Poppet Has Left the Building

I have way too much fun making custom Poppets. Thanks, Wendy!!!

Please Forgive My Human

Because sometimes we need all the help we can get. I don't know about you, but this one makes me feel a little better about being me.

On Etsy.

Busy shipping day yesterday. Busy studio day today. Busy holding down a sofa tonight. I hope, I hope, I hope.

Lawn Morals

I'm not a fan of pulling weeds. It's not about the work. It's about the emotions. I can't pull dandelions without thinking of Ray Bradbury. I can't pull a weed without appreciating that it struggled to push up through the desert rocks. I can't pull a weed without being aware that it has a name, a genus, a species and a purpose.

Is it simply unfortunate geography for weeds, to grow in this neighborhood that frowns upon them? Or more precisely, that frowns upon humans with weeds between their rocks?

I tried that explanation with Orion. That nothing was wrong with the plants, but that they grew in the wrong place. He says that makes no sense. He is right.

How does one explain lawn morals to a Poppet?

Possibly I should put up tiny tombstones with names of the plants. My neighbors would likely frown upon that too, but I would've made some sort of point, at least to myself.



Possibly ONE DAY I can live somewhere else, that is mine, where weeds can have their season.



The birthday party went extremely well. I must get permission from parents before posting more photos. But it was a long day of play and bouncing and cake. And me hoarse from pretending to be the alien haunting the bounce house. I am a child inside. I will always be willing to humiliate myself for giggles. If I'm smart.


My hand is tired. My sculpting hand is my 'main' hand, is my signing hand too. It was great to see Larry, though we were signing in completely different rooms and had not nearly enough time.

I sat for hours with Peter Beagle and we talked and listened and discovered a something that we need to make together. The something actually sort of presented itself, very much like magic.
I'm very happy to be working with him again. Of course I am.

He is Peter S. Beagle.
And it is my great honor.




Copies of Strange Light, Strange Roads and Strange Birds are available in our ebay store.

quick note

It's been a week of jumping hurdles. Off to the book show. Taking camera. Taking Poppets. Will come back with photos.

and books.

Have a great Sunday.

waking hours

I've now been awake for twenty one hours. Too many, since I got little sleep the night before. I spent most of today waiting at the hospital while Spencer had surgery on his spine. This one was a bit complicated, but was managed by stealing a bit of his hipbone. The worst of the uncertainty is passed. Now for recovery and all that goes with.
The waiting was not totally stressful as long as I stayed busy. I finished writing an article I've been working on for some weeks. I read two issues of Make from cover to cover. I sort of watched bits of Law and Order that seemed to be on every channel in one form or another and I made a weird sort of menagerie of latex gloves. I thought the nurse would scold me---she was that stern sort of nurse who might---but she didn't, unless I count the (possibly imagined) subtle rolling of her eyes.

I'm a little sad that this year we won't actually be celebrating St. Paddy's Day. Sometimes things just don't fall that way. The week is way too full for cooking cabbage or drinking, or even Aubrey's annual St. Paddy's day dive into the pool.
But we agreed to be satisfied with what is. And what is now is that we made it through a difficult day. Orion is sleeping soundly and very soon, I will be too.

Have a drink for me. Éirinn go brách!

g'night

weekend

Poppets are already traveling free. Your artist will be spending hours in her favorite corner of the sofa
in pajamas,
with tea,
writing.
Silly Humans!

g'night

Strange and other news

Larry Niven and I will be at the Book Fair in Mission Hills to sign copies of the newly released Strange Light.



The cover looks like this. The inside has my art and well, Larry Niven.

The Poppets who live on my desk now have their own Twitter account.
Poppets see things differently. Poppets have ideas. Poppets want to help you create. Ask questions or just say hello. Be patient though. Even with five of them, typing can be a little slow. It's a big, big keyboard.

