Flowers site

OK, so here's a mock-up of the front page. After Rebecca remotely adjusted the color of the banner text (by tell me) "a little pinker", "a little bluer", "now it's too blue", "now it's too warm"...for the last 3 days. Yes, I've explained over and over again, and she understands, that nobody else will see THAT exact same color on their monitor. And after all that fine tuning, I personally think it's a little flat (no dynamic range). I still prefer this one, which was my color choice for the banner. [Edit -- this link has now changed...moving on to other versions of the mock-ups.]

So another day of answering questions and emails about why things work the way they do, why you don't have absolute control over things on your web site. But we're at least moving forward, and I'm no longer making things "just a little" pinker or bluer. Sigh.

Oops, I'm complaining...

My treasures

My neighbor stood at my front door, holding a bag of mat boards in one hand. Son left for another state, left behind the mat boards. Do I want them? Well, mat boards of unknown provenance...I declined.

Then he said, holding out a small object in the other hand, "I found this dead, desiccated mouse in my driveway; would you like to have it?"

Well, now, I don't believe I've ever said or done anything to this neighbor that would lead him to believe that I'd want a small desiccated dead mouse. But whatd'ya know!? I did want the small, desiccated dead mouse, of unknown provenance. Except I wasn't going to touch it with my hand.

The neighbor said, "should I just leave it here on the sawhorse with all your other 'treasures'?"

Yes, I'm sure he said "treasures" in quotes.

So now I have a very dead, very desiccated and pretty cool looking, mouse on my sawhorse.

I bet your day wasn't better than THIS!

Shipped off Fatherland to Topeka, updated Alice's web site (I hope these are the final changes for the time being), and had more back and forth with Rebecca about the flowers site.

Didn't finish trimming the papers yesterday, but now I'm feeling tired enough that I don't want to do it tonight -- that's one of those things that, if you get it wrong, there's no undoing.

Step 1

...is cutting paper.

I'm finally getting started with my new prints, and of course I haven't a clue yet what I'll be printing. Step 1 is always trimming the paper. Some people hate this part, but I find it quiet and meditative, and gets me in the mood for making prints. I'm hoping to make a couple of new prints to enter into the Middle East exchange that Print Arts Northwest has set up, and that has a particular paper size specified, which is why I'm cutting paper without knowing what I'll be printing. In either case, I'm hoping to do a lot of experimentation anyhow, so there will be lots of unknowns, even after I start printing.

Worked on Rebecca's web site some more, here's an updated mockup of the graphics.

Surprise!

Got invited to a Greek bbq tonight, only to arrive and find out that it was a wedding! The 'perps' were actually married already, but due to some screw-up in the paperwork, their first wedding wasn't actually legal...so yes, they've been living in sin this whole time. So tonight, the problem was rectified. A fun time was had by all, and the food was delicious.

So that was the big excitement. Not a whole lot of work got done today. A little on the web site, and a little on the grant project, and that was it.

Progress

Making bits of progress on all kinds of projects -- the grant application, the silk road flowers web site, and also a potential class for the Q Center in September. Here's one mockup for the silk road flowers site.

A day of art, just not my own

Gallery sat for Laura for 3 hours this afternoon. Visited Mary Wells's studio & Ming Wei's studio for the Portland Open Studios blog; will write them up next week and the week after, respectively. That was the whole day.

The movie tonight was Sicko. Michael Moore is his usual self -- it's informative, but you can't help but wonder what he's not telling you on the other side. The bit about Cuba is great. Although watching Moore in France, Canada, England, and then with the whole gang in Cuba, you can't help but notice that Moore and the other Americans are really big, and some are really overweight, compared to everyone else.

Recovery

It's been a few weeks since my last garden entry, and during that time, both my vegetable bed and strawberry patch had recovered from their various creature attacks. Although a few nights ago, I noticed the bok choys were getting little round holes in the leaves again, and this time, it's slugs.

