« June 2008 | Main | August 2008 »
July 30, 2008
Morning Greeting
Dave: (Kissing Sally good-bye before he leaves to get coffee) Good-bye.
Sally: Bye. Your lips are cold. Are you really alive or did you die while--
Dave: Yes. I’m undead.
Sally: How sad.
Dave: So sad. Sad for you, I mean. For me it’s immortality…
Goof. But I love waking up with laughter.
Posted by sally at 08:14 AM
July 29, 2008
Frailty, Yearning and Humor
I did manage to attend Danny's memorial. It was incredibly moving. And packed. There were at least 200 people there. I cried a lot. (A lot.) I laughed a lot. I saw old friends and (partly) caught up on their lives. I heard stories about Danny from some of the people who knew him best.
There were several speakers at the memorial, and despite our each having "our own Danny," the same set of words came up over and over again in rememberance after remembrance. Curiosity. Loyalty. Humor. Openness. Generosity. Humanity. "Lovely rowdiness," a turn of phrase the minister in charge of the ceremony used in her eulogy. These are the things that drew people to Danny, the things that made us love him. But the description I remember best of all came from a letter written by Mark Cuddy, former Artistic Director of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival.
I don't recall the exact wording of his letter, only the three words he used to describe Danny's work and what made it great. What made all of his characters so beautifully, approachably, strikingly human. "His frailty, his yearning and his humor." He brought those qualities with him onstage every day, regardless of whether he was playing a king or a fool, and he brought them to the rest of his life as well.
Until I heard those three words, "frailty, yearning and humor," I hadn't been able to do more than paint Danny's work in generalities. But that description hits the nail right on the head. It captures the vital, living elements of Danny's characters, of his own character. And gives me a direction to shoot for as an artist myself. Which is what I have taken away from my great fortune in working with Danny. It showed in the work I did this past year, it showed in my teaching, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to point to it in years to come and say, "That? That I learned from one of the best people it has been my great good fortune to know and to work with in my life."
I'm so glad I had the chance to work with Danny when I was able to understand how much of a a gift that opportunity was.
Posted by sally at 03:56 PM | Comments (1)
July 26, 2008
Leaving
It has taken me forever to get my shit together enough to get out the door. But finally, I am packed. And the living room is clean(er). The bedroom, bathroom & my office look like explosions happened in them, but I don't have time to worry abou that now. I have a six hour drive ahead of me. No nephew pictures after this one, and probably no stories to tell either, but I'm heading south for a memorial service and that will have to be good enough.
I will be back on Tuesday.
Take care of yourselves in my absence, don't forget to feed the cats and water my tomatoes.
Posted by sally at 03:03 PM | Comments (2)
PhotoHunt: Hanging
This week, I wanted to use a picture I hadn't posted before. So here's a shot of an awesomely overgrown cement building from the walk up to the Cape Disappointment lighthouse on the Long Beach, WA penninsula. I took it on my trip there last May. Look at that gorgeous curtain of ivy hanging over the doorway.
Posted by sally at 12:29 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack
July 24, 2008
Why, Yes, I DID Just Blow the 45 Minutes of Cardio and Hour of Yoga by Eating Four Croissants. Thank You for Noticing.
They were really good, though.
Also? I had soup.
Posted by sally at 09:47 PM
Because He Knows Me Better Than I Know Myself
Conversation with my husband:
Dave: So, how was your day?
Sally: Well, it started out horribly...
Dave: Yeah.
Sally: I've been crying off and on all day.
Dave: I figured you would when I read about it. I think you should go.
Sally: I don't know. I mean, I was thinking about talking to Richard about creating a scholarship fund, a theatre scholarship, in his name, and using the money I'd spend to get there on a donation. I mean, he's a BSU alum too.
Dave: But you should go. It's not like you don't have other reasons to be in town.
Sally: It just seems so weird. I mean, the entire ISF cast and crew for this summer will be there, and I don't want to make it about "Look how far I've come to show what he meant to ME."
Dave: Let it be about saying good-bye to him. About your feelings about him. You don't even need to speak to anybody, just go to say good-bye and then leave.
Sally: But I--I mean--I worked with him twice. The others have worked with him for years--
Dave: You played a lead opposite him. That's a connection that has meaning.
Sally: (starting to cry again, this time while sitting in the car in the driveway) I can't believe he's gone. I mean, I don't understand why it's affecting me so much.
Dave: (overlapping) I expected it to when I read about it.
Sally: (still crying) I mean, yes, I worked with him when I was just starting out. And last year, Salesman was my chance to--I realized I could do this, could be the artist I wanted to be, because of that show. And working with him. He was a big part of that.
Dave: Yes.
Sally: (still crying, having trouble speaking now, the breath control is gone) And it's not just that. I watched him work while I was growing up. He was a part of my childhood. It's like part of my life just died.
Dave: Yes. You don't have to make a decision about it now. Just think about it.
Sally: (still crying) Well, I think maybe I will go.
Dave: Good.
Sally: (still crying) I'll need to get waterproof mascara.
Dave: (laughing) Why?*
Sally: Well, the whole ISF summer company will be there and--
Dave: Why does that matter? It doesn't matter. You don't need to wear mascara.
He's right. As he is about so many things.
I have to admit, this grief has taken me by surprise. I feel, in many ways, as though I have no right to be this broken up. Though how do you measure the worth, the merit, the validity of an emotion? You don't. You can't. You just feel it. Still, it's strange; it seems excessive, given our history.
I knew Danny, but not as well as those people who had worked with him for years. We worked together twice. In the summer of 1995 and again in the fall of 2006. Frankly, I was a bit surprised he remembered me at all when we met up again to do Salesman, much less favorably. We hadn't done that much work together that summer at ISF, and it had been 11 years. Danny was, well, Danny, both then and now, while I'm just... me.
He was a good man, a wonderful actor. I was lucky to get to work with him. More than lucky, blessed. It was exactly the kind of experience I needed at the time. But it still seems strange to be so affected by his passing.I'm afraid I'll go to the memorial and weep and weep and people will wonder what the fuck I'm trying to prove. When I know it's not about that. It's about the fact that the world has lost such a kind, funny, wonderful person and now I really won't have the chance to ever act with him again.
It's not an ostentatious display, it's real and it's heartfelt, and I won't stop the crying if it happens at the memorial because I need to let the emotions move through me, even though it will seem to everyone else that I'm doing it for attention (Hey, I'm an actor, I understand the impulse to act out, I just don't do it.), when really I'll be trying to not create energy/emotional blockages that will affect my work. Danny would understand that.
Even though I know it's not remotely possible, I'd prefer to not see a single soul I know at the service. I'd like to just cry anonymously and then leave. But I am sure I will know at least... at least seven people there, probably closer to ten, and they will be the people everybody else there knows too. I won't. Be one of those people everybody knows. It's been too long since I left. Which, let me restate, is fine. It's just that once again, everyone will think I'm strange and misinterpret my response and that's just going to suck. My only hope (and an entirely plausible one) is that the venue will be so full that no one will even notice me in the crowd.
