Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 10

I seem to have settled on a regular schedule of visiting RSM on Sun/Mon & Wed/Thurs, leaving me with Fri/Sat/Tues to myself. So once again, today and tomorrow are painting days. (And yard work days, too, now that the weather is more agreeable.)

So here's where I'm at, not sure that I'm headed in the right direction today. Added the bird's nest in the tree and started working on the fireworks. I'm thinking that I liked the really free color orbs before today's change better. I'm also not sure about the bird's nest. It sounded like a fine idea, but...



Here's a version with the nest removed. I think I do like it better this way, but I wonder if I've just gotten used to looking at it this way?

MiT, 1st senior, day 6

It seems like I've gone from day 4 with senior #1 (my Mercury) to day 6, but actually, the last entry was mislabeled; it should've been day 5. Day 4 was attached to 2nd senior day 4.

It was a beautiful sunny day here in Portland and when I arrived at RSM, I found my Mercury sitting outside enjoying the sun. We ended up staying out for a little bit as she chatted with other residents and got a late start on the watercolor session.

She's so very keen on impressionistic sunsets and wanted to another today (her first was also a sunset scene). Except today, she got 1/2 way and suddenly leaned back in her chair and announced "I'm tired." I guess she had a pretty social day, sitting outside and visiting with people, which was good, but it wore her out too.

As I'm getting to know her better, I'm forming more ideas for her book. At this point, I don't think I'll use the first 2 prints we did with her. I don't think her heart was in their selection and they probably don't mean much to her.

The highlight of the day was the talk at the museum on the Persian poetry that inspired so much of the Persian miniature paintings. The speaker (Richard Davis) was a great speaker, funny and knowledgeable. Only it was too short!

MiT, 2nd senior, day 6

We're starting to move along really quickly now...I'm getting better at using the copier at RSM to get a good quality copy for the gocco; and my Rock Star Senior is getting better at selecting an image to print, and also at printing them. She's getting pretty good at deciding what pressure she should be printing at, depending on the image and such. We worked on 3 prints today, 2 of them are finished (just 1 screen each, one is of a poem she wrote, and another from a watercolor she did), and the 3rd we'll complete the next time.

My original plan was to put prints in the room divider screen, but I had a brilliant idea the other day—I should use the cleaned gocco screens for the screens! I've always thought they were beautiful to look at, when they're stained from the inks but cleaned up. And with the room divider working with light, the used screens would be great. In fact, I'm thinking I should do that with all those old screens I have that I'll never use again.

See this entry for my previous day with my Rock Star Senior.

I also figured out what was bothering me (at least one of the things bothering me) about the LO piece—the window frame on the left looks too much like a trellis. I'm not sure there's anything I can do to fix that at this point. I guess I'll sleep on it.

The Random Movie tonight was Caramel, a Lebanese sweet nothing...not much happens, but full of heart. Super enjoyable, but more music please!

Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 9

Had the day to myself today, so it was back to painting in my studio. I'm forging ahead with my original plans with the piece, even though there are still kinks that I haven't worked out. Added the 'fog in the valley' and the gray sky. The sky is a much grayer than it appears here, at least on my monitor.

The 'fog' is looking a lot like water splashing, so maybe I'll just call it rain.



I do see a couple of problems that I'll fix later, not sure if that will 'fix' my overall problem with the piece or not.

See this entry for a photo of the original inspiration for this piece. And see this entry for an image of the last time I worked on this piece.

Oops, almost forgot to add that cat box relocation is now complete—I removed the box from the old location yesterday morning, and there doesn't appear to be a gift of any kind left for me. In the mean time, the box in the new location continues to be used regularly. Quite the success story if you ask me, based on what I read on the net, about the difficulties and impossibilities of such endeavors!

MiT, 1st senior, day 4

Hey, this was a successful day with my senior #1! This was our watercolor session, and she really seemed to have enjoyed herself. (She kept on saying so! And based on past experience, she certainly would've made it clear to me if she was not having a good time.)

