thought bubbles.......

sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.

more of minnie's work.......

look how dapper this little one is.  so cute, i bet his mother loved him in a tie.  minnie said she painted this for a friend at work - it was his photo-----

more student's work.....

this one is done by minnie - a great person and now a friend.

students work....

from last weekend's private workshop.  and, as i understand it they are all still painting even today!

i really enjoy all of the characters i meet - the ones in the photos and also the ones who paint them.

my son....

is in town from buffalo, new york.  and what does he do while he is in san diego visiting me?  he helps me clean out the storage unit - lift boxes, helps me throw things out, pep talking through the whole ordeal.  with him,  i can throw out and not feel guilty.  i thought my son would be a hoarder, like me...i was very wrong.  in fact he keeps reminding me about the hoarder tv show.

 i guess he is performing his own intervention for his mama.  i can't tell you how good this makes me feel.  and, i'm getting closer to storage unit freedom.

i feel violated.

i think the weak link is facebook.

i was hacked again.....

please don't open any funky looking emails from me.  apparently a large crop of spam was sent out using my email last night.  sorry

travel plans.....

tomorrow my family and i will be traveling to LA so that i can teach a private workshop in someone's home.    while i am working my husband and daughter will go look at colleges in the area.  i especially would like rosie to see ucla - the swimming pool, for instance.  she doesn't think she would like ucla because it is in the middle of the posher district of los angeles.  i guess she thinks that because of that there will be superficial rich kids who dress fashionable there - rather than true academics.

ha!  not at all.  she will see.

also i hope they look at uc irvine - and perhaps a few private colleges.

for the most part, rosie thinks she would rather go to school back east.   

exciting times for our little family.

my dog dempsey......

having happy dog dreams - he has a dog's life.

a dog's life.........

if you think you have a dog's life, why not get fancy and par-tahy?

actually i have never really understood the "dog's life" problem.  i have a large doberman.  he is a dog.  and a life.  therefore, he has a dog's life.  it's his life, but he is a dog.  

i thought a dog's life is not something you would want to brag about.

but no,  here is the rub.  he has the best life of anyone i know.  certainly the best life of our pack.  he eats everyday at the same time - with food he hardily enjoys.  he doesn't have to worry that if he can't pay for it he will have to do dishes.  or, make out i.o.u.s.  he just gets to enjoy his meals worry-free.

further, all day long, he sleeps if he wants - and apparently he does want to.  he sleeps all night too.  his only duty is to bark once in a while to alarm the rest of the pack if something suspicious is stirring outside.  he does, but not perfectly.  the pack really doesn't care if a wayward skunk is transversing the property at 2 a.m.   even if he thinks it's worth getting hysterical over. 

it's annoying but he doesn't get into trouble over it.

he gets a bath with great smelling stuff, toes nails clipped, hair brushed.  he even sleeps on his own fluffed up dog pillow.  without paying rent.

he has the life of a prince, more like.

he gets to go out every night to socialize with other prince dogs.  and he is able to get personal with whoever he meets, even without introduction.  he doesn't have to shake hands first, he just goes to sniff and decide right then and there if the other dog is worth hanging with.  if not, he moves on.  no apologies.  he doesn't have to worry about being PC.

i often wish i could "go" like a dog.  not lift my leg.  but be able to hold it until a certain time and without any effort at all,  just plop it out.  no grunting.  no frantic searching for a public restroom.  no hopping on one leg and bearing teeth while waiting for a stall.   not even a problem if there's no toilet paper.  

