Carnival - Out of Season

Went to the "Out of Season" Carnival at UMass last night. Met some nice folks and heard some great drumming; missed the yummy food of previous yeras, tho. Really fun table decorations incuded two of these masks on dowels, stuck in styrofoam and covered with brightly colored tissue paper. Didn't have a camera to take a picture there but brought one of the hand painted masks home with me to show you all.

For pictures of & info on my Palm Sunday art piece at First Church go to my other blog: Terra Nova.

Where Have I Been ?????

Wondering where I have been? Well, painting in A's new space for one thing and doing art stuff for another. Also starting to teach my 2 classes for the semester, based on the book Persepolis, about Iran this time around. I have actually created a blog for my CSL class! It is a closed blog (open only to the class) so I can't post a link but I am very excited about it. It will be used by my class as well as the other CSL class so that is about 37 people. Could be really fun. Time will tell.

New Blog: TND

I have begun a new blog: Terra Nova Design where I will now funnel my art and design related posts: garden, house and art. Check it out when you have a few minutes.

A Webby Evening

After 2 days of playing with collage techniques I spent this evening on the web reading artists' web pages and blog, viewing their amazing works and reading wonderfully detailed entries about techniques used. One artist, Karen, has re-inspired me to try altered books. Another woman, Bernie Berlin, runs a dog rescue and much of her art helps to support it. All very inspirational. I could spend many hours more but alas I must sleep. Tomorrow is a work day.

Soon I will scan some of the 4X6 cards I made this weekend and post them. For now, good-night!

Listing on Etsy Now

So, I am attempting a new art venture. Today I listed some of my magnets on Etsy
(an art sale site). We'll see what transpires.
Check it out if you so desire. You can even make my Etsy store one of your favs and draw some attention to it :-)

PaperMania

Yesterday Baird and I went to Hartford to PaperMania, an exhibit / sale where hundreds of vendors and collectors converge to buy and sell antique paper goods -- old trading / business cards, stamps, ads, posters, pictures, books and more. It is a collectors' event but some of the vendors have castoff boxes ($1-3 or so) for items that have been too long in their inventory or that are not up to the collectors' standards and those booths are where we spent most of our time. I was able to find several old advertising cards, holiday cards a couple of pictures and some old postcards to add to my ephemera. Baird got a lot of old stamps, including some from Iran for me (the Dean's Book Course I am teaching this semester is on Iran). Many of the items I will scan and use the printed versions in my collage and magnet making. They may be castaways to collectors but I think they are awesome and cutting them up is too hard to do. One is on old Christmas card to Little Robert from Aunt Kate, dated 1883. The picture is a bouquet of summer flowers! Baird says 1883 was at the very beginning of the use of Christmas cards.

Twelfth Day of Christmas

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas I got my new stereo speaker base for my Nano! On Dec. 25th Baird had one all wrapped up for me but we decided the sound was not quite what we hoped for. So, today, on the way home from PaperMania in Hartford (a separate post is needed for that) we stopped and got a JBL donut (that is what I call it) and man-o-man is the sound awesome! It is sooo tiny but it fills the kitchen, LR and DR without any effort at all. The teenie weenie remote is RF so it works in most of the house. WooHoo... my Nano (received last Christmas) is gonna get some mega use now...as will Baird's new iPod. Listening to Imogen as I type.

Jess's Furniture in Vermont Gallery!

Today Baird and I went to Brattleboro to see something cool with our own eyes. Yes, we ate great food and went to cool shops but we went ot see Jess's art work in a gallery! As of yesterday, Dec 1, 2006 three pieces of Jess's recycled art furniture are now in an awesome gallery in the very artsy town of Brattleboro VT.

To get an idea of her work check out the web page, BandJGreene, that she designed for her and Ben's work. The little table pictured here is similar to 2 of the pieces in the gallery. The third piece there is a recycled, painted and decorated stereo speaker tuned into a cabinet.

The gallery is called Gallery in the Words. It has 3 floors of awesome work and was featured in the Boston Globe. Woohoo! Congrats to Jess!

Hot Ticket: Obama & Lamott

Now wouldn't that be quite the Democratic ticket?? Ha Ha Ha Ha!

Just finished reading Anne Lamott's: Plan B. Great read: refreshing and challenging and funny...OMG sooo funny. I am also more than half way thru Obama's new book; The Audacity of Hope. The first half is a framework, his explanation of government, what he sees, etc. Interesting and necessary to really understanding where and why he says what he does in the rest of the book. I am now into the second half where he talks more about his actual ideas. It is interesting to have so much of an inside glimpse into the mind and thinking of a potential presidential candidate. Memoirs afterwards are common, but a person laying their cards on the table before even announcing a run, now that is refreshing. I think in part this book is his fleece. How it is received by, the Party and by the America public may very well influence his decision. It will be interesting to watch this unfold.

A couple of enticing glimpses for you:
Obama in his chapter called "Values" is talking about authenticity and empathy. Regarding empathy he says:
That is what empathy does. It calls us all to task... the oppressed and the oppressor, the conservative and the liberal. No one is exempt from the call to find common ground. Of course , in the end, mutual understanding isn't enough. After all, talk is cheap; like any value, empathy must be acted upon. (p.68)

and,
from Lamott:

In the chapter "Loving Your President" she wrestles with the idea of loving one's enemies as related to Bush, whose policies deeply disturb her, leading her to obsess about the war and the condition of the world. She writes: But Jesus kept harping on forgiveness and loving one's enemies, so I decided to try. Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess about everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breath at all or to pay attention, stomp away to brood when people annoy us, and then eat a big bag of Hershey's Kisses in bed? (p224)
later she writes.....
When you give up on hope, when it is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it may float forth and open like those fluted Japanese blossoms, flimsy and spastic, bright and warm. This almost always seems to happen in community with family, related by blood, or chosen; at church, for me; at peace marches. (p238)