Leftovers!!

Oh what a lovely mid day snack I received in the post today!!!  Leftovers!  Thank you Wingtip Press!

And this was just the begining!  Check out the awesome art I received in this wonderfully delicious print exchange!

 

Bon Appetit!

Update Number 53.5

Almost Monday's booth before revamp!

Hello!  You may notice some changes to my little bloggity blog site over the next few weeks!  Hopefully for the better! It will be turning into more of an all inclusive website.  But don't fret! I'll still be blogging! hehe
As always I enjoy feed back!

I'll leave you with a photo from this past weekend's PedalNation.  I was part of 6 "bike crafters" pedaling our wears!  Check out Randi Jo Fabrications and Bike Cozy for some handmade bicycling goodness!  They are on either side of me in this photo!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

From Under a Rock

Just a quick note to say "I'm still here!".  My spring fever turned to a real fever and I was sick sick sick last week!  Then all weekend at Pedal Nation pedaling my wares! Now, I'm digging myself out from under a weeks worth of laundry and dishes!

But soon I'll be planning a new booth set up just in time for Crafty Wonderland's  Super Colossal Spring Sale! And of course printing some new items!

More soon!!!

Spring Fevered!

It's raining, but I still have spring fever.  Thank the kitties I'm not stuck in a cubicle today.  Every year Spring Fever arrives in varying degrees.  I think it's a bit late arriving this year, but thankfully it's here!  I think it's the closest I ever come to mania! 

Adding this to my print packages

I'm packaging and printing and planning for this weekends PedalNation and just last night found out I'll actually have a booth at the Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Spring Sale! Thank you who ever dropped out and made that opening just for Almost Monday!

I've just completed month 5 of unemployment, for those of you counting.  And just to rehash, I don't count the month I was in Japan as I couldn't collect the dole while out of the country.  Plus that was vacation!  Ah, Japan, my heart aches and pines for you. 

These are all new items I've been working on! They aren't in my Etsy shop just yet. But soon!!










 Aren't you tired of all the blaming and hate going around these days?  I sure am!  So here's my political statement.

Common Ground = bike ride!

Spoon Fed

I made mention in a previous blog "Generosity Created the Cat" of the SPOON Foundation's upcoming event.  But wanted to share it again!  For those of you here in Ptown this is a great opportunity to support the cause and have a wonderful time trying many different cart foods!  For those of you out of town, you may not know this but Portland is now know for it's food cart pods! They are everywhere!  Think of any food you could ever want, and wowza!, there's a cart serving it up!  It's true!!  Please read below for more info on the SPOON Foundation and the event!

Cart Night at the Ballroom: A Food Cart Fundraising Event to Benefit Orphan Nutrition.

SPOON Foundation, a Portland based non-profit focused on international orphan nutrition,
announces Cart Night @ the Ballroom, a unique food cart tasting event to benefit the
health and hope of our world’s orphaned and adopted children.

On Thursday April 7, 2011, from 6:00-9:00 PM, over 10 Portland food carts will set up tastings
of their best cart fare inside the Village Ballroom, located at 700 NE Dekum in Portland.
Attendees will get the opportunity to sample the unique food offerings from such local food
carts as Namu Killer BBQ, Nuevo Mexico, Mum’s Kitchen, Pepper Box, Robb’s Really Good
Food and Hungry Heart Cupcake. To wash down all the food, beer will be donated by the
Village Ballroom’s neighbor, Breakside Brewery.

In addition to unique food, the event includes live music from Jesse Lee Young Trio, door
prizes from KEEN, and a silent auction, with such items as VIP backstage passes to the film-
ing of Leverage and VIP tickets to the DEW Tour. Portland author Kelley Roy will also be in
attendance, signing donated copies of her book CARTOPIA.

Tickets are $45 in advance, $55 at the door on the day of the event. Ticket price include
the cost of food.

To purchase tickets and to learn more about orphan nutrition, please visit the SPOON
Foundation website, www.spoonfoundation.org. For a complete list of participating food
carts, updates on silent auction items, and deals on tickets visit the SPOON Foundation
Facebook page (facebook.com/SPOONfoundation). All proceeds from this Cart Night will
benefit the SPOON foundation, a non-profit working to improve the nutrition of orphaned,
fostered and adopted children.

