You can fool the fans - but not the players.... John Cage

birthday reflections

What is it about a birthday? Is it just that it is your one and only special day? Oh, sure, there's secretary day and grandma day and Christmas and all.... but there's only one day that is yours alone - even if you share that day with some other birthday person. And I feel many of that are reluctant to give up that special day.

There's an idea that you are to "grow out of it" - that birthday parties and cake and ice cream are to give way to a dinner out or some keepsake piece of jewelry; but that isn't what makes a birthday special. And at this age it isn't really about the presents - most of us can go out and manage to get the things we want and that is funny cause most of us don't even want that much "stuff" anymore. So what is it about?

My best birthday in a long time was my 50th. Spending the weekend out at Benton Hot Springs was so great and having my friends and some of my family there - that made it special. These birthdays that I work - they just go by like any other day.

Except that now I have JC; who has a knack for making things special. He gave me a birthday weekend - with funny and sweet cards hidden all over the place. I kept finding them in the oddest spots - the closet, the bathrom, in front of the dog food. It was fun - so fun. I'll treasure those cards. They came from the cat, at dinner time, before coffee.

The flip side of all that celebration and recognition is that you get to be another year older. Yeehaw! I've been digesting that for awhile. No turning back - it is what it is - but it is going to take me awhile to like it.

Ok - I'm over the reflection and the rumination over birthday issues. That was it; I got it out and I'm moving on now.

horseplay

I love turning the fillies out together and the other day Rhea was wound up tighter than a top. She was snorting and starting at every little leaf that blew by. Luckily no one was using the arena and we turned the girls out to get their yayas and bucks OUT of their systems.

Unfortunately none of the racing around photos turned out very clear - I don't think I have my camera set correctly for action shots and I don't have the lens for shooting across the arena. But after the initial run, they settle into playing with each other.

Their language is so physical but subtle at the same time - and if you want to appreciate it you just have to sit down and watch patiently. There's a fair amount of standing time involved in horseplay.

Some horses love to grab things like halters and lunge whips and orange cones and whip them around at the others.

Rhea giving her big friend a friendly bite while giving me the eye.

Resting her head on the little paint's back. Sigh.

Check the face on the gray. Mischievous!

Then there's always the safe (for the dog) encounter through the rails. Watching horses play is a great way to while away an hour or so and put off cleaning the pens!

cowgirl update & doll hands

I have a bit of a design challenge that anyone is welcome to help me solve - I'm to the point with the first "Our Lady of the Inner Cowgirl where I need to add her title and the question is how. Here's how she looks right now.

She's going to have some barb wire incorporated somehow, and I'm not sure she needs any other embellishments but she needs her title. I created some text, warped it and printed it out. Here's what that looks like:

But now.... how to work with those letters? I thought about soldering curved glass with jump rings so that it can hang - but I'm not sure I know to to cut curved glass - and two pieces that match. Paint it on metal? Rusty metal? Print it out on some sort of transparent medium and mount it on wood? This is my current challenge with this assemblage.

And then there are the hands. I only got four and I put them in this little display case for the time being. They are pretty cool, though.

All these doll parts have been showing up weeks and months apart at the thrift store. Either someone is dismantling her studio or dolls are "out" in the arts and crafts world. I thought they might be creepy to work with but they are really sort of graceful and wistful.

Off to work.

art doldrums

I don't know why; I was on such a creative high right after the holidays, but now I'm not rushing home and into the art room to work on things - I'm in a bit of a funk. Is it just that I ran through the things that I started while on break and now need another break to get going again? The whole goal is to stay "in the art groove". I know other people do it - how do you juggle? The weekends are so short.

Dad and J gave me this pink Buddha after a visit to their place a couple of years ago. It is so great - it is a lamp and I saw it in a funky antique store up there - had to have it. I'm sure my dad was perplexed but they both so accepting of my weirdness... and they drove it down to California in their motorhome later that year. It sits on the old vanity we bought and now it wears a synthetic opal "necklace" I bought at the Mountain Light Gallery. I wish I could think of the artist's name (and I'll go get it from the gallery) because her jewelry is absolutely wonderful. Completely unusual, beautifully packaged (this came in a little handmade felted envelope with a synthetic opal button). In fact, I am coveting earrings and a necklace from this artist right now.

Lately I've been experimenting with some photo overlays generously uploaded to flickr by Jaiel. Last night I ordered a bunch of film - 120 color and B&W for the Holga, and "polaroid" film packs (actually fuji) for making transfers - thinking that I'll make more images via that medium. Most of the time you just have to work through these doldrums and it'll be ok, still it is no fun to not be making any art at all. Even the journal work is less than exciting.

But there are flowers! Vons has had a decent array of spring cut flowers available and for less than an arm and a leg. These tulips are on their way out now but they lasted over a week and even a little past their prime they are still lush with color.

I shouldn't worry. As long as hyacinths and tulips make me stop and look there is still a creative streak in me. Who knows, maybe tomorrow that next idea will appear.

