Abandonment Issues

Do you feel abandoned? I'm sorry. I am finally getting a chance to let you know that my computer died. I'm using hubby's work one to at least let you know. It will probably be a week or two (ugh) before we get a new hard drive and everything reinstalled. Groan. I feel so cut off from the world! Say a little computer prayer for me. Until technology is straightened out here, I will miss you!

Selling Myself

Well, what I mean is, really being proud of my work and saying why I think it's of superior quality. So I just put this statement in my store description on Etsy. I'm afraid people will think I'm being too pushy or snobby, but I don't know. Comments?

**NOTE: I know a lot of artists make the quilted coasters but I feel mine are superior because 1)I use felt for batting so it's flatter for cups to stand on, and 2)Instead of just doing a topstitch and leaving it at that, I take great care in my quilting on each coaster, making it a work of art, following the lines of a motif on the fabric and making each one unique; and finally, 3)I make the price quite reasonable compared to the typical price out there for a 4-coaster set.**

I mean, look at my lovely detail in cupcake coaster photo. Isn't it just yummy? Okay, that's all I wanted to say.

Doodle for a Square Clock

Here's my latest doodle I've finished that's for a square clock face. I love it. I used a Christmas ad circular cover for Macy's or some big store that I'd saved for inspiration. And I tried to throw in a teency bit of Frank Lloyd Wright. Now I get to color it!

Nice to be Noticed

Chrisy at Sophism Press blog just plugged one of my Etsy items by using the image of the item and linking to my Etsy listing. Nice! And it's the Amelia Earhart piece that I love so much. Chrisy's blog entry is all about flight, first about how wonderful it is to have dreams of flying, and then about women who fought the good fight and broke down barriers, doing things women had never done before, like fly airplanes. Quite fun. And I love some of the other items she's linked to, like the clay fly pendant. Go look, it's neato.

There's still time! Until June 6th!

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "What? Why didn't you tell me sooner, you hoser?" Well, sorry. It's just that I've had issues. With my own health. But I try to do this ride each year to support my Mom (who has diabetes) and some other people I love who struggle with this disease. I didn't do it last year because I was too worn out from being a new Mom. And baby was too small to go on it. But this year she's big enough, in fact she's an avid cyclist with Daddy in her little sidecar. If you go to my TourdeCure page, you'll see a picture of us together before a ride from last September, when she was big enough to go on a ride, and you can sponsor me there, too, for any amount. Anyhoo, if you can support me at all, please do. You'll be supporting a cure for diabetes. Just a few dollars helps. I have to raise at least $150 in a week, because it's next weekend. I know, I know, I really waited until the last minute. Sorry. Bad blogger. But it's a good cause.

Pause for Poetry

And now I would like to share a poem, because I used to read a lot of poetry and haven't done in a while, and sometimes my toddler pulls books out of Mommy and Daddy's bookcases, and I am reminded of some really good reading I have.

This is by Louis Jenkins, and he only writes prose poems, which means they're like compact little stories crammed into one paragraph and sometimes have lots of run-on sentences. From his book The Winter Road, here is

TUMBLING TUMBLEWEEDS

Out on the great plains, where I was born, the wind blows constantly. When I was a kid I'd get 35 cents and run as hard as I could to the Lotta-Burger or the movie theater only to find it had blown away. Going home was no better. Sometimes it would take a couple of days to find my house. Under these conditions it was impossible to get acquainted with the neighbors. It was a shock to open the front door and be faced with the county jail, the Pentecostal Church or Aunt Erma carrying two large suitcases. Trash from all over the state caught and piled up at the edge of town and during the windiest times of spring sometimes whole days blew away in a cloud of dust. I feel my natural lifespan may have been shortened by the experience. Still, it was a great place to grow up. As the old boy said, "You can have those big cities, people all jammed together. Give me some wide-open spaces." In the morning out on the plains, you have a couple of cups of coffee, get all wound up and go like hell across an open field, try to bounce, clear both ditches and the highway so you don't get caught in the barbed wire, fly from one fenced-in nothing to another, hit the ground and keep on rolling.

