Completeandutterchaos

is my middle name.

Friends and family

Here we are, back from vacation! It was a fun whirlwind to North Carolina and back. Good times were had with family and friends - lots of laughs happened. We celebrated Matt's little sister's birthday; spent a soul-reviving few days with the Immortal Mountaineers and toured Cadyn's beautifully curated shop gathered in Front Royal, Virginia; and met up with another good friend to disassemble the awesome gift he and his partner are bestowing on us, a 16x20 canvas tent and platform which we'll live in on our land in Vermont next summer. Finally there was a wedding in Durham, with excellent food, music, and chardonnay that flowed so freely it nearly washed me out to sea. I have recovered.

In the picture above, it's a bear's head mushroom on the cutting board, not some bizarre orb from the etherworld. Or maybe it's both. Matt found it on a tree in North Carolina where we were camping, and we chopped it up and put it in our curry.

Our lives have been underwritten by the great generosity of others over the past month or so. I was so busy before this trip that I didn't take time to feel really grateful for that. Friends and family have offered up material things along with support and excitement as we plan our next move, north. We won't be outta here til the spring, but we're getting our ducks in a row. And I mean that literally. I'm buying ducks, damn it.

this week, a beast

It's a bear with some rose hips!

Things haven't improved any with my brain function. But that isn't all bad - like yesterday, here's what happened. I had tallied up all my completed drawings, based on my multiple countings, my torn apart scrap paper lists, my hormones, and the position of the moon relative to this and that but nothing much. I need a total of thirty pieces for the two shows I have coming up. My precise calculations had shown, disappointingly, that I had only 24 that were exhibit-worthy.

Then I says to myself, you know, you're more of a pictures person than a numbers person, so maybe you should spread all the drawings out on the bed, and see where you're at, just to be sure. Lo and behold, I had thirty-three totally acceptable drawings! That means I was off by, like, a really big percent. Which is no matter - I'm going on vacation soon, and my to-do list just shrank measurably. That puts it not quite into the can-do realm of things, but closer.

The moral of this story is, sometimes your own ineptitudes will delight you in the end!

the Each Week, One Beast project: week ?

The beasts are on hiatus, because their maker is overwhelmed. I feel like doing what Otto is doing above, fleeing from his responsibilities. Matt bought me an enormous bottle of gin, and it wouldn't be hard to go sit with it out in the garden, with the season's last flowers, and then eventually tip over, from which perspective I could enjoy the vees of geese as they pass by.

One thing about this art business is that my busy season is the holidays. Or so it seems - I'm still learning. So - I'll be sharing what I'm working on as I'm working on it, and beasts will come on an irregular basis, and if you want to come visit me, I'll make you an awesome cocktail and we'll sit on the back porch and not answer any of our email or fulfill any of our promises.

The f'n clutch

I haven't been around here much lately. So, I can tell you where I haven't been, but I'm not sure where I have been. I drove a friend's car to Philly and back this week. I'd never driven it before, and it's kind of newfangled, and I couldn't figure out how to put the car in reverse. So I called my husband to ask him how to do it, and told him that the solution he offered was totally implausible, impossible, and uncomprehendingly ridiculous. And here I am, there I was, stuck in my parking spot, with a curb in front of me, and nowhere to go but backwards. But I couldn't.

Then I pulled out the owner's manual, and it said, do what your husband just told you. And, well, shit, it worked.

So that sounds like a pretty DUH kind of moment, right? But wait - it gets better! Today, I needed to bring the car back to my friend. But it wouldn't start, so I said - silly old me, I left the lights on, the battery is dead. I fetched Matt and told him to please jump start it, which he did. It still wouldn't start, and Matt said, are you pushing the clutch in? And well, no, I wasn't, and no, I hadn't been, and yes, the battery was just fine all along, as it turns out!

Which brings us to the question: Where the hell has my brain gone? And it also brings us back around to the start of this post - and I do seem to be going round in circles a lot lately - but where am I, in addition to my brain? If you see either one of us, me or my brain, just sort of doodling along distractedly (distracted - the condition Matt has kindly diagnosed me with, instead of brain addled, which is what I might actually be), will you send us back round here, where we might bump into one another? Thanks.

the Each Week, One Beast project: weeks 34 and 35

Well, these beasts just don't draw themselves. I didn't post one last week, and I'm just barely making it this week. I've been drawing plenty, but nothing I feel like sharing. So. I've just done these Ottos, they took about seven minutes, and they're way better than the other Ottos I worked on for, like, a million hours. Does this say something about my usual technique?

I've been trying out these little fast side-of-the-pencil-lead sketches because I think they help me loosen up and determine the basic shapes a someone ought to be, before thinking about details. They're fun and satisfying.

Other than that, I have only one other little happy event to tell you about. The baker's brand new 25 pound sack of organic dark chocolate chips took a tumble (which Otto had NOTHING to do with) off the stack of boxes by the flour. This sucked for the baker because a bunch of them spilled, and while I really did feel sympathy for Matt and his lost investment, it's hard to feel very sorry for someone when their misfortune is your big bowl of chocolate, you know? Floor chips really can't be baked into cookies for customers, but they can be eaten by your wife. That's lucky old me.

Happy weekend, everyone.

More night windows

meadow hunt

 

lover and the cabin

 

the surprise coon

 

shelling peas

 

coming storm

Here's the rest of my series for the Enormous Tiny Art Show. Of course I drew Otto the cat, who is both Enormous and Tiny. The six pieces are now available on their website.