So anyhow, in between working on my grant, lothlorien web site, and my library volunteer duties, I harvested my first batch of chard, and also some strawberries:



I also cut some bok choy, but they didn't make it in the photo. So here are 2 shots of the raised bed...



Look at the corn! I can feel the baby corn already:



...and here's what it looked like on June 11.

Got the sniffles

I think my whirlwind weekend has done me in, now I have a terrible sore throat and a bad case of the sniffles.

Filed my Intent to Apply for the RACC project grant today. Looking for an exhibition space has not gone so smoothly -- PAN said they're not quite looking at 2009 yet, and in either case, they're wanting to do more exhibits that sell better. 23 Sandy is only going to do 2 book shows a year, and they'll both be juried group shows. Gay (from Reed) doesn't make the decisions about the case exhibits, but has passed my information on to the person who does. Jim hasn't gotten back to me, but I'll see him tomorrow, if I'm up and moving about.

Delivered the small violin piece back to the gallery, along with some PR stuff. I should make some good copies of the Asian Reporter piece at Kinko's sometime. The copy I made at home didn't look that great.

Went to Laura's talk tonight about marketing artist's books...some stuff I already knew, some I didn't. But mostly, I think I came away thinking, boy, I should really contact Vamp & Tramp (and other dealers) and see if they'd be interested in my books, because marketing my own books just doesn't sound like something I'd be organized enough to do.

Possibly more red letters...

Hey, sounds like I might be selling both of the violin pieces. Not a done deal yet, but I'm sure you'll hear about it when/if it becomes a reality. Both of the violin pieces can be seen here, one is labeled Fiddlehead and the other Violin.

So here are some photos from the Maryhill Gadzooks show. This is the first gallery as you walk in, and my books are in the case in the middle:



Here's another shot:



And here's my favorite of the petroglyphs at the petroglyph park (real name -- Columbia Hills State Park, Horsethief Lake area):



All photos by Eliza.

Worked on my grant application today, and tried out the online application process. They don't give you much space to summarize and describe your projects, but I think I'll have a few characters to spare.

Whirlwind weekend

This was the weekend of the Maryhill book arts exhibit opening. Eliza came down and we drove out to Maryhill Museum for the opening program and reception. My books were in the case in the middle of the room, right as you walk into the exhibit (!). And they put Fatherland on the cover of the exhibit program/catalog too! I was thrilled. I got a big stack of them. Many of the artists were there and there were lots of visitors.

Spent the night at the Lyle Hotel in Lyle. A very cute little 'railroad hotel', which I thought was a historical reference...but nooooo! Several trains went by in the middle of the night, right outside our window. I was able to go right back to sleep after each, but sounds like Eliza was not so lucky. The beds were comfortable though. Then this morning, we stopped at the petroglyph park and an orchard fruit stand before heading back to Portland, in time to go to the big celebration at the Park blocks for the opening of the old Daisy Kingdom building now turned into an art complex -- homes to Contemporary Crafts Museum, Blue Sky Gallery, Augen Gallery, Froelick Gallery, and Hartman (? I think, they're from Seattle).

Pictures tomorrow, or maybe Tuesday.

Nothing

...got done today. I was just wiped out. Eliza arrived late in the evening, and we stayed up and chatted. That was my big accomplishment for the day.

Rosario's memorial

It's amazing how long it can take to put together a couple of bouquets sometimes. It doesn't normally take so long, I don't think, but it took me 3 hours to put these 2 together today. I had to redo them each a couple of times; things were just not going my way. I also wanted them to be somewhat different.

So this first one -- mallow, clematis, 2 types of hydrangeas, hypericum berries, chrysanthemums. I was pleased that both the mallow and the clematis lasted well into the evening and still looked pretty good around 11pm. I was afraid that they wouldn't make good cut flowers (because I never see them as cut flowers), but they surprised me.



This one -- hydrangeas, oregano, 2 types of lilies, mallow, nandina, and a different type of hypericum berries than above. I really liked the hypericum berries in the arrangements. I'l use them more often now.