So we're meeting again for more watercolor sessions. I'll scan those in and print them out on my inkjet printer to include in the book! See this entry for my last day with senior #1.

Worked on the Portland Open Studios site some more; started to fill in the About page.

MiT, 2nd senior, day 5

My 2nd senior and I met for lunch at the RSM dining room, and we went to work after that. She finished the 2 prints that we started last time. Eventually I'll take a picture of her prints and post them. I think she's having a good time...wanted to know if she could make more than 6 prints. So I suggested 8 and she seemed happy with that.

And despite everyone complaining about the food at the dining room, I thought it was pretty good! Lunch was a somewhat comical affair with everyone either hard of hearing or a little confused, or both. Kitchen is kosher, but I guess hardly anyone actually keeps kosher, so there were complaints about that. All in all, my senior #2 was in excellent spirits and consoled one of our dining companions that she shouldn't worry about what other people say. A very sensible lady, my senior #2. I'm dubbing her my Rock Star. (See this entry on our previous meet.)

Tomorrow, I'll meet with my senior #1 (I think I'll call her my Mercury), and see how it goes. We'll be doing watercolors; the day crept up on me and I did not prepare for it yet. I'll have to do it tomorrow. Today was one of those days where I just went from one thing to the next; and tomorrow will be more or less the same.

My #3 senior, whom I have met but haven't started working yet, told me that she's having a very important birthday coming up. I thought she was going to be 80, or maybe 90 (she walks around just with a cane, and hasn't got too many wrinkles), turns out, she's gonna be 100! I'll call her my Birthday Star.

Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 8

Got a couple of hours more work on this piece today before I had to head out for the China Council auction. It's better, but there's still something that's bothering me in the lower left grassy area. I need/want to remove the 'stems' connecting the flowers, at least in the flower bunches along the bottom. I realize that I really should've worked on the tree on the right much earlier on already, but my original plan was to leave that very open, looking very foggy, but now I think that's not going to work. With so much going on elsewhere, that's not standing up very well. I do think it looks better with the flowers gone to almost white and the grass on the left going darker.



But I think it's better cropped this way. I just seem have trouble working this size. Every time I've tried to work this size, it's been a struggle, and I'm still waiting for that aha moment when I try something drastic and it saves the day.



Here's where it was last I worked on it.

The China Council Auction! I bought a cake! And 2 certificates to Flying Pie Pizza. I guess it's our 'food year.' It's nice to be able to go to the auction and just enjoy the event and not have to work. I think I'll keep it that way.

Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 7

As promised, I spent the day in the studio (7 1/2 hours!), with a little break in the evening going to Margaret's shower. It felt like I got a lot done, and I'm liking it better, although the difference is probably not going to look like much to anyone else, so I didn't bother with a photo. But it should be ready for another photo tomorrow though. Here's the last entry.

MiT, 2nd senior, day 4; 1st senior, day 4

Another successful afternoon with my 2nd senior. Her daughter came in and visited with us while we printed, and that was great. As we were wrapping up, my 1 senior came in to visit! At first she seemed excited about what we had done, but then when I suggested that I still had time & materials to make a print with her, she wimped out—giving the same reason as always—she was tired.

But as we chatted, I started to wonder perhaps she was just not excited about making a print with something that was already around. She asked if I thought what my 2nd senior had done was 'art', although she didn't use the word; I can't remember what word she did use. She also expressed admiration for some of the watercolors on the wall and said that was what she wanted to do. So! We have an appt next week for me to work with her doing watercolors. I think maybe we can make prints from the watercolors for the project. We'll see. For my previous day with my 1st senior, see this entry. And my previous day with 2nd senior, see this.

Worked a bit more on the Open Studios web site and stubbed in a couple of the pages. When I'm tired, it's a pretty good project to do—I get to sit while I'm doing it, and once the layout is decided, it's not too difficult to pump it out.

I have 2 almost free & clear days coming up...back to painting, finally!

MiT, 2nd senior, day 3

Well, my 2nd senior rocks BIG TIME!