Ta-ta for now. Who reads this, anyhow?

yee haw

Sometimes I walk by a pair of shoes, then I turn around and walk back.

And I just have a thing for pointy-toe, kitten-heel slides.

Especially with a little western flair.

Ooo la la!

Manzanar

Mom and I went to Manzanar yesterday afternoon and if you've never been to one of the Japanese internment camps from WWII - well, you really owe it to yourself and your kids to visit one. What a history lesson.

I'm not sure they are all this well-designed but this one in the eastern Sierra is growing a beautiful interpretive center. We went to see a special program of speakers, but even without that there is a 22 minute film and a very beautiful and informative set of exhibits.

The exhibits are in a big building that used to be the camp gymnasium.

Right now I'm reading the book Farewell to Manzanar and will have a much better picture of camp life afterward.

And then there is an auto tour that takes you through the compound. It was windy and cold yesterday, so we didn't get out and walk around but I imagine that would be even more fascinating and I think that I will do that this spring.

There are acres of old fruit trees - no doubt dead now that there is no more irrigation - and the remains of what must have been beautiful gardens the residents created over the 3 years they lived at the relocation center.

The backdrop is the stunning east face of the Sierra Nevada. This is the cemetery site.

And one of the old guard towers. There are plans for more buildings - a WWII era mess hall was recently relocated to the site and is being reconstructed with more exhibits. They plan to build two barracks - one will be as barren as when the residents first arrived at the camp; the other will show how the residents created homes out of these 20' x 24' spaces.

A stop well worth making.

winter is back bake-o-rama

I love winter and so I love that winter has returned to the eastern Sierra after a brief fling with spring (too early). We are now in what the weather folk love to refer to as a 'more active pattern'.

I woke up to this the other morning - just a dusting here on the ground but nice and white on the mountains. The fog was hanging over the valley and the sun was coming up.

I love how it creeps up the canyons and rolls along the edges of the mountains.

Lovely power lines and towers, aren't they? I need to photoshop those out of these pictures.

If I spent a little more time with these i could probably turn them into decent photos - but I always seem to be in a rush to post them.

All this cold weather got me in the baking mood. Today I cooked pinto beans with bacon all day, then whipped up the Pioneer Woman's cornbread.

YUM! And for dessert - the farm chicks chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting.

She bakes again!

a little of this, a little of that

Rain is falling and I have a fire going in the woodstove, the animals are inside and lazy, and I am enjoying an evening of puttering from project to project. Sigh. Happiness. I thought I might post a random assortment of photos from the blog folder.

Barbed wire in the snow. Two of my favorite things.

Sunrise on New Year's Day.

Snow on the old wicker chair I really should NOT leave outside. It is getting drenched right now.

Our new coffee sign - I have to do something with this. It rocks.

Hmmmmmm. I think that might be all the ones I've resized yet hadn't yet posted. Ok. More tomorrow. I'm going back to listening to the rain.

the inner cowgirl

Although I don't know that she's finished I have been working on one of the smaller inner cowgirl assemblages and despite my history with 3D (it keeps kicking me back to 2D art) I'm enjoying working on these. I'm afraid to start in on the full size one, though - just haven't had the flash of inspiration necessary. And then there's the issue of the missing lamp base. Missing since the move so I'm pretty sure it isn't going to show up anywhere. I have to move on past that. Anyhow,
I was lookin' around for a base or pedestal for the inner cowgirl and hit upon the idea of recovering one half of one of these heavy cardboard boxes to use as a stage.

Here were the girls just wearing their hats. I liked their expressions and pale skin so much I didn't even want to gold-leaf them like the big girl.

I chose the brunette and then wrapped and glued the box top with some of my favorite embossed "pleather".

I wanted the stage to sit up on legs so I looked around for something roundish and after considering stones, marbles, wood I found these exposed gocco bulbs. I think they are perfect - love the color of the bulbs already and they are just the right height.

The inside needed to be finished and there was that fabric I bought so many years ago in San Francisco.... white silk with little pearls sewn on it.

She's moved a little past this stage and I'll try to finish up this weekend. It is supposed to rain and be cloudy all weekend. I'm hoping so only because it is so much easier to stay inside and work when the weather cooperates like that.

More pics to come.

vintage kitchen 2

The art process is a funny thing. Nothing seems to happen, you're just puttering around trying out things in your sketchbook, you wonder if you are wasting time, if all the creativity has come down to just this: collage, collage and more collage. You don't sketch as much as you used to so you aren't confident about your drawings, you keep messing around with different media, different ideas... la, la, la.

Then, something clicks. For me it was this page in one of my journals.

And then this one:

Something was starting to appear again and again. I liked this stamped image, I liked the layering of the paint, I liked using the palette knife.

Then I took the photos of the vintage kitchen appliances with the Holgaroid.

And this weekend I combined the various elements and ended up with these:

I think these are going somewhere.