At least I don't tend to stand out as much in a roomful of actors as I do in a roomful of normal people.
* I don't usually wear mascara unless I'm going to a party, an audition or a performance.
Posted by sally at 12:04 AM
July 23, 2008
The Saddest News in the World
His name will mean nothing to most of you, because you never had a chance to see him perform. But those who were lucky enough to have seen Danny Peterson work will be sad indeed to hear that he died yesterday morning of natural causes. There's a lovely article in the Idaho Statesman, complete with some fabulous pictures.
I haven't stopped crying since my dad called to tell me.
I was fortunate enough to work with Danny the summer I interned at ISF, and luckier still to get to play Linda to his Willy Loman two years ago in Death of a Salesman here. That production was one of the opportunities that helped me see I could be an actor again. And Danny, bless him, was a big part of that.
Danny was one of the most generous actors I have ever worked with. He was funny and smart and insightful and sweet and kind and had a voice that I think could probably be heard on the moon. The man had the clearest, loudest set of natural pipes I've ever heard in my life. I was always kind of jealous of his effortless volume.
And his characters were always deeply, deeply honest. Whether they were kings or fools or failing salesmen, Danny's characters had a core of human truth that made them stick in your heart.
I can't imagine how the festival must be scrambling right now to open Macbeth and fill the roles he was playing. I mean, there's always an understudy schedule where everybody shifts into a different role should someone be out for a performance or two, but to lose an actor completely... And to try to work with the enormous hole left by Danny, someone most of those actors have worked with for years, would be so hard.
There's a memorial service for him on Monday. I'm sorely tempted to go...
Posted by sally at 08:26 AM | Comments (1)
July 22, 2008
Well, That's Done
These are the result of about an hour's hard work. These are the socks/sweaters/shirts/shorts/pants that are going to Goodwill. I will take them out to the car as soon as it stops raining.
I'd been meaning to clean out my clothing stash for a while. Suddenly, I couldn't close my shirt drawer, couldn't find pants when I needed them. Or shorts. Couldn't find the exercise gear I wanted without digging through mounds of stuff I never wear. So I bit the bullet, and starting with my sock drawer, I got rid of everything I no longer wear and also everything "questionable."
You know what I mean by "questionable." That shirt that you think "Maaayyyybeee I'll wear that again sometime" about, even though deep in your heart, you know you'll never put it on again. Or the sweater that you always wonder about, whether it's really as unappealing on you as you suspect it is, but you haven't done laundry and you need something in a hurry and it's not that bad, surely. Only, you know it is. I got rid of those clothes. And the "What was I thinking when I bought this?" clothes. I got rid of those too. Or, at least, got them out of my wardrobe. They're still sitting in sacks in the living room.
Sadly, I only actually went through about half of my apparel. I winnowed out the pants shelf, the sweater shelf, the t-shirt drawer, the sock drawer, the henley and turtleneck drawer and the other shirt drawer. Oh yes, also the workout gear drawer. I didn't even touch the four underwear drawers (hey, they're small and I did them already, they're sorted by type), the leggings drawer or the pajama drawer (ditto for having gone through them fairly recently). Nor did I even consider approaching the two closets. Yes, I have two closets. One is my clothes, with a few of Dave's stuffed in where they can fit. Also all of my shoes except for those in the pile on the bedroom floor. The other is the dry cleaned stuff and Dave's nice clothes.
But I think I went through the closet fairly recently. Like maybe last summer. I seem to remember doing that, anyway. And I seem to remember getting rid of a good wad of stuff then, too. Not four large grocery bags' worth, but a pretty big chunk.
Anyway, it feels nice to have it done and out of the way. Here's hoping I can keep the clothing sorted and organized, for a little while at least.
Posted by sally at 03:25 PM | Comments (1)
Rain
It's raining here right now. Has been for the last 90 minutes or so. Sometimes hard, sometimes just little spits. But it's lovely.
I spent the morning packing up a kitchen for some friends. They live just down the street and around the corner until Thursday, when they move into a bigger house several blocks away. They have a toddler and a baby who just started crawling this morning--impeccable timing--and no time to get all of the packing done. So I did the good neighbor thing and wandered over to help. Even though they're leaving.
The rain is not a happy thing for them. Currently they're surrounded by boxes (I packed 10-12 of those boxes, thank you very much), and would love to get stuff out of the way so they can tell what still needs to be done, but with the rain, they can't just stick everything out in the yard. So they're trying to organize. I decided at that point that the best thing I could do, having packed much of their kitchen, was to say good-bye and leave them to it. One less body in the way.
I'm kind of itching to do some packing myself here, maybe go through my stuff and see what's ready for the Goodwill pile. Really, there are all sorts of things I could/should be doing right now, but I want to just sit here and enjoy the rain. It's such a comforting sound.
Posted by sally at 01:07 PM
July 21, 2008
Waiting
Hurry up and wait. That's all I seem to do any more. My life right now is composed of the moments between the (rare) times when the stars align and I get to actually do things.
Take this morning, for instance. I am coating the pages of one of my recent books with polyurethane (thanks, Janice, for the idea) so I can attach stuff to them and write on them. [Some of the stuff is already attached to the pages and will end up under the coating, while some of the stuff is 3-d(ish) and needs to go on top. In the end, it should be kind of cool, .] Anyway, I can only coat two facing pages at a time. I mean, I don't want them to stick to each other. So I coat a set. And then I wait. And then I coat a set. And then I wait.
Then there's the whole, "Well, why don't you work on another book while you're at it?" issue. Which is answered with this: I don't have my supplies yet. I am waiting for them to come in the mail. Because hear in BFEgypt where I live, I cannot just walk into a store and buy:
- Davey board (A heavy duty bookbinding board)
- Unwaxed bookbinding thread. Or waxed thread in any color other than "natural," for that matter
- PVA (White bookbinding glue)
- Bookbinding cloth
- Various bookbinding tools (brass/steel rules, paper punches/drills, special brushes, anything that's not your average office/art supply item)
Some of these things, I can work without, and I am, but others (bookbinding cloth, bookbinding thread, PVA) really are necessary to the whole book creation process. And I can't get them here. So I must wait for them.
I am also, I must admit, missing my dining room table. The great big one that, when fully extended with the two (!) leaves seats ten. The one that doesn't fit in this dinky little house we were only supposed to live in for the two years I was in graduate school, not the additional four we get to stay here, so it's in storage in Pullman. I miss that table a LOT. Because our little round table that seats two? Fits beautifully in the dining room, but is not so much the useful for working at.
So I'm also waiting to leave here and move to a house where my beloved dining room table fits and I can cover it in art supplies again. Or, alternatively, to leave here and move to a house where I can have an actual studio that isn't the kitchen/dining room/back porch in good weather/basement in bad weather and spread out my art supplies again. The key phrase, clearly, is leaving here*. But I suspect that's not news to anybody at this point.
Aaaand I'm waiting for the laundry to be done so I can swap it out. And waiting for it to be time to go to the gym to take my yoga class. And waiting for Dave to get home. And waiting for my 30 minutes to be up so I can take out the teeth whitening strips. Wait wait wait.
