Buster

Whoops!

One more thing.

Little Buster, above, is going home in the morning.

He's my daughter Alicia's dog.

He's been a fine studio mate for the past week or so.

It's nice to be around a dog whose heart is full of art.

He and Frankie fought over the "good" bed (for some reason they prefer one over the other) and Lucy, my almost-10-year-old hot dog, pouted on the floor next to my chair. She loves Buster but she hates him.

This is Buster in my studio chair, where he would park himself every time I would get up to do something.

I think that dog has some dominance issues. But I adore him!

Leave it alone...

I couldn't leave it alone.

All afternoon I have been in my little studio with the suitcase from Friday night.

And all afternoon I kept wanting to mess with it.

I've been working on my High Maintenance Girls and I thought it looked like a pretty high maintenance suitcase.

So I added a high maintenance doll.

I love her because I'm pretending she's me.

I was going to put Doris Day because I love Doris, but I didn't have a picture of Doris handy.

So I made this instead.

Now.

I will try to leave it alone.

Those High Maintenance Girls!

I'm just pretty much hooked on drawing these dolls.

I have been making them for a couple years or more. But I never seemed to know how to finish them. Now, I think this does it. (I still have to add the color pencil, but it's too hot in there to dig around doing that. That can wait 'til morning.)

Anyway, sometimes I wish I could settle down and do one thing and stick with it like it seems other successful artists do. I don't know how you make the same thing day after day after day after day and not go out of your mind.

Discipline, maybe.

Enough about that carrying on...

The point is, I am going to have enough of these done to do what I said I would do which is post something for sale. I'm not too worried about these because they will be 1) easy to photograph and 2) easy to photograph.

Who knows what is next.

Looking for a cat, I guess.

I lost Alicia's (my younger daughter's) cat through a window during a storm Saturday (it clawed out the screen) and she is due in tonight from Minnesota to look for him. So I guess I'll look for a cat, even though he hates me and won't come. Poor little George.

And also, goodbye to my little Buster, who I have loved keeping and who I wish was mine. That's Alicia's wiener dog. He's a fine one.

Altering is Altering, Unless it's Life Altering

So, I says to Lynne last night during the middle of our creative endeavor marathon... I says, "Hey! We're doing something completely different from last week (when we altered books)."

And Lynne says, "No we're not. Instead of altering books we're altering suitcases."

Here I was under the impression that we were doing something so radically different and new and outlandish. And here was Lynne, practical as always and head on her shoulders.

Is altering altering no matter the alterations or what's the alteree?

Here's what I do know: Altering changes me more than I change the thing I'm attempting to change.

Altering things has changed the way I look at the world. Everything has potential for altering. Old books. Old jewelry boxes. Old luggage. Old clothes. Old jewelry. Old hats. Old statues. Old habits.

Mostly old habits.

Looking at things for ways to change them and make them your own is what this new millennium is all about. And the green thing too. Reusing. Redesigning. Rethinking. Regreening.

As for me, I hope God keeps altering me.

I hate it, because change is not very fun when you're enduring it.

But I love it, because when God is done with me... well, I'm going to look like one of those high maintenance girls posted earlier. I'm going to have wings.

Love to my LIFE-altering buddy-of-buddies, Lynne.

Love to Jennifer... send me a note when you're settled.

Love to my Tammy who I don't see often but whom I think of day-by-day (how do you like my use of the word WHOM?)

Love to Alicia, whose cat is hiding under my shed.

And love to Ashley, whose Bonsai tree I have begun to alter also.

Also, love to my sister Linda, whose birthday present I have not touched since my last big day with it. How about a nice present for when you turn 50?

Art and the art buddy

It's a rare and phenomenal thing to have an art buddy.

Now, an art buddy is not an art critic; although they do serve in that capacity (often with sharp ridicule that they deem very humorous and that you do not.)

And an art buddy is not a competitor, by far (although you are driven to always do what they just did when you see how cool it turned out.)

And an art buddy is not a person who, when the two of you are together, finds excuses for not getting started (oh, you won't start cleaning your house or cooking your supper... but you will start making something.)

Instead, an art buddy is someone who you can sit quietly (maybe not so quietly) and contentedly beside and make stuff.

Your art buddy doesn't make you nervous.

They don't stress you out if they think your big creation is a crock.

They are never in your way because it doesn't bother you to reach over their head or under their leg or behind their back.

They share their scissors and their glue and their paint and there is hardly ever a fist fight over the gel medium.

Even if your art buddy is like my art buddy, Lynne, and only likes stuff real old ladies would like, they can still be your buddy.

(Not really. Well, sort of this is true. But it's less true now than it used to be. She is changing before my eyes. She has become so wild that she wears bracelets with dingles on them and sometimes even a big giant sized ring.)

An art buddy thinks of things you don't, sees things you don't, knows things you don't, and shows you things you don't imagine.

An art buddy is rare.

An art buddy is a gift.

I got mine from a prayer.

And mine is coming over today to play!

No one or some one... which is worse?

Why is it that so often we find ourselves paralyzed about the inevitable step of either showing or offering for sale a completed art piece?

I don't know which part of the fear is worse: that no one will be interested or that someone actually might. Both seem a terrible fate.

One of the purposes of this blog was to help me overcome my fear of showing my art. But another objective was to prepare the items for sale.

How long am I going to cringe into a sweat just thinking about it? When am I going to just get it over with?

Maybe I just need to set myself a deadline.

I hate deadlines. I hate any sort of timeline. But that's just because I'm a big baby.

So I'll make myself a deal. I'll post for sale by June 11. That's next Wednesday and it should give me a day or two to prepare.

I could almost puke thinking about it and it sure makes my head hurt worse.

High Maintenance Girls

Another Monday.

Working on the altered book with my buddy Lynne gave me the confidence to go ahead and risk ruining my art dolls (a.k.a., high maintenance girls) by trying a process I had seen in a book about artist trading cards. I tried it first in the altered book and liked it. It involves applying gesso to an art project then utilizing the underlying pattern and colors as a template for the piece.

Here are the results so far. They aren't quite finished, but I kind of like how they are starting out. (I think if you click on them you'll get a bigger image which will show greater detail... as Alicia used to say, "I think, but I don't know.")

Everything on these pieces is hand drawn in ink, which feels risky and can be nerve wracking when a wiener dog is bouncing your arm around. That is why it is so important to realize that perfection is a myth for us human doings.

I'm hoping to complete a set of these dolls to incorporate into greeting cards.

Do you like them or do you just think they are weird? I think they are kind of fantastical... they remind me of my favorite mantra: In our dreams we are able to fly. And that is a remembering of how we were meant to be.

Hope your week started well! d.