Chasing Yellow

Here’s what I am working on today… chasing yellow.

I am consumed by this drawing to the point that I wake up, hit the can and push the coffee button, then color until noon. Yes, time to take a break and put together that salad I started making last night, abandoned to the fridge when I realized that what I really wanted for supper was luscious slices of red tomato sprinkled with sea salt atop crusty Italian bread that has been buttered and broiled with a grind of garlic pepper and a sprinkle of fresh grate parmeasan, not the powder crap but the good cheese. I like the powder crap, but sometimes you just got to have a nice grate. Such simple things, a supper of nothing but a crust of bread, bit of cheese, and a devine tomato.

“Do you want to see a dietitian?”

No. I’m doing the intuitive eating thing. Why are humans the only animal on the planet who do not instinctively know how to feed theirselves?

Doc was happy that I am 30 pounds less than at some date in 2012. He’s okay with my alternative herbal remedies used to avoid pills, tells me to keep doing whatever I am doing, but always asks.

I took time out from coloring yesterday to go to that appointment and then hopped a bus south, went shopping. Picked up food for Easter Dinner. The grocer was sold out of cornish hens so, oh well… changed the menu to turkey by buying a breast.

Everything else stands as is, same veggies, salads, rolls. Added cush (my grandma Ruth’s recipe for a cornbread dressing made with chicken or turkey, hard boiled eggs, and green onions – not the “cush” sold by street corner vendors, amusing though it is that they now give stuff cutsy names instead calling it by location grown. I did not know that there was weed called “cush” as to me, cush is a southern dish.) My daughter’s significant other asked me to make cush. I automatically want to refer to him as my son-in-law, but they are not married yet.

My daughter is doing most of the cooking so groceries went to her house. I will have to stop coloring long enough to make the cush and a jello salad to take over on Saturday, maybe walk up to the Re-Hab store this afternoon to give myself a break.

Something funny… read my psych diagnosis online when I double-checked the appointment time for the regular doc appointment. Yeah, they got this online thing where you can log in, read your own test results or whatever. The shrink thing is up there. He added a couple things that I was not aware of… anxiety disorder? Obcessive compulsive disorder? Me? Nah, don’t think so. I can be a bit anal at times and I do get a little obcessive zoning into doing things, but it’s not a compulsion. Just thinking wow, do I come off as being ocd? I even question the anxiety thing because I’m like really into maintaining a peaceful calm environment. I can’t deal will drama crap.

Well, off to make my salad. I’m behind on things, housework falls by the wayside, keeping dishes done up and that’s about it. Behind on reading blogs, not keeping up on other things but that’s okay… I will catch up. Right now, I’m chasing yellow.

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Ye Done

The photo is a quick cell phone camera snap capturing some (but not all) of the piece I am working on. I’m thinking about entering it into a local juried show which means it will have to be properly photographed (not an easy task) and then matted and framed. I also have to name it and figure out an asking price. I’m thinking ye so much, plus frame costs and entry fee, with consideration of commission.

I haven’t the foggiest idea how much ye so much should be. If too high, people will think that I am asking rediculous. If too low, the price will under value not only my own work, but the work of other artists and that kind of pisses people off.

It’s 11 x 14 inches (for a 16 x 20 mat and frame) done in Faber-Castell Polychromos (oil based colored pencils) over a water colour under painting using Faber-Castell Aquarelles (water color pencils) so it is all pencil work on Canson “Montval” 140 lb paper.

I consider myself a complete unknown on the local art scene because I haven’t shown anything, except for making a couple flags for a community art project displayed at the YSU Festival of the Arts last summer and oh yeah… made a leather and copper bra that took first place mixed media in an art bra event (fund raiser for breast cancer) a few years back but otherwise, I haven’t shown anything since the 90s. Some people may recognize the symbol in which I sign my work, but back then I was still using my ex-husband’s last name. Fade away, easily forgotten… and I was living in the general area but not in this town. Honestly, I was relatively unknown then, too. And I wasn’t doing anything in colored pencil.