God, I hate waiting. I'm so much better at doing.
* Ten months to go.
Posted by sally at 12:34 PM | Comments (1)
'Helping'
This is my assistant.
Polyphemos has taken it upon himself to "assist" when I am working. As you can see, he's very good at it.
Thursday morning, I wanted to take pictures of my latest book. Because the kitchen table was covered with supplies for my latest project (it's better now, but still art project central), the coffee table was the obvious space. I cleared it off. Poly took that as an invitation. Since he does not like to be moved once he has found his place, and will defend his right to lie where he is with teeth and claws should I try to move him, I had to work around him. You've seen the pictures I got of the book. These are the shots that show you what I was dealing with.
I know, he looks too sweet to be any trouble at all here, doesn't he? And yet, here's what was going on in the rest of the scene.
He "helped" for the entire photo shoot. When I was done taking pictures, I took the book back downstairs to Dave--it's his, after all, it goes in his office--and returned to this:
It looks benign, but really, it isn't. Look closer. See the tooth?
And also, the claws?
Why is this an issue, you might ask, since I was done using the table for pictures? Because I wanted to put things back onto the coffee table. And I couldn't. There wasn't room on the table for the both of us.
This is how Polyphemos sleeps. Large. Right now, he's on my desk, taking up most of the available surface area. The other morning, I walked into my office to find my camera (in it's very padded case, thank God) lying in a box of paper next to the desk. Because he'd shoved it off in order to get more room to sleep in.
And when he's not sleeping? He's demanding either food or a playmate. I wish one of the other cats would play with him, because he's clearly bored, and I don't have the time to be his only toy. Plus, he is not very good at playing by himself. He wants the things he plays with to be unpredictable like they are when I'm at the other end of the string.
The food thing is the most frustrating, though. He gets up with the sun. Which around here right now is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5am. Dave and I do not get up with the sun. Unless it just happens to be getting up at the same time we are. But Poly wants to eat when he wakes, so he has discovered the best alarm clock ever. He stands on the television in the living room and scrapes his paws on a picture we have hanging above it. The combination of scrapescrapescrape along with the bangety-bangety-bangety of the frame against the wall is impossible to sleep through. So Dave usually gets up and feeds him. And is then awake. Whether or not he wanted to be. I may have come up with a solution last night, though. I took the picture off the wall.
I do kind of wish I'd been awake when he hopped up on the tv and the picture wasn't there anymore. Just to see his response. Just to watch the wheels turn in his head as he figured out what else to do.
About an hour later, he got onto the dresser and started doing the same thing to the picture that hangs over it. I ignored him (Dave was out of town last night, so it was just me with the cats). Then he got up on my suitcase (I'm travelling so much this summer I just opted to leave it in the bedroom rather than shlep it up and down the stairs every other week or so) and tried it with a different picture on the bedroom wall. I still ignored him. I did not feed that cat until 7:30am. I'm hoping that if we can keep it up, we can retrain him to bloody well wait until it's time for breakfast, rather than live with what he's done, which is to train Dave to get up and feed him whenever he bangs on the damn picture.
They're not supposed to be this much smarter than we are.
Posted by sally at 10:48 AM | Comments (2)
July 20, 2008
Unconscious Mutterings Week 286
Really, some days I have no idea where these come from.
She says..., and I think...
- Flicker :: Gilded, woodpecker
- Styling :: gel, spray, nuisance
- Episode :: three. (not sure why that number, just because.) Also, illness. As in, “She’ll be fine, she just had another of her ‘episodes’.
- Sexier :: than thou.
- Studious :: Maximous. I don’t know, I’m just in an odd place today.
- Mushroom :: omelette. (From Briget Jones: The Edge of Reason)
- 8 minutes :: of my life that I’ll never get back.
- Bald :: eagle, headed, -faced lie
- Immunity :: political
- Sectioned :: Section 6.
Posted by sally at 10:48 AM
July 19, 2008
PhotoHunt: What Is That?
Wow. Travelling for a couple of weeks really throws off your schedule. What with limited or no access to both the internet and the laptop where I store my photos, I missed the last two PhotoHunts. But I'm back. And I bring you this:
It's from the Arboretum Project again. It's more-or-less bark-free burls on an old tree stump. Want another view? These are all of the same stump taken on the same day. (They were all edited prior to my acquisition of Photoshop as well, and since Photoshop and I had a disagreement once already this morning, they will continue to be kind of flat and monochrome.)
Posted by sally at 09:23 AM | Comments (8)
July 18, 2008
Score! plus Funny.
First, the score:
I got my hair colored this morning. My stylist now uses an herbal color, and it's just not as bright or rich as the Redken stuff. It's kind of dull looking. I'm not sure what the problem is, if it's the color or my hair which has been colored every five to seven weeks for the last five or six years. (Don't get all judgy with me. It's my hair, I know what I'm doing.)
Anyway, since I walked there, I decided to wander around downtown and eventually fetched up at the Salvation Army, which has opened a little store right next to the plasma center. They frequently have good deals in there, and it has a much more pleasant vibe than the Goodwill, which is now on the edge of town and requires driving. I cannot stand being in that store, it just feels nasty, plus everything is overpriced and now they want me to drive there? I just don't get their marketing plan.
But back to the score. I believe I mentioned a couple of weeks ago how annoying it is for me to not have anyplace to hunt for vintage postcards/images, etc. because the "antique malls" here have stalls that charge you a dollar a postcard. I have to wonder whether they ever actually sell any. But as I wandered along the back wall of the Salvation Army store this morning, a picture caught my eye, of a flowering saguaro cactus. It's a lovely shot. And it's on a postcard. A ten cent postcard.
My interest truly piqued now, I grabbed the card & poked around on the shelf and came across four hotel luggage stickers. I'm assuming that they are reproductions and not authentic, but I got them for ten cents apiece as well, and they're really cool looking. Plus, I noticed that one very similar (as in labeled "authentic" but identical to one of the four I just picked up) just sold on ebay for $2.24, so I'd call ten cents each a bargain.
I kept rummaging and came across a set of Death Valley postcards for 50 cents and a box of notecards (box, damaged, cards okay, but obviously the remainder of a set, with a set of other notecards & envelopes at the bottom) for 50 cents. That box of cards has black and white etchings of four street scenes from New Orleans. And there are two to three each of those cards, plus seven or eight of the other design which is Victorian and very pretty, so I think it was a fair price to pay.
So. All-in-all, I paid $1.59 for a whole bunch of cool new images that I can play with. Yes, they're all modern-ish (except for the N.O. notecards), but I don't particularly care. They're great images and they weren't $1-2 each. Which is just dumb. Do people really pay that much for vintage postcards? I mean, really?
And now for the Funny:
Walking home this morning. Phone rings.
Sally: Hello?
Dave: Hi. Is my tripod in your car?
Sally: I don't know. I don't think so, but you can check. It's in the driveway.
Dave: The car's at home? Dammit.
