How to Disappear Completely

"How to Disappear Completely II"
 2009
casein paint, graphite and collage on an 11" x 14" rigid Ampersand Hardbor














I love the title of this piece by Lauren Gray almost as much as I love the beautiful painting.

Turks and Caicos here we come!

Farewell cold city.  I am moving on to a warmer, gentler place.  At least for the next week.

That's right.  We are taking off for Turks and Caicos tomorrow morning!  Last time we were there David proposed to me.  It will be a treat to go back as a married couple and proud parents to a schnoodle.
My brother is going to be living in our apartment to take care of little Woody Guthrie and keep our house warm while we are gone.  Thanks Tone.

The place we are going is beautiful and sparse.  No tv, no phones, no locks on the doors... well, they do now or else I would not go back. (locks, that is, still no tv or phone, which is cool)  That didn't go down so well the first time we were there.  Just envision the barricades and booby traps I had to build against the doors to attempt to keep my mind at ease.  Hey, I'm a city girl.  No locks???  I don't care how "safe" the place is.  I've managed to get attacked at gun point, mugged, and groped (3 separate incidents) in a 9 month time span in 2005 in the "safe" neighborhoods of Chicago.  Safe, shmaffe.  This woman needs a lock on her door.

My point is, it's bare bones, so the blogging will be sparse, although they do have one community computer so I might be able to pull myself away from the isolated hot beach for a second to check in.  I've also scheduled some posts so look out for them.
Farewell!

photo from Trip Advisor

Sunshine and Ewoks

The sun is shining today, thank goodness.  I was laying on the floor petting Woody, thinking about how beautiful it is in here when the sun is pouring in the window.  Then I thought about my husband and how he has beautiful eyes.  He has an extra good eye too...that man could be an interior designer.  He designed this whole place by himself and I wouldn't change a single thing about it.

Woody concurs.  Doesn't he look a little bit like an ewok this morning?

Mais oui

My European dreams have been intensifying lately.  Last week it was Sacré Coeur at Montmartre, this week its macarons at Ladurée on the Champs-Elysées.  My friend Emma, who lives in Paris, took me there and I guess I've never been the same since.  I feel like Alice in Wonderland when I eat a pretty pink macaron. 

photo from guimauvette

Wedding Clutches

Here are several more wedding clutches I finished.  They are available in my shop!

Tuesday Poetry Post-Rilke

A lovely poem by Rainer Maria Rilke for this weeks poetry post.

Understand, I'll slip quietly
Away from the noisy crowd
When I see the pale
Stars rising, blooming over the oaks
I'll pursue solitary pathways
Through the pale twilit meadows,
With only this one dream:
You come too.

photo by Ellen Kooi

Inspiration

Looking at art is always a cure for lack of inspiration and overall feelings of blahhahhgggggness, which I am currently grappling with.  How about a little photography?  RES and  Constanza Piaggio collaborated to recreate inconic western paintings with not a paintbrush, but the camera.  I think the results are incredible.  I had the honor of seeing these pieces in person and meeting RES several years ago when I was working at a gallery that was representing him.  I hope the last photo does not offend anyone.  Just remember, it's art.

Fanatica

2006

Lambda Print

64 inches x 48 inches 

 

 

  

La Dama

2006

Lambda Print

46 inches x 48 inches

 

 

 

Christa

2006

Lambda Print

36 inches x 41 inches

Calling All Artists

Study for the Head of George Dyer by Francis Bacon


Harriete Estel Berman is one of the artists whose work is showing in the museum exhibition I mentioned below.  She has this wonderful Q&A site where artists can ask and get answers to those questions we have that we never learned in school.  Check it out here!

My First Museum Exhibition

I am very excited to announce that several of my rings (eight total) are being shown at the Miami University Art Museum! The title of the show is Adornment and Excess: Jewelry in the 21st Century, and will be up from Jan 21 to July 10!!