Jenkins is from Minnesota and he has a great sense of humor about the Midwest. I like how it starts out normal and quickly goes off where you didn't expect it to. And yet you still know what he means, it's not that abstract. It's just a funny kind of lens to look at life through. I've seen him read once and he has a very quiet, deliberate delivery. It's kind of a thrill to watch. Which I can't say about a lot of writers. Some of them should never leave the house. Anyway, I guess part of why I thought of this poem right now is that it's been such a windy spring here. Very windy. Oh, yeah, like the first art fair day, with 36 mph gusts all day. Okay, maybe I am still having issues about that experience. But still. It's a great poem, idn't it?

Goin' On a Journey

An artist's journey, that is. I feel like I should start singing the theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies. But then I watched too much TV as a child and it warped my brain.

Anyhoo, on Monday I'm going to start methodically going through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron with a couple other women from my local art group. I wouldn't have done it by myself, although I tried to several years ago, but it was too lonely. I'm hoping the interaction with the other artists will really give me a boost. I just still feel so let down and blah since that art fair. I feel like I shouldn't, but there it is. I do. Maybe it's not the art fair. It may be my medications, they're in flux right now and so I feel depressed for no apparent reason sometimes. Oy.

So I ordered the book (cuz I don't have it anymore) from Amazon Marketplace and had it shipped "expedited" and it's all screwy. Amazon says expedited means 1-6 business days from shipping date. Then when you go to pay, it says 2-6 business days. Then I get an email from the Marketplace vendor saying it will be here in 3-7 days. Uh, what? I asked the vendor and she said she was saying 3-7 "to be safe." Well, so what did I pay for, so you could pad your estimate and then look good if it comes earlier than you said? Kind of irks me. Irk. Irk.

New Artfire Item! Doodle Discs

So here's my newest doodle collection for you to color. Only this time I didn't do a little book of them, I made them round and spray-mounted them to old CD's that were sitting around waiting to be upcycled.

Right now I have these eight different designs, and each disc is $1. I love making these things, they are so fun. I named each design, and my favorite name is "Spaghetti and Fuzzballs," which is the one on the far right on the blue board. They are in two separate listings, the blue and the red boards, and you just specify in an email to me which ones you want.

Personally, I thought this was a great use of old CD's. I didn't want a door curtain of CD's. And I think that's about the only thing I've seen them used for, besides making them into sets for altered books.

New Artfire Item! Altered Clock

I'm starting to get a bunch of stuff listed in my Artfire shop, especially all the stuff I had ready for the disappointing Johnstock fair. So here's one of my favorite altered clocks that I did. I thought it would be boring to just list them by color so I'm naming them. I know, I'm nuts. Meet Holly Sue.

When Does the Guilt Stop?

I was reading my friend Tammy's blog about the art journaling prompt "diamonds," and thought she asked a really interesting question.

I do hope the history of my diamond does not include exploitation, murder, human
rights abuses, conflict, and war in Africa. Does anything we enjoy
and take for granted in our lives not have such a history? Isn't that our
history?

The emphasis is mine, and it just really made me realize how I constantly think about that. Today I was at the thrift store and I bought a CD rack that was originally from Pier 1 Imports, and it was made in some 3rd world country and I just instantly thought "exploitation," and then wondered if I was any better of a person to be buying it in the thrift store than the person who bought it directly from Pier 1. Maybe that's not the way to frame it. I just mean, am I less guilty of exploiting 3rd world workers, buying this item second hand, than the person who bought it for full exploitative-big-corporation price? And I didn't think about this for ten minutes. It just went through my mind in about a second, like an unconscious response.

So, I don't know, I don't have the answer. But it's a good question to think about. Even if you don't like diamonds (I don't happen to).