Friday, June 27, 2008

Holding Things Together



This studio employs CA for projects. Cyanoacrylate, as most makers know, is the best adhesive out there for most projects. There's an art to using it properly. There's no repositioning once the process starts.

The spell is easily broken.


It requires sitting motionless for a full three minutes.

Sounds easy to anyone who hasn't done it.



Sometimes this Poppet Planet hydra I've created overwhelms me. It happens. It's not always apparent from the outside, so mostly goes unnoticed.

But once in a while, it's very, very difficult. So many choices to make, so many voices, so many distractions, so little time to work things out.


And then there are the larger questions at the edges.


Whether. Whether this or that.


Weather. Mental tornado inside, blinding light outside.


I hold two tiny parts together, waiting for the magic chemistry I can't see, but have learned to trust. I wait. I breathe. I clear my mind.


Three minutes.


I am sane. The glue holds. So far.


If I still feel like crying after the three minutes, a bit of perspective helps.

10 comments:

ravyn said...

That is a great link! Um, and a lovely Poppet, me want, heh. i suddenly feel the urge to make a black-and-white checkerboard Foppet.

Miss Bliss said...

Brilliant link...I needed that today.
Thanks Lisa.

Anonymous said...

Lisa, I'm surprised you don't use a faster superglue, an accelerator, or smaller portions. Some [spaceship] modelers use a toothpick to apply the tiniest amount of glue so that it drys quickly.

Oh - Saw your poppets at Apollocon. They're so cute! I mean, more than usual.

lisa said...

ravyn: thanks. I like checkerboards too

miss bliss: indeed it is! perspective changes lots

john: we do for some applications, of course. But for others, the three minute stuff seems to work best.
and...it requires a tiny bit of zen

Carl V. Anderson said...

I just finished reading Michael Moorcock's short story book, The Metatemporal Detective and I have a bit of a steampunk afterglow going on and this poppet just looks fantastic! And it also represents the way I'm kind of feeling with work, house stuff, summer, etc. How perfect!

And that perspective? Wow! That was eye opening to be sure.

Anonymous said...

Your eBay auction mentions this poppet's name as 'Whether Balloon'. Any relation to the Phantom Tollbooth's Whether Man?

lisa said...

carl V: I'm feeling it too, for sure. Life has been a bit too interesting lately. Very likely you all get sick of hearing me rant about the desert in summer. But really, when you're here in it, it's astoundingly harsh. Very hard not to mention something that engulfs us.

davidK: I'm not familiar with the Phantom Tollbooth, but now that you mention it I'll be looking--and for Moorcock's Metatemporal Detective.

AletaMay said...

I just reread this and I am taking away something perhaps different from what you were thinking about when you wrote this. I am in this place in life where time slips through my fingers but nothing ever seems to get done. The idea of really experiencing three minutes, and that something significant can happen in those three minutes is very powerful to me right now.

I do not tire of hearing about life in summer in the desert. It gives me perspective.

K said...

I want a moon balloon...

Rubius said...

My first ever epiphany was about 'perspective'. I was very little and it occurred to me that perspective makes all the difference in the world... to everything... to everyone. I can't quite express it properly... that seems to be the nature of epiphanies... but it sticks with me like a residue... whenever I hear the word 'perspective' a little shiver of awe runs through me.