Then it was off to the memorial. 325+ people came, the line to sign the guest book went around the block outside the Chinese Garden. Lots and lots of people came to help. The staff and volunteers at the Chinese Garden, the board and volunteers of the China Council. When I finally left at around 11pm, people were still cleaning up.

There were lots of good stories tonight, and many talked about his connection to Dunhuang, how he's probably out there walking in the desert now. I almost talked about that too, but decided to tell another story, something a little more recent. So this was my story (more or less):

Last November, while Mike and I were at the movies, we saw an ad for the Metropolitan Opera's simulcast of The First Emperor, Tan Dun's opera about Chin Shih Huang Di. The simulcast would be at Lloyd Cinemas at 10:30am on a Saturday morning.

I emailed Rosario and a few other friends to see if anyone would be interested in joining us. And I said to Rosario, "Mike suggested that we should meet for Chinese breakfast before the show."

I envisioned a Saturday morning with a few friends.

On Jan 13, the day of the simulcast, Mandarin House opened bright and early at 8 in the morning for a delicious Chinese breakfast for 60 people. Rosario was busy chatting with everyone; I don't know that he had a chance to have any breakfast at all. A few people came in from the street, mistakenly thinking that the restaurant was open, and they too enjoyed a special Chinese breakfast. My Chinese isn't the best, but I think, In Chinese, you would say that these people tuo le Rosario de fu -- that they owed their good fortunes to Rosario.

Rosario also prepared a program for the event -- a synopsis of the opera and some information about the composer -- which he handed out once we arrived at the theater. The theater was packed, and our group was the envy of everyone, they all wanted to know where we got our programs; nobody else had them. I had so many strangers tell me how lucky we were that somebody had gone to the trouble to prepare a program for us. So here, there's no doubt that we owed our good fortunes to Rosario.

This is just my little story about how Rosario thinks -- it's about the community and it's about sharing. He didn't want us to just go off by ourselves to enjoy something when 60 people, and more, could be invited to participate. He wasn't satisfied with just learning all that he could about the performance, but he shared what he learned with us.

It was our good fortunes to have known him.

A world of difference

When I think, in an abstract way, that I'll never see a friend again, I am saddened by it. But that's a whole world away from knowing that I'll never see them again because they've suddenly ceased to exist. And Rosario has ceased to exist; I find it very hard to wrap my mind around it.

The obit in the Oregonian came out today. I found it terribly disappointing -- it hardly touched on some of the more unique things that he had done. For example, for years he worked as a translator at various Dunhuang studies conferences out at Dunhuang, the oasis town on the edge of the Taklamakan desert where the northern and southern silk roads diverged/converged. He had access to the top scholars who studied the Buddhist caves, murals, and frescos at these oasis towns, and had been invited back year after year to translate for them.

When we went to China with him in 2000, his connection to the place and people got us into caves that were not open to the public. I am very sad that I couldn't go on that early morning hike out into the desert with him while we were there; I had gotten sick, and I was so disappointed that I couldn't go. He told me, "don't worry about it, we'll go back again someday." More than once, we fantasized about making the complete silk road trip from Xian to Venice.

I hadn't planned on speaking at his memorial service, which is tomorrow at the Chinese Garden. But Willow asked me specifically if I would, and I said yes. So I spent a bit of time preparing for it this afternoon -- it's pretty short, just a couple of minutes. I hope it will be sweet as well. He was one of those people who enriched the lives of those around him, in a very serious way. I don't just mean that he was fun to visit with, or have lunch with, but rather he made big efforts to have an impact on people's lives by making things happen. I will miss him.

On other happier, at least less sad, fronts -- Rebecca was finally ready for the changes for their tree house site, so I worked on that. Made more changes to my own site too, to add Portland Open Studios information, including a paypal button so people can buy the tour guides/calendar off the web site.

