Chipping wisdom

Lots of folk are digging out of snow and we are smack in the middle of basking season again. I refuse to feel guilty on this one. Believe me, it won't last long. Still, today we ate at the famous Sherman's Deli---outside---and I had half of an obscenely large Reuben sandwich. (The rest sits quietly in the studio refrigerator, snarling softly, waiting for midnight.)


The cool air and warm skies won out and I decided to try the canopy project after all. ( A wind storm several months ago destroyed our largest and I mused on replacing it with a huge papier mache...thing.) It's a fairly large undertaking and I can't really take days off to work on it, but I've decided to chip away at it in bits until it's done or I admit defeat. (Not likely, but it could happen.)

Let me say something about the wisdom of chipping away at something. I don't employ it often enough, though its logic is indisputable. It seems we wait too often. We wait and we lug our dreams around like wet baggage because we can't let go, but can't convince ourselves to find time for them. Short term goals gobble up the long term plans and the days go by and we arrive at the future blinking in surprise.

It's not like time travel.
It is time travel.

Thirty minutes. Maybe just once a week. Maybe the thirty minutes consists of cleaning a corner of a desk to work at. Possibly it consists of staring at a blank sheet of paper and thinking about the "it" we want to do.
Maybe it consists of finding a blank sheet of paper to stare at.

It is, after all, as they say, a process. Wise folk, who've written books, produced plays, learned the piano, shaped their bodies, and mastered difficult languages will say it works.

I would tend to believe them.


g'night

Pooferific

Ben and I spent hours in studio, with the fortune teller. Scuba gear would better serve to replace missing safety goggles with the air hose attached.
I couldn't find the scuba hoses.

If we don't clean the studio soon, we may have to torch it and start over.


Ravyn and I spent hours working on some very minute details for Poppet Planet. Hard work, but the technology was good. Instant, instant, instant. Not quite flying cars, but pretty damned good. I began to truly appreciate the effectiveness of fonts. Seriously. Once I saw it, I wondered how I missed it before. Huh.


In between there were the usual phone calls and emails, writing and schedules, people stopping by.


In the evening Orion and I went to Vons. We made it an adventure in silliness. When we got home, we put everything away and made "anti- smores", which is Ritz crackers and mini marshmallows, stuck on with peanut butter and toasted in the broiler of an old and sometimes slightly sinister-looking oven.

We made a game of who could stick the most marshmallows on a cracker without stacking.
Then we ate the loose marshmallows left.
Then, while we watched them swell (poof) through the oven door, we made up words with poof.

"Look, they're slightly poofy."
"No, they're quite poofious"
"Sir, the poofericity is increasing."
"But yes, they're oh so Poofilicious... don't call me 'sir'.
"Sorry, your Poofness."
and so on in the manner that makes four-year-olds collapse in giggles.

The giggling may have gone on longer, but in just moments, our anti-smores were quite brown and, once out of the heat, quite ordinary looking but very tasty.

It seems there are never enough moments like these. There never were. We tend sometimes to work hard, investing in our futures, when finally we might find out if we invested enough in good memories.

But there were some. Thank goodness for the some.

Eventually, there will be more. Because, as our dear Mr. King says, "Everything's eventual."

Where'd I go?

It's like time travel. Really. Once again reminded with the force of a slap to the back of the head that time is not, never was and never will be a constant.

I lost several days.

Sometimes I comfort Orion when he doesn't want to go to bed--which is pretty much always-- by explaining how sleeping can be like time travel. How you can close your eyes and poof! it's a new day.

It's not so much like that when you're older. Except when you're deep in schedule hell. Then the two hours of sleep you grab between gigs or flights or shifts can vanish like a vicious trick.
But I still remember when it worked like magic, when an anticipated morning, ages away could appear just by closing sleepy eyes and counting.

We're hip-deep in work, including finishing up the fortune teller. We've stretched past our deadline for this piece,even the reset one. Ok, we missed it, but don't want to admit it, even to ourselves. It won't matter so much in the long run, but for now, it means that the moment the last detail is in place, we'll photograph it, film it in motion and send it off to be crated without spending any time enjoying it.

