Fantasy B

In my massive and well lit studio I have an area completely dedicated to costuming.  Aside from using the space to construct a series of elaborate and bizarre costumes meant for a show of some sort, I love having people swing in with their various costuming ideas and challenges.  For a reasonable fee, I manifest their wildest costume fantasies.  

In the real world, halloween always brings a few friends  knocking at my door in search of minor costume augmentation.  I love doing it, and I often daydream about taking it more seriously.

this one’s for salt

I spent much of today hand forming these little dishes, dreaming up new sensual food comments that I can stamp into the rims.  I am somehow endlessly amused by these double entendres.  Spoon me, squeeze me (for lemons), lick me, devour me, I’m a hotty (for salsa),... Got any good ones?

schizocarp!

This tiny seed pod, actually roughly rice grain sized, is called a schizocarp. Great word, which conjures all kinds of strong imagery for me, none involving tiny seeds.  I looked it up in the dictionary: a dry seed that splits at maturity into two or more closed carpels.  I challenge you to slip the word schizocarp into a regular conversation this week.

don’t eat them

I think these rows of clay beads look like little french confections from a black and white world.  I am gearing up for the ArtChics Sale, November 2-3.  I tend to make an array of small gift items for this sale, which gives me a chance to experiment with various techniques and ideas, then maybe later apply them to larger work.

learning the language

Honestly, I don’t speak fluent cucumber.  I can tell by the many yellow ends and odd twists in my harvested cucs.  If I spent as much time watering, weeding, and generally listening to my garden as I do drawing and stitching it I’d have a veritable veggie jungle.

found heart

I saw this freshly cut branch on a walk in Yachats Oregon.   After spending this weekend with a tribe of vivacious, incredible women and then spending today alone in my studio with only the rain in my gutters to talk with, I feel somewhat like this exposed heart.  We humans are meant to sit in circles, laugh together, eat together, link arms and walk together.  What I do in my studio, I do alone.  BUT, I have this potential to create things that will possibly touch or inspire another person in some future moment.  Art can be communication across time and space. 

if I could knit...

I’d make me one of these!  This photo is from a NG article, Tangible Spirits, but I can see a practical use for these costumes.  We are on day ten of my mother’s visit.  Were I to wear one of these around her it would hopefully serve to distract her from the various unhappinesses and internal conflicts that plague her.  I love my mother, as many daughters love their mothers, with deep affection and a spoonful each of frustration and exhaustion.