pointysticks.net

I found a copy of quotes from my friends. The history behind this is that I started writing down the best bits of advice they gave me about art and creative work before I moved to Portland from Salem, Oregon in 1992 or 93 (it was in the winter that I moved, I just can’t remember what side of New Years I made the move.)

• Day jobs aren’t for sissies when your day job is art. ~Winnie (water color artist, woodworker, song writer)
• Work on your art every day for an hour, at the end of the year you have 365 hours of just art.~ Christopher Jespard (oil paint, tattoos, mixed media)
• Prep more than you need. When an idea strikes you’re already there.~ George (water color, pen and ink)
• Squint at it. ~Jessica M (interior designer; explaining how she studies composition)
• Walk the walk. Walk the walk. Walk the walk.~ Jonas (mixed media, explaining how to be an artist instead of a starving artist)
• You can bum a cigarette, borrow butter from your neighbor, get an extra 5 refills on coffee. But no one ever offers paint. Buy paint.~George (again)
• Don’t get more involved in playing an artist than working on art.~Mrs. G (Art teacher and motivational speaker)
• Everyone’s a f*cking critic. Live with it or enroll in accounting.~David M. (mixed media, songwriter, guitar; talking about criticism.)
• Do what you hate the most, do it first, get it out of the way. When you stop hating it is when you’re really good at doing it. Then you have to find something else you hate. ~Mike (guitar, pen and ink; talking about commercial art)
• A professional back up plan is to starve and die homeless. Plenty motivation there.~Jonas (again)
• Insecurity is normal, that’s why anyone does anything because they are compensating for existing.~JT (water color, 1972-1995)
• With enough practice anything is second nature~Josh (speech pathologist, comedian)

And with that, I have to go to work. Thanks for indulging my trip down memory lane.

After searching high and low for the card of blue-gray buttons meant for Lexi’s frock, I gave up. As a parent though it’s possible to give up without giving in. For me this meant digging out the scraps and making two coordinating fabric covered buttons.

Thinking I was really clever I measured, sewed and cut the button holes. Assembled said buttons from coordinating scraps and fixed them to the front of the frock.

Lexi seemed to have forgotten all about the coveted frog buttons and wore the frock around the house, happily twirling and twisting the long hemmed skirt of it, testing it for tricycle safety and showing it off to her brother and father.

Then my husband informed me that she’d taken off the dress and left it in my sewing area. Now there’s only one reason anyone leaves anything in the sewing area and thats for mending.

I picked up the dress wondering if one of the seams had given way, or if indeed the hemline was not exactly tricycle proofed.

No.

It’s missing a button.

“Lexi, what happened to the button?”

“I cut it off.”

“Why?”

“It was wet.”

“How did it get wet?”

“There was spit on it.”

“How did it get spit on it?”

“I spit on it.”

“You spit on it and cut it off your dress?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to fix it.”

“Oh, you need a button!” Lexi produces the card of frog buttons.

Now at this point I have to give her credit for being persistent if nothing else and for planning ahead to create some kind of (demented as it may be) cover story. I could have asked her why she spit on the button in the first place, but I figure that’s probably self evident as she seems to hate all buttons excluding the frog buttons.

After a virtual storm of paperwork and forms concerning school, an online tour of the virtual campus, and faxing papers back and forth for financial aid over the course of three weeks I have nothing more to do than wait for my books.

And wait.

And do a little more waiting.

I finished another frock for Lexi, all but the buttons. I don’t exactly know why some of her dresses are “dresses” and some are “frocks” but she differentiates the two and this one is a “frock.” The mind of a four year old is a mysterious thing. I have buttons for it somewhere but we’re having creative differences. I want to sew modest matching blue-gray plastic buttons onto the dress and she wants bright green frog buttons.

Usually I’ll go along with her requests, this time– no. The bright green frog buttons are slated for use on another dress (frock?) that I’m going to make using pink printed fabric that features bright green frogs. The cuteness quotient of the next dress (or frock) will be off the scale with those buttons and I am *not* using the frog buttons before that dress (or frock) is made.