It goes this way sometimes.

As Ben and I work on kinetics, Ravyn works to get Poppet Planet in place. We're gaining on it. Poppet Planet includes a registry of all the original poppets. If you've adopted an original poppet and want your name on the registry, cool! Just let me know at poppetplanetgirl@aol.com.

Also, this is the address where you can now send your Poppets On Tour photos.

More later. Your artist's brain is winding down. Time for sleep.

*poof!*

It Is What It Is Day

I make lists. Lots of them. Lists can break otherwise daunting tasks into specific, clear elements.

You don't build a barn or give a dinner party without making a list.

Then there's the other benefit of lists---the forgetting. Once something is put on paper, under the unauspicious heading of "Tuesday" or "To Do", you can stop worrying about it. You don't have to remember once it's on the List. You can dump it right out of your brain for now.

What a relief.

It's like that with journaling. Still, try as I might, I've never been able to fill a journal, though I'm very fond of notebooks. Hardbound with narrow, crisp lines, I must have a dozen of them on the bookshelf, none of which have more than a quarter of its pages filled. I'd like to complete one front and back, top to bottom-- fill it with ideas, private thoughts, drawings and lists. No success yet. I begin quite well but, eventually, will furiously scrawl an idea that comes too fast for neat, sane lettering. I end up with ten pages that will be meaningless in six months. Or worse, I'll shortsightedly tear out a page or two----generally sketches to pin to the easel.

The Purist in me (not the one who will only mat paintings in white or won't buy a cover or tribute CD, and who is totally sane, but the other Purist, who occasionally gets lost in details, and whose sanity is questionable), will deem the notebook voided, game over.

I've tried folding the offending pages, or marking them off with a paperclip. Nope. Even then I can't ignore the missing pages. That's a little crazy. But only a little.

Personally, I'm referring to today as Mostly Reading and Eating Various Forms of Dark Chocolate Day.

The flowers are nice too.

In our backyard is an object Pete named "The Ghost of Thanksgiving Past." He refers to events which, when told, make a longish, weird story I may tell someday.

I'll tell you now though, that the aforementioned events left me with two things:

One is a fairly strong aversion to ever consuming pork again.

The other is a a pig's skull inside a bird's cage, which has been drying in the desert sun of our back yard for several months.

In addition to being Mostly Reading and Eating Various Forms of Dark Chocolate Day, I'll refer to today as The Day the Pig Had His Due Day. In other words, I know, today, exactly what the skull wants to be.

Damned inconvenient. Then, as the button sent by Lord Daecabhir says, It Is What It Is.

It's not like I didn't know this was coming. Creative storms are preceded by warnings.
And I knew, eventually, that fucking pig would talk.

Still, it's damned inconvenient.

In Stephen King's short story "Everything is Eventual", Mr. Sharpton says to Dink;

"Because creative people aren't always in charge. And
when they do their best work, they're hardly ever in charge. They're just sort
of rolling along with their eyes shut, yelling Wheeeee."

So it turns out that one of the things I did this Valentine's Day was to float a pig's skull and jaw bones in a large doubled ziplock baggy of bleach solution, which will send billions of microbes currently living on the bones to that wondrous potato salad in the sky. The smell alone should keep cats and raccoons away, but just in case, I put the whole thing back in the birdcage, out of reach.

The whole defies photos. Do your imaginary best, and know it's even more gruesome.

Tomorrow then, will be time to unwrap a new notebook. Wheeeee!

Lovely.
Hope your day has been at least as good.

Kalifornia

We spent the afternoon and evening at the home of Ben's grandparents, Silvia and Woody, where it was not cold at all, where the grass was soft and cool under our bare feet and the children ran around for hours.


The grown-ups connected in chairs under canopies, some drinking, some smoking, some eating from the buffet around the pool. Later, under night skies, I wandered between groups, hearing snippets of stories. They were the kinds of stories kept folded neatly away in back pockets, waiting for just such an evening.

