My heart's dark but it's rising, i'm pulling all the faith I can see.

Pete got us last minute tickets to Bruce Springsteen! It was amazing and wonderful and I'll always remember it. He didn't play Thunder Road, but maybe we'll get to see him again. He did this amazing thing where he just started taking everyone's request posters and saying "yeah, that's easy, we'll do that....no, not that one, keep trying...Oh my god that's the worst song we've ever recorded..." and he was JUMPING ALL OVER THE STAGE and being amazing. He kept yelling RICHMOOOOOND!!!!

The encore was like an hour long and he played Born to Run and Rosalita and Mary's Place! The whole place was vibrating. And the guy next to Pete was so weird and awesome. Oh also I was on the jumbo-tron, but I don't have a picture of that, unfortunately.

Thanks, Pete!
Also, look, I've lost 25 pounds!

From a quieter than usual northside cottage.

Saturday night found us reclined around a good-smelling fire in my backyard, drinking Malt Liquor and toasting a farewell to Taylor and Juliette.

After the inevitable "we better get going..." I got quiet and misty-eyed and could only choke out a "we'll hold your spot in Richmond until you get back," and a few minutes later we sent them off to Philadelphia. I found myself spending the next few minutes trying to recall what Taylor wrote about me leaving Fredericksburg in his zine, and all I could remember was the last sentence, which was something like "and we can't seem to remember why she left."

I guess that's the thing. As we all shoot off in a million directions and find what it is we're being pulled towards, we're pulled apart from each other, and it's hard for anyone to understand why.

Richmond misses you.

And while we're at it.

This one is extra cute in the mornings.

This n' that.

I love angry employee signs. "SOMEONE" is a WIMP and can't handle the heat.

I am so excited for this. SO EXCITED AHHH I LOVE THE MOVIES.


Pete had an interview at Capital One so we had to go to Francos on Lakeside for a suit adventure. The people were very nice and helpful but it was so boringggggg in there...

So I spent 20 minutes pretending to be a foot model. LOOK at that carpet. Yech.


We're almost settled, getting there. Pictures of studio soon, having some shelving issues so I'm not totally unpacked.

Woozy morning.

Well, I'm knee deep in custom orders, trying to finish them all and mail them out tomorrow, but two things of note:

1. Art:latenight is tonight! Three free workshops (Bookmaking basics, Glass Pendants and Image transfers) and FREE wine and beer. YOU SHOULD COME! 1812 West Main Street @ 8pm.

2. I'm on the fat smash diet detox: Day 3. Oy.

Best craft show ever!

Big ups (!) to the Charm City Craft Mafia for hosting the 2nd annual Pile of Craft, a show with profits so good it made me question my cushy, health-insurance office job existence, if only for a minute or two.

Come! It's FREE AND AWESOME and it was my idea!

Kiss me, I'm connected.

Look I already know that I am a megalomaniac, indulge me.

LOOK HOW LONG MY HAIR IS!!!

From the closet of a reformed New York Catholic

I'm cleaning out some stuff at my parents house.
Any takers?
SIKE.

edit: That bouquet is made of fake roses, fake baby's breath and FOLDED UP DOLLAR BILLS, if you wondered.

Achtung, bitte!

So yesterday I got a phone call at work from a man named Johannes Wiebus, a German Television producer. I am not sure how he knew how to find me, but he said that he saw me on the front page of the newspaper two weeks ago and wanted to film and interview me for a piece he is doing for German TV about rising gas prices and how Americans are coping.

So, I guess he flew into America last night (DC) and is driving down here this morning?

I am thrilled and also freaked out for this weird ass adventure. I am also wondering how he knew where I worked and why he didn't ask for Directions. Don't worry friends, I am always the skeptic and will not fall prey to any "show us your boobs" techniques, no matter how veiled.

In choosing my outfit for my German Television debut I was careful to continue the little known German belief that the Brady Bunch is an accurate depiction of current American Fashion:

Oh my god.

Out of control birthday sandwiches.
My leftovers are the size of a REGULAR sandwich.
The Black Sheep is amazing.

Proof of a good early birthday weekend.

Nice!

I got in!

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.

Despite the weather.

No, Utah!

Last night was the Visual Arts Center of Richmond's reception for the Southern Graphics Council 2008 Printmaking Conference: Command Print. It was awesome to see so many young, weird people in the center, really really encouraging. I was supposed to be bartending but Michael didn't want any help so I just drank and talked to people from Utah. We at the bartender table agreed that printmakers are nerds.

We later saw the Utah-ians at Ipanema, and the fact that our beer has more than 3.5% alcohol made for some pretty drunk SLC Punks. We watched one of them walk off arm in arm with a homeless hustler, and our shouts of "No! Utah! Stay here with your friends!" did nothing to dissuade him, as he tossed us the middle finger behind his back (not sure why) and rounded the corner of Grace and Harrison with the hustler. Oh, poor Utah.

With just over three hours of actual sleep under my belt, I look like a wilted dollbaby.

On my scooter ride home at 2:30am, I pulled over to write down the phrase "Superhero Saint." Which is what I want to be when I grow up, if you wondered.

porching.

Sunday morning pt. 2: Solo.

He thinks he's people, and that's alright by me.
We take naps like this, when no one else is around, and the sun is streaming through the window, making us feel like everything is going to be just fine.

Isn't it, though?

This morning.

Jackie: So I think that instead of a pickup truck, I'm going to start looking at El Caminos. They have the bed like I need, and the mileage would be better.

Pete: I've only ever seen Hispanic guys driving those.

Jackie: Yeah, well I guess I'm not ultra concerned with staying within a nationality stereotype for driving cars, weirdo.

Pete: Yeah you really broke through some boundaries being a young white lady and buying a Toyota Yaris.

Jackie: Viva La Revolucion!

Studio time

Recently a photographer from the 3 North architects that redid our building came by and asked if I would pose in my studio for some portfolio pics. So now I have pretty pictures of the studio. Yay.

Abby's puppet and painting on the right. What a genius.

Bank

So. Not to brag or anything...

This month I am making only $300 less teaching and freelancing than I do at my regular job.

SHIT IS CRAZY ROUND HERE!

$600 left to pay on my credit card. It's getting done this month.

Gina: very! congrats lady! you are officially a working artist

definition of self: a walk down memory lane

Taken circa 2001 at the St. James Diner.
Note Jeff's toothbrush bracelet.

Young Artists

The YAS murals at the Virginia Home, in my neighborhood.
The reception was on friday, and I was in charge of documentation.

Just lovely.

Note to self 1

Private Eye.

Today at work Robert showed me a sign on the back door to the shop that I had never noticed, even though I had seen it a million times. It is for William J. Burns International Detective Agency. William J Burns was the Director of the Bureau of Investigation, which came before the FBI during the 1920's. He was a former Secret Service agent. Here's the shop door:

The best part is, the metal gromet looking thing to the right of the red sign IS A PEEPHOLE! MYSTERIES!

Nation Run 2008!

So Ken Stannard, (my long time summer camp friend and the only person I have ever known that I can actually visualize being a superbly content cruise director) is running across America. He's doing it right now, and it's amazing!

Check out their progress on http://www.nationrun.com and see if they are coming to a town near you! Let them sleep on your floor!


"San Diego, I am coming for you, and I'm going to dance in your ocean."

Brilliant.

Life.

Sunday morning, 2/17