save you time later."

Somehow I think that quote applies to my venture today! (thanks Vicki! it's a gem!)

So if I survive and if there are any rants worthy of the time to sit and type, I will add to this later in the day. My traffic rants don't count........those are constant!

I did want to add one thing art related that is really cool. I subscribe to the Robert Genn Twice Weekly Newsletter and today he had a superior article about painting abstracts, which I am clueless to doing. But it is one of those niggling things that I want to do but cannot quite figure out where to start. I feel doing it, learning it could be beneficial from two aspects;

1. I learn a completely new technique, which always is beneficial to creative growth.

2. I can't help but feel that there is a buried link between abstract and quilting/fiber art, so there would be a definite benefit there.

You can go to the page through the "Clickback" section or you can go directly to the photos of painting the abstract here and it also includes the background of the *artist* doing a good portion of the work! A very interesting story, even for you nonpainting folks!

And now I'm off....any way you look at it.....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

May your day be peaceful and not start out with the *bang* mine did of chasing my little blue budgie, Johnny, all over the studio, as he gleefully dive-bombed DH and me! Seems he thought his Christmas present was making *Momma-Keet* do the "swoop and cuss" as I chased him with the piece of fabric I use to catch the little stinker. And he is getting smarter by the day, because now it is a game of how long he can stay OUT. Geez.........I have learned birds are faster than humans. Waaaaaay faster!

So here is a nice peaceful picture, to inspire a bit of warmth for the day!

And yes, Santa-Budgie came to visit.......that's how little demon bird got out, while his new toys were going in the cage....... >:(

Have a great one everybody! HO! HO! HO!

The Boys say it all.......

May you have safe warm days filled with joy and light
in this dark time of the year.
May you have friends and family to be close to bring cheer.
May you have enough, and if you have more than enough,
may you share with those who don't.
May the Christmas Star shine within your heart
not only today, but through out this coming year.

May you know love.

And the winner is......

.......Marion Barnett (artmixter) of Dereham, U.K.! She guessed correctly---the photo is of poison ivy berries, safely encased in the ice. We have tons of them along the fence rows, and they are a good source of food for the wild birds. Alas, that means that after they have, ummmmm, *digested* them, they usually end up in my yard, as new little plants I get to pull out. :( And that frequently entails a trip to visit my dear doctor for a big nasty shot and I don't mean the tasty drinkable kind either.

At any rate, Marion, I'm proud of you for your keen eye! And gentle readers, if you'd like to see some cool stuff, check her at artmixter. I believe she has a book out about the uses of Lutradur, co-authored with another of the FiberPirates, Dijanne. You girls rock!

Since it is Christmas eve, I am a little rushed today, so perhaps later in the evening I can make a post season-specific. Mixing poison ivy with Holiday Greetings just didn't seem RIGHT.......ah yes, I hear some of you saying "It's more right than you think!"

My DH and I do Christmas alone, and it is fine, but there is that longing for the whole company/family thing.....until we do it once in a blue moon and then need to come home and hibernate! To quote the Grinch; "MAX! Fetch me my sedative!"

(I'm not THAT cynical...really.....heehee!)

In honor of the gods of Winter......

......I make this short post. We are AGAIN under the gun for crap weather---let me explain. SNOW---GOOD! ICE---BAD!!! And I have to run in to the neighboring town to deliver some hand knit felted slippers-cum-booties to a dear friend. (Lu, don't be reading this yet!) So this is a short boring post with a picture from the previous blast of arctic exasperation.

Take a guess at what this is? Grapes? Nope. And I think I will be a stinker and wait to reveal the secret.....or if someone guesses, you get added to the list of blogs I follow (Places to visit). WOW! What a prize! What an honor! (tongue firmly implanted in cheek!)

I am still working on some socks knit on I believe it is size 0 needles, and will probably have myself committed if I do that again. Of course, at some point, I will, but at the moment the slowness of the knitting is a bit discouraging. The light at the end of the tunnel is I will have a pair of superior socks when they are done; warm, gentle on the feet and a snazzy easy lace pattern. The reason I am anxious to get them off the needles is I found free on line a killer pattern for "Jack Sparrows Favorite Socks" and I'm sorry, but I am still clueless as to how to insert a hotlink into the text. So if you like skulls, you'll have to Google the name---it will be there. I splurged for the yarn, it came yesterday, and ....well....the call of new yarn is certainly a siren song! I was a good girl and hid it in the studio where it would be out of eye-range.......

Till later...I am off into the wilderness.

Print this post out if you suffer from insomnia; I am sure it could put ANYONE sound asleep......ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ......................

Art warms the heart

And it is a darned good thing that it does, because Indiana is still waaaaay too cold for this time of year. My idea of "zero" should be the score at the end of a hockey game or the balance of my checkbook, NOT the outdoor temp. So in an effort to ignore Mother Nature's fit of just plain not-nice-ness, I'm posting a small piece of art I recently completed.




This is a 4"x4" deep canvas, which has become my favorite medium to work with. There is room to work the sides and top, and yes, being the obsessive nut I am, I do the backs also. They are wonderful when completed.......but it takes a long time to get them completed! Layers and layers built up to make a piece that has an internal glow when done. I love working with the paints and collage; things happen that you don't expect and each is a bit of a surprise. I tend to let them take their own course, with a beginning idea, usually from a color or image. In this case, it was the Buddha figure and the small clay piece inserted in the back cavity.


I am working a series of these, in different sizes, and that has kept me out of trouble---for the most part! Also redoing the basement of my studio to accommodate the paints has been a...hmmmmmm....challenge to say the least. And no, there aren't pictures of THAT yet. See, I do church banners and actually make money off those. And then I can do the real *art* to satisfy my soul, and if it sells, fine, and if not, that's okay too. So the paint studio had to go somewhere when I got the twelve yards of fabric for the banners. That is my project I will be working on during the holidays and after. No doubt I will have something to SAY about it. (I wonder if Blogger has asbestos fonts for days when things don't go right???)

Today, it is a matter of keeping my parakeets happy with good music from WWOZ or a rocking Christmas CD. I'll be like Scarlet O'Hara and think about real work "Tomorrow....at Tara"!!!


Oh, a quick after thought; please check out the Artists In Peru blog for what we do with the small 4"x4" canvas panels. It is a superior project, and one of our members is keeping the cyber-world up to date on our activities. We are a very small community, but have a lot of talented, generous souls. And please follow that blog, especially next year---good things will be happening!

And we're OFF...!!!!

It's December 21st, I'm not ready for the holidays, it is a whole whopping 2 degrees out (which calculates to a windchill of MINUS 30........wanna go for a walk???) and here I sit, trying to figure out not only how to put a blog together, but WHY I should do this venture.

We are recovering from an ice storm, which luckily didn't put this little square of earth in too much pain. I donned the rubber farm boots yesterday, took the camera out, and got some beautiful shots of the everyday and common things transformed into "Cold Miser's " Winter Wonderland.

The photo is of seedpods in my flowerbed---I couldn't get over how they looked like tadpole eggs! I will probably post a few more pics in the coming days since there are a few I find quite interesting, again, from trying to figure out what they are. Perhaps around July, when the weather is sweltering and miserable with humidity, I will appreciate these photos even more.
In the meantime, hope you'll come back and visit, comment, and see what useless drivel I can fill cyberspace with! I might actually get to the point where something on the page will have a bit of entertainment value.
But don't hold your breath........