I sat for a time with Woody, who tended bar. We talked about art and vision, and eventually got around to Death. I, having lived just long enough to have a concept of how much time I might have left and Woody, who turned 90 in October, are now bound as are any two kids who saw the monster under the bed. There is strength in numbers.

Ben took our photo but had a little trouble with the focus. It occurs to me now that, after a certain number of margaritas, this may be how we actually looked to him.











Jameson, Ben and Pete.







Nothing is the end of the world except the end of the world.






Palm trees aren't really trees.



That's all I've got. Everyone's art is packed and on it's way. Tomorrow is for movies and Oreos.
Monday is a list I refuse to look at for now.

g'night

growing pains and bright spots

I've said before that learning to be an artist doesn't prepare one for running an artist's business.
No wonder I'm burned out. Yes, I know having your own business is challenging, satisfying, interesting and all that. It's just fucking great.
It's tedious and tiring and exasperating too.
Mostly though, it's necessary for many people.


Very soon I'll spend a couple of days in the studio for complete immersion in work on something that's not on the schedule...and music. Soon. These days generally choose themselves. When they arrive, we tend to recognize them, don't you think?

For about five seconds I considered focusing solely on the studio business for a year. You know, get everything in order, then make art.
PPffawwww. Uh. No. I'm not willing to invest that much of this present into that future. Tried that in my twenties. Stupid then, even more stupid now. Balance is better.

Not to mention that this plan would go against my New Year's Resolution and wouldn't be at all like time travel.
Besides, it assumes I actually have a choice. Silly, arrogant girl-thing.

I'll stick to trying to find a balance right now, between practical and fantastical. If you have a good trick for that one, please share with the rest of us. Perhaps it's not a balancing act, but a dance.

Wow. Suddenly I feel much better. I'm so glad we had this little talk. Thank you.

____

I've meant to mention Ravyn's tiny Valentine-painted foals. I've seen several of them in person. Very sweet.
eBay - Animals, Collectibles items on eBay.com


And to remind you that the Romatics at the Slaughterhouse pieces are still up on ebay for a couple more days.

Now for tea, and stories for Orion.

A day of Making

I made my hair different. It looks like this:












I made a pumkin pie. It looked like this:

















I made time to read. It looked like this:

I made "Queen of Hearts." She looked like this:

Sunday. Hope yours was good.

b r e a k

Burnout approaches.

I am a LIAR.

Ok.
Here I go again:
Burnout arrived a few days ago and your brilliant artist here decided to ignore it. Seemed like a good-enough sort of plan, this ignoring. After all, last time Burnout stopped by I'm fairly certain I put on a spectacular show of ignorance. Let me think...it was mid December...right around my birthday. Oh yeah, I remember now...

Well, Hello Burnout, my old friend!
Come in, come in. Put your feet up and I'll make you some hot apple cider and throw in a movie. Blanket? There you go. As Good as it Gets? That's the ticket. Maybe a little Colbert Report with popcorn. I'll get out the down comforter and a nice anthology. How about some short stories--d'ya Like Gene Wolfe?

Soon you'll be feeling much better....and getting the hell out of here.


Learn from my screw-ups, please, you guys. I'm am.

sheesh.
g'night

The Gallery opens gradually...

The ROMANTICS show
is OFFICIALLY OPEN today
with art auctions added until midnight tonight.

There are a number of Little Red Poppets at the regular price. Ebay doesn't allow mention that a dollar from each poppet sold is donated to the Comic Book Legal Fund, but that is indeed the case.

I listed everything in Ebay because it works well for one of a kind pieces and, this time, allowed Ravyn time to make art instead of a sale page.
AUCTIONS ARE HERE

Little Red Poppets, One of a kind Poppets, some very unique Luck's Dancers, some pieces from Bent and two collaborative Poppet sets from Ravyn and me---the making of which I'll always remember fondly---and the introduction of Little Pink, which features a brand new poem by Derek Ash.

From the beginning I've hoped SlaughterHouse would grow into a place where other artists could create with me. This is a good start. I'm very pleased.

