P.S. and apropos of nothing...

I read an article in the Sunday LA Times that began, "Laprise started his presentation by dumping a pail full of sand on top the conference table, alarming executives who worried about the wiring embedded in the table for PowerPoint presentations and technology demos. Armed with three rocks, a small wooden elephant and a flashlight, he spent an hour weaving a tale of a boy on a quest to locate meteors that have fallen from the sky and to uncover their meaning."  This is for a new controller-free game device for the XBox 360, from Microsoft collaborating with a guy from Cirque du Soleil.  Apparently, just body movements run the game.  All I could think of is what happens if you twitch or sneeze...a meteor strikes your car, your spaceship flips upside down...?  I don't know.  I can imagine a few problems playing this one.  And I'd make Laprise clean up after himself.  Artists.  Sheesh.  :-)

My blog title says it all...

The only thing I've done in my studio in the last week is sleep (someone snores!).  I have been good about carrying around my sketch book and actually sketching, and I did play a little with my pretend Picasso painting (we're joking it and calling it the Licasso...Linda, Picasso :-) but I fear I've made it worse instead of better.  I guess that's what practice is for, eh?

This has been a week of being one seriously cranky momma.  Kevin's ADHD seems to go into higher gear when he's under stress or pressure.  While he has two finals a day (thank HEAVENS for block scheduling), he was constantly stepping outside to dig in the dirt or put up a few decorations for the big pool party this weekend - anything but study.  You know things are bad when the purchase I'm most excited about isn't the great decorations or the perfect tiki designed paper goods, but the air horn.  Two, in fact.  Kevin sassed me that afternoon, and I wonked away.  Oh, it was glorious!  I didn't have to argue or get into it with him and it is so very satisfying.  I would recommend this for every mother of a teen. 

I've got to channel Mary Poppins or Spongebob Squarepants or someone more cheery than myself to get through the summer without becoming homicidal or just flat out bonkers.

Focus on the positive!  With the change in some of our summer plans, I am going to be able to attend the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach again.  I love going there for the amazing inspiration provided by these incredible artists!  While plans changed too late to be able to take a class, I may be able to squeak into a  workshop.  If nothing else, they have an ATC trading wall for anyone that wants to swap.  How fun!

That's it.  I'm finished grumping.  Really.  ;-)

Summer = Artistic Challenges

There is only a week left of high school, then my lovely teen son will be home for almost three months.  On the "I'm trying to be an artist!" front, the summer worries me.  His plans tend to change, unannounced, in a way that pulls me out of the studio and turns me into a grumpy troll.  Last week is a perfect example.  He's in jazz band and they have a final coming up.  Of course, he can't tell me when.  First he said Saturday evening.  Duh, I think not.  Then he said sometime next week.  School is out on Wednesday.  Now he's just not sure again.  But they need to practice, he tells me, and they want to come here because we have more room and their parents all said no.  Oh, and they all need a ride.  All of them, because they live so far away and it's too hot to walk and they're carrying instruments and their parents won't bring them...the reasons go on at length.  They all manage to get here, when I find I have to take my husband to the hospital for what appears to be a spider-bitten finger.  He's diabetic, so a swelling, hot and red finger is a serious worry.  We make it to Urgent Care, he's given antibiotics, and we make it home in time to find an impromptu pool party going on.  I should note a pool party with toys flying, breaking the horsetail bamboo around the pool two weeks before a huge pool party.  Then there are the soda cans, chip bags and cookie crumbs all over the house.  Sigh.  We have a rule about kids swimming with no adult home.  My son apologized.  More sighs.  He doesn't seem to get that apologies don't unDO the mess and the rule-breaking.  It's been two days and the broken bamboo is still all over the yard.  I send him out to clean it up, then I hear digging.  He has a thing about digging.  It's very weird.

