white noise

While I have a few minutes to spare as my latest batch of beads cures in the oven, I’m posting pictures of some first-time projects. First, there is Hope, an Altoid tin doll:

She’s the product of an A-HAA workshop Melissa lead us through last April or May. I think it was for our May meeting, but without checking my calendar, I don’t know for certain. Hope’s one of those projects that pushed me out of my comfort zone; she’s not very minimalist, which I tend to think of as a direct opposite to altered art. Here’s a peek inside:

Also on my list of firsts is a vessel I created by covering a paper wine box with polymer clay:

and:

It’s rough, but turned out better than I anticipated. The paper rolled up inside is also a first attempt at making paper. I use “first” loosely since I did make paper in a class once long, long ago. Paper making is messy and hard work, with little return, but the results are often very rewarding. I also like to think of it as helping the environment because I reuse junk mail paper (and used coffee filters!) instead of just throwing it out.

So just a few additions. Will add more as time allows.

Tags: Altered Art, Handmade, Tins

Meet Coral:

This last workshop with A-HAA was tough (i.e. a challenge) for those not really inclined to learn how to sew. Thankfully, our shop leader this month, Melissa, did much of the sewing for us. I’d swear my own sewing machine (Jon’s, actually) has fangs and growls at me. It’s a polar bear in disguise. Really.

Regardless of my frustration with the sewing, I strove to finish my art doll, not only to say I finished yet another project, but to delve into a whole new skill set. Now, I get to practice cutting straight lines, drawing them, AND sewing them. Rounded bits come later. The bonus? I’m pretty sure I can make oven mitts now.

Tags: Fiber Art, Sewing

So I need to do a bit of catching up. Consistency isn’t my strongest suit, though I’ve learned that my time is limited either to doing art or talking about it. I rather like the doing. Of course, I could spend 1 of my 3 hours of TV time doing something more productive, but by the time I hit the couch my brain has already liquefied and I’m thinking how much more damage can the TV really do? Television is BAD for you, people. It sucks your soul out through your eyeballs and eats your brain cells as if they were Lays(R) Brand tater chips!

So, guess what I got for Christmas. Yes, you guessed it, a TiVo!

Eh, onward and upward.

My greatest frustration (besides wedding arrangements) this month has been in learning to take decent photos in order to post them. Jon is patient; his face never melts around his eyes every time *I* have a meltdown because my “pictures are fuzzy!” And, I am learning. Slowly.

We had super-great fun this past Christmas. We made 30+ Christmas Cards by hand, envelopes included, and some of them turned out spectacular despite a handful of glaring mistakes. Most of those mistakes readily disappeared under hills of glue, tape, paper, and embellishments. Draw a line that isn’t straight enough? No worries, cover it with double-sided sticky tape and pretty ribbon. Tah dah, said line has vanished!

We made apple butter:

And dog biscuits:

And about 4 dozen too many cookies. Nevertheless, it was all good fun and rather fulfilling. I haven’t done a strictly hand-crafted Christmas since about 1995 or earlier and I was beginning to feel too commercialized.

Granted, my artistic abilities have also suffered since then, too. Yes, it’s my fault. Really. I let working at the jail and cleaning up my family’s messes overrule my common sense. The freedom I have now has supercharged my creativity. I’ve had to slog through a lot of emotional baggage. I felt weak and vulnerable for so long that I forgot I could be strong, brave, independent, etc. Now, although I think my art is still timid and unsure of itself, I believe it is evolving in many good ways. For example, I finished a wine box conversion I started, hmmm … 12 years ago:

I find the outside of this box a little too conservative, but I haven’t yet learned how to balance my minimalist nature with the “ALTER THE HELL OUT OF IT, WOMAN” mentality that screams inside my head and demands to be heard (and explored). The inside of the box is my gem. I love how easily it came together with the vision I had before I started. I’ve turned the project into my “letter box”, a place to store my calligraphy equipment. I’m on a roll to overcome that whole, “but I’m a lefty and can’t DO calligraphy!” attitude I’ve been carrying since I was 19 and figured out how damn complicated you right-handers can make my life. :P The WHOLE world was reborn this December when Jon asked the magic question.

No, not that magic question. THE magic question: “Do you have a real pair of left-handed scissors?”

Well, I thought I did. Turns out, I didn’t. Holy wow, what a difference that question has made in my ability to cut a straight line. God bless the man; he’s a keeper!

Tags: Altered Art, Recycled

I told her I’d dreamt of her,

of the humpback melting into a mermaid
dancing in a white gown, tail fins
discreetly tucked into satin slippers.

I told her of the wildebeest, of how it
transformed, leaping into the shaded grove
and sprinting out again a unicorn.

I told her the details meant only
for coaxing smiles. I left out
the part about how, beneath it all,
she hadn’t changed.

Celaeno was born, after all,
not transfigured.

—
Note: The characters I imagine in this are Iris and Celaeno. Iris is speaking of her sister, Celaeno (one of the three harpies in Greek mythology), but I think the Gorgon, Euryale, might better represent the ugliness within people which superficial, outward changes (such as plastic surgery) cannot eradicate.

11/17/07 — odd how simple a problem can be fixed if one just stares at it long enough. While exchanging the name Celaeno with the more general term “harpies” doesn’t necessarily clarify the speaker, it does tie the mythical elements together (I think) better.

Many of the transformation stories throughout mythology (i.e. the beauties turned ugly) seem to stem from aging: she was born beautiful, but she died a whithered old hag. It’s the gods’ fault, right? Otherwise, how could someone so young and beautiful end up looking like that (say, for example: Charybdis)? So, it seems only natural they’d (the ancient civilizations) blame “ugliness” on the gods. Physical transformation, in the modern sense, has become commonplace and it starts when we’re young, right after our adult teeth grow in (crooked). I’m sure there are other “deformities” before we establish adult teeth, but changing our appearance and “fighting the signs of aging” are a constant, especially for girls and women.

(In loving memory of Specialist Wayne M. Geiger of the 3rd Squadron,
2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, Vilseck, Germany, 18 October 2007)

I made a card for you, but even full of words,
it felt empty.

I trimmed a small paper heart
and rimmed its ridges red, white, and blue.
I pressed it to the front of your card,
carefully secured: a badge with its mourner’s band.

Across the band I wrote your name
but a trembling hand shook the pen, rained
tiny silver beads too much like tears.
Ruined, I thought as I watched them dry.
Then I mailed the card anyway, addressed
it to your mother.

Your father said she had known,
had slept heartsick with premonition,
and cried herself to sleep the night before
anyone else knew. When morning came
so did the soldiers, their faces a grim confirmation:
indeed, the war had taken you.

I trace memories of you, now in bright contrast,
against the darkness of my own sorrow.
I hear the flags swing at half-mast in your name,
that the halls of our alma mater are filling;
the bereaved come together bringing
candles and wreaths, clutching little flags
and sharing their memories of you.

I’m so far from home today, unable to serve your family,
unable to serve as you’ve served me. Instead,
I’ve mailed my heart to them. And I pray
it will help see them through.

—

Note: This is a revised version of the poem I sent to Kim after hearing of Wayne’s death. I’d already talked to Randy, or rather, I tripped over my own sadness and disbelief in an effort to let him know how sorry I am. I kept thinking of Kim, though, and the worries she voiced when Yana and I visited the two of them in Lone Pine this past June. One would have to know these two to truly understand: half of their legacy is now gone. I am so heartbroken for them, but also for all the moms, dads, brothers, and sisters out there. So many lives are swallowed up by war — not just those it kills — but those left standing, too.