Bent, Ravyn and Derek, thank you.

And Thank You for your comments and encouragement. Hope you enjoy these new works.

The Hours

Twelve hours after my last post, Ravyn was homeward bound and Pete and I were on our way to the park with Orion. It was a day with wind and a few cold sprinkles---not so great for a picnic but just fine for soccer balls, slides and remote control cars. Pete snapped me with his cell phone.

Tomorrow the gallery will be open for "Romantics", which was the theme for lots of the studio work this past month.



Tonight is time for putting our feet up, smoothing the fur of a somewhat reproachful and ignored cat and, of course, catching up on My Name Is Earl for which I'm ever so grateful to have been introduced. It's warm fuzzy socks for my brain.

Here are a couple of previews from the new work:


"Little Something" by Ben Warren










"Foppet's Poppet" a collaboration
by Ravyn and Lisa










"Sympatico" Poppet by Lisa

2:16

It's now 2:16 a.m. I am done playing with strange little poppets. Ravyn is not done playing with strange little ponies.

She is weird.

gnight

Thinner

I was wrong.

These days have been very much like boot camp. This is the end of number four and we are all tired, a bit irritable and frankly, getting a bit weird, the way people can get weird on long road trips in close quarters.

Ravyn and I haven't been 'outside' since Thursday.

Projects get like this sometimes. Deadlines can change weekends into marathons, with pockets of rest and food at irregular intervals determined only by exhaustion and hunger.

At this point I am feeling a bit stretched, thinned-out and sort of translucent.

But sometimes this is how the work is.

In the end, we will have work to show and the satisfaction of having survived another marathon of studio work.

After some rest, we'll each declare it was worth it.
Likely.

g'night

Studio Day

A busy day in the studio and we are all tired. I smell chocolate. It's not my imagination. I made brownies tonight, with little balls of cookie dough hidden in the mix, with a layer of roasted pecans on top, on the assumption that there's an extra gallon of milk in the studio fridge.
There had better be.

Ravyn is here.
Ben is here.
I'm surrounded by evil.
Help.



Ravyn is learning to make molds. We hope to have a Ravyn sculpture to show by the end of the visit.





It's not quite as weird as it looks. It's mostly that I have hands that will both fit into the back of Jack's head at the same time, with which to screw a tiny nut onto the end of the tiny bolt that makes his fingers wiggle.

Lots of good work was done today. Lots of ridiculous things were said. We are all tired. Time for brownies with nuts. Time for My Name is Earl.

g'night

Bon Chance

Thought you might enjoy a look at the wheel before installation into the Fortune Teller's box. This project has become known as 'the song that never ends' in the studio. Still, as it begins the final descent into physical being, I begin to
'feel' it. Sort of like having someting a little blurry come into focus, and sort of like shifting a burden to a more comfortable position and sort of like getting turned on, all in one.
Cool.

A day of that takes the 'suck' right out of even the most tedious of projects.



We were gifted with some very old, very strange picture molding we're told was made in Belgium. It has a weird sort of water lilly design and bone-like border. Ben works to restore it. There's not enough for the Fortune Teller box, so we'll mold and cast the balance. Work, but now that we've seen this stuff, nothing less will do.


Ravyn is coming out tomorrow. We'll be working on the website and in the studio. A lot. I told her to prepare for a no-frills weekend. Not exactly boot camp, but lots of work. Then again, Ben will make a big pot of his famous monster chili on Friday. All is not lost.

And, there will be brownies.

workaday

One of the things I've begun to understand about working at home is that it takes some effort and awareness to keep work and personal life separate. It's better for me if they are. Good to have some sort of schedule. If I don't pay attention, the blocks of work time and home time start to get broken up into smaller and smaller blocks and mixed together into this sort of homogenous gray thing where I'm doing bits of each all mixed together and not concentrating fully on either.


Not a good plan.

The breakdown is insidious. It's difficult to see until it gets uncomfortable. Just like slowly gaining weight. You don't see it until, well---you know.


Damned holidays and their cream cheesy goodness.


