Suburb of Heaven

I have nothing to say right now. Here are two Instagram shots of lavender taken at the local rose garden.

Pondering what I want to say about aikido, training, and the mat being a safe space to be wrong, something that I need more of in my life.

Have just accomplished 1/4 of one of my big work projects - getting a three ton sculpture moved to a temporary location. Will do the same with a smaller sculpture, and then bring them out again and place them in new locations around the campus. It was a gorgeous, blue-sky day, just the kind where you enjoy spending your whole morning outside watching a large piece of metal be gently tugged out of the ground, put on a truck, and then moved to a secure holding spot by a passel of very nice, very burly men.

Spent some time today trying on clothes and hating all of them, which, as is not uncommon with me, turned into a violent loathing of my body and the deep belief that I was nothing more than a grotesque animated potato of a human being. Target had nothing that looked good or fit well, and Lane Bryant was turning into an endless parade of disappointments. And then a woman put a dress back reluctantly next to me, saying, "It's cute and I love it, but it's not me," so I had a peek at it. It was a really cute black and white print dress, very 60s, with a sort of round collar neckline that I know is flattering for me, and I ended up buying it, despite it being a little pricey. I may return it since I have the sad feeling that it will join the other couple of awesome dresses I rarely wear, but then I'd love to use it an an excuse to get an great pair of shoes for my wide-ass feet. So, using an expensive purchase to rationalize another expensive purchase! Uh, go me?

I've been invested in making collages, recently. Actually, that's not quite true - I've done it before, although with just a gluestick and a blank book, but now I'm doing new techniques I've never tried before. Most of the stuff involves transfer work, using contact paper and caulk and, as the delicious odor in my kitchen says, beeswax. I've had varying degrees of success with it. My work at the moment lacks, I think, any sort of real edge to make it more interesting than "pretty," and I may never get to that point. But I find it really satisfying to see what turns out, and I'm going to keep playing around with it and see what comes up.


Batgirl Says Get Out There

( Three more this way )

Gotta keep scrounging stuff to add three-dimensionality on these, but not go over the top to the "too busy for busy's sake" point. Difficult for me to do. Some of my earlier collages were really just one image on an otherwise blank sheet, because I was convinced I'd spoil the purity of it all somehow.

A while back, I had the opportunity to attend an art installation at an Omaha art venue called the Florence Mill. The artist was named Leslie Iwai, and the installation was called Holding My Horses. Iwai had handmade 900 ceramic horses and hung 700 of them from orange thread, in big clusters so that they looked like clouds blown by the wind. Additionally, she had an old manual typewriter set up for guests to type in words, and she would then knit the words (using custom-dyed handspun wool from Wyrrhwood Farm) into a big orange textile using a simple code she devised.

It was a gorgeous installation - especially since you could walk (carefully) around it and view the groups of horses from one angle or another. From one side, they looked very static, and from another it seemed as though they were actually galloping away, out the window of the mill and into the sky.

You can see photos of the installation here and here is a photo of the horse I bought:

Three chibi portraits of me and the Bemo!



( So cute! The other two are under here. )

Found in an antique shop in Paris, Kentucky

It's almost October, and my personal style guru, an artist and manager of our museum's store, has turned the store's decoration over to Halloween. I took pictures so you can be as tickled by it as I am.

( This is why I end up buying nut cups that I have no use for - I just put them on a shelf and look at them with glee in my heart. )