AND, he gets admired for his beauty where ever he goes.  just walking down the road.  and although he is getting pretty old, his age does not show.  no wrinkles only maybe a few white whiskers if you look hard enough.

so, i gotta say, i would like a dog's life -- doesn't have to be a partying dog's life.  just the sleep all day and all night and still be very fit, type of life.  and the "no worry about supporting yourself" type of life.

if i were a dog and woke up cranky, i would be praised for being a dutiful barker.  and since i am a woman - calling me bitch would not hurt me at all.

every night while with the pack, i would be the only one with a dessert after dinner.  albeit a bone, but still.

so i'm going to go to bed now and rethink my life.  would i be better off as a dog?  should i ask to be a dog in my next life?  

hmmm, as i think i am sure my eyes will get heavy and i will drift asleep.  and if a stray cat or squirrel comes by the house....i can just stay asleep and not have to tell anyone.  and yeah, i do like my own bed-sy - - better than a dog pillow......even if i could have a pink one.

a nice day......

although the weather was perfect, beautiful sunshiny----- and the birds were chirping and swooning wildly outside, i decided to stay in bed.   

(it occurs to me that i may be tired from  getting physical  with"su".  but that's another story.  you have to scroll down for that).

oh my bed felt so comfortable....

but it was hard to relax. 

i had the" mommy tape recorder" going on and on in my head.  it has my mother's voice from way back when, complete with her deep southern twang.    way back when she had to raise "us two yungin's" (my brother and me).  we never understood why she had to make a full time job out of it.  we yungins were out of sight most of the time.  we hung out up the hill or in a tree.  we really tried to "stay out from underfoot".

my mom was a fairly opinionated person.  sometimes the words on the mental tape got aggressive and degrading. 

if my mother were still alive today she would have called me  "a no account".

a "no account and good for nuthin'".  she had no time for laziness, she said.  and if there is one thing she couldn't tolerate--it was "shiftlessness".

my mom did not believe in standing still.  standing still meant one thing.  lazy.

 so growing up, i was one busy girl.  i swam everyday for 2 hours - and took sewing, etiquette  and modeling classes.   I took dance and acrobats, and a bit of ballet.  

i also took a typing class during 2 summer breaks in junior high years. 

my mom insisted i take this class so that one day i'll be "useful".  

i was 12.  the last thing i wanted to think about was a job as a stenotypist.  i hated the idea of  wearing tight skirts, nylons and high heels and i didn't want to sit on my boss's lap or get coffee.  i learned how stenotypist's acted because we had an illustrated book in our bathroom called "poems for the john".  it showed sexy women sitting  pert on their boss' desk pretending to be writing on a pad.  the boss always had a slobber dog's expression.  the secretary had perfectly coifed  hair, (that she needed to fluff up once of twice by looking in her hand mirror)  lipstick, nail polish, tight skirt and showy top.  blech, blech.

it would have made more sense to me to first take lessons in primping and lipstick blotting.

  

the summer typing class.

now that was a hard class.  my teacher covered each key on the type-o-writer with masking tape.  

then we were timed to write "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".

there's that word lazy again.  

 it was not easy pressing down on the mechanical typewriter keys.  i think it would have been better to  stand up and throw our bodies into it; bear our weight onto the keys.  my teacher didn't like the idea.  he said that we should use dainty motions with our fingers and show no pain on our faces.  humpf.

i carried this image of a secretary/stenographer being sexy and sitting on her bosses desk for a long time.   much longer than necessary.

when i married my attorney husband, i became his secretary.   none of those things applied.  didn't seem to matter what my hair looked like (within reason) and i could wear sports shoes. 

when i sat on his desk i didn't have to cross my legs or fluff my hair.  in fact, he would just work around me asking to please move my bottom out of the way so he could catch his incoming calls.

maybe i needed to puff up my hair.

so what about my lying in bed all day.  well, it didn't really happen.

turned out i could only stay in bed for an extra hour.   

it's because i could no longer stand my mother's voice inside my head asking,  "who do you think you are? some kind of princess?  get up from there you lazy thing".  

i thought i was - lying in bed all day.  a princess - and so what?