This has resulted in the disappearance of the blue-gray buttons.

Well played Lexi. Well played.

I’m still working on the mohair shawl after rethreading the needles through all those open stitches. I am just trying to use up the last of that yarn. It’s not the last though, there’s more somewhere. It lurks, waiting in the dark recesses of the closet, silently mocking me.

The shawl is just miles and miles of stockinette stitch. It’s quite mindless and soothing, which is something I need at the moment.

So I have my official start date for my school, the kids curriculum outlined for the year and two + months of their planned schoolwork residing in MS Office and copies on my flash drive, as well as a full list of menus for our household. I believe this organizational anomaly represents a rift in the time/space continuum and may potentially signal the end of life as we know it. I don’t believe I was the cause of the rift, but if I was, I’m really sorry.

Of course none of this organizational genius can prevent me from having to do the magical printer dance every Monday, whereby a very secret and ancient ritual I convince my laptop that yes, the printer on our home network does indeed exist. I loathe MS Office for this reason. I loathe the magical printer dance.

Back to the mohair of evil and the soothing stockinette of brainlessness.

The title of this post is my current favorite pop-culture phrase. I want to say it everywhere, under any context possible:

Cashier: Your total is $13.49, you saved $3.19 shopping today.

Me: This is SPARTA!!!

Of course, that wouldn’t quite work as well as it did in the movie (if you live in a cave the movie I’m referring to is 300) but it would still be kind of fun to do.

Law of mohair #142: Intentional ripping of mohair from knitted article in progress will be prevented by the innate ability of mohair to suck and tangle into itself.

Law of mohair #143 All mohair articles larger than 2 cubic inches knitted on metal circular needles will reject said needles when the article is in a resting state prior to completion.

Law of mohair #143 appendix a) articles larger than 2 cubic inches that have successfully rejected knitting needles in a resting state will spontaneously begin to unravel.

Further scientific study on the unique and often frustrating physical nature of mohair is required. The laws of mohair although baffling seem to be finite and immutable.

Translucent polymer clay rocks, the problem was that I didn’t know how to use it. It was one of those situations where I knew what the potential was, but just didn’t know how to achieve it. Carolyn to the rescue, she suggested that I try slicing my canes thinner and buffing them to increase the translucent quality.

Worked like a charm. The one on the left is where I left the translucent slices a little thicker (and didn’t dunk it in ice water to clarify) and the one on the right is where I sliced much thinner and did dunk it in ice water.

I managed to get a good photograph of the translucent effect by propping some acrylic sheet (plexi-glass) at an angle and shooting one of my work lamps onto the paper and the other lamp over the baubles.

I don’t know the technical term for the plain baubles. I’ve heard them called garden glass, or flattened marbles. I use them for weights on my cutting mat to hold down pattern paper for smaller pieces. Putting clay on them doesn’t really serve a purpose other than to make them prettier.

Below is a presentation that I made to re-familiarize myself with the devil MS PowerPoint. Please do not mistake it for anything informative or entertaining.

“Psst! Yeah you kid.” (Looks around, beckons for the mark to come closer.) “Want some Premo?”

No you silly creature. Not that kind of pusher. The kind of pusher I mean is a tool to take the place of a finger or thumb when actual human digits are too large to fit into tiny bits and folds of a sculpture.

I made some from bamboo skewers, Aleen’s tacky glue, Premo, and Future floor wax. Fortunately this wasn’t unknown territory for me, I’ve made lots of things out of bamboo skewers and know from past experience that nothing sticks to them but pva (white) glue. I wouldn’t have used Aleene’s normally, it’s far too precious of a substance to go slapping it on every single project I come up with but Matt threw away my crappy bottle of ten cent pva because it was “crappy.”

Of course it was crappy, that’s the whole reason one buys ten cent glue bottles. For some jobs (like pre-coating bamboo skewers) thin, runny, turns dark yellow and threatens the fabric of society pva is necessary. That’s the way these things work.

