Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 3

Up and around some more today. There were plenty of pent up errands that needed running — going to the library, grocery store, and Peets. Had a good nap afterwards.

Packed up for meeting with my RSM resident tomorrow. Hope she remembers. She did forget our first meeting last week; when I arrived at the appointed time, she had gone to get her hair done. But it wasn't a long wait and it worked out fine.

Rest of the day was spent on the Lake Oswego piece:



This image is very washed out; the actual piece is a bit more vibrant, maybe too much so, especially in the flowers on the bottom. I'm not quite sure what to do with the flowers on the bottom...they're looking muddier and muddier. I've removed a lot of the pigments (they were way too saturated) and I think THAT is at least going in the right direction. Hmmm...I think I just figured out what I'm going to do — the flowers are gonna go white!

I need to figure out how to work big better. This is 22x30 and about 4 times as big as I normally work (the LO show at a minimum size requirement) and is definitely a struggle both for its physical size (the paper is bigger than my table, my preferred work surface) and as an artist endeavor. The last 2 times I tried to work this size, both were failures. One remains unfinished, the other has been cut down and cut down and cut down until it's now 2 little pieces of paper, and STILL unfinished. For this piece, I actually sketched out the idea in my sketch book first, unlike how I normally work; that has helped by giving me an end goal to shoot for, but it's still a struggle.

For day 2 on this piece, go here.

Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 2

So I guess yesterday was Day 1 of the LO piece...

Feeling much better today, although not 100% normal yet. I went ahead and canceled my appts for tomorrow and punted my RSM session for yet another day until Friday. I really don't want to give my first senior a cold! This is to be my first session with the residents, and I don't want to start by making them sick. Our initial appt was for this last Monday, which I then changed and changed again.

Anyhow, spent the day working on the LO piece. I decided on doing all 4 seasons in the image. The big orb in the middle will be the July 4th fireworks.



Here's just a little later...I added the turquoise sky in the window reflection. I kind of liked having the white to the left of the dark gray blue, but the more vibrant turquoise stands up better to the flowers on the bottom. So here's the idea: the trees in the window reflection will have fall leaves (autumn, obviously), while the trees on the right will be naked and have fog curling around the trunks (winter); the flowers (mountain laurels) will be spring, and the fireworks, summer.



A little bit of catching up stuff — before I came down with this bug last week, we had an extra Random Movie. In fact, it was while we were at the theater that my throat first had that tell-tale sign of impending doom. But ancient history I guess. The movie was 27 Dresses. OK, it was a pretty dumb movie, but I liked it anyhow. I like movies where boy and girl fall in love unexpectedly, what can I say. And James Marsden is a real cutie; he was wonderful as the vacuous Prince Charming in Enchanted, too.

Same day, much later

At 3:45pm, I really couldn't stand it any longer, I had to get out of bed. I was sore all over from not moving much in the last 4 and half days, and my head itched from not having washed my hair all the while going through phases of hot cold hot cold. I at least had to wash my hair. Which I did. Then I decided to paint for a little while.

The hand was a bit shaky, probably because my diet has been so bad for the last few days and I haven't exercised, and I was just plain tense. But since I was putting down the first layer, a layer that will get mostly obliterated as I work, I decided it didn't matter. So here's how far I got on the LO Chronicles piece today. This is basically the sketch layer upon which more layers of the painting will be built up. I'm not quite done sketching it yet:



My proposal was for a piece about my walks through Nansen Summit in LO. Initially, I just wanted it to be about the Mountain Laurels that bloom so beautifully there in the spring (which you can see developing in the foreground). But now I'm thinking that I want to show a whole year unfold on the same image. We've walked up there to see fireworks on July 4th (turns out, our balcony is a little better for that, but sill, it was quite the scene up at the summit); the nude trees (and I'm working up some fog) would be the winter. I'll have to sleep on it for the rest.

The only sounds emanating from my mouth are still cough, cough, cough and wheeze, wheeze, wheeze...

Sleeping beauty is not quite revived

No, I haven't fallen down a well, nor have I gone on a whirlwind trip around the world. Instead, I've been in bed, more or less continuously, since last Thursday night. I can't breath, I can't talk, I can't keep my eyes open for very long, nor can I stay upright for very long. I guess all that reorganizing did me in.