Sally: Yes. I walked.
Dave: Well, I think the tripod is in my office, but it may be in the car. I can't find it anywhere in the house.
Sally: Oh. Did- What- Or- Um- Really?
Dave: Very nice.
Sally: I can check when I get home. I'm in the park now. So I'll be--
Dave: I'm in the park too.
Sally: (straining to look) No you're not. (as Dave comes up the hill and around the corner) Oh. Yes. you are. (waves)
Dave: Um. Yeah.
Sally: Well. I'll see you in a minute then. (hangs up)
Okay. So maybe it was only funny to me, but sometimes I am amazed, also amused, at the silliness and mundanity afforded by modern communication technology.
**Updated (12:11pm). I just checked the Death Valley postcards to see how many there were of the 12 advertised on the box. there were 11. PLUS a postcard from the Bisbee Queen Mine and a set of six Tombstone postcards from a set, still attached to each other. I got 18 postcards out of a discounted 12-pack. Score indeed.
Posted by sally at 11:25 AM | Comments (1)
Gunshots
There's nothing like waking in the middle of the night because you really have to pee, throwing back the covers and hearing two gunshots. Fired at a very deliberate pace. (As in Ka-Pow! -- beat -- beat -- Ka-Pow! Like someone took the time to think about whether or not to pull the trigger the second time.) Within a couple of blocks of where you are sleeping. When I heard absolutely nothing next, no running feet, no screaming, no sirens, I waited about two minutes and then walked into the bathroom.
We're definitely within the city limits. No one should be firing off large caliber weapons at a quarter to three in the morning. I mean, what is there to shoot at?
If I find out what there was to shoot at, I'll let you know.
Posted by sally at 08:29 AM
July 17, 2008
Mindblowing
Oh. My. God. I just had the most amazing yoga class ever.
The instructor, Chuck, usually teaches a very laid back, relax-y, stretchy kind of class. (I've taken his Tuesday/Thursday evening yoga class regularly since I joined the gym. He's fabulous.) But as he'd warned us on Tuesday, he changed it up a little bit tonight. We still stretched, but then we did a lot of moving. Quick-ish sun salutations, flowing mountains, it was enough to get my heart rate up. No question, it was a flow yoga class tonight. And when we were done, I swear I had a mystical moment on the mat as I lay there for final relaxation.
There was definitely some serious energy moving, because my eyelids kept fluttering, an indicator that qi is really active. Normally I find it distracting, but I managed to focus and just let it happen. And now I feel awake and alert and ready to go for days, if necessary.
Although I suspect I will sleep both immediately and hard as soon as my head hits the pillow.
Posted by sally at 09:31 PM | Comments (1)
Dear David, I Miss You. I Love You.
So it's finished. When I put it in David's hands this morning, he said, "This is so cool. You're good at this." He may be right. When I am capable of paying attention to what I'm doing, I am pretty good at this. Here are the pictures.
They're all thumbnails, so you can click to see a larger image for any of them. I did blur what I wrote in the cards, but that's because I wrote them for Dave. If I know you well enough that you come to my house and want to see the book, then you can try read the cards too. Let's face it, my handwriting is illegible. But the general world doesn't need to know our business. At least not the kind of business I write to my husband when we're apart for over a week.
Posted by sally at 12:26 PM | Comments (3)
July 16, 2008
For Two Days Now
I have been trying to think of a topic to post on. Seriously. And since I couldn't come up with anything, I decided to just babble on until I got tired.
Of course, I have been doing laundry and making books and shopping for the stuff I need in order to make the books and cleaning and gymming (Is that a word? It is now.) and passing out and sleeping for very long periods of time. And still I don't have a single insight into myself or life or world events.
The book of cards (Dear Dave, I miss you. I love you.) is drying. I did the last bit of gluing this evening and now I have it clamped tightly and it is, as Sybil my book arts instructor says, "sleeping." It will come out of the clamp tomorrow. (My fancy bookbinding clamp, by the way? A big binder clip. I put paper between it and the book cover so the finish won't get damaged.)
I also played a bit this afternoon with a light molding paste from Liquitex, though I'd really rather have access to Golden's stuff. Ah well, that's what I get for living in such a small town. Did I mention that I can get PVA from as near as Spokane? Now I'm just trying to decide whether to order it or drive there and check out their fine art papers while I'm at it. Since the one I need to finish one of my boxes is apparently no longer available. Stupid supplier. How dare they discontinue the design/go out of business? I really do need some PVA soon, though. I'm not happy with making books with Elmer's, which is what I'm doing right now.
Anyway, the molding paste is fun. I mixed it with some black acrylic paint and got this wonderful, light, matte texture on the cover of my second painted book, Idyllatry. When I'm done with it, it will contain mementos of my trip last week. I cannot believe how light the paste-covered book is. Given the amount I slapped onto the cover, the book by all rights should weigh lots more than it actually does. And it looks that kind of heavy as well.
Aaaand, I'm sleepy. Understandable, given the time, I guess. I have to say, today's pace was much slower than Monday's or Tuesday's, for which I am unbelievably grateful. I still got a lot done, but it wasn't rushrushrushrush like the two previous days were. And given my promise to myself, I'll probably spend tomorrow cleaning. Because, damn, the house needs it. Especially my office, where right now you can't even see the floor. And not because there's a rug on it.
I will say that I've been very good about putting new stuff away. The new art supplies I've been buying have either ended up on the kitchen table where I'm working or stored in the proper place. Same with the stuff that came in the mail today, the stuff I sent myself from Idyllwild so I wouldn't have to try to fit it into my suitcases. I've not been adding to the mess, at any rate. But how is it possible that my lovely new closet is now full to bursting? How did I manage to overfill it? Where did all the contents come from?
Posted by sally at 10:25 PM
July 15, 2008
Planning Isn't Enough
It helps to pay attention to what you're doing as well.
I'm making a book for Dave. It's pretty cool. It contains all of the cards I sent him over the ten days I was gone. "Wouldn't it be cool," I thought, "to include an introduction and a colophon AND a space for a note on the day I didn't get around to sending a card because I was crazybusy that day." I thought it was such a good idea that I did indeed include room for those very items along the spine when I folded it.
Then I ran errands including, but not limited to, trying to hunt down PVA--PolyVinyl Acrylic, for those who are wondering--making photocopies and shopping for (more) art supplies. Then I went to the gym. Then I had dinner with Dave, worked on the book some more and went back to the gym to do yoga. When I came home, I started labelling the spaces where the various cards will be sewn to the spine.
The book is an accordion book, so the spine is folded like one of those fans we used to make when we were kids. I'm sewing the cards into the spine with a butterfly/pamphlet stitch and labelling the ridge in front of each space with the date I wrote the note. The idea was that there would be a space for the introduction, missing note and colophon as well. But when I was stamping the dates onto the spaces, I didn't leave room for the missing card or for the introduction because I figured the idea to include them was a good one that I had after I'd folded & trimmed the spine. Nope. I had the good idea before then, so there was space. Only not so much once I'd skipped the missing day in the labelling process.