When I got there today, she was waiting for me by the front door, to give me a hand with all my equipment. That made me very happy, that she was looking forward to it enough that she wanted to help.

We got started right away. She had the texts she wanted to layer over what we did on day 2 all ready to go. So it was just a matter of making a b&w copy and then going to it, which she did. Then she had more images prepared for her 3rd print, so we printed the 1st layer of that, too. I'll be back tomorrow for the next step.

We sat around and chatted for quite a while after we finished printing. Part of it was just that I was too exhausted to think about carrying all that equipment back to the car right away, and also, we don't talk much while we're printing, so this was a good way for us to get to know each other. She's got such a great personality...if she were a weather condition, she'd be a sunny day with scattered clouds, temperature in the low 70's. And not humid.

She speaks wonderfully of everyone, adores her kids and grandkids, and was pretty enthusiastic when I told her about the coming visit of my sister and nieces.

On other fronts, I sold the sofa! For a lot less than I was hoping for, but it was good to get it done. And they were immigrants, so I was happy to give them a break. And they called when they said they'd call, and showed up when they said they'd show up, which is a lot more than what the first 2 callers did.

It was kind of sad to see it go though. It was the first new piece of furniture I bought. I seem to be getting rid of a lot of 'first new' items recently. The Good Prince was a little worried until I reminded him that he was gently used when I got him.

About that exhaustion, and why I skipped an entry last night (yet again) — it was my 'Super Tuesday' of volunteer duties. I started the day at Print Arts NW (in the Pearl), then went to the downtown library, and from there, back to NW 18th and Quimby. I bussed in, so that was all on foot. Lunch had to fit in while I walked from the bus stop to Print Arts (yes, despite raising a very civilized kitty who sits very prettily while she eats, I eat while I walk). Dinner was while I was waiting for the other board members to show up for the meeting.

When that was all over at 9:30pm, the Good Prince picked me up and we went for the Random Movie of the week, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I got home 13 hours after I left the house in the morning, feeling pretty tired.

The movie was maybe just a tad on the long side, but really very good. Despite the subject matter and how it ended, I think it was a pretty uplifting movie.

Portland Open Studios web site update

I said I wasn't going to make big changes, but I lied.

I tried to make a couple of simple updates requested by other board members today, and realized that the html generated by GoLive is really difficult to hand edit, and in the long run, I'm probably better off if I updated it. So here's the mockup of the new web site. None of the links work, and I still need to run it by the board. And wow, that took me most of the day.

Tomorrow will be the trifecta of volunteer duties. I start the day with Print Arts Northwest, move on to the John Wilson Room, and finish the day with the Open Studios board meeting. It will be a long day, and I'm still up at 1:39am! Ayee!

Last week, all week, I got no nibble on my sofa bed. This week, I've had 3 phone calls and a email. The first 2 callers were supposed to come and look at it today, but were no-shows. So we'll see if caller #3 and emailer #4 do any better.

Kitty had her food/water dishes moved out of the new guest bedroom today. She's being so agreeable to the whole thing so far.

Cat Box Relocation victory!

For almost a week, I've been taking the cat down to the new litter box spot two or three times a day, 15-30 minutes after I feed her or give her a treat. And she had steadfastly (is that a word?) refused to go in. In the mean time, I noticed that the box in the old location has been used for #1 at least a couple of times, but no #2's. (It had been at least 2 days...)

This morning, I came downstairs to check my mail, read the news, etc. Only when I was finished did I remember to check the box. And miracle of miracles, apparently sometime during the night, she used it, for a #2!

Now, aren't you all happy that I don't have a real baby. Just imagine the stuff I'd talk about.

I had already resigned myself to the necessity of locking myself and the cat up downstairs for a few days until she cooperates. And now it seems that we have both escaped that fate.

This being a typical Sunday, full of the usual chores, THAT was the most exciting news.