Our Etsy Shop celebrates its one-year anniversary on Saturday the 13th. All Poppets will travel free from the 13th through the 19th. New Poppets and art and $10 gas masks too. Poppets want gas masks.
Wow. A year. Thank you!
Windy for sure. This tree is very old. For as long as I've lived here, it had one huge dead major limb and one living major limb. Guess which one fell...



Inspiring windy Poppets, for sure.

"Not My Favorite Windy Day"


Ok. Now I'm officially pooped. g'night

Today is very windy, with fallen trees, rolling trash bins and little bits flying all around. There are moments---looking out of the studio's south window---when I could be Dorothy, dream-flying in black and white. I'm sculpting a poppet caught in a windstorm, which is one of those parts of work that doesn't feel like work at all.



Last week I finished an edition of 'Resonant Kiss." The finished sculpture looks like this.


I really liked this particular image of the work-in-progress. Possibly it's the negative black space around them. Perhaps the slight out-of-focus makes it more sinister. Maybe I'm full of crap. I don't know. I like it and thought you might too.


This weekend I watched the documentary "Addicted to Plastic." The experience for me was a bit of a roller coaster of 'we're totally fucked' and 'we're starting to figure things out.' It was somewhat balanced, so I came away from it feeling informed, but not panicked.

Then I did a little old-fashioned channel surfing. After about an hour, I immediately went to work on a new Poppet. It made me feel a little better, but not great for Poppet.
A little gas mask made up for it. (care tip: Poppets don't like more than thirty minutes of television at a time)
Then I decided to make gas masks for other Poppets too, which is good, because gas masks are small and require only small tools. I can sculpt them on a tray in my lap, with my feet up, in my pajamas, with a nice hot toddy by the fire.

...while watching documentaries. So time flew and I made quite a number of masks. Other Poppets could have them too.

When I was done, I decided to watch some television. But I've seen all four episodes of Survivors (the 2008 series), so I put a little Irish in my toddy, and got a book.

Watchful Shrubs

Eventually, the front walk will deter all but the hardiest of Watchtower Society members. For those, there's always the trapdoor.

watching

It's been an intense week in the studio. Come to think of it, it's been an intense week all around. Nothing big, just mountains of small things. Feels a bit like balancing on a ball, solving a Rubik's Cube and avoiding an irate bear all at the same time.
Or something like that.

Art was accomplished. Got another of the Poppet Pictures finished




and a Poppet to celebrate Equinox.

Possibly you're feeling like spring will never arrive. I understand---it's how I feel at the end of summer hell here in the desert. Spring is coming, the way cooler air whispers through just when I think it's abandoned us once and for all at the end of summer.

This is our spring. It won't last long, so we must make the most of it. The gazebo is slowly looking more like the greenhouse it's becoming. The tomato seeds we started with are hardy plants now, some with flowers, all who will need protection from the wilting sun soon enough.

The tortie continues her watch. I think of her as MUT (My Untouchable Tortie.) I had some of Ben's wonderful homemade pate'. I shared--- a little--- from about a foot away.
She talked. A little. Too much onion?

No sudden moves.

Tomorrow is Saturday. I dare not make a list. My list will find me out of doors, looking for birds and rabbits, not so unlike the furry little sister whose company I seek and yet, likely alien in her eyes.

Cats and Dragons

Today was a very long day in the studio. The kind of day when the work isn't difficult, but plentiful. Hours of the nuts and bolts and physical labor that make the pictures in my head become objects I can hold.



But evening came, just as always. Orion and I walked through our neighborhood to the wash, which is wild with rabbits, coyotes and roadrunners. Oh my.

There were little black birds on the wires, like notes on a staff and the sky was filled with cats and dragons and other strange creatures. The sun's light suddenly turned Orion's hair to gold. I took a photo of him, for him.
For later, so that he can see the street as it was when he was a little boy.
It will be like time travel.

The walk was an excellent idea.

And now, I'm too tired to worry or think or plan. Quiet now, and sleep.