The part that sucks about all this is that I did some blender pen transfers of my handwriting onto the back of the spine. "Dear David," "I miss you." "I love you." (That also happens to be the title of the book.) They would have fit perfectly if I'd included the things I'd meant to include. But now, the way things are, the "I" in "I love you" will be glued to the back cover, so you won't be able to see it. Given that I have already transfered the image & don't have another the same size, that I have also already painted both sides of the spine AND applied a coat of polyurethane to the back, I can almost guarantee you that rather than redoing the spine, I'm going to use the one I have now and just let it be a highly memorable lesson that I can apply the next time I do something like this. I haven't stopped kicking myself since I figured it out.
Note to self: It's not enough to make plans, or even to make plans and make notes about them. You have to read the notes too, just in case.
Posted by sally at 11:01 PM
July 13, 2008
I Am a Slave to Routine
Or at least, I should be.
Last week assured me of that with absolutely no room for doubt. I work best when I have a relatively set timetable. (I think it gives me a reason to get started. Once started, I'll work until whenever, but I need a kick in the pants to begin.)
This was my timetable:
6:30 - Alarm goes off. I hit the snooze every five minutes until
6:40 - I get up.
7:10 (or so) - I walk to the cafeteria for breakfast.
7:15 - They start letting people in to eat. I am there. I get food & sit & chat with whoever else is also there.
7:50-ish - Walk back to the dorm to get my laptop.
8:00 - The coffee shop opens. I am there shortly thereafter to post the blog entry I wrote the night before, check my email and IM with Dave.
8:30 - I leave the coffee shop and head back to my dorm where I plug the laptop in to charge, transfer the all-important, gets you into everything nametag from my jacket to my bag, fill the bag with things I need for the morning and head down to our classroom for the workshop.
9-12:00ish - Class
12-ish to1-ish - lunch & errand running
1-4 - Class
4-?? - Continue working on books.
5:45 (At the latest) - Head to dinner, which is offered from 5:30-6:30 only
7-?? - Evening program (or avoidance, when I realize I've had too much togetherness with my fellow humans and don't want to speak to anyone)
9-ish - Write letter to Dave. Seal it up and walk to mailbox to mail it. Enjoy bats over the parking lot.
Shower
Shortly after 10 - Bed
Compare this with my schedule for today:
7:40am - Finally can't sleep any more get up, whiten teeth, wash face, get dressed
8-8:45 - Research various bookbinding supplies online.
9am - Brunch with Dave
9:45am - Home again. Clean up while Dave changes cat litter.
10am - Begin blog post that involves downloading pictures from my camera and editing them to make them web-ready.
2pm - Post blog entry. (That's right, it took me four hours.)
2pm until Dave gets home - Surfing. Catching up on the blogs I couldn't read while I was at school.
More surfing.
Ate dinner.
8:15pm - Watered & fertilized veggies on porch. Emptied & refilled dishwasher. Began blog entry. (This one.) Ran to store with Dave to get stuff for tomorrow's breakfast since I'd had a couple of glasses of wine and couldn't go by myself.
Does anyone else see the difference there? No wonder I'm the size of a small whale and 10lbs heavier than I was at this time last year. Because I sit around on my ass all day. Actually, I really enjoyed my routine this last week, it was really comforting. I hope I can figure out how to create a new one that fits my life here.
But before I was in Idyllwild, I was in Chicago. And I took pictures (about six of them) on my point and shoot. I share them with you now.
Sally and Heather in front of Buckingham Fountain
(Notice that I am such a good friend that I posted this picture even though I look hideous. Because Heather looks nice in it.)
Sally, Heather and Chris Reflected in the Bean
(This is the only picture I have of Chris, for some reason. Where are we? I am in the green shirt connected to the flash reflected in the middle left section of the image. Heather is the long haired blur in shorts to my left. Chris is the tall, bearded blur behind me.)
Lake Michigan and Buckingham Fountain from the Wedding Venue
(Which was on the 10th floor of Roosevelt University's Fine Arts Building. Prior to the wedding, everyone but the bride and groom was hanging out windows and taking pictures of the view. All of the people and tents, by the way, are part of Taste of Chicago.)
Sally and Becca
(The reason I made the trip to Chicago in the first place. My camera stopped working just after I got this shot. Isn't she a beautiful bride?)
Astonishingly, neither Becca nor myself really looks that much older than we did when we were in school together 12-14 years ago. Kind of handy, that. Certainly in our business.
I still don't have words for how wonderful it was to see her again. She's a part of me, almost like a sister might be. I'll have to get back to Chicago soon. Or get her and that lovely new husband out here for Jazz Fest. I don't want to wait another eight and a half years.
Posted by sally at 08:38 PM | Comments (2)
Pic-tchas (Or What I Did This Summer)
Okay. Here are the book pix I've been teasing you with.
Let's look at those from another angle:
Okay, maybe one more:
As you can see, we accomplished a great deal in one week. And I have to say, as lovely as it is knowing that I made these books, it was even lovelier to pull them out of the bag last night and have Dave say, "You made these books?" Seriously. It was thrilling to have my sense of accomplishment validated like that.
Single-Signature Cloth Bound
As a comparison, a book I made last summer:
Above is the journal I took with me to Chicago & Idyllwild. Contrasted with this, the first cloth bound book I ever made, created this week:
Um. The term utilitarian comes to mind for the first one, while the second one is definitely "elegant." I squealed as I finished gluing that second book, my first "real" book, as far as I'm concerned, and then, as I held it in my hands, all I felt was disbelief and wonder. Because I made that. All evening long, I kept picking it up and turning it over, feeling it to be sure it was both mine and real.
For those who are interested, that's a cloth bound single signature book with a butterfly/pamplet stitch. The older book has a coptic binding. Which I taught myself to do. Out of instructions in a book.
Accordion Book
The first larger book we worked on (we made several origami books and a single sheet folded book) was an accordion book. It was a great way to learn about hinges (I ended up with mine on the wrong side, as you'll be able to tell in the photographs), and also a really good opportunity to explore image transfers and to really start to consider the "wholeness" of a book, since you must take the entire accordion into consideration. Because it's the only book with a more or less "complete" interior, I decided to go with a bunch of thumbnails to tell the entire story. You can click on any one of them to enlarge it.
Not the most precious work of art ever created, but not bad for a first try, I think. Though I do wish the insides had turned out as pretty as the outside.
I used some of the paste paper I made the first afternoon to bind the covers, and was really happy I'd sort of randomly grabbed the peach ribbon as I was packing for the trip, because it was the perfect choice to fasten the book closed.
A note about paste paper and other painted images: they look completely different in bits. The paper I used for the cover had some major flaws in it in the form of oil pastel scribbles that I tried to make look like flames. Only, they look cool when it's just a couple of stripes like you can see on the back cover. That also became clear in the painted books we made on Thursday and Friday.
Next up, Japanese stab binding.
