female retail therapy

the last few days i've been doing a little online retail therapy to get my mind off things. i haven't really found anything worth mentioning, a few hooks for the bathroom and other odds and ends. i did stumble upon this site: cribcandy. and on the first page was this vase. i thought it was kinda funny, given light of our current situation. of course, this gave me the idea find more tasteful reproductive art.

exalted beauty uterus medallions. 30 one-of-a-kind art jewelry pieces created by amy e. fraser.

a series of plates about fertility and sex by nina levett.

not to worry. you won't be seeing these at our next holiday function. although they would make for some great conversation pieces!

mary's gone wild

when we were at holden beach a couple of weeks ago, we passed by this crazy house on our way to get haircuts. we all did a double-take and decided we'd have to stop by on our way back. it definitely wasn't a disappointment. we walked in and there wasn't a surface that hadn't been painted with some sort of image or color. it looked like the "trash heap" from fraggle rock had exploded and mary had decided to paint what she could. she had mentioned something about being on t.v. and after doing a little research i found someone had actually made a documentary about her.

most of the artwork were old windows that had been painted and the average price for one was about $100. of course i kept thinking, "i can do that." and in fact i had. a couple of years ago i had painted a window for aaron's dad. he had gotten a winter scened window at a craft fair and wanted a spring scene to swap out when appropriate. it turned out really nice and i'll have to get a picture of it next time we're back there.

anyways, i didn't buy any artwork but i did buy an old scrabble game for $2. (she also has her house jam-packed with antiques/junk.) it's funny cause i couldn't remember her name, but "crazy mary" kept popping up in the back of my mind when i thought about her. if you're ever in the area check out mary and her "wild" house!

Recycling the unwanted goods of others with a fun-lovin' sense of humor, bright colored paints, and great faith, Mary has built a magical garden for all to enjoy, and to help feed the hungry children of the world.

art-o-mat

this past weekend aaron and i went to the wedding of the son of aaron's boss. it's weird to go to a wedding when you've only met the groom in passing and you've never met the bride. it was more of a courtesy attendance than anything. we got all dolled up and had a good time nonetheless.

the reception was at the turchin center for the visual arts here in boone. a really nice venue with modern art and exhibits surrounding us. when we entered the lobby i spotted the art-o-mat immediately. i had heard of them but this was the first time i'd actually seen one. what is the art-o-mat? they are "retired cigarette vending machines that have been converted to vend art." unfortunately i didn't have any cash on me to vend some art. but next time i'm in the area, i'll have to give it a go.

surprisingly there are two vending machines located in boone. which is crazy since there are only 82 throughout the whole country. i'm actually considering submitting something for vending. it'd be great to have somebody by your art on a whim!

loco for gocco

i finally busted out the gocco machine i bought months ago. i've been hoarding it, waiting for the perfect image to reproduce. (bulbs can only be used once and screens can not be cleaned and re exposed with a new image) knowing this, i may have never used it! well i decided to bite the bullet and find a decent image to give it a test run. i watched a few "how-to" videos this morning and this afternoon i started the presses.

this is the original image i got from istockphoto. it's a simple, clean image that i converted to grayscale. at first i had it completely black and white but i noticed while i was thumbing through the example booklet that came with the machine it had grayscale screens on some of the images. (all the instructions are in japanese, hence the video watching) so i went back and added a 30% and 50% screen on the trees. unfortunately, when i exposed the image, i lost all the grayscale screens. not sure if it can't do screens or if my screens were too light. i'll figure it out eventually.

the image is still decent so i went ahead with test run. i spread brown ink on the screen and began printing. it takes some getting used to. knowing how much ink to use and making sure it's spread evenly. i was able to print about 20 in the brown and after cleaning and reapplying red ink, printed about 20 more. i used the ink sparingly. it's supposed to print up to 80 with a good inking. all in all it was a good test run. now that i've started, i may not stop.

it runs in the family

my uncle dick won the 'world wide trails top outdoor photograph of 2007' contest. the local paper wrote an article about him in sunday's paper. the photo and the article were on the front page of the outdoor Xplore section. way to go, uncle dick! being artistically inclined does run in the family.

his name is john, my dad's name is john, and my grandpa's name was john. so we called him: dick, my dad: joe, and my grandpa: jack. just thought i'd clarify. it made sense at the time! ;)

gocco pg-5

my most recent purchase: a tabletop printing press


i'm extremely excited about this acquisition. so many possibilities. along with bulking up my fabric stash with lots of cute japanese prints. things are moving forward. i've been feeding my minds eye for weeks. soon, my friends, soon.