Summer means Kevin staying up late, wanting to sleep until 1 p.m., then inviting friends to come over at 4 p.m. to go swimming.  The stay up late & sleep in thing is fine.  It's summer vacation.  But summer also means that every directive (get up earlier if you wants friends over today, invite the friends at least a day ahead of time and let them know they MUST go home before dinner so your working father can have peace on weekday evenings), is met with daily attempts at negotiation on his part.  I am a pretty tough mom.  If I tell him that arguing gets extra chores and he argues, he gets extra chores.  Heck, I can get the whole house clean on those penalties alone.  But I'm tired of it.  Exhausted.  The life is sucked out of me.  All day every day is full of conflict.  Not screaming, ugly conflict (well, not often...but it can happen), but the frequent efforts to try to get the preferred answer out of me that makes me just nuts.  I grew up getting the crap beat out of me for just existing and making the mistake of showing up in a room, and have little to no patience for someone who talks back or tries to negotiate everything again and again and again.  I would not have survived to see a sunset if I had even squeaked, much less argued. 

I need an air horn.  It worked when he was five.  I'm getting an air horn.  Argue, he gets the horn.  Sass me, and he gets the horn.  It will save me time and effort, but what will the neighbors think, hearing that stupid air horn blasting every two minutes?!?

So how much art work will I get done this summer after 1 p.m?  How much time will I spend arguing, fussing or fuming instead of painting, sewing or gluing?

If he makes me nuts, I think I'll make him wear a tiara.  That'll do it!

I may get some artwork done after all.

Biding my time

It  has been a few days since I reinjured my back and I'm getting seriously cranky about it.  I had to call my neighbor/plumber yesterday for an exploding irrigation line, and we both walked around the yard with our hand on our back, comparing symptoms, physician advice and medication recipes.  Ridiculous.  And neither one of us is even 50 yet!  About all I managed to do was watch television, almost nap (I can't sleep during daylight, but I can remain still and useless for a long stretch at a time), watch basketball (GO LAKERS!) and fold laundry.  Oh joy.  Oh, and I did manage to take an enormous number of photos of birds, in addition to the baby skunk that has begun visiting us every evening.  What in the world I will do with the photos, I don't know.  Discovering the use of many of my camera's features was good, so it wasn't time completely wasted.  My feet have a lovely tan, too.  OK, so it wasn't all so bad waiting to get better.

Today I'm going to work on an art project, even if done from a prone position.  I have a couple of new ideas for art dolls and even for wonky paper dolls.  I'm eager to see what my friend Debbie has in store for online sharing and learning (still trying to get over my fear on that!), and am determined to do something worthwhile as I sip coffee and wait for the return of the plumber.  He's the funniest guy in the world, so I actually look forward to burst pipes.  :-)

What kind of art can I do on a heating pad?

Oh ugh, what a day!  I have struggled for a few years now with a back that is just wearing out.  For eight years, I worked in a spine center with the most wonderful spine surgeons and pain management doctors.  My boss would tease me that I was "bad marketing" when I injured my back and was hobbling around bent over and just miserable.  I insisted I was GREAT marketing because our patients knew that I could really relate to their pain!  I've got two discs in my lower spine that are just not behaving.  Sometimes the bulges are worse and putting more pressure on nerves than other days.   Some days I just get one big, fat muscle spasm that feels like someone kicked me in the back with wicked cowboy boots.  Today is one of those days, started with a breakfast of coffee, toast and meds to try to release that wicked spasm.  Oh, yum.

So here I lay, surrounded by the laptop, sketchpad, pen and pencil, remote control for the tv (I need voices other than my own talking to the cats), phone, a novel and a heating pad.  The manufacturer clearly expected this heating pad could double as a roaster, even on low.  Ouch!  So I keep having to turn it off and on so that I don't turn my caboose into a well-done hunk of moo.

I'm so very excited to begin a new art adventure with my cyber-mentor and friend Debbie.  I'm terrified at the same time to open that door.  This causes me to think about my younger sister Victoria who passed away a year ago just before her 47th birthday.  I was convinced that she didn't try anything (a job, finishing high school, etc.) because she was afraid to fail.  If she never tried, she couldn't fail.  That's what I'm afraid about with art.  I am terrified that if I try, I'll be discovered to be a big fat fraud.  But I just can't let my fear of failure stop me from trying and learning.  I keep telling myself that the worst that can happen is that I realize how much work I need to do to improve.  If I make art out of a love of creating something and just expressing myself, I can't fail.  It's not a test.  That will be my mantra.  Art is not a test.  Art is not a test.