Back to my own stuff

While Rebecca is thinking over what she wants for her web site, I'm back to doing my own stuff. Updated my own web site (long planned price increases, javascript updates, etc), and started working on my grant application again. Yay!

Went to the RACC site and registered as a user (for online applications). Discovered that when you enter your password, they echo the characters, rather than the usual *****. Well, at least I'm home so no one is looking over my shoulders, but it's probably not encrypted when it's sent either.

Clean clean clean

Not quite eat off the floor clean, but it will do. Got the gocco room clean enough for the visitor at 1pm, and finished it up after the visit. Now it's ready to be messed up again. Then a bit of class preparation, followed by Portland Open Studios stuff...answering questions about Photoshop...I should start charging for these.

The movie tonight was A Mighty Heart, at the Hollywood Theater. This site used to have a wonderful photo of the theater, built in the 1920's, but I can't seem to find the photo anywhere. I think the new site is not an improvement over the old version. It's not even clear where the movie listing is. Anyhow, it's a neat little theater, but the sound is not great. As a result, I really had a hard time understanding what people were saying. Unfortunately, it is a story we all know well, but still I wished I could hear the sound a little better.

Time flies

And another day flew by. I really, really meant to clean out the printing room today, since I have a visitor tomorrow. But instead, I spent the day working on a couple of web sites (doing some groundwork). What can I say, it's something I do that actually pays! (And I enjoy doing it too.)

The visit is not until 1pm, so I still have the morning to clean up. Reviewed Helen's grant proposal...she's pretty much ready and it looks good. Of course, I haven't worked on mine since the last class, which is now weeks ago! Like I say, time flies. It has been on my list this whole time, same with 'making a new print!'

Hey, actually, an idea that I was proposing to my new web client got rejected (or will likely be rejected tomorrow...she isn't sounding too excited), but I like it enough that it might be a good starting point for a new print.

Lots of phone calls...

Well, the announcement about Rosario's death went out today, so there was a flurry of phone calls and emails (both to and from). The Oregonian will be doing a full obit this coming week and the memorial service will be in the Chinese Garden. It feels a bit surreal, as I had seen him just recently.

The rest of the day was pretty broken up by the various phone calls I got and made. I did work on the lothlorien web site a bit. And it's a nightmare. It was done probably 10 years ago and has been modified by a variety of people, and it's a complete mess.

A not so great day

Even though some great things did happen today. First, the worst thing -- I found out that a good friend died last night, totally unexpected. And I'm not supposed to talk about it for the time being. I was glad we saw each other several times recently, after not seeing each other for a while.

I tried very hard to not be distracted, as I had several errands to run, a couple of meetings, and the Sense & Sensuality artist's reception in the evening at 23 Sandy. Lots of freeway driving time, and I kept repeating 'be mindful' to myself.

Things got better as the day went on. The reception at 23 Sandy was quite wonderful, lots of people came, including Rick (whom I hadn't seen in months) and was totally not expecting to see him. (But of course, he had to come up to pick up someone at the airport, so I guess he had no excuse to not come.) Got to chat with Mr. & Mrs. 5000 (Mrs. was in the show); and Gretchin came, too.

Also, my jubilation at selling the violin piece was slightly premature. Turns out, they're still thinking it over, but it is hanging in their place while they're thinking it over, so everyone -- keep your fingers crossed!

I also tried a new restaurant today, Pambiche, a Cuban place and it was wonderful. I first met Margaret there in the afternoon right before the reception, and had an early dinner. Then when Rick and sister-i-l showed up, we ended up back there for their dinner an hour later. The wait staff were all "oh, so great to have you back again!" and shaking my hand. I felt like I had gotten past the proverbial velvet rope, or something.

Another red letter day!

Whoa, I hope I'm not using up all my red letters all at once.

Found out today that my OCAC gocco class is gonna go, and there are 10 people signed up. Yay! Last year's class didn't go (or was that 2 years ago?) and I was pretty disappointed. I've started to prepare; it's about a month away yet, but I've got so many things happening in the next few weeks that I'm starting to get stressed out about it already.

