Art!

Downward to the Cave...

This is another piece from my journal...not necessarily crafting-related, but interesting nonetheless...

I have wandered

The woods that I have known

Since I was a child.

When I was young (and the world spun along

a perfect circle),

I had a recurring dream:

Digging into the earth,

I found a treasure,

Long hidden,

Safely kept.

That dream is coming true. The more time I spend in that space, the more I realize that my childhood has been hidden from me, by me--I have buried a great deal of myself somewhere in that secretive valley. There's a mutability to the landscape that I had never noticed before--it was fixed in my mind when I left it behind ten years ago, and there it has stayed ever since. A part of me still goes, 'This was here yesterday!' A part of me is still that wondering, wandering child, asking, 'Why?'

Among the rocks, there is something waiting. I hope it's me.

Hidden away in a valley that is almost vertical, there stands a cave. It's not impressive for anything other than the fact that it exists, and it will not always. In a hundred thousand years, it will not be there. It's not impressively deep. It's not spectacularly beautiful. It's a shallow hollow in the rocks, filled with moss and the excrement of the pigeons that nest up in the roof. But it is a sacred place for me. The valley is a challenge. In the ten lost years, the landscape has radically altered, after a torrential flood and a tornado leveled the trees for miles around, making what was once a pleasantly challenging hike a trial.

I want so badly to bring somebody else to the cave, to show them a new thing, as I was shown it, many, many moons ago. I want them to see it, when the wildflowers are in bloom, when there is green all around.

While I'm wishing,and speaking of changes, I want Biscuit back. I miss hiking with him. He was a Feist (sp?), a little black squirrel dog with soulful brown eyes, short legs, and a beaver tail. He was a free yard sale dog, always eager for love and attention. It's hard, the first time you realize that your pets aren't going to be there forever. I wasn't there when Dixie went. I wasn't there when Biscuit went. I miss them. That house, that place just isn't the same without them. A walk in the woods isn't the same.

I want to see the spring again, and the creek, through the eyes of a child. I want my childhood back. What have I left buried? I have divested myself of so much that I just dismissed as unnecessary--what awaits me among the unassuming trees?

Robert, Supreme Overlord of Earth

This is Robert. He's a diminutive politician, running for the office of Supreme Overlord of Earth. He's running on a platform of...the bones of all those who oppose him! Hail the Harvesty Golden World Order! Hail the rise of he who has but one eye!!!!!

Anyway, I decided to take him out with me today, as I have nothing better to do on a day off but wander aimlessly around Conway taking pictures...I could have taken photos of the local landscape, pretty pictures of the slightly decrepit buildings, the railroad tracks, the signs that say "Keep out! This means you, photography students!"

I really wish I were kidding about that last one...because that abandoned factory would have been awesome. I guess I'm not the first one to have that particular brainstorm.

I have wasted yet another perfectly good afternoon hanging out in Conway. And why not? I figure it'll be the last pretty spring day I'll see this December.


Who puts up a sign like that, anyway? I can understand not wanting someone to come onto your property to vandalize, but to just single out people who only wanna take pictures? I don't get it. Maybe I'm bitter.

If I ever get rich, I'm gonna buy a couple of vacant lots and invite artists in. People to do ephemeral art, graffiti, chalk, photography, installations...leave a space to the artists and see what gets made...


Maybe I'm being a little naive. Maybe it'll turn into a heroin den, or people will get their brains bashed out with hammers while they're in there....who knows...

I am growing increasingly enamored with idea of placing an armature inside one of these guys...if nothing else, I could place a wire through his arms and make him poseable. I don't know...my brain is going to weird places while I'm sitting here. One of these days, I'm gonna get my head put back together...one of these days I'm going to make a very surprised-looking Critter with angel wings designed to perch atop the Christmas tree...

I keep saying 'one of these days'...it's my catchphrase...

Something Brewing...

Coffee is really my life's blood. I don't want to hear any arguments from people who just don't get it. I certainly don't want to hear how it's supposedly bad for me, or how it makes me bitchy, because I'm just not! Gah!

That being said, I have spent the afternoon at my favorite coffee shop, Something Brewing here in Conway. I have spent several afternoons here...in fact, I read almost all of Dracula here, snacking on the soup du jour and muttering incoherently to myself about how much I hated va Helsing's broken English. I have made several hats here, flipping pages in between rounds and marveling at the magnificent, expansive trashiness of L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth....

I find myself oddly approachable here...

I think that I'm going to go on a walking tour of downtown Conway. Or not. I haven't quite decided. I'll keep you posted. And take pictures...

Clarence

Dreaming of Spacesuits...

Man, the last few days have been interesting.

I've been trying to do a Critter a day. Some days, like days off, this isn't much of a challenge. But on days when I work, I'm usually doing pretty well if I get anything started before ten o'clock. Here it is, ten, and I haven't even started Robert's spacesuit.

"You wanna put me in a costume? Just you try it, mister..."

Anyway, I'm dreading Christmas this year. I have so much to do, and so much left undone. I gotta get to work...

Signing out...

New Critters

Heeeeeere's Charlie!

This is my dear friend Charlie. The boyfriend you don't want your parents to meet. Or your friends, for that matter...