While working on this book, I played with a couple of things I hadn't on the accordian book. I couldn't get the image transfers to really work in that book (note to self: acetone image transfers don't like acrylic paint), so I used this book to really explore that technique, using both straight acetone and also using a blender pen. This was the very best thing I did, so it of course became the front page of the book. Isn't she gorgeous?
The other thing I tried, since stab bindings can be done with single sheets, rather than folding signatures, is an insert. I included a deckle edged bit of the same paper I used for the cover. It's kind of a nice surprise as you flip through the book, but that was hard to photograph, so here's the best shot I got of it. It's that pink stripe with the rough edge. I think it's page six of the book.
Painted Books
The last books we worked on are called "Painted Books," the reasoning behind which will become obvious. We began by painting (see??!?) large sheets of really nice watercolor paper on both sides. We had acrylic paints, but some people worked in ink. I opted to also use some Pearl Ex on mine. (I am now a big fan of the Pearl Ex.) I ended up having enough paper to do two books, though I haven't finished the cover on the second. It's bound, it's just not finished. Since I bound it on Friday morning, I was worried that it wouldn't be dry enough to take with me if I finished the covers. However, I included both books so you can see how different the insides of one painted book can be.
All I did, by the way, for the above two shots, was turn the pages.
These books are really funky (in a fun way, not an ew! way). The covers look slightly unfinished. The pages are coated in paint. But they're interesting to look at and extremely pleasant to hold. The bulk of them reminds me of a children's book, and with the paints and the thick paper pages, they kind of have that feel as well. You can do anything you want to with them, they're great for sticking things in. They may become my scrapbook of choice for important trips from now on. Simply because I can say so much with paint and color that I can't say with just writing.
So that's my week in one not-so-brief entry. Now I have to clean up the house (I never did get around to vacuuming before I left, and Dave didn't get around to it while I was gone, so the place is looking a bit shabby) and order supplies. (I have a wish list now of tools, papers, bookcloths and threads.) I have two "big"--in terms of project intensity, not size--books that I really want to get started on, but to do them the way I want to do them requires that I spend some time playing with the techniques. When I do the real things, I want to be sure they are as beautiful and perfect as I can possibly make them. (Given that one is going to be a wedding present, I don't think that's too much to expect.)
Posted by sally at 10:01 AM | Comments (2)
July 12, 2008
Putting My Feet Up
It's been a long day. But now I'm home and unpacked and the kitchen is more or less clean. I am, however, falling asleep on the couch as I write this. I think it may be bedtime.
Posted by sally at 09:51 PM
July 11, 2008
Finished (or Nearly)
When I got back to my room at 5:45 this evening, there was a friendly little note attached to my door saying, “Hello, 4:00pm after class 7-11-08 Palm Desert departure. Thanks. (Smiley Face.)”
I leave here tomorrow. Dammit. I just got into the swing of things. I’d become part of a community. I had people I usually ate with, people whose work I asked about, people who came into my studio to see what I was doing. I had a routine. I was getting so much done. And now I have to go back to trying to do it for myself. I hope I can. I’ve learned so much, and I really want to continue on with this art form.
Today I finished—FINALLY—my accordion book. It looks pretty slick. I also finished my Japanese stab binding. I painted, cut/tore, sewed and glued my painted book and painted & tore pages for another. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with those yet, whether I’m going to make another book or not. Wow. I may be closer to being done than I realized. Excellent.
We’re finishing up tomorrow morning. We’ve already created a number of folded books in different styles, and we’ve completed various sewn bindings as well. And today we began painted books, which will have both sewn and glued bindings. Things I’ve learned as a result of this:
- I already knew what a kettle stitch was. I just didn’t know that’s what it was called.
- This stuff is far easier than I ever imagined. And I’m pretty good at it.
- I now know what PearlEx is for and I want more of it.
- Using a spoon to burnish acetone transfers helps the transfer stick.
- Even experienced bookbinders can suck at the Coptic stitch.
And I have to pack up tonight, because tomorrow I will be working much of the time. Though maybe not, given that all I have to do is bind a couple of books. I just have to make a template and cut and paint some covers. Or just cover them. I haven’t decided yet. Anyway, I need to get as much as possible packed so I don’t have to try to squish it in at the last minute. Since I’ll most likely be running late.
How do I know this? Because today we started at nine and sort of broke for lunch kind of around noon. I meant to go to the lecture, but what I really needed by the time lunch rolled around was some time alone. So I took it. I had lunch in the cafeteria with several million youngsters. And when I was done, whatever time that was –I’m guessing before one—I wandered back to the studio and kept working. I started cleaning up my workspace around 5:30, because my ride to the Mexican restaurant where we all decided to have dinner was picking me up at my dorm at six.
I will miss these women I’ve spent the week with. We laughed so much today. And helped each other. And shared our supplies and stories and lives. What an amazing crew of people. I shared a table with three incredible women. Llewellyn is 84, and just got back from a solo trip to Iran. Sharon is sweet and funny and generous and sharp as a tack. Janice is kind of who I want to be when I grow up. Deb and Vicki—who are at the table across the way--know so much and were willing to answer all of my annoying questions and give me help with art techniques I hadn’t tried before. Joyce doesn’t speak much, but her work is gorgeous. Katherine is just a sweetie. And Sybil is so generous with her time and abilities and supplies. How very lucky I am to have had this week.
Now I just need to be able to fit everything in my luggage.
Posted by sally at 08:20 AM
July 10, 2008
Focus
Aside from my moaning about not being able to get a cell signal here, there’s something pretty incredible about being in a place where it’s literally all about the work. Even a graduate program isn’t all about the work, because it’s also about teaching and taking classes in related areas and making a living. But here, for this very short week, it really is all about the work.
Yes, I get up in the morning and I check my email and I post to my blog. And my evenings are taken up with lectures and writing. My time in-between is spent doing the work.
For example. I left the studio at lunchtime today in order to visit a wonderful little store in Idyllwild itself that was selling handmade decorated papers for $3/sheet, which is obscenely cheap. I bought a bunch. The technical term for how much paper I bought may be a metric fuckload. But I went in order to further the work. I walked into that store, saw the papers and started grabbing sheets. I used one of those sheets today in a set of covers. It’s gorgeous, by the way. for a Japanese stab binding that I’ll be actually binding tomorrow. Wait until you see this book. I can’t believe I’m making it, that I’m the person who’s making it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
This morning, I knew we were going to be doing sewn bindings. I didn’t realize that by lunchtime, I would have created a complete clothbound book with actual bookboard covers. I did. It’s gorgeous. Seriously. Wait until you see a picture. Again, I can’t believe I made it myself. My journals—the ones I’m so proud of—look horribly cheap by comparison. Now, I have a book I made that, though the pages be blank, looks like the Platonic Ideal of “a slim volume of verse.” I am inordinately proud of my little book. I just want to walk around cradling it next to my heart.
And, as mentioned above, I’ve got the covers done for a stab binding. Plus, I’ve decorated many of the pages. They look like they were done by someone who’s just learning image transfer techniques, but you know what? That’s okay. That’s a very good description of the person who made them. And the image on the first page is perfect, even if I do say so myself.