On the bright side, I finished The Crimson Petal and the White, which turned out to be 35 disks and not 41 as I initially advertised. It is 42 hours of recording though. Don't ask me where I got '41' from. An interesting story with lots of well imagined female characters, but all but one of the men were insufferable jerks; and the one who's not is totally dysfunctional. So even though the book does not end on a tragic note, it seems like quite the tragic story. And if I had one complaint against the book, actually, I have two, that would be 1) the last 1/3 of the book really bogs you down, with more of the same without really moving the story forward, and 2) surely, there must be SOME Victorian men who were decent AND functional beings?

Back to bed.

A temporary triumph!

All in all, I installed 5 of those modular shelve units in the closet off my studio — 3 of the horizontal 2 plank ones, and 2 of the vertical 3 cubby hole ones. Here are 2 of the horizontal ones stacked together:



And 2 of the vertical ones standing side by side:



Here's a pile of frames that I bought a couple of years ago when they were on sale. I figure that I'd eventually use them. They were stacked up in the studio room itself and taking up a huge amount of room in what already is a postage stamp sized room. So after getting the closet all organized, I made enough room to stash the frames in the closet as well:



OK, I'm finished with the current organizing/cleaning frenzy for now. I have to be. I meet with my first Rose Schnitzer Manor resident tomorrow for my project, I need to get ready to teach my gocco class at IPRC this weekend, and I really need to start on my Lake Oswego Chronicles piece (no fooling around!).

While I've been cleaning, I've been listening to The Crimson Petal and the White, a whopper of a book on 41 CD's. I actually started when I was finishing the pillows, and I'm up to disk 25 now. You can tell many people didn't get through the book—the first 20 disks or so were full of finger prints, most of them had to be cleaned before they would play in my cheapo boombox. The last few disks, however, have been pristine!

Studio re-org, among other things

The "other things" were the Once In A While Dimsum Lunch, and a Museum visit. It was also my library gig day. But I managed to make a choice and bought 3 (cheap) shelves for my studio and started putting one together when it became dinner time. Then it was off to the Random Movie, which was There Will Be Blood. In other words, no work was done in the studio today.

I'm not sure about this talk that There Will Be Blood is the BEST movie ever made; it was good for sure, but I don't know about the best ever. The sound track was really good though, and in fact, I thought it was a bit distracting. I kept on thinking, I should be listening to the music without the movie...

Rose Schnitzer Manor and One thing leads to another, part 2

Today was my big day at Rose Schnitzer Manor. I met with the volunteer coordinator in the morning, although arriving a whole 24 hours EARLY for my scheduled appointment. But she was able to meet with me and do the volunteer orientation, and get the information she needed for the background check. I was so groggy and not myself, I'm sure I didn't sound like I was all there.

In the afternoon I met with the activities coordinator, hopefully sounding more like myself, having rushed home from my morning meeting to consume some coffee, and then some tea, just to be sure. I should be meeting with my first partner this coming Thursday. Yay!

Continuing on the cleaning and reorganizing kick, I went looking for some shelves today. Had a hard time deciding what would best meet my needs, I ended up not getting anything. I did make a few different piles of things in the closet, the biggest being old belly dance costumes. I'm ready to part with them.

One thing leads to another

So this is how cleaning my studio went today — I guess I'll store some of these things in the closet...oh, but there's no more room in the closet...hmmm, I guess I'll move some of the stuff in the closet into the basement...oh, but there's no room in the basement. I guess I better clean the basement.

I keep things. If they're useful, I think, oh, I'll use them someday; if they're not useful, I think, oh, some day they'll figure out how to recycle it. And although The Good Prince is not a pack rat, he's not The Organized Prince. This means we leave a trail of what most people would probably consider garbage strewn about, until I finally, absolutely, must, must, must do something about it.

So I've cleared out some boxes. Boxes for ancient computers and monitors we no longer have. Other more useful sizes, I've flattened and stowed against the wall. It's not spic and span, but it will do for now. And now I have a clear table top space where I HOPE to start working on my LO piece soon. I heard from another artist who's also doing the LO show and she's well into her piece already.

As a demonstration of how long I do keep things, this is a towel I inherited from my younger sister back in '87, '88:



However, it only looks like a towel, but it's really a bath mat now, thanks to the magic of the serger!

It had gotten pretty thin over the years and fell out of favor as a bath towel. So today, it was turned into a bathroom mat, and it will be much appreciated as a bath mat. The serger has been the most useful acquisition, and I'm about to go mend another towel that has frayed along the edges...