" how do you think things got done around here. no one on god's green earth has the privilege of lying in a bed all day long.   that is just sheeeeer laziness.  pure and simple." 

there may have been  a quote from scripture  thrown in to emphasis god's intent-- because 12year old girls needed to get up out of bed and become prepared for work using the type-o-writer.  and be useful to someone some day.

i know, i know.

i have responsibilities afterall.

so here i am.

at my computer.

i am NOT a lazy hound.  see mom.

the woman v. storage unit saga continues....

the above picture is of an art supply garage sale i had a few years back.  most of this stuff sold.  now image that stuff times 200 and you will be close to the quanities i have in my storage unit.
so, i admit, i'm a bit of a hoarder...maybe even an overachiever.

 see those salt and pepper shakers over there on the right..?  well, my intention 8 years ago was to create excellently cool enclosed environments for my 1950's painted paper people.  i would send them to a publisher and write about them.  they would not be used as salt and pepper shakers at all; they would be three d marvels.  how clever to imagine this idea.  except, #1 i never got around to it and #2 ah,  it's been done.  my idea had a shelf life.  maybe not with s & p shakers and 1950 paper people but with mason jars & cute little victorian angel people or similar.
no one bought them.  i now have replacement shakers in my kitchen, should any break or go missing.
*******
now i'm going to tattle on my storage unit's tactics of yesterday.  i'm going to warn you that this is exhausting to read.

hereinafter the storage unit will be referred to as "su":

1.  around 10 a.m. i got a phone call from said "su"'s manager to please come fast and bring my key.
 i squeezed my eyes together - what is this ploy?
2.  i ignored the phone call (nice try, su)
score: woman is now one up.
then,
3.  su's manager called again and sounded rather upset..... she mentioned something about an electrician and my unit.
hmmmm, that's a curious detail...
4.  i travel the 5 blocks to see su's manager and said electrician;
5.  su's manager introduces me to a respectable looking fellow who claims to be an electrician.....
i'm not sure i'm buyng it...
6.  ok so, turns out he was an electrician.  score: su up one on woman.  damn.
7.  the 3 of us open su;
8.  su's manager was asked to stay around as electrician steps in su with a ladder.
everything seems OK to me,
9.  he has su's manager close and lock the door (so he can place his ladder there i think)
now i know for sure he was a real electrician because he was wearing a headband flashlight.

10.  comes out asks for electrical tape,
what is this?  surgery?
now you have to imagine my su is only about 3 years old - very nice, very modern, no corners cut with in it's creation
11.  i looked around no other su was requiring help.  i even asked.
12.  su's manager comfirms, no other su was involved (my eyes squeezed again)  very fishy
13.   10 minutes later, after lot on internal noise of having electrical tape surgery...the electrician emerges scratching his head (near his headbandflashlight).
ha!
14.  he doesn't know exactly what is wrong....oh, really
15. su's manager insists that there is a correspondence between su and the elevator, each time the elevator moves, su manager says,  it sends out an annoying alarm into the office.
i slap my brow and slowly let air pass through my frown-y lips.  (su is now manipulating both the elevator and her manager.)  it occurs to me that she is winning.

how could she pull this trick, is everyone stupid?
i didn't hear an alarm and the elevator is 4 hall turns away from her.    the electrician, who now suspiciously looks like he could be a relative of su's manager, admitted he could find nothing amiss but decided to double tape su any way.
i had to slap my forehead and leave my hand there.  this time i sucked air deep into my lungs.
here is su's hidden agenda:  she wants to be moved into our bigger storage unit (down the hall) so that i can forget about my art stuff and i will be completely confused.  forever.
well, more completely confused.
so, just to make sure....
16.   i asked about the neighboring units were they in danger?  nope, nothing, no problems.  in fact they were all vacated......
OK,  this made me panic....what if there actually had been an electrical fire, nothing would be involved in this huge new 4 story facility, except my boxes of art stuff.  with empty storage units surrounding her all that extra oxygen... su would burn up in 2 seconds.  i felt faint.
very, very clever.  i stood there considering moving su to bigger su down the hall.
the art supply boxes are very big and heavy-this effort would surely tire me out so that i would cave in and never return to bigger su again..was it worth it?  or should i let her possibly blowup.
i went home and worried all night about my art stuff catching fire.
today, after a big healthy breakfast, i decided to go back in.........to brave whatcomemay.
this story is not finished.......
maybe i should place s&p shakers in bigger su.
truthfully, i wouldn't mind forgetting them.