I think he's probably my favorite that I've done so far. He went together easily, and his mohawk turned out so adorable! I also love the little earring (and I put it in there with an eyelet, so it's like a real little piercing.

I just think his attitude is great. Not to mention the detailing.

"Hey man, it's great to meet you. Is Cindy at home? Huh? Oh, I've got a date with her tonight. Yeah, I'm Charlie. No man, Charles is my dad's name, dude. Is she ready? ...What? Why are you closing the door, man?"

Anyway. Just thought I'd share him. He stands about a foot tall...

From the Journal: Creativity

Round two: this is one of my favorites that I've done recently. I will probably spend some time working on the last paragraph---it just doesn't have quite the right ring yet. Either needs to be more confrontational or more conciliatory.



I'm a Barbie Girl,
In a Barbie world!
Life is plastic;
It's fantastic!

We are obsessed with novelty. If this were leading where it should be leading, i.e. into innovation, creativity, and the general improvement of the species, well, we wouldn't be having this conversation now, would we? The truth is, we have a problem. Our laziness has grown ata much faster pace than our desire for newness, and so we sit back, click through the channels, and wait for something to amaze us. But we don't find it.

Human beings have an innate need to build, create, and alter the world. We love beauty, and we love to decorate. Even the most utilitarian things--bridges, engines, tools, alarm clocks--have an aesthetic principle behind them, millions upon millions of dollars spent not only on making a thing, but on making it say something, too. Statements. What does your product say to the customer, what does your product say about the customer, but ultimately, what does it say to the customer's neighbors and friends? The appearance has to sell the product. It has to be 'sexy'. It's also got to be dispensable, it needs to be cheap, it needs to be obsolete within the next two or three years.

I started an experiment last year. I decided that I wanted to shop second-hand, harvest yarn from old sweaters, build toys from fabric remnants, and art from the discarded rag-ends of a faster-moving society.

Guess what I found?

That we have lost something fundamental to our status as human beings: our love of creation, our need to create. The expression of all things human in me brought to my surface. I make all my own shirts. I knit all my own hats. I shop second-hand, second by second reducing and spreading thin my carbon footprint.

The most amazing thing is the reactions I get from other people:

"I wish I could do that."

You can.

"I wish I had the patience to learn to knit."

There are thousands of books, and hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos. No excuses, if both of your hands are attached and functional. There was a time when kids learned in the first grade.

I want more people to learn what I've learned, to see what I've seen. In this day of plastics and petroleum, the organic is amazing, the homegrown astounding, the handcrafted seditious and revolutionary. To make something that is yours, and yours alone, is an act of rebellion against a system that has conspired to make us look alike, sound alike, and, ultimately, think alike--a system that does not tolerate diference of any kind, while trumpeting the virtues of corporate individuality.

From the Journal: Knitting

I thought it might be interesting to post some of the entries that I've been doing in my journal. This piece, undated, is one that I wrote on knitting. Enjoy.



Have you ever seen a hand-knitted dishrag? They're not the most common things anymore--who goes to the trouble of making something that's just going to be violently soiled, something transient? I love making them, though: there is an incomparable serenity in knitting. It calms my mind, and allows me to tie my thoughts into rows of neat little knots, secured in loops of cotton and wool.

Knitting has always done that for me. Imagine my surprise at my first guided meditation (during that ill-fated stint at UCA), discovering that the goal of Zen meditation is an intense awareness of the body and its position in space and time, an awareness of its rhythms, and that knitting achieved the same ends. It has been an anchor for me in unsteady times. I have used it to ground out masses of manic energy, finish difficult books (I'm thinking of Pinchbeck's 2012 and Bram Stoker's Dracula), and I can even knit while so baked I can barely see. Once, I knitted straight through all 12 hours of the Lord of the Rings extended editions.

If you've got an itch to create, knitting scratches all the right spots: it's portable, affordable, infinitely variable and complex, but simultaneously simple and restful. There is something incredibly comforting about a handmade gift; a simple, heartfelt honesty and profundity. To give a handmade gift is to say, "I surrender to you that which our modern society values above all else: my time."

Dishcloths are a particular conundrum. A dishcloth, particularly one made on the Peaches and Cream yarn that's made for them, is ultimately a fragile, mortal object. It has a lifespan, admittedly a long one, if it's well cared for.

But even these labor-intensive, impermanent objects, the knitting goddesses that went before me have never been content to just make a purely functional rectangle of garter stitch. They are mostly knitted on a bias, the rows of garter stitch framed by a delicate circle of lace stitches. Some are even done as circles. With scalloped edges. Admittedly, boredom undoubtedly plays a large role in the elaborations on the basic theme, but still, they are amazing.

Once, I made an afghan out of a whole bunch of yarn my parents got for almost nothing. It was my first spring break at college, although 'spring' is perhaps a contradiction in terms--we got snowed in at Lake Wedington. There were ten of us in a frigid, ancient cabin made for five, and on the first night, over glasses of wine and the faint reek of weed I finished it--a utilitarian beast in gray and blue and yellow. Over the weekend, it was worn as a dress, and Cody and I spent our first night together beneath it. I had a picnic on it behind Baridon Hall with a curly-haired transsexual, and we smoked cigarettes and drank chocolate milk out of wineglasses while discussing zombies. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.