Spent a little time this afternoon helping Jim hang the Copper Canyon Press exhibit at the Collins Gallery. Unfortunately, their reception is the same time as the Maryhill exhibit reception, so I was glad to have seen the broadsides first-hand today. Then the rest of the day was spent helping Rebecca with the pre-web site stuff. She needs help with everything -- deciphering packages from web hosts, answering questions about domain registration, web hosting...lots and lots of questions. I've probably spent 4-5 hours responding to all her questions via email, and my clock hasn't even started! But tomorrow, I'm gonna start charging.

And speaking of web sites, Jim mentioned that Deborah has a new web site and I should check it out. And I did. And wah! It makes me feel very bad. Very, very Bad. It's very well done, very sexy. Nicely done with Flash, very understated. But definitely sexy. I guess I'm gonna have to get the Flash books next.

Bonuses tonight -- when I was out walking, I had a bat sighting! And, a lightning storm started to roll in, although it doesn't feel like we'll get any rain.

I feel amazingly awake considering that I've had slightly over 5 hours of sleep each night for the past 3 nights in a row.

Red letter day!

Found out I sold a framed drawing this weekend! And B, a special collections librarian, emailed me about purchasing a copy of Fatherland (thank you, if you're reading this)! And I uploaded Margaret's web site to its official home!

Then I went out and belly danced the night away.

So here's a link to the violin drawing that sold, it's the charcoal one, I think. (This was all done through the gallery and I don't have the paperwork back.) And here is Fatherland. And here's Margaret's web site.

And here's a picture of the pirate belly dancer at It's a Beautiful Pizza tonight (yes, it's a pizza parlor, and they have belly dancing and live music every Wed night, going on for about 15 years now) --



She came out with a black veil (ok), a sword (ok), and a pirate hat...huh? Then I noticed the eye patches in the audience and ar, ar, ar going off everywhere. OK, I finally got it. The cutest part was when she opened her veil, there were skull and crossbones stenciled on it. You can barely make out that she's wearing pink and black horizontal stripped leggings and gauntlets too.

And Andrew, see someone familiar looking on the very left there? There were four dancers tonight, with open dancing in between.

Met with Rebecca for a working dinner before the belly dancing. I'll be starting on her web site in a few days. So here's a picture of yesterday's 'bill monster' piece. The human figures were stenciled on there during our June meeting from one of Alex's drawings. Kind of looks like a belly dancer, if you ask me.

Victory! (Again...)

What I needed was a syntax checker -- it's 'forms[]' and not 'form[]', and now my paypal buttons with dynamically generated email addresses are all working.

Onto the next thing -- tonight was the critique group meeting. Once a month comes around more quickly than I think. Last time, I came home with Rachel's stitched together window envelopes -- you know those envelopes for bill paying, that people don't use anymore because they're paying their bills online.

I was originally thinking a peekaboo dress, with the windows in strategic spots. But then I ended up making teeth for their gaping mouths. Here's the sewn/glued together envelops, and there are 2 types of teeth -- rounded and pointed -- that you can see already in place.



Close-ups of a set of teeth.



I took a picture of the finished 'thing', but the camera somehow cut it in half, with the other half being some older photos. I guess I'm just having trouble with technology this week.

AAAARGH!!#%#@$#%^

Excuse me while I go bang my head on a wall...

OK, I'm back.

Spent most of the working day still trying to figure out how to hide email address in paypal buttons using javascript. For some reason, MY email address would get shoved in the 'payee' spot when it should be my CLIENT's email address that gets put there. Yes, I've invented a new form of money embezzling -- by web site designers.

Finally, victory was mine. I had it working! In fact, I was so pleased with how it worked that I decided to change my web pages to hide MY email address in MY paypal buttons too. And now when I click MY 'Add to Cart' button, my CLIENT's email address gets shoved in the 'payee' spot.

Like I say, AAAARGH!!#%#@$#%^!!

