Tag Archives: life

May 27, 2014

Spring Has Sprung!

Well the winter is finally past us. I’m so relieved. I was going crazy between the cold and being cooped up. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time outside. We got a grill and a patio set and it’s so nice to sit outside with a drink and a book or eat dinner out on the veranda. We planted a garden too. Spiteful Mother Nature rained this afternoon after I had finished planting and watering it!

Despite my absence on the internet, I’ve been quite busy creating new stuff. I participated in a fundraiser last month but it didn’t go so well. I made $20 all day. I think part of the problem was people had to pay to get into the event, and I know, I don’t have kids, so why would I have paid to get into an event supporting child care services. Had I been doing the event planning, I would’ve charged people to participate in the games and activities and then kept the vendors separate that people could walk through and shop.

I made some sandwich board signs for the event and I’ll use them this coming fall in the Second Annual Scottsville Fall Artisans Festival. I’m quite pleased with how well I did, since I’ve never built signs before. They’re HUGE. Four feet tall and two feet wide. Incredibly hard to miss but I kind of wish, given how difficult they are to transport, that I had made them smaller. Oh well, you live and you learn.

This past weekend was Memorial Day Weekend. Opening day. We all worked so hard to prepare the pools and I’ve been working nearly non-stop the last month straight.

There’s so much going on right now. I’m working on jewelry but not much else.

My etsy shop is picking up. I’ve made several sales through etsy. Not as many as I would like but we all have to start somewhere! Hopefully one day it’ll be a viable source of income!

I got to go to the International Gem and Mineral Show! It came to DC a few weeks ago! So much pretty sparkly jewelry! So much beautiful beads and materials! I was good, I set a budget, took cash, and once it was gone, I was done. It was such a challenge but I’m so proud of myself for sticking to my budget! I could’ve easily spent twice as much as I did!

I haven’t been on here in so long, I was surprised to see I’ve got almost 400 page views. I guess I had to leave this alone for it to flourish but I’m glad my blog seems to be doing well and hopefully I’ll be back on it on a regular basis once the summer prep and pool opening craziness settles down.

Leave a comment | tags: budget, goings on, life, show, spring | posted in Miscellaneous Musings

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I May Not Know Art But I Know What I Like

“Nirvana” Work in Progress

Work in Progress

dry point etching diptych

it was believed that you could put people under a spell by burning a candle made from the mummified hand of a theif

In Egyptian mythology, the scarab was a self-creating god Kephri or “one who comes from the earth”. In mythology, Kephri, the scarab, was responsible for rolling the sun across the sky every day and thus was also seen as a version of Ra, the sun god.

a zombie girl character I drew for a friend

European corseting, which was designed to enhance a woman’s overall figure but the effects were just as physically disabling. The corsets, under the rule of Britain’s Queen Victoria became a way of protecting a woman’s virtue (she was very strict in her code of decency), and along w/the heavy weighted skirts and restrictive sleeves of the victorian era gowns, were quite cumbersome and there are many documented cases of women fainting from cinching the corsets so tight and also causes displacement of the internal organs through the restriction of the rib cage.

ritual scarification which occurs in many African Tribes as well as in Papua New Guinea among the Sepik River tribes. The reasons for such body modifications vary. In the New Guinea tribes, the boys (and some men), fast for a period of days in preparation before being cut along their backs, the cuts are then anointed w/special goopy stuff that makes it scar and when the scars heal into keloids, they resemble the backs of a crocodile. However, in order to pass the initiation, they have to lay there silently, w/o crying out, during the whole process, in order to be welcomed into the tribe as men. Alternatively, tribes in Africa cut up their new born babies faces in ritual scarification as a way to safeguard them against blindness and other eye diseases while still others use them to prove the strength of a tribes men to endure pain and the ability of a tribes women to endure childbirth. And still others consider them a mark of beauty, like the lip plates worn by other tribes.

tattoo flash work in progess

This is actually a jewelry display board, she clenches my jewelry in her mouth!

I did this as a gift for a friend last year

Chinese foot binding The tradition has it’s roots in the Sung Dynasty, around 1100 AD when women at the emperors court believed to be beautiful they needed tiny feet so they began binding the feet of their children starting around age 2 or 3. The bindings were so tight that they would break the bones in the feet forcing the toes to curl under and thus they would walk on their broken feet. Often, not able to walk very far, they would result in crawling. One of the earliest “Cinderella” stories comes out of 13th century China w/the moral of the story being the prince loved her b/c she had the smallest feet in the kingdom so only the slipper would fit her.

still a work in progress

dry point etching illustration from a hand bound book of poetry

This one’s about neck stretching, which is still practiced among various African tribes as well as the Padaung Kayan tribe of Burma (refugees to Thailand). They start adding coils to a young girls neck when she’s about 4 or 5 and gradually increase it w/age to create the long necked appearance that the older women command. While it seems extreme though, it’s actually an optical illusion. The purpose of it is to obtain a graceful swan-like neck. However, the coils actually act to compress the collar bones and spine, which end up growing at a lower 45 degree angle then an average human but the coils cause no lasting physical effects and can be removed and often are when the Kayan aren’t acting as a tourist attraction or aren’t participating in any tribal traditions.

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, in the “weighing of the heart” scene, the deceased stands on trial before Osiris and the rest of the gods while Thoth (the Ibis-headed god) pleads his case before the court while his heart is weighed against Ma’at’s Feather of Truth. If his heart weighs less than the feather then he was a good man and is allowed to pass into the afterlife. If his heart is heavy w/sin, then it is tossed to the Devourer, a Chimera-like creature and eaten and he’s doomed to an eternity in darkness, unable to pass on. Similarly, the butterflies represent how fleeting beauty is, how everyone’s doomed to wrinkles and grey hair and, following the ancient Greek tradition, a representation of the soul (“eyes are the window to the soul”), or the true person hidden behind the make up/plastic surgery. Long story short, I used the idea of the mirror, Ma’at, and cracks in the facade to represent admitting one’s faults and embracing your little quirks and imperfections while the butterflies represent a person’s true self and how fleeting beauty is.

rough sketch of a commission that didn’t work out

spiders. . . eesh. . .

a gift for a friend

rough sketch for a commission that didn’t work out
On the Last Episode. . .
On the Last Episode. . .
Bonefish Designs

Bonefish Designs