today: woman v. storage unit

the fight continues.  right now its hard to tell who is winning.  trouble is, my storage unit is comfortable.  there's air conditioning, piped in music and it's very quiet - like a sanctuary.  my unit is in the basement so i feel sheltered.  you know in case of an emergency.
so you see, the storage unit has cheating powers.  it gets to my weaknesses.
of course it has the ultimate power of all over me.  it has my stuff.  i find when i get there with the music, shelter, etc.  i begin to look at my gigantic piles of artstuff no longer as my enemy to conquer.  but my long lost friend.
i couldn't even bring myself to throw out old lists of stamps i bought in 1999.  it's bad.   in fact i longed to do a bit of embossing right then and there.
ok, so there are my dried out paints - they can go, but not my dried out inks - maybe they can be respirated with a bit of warm water.
ha!  i thought it would be easy to throw out old photocopied images - especially the ones that i have duplicates of.........it was easy throwing out my husbands old papers.  not the same.  i found a few images of a 1920's ballerina that i had photocopied from a library book in 2002.  i tried to tell myself that i could always go back to the library and photocopy it again if i so desired (i already only painted her about a million times).... in the trash box it goes......then again....what if the library no longer carries that book.  it was an old book.  i still kinda like ballerinas.........ugh, back out into my stash it goes.
this is how my storage unit confuses and tires me.  and easily gets one up on me.  i am aware of the tactic, but i can't overcome it.
i thought of bringing a friend who is not interested in the least in arts or crafts to help me remove stuff quickly and painlessly.......but i have tried that.  before long,  i find myself in the storage units camp defending it and throwing out the friend.
oh dear.
so today wish me luck.  as i leave the house i feel determined and confident.  woman can win!!!!

it was so lonely.....

out there....trying to shop.

today i took my 16 year old daughter shopping for back to school clothes.  her school starts wednesday.  if you ask me that is too early.  but no one ever asks me.  so here we are.
we went to the downtown mall called horton plaza.  its a beautiful labyrinth of a place in the old gaslamp district of san diego's downtown.
but the mall feels like walking in peewee herman's playhouse.    the floors, the steps, the escalators are all part of entangled maze; an elaborate excuse to keep shoppers confused and stuck in the plaza shopping until they really do drop.      
there are plenty of stores and specialty shops open, enough to keep a teenaged girl interested in buying (with her mom's purse) items.  (it don't think clothes are called clothes when you purchase them - they are then called items).

anyway, we worried that there was a bomb threat earlier or someone called "fire".  why else would it be like this?  the shops were there and they were open, but no one - like a ghost town, was shopping.
sadly i think it is the economy - making visible what we all fear.  there just isn't enough money to go shopping even for school clothes anymore.  only essentials.  and essentials you don't really buy at a mall.  personally, i look for them at discount stores.
i have been uncomfortable and worried about our (as a nation's) financial future.  today really drove the concept home and a stake through the heart.
we could hear our own echo. for god's sake.
finally rosie did buy a few items, but not much - not even shoes....always my favorite back to school accessory.
so, yes,  it was that bad.

maybe aliens stole everyone away.......aliens run around naked don't they?  so why would they care about nordstroms.  interesting.  why would they be there if not to steal humans?  i wonder.  were they there at all?  hmmmm.

oh god, i think the labyrinth messed up my head.

a quick little piece.....

to show sisterhood or friendship.  it can be that simple - a nice gesture to show how you feel.

just want to announce that i will be teaching 2 classes at artfest 2012.