James Turrell in Portland

So I was one of those losers who didn't call early enough to get a reserved seat (in fact, I didn't call at all) for the James Turrell talk today; instead, I stood in line for a possible standing room admission. I got there at 1:30pm for the 4pm talk, and I was the 5th in line! I was pretty confident I'd get in, but as we got closer to 4pm, the PNCA staff were walking around telling us that it wasn't looking good because it was taking them so long to check in the people who had reserved. Turns out, they had 600 people with reserved seats!

But miracle of miracles, we got in; and actually it looks like almost everyone got in.

James Turrell is very Santa Claus like, not at all the he-man that I had imagined. (C'mon, here's a guy who's digging a BIG hole inside a volcano, wouldn't you picture him to be a he-man type, too?) Pretty soft-spoken, and told some sexy jokes (I guess that's NOT Santa Claus like). And my claim to fame for the day? My question to him got picked (they only picked 4 out of the bunch from over 600 people), and it was the first one! Ha!

Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 6

Spent a goodly part of the day working on the LO Chronicles piece. I think I finally figured out why I'm having so much trouble with it. So here's where I am — there's not a lot of excitement going on in the bottom 1/2 of the image, not even after I worked on the flowers quite a bit:



Here's a mockup of where I think I'm headed — adding a robin's nest at the bottom, and adding either lights or snow on the right. I like that the oval shape of the nest picks up the shapes of the fireworks, which have now been underpainted.



I'll probably wait until tomorrow morning before I continue. Here's where it was last I worked on it (wow, 11 days ago!).

On other fronts, my sofa bed ad on craigslist has not received a nibble!

And about that Cat Box Relocation...kitty continued to refuse to use the new and improved box, even after I removed the swing door. So today, I further disturbed the force by switching the locations of the 2 boxes, and now the new box is at the old location and her old box (favoriite?) is at the new location (so I can debug if it's the box or the location). And all day, she has not used either one. I made sure my bed is set up so that if she should decide to use my bed, I could detect it pretty easily! (Would she really do that? See Stupid Human Tricks.)

Southridge talk

The 'big' day (where I had to get up at 6:30am) came and went. I managed to get out of bed at 6:30am as planned, I did down a cup of coffee, which really helped. Although I think the students and teacher at Southridge High are the judges of how the talk went, my perception was that it went well enough.

We got a slow start trying to figure out how to get the PC to work. I just had CD's of images, not in powerpoint, so it took a few minutes to get that worked out. My talk ended about 5 minutes before the class ended, and the students had a few minutes to handle the books. I would've liked a bit more time for them to handle the books, but that's how it goes. Most of the students gathered around to look through the examples I brought, so I took that to be a good sign.

By 9:30am, I was having my first lunch of the day. From there, it was my critique group meeting, and after that, it was time for my 2nd lunch.

Had to return the fabric samples today, but I took pictures. Here's Option A:



And Option B:



I know, I know, they're both horribly old lady like.

Although I said yesterday that my first favorite was much more favorite than the 2nd favorite, when I looked at them again in a different light (cloudier day), the difference wasn't so striking. Design wise, they're both really appropriate for a studio chair for me, the Persian miniature or the Chinese-y butterflies.

Opinions, anyone?

Talking about my work...

I'm to give a talk at a high school tomorrow about my book arts work, so today was prep day for that. I'll be doing a 3 part talk, to cover inspirations, process, and show some actual work. I'm reusing some of the materials from my PSU talk, then adding the images I have from the making of Calypso (the PG rated ones). I'll bring the experiments I did with the plexi for Calypso as well as a bunch of books the kids can handle.

But oy! I have to be there at 7:30am! I hope I'll be awake. The problem is, I'm usually not in the mood for coffee in the morning, so we'll see how I manage.

Finished hemming the screen for the guest bedroom, now officially dubbed the Bollywood Bridal Chamber. I need to install a curtain hook of some kind so that the panels can be moved out of the way. I have these door knobs (not the round ones, but the ones with the handles) I saved from back when the locks stopped working on them. They're just the perfect size and shape for using as curtain hooks, except that because of the mechanisms, they won't mount flush to the wall. So I'm still thinking.