About SPOON Foundation

The SPOON Foundation is a Portland based non-profit whose mission is to improve the nutrition of orphaned, fostered and adopted children so they can grow and thrive. SPOON’ s Orphan Nutrition Project is the first worldwide effort to uncover and prevent nutritional deficiencies that impede the development of orphaned children. The project was piloted in Kazakhstan in 2009 and has made great strides in changing the way governments nourish young orphans around the world.

Art is a Luxury? *WTF?

I was meeting with my AA group yesterday.  That's Art Accountability group to you!  And a certain someone brought up how her family was taught that art is a luxury. And the 3rd person in our group agreed!!! I was SHOCKED to say the least.  Art is NOT a luxury, especially for an artist.  Art is a *M.F'en necessity!

A little Rococo for ya!

I'm still in shock.  Image, if you will, there is no art. Look around you.  Bare walls, no color, every piece of furniture ceases to have style.  Every house would look a-like, all our clothes would only be utilitarian.  Art is embedded into every nook and cranny of our cultures.  You might not think of yourself as an artist, but every time you arrange your furniture, pick a particular combo of clothes, paint a room, arrange a flower vase, you are expressing yourself.  You are creating a composition.  You are, in fact, living art.  

Horse
c. 15,000-10,000 BC
Lascaux, Franc

Now, if you don't consider
yourself and artist, and apparently even if you are an artist,  you may disagree with me. But you'd be wrong.  :) Art has been an integral part of society.  I'll spare the art history lesson today.

Function without form?  Sounds horrible.  For me, art is a necessity! A staple in life's my diet.  My hope is that it becomes that for you too!  A life without expression hardly seems worth living.  

Disagree?  I'd love to hear why!  Agree?  Do tell!!


*M.F'en is my abbreviation for a shocking offensive pairing of swear words, same for WTF! :) Just in case you didn't know.

If at First I Don't Succeed, Try Try Again?

I have a confession to make. and it's not a pretty one. I don't like doing things I'm not good at.  I've never been one of those people who can take a look at a part of themselves that's weak and work to make it stronger.  I have to already have an interest and a natural ability for it and then I am more than happy to develop it.

But that's not to say I can't/don't work hard, or that I can't learn new things.  It's just that it doesn't come naturally to me.  So it's hard for me to keep going at something when I feel like I'm failing. Like applying for jobs, applying for art things, getting out of bed in the morning. haha Some days it's a lot like this! 

Right now things feel a little sucky.  Rome rejection, another job rejection, some other art issues that feel like failure. But then I read a story about Hideaki Akaiwa diving in to the tsunami to save his wife, and then 4 days later putting on that diving gear again to find his mother. Or a heart wrenching story about how socks and letters are making people happy when they have nothing left. And about all the people and animals who are dead, devastated, or displaced in Japan and I feel really ashamed and weak.  I have nothing to complain about compared to thousands of people in Japan.  Don't even get me started about the rest of the world.  Not to mention the people I know who are struggling with their health, or people who have been unemployed a lot longer than me, or the homeless just down the street.

How do you keep perspective when the little things add up and seem bigger than they are?  I have a great life! It's just when the pressure of the "norms" weigh in it gets hard to remember that.  Expectations that I should have a *career working 40+ hours a week, a health plan, a 401k with thousands of dollars, a bigger house, etc. can cause me to question my desire to make art and my overwhelming urge to travel.  A *prestigious job,a big house, a new car, fancy clothes, none of those things are important to me.  We all need reminded of the great things we have in our lives, so I made this for me.  It's certainly not fancy, but it gets the point across.  :)

I'm going to try to remember the good things and try not to let the every day "life" things add up and get in my way!

Happy Saturday everyone! I hope it's sunny where you are!


*But that's not to say if I had a job I loved that it wouldn't fulfill some of those desires to create and make difference in other peoples lives. If I could only find that job creating art that would save the world! :)