I'm still a scared big baby.  But I'll face my fear and move ahead.  I may cover my eyes now and then, but I'll still move ahead.

AADD - Artist's Attention Deficit Disorder

I'm one of those distractable persons that will start on a mission like going through the contents of my old cedar chest to thin out, toss and organize the contents.  Then I find myself digging, wondering...where did I stuff those autographs from Bucky Dent and Jonathan Cain?  Where is that magazine with my photo when I was 16? Oh, here it is!  I'd better scan it before it turns any more yellow.  Ooh, then I'll put it on Facebook to share with friends with whom I used to attend these goofy events...then I'll yap with my friends on Facebook for a while.  Now the room is a mess, the contents of the cedar chest are scattered and as I try to put it all back (later, much later) less stuff seems to take up more space.  How did that happen?

A similar thing happens when I go into the studio to work.  My husband loves Picasso and, of course, we can't afford to buy one (and I just don't go for posters since his grad school days), so I decide I'm going to paint one.  I get the Picasso book out, let him pick one and figure out how to enlarge it to fit on a canvas that is NOT the same size or shape.  I go to get my paints, and I see the canvases from the art co-op project along with my sketch book of ideas.  Then I see my Mac.  I turn on the Mac...I'll just check email real quick and jot down more ideas for the co-op project.  Then I see magazines and books I didn't put away, so I start to shelve them, then see the one on dollhouses....oooooohh!  Not actual doll houses, but more like collages-in-a-box that add up to a house.  Hmmmm.  Ideas.

I started on the painting, I didn't get all the magazines put away (I had to drop them and run before I read them all) and remain distracted by other projects that I want to try.  I'm still thinking about that sort of family tree of paper dolls idea that I've been knocking around, and the quilt for which I've bought the fabric, but haven't started. 

Is it just me?  How do I stop my mind from going a million different directions on a million different art projects and actually get focused?  Today, I'm going to try to focus on the painting.  It's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow (someone didn't tell the weather dude that this is Southern California and the business was supposed to be wrapped up in February!) so I've got a day to myself.  I need to put parts of the brain on pause, figure out how to center my attention and just get something done.

On that note, I'm going to have coffee and then paint.  We'll see how many times I'm distracted and my attention wanders.  Focus, focus, focus!!!

Caught without makeup!

I knew someone would be coming to the door sometime today.  As I scrubbed off the last vestiges of yesterday's mascara (it's waterproof and TAKES two days to get it all off), I was chanting in the bathroom, "I just know this is when she's coming, I just know she won't call first as promised."  And voila, the doorbell rang.  You have never seen a woman slather on foundation to cover up those dalmatian spots so fast in all your life!  I had no choice about answering the door.  This was the designer picking up our living room chair for re-upholstery, coming on her day off from quite a distance.  She'd forgotten our phone number back at the office and couldn't warn me she was coming.  Harrumph.  I told her that I was trying to play along with the folks from the Today Show that a week or so ago decided to do a day of broadcasting with no makeup for anyone.  I was just a little late.   I figured I'd get distracted and just forget after awhile and relax.  Nope.  I look very much like my husband with no makeup.  Haha.


In Studios magazine, I saw something about whether or not artists dolled up to work in their studio, or just staggered in wearing pajamas and crazy hair.  The responses were quite varied.  I always figured that if I went totally natural, I'd scare the bajeebers out of anyone that came to the door.  Blech.  The transformation that occurs with a little mascara and blush for me is significant.  I refuse to give it up!  OK, unless on a tropical vacation.  Then it's just sunblock and more waterproof mascara ;-)

Today I have shockingly little housework to do, so I'm going back into the studio to try to rebuild (or at least just start again) the clay face that I had to chuck when my son embedded the entire clay surface with the black embossing powder.  Oh, and the savage little friends also stopped in to visit the studio (uninvited and unescorted) that week and draped a damp towel from their swimming excursion over the same sculpture and my sketch book!  Teens have been banished from the room!  I know they like coming in and checking it out, but what little beasts to be so careless.  It will be an "Artists Only" zone for now.