MiT, 2nd senior, day 2

My 2nd senior ROCKS!

When I got there today, she had already made b&w copies of several different things she was thinking about gocco'ing. She was also thinking about the words she wanted to layer on top. Then the two of us spent the rest of the afternoon gocco'ing 2 prints. *I* was tired when we finished, and she seemed a little worn out. She was cheerful and interested, and very inviting and open.

Now, I did start the day pretty tired — I stayed up until 2am last night/this morning, working on the screen for the guest bedroom, which was why there was no entry from last night. I'm almost finished, just need to hem. It's starting to look like, hmm...how shall I put it...option 1) a Bollywood bridal chamber, or option 2) a belly dancer exploded in here (as the Good Prince likes to say about my home decorating style). I practice the One Thing Leads to Another style of sewing: something doesn't quite work, so you do something else to hide it, and pretty soon, it's embellishments everywhere.

And you know things are getting serious when a project you meant to do almost a quarter of a century ago is now getting to the top of the stack. (Yes, it's a stack and not a queue.)

When I left graduate school and started working, I furnished my apartment for $300 — a used bed, dining room set, sofa sleeper, chair, and a smattering of leftover college dorm room shelves. (It's true I did buy a brand new mattress for another $xxx.)

Here's the chair:



Bought it from a woman about to move into a retirement home; it, and its companion chair, were part of her wedding trousseau from 1940. I figured I'd use it for a couple of years and reupholster it. So that was 1984...

It's in a much sadder shape than you can possibly see in this photo. The piping has mostly worn off, exposing the ropes underneath. I think various rats and ferrets have done their deeds on there too. I've mostly used it as a studio 'comfy' chair in recent years.

Anyhow, all this redecorating had me thinking about this chair again and I dropped by The Whole 9 Yards yesterday. Picked out a few samples, and now I'm in a quandary — my most favorite fabric is just so nice that it would be a shame to use it for a 'studio comfy chair', unless I want to go with the I'm Worth It! route. It also happens to be the most expensive, by far. But the 2nd most favorite doesn't even come close to how much I like the first favorite, although it's nice enough, and it's fair amount cheaper.

I almost want to put off the decision, but then it might be another 25 years before I get here again.

And advancing along in the Cat Box Relocation Program: I moved the new box into its intended position, filled it with fresh litter, and put some of her 'stuff' from her existing box. Brought her to the box a bit after I fed her and, nope, no interest whatsoever. She did give it a good sniff and looked kinda puzzled.

Cleanliness is an infectious disease...

And it has infected my car!

I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed that my car, which has been in my possession for about 9 years now, got cleaned for the first time today. I don't mean just the removal of used kleenex or old parking stickers, spent coffee cups and google maps. I mean it got a vacuum and a windex.

In what was yet another one thing leads to another category — I mentioned yesterday that all kinds of things were staged by the door waiting to go to the Goodwill. Some of those were pretty large items, a chair, a suitcase, and they were really in the way. I went to load them in the car this afternoon, and figured, oh heck, I'm cleaning the house, I might as well clean the car.

When we bought the Carr, it came with 2 sets of floor mats (that's 8 of them). When I bought the Saturn 9 years ago, it did not come with mats, you had to buy them separately. I was outraged. So I figured, hey, the Subaru got totaled, it was about to get towed away, it wasn't going to need them mats anymore. So all this time, the Saturn had been using Subaru floor mats from 1980.

And now it has 2008 Subaru floor mats! It practically looks like a new car!

So yes, it's been days since I've done any work in the studio, but the house is looking preeetty good! Spent the afternoon and evening trying to make a screen from this old sari I have (I always knew I'd find a use for it!). Only problem is that it is stretched out of shape a bit and does not want to hang straight, but I think it will be fine for what it's for.

Cat Box Relocation Program has begun. The new box has a swing door, which is different from the current box, so we've just set it up with no litter in it, and have been trying to get the kitty to go in and out. Not sure about the psychology of playing with the box, she's probably thinking, "OMG, this is the best toy I've ever had, I'm never going to poop in it!"