So this is my little tutorial should you feel the need to make some for yourself: Cut skewers to size using large power tools. The larger the better. Use a chain saw if you feel like it. I didn’t really feel like getting the chainsaw out (although I could have) so I used the bandsaw. Turn off powertools. Dip fingers in pva, quickly rub pva onto bamboo skewers. Stick skewers into something so that they are not laying flat (in this case, half of a styrofoam ball lucky enough to have been selected for this purpose.) Double stick tape impaled semi-sphere onto cutting mat so that it doesn’t flop over. Wait about 20 minutes. Liberate slightly tacky pva coated altered skewers into toaster oven for 15 minutes at 300 degrees. Wait for ding.

After ding remove crazy hot skewers from toaster oven. Say a few swear words while skewers are cooling. When cool enough to handle, mush clay onto pointy part of skewer. Shape into useful shapes. Wrap a collar of matching clay and secure firmly by screaming at it, blend collar and shape as smoothly as possible.

Brush with Turpenoid and soft paint brush to remove fingerprints. Accidentally knock wax paper cup holding Turpenoid over and scream select profanities. Wave at neighbors who are now staring at you. Put polyfill onto baking dish, prop skewers with clay heads into baking dish, set time and temperature on toaster oven, put baking dish with stuff into toaster oven, start baking. Clean up Turpenoid with mineral oil and baby-wipes. Wait for ding.

After this ding, pull insanely hot bamboo skewers out of oven, dip into Future floor wax, wrap wire around the unclayed end and hang to dry. Wait, wait some more, do a little dance, make a sandwich, play card games with the four year old, stare at the wall when 4 year old takes a nap, fill out financial aid and Stafford loan paper work, call mom and wait a little longer.

I could fashion a covering for the handle part of the tools, but I decided that could wait for another day, I like the look and feel of bamboo and the baked pva makes a pretty solid finish.

I feel so foolish. There’s this stuff referred to as TLS, and it’s used for all sorts of special effects with polymer clay. I learned that this magical substance is Transparent Liquid Sculpey. I must have this stuff I decided, and announced, to my indulgent husband.

So we go to the next town over, the one with the craft stores. The first craft store doesn’t have it. Okay, we do a couple of the husband’s errands and head across Salem to check out the next craft store. Bingo, there it is.
But something nags at me as I look at the package. Somewhere in the back of my mind I feel that I know this packaging. I look at it. I ponder.

It dawns on me, slowly (for when things are dawning they are often doing so with a very lax attitude.) I have it at home. To be specific, I had it at home on the shelf next to the answering machine between a ceramic picture frame and a teak memory box, on top of an unopened package of 3 inch paper doilies.

Memory is a mysterious thing is it not?

I put the package back on the pegboard at the store, confessed to Matt that it was all for naught and silently prayed that the TLS at home vision in my mind was not a bad cosmic joke. And then I prayed again that if it were actually there, then I might have the good luck that it not be dried out or otherwise rendered unusable.

Upon returning home I found it, right where I saw it in my minds eye. The husband suggested that perhaps I was not actually remembering the TLS but remote viewing it. Given my penchant for forgetting things, I think that remote viewing is the most likely explanation. Occam’s razor is a pain isn’t it? In my case actually remembering something with so much detail would be nothing short of a paranormal answer.

You see, it was of vital importance that I have this stuff today. Vital. Very important. And yet once I had it in my grubby little paws, I could not recall for the life of me what my plans were. I’m sure I had plans.

Forgot what those plans were. Wrote them down in my notebook this morning, then lost the notebook. Seriously. Not joking. Generations from now some descendant of mine will find my notebook and write a single sentence synopsis “Great-great-great-grandmother Meyer was goofy.” That’s all it’ll say, that is the legacy that I’m leaving behind.

Why did I have the TLS in the first place you might ask? Don’t know, can’t answer. It was opened, so I can only assume that I have actually used it at least once. For what, or when– I cannot recall (I sound like I’m testifying before Congress.)