No strawberries, but I have flowers

The neighbor brought over some fava beans from their garden a couple of weeks ago; I was going to return the bowl filled with strawberries. Yes, my mama taught me to never return an empty bowl. But remember that someone stole all my berries? Well, I still don't have any, so the bowl sits on my counter. Then the same neighbor brought over some blueberries yesterday, in another bowl.

Hey, at this rate, all their dishes will be at our house and soon they won't be able to have supper! So this was my solution:



They got this and their empty bowls back. Probably not as good as really good strawberries, but it'll just have to do. Those deep red cabbage roses smell really, really good.

Spent the morning updating Alice's web site with her new work. Then the afternoon was back to figuring out how to hide the email address in the paypal button with javascript. I thought I had it working, and indeed it worked, but just in Safari. In fact, I can get it to work in either Safari or the other browsers (Opera, Explorer, FireFox), but not all of them. And I'm too tired to keep at it tonight.

I am not who I appear to be

Or is that 'whom I appear to be'?

Turns out, underneath this demure, feminine, 47 year old exterior, I am really an 18-34-year-old-male waiting to bust out. That's right, I thought Transformers was fabulous! No, wait, make that awesome! Or is that supposed to be cool? Hot? Phat? Skinny? What, what's the operative word? This 18-34-year-old-male neeeeeds to know!

I love the noises they make when they do their thing, all that clinking of metal snapping into place! It was great! (Now that's something you don't get from the toys.) There's something very satisfying about pieces fitting perfectly together like that...sort of like sewing, or making an artist's book...hey, I think I'm onto something here, I bet there's a whole segment of the population, outside of that 18-34-year-old-male thing, that would get it -- seamstresses, quilters, book artists, collage/assemblage artists...and I'm NOT just saying that so I could mention 'art' in this entry.

And one more thing -- I thought it was better than Casablanca.

When we came out of the theater and into the parking lot, everywhere I looked, I saw transformers. We drove off into the sunset -- well, ok, to dinner -- in my transformer disguised as a little white Saturn, whom I now shall name Snowflake. Or maybe Dirty Snow.

Well, no studio work was accomplished today. I did do a few chores, and hit the weight room, cut Mike's hair, contact the potential violin instructor in Seattle (after a bit of searching on the net). And of course, go to a matinee.

Quick trip to Bend

Spent most of the day in the car today -- driving over to Bend to see my mom (she fell again) and driving home. It's about 3, 3.5 hours drive each way. So a long day in the car. She was bright and cheery when I arrived, but 2 hours later, was pretty tired, so I left. It wasn't quite 5pm yet, so I decided to go check out the galleries in Bend. I don't usually go into town when I visit, so haven't really looked at the galleries there. And since the hospital is not too far from downtown, I decided to go take a quick look. Found mostly Western art -- native Americans, horses, buffaloes, bronzes of majestic animals, paintings of majestic animals. One place with kitschy stuff (and it wasn't very good kitsch either). So most are not a good fit. There was one 2nd floor gallery that showed contemporary art, that was probably the best choice, if I were going to find a place to show there; I'll need to check out what they say on their web site.

Always learning...

Margaret asked about hiding her email address, so I had to do some research (that's something I've never worried about, figuring that it's a lost cause). Looks like people do use javascript to dynamically generate their email addresses, or use html encoding, but both seem to me just stop-gap measures. It would be pretty simple to look for the encoded '@' for example, or to look for 'javascript' and find the function that generates the '@', and then go from there. Yes, this would require a more sophisticated parser, but doable.

Several Portland Open Studios artists were having their opening receptions tonight, so I went in for First Thursday. But the show I enjoyed the most was the show at Rake, a painter (Noel Nelson) and a printmaker (Garret Price). And earlier in the afternoon, picked up the remaining pieces from the show in Hillsboro. I was doing fine until I had to drive out to Hillsboro in the heat. By the time I got home, I really needed a cup of coffee. And tomorrow, more driving in 100+ degree weather -- I'm headed over to Bend for just the day, and it's gonna be 104 in Bend!