So. Time to separate these little bits back into big blocks of studio work and personal life. Time to remember something that writers and artists and other creative, work-driven people forget---that there actually is a personal life...in there...somewhere.

Sheesh.



"Alison's Midnight Snow" papier mache 14 inches tall.

Alison was here this weekend. She helped me realize I'm cramming too much work into too little spacetime. It's making me crazy. (er) Then she took her Poppet home.

Thanks, kiddo.

desert gloom

Dark clouds roil over the mountains. The air is dead silent and cold and holds no promise.

A pot of boiled peanuts simmers on the stovetop for Alison. She grew up mostly in Georgia and likes them. So do I.

I usually get raw peanuts from a little roadside market just off the Ten. But the freeze hit the little markets hard and most of them were closed. I drove to Harry's, which is a pseudo-mom and pop store, a corporate chain with fake hardwood floors and ferns hanging from the fake rafters, new age music on the speakers and over-priced herbal shampoos.

Palm Desert has become a personal nightmare, paved from one end to the other with strip malls. It looks like any major street in Orange County now.

Our hedges are dead. The oranges are dying on the trees. Small things, I know, but they seemed a sort of mental barrier between us and the encroaching human stupidity crawling steadly toward us.

It just makes me soul-sick.

In that part of my mind where I understand things, I appreciate that the days of blue skies and diving into cool water are the exception, and it's that which makes them precious. The door to that room gets smallish sometimes, and I need a bit of light to find it. Mostly I'd like to sit like a statue, but Orion needs walks in the cold air, and silliness and conversation.

So, nothing to it but to put on a coat and a good face, head out and look for what might be there.

Cold

One thing Palm Springs houses don't have much of is insulation. The studio, once a separate garage building, is connected now by a breezeway enclosed years ago, which must be closed like an airlock or it will suck every bit of warmth from both structures. I think it might actually be colder inside it than out.

From DavidK:
Jeff VanderMeer has included 'Strange Birds' in his list www.locusmag.com/Features/2007/01/2006-twelve-overlooked-books.html

I went there to read it and saw John Shirley's review of Pan's Labyrinth, which is probably more thorough than I wanted pre-viewing, but then it's John Shirley's blog so I got sucked right in.

Then I started following links and reading and getting that same sinking feeling I get every time I watch the news. At one point, during a particularly disturbing article, Orion came to give me a kiss on the cheek. I looked at his trusting face and wondered if I'd ever feel truly warm again, inside.

I read way too much. I think too much. I feel mostly I've learned just enough to convince myself I'm powerless. I went on to read an interview of John by Stephane Von Stephane that contained this bit:

Stephane: Do you feel the artist has a responsibility to enlighten the audience, or is
just being entertaining enough?

John: It varies, from person to person. If you have the call, you sing that song. It's in your inner nature. I feel I'm supposed to help wake people up. We walk about in sleep and we do atrocious, selfish, destructive things as a matter of policy in our sleep—especially our group sleep, our consensual sleep. I'm not so very awakened, but it's a matter of degree—I'm struggling to wake up and wake others around me. We're like people in a coal mine succumbing to gas. I get up and stagger around and shake the other miners. "Wake up!" That's in my nature. BUT I always want to entertain. Why be tedious when you write?

What else can we do, really, but do our bits the best we can? Still, I worry, because I'm of this generation, living in this present. Are not each of us responsible in some way for shaping things to come?

I'll keep working. It's what I've got. It's what I do. But damn, it's cold in here.

g'night

inner workings

It generally seems that the excitement of the conceptual and design phases of any project is eclipsed by many long hours of tedius labor.
Many. Long. Hours.

Trial and error, step by step, detail by detail punctuated by mishaps requiring Bactine, cursing, the occasional brilliant insight, more cursing and finally, the wicked comedy brought on by exhaustion.

This hard work and tedium proves too much for the average bear, resulting in the bell curve for projects dreamt of actually completed. Which is to say, not so many.

This process has definitely proven true for the kinetic works I've created in the past, and is ever so present for Fortune's Teller.