I stayed until 5:30, working on those image transfers, finishing the cover for the next book, cleaning up my area and adding to the accordion fold book I’m still creating. It’s become the thing I do while I’m waiting for something else to happen (glue or paint to dry, the next set of instructions to come, class to start). I was still there, even though class was over at 4pm and I was the last person to leave. I had to lock up. I would have stayed later, but dinner is only available from 5:30-6:30, and I’m not sure I could have done without. Plus, dinner was lovely. I had some great conversations with a group of people I hadn’t met before, and a bunch of wine.
My point, however roundaboutly reached, is this. I am here this week to learn new skills from one of the best (run your cursor over the photos to see inside the books). I had no idea that that would mean that by the end of this week I would be making real books, books I had not ever expected to be able to make. And yet, here I am. Not only have my new abilities already vastly overshot my teeny goals for the week, I’m getting new ideas. And because I am here to do the work and only the work, to focus on learning the art of the book without any extraneous other stuff, I am able to accomplish so much. I need to find ways to do this when I’m on my own.
I need to figure out how to bring some of this focus home with me.
Posted by sally at 08:16 AM
July 09, 2008
Back to the Present Moment
Well, about ten hours later instead of two or three days later, anyway. I wrote this before bed last night, since during the hours that WiFi is available, I’m mostly not.
[As I write this] I’m lying on my bed, the lower bunk of one of two sets of bunkbeds in the room I have to myself. The bathroom window is open. So is the door to my room, since it smells vaguely of cat pee in here. I have been assured there have been no cats in the room, but this is a boarding school during the school year, and I wouldn’t put it past a set of high school students to smuggle a cat into their room.
I need a massage. I don’t know whether it’s the straining for breath as I hike up and down hills that remind me of the Palouse, only at 6000 feet, or the heaviness of the bag I’m carrying, or the hunching over my work as I make lots and lots of books that is making my neck and shoulders so tight, but something needs to change, because I’m starting to get a headache.
The days are really full here. I’m up around 6:30. They start serving breakfast at 7:15, and after breakfast I have just enough time to hike back to my dorm for my laptop, hike to the “Starbucks”, post what I’ve written the night before and check my email, then hike back to my dorm to dump the laptop and grab my bag and head to class. Class starts at 9am and runs until noon. We break for lunch (today I went to a lunchtime lecture about an exhibit currently up at the Field in Chicago), get back to the studio for class to begin at one and continue on until four. Dinner is at 5:30 and then there’s usually a lecture or an event at 7 or 7:30pm. After that, I come back to my room and write and then head to bed.
Today, though, was the day I really understood what the director of the program meant at the adult student orientation
We were supposed to be making prototypes and playing with various folded book styles and transfer possibilities, which I had been doing, but then I got excited by a combination of good paper of an interesting size and shape, a kickass poem, and a set of big, metal stencils. Suddenly, I knew what pages three and four of my book would look like, and then I was off and running. Even with all of the work I did on it, the book is still only about one third finished. I don’t know when I’ll get to complete it, since tomorrow is about an entirely new set of styles and techniques.
I would write more, but I am beginning to fade fairly quickly here, and I’d really not like to fall asleep with my contact lenses in again. It’s happened to me twice since I got here. On Sunday, when I was so tired I didn’t even think about it before I took a nap, and last night when I was lying on my bunk, whitening my teeth. I was supposed to leave the whitening strips on until ten. I woke up at 10:30. Oops.
Oh. A note for those of you with blogs on Blogger (Heather, Laura, Amy, Paul, Christy). I can’t read them here. All Blogger urls are blocked as potential spyware and malware on the school’s WiFi. It’s kind of frustrating. Anyway, I won’t be able to read your blogs again until Friday at the earliest, so I’m not ignoring you, I just can’t get to you. But I miss reading your stuff, so I’m looking forward to getting back to it.
**Morning addendum.
Here’s the poem:
Late Fragment by Raymond Carver
And did you get what
You wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
Beloved on the earth.
I slept on it last night. By the time this book is done, I will have used acrylic & watercolor paints, fabric, leaves, ink, possibly jewels, ribbon, colored pencil, contact paper, acetone and PVA glue. Maybe also paste paper for the covers, though I’m not sure about that yet. I’ve got to get to the studio now. I can hardly wait to get started.
Posted by sally at 08:08 AM | Comments (1)
July 08, 2008
What Follows
What follows is a series of posts I wrote on my laptop when I didn’t have internet access. Even though they’re no longer timely, I want to share them anyway.
Posted by sally at 08:15 AM
Idyllwild, First Impressions
Hot. Dry. Bare bones.
Then again, I was very, very tired, having slept for less than two hours on Saturday night/Sunday morning. The reception* for Becca’s lovely, moving wedding—I started to cry the minute I saw her begin her walk down the aisle—ended at 11:30pm. I got to my hotel around midnight, finished packing a little after 1am. I had to be in the lobby waiting for my shuttle at 4:45am. I took a “nap” for about an hour and 45 minutes and didn’t sleep again for the 12 or so hours it took me to get to Idyllwild.
So after I got checked in and found my room and unpacked some things, I wandered around, found a place with WiFi and discovered I’d forgotten my email and blog passwords and I hadn’t changed them on this laptop.
I had three hours before dinner. I went back to my room and sat down to read. Some instinct of self-preservation kicked in then, and I reset my alarm for half an hour before dinner. I’m glad I did, because I passed out. I don’t think I even moved for the two and a half hours I was asleep.
I was much better when I woke up
They offer all kinds of classes here. People this week are doing assemblage (which sounds like mixed-media collage stuff), ceramics, Navajo pottery, Navajo weaving, jewelry, a painting class called Color Unleashed and stonecarving. Plus there are a children’s camp and a performing arts camp for high school students.
Last night was just an adult student orientation and a hoop dancing performance. I only managed to watch the first bit. The mosquitoes were eating me alive and I was still pretty sleepy. Though I enjoyed watching bats flying above the parking lot. This morning is when the fun started.
The class has ten students. Our instructor is Sybil Rubottom of the Bay Park Press in San Francisco. She is just so cute and sweet and funny I wanted to put her in my pocket to keep forever. She spent the morning talking about (and displaying) several different kinds of books. Gorgeous, amazing works of art. Then we did a couple of writing exercises, to open us up to the creative flow. In the afternoon, we made paste paper, which was a hoot. I never really opened up and played. Not like I could have, I was feeling a bit hesitant. The woman sharing my table is really sweet and TREMENDOUSLY talented, and the paste paper stuff felt like painting to me, at which I am a complete novice. I need to work on letting go even when things are scary. (Hello, that would be my core issue again.)
Anyway, now is the time when we break for an hour or so before dinner. I’m in the “Starbucks” here where they have WiFi, enjoying a raspberry iced something-or-other because they’re out of mocha mix. Tonight’s program includes an Oaxacan carving demonstration—I love Oaxacan art, and I cannot wait to watch it. (I missed a trunk sale of the artist’s work yesterday, I was sleeping. Dammit.) Also a gallery opening of work by the faculty here this week, which I am also very excited about attending. (And not just because there might be wine.) I seem to not have remembered my blog password correctly because everything I’ve tried hasn’t worked. I have, however, remembered to check my email.