teesha moore runs artfest , an annual art retreat.  its 11 years old now.  she was the first as far as i can tell to come up with the idea of having instructors and students meet for a long weekend.  this works out nicely because the classes take place in fort warden, townsend, washington state (only a short ferry ride from seattle). and since it is a fort - it has a very "at home" incubator feel to it.   instructors and students sort of live together and have lunch together -the experience is robust and keeps everyone inspired for the whole year.
of all retreats out there, i like this one best ......
*blush* maybe because it was my first. *blush*

each year teesha selects the coolest, most original and interesting assortment of instructors who teach unusual classes.   and projects.  (me included - i hope :).  many instructors are well known to the art community.  they are rock stars.
this keeps the same participants returning year after year.
and i think we instructors try very hard to outdo ourselves in bringing it on - that something special that you will not get anywhere else.  it's an honor to teach there.
the students are very involved.  there is an artfest yahoo group that stays active all year.  they cook up ideas like having small art piece exchanges, book collaboratives and swaps of all kinds.
washington state is beautiful - healthy fresh air.  sometimes it rains a little, but mostly it doesn't during our retreat.
even though we are only a hop, skip and a jump away from fork, washington - i have seen no vampires or pasty looking teenagers.
anyway, i'm excited.
i'm teaching a vintage style of painting using old village images and the oversaturated polaroid look using photocopies of snapshots.
just google teesha moore's name with the word artfest.  you will find it.  check out the offering list, you will see what i mean.
and .......loose fitting, sloppy, weird waredrobes are positively accepted. 

headache, plus...

in case you were wondering, i did a great job of maintaining my "bleacher butt" status over the weekend.  my "go rosie's" were pretty good too.  considering.......
 it was all a extra special effort because i felt awful.
when i woke up friday, my head was totally clogged and i have a splitting headache and was generally feeling like death and i wanted to stay in bed.  but this weekend was the jr. olympics,  i needed to overcome the pain if i wanted to make finals in cheering "go" and bleacher sitting (my two best events).
i tried very hard to pamper out the cold.  but it didn't work.  i tried everything.   i took dayquil, hot towels, had a sauna, vapor rub on my chest,  gargling salt, gargling honey, steam bath (with my favorite lavender scent) and then a steam bath while gargling with vapor rub while rubbing lavender on my chest, but nothing worked.  i was beginning to panic.
i even sat yoga style with my hands turned toward God and asked if he would pleeeeeaze help me overcome my problems.  but  God had bigger things to do.

so i  had to work around it.   i rested until it was time to spring into action.
luckily during warm ups and in prelims, my "go" voice held up ok to the other moms' cheering.
listen,  you have no idea how loud and tenacious these women can be.  some even resort to two fingers high pitched whistling.  (if you ask me that's cheating).  definitely worse than a man's whistle.  ear drum puncture awful.  but i fought against them too.

i made finals.  during lunch i noticed my throat was swelling up and my voice was sounding raw.  i gargled ice water (yes.  in the restaurant).
i rested again.
during finals i managed  to shout "goooooo rooosssie" robustly early in the race.  but my voice was going down fast.  in her last 10 meters to the finish my throat failed me.   i really didn't think i could do any more.  i took a big deep breath and  remembered how important this cheering was, i managed to squeeze out one last sound - it was a pubescent sounding squeak- a tiny little "go".    but it was enough.
well done.
we (rosie and me) wanted first place but took third.  not bad the sickly.   i took my weary bones home to rest.  this whole sequence repeated itself for day 2 and day 3. 
yep,  3 days of sitting and screaming.  by the third day my throat was toast and my  "go" sounded like an a soft, pathetic asthmatic wheeze.   then nothing at all.  there should have been a memorial for it.
 i have to say, i was still treated with respect by the other moms - they know my long winded track record.  i smiled and waved to everyone.  it was embarrassing to be seen with a defeated voice.

as for bleacher sitting - i'm a champion - hardly anybody ever defeats me in this event.  i did my best performances over weekend.  the headache and sore throat didn't effect it at all.  i think i might be in running for the national team.   at least that's my goal.
(.....dreaming with soft looking thought bubble...) maybe one day the olympics.  i could compete against mrs. phelps............