Silk road flowers web site wrap up!

Sort of. We did Part I of the training session this afternoon, got through 2 of the 3 lessons I prepared to teach her to edit her html files. But she's a quick study, pretty much figures things out on the first run, from not having seen any of it before. If only she can remember it!

Got home just dead tired, a lot more tired than I'd expect from teaching 1 person for 3 hours. So rather than cleaning my studio as I hoped (to get ready to start painting again, now that the pillow books are out of here), I did more mending. Didn't quite finish, and now it's time to go to bed. Especially since I ran out of thread...

A treat!

I sent off my 4 boxes to Tennessee today, and only used slightly over 1/2 of my shipping allowance the university is giving me (and that includes the return trip). Yay!

I noticed yesterday that Jules of Morocco, a clothing shop in Multnomah Village, is having an inventory sale. So I decided to see if one of those embroidered coats that I've been coveting for years would be, perchance, on sale. Well, they weren't, but I decided to splurge and buy one anyhow, especially since they gave me a fairly large discount. It was one of the older coats, and the sales lady says that it was THE coat that convinced the owner to start doing business with the group in India that produced these coats. It is very nicely done, with silk lining and all (which I noticed when I put my hands in the pocket; you can tell). Anyhow, the story goes, the subsequent coats were not as nice -- the linings were no longer silk (which I also noticed in the other coats), and some lacked pockets. I noticed that some had pockets that were rather too low.



Behold the coat! It's mid calf length, and I wore it tonight already, to Mike's company dinner. With my chicken hat!

So, that was my clothing budget for the next 3 years...

Finished the training manual for Rebecca so she can update her web site herself. We'll be meeting for the training session tomorrow afternoon, after we visit the Iranian Women Speak Out Through Art exhibit at IFCC.

Packing art is hard work

This was a long day of packing, over 9 hours! (OK, I did other things too, like sanding the plexi, get some bubble wrap, look for boxes, etc.) Of course it also didn't help that while I was packing, I decided to sew up the openings of the 6 tiny pillows (I had previously decided to leave them open), which of course means the photographs from yesterday's photo session are no longer true. I also didn't take pictures before I packed them up. Those were hard to photograph even by the professional photographer (Aaron Johanson), because in my head, I want them to be sequential (although non-linear), and one would just end up with one long skinny photograph. Anyhow, I got the CD's back from Aaron today, and here are 3 of them, now titled, in order, The Dog's Tale, Random Cruelty, and Tenuous Connections.





I found boxes exactly (!) the right sizes for Random Cruelty and Tenuous Connections; the die went into a box by itself; The Dog's Tale and Cradles For Our Memories (previously titled 6 Tiny Pillows) went into a box together.

So tomorrow, they are off to Tennessee.

To see The Dog's Tale being made, in reverse chronological order, start here.

To see Tenuous Connections being made, in reverse chronological order, start here.

To see Random Cruelty being made, of course in reverse chronological order, start here.

Slowing down

That's the trouble when you finish a project, you mentally reach a milestone and then it's hard to do the rest. I still have to sand the plexi (support for the pillows), find suitable boxes (surely something in the basement will work), and buy clean bubble wrap and pack. And I have yet to title the pieces and sign them. I had completely forgotten about that part until the photographer asked about them this morning. Photos will be back late this week or early next week.

I did catch up on a bunch of Portland Open Studios chores & correspondences, which I had let slip while I was finishing the pillows. A couple of the Open Studios artists had their studios featured in Oregon Home this month, so I had to go out and buy a copy so I can ogle. Nice. Drool.

Done, done, done...for now

Since I'm getting professional photos done tomorrow, I'm not bothering with photographing them myself tonight, but everything is sewn up, sewn down, trimmed up, tacked down...more or less finished for now. There are still a couple of undecided things, but I'll have to stew on them some more; I might work with them some more after they come back from the Tennessee show, but not now.

The other big part of the day was preparing for the Portland Open Studios meeting and the actual meeting tonight. We got quite a few things done/decided, so that was good. Between the two, it was a pretty long day.

Pillow book IV, day n+9

OK, Saturday's unexpected car shopping experience set me back a bit, and I'm not finished with book IV as I had hoped, but I'm close. The pillow form is finished and about 1/3 of the 'booklets' of words are now sewn on. Problem is, tomorrow is pretty full and my appt with the photo is on Wed at 11am. We'll see how far I get. I've also realized that with the die weighing down on the pillow so much, a deck of cards will probably not work very well...they'll just all slide down and snuggle up towards the die. At this point, I'm also out of time for making them. Lets see, here's the last entry on this book.