I broke the afghan down when it started to unravel, and it briefly became part of a sweater before disappearing into a dozen or so hats. But I still remember the cold air, and the scratch of the wool on my skin, and Cody's stubble on my shoulder--warm and content, surrounded by snow, and wrapped in the distilled essence of time.

301 Critter Names (in my own weird vein)

Special thanks to Gwen, James, and Deb, without whom this list would have either petered out around the 150 mark, or taken three times as long to complete.

Abel
Abigail
Albert
Alberta
Alexandra
Algernon
Alice
Aloysius
Alton
Alva
Alvin
Angela
Angelica
Angelina
Angie
Archie
Arliss
Armand
Artemis
Arthur
August
Austin
Babette
Bartholemew
Benjamin
Bernard
Bernice
Bertha
Bertrand
Beryl
Beth
Betsy
Bette
Betty
Beulah
Bianca
Blaine
Blanche
Bridget
Burl
Buster
Byrna
Carey
Carl
Carla
Carol
Cecilia
Charlene
Charvella
Clair
Claudette
Claudia
Claudius
Clayton
Clementine
Cletus
Clifford
Clifton
Cloyse
Clyde
Colleen
Conway
Cora
Coreen
Cornelius
Corrina
Courteney
Dagmar
Darla
Darlene
Dean
Deanna
Delilah
Delmar
Delores
Desiree
Desmond
Domenic
Donald
Donna
Donovan
Doreen
Doris
Dorothy
Dot
Dwight
Earl
Edgar
Eleanor
Elias
Elizabeth
Ellen
Elmo
Elmore
Eloise
Elton
Elwood
Emile
Emma
Emmeline
Emmett
Emory
Englebert
Ernest
Ernestine
Ernie
Esmerelda
Esther
Ethel
Eudora
Eugene
Eunice
Eustace
Evan
Eve
Evelyn
Ezekiel
Fawn
Felicia
Floyd
Franklin
Garfunkel
Gene
Geoffrey
Gertrude
Gidget
Gladys
Glenda
Gloria
Greta
Gretchen
Grover
Gwladys
Gwyneth
Hans
Harris
Harrison
Hattie
Hayes
Heidi
Henrietta
Henry
Herbert
Hollis
Horace
Howard
Hubert
Hudson
Humphrey
Inez
Ingmar
Ingrid
Irene
Iris
Irving
Isabella
Janet
Jasper
Jedediah
Jefferson
Jehosaphat
Jenette
Jeremiah
Joan
Joanne
Jocelyn
Kelton
Larry
Laura
Lawrence
Lena
Lenore
Leona
Leonard
Lester
Lisa
Liza
Lloyd
Lois
Louis
Louise
Lu
Lucille
Lucinda
Lucius
Mabel
Madeleine
Malachi
Margaret
Marla
Martha
Matilda
Max
Maximilian
Maxine
Mel
Melba
Melvin
Merle
Mervin
Meryl
Mildred
Milo
Minnie
Moselle
Myra
Myrna
Myrtle
Nanette
Natasha
Nathaniel
Necie
Nora
Norbert
Noreen
Norma
Odell
Olive
Olivia
Orlando
Orville
Oscar
Oswald
Otis
Patton
Paula
Paulette
Pauline
Pauline
Pearl
Peggy
Penelope
Percy
Petunia
Philip
Phyllis
Quincy
Randall
Rascal
Raymond
Rhonda
Roger
Roland
Rose
Ruby
Rudolph
Rufus
Rupert
Russell
Ruth
Samson
Samuel
Sebastian
Shel
Sheldon
Sheman
Sideney
Simon
Sophia
Stacy
Stanley
Susan
Suzette
Tammy
Terrence
Thelma
Theodore
Timothy
travis
Trenton
Truman
Tyson
Ulysses
Varla
Velma
Vera
Vernon
Victor
Vincent
Virgil
Walt
Walter
Walton
Wardell
Watson
Wayne
Wilbur
Wilford
Wilhelmina
Wilmarth
Winchester
Winifred
Winston
Woodrow
Yancey
Yosef
Zane
Zebediah
Zeke
Zelda
Zoe

Oscar, Eater of Brownies

This is Oscar. He's just such a sweetheart....

This little guy was a labor of...fury, as I recall. And rage. Lots, lots, lots of rage. His original face and shape were so disheartening that if I had had enough of the base material, the yellow fleece, I would have taken the head and arms and scrapped the body.

This not being the case, however, I instead opted to perform major plastic surgery, adding a smile, adjusting the drape of the arms, re-distributing stuffing, and taking in his saddlebag hips.

I'm very happy with the results here, although I wish I had done something a little different with the quilting on his tummy. This is the only recent one that my sister-in-law has liked, though, and my mother went crazy over him.

...

He's fast becoming one of my favorites.

Next time,

(or the time after)

We'll go through the backlog and show you the story so far. It's kind of interesting.

In the meantime, here's some more pics of Oscar:








Namaste.