Here is more info about the show:

Adornment and Excess: Jewelry in the 21st Century

Historically, but not exclusively tied to constructions of wealth and opulence, jewelry can function as a material reflection of a society, a natural barometer of what is valued at a certain time, how and why. Several contemporary art jewelers interested in using jewelry as a way to raise questions and/or awareness about significant cultural issues consider decadence and extravagance as a conceptual project, while others purposefully create objects and “gemstones” with recycled materials. Both directions emphasize the materiality of jewelry as a commodity, as a symbol and as a carrier of meaning. In addition, these jewelers are drawing attention to how we consume materials and objects historically, visually and metaphorically.
Whether made of plastic or paper, cardboard or metal, reclaimed resources and otherwise, the contemporary jewelry featured in this exhibition both challenges and delights. Unexpected and thoughtful, it offers a dynamic framework for considering questions of sustainability, responsibility, material recycling, ethical consumption, prosperity, decadence and jewelry itself.

Artists whose works are included:
Boris Bally, Harriete Estel Berman, Kathy Buszkiewicz, Gabriel Craig, Meg Drinkwater, Ethical Metalsmiths/Radical Jewelry Makeover, Yael Friedman, Erin Rose Gardner, Lisa Gralnick, Michelle Hartney, Rory Hooper, Yevgeniya Kaganovich, Anya Kivarkis, Opulent Project, emiko oye, Shari Pierce, Gary Schott, Kimberlie Tatalick, Francesca Vitali

Sweet Woody Guthrie

Sometimes I'm amazed at myself. That might sound conceited, but you see, I am amazed by my ability to restrain myself from writing about my little dog Woody Guthrie every day. He is my joy. My little buddy. I don't know how someone was able to abandon him and leave him on the streets to fend for himself. He's just a little guy. A sweet one too.
I love my Woody so much sometimes I get scared and sad when I think about what a life without him would be like. Animals can bring so much joy to our lives. Woody brings an over abundance of joy to me, and many others.
So this post is devoted to my little guy.
Here's to you Dubs G.

This is what he looked like when we first got him, all matted and sad.


He's obsessed with his uncles. Here he is helping his uncle Tony study.


He loves him some Pa.





His passion: fetch



Bath time.


Once he was really missing his Auntie Seeley and he wrote her a message.


Sometimes he gets real sleepy.


He even knows how to stand and walk.


...and he even helped me make my wedding veil.


He loves dressing up for Halloween.


Here he is stalking his best friend Chippy.




I love you Woody Guthrie

Inspiring

I'm with Cup of Jo and Jezebel in regards to Anthropologie's latest catalog. It's exquisite. I had a minor cardiac arrest when flipping through it. I was in the car with my husband when I first laid eyes on the collection a couple weeks ago, and I turned to him and said I wasn't sure if I just wanted the clothes I was looking at, or if I wanted to BE the girl in the photos (and wherever they shot these images).
Here are my favorites: (click on the images to make them larger)

New Headbands

I think this new silver flapper fringe headband I just made would look great with a black cocktail dress, or could even dress up jeans and a cute top!

Tuesday Poetry Post-Sylvia Plath

I'm surprised it took me this long to post a Plath poem.
I fell in love with her writing when I was in high school, as did many adolescent girls.
The Bell Jar is still one of my all time favorite books.
This is my favorite Plath Poem.
Thank you Sylvia.

Lady Lazarus
by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

The image of Sylvia above I scanned from the book
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

New Headbands

Another new headband added to the shop!

Lazy Weekend

We are in Michigan for the long weekend.
Just hit up the outlet malls where I got these shoes.




Then out for a late lunch at our beloved Bentwood Tavern. (We had dinner there last night with friends)

Here HE is.


Shared a tuna nicoise salad and margherita pizza.


Forgot the camera so all I have are these cruddy iphone photos.
We're planning on watching My Left Foot tonight! Daniel Day-Lewis is one of my absolute favorite actors ever.