Our Open Studio!

Please come! This Friday! 6pm!

Etsy update

Well it only took me a whole effing week, but I've got some new stuff up on Etsy, you should go look! Click the picture!

Movin' on up to the Northside.

Attention, attention:

We bought a house.

We're closing on June 13th.

I can't stop GRINNING, seriously.

Northside, look out.

1229 Windsor Avenue!

Everything is coming up milhouse.

I am really happy right now.

The Bada Bing was a success!

I did have a minor freak out this morning in the rain, and almost cried because I felt like I was the least professional person of everyone at the show, but it turned out that I fit right in, for the most part. Sold a bunch of stuff, got about 4 wholesalers interested, and got a ton of people interested in custom orders, which is cool. There were crowds around my table! It was also neat that there were so many people from outside VA who had traveled here to sell stuff. I met a bunch of cool people, including the guy from Figs and Ginger, who was really nice. They use all recycled metal, which is awesome!

I came home and immediately slept for about two hours, without stirring.

Tomorrow, the Falcon!

Here's a big shout out to Pete, for putting up with me for the past two weeks while I smelled like solder all of the time, and was totally panicked and bitchy. Thanks, Pete. It'll be easier next time, like at the Charm City Craft Mafia Pile of Craft!

Note about above pictures: No matter how much I try to have a color palette, there always seems to be a rainbow in everything that I do. Oy.

What are you doing on this Rainy Sunday?

Come see me at the Bada Bing!
*I am so nervous that I may pass out*

Goodbye, car loan.

It's mine! It's a 1961 Ford Falcon!
Bench seats, giant steering wheel, purple and blue interior, ashtray on the back of the front seat, metal glove compartment, old ass everything, it's all mine!

I had to fess up to Mama last night and let her know, and though I thought she would freak out, she said "Good! Uncle Jimmy would be proud." You see, old cars are just in my blood, and it made me feel good to know that mom thinks this is a good decision too.

I'm only 24 for another whole month, and before I officially hit my mid-twenties, making large monetary life decisions still makes me queasy.

Que Sera.

Alas, I had to bid farewell to the beautiful Ford Falcon below. Almost 1,500 in necessary repairs made it impossible to afford.

I have been frowning for over 18 hours, but I am hot on the trail of a 54 Plymouth Savoy, which J. Cash once called "the best car he's ever owned."



So, we'll just see about that.

If it checks out at the mechanic...

My world's about to get a lot more awesome.

Fail? Not this dog.

Ps: I got into the Spring Bada Bing! It's the biggest Indie Craft Fair in the WORLD!!!! (In Virginia.) How crazy is THAT?

Momentary rewards for the battle of being.

Original version, Smith notebook 28 (c. 1940s) final version c. 1950
I would like to make sculpture that would rise from water and tower in the air– that carried conviction and vision that had not existed before that rose from a natural pool of clear water to sandy shores with rocks and plants that men could view as natural without reverence or awe but to whom such things were natural because they were statements of peaceful pursuit–and joined in the phenomenon of life Emerging from unpolluted water at which men could bathe and animals drink–that harboured fish and clams and all things natural to it I don’t want to repeat the accepted fact, moralize or praise the past or sell a product I want sculpture to show the wonder of man, that flowing water, rocks, clouds, vegetation, have for the man in peace who glories in existence this sculpture will not be the mystical abode of power of wealth of religion Its existence will be its statement It will not be a scorned ornament on a money changer’s temple or a house of fear It will not be a tower of elevators and plumbing with every room rented, deductions, taxes, allowing for depreciation amortization yielding a percentage in dividends It will say that in peace we have time that a man has vision, has been fed, has worked it will not incite greed or war That hands and minds and tools and material made a symbol to the elevation of vision It will not be a pyramid to hide a royal corpse from pillage It has no roof to be supported by burdened maidens It has no bells to beat the heads of sinners or clap the traps of hypocrites, no benediction falls from its lights, no fears from its shadow this vision cannot be of a single mind– a single concept, it is a small tooth in the gear of man, it was the wish incision in a cave, the devotion of a stone hewer at Memphis the hope of a Congo hunter It may be a sculpture to hold in the hand that will not seek to outdo by bulky grandeur which to each man, one at a time, offers a marvel of close communion, a symbol which answers to the holder’s vision, correlates the forms of woman and nature, stimulates the recall sense of pleasurable emotion, that momentarily rewards for the battle of being

In 2006, every night for 14 days I made these images, and represented here are day 1 and day 14. Every night also, I read David Smith's "What is your hope," and Questions to Students. The two questions that always stick with me, of the whole three page list that I still occasionally lose myself in, are:

21. Why do you hesitate--why can you not draw objects as freely as you can write their names and speak words about them?

22. What has caused this mental block? If you can name, dream, recall vision and auras why can’t you draw them? In the conscious set of drawing, who is acting in our unconscious as censor?


If you're looking for something to do this morning, read the whole list here:

http://www.davidsmithestate.org/statements.html

Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Commission- finished!

Last night I sat in my studio drinking beers and working on 22 tiny little necklaces for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Gala: Starry Night. The design was a collaboration between myself and a CF patient named Lily Constine. She drew the original image, and then I watercolored, cut, soldered, strung and boxed. They were delivered today, hoorah!

Mission accomplished.

For want of a photograph

Back when I let my shoulders sunburn until they peeled, when I was a summer runaway and the winter was a waiting game, payphones were still a place to wait for phone calls from civilization. I spent a good deal of time between 1999 and 2006 in a tiny, ramshackle phone booth with a sinking wooden plank floor and graffiti from 40+ years of people running away and to the same things as me.

During the coldest winter nights, I would bundle up in my navy blue room with down blanket as jacket, and I would dial the number for that payphone and just let it ring. I'd close my eyes and imagine the yellow light in the shack warming the ground around it, and the ring echoing, bouncing off of the frozen ground. I would let it ring until my heart was wrung out.

I felt a little like that phone booth last night, when I turned out every light in the whole building and only left my studio light on. For a moment I shut my eyes and I listened to everything ring, and felt the ground begin to thaw beneath my feet.