More de-junk-ing

My frenzy of cleaning up the place has now infected the downstairs. It's starting to look a bit more roomy down here, what with all the things we haven't used (except to put other junk on) now staged by the front door, waiting for my 3 trip to the Goodwill in about 5 days. Even the Good Prince is becoming motivated to clean up His Corner (which is really more than a corner).

The kitty is a bit spooked by all this, especially since 'her room' is now devoid of all the boxes, bags of stuff, whatnots, that she's undoubtedly quite used to, and they probably provided excellent hiding places. Instead, the room looks so open and respectable. Two more things to shop for — shades for the window and some kind of a privacy screen for the entry. This room was originally NOT chosen as the guest bedroom because it does not offer much privacy. If the guest closes the door, then there's poor air circulation; if they don't close the door, well, there they are! So it will probably end up looking like a Japanese restaurant, with those fabric panels in the doorway.

Redecorating, did you say?

Having cleaned up the spare bedroom so that it's a usable guest bedroom, I'm now shopping for a new sofa bed. The one we have now is a traditional sofa bed, which is pretty uncomfortable and really isn't good for more than a day or two. So in between running some errands for Portland Open Studios, I stopped at the the futon place and checked out the options.

And of course, one thing always leads to another, and I started thinking about ripping up the carpet and putting in a wood floor, something we've talked about doing since day 1 (almost 17 years ago now). But sounds like my grand plans have been thwarted once again, this time due to the bad economy...

In yet another one thing leads to another category, I'll have to figure out how to deal with moving the kitty box. She's had her box in the spare room for 6 years now. But we can hardly make the guests sleep with the cat box now, can we?

Mit, 1st senior, day 3

Woohoo! K (the activities coordinator) at RSM has turned this ship around! It's clear that the residents trust her, and she's also good about using different words to try to direct them.

We met with my 1st senior again today. I had no expectations that anything was going to happen, and in fact, arrived under-prepared — I forgot to bring my recorder. But my senior seemed not as tired today as Monday, even though she just found out her son was moving away (not sure about that) and was in "a bad mood" (she said so herself, although not detectable by me).

Anyhow, since she expressed the feeling that I was pushing her into doing something she didn't want to do, I was determined to not be pushy today, and I was only going to bring up the subject once. If she said no, that would be it.

Well, I brought it up, and she said no. But K went on to ask about her favorite books, and although her reply was that all her books were favorites, she asked me to bring her her prayer book from the cabinet (now we were getting somewhere!) that was given to her when she was confirmed. There was a beautiful insert, with her name and names of the rabbis printed and signed.

But when I asked if we could make a print of it, she said she had plenty of prints already and didn't want/need any more. Immediately, K said, "oh, we're just going to make some copies of it."

Well, in that case, that was just fine!

It was obvious that she didn't want to do the actual gocco printing itself, so K and I went off and just did it. Returned the original and gave her 4 of the gocco prints. She seemed to like them and sounded happy that I would come back again next week.

Yippee! I was pretty happy after that. But of course, next week, she'd probably not like "copies" any better than "prints." See this entry for the disappointing visit last time. Today was just 100% better.

(Fun Factoid of the day: turns out, K, I, and my 1st senior are all Rats! K is half my age and my first senior is twice my age. Pretty cool, huh? Which reminds me, this being Chinese New Year (Happy New Year of the Rat), it was a pretty auspicious beginning!)

Since I was printing in their arts and crafts room, I attracted the attention of someone who came in to ask about some other project, and now she wants to be next to participate. Double Yippee!

On other fronts, made good progress cleaning up the spare bedroom. Found a recycler very close to us and the broken TV (broken for 15 years, I'm just now dealing with it) is loaded in the car, ready to go. That alone, cleared up a lot of space.

Haven't made any more progress on the LO Chronicles piece, but found out we actually have until April 15 to submit the image, so I want to let it sit for a bit before I continue.