If I listen to my neighbors (they’re a trip at times), my art is “da bomb” yadda yadda fabulous and no one colors like I do, and I hear things like, “the guys were jocking on you” which, by explanation, means “you got it going on, man” so I take it as they like my art as that’s like the only thing I got going on.

I’m kind of curious to see how this drawing style goes over outside the neighborhood, see if practice pays off. I’ve done over 300 practice pieces in ATC size, maybe it is time to start showing again?

Of course, I have to finish it and get a good photograph, go enter it into this juried show and wait and see… never know what will be accepted or rejected in juried shows, what factors go into the decision. They are putting together a show, usually want a diversity yet everything must fit together.

A lot of artists hate juried shows because the entry fee is non-refundable. On one hand, you pay money to be rejected and on the other, you have to pay to show your art. If the show is for a good cause, then it doesn’t matter. Rejections are easier if you think of it as a donation.

Well, here is a sneak peek, some but not all of the piece I’m working on. Thanks for reading my blog!

Knotted in Memory

I do my best thinking while my fingers are busy doing somewhat mindless repetitive work. The house is quiet, save tunes softly playing and occassional traffic on the street, neighborhood noises in the background. I think about everything. My mind wanders all over everywhere, back through time, and ventures into future possibilities. One thought leads to another with not much rhyme nor reason.

The unfinished macrame project was boxed after the jute was cut to some excessive lengths, with a dozen cords folded over a three inch brass ring and secured by one of those wrapped jute things with a name that eludes me. I am knotting from memory as macrame was a craft done in my youth oh so many years ago.

I am recreating a hanging birdbath that I made in 1977 (or bird feeder in which to lay full heads of dried sunflowers, if holes are drilled through the terra cotta planter dish so rain won’t turn the seeds into soup). The design is different – six sections instead of four, different pattern of knots – but the size and purpose is simular.

I don’t know what happened to the first one. It was hung in a tree on the far edge of a huge lawn near the front cornfields at that rented farmhouse across from the Courtney’s out on Winona Road. I cannot remember seeing it again so odds are that it was accidentally forgotton, left hanging in the tree when we moved over to Depot.

My fingers tie the knots, square knots and those half things that make spiral twirls, simular knots by the same hands while my thoughs skip back through those 35 years, how I thought my life would be and how it ended up, circle round and back again, reality tainted by hopes and dreams, nothing ever as it seems.

: : : LATER : : :

Company stopped by so I clicked off for a visit. A neighbor’s mother came bearing gifts – dried flowers, box of art & craft books, and a big bag full of counted cross stitch kits and transfers and pinking shears and all sorts of goodies. I promised to pass on what I won’t use… yes, on to my sister.

It is always a trip when people come in who have never been in here before. They usually react one of two ways. Some people look around like the place isn’t up to par. (One quote from a relative: “you live like you’re on welfare” and okay, so I rebelled from the look like a magazine spread decor? The funny thing is my child rebelled against my laid back comfy style to go all prim and proper, with tastes like my mother.) Others, like the older couple who came by today, check out the paintings and handmade things and make comments like “this is cozy” and “this reminds me of places I used to go to when I first started getting high” (?) and how they like the “old stoner” tunes.

Okay, so I still listen to Janis Joplin? I think Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young was on the CD player when they walked in. I do listen to modern music, just depends on what mood I am in and right now, Janis soothes me.
The macrame is ye done. I snapped the photo with an old 16 inch diameter hat box lid before tying off the bottom. It might need some adjustments and I’m not exactly sure if they sell 16″ dia. terra cotta dishes to go under pots, might have to get a 14. But, then again, a 12″ dia. bowl fits fine so maybe it will end up hanging a spider plant instead of a birdbath. I cut the bottom tassle at about 30″ so overall, I don’t know… it is about as long as I am tall.

Something twirling in my mind that maybe I shouldn’t write out loud, almost hate to even put the thought to the wind. It is a viable solution to a common problem, a logical alternative, what most people do when money is too tight to live on their own: they hook up with someone and pull resources, cohabitate or get married, work together for the common good, enjoy each other’s company. I don’t want to say it out loud because I know what it means if he goes for that option and chooses someone else instead of me. I would have to say goodbye and I am too knotted up in memory.