Still, little by little the works come together so that the lights go on, the finger beckons, the eyes open slowly and the wheel begins to spin.

Our deadline is Jan 22. We're okay for now, but experience tells me that as we approach it, our days will grow longer.

I'm looking forward to showing you what we made. This photo is of the gear mechanism inside a single figure from Dark Caravan's midway sculpture several years ago. It says a lot about what work in the studio is like these days.


Jason Erik Lundberg has a site called Second Chance Book Adoption where you can get rescued books for amazingly low prices. Some good ones too. I'm going back for another look.


Our computer guy Chris sent me here WorldNetDaily for a look at this weirdness regarding birds falling inexplicably from the sky near Perth, Austrailia and in Austin, Texas. If you see more about this or find some clue as to whether this article is reliable, please comment.

We saw Children of Men (2006)last night.
I thought it was good science fiction and well made. Also saw a preview for the upcoming Mimzy. Mimsy Were the Borogoves is one of my all -time favorite stories. We have it in several editions, including a 1950 A Gnome There Was by Lewis Padgett. The preview wasn't inspiring, but promises eye candy.

Another long studio day tomorrow. Now to stretch and work out what the work worked in. And to find the soundtrack for Children of Men.

g'night

Little Ghosts

It took me a little while to understand the connection between the 'food' sculptures, the boxes and the little faceless poppets. It mostly has to do with the 'language' particular to my work. I could bore all of us to twitches with details, or I could just point out that each must express itself without the benefit of faces.

I can live with that.



I've grown quite fond of "Little Pink's Bunny. I've known her for a very long time, and am pleased to be sculpting her likeness. The edition will be released officially in spring, but for now I'm working out the details in proofs.



With a Little Red Poppet, for scale:











The first background layers for "Strange Roads." The first two paintings for the series, "Strange Birds" and "Strange Fish", are done on antique window frames Ben and I found in Cathedral City. We reproduced the frame for this painting, as we'll do for the remainder of the series. Ben built it, I aged it to match the others.
It was like time travel.
No, not at all.

But, writing notes at the end of the day and realizing it's after midnight...is.

g'night

Sunday

Weird day, post wind. Last week was a scramble to meet several project deadlines at once with wind tearing past the windows throughout. This morning was deadly still, in my head and out. Orion braved lunch outside amid the shambles of our sails. I cut away the shredded canopies and gave some thought to sculpting the metal framework into a papier mache piece.
Really, if I want to maintain focus, I shouldn't even contemplate starting that sort of project. Then, on the other hand, it's important for me to make art for us, for the fun of it.

So far, I haven't decided. Since John's accused me of honesty, I suppose if I take this one on I'll post as I go, pass or fail. For today I was content to do background work on the cover painting for Strange Roads.

I'll be having another small sale in early February. I should think of another name. They're not sales, per se--these days when art is finished and available. They're more like the FRESH DONUTS NOW sign at the corner bakery. "Fresh Poppets." Anyway, on the 30th there will be a couple of larger papier mache Poppet sculptures, a few unique Poppets and possibly a few Luck's Dancers for Valentines. So, consider this your official 'heads up.'

I'm writing more than reading, and sculpting. I've had this strange sort of unfocused... dread (?) for days. It's quiet, but persistant. Maybe it's from too much news, maybe it's the chilly dry air making everything seem fragile, maybe I need to take a day off. I've had that dream. Twice. Everyone has recurring dreams. Likely this one is fairly common. In it I'm very near to an answer after a long, intense mental process. It's an important answer--the key to unlock some sort of unifying theory. I'm lying on my side with my knees drawn up, my eyes closed and my hands over my ears. The key is right there, on the tip of my mind's tongue. I'm in terrible pain and I become aware that I must make a conscious choice.

I'm not willing to pay the price. I hear myself saying "No. I don't want this."

The moment I choose, the whole scenario is familiar to the last detail-- a terrible deja vu. Symbols, suddenly unrecognizable, fall away before my eyes and all is silent. I wake feeling sad and a little lost.

There you go. Sunday. Not profound. Not awful. Good enough.

g'night