Almost finished with Margaret's web site

Hey, even at a snails pace, we're starting to get pretty close. Added the paypal stuff, went through the last round of replacing dumb quotes and apostrophes with the smart ones. I haven't uploaded the whole thing yet because I forgot to ask her how she wants to handle shipping charges! Otherwise, we'd be done already.

Got ready to send out the Sense & Sensuality postcards to everyone who contributed eye shadows, and also local folks who might be able to make the show.

Spent the morning pulling out 5' tall weeds in the backyard. It's so bad you almost need a machete. I should've taken a before photo, but the worst is already dealt with...although you still can't exactly walk through from one end to the other.

Q2 quarterly report

OK, from April 1 through June 30, I put in 383.25 hrs working, that's either in the studio, doing admin stuff, working on a web site, teaching/taking classes, or PR related stuff. That works out to be about 29.5 hours a week (counting 13 weeks). Doesn't include snack breaks, phone interruptions, etc. etc. I can live with that.

Went grocery shopping early afternoon, and came back to find the refrigerator so stuffed that I had to clean that out to put in the new groceries. One thing led to another, found some stuff that really needs to be used up, so made some onion pancakes. All these distractions took up most of the afternoon, but now I have a pretty clean frig and some onion pancakes in the freezer.

There are 4 artist's having exhibits/shows in July, all with openings on this Thursday, so had a lot to write up for the Portland Open Studios blog this afternoon.

The movie tonight was La Vie En Rose (yes, Transformers was on the list, but it didn't get picked by the Random Selector). The actress playing Edith Piaf is impressive.

Oh, heartbreak!

Transformers, the movie I've been looking forward to for months, got trounced in this review in the NYT..."a movie of epically assaultive noise and nonsense." Wah!

On other fronts -- what better way to ease back into serious art making again than to meet another artist...for breakfast! Horatio just got back from a 6 months teaching gig in France and we met for a bagel breakfast this morning. He's getting much more focused on doing public art and in fact just won a pretty stiff competition to do a piece in a new building going up in Seattle. Congrats to Horatio! I also got some good pointers about writing grant applications.

Finally got off my butt and started working on helping Daniel Heyman finding an appropriate space to exhibit his Abu Ghraib work. He was invited to sit in on interviews with some Abu Ghraib prisoners. One trip to Jordan and a 2nd trip to Turkey. He made etchings and watercolors during the interviews, and later at home, produced a couple of artist's books and an installation. I first saw 1 etching at a Blackfish exhibit back in Jan/Feb, and got in touch with him. When we did the book arts show in March at Print Arts Northwest, he sent 2 books for the exhibit. Anyhow, I've been procrastinating in scouting out appropriate locations and contacts. Looks like the Portland Art Center deadline has just passed (drat), but we'll see if PNCA or Reed would be good/available/interested.

Who knew earwigs would be THIS popular?

Indeed, who knew! I've had people come here googling for 'earwigs' (ok), 'women squishing earwigs' (rather specific and kind of weird), and 'woman covered in earwigs' (truly yucky visuals). ??

And on another similarly weird topic, this Simon Shaheen CD is now going for $215.21 on Amazon. ??

Speaking of CD's, I finally remembered to pick up my ME music CD's that I loaned to Print Arts Northwest for their April exhibit of Middle Eastern prints. And since I was going in anyhow, spent a bit of time helping them paint the new print racks. (I had to get that in, since it was the only art related activity for the day).

And yet another weird entry:



This was Mike's dinner plate after dinner yesterday; I found it visually interesting. For some reason, I just liked the way the brown sauce wrapped around the elephant. (I take no responsibility for the placemat though.)

The movie last night (which continued on into this morning) was Ratatouille; I hardly need to add my 2 cents and say it was wonderful, but it was. But of course, I'm into rats, and rats in the kitchen don't bother me one bit.