(I just ran the spellchecker, and it wants to change 'woohoo' to 'boohoo'!)

MiT, 2nd senior, day 1

I met my 2nd senior today. Similar situation as the 1st senior — moved up here in the last 8 months or so from sunny Southwest; didn't want to move but children moved her up anyhow. However, it's clear that she has a very different personality. 2nd senior says that was her life before, and now she has a new life; she's taking art classes (and seems very enthusiastic about it); she's thinking about playing the violin again. So I hope these are good signs! I was pretty wired up even though I hardly slept last night and didn't have any coffee, just from being nervous I think.

Started to take over some of the Portland Open Studios web site updates. Not sure that I want to make really big changes to the web site, it will take so much time. On the other hand, I think the look & feel needs updating.

Spent the rest of the day de-cluttering. I want to get the upstairs spare bedroom cleaned up so it can be a real guest bedroom, leaving the downstairs bedroom for gocco projects.

I'm done with scary movies

Random Movie of the week — I Am Legend. And like I said, I'm done with scary movies. Can't take them like I used to, not that I ever could very well. But now I've finally wised up and see that I shouldn't spend money on it. Besides...[ SPOILER ALERT............the dog died...you'd think that he could've strapped the dog down until he found a cure, like he did with the infected human............END SPOILER ALERT]...which always makes me sad.

Other than that, spent the afternoon at the library and the morning at the dentist. I'm getting anxious about my meeting with my 2nd senior tomorrow. Hope it will go well. Of course, now I'm a nervous wreck about it, it will probably go terribly.

Moment in Time, day 2, and Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 5

My meeting with my first senior at RSM today was a bust. She continues to go back and forth between "I'm not interested in this project" to "I'd like to help you with this project." At one point, she said she wasn't interested in "buying what I was selling." Not sure where that came from. Anyhow, so no prints were made today, but we made another appt for Thursday. After that, I was most definitely ready for a Really Long Nap.

The activities coordinator thought we should move on and set me up with another resident, so I'll meet her on Wed. I'm not ready to hit the panic button yet, and hopefully things will go better with my 2nd senior. Or I will hit the panic button. (This is what the project is about.)

Here's today's progress on the LO chronicles piece. I'm really just not sure what I think of this yet.



Here's where it was last.

Me and my fainting couch

I hope I'm not having a relapse of my cold, or whatever it was I had. When I got home from the weight room, I was so exhausted that I went straight from the front door to the sofa and slept, instantly and very soundly, until dinner time. And I'm still feeling pretty tired. Needless to say, I slept away what might've been my studio time today. Tomorrow, I meet with my RSM senior for our 2nd printing session...news at 11 tomorrow night.

Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 4

Contrary to what I said I'd do the last time I worked on this, this piece is becoming more and more garish, and not less. But I'll fix that later.



Although it doesn't look like a big change, it took 5 hours to add the little segmented stripes behind the flowers & moths today. But I think I'm in good shape to finish in time (Feb 15 image due). And I'm thinking of having Aaron photograph it, rather than trying to do it myself, which is really such a pain.

Moment in Time, Day 1

So this was my first 'print' day with my first partner at RSM for this project that I got the grant for, named Moment In Time for now. And already, on Feb 1, I'm worried about completing the project in time (shows go up Nov/Dec this year).

I should've anticipated some of the issues that I'm running into, since my American mom is the same way — although 'my senior' says she's interested in participating and making prints, when it comes right down to it, she doesn't really want to work on the project, but she likes to have visitors. We ended up talking a lot; we went through her photo albums, and I'm getting lots of ideas for what 'her book' will look like. And it may turn out that 'her book' won't have very many prints made by her.

But this was clearly not a good day for her today, so maybe our next meeting will be a little smoother sailing. Also, I asked Katie to set me up with my 2nd senior next week, and maybe they can see what each other is doing and be inspired; or as the Good Prince says, a little 'peer pressure.'

Random Movie tonight: Persepolis! I've been waiting anxiously for it, and it does not disappoint.