Posted by sally at 08:14 AM
Jeff Koons* Is One Audacious Man
By which I mean that I will never look at a balloon animal the same way again.
On a different note: I think I kind of love it here.
*He has an awesome exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Posted by sally at 08:12 AM
Really Long Post about Chicago
I’m not sure why, but this city reminds me of London. I don’t know if it’s all the history (all of the friends I’ve seen this trip have had lots to say about the history of Chicago and how interesting it is, and they don’t all know each other), or the architecture (soon to be home to the US’ tallest building) or the focus on public art or the river flowing through it (though much tinier than the Thames, plus, there’s the LAKE) or the density of it. I just know I really like this city, and I thought I wasn’t going to.
Highlights of the trip so far:
Seeing Heather and Becca, most assuredly, and the long, heartfelt hugs I received from both of them. Becca and I established, by the way, that the last time we saw each other was not ten and a half years ago at my wedding (where she was one of the women who married us), but was instead about eight years ago, just before she moved here. We’re going to have to see each other more frequently, is all I have to say about that. Heather too. (Speaking of which, you two women have GOT to meet. I think you’d like each other.)
I have pictures of both, by the way, but this isn’t the laptop with the editing software, so those will be waiting until I get home for posting.
It was also nice to see Chris, who met Heather and me at the Art Institute and who was as patient with me as she was as I wandered about drooling over the art. Plus, he introduced us to his favorite room, which is amazing and quiet and needs to be included in a theatre set at some point. (Congrats on landing a doctah, by the way. Though since I haven’t yet met him, I have to assume he’s imaginary like I thought Sam was. Though I now have the proof of my own eyes that Sam exists.)
Did you know that the Art Institute of Chicago has a Touch Gallery where you get to FEEL SCULPTURES MADE OF DIFFERENT MATERIALS? I am such a child. As soon as Heather showed me the room I was all over those things. Soooooo coooooooool.
I should say that before we went to the Art Institute, Heather & I had breakfast at this place called Orange, which sells fresh squeezed build-your-own juices. Oh. My. God. I had orange, grapefruit, celery and strawberries in mine, and may I say it was one of the tastiest things I have ever drunk (with or without champagne, as it turns out, it’s good both ways). I also had their French Toast Kabob, which is notable mostly for the inclusion of shredded coconut in the batter. Yummy. But don’t get their orange oil-infused coffee. Not worth the dosh.
Other highlights of the day? Sitting and chatting in an apartment in the Mies van de Rohe buildings (the original ones, not the newer ones) and getting to use an honest-to-god Mies van de Rohe toilet. Yes. Fairly spiffy.
And the barbeque with the families before the wedding. So lovely. Such great people. I really like her fiancé. We didn’t talk much, but he’s got this air about him that really appeals. Calm, a bit geeky, really smart and pretty cute. All of that pickiness re: finding a partner has paid off forBecca, I think.
I must say, I assumed that Chicago had no fireworks laws, given the way the people in the park went to town once it got dark. It was kind of like being in a war zone, with the pops and fizzes and BOOMs that were going on all around us. One group had almost professional-quality fireworks, and we were speculating that they might be official fireworks, even, when I realized that the great big guy who was doing the majority of the fireworks lighting was using his cigar to set them off.
You know, I have met lovely people here, from the shuttle driver to Becca and Amos’ friends and family, nothing but sweet people.
And then, of course, on the way back from the barbeque, I and the group I was walking with wandered right through what I think was an altercation between two crack whores and their pimp. But I could be wrong about that.
Posted by sally at 08:11 AM | Comments (1)
July 02, 2008
Ready to Go
Finally. Everything is packed. I did not get around to cleaning the kitchen sinks or vacuuming the floors or the couch. Hopefully Dave will either do it himself or not notice.
I will be travelling for most of tomorrow. In order to catch my 12:30 flight, I have to leave here by 8:30am. And I'm scheduled to get into Chicago just before 9pm. That's 11 hours driving, flying and waiting. Yay. Anyway, that means I won't be posting tomorrow until very late, if at all. (Though I will be taking my traveling laptop with me, in hopes of posting on the road.) With that in mind, I present a series of photographs that seem highly appropriate, given the date Friday.
I took these at the Boise zoo. I wish I was good enough (and lucky enough) to get a picture like this in the wild, but I'm not. I have to take what I can get. Despite that, I am quite proud of these three photographs.
Happy Fourth of July, everybody. (At least, to those of you who celebrate it. Those of you who don't can still enjoy the pictures.)
Posted by sally at 10:35 PM
It's Tired Out
I should be packing or cleaning or something, but I just couldn't resist. Our cats have been sleeping a LOT, what with the warm weather and the fur coats and all, and the opportunity to share these images was too much to pass up.
Katala was just enjoying the sunshine on the couch yesterday morning.
I took these this afternoon. There was at least a 30 minute gap between them. Notice that there is nothing supporting Polyphemos' head except my chair, which is on wheels. That's trust.
Or foolishness.
One of the two anyway.
Posted by sally at 07:33 PM | Comments (1)
Stuck
On the couch.
Because I just painted my toenails.
I should have used the bathroom first.
But I have been rushing about today, getting things done, so perhaps I need a break right now. Enforced though this one is. At least I opted to not paint my fingernails. Then I wouldn't be able to type, either. (I only do that for ultra-special occasions because thanks to my neverending array of messy projects, the polish looks nice for roughly a day, and then gets all chipped and nasty looking.)
I was going to post about something else, but now I can't remember what it was.
...
...
Nope. It's gone.
Anyway, I leave tomorrow for Chicago, the first stop on my dash around the country. Not only is my wonderful friend Heather meeting me for drinks breakfast at this restaurant where they have a build your own fresh squeezed juice bar (to which you can add your own alcoholic beverages - she's bringing champagne, what a fantastic woman), but she is bestowing upon me the high honor of being the first guest on her brand new Chicago Art Institute membership pass. I shall try to behave myself and not spend hours in one room as I am wont to do at galleries and museums.
Also, our friend and fellow alum Chris will be meeting us at the Art Institute, so that's cool too.
Oh, Heather, before I forget, Ginger & Christi S. say hi.
Then there's a barbeque with the bride and groom and families where we shall hang out on the beach and watch the fireworks with everyone else in Chicago. Then the wedding and then, I suspect, a sleepless night due to a wedding reception that ends at 11pm with a lengthy shuttle trip back to my hotel and a 7:45am flight out of O'Hare the next morning. I plan to sleep on the plane(s).
After that, who knows? I have no idea what to expect at this workshop. I've never done anything like this before. It's like I'm stepping off the edge.
Thank goodness I have freshly painted toes so that I can launch myself into the abyss in style.
Posted by sally at 03:52 PM | Comments (1)
©2006 - All content copyright Sally Eames-Harlan unless otherwise noted