Tonight's Random Movie — The Savages. Interminable! I have no patience for irrational and dysfunctional people in the movies (not in real life either, but you have no control over that).

Pillow book III, day n+6...and poor Jeep is dead...

Had to rescue the Good Prince again. We thought maybe he could drive the Jeep just a couple of more times to use up the tank of gas, but no such luck. And this time, it was stopped at a most inconvenient spot. We had to push it (uphill, no kidding) into a parking spot. As the Good Prince shut the door, something underneath rattled. "The catalytic converter, it's about to go," he said. Sigh. 15 years of service, now the Jeep is all alone, left at some parking lot waiting for the tow truck to arrive. I didn't even get a chance for a last ride. It's funny, but I do feel sad. It's the first car I've had for such a long time. It's the first car I've had that was purchased new, and we've had some fun times going on road trips with it. Coming back from Texas one year, we had been given a giant container of Texas grapefruit by relatives. As we came close to the California border, I suddenly remembered that California had all these laws about what fruit you could bring in. Not sure that we would be allowed to keep the bounty, we stopped at a rest area right before the border, and ate as much of the grapefruit as we could! We ate and ate and ate, sitting in the Jeep, in the middle of the night, and we didn't make a dent in the amount of grapefruit we had. It was a very big box. Turned out, California didn't care about grapefruit, at least not that year.

I guess it was fortuitous that we got the Subaru last night. Here's a picture of the Good Prince removing all our things from the car:



The first not rainy day for weeks! I celebrated by going out for a long walk up Nansen Summit. Partly to walk, and also because I needed to collect some materials for the piece I promised for the Lake Oswego Chronicles. It was a misty, foggy day, but clear at the top:



Spent the bulk of the day trying to finish up book III. Although I'm not quite there yet, I'm very close. The pages are very loosely sewn down on the left, using little tiny gray glass beads as spacers to keep the pages loose. The first few pages are also not sewn down all the way, and the threads are all left loose and dangling. I want the whole thing to seem to be on the verge of coming apart. So here's a shot with the book closed:



With one page turned. You can see the first page is not sewn down on the bottom:



The last page. I used the glass beads to frame the image, and here on the last page, the framing is complete. As you flip backwards, the pages lose their framing. The first page, only a little bit of the beads are left on the upper left corner. You can sort of see it. Again, threads are left loose.



To see the previous day's work on this book, see this entry.

In lieu of work...

...we bought a Carr today. Rather unexpectedly. To me, at least.



The day started out as planned — Tom's for breakfast and then the Met Opera's simulcast of MacBeth at the movie theater, and then a late lunch. On our way to the theater, we drove past the Carr Subaru dealership and the Good Prince said, how about if we stop by to check out the cars after the opera. Ok, sure.

We've been needing to replace his Jeep for a while now. At 15, it's not all that reliable anymore, and I've never liked the bad gas mileage. (Plus it's just too big for my comfort zone, so I've only driven it once or twice, only when absolutely necessary.) A couple of days ago, it wouldn't get out of P and refused to start.

He had pretty much done the research and decided on a Subaru. Having had 4, 5 Subarus between us, that was ok with me. He had also talked to the car buyer at the credit union and decided what he was willing to pay. Well, wouldn't you know it, after an hour and half, they actually came down 3k and met his price. Since they were willing to take a personal check from me, much to my surprise, we left with the car.

So there it is.

And in case anyone should care — I'd recommend Carr's Subaru. Nice sales person, nice manager (of course he did try to get more money out of us...), not much pressure throughout the afternoon, although it did take a long while.

Pillow book IV, day n+8, and other oddities

Finally! Finished sewing all the little tulle pages together. Here they are, laid out (with 1 swiss cheese/die in the middle, more on that later), in the 'starting position' of the game. Except 1) the pillow case isn't made yet, that's just the piece of fabric laid out on the pillow form; 2) there will be 6 words along each side (5 on each side are shown, the extras are all piled on the left bottom corner there). Each word is 8 sheets of tulle sewn into 3 'pages'.



Here some of the pages have been turned. The words are still legible when 1 page has been turned, but becomes illegible when 2 pages have been turned.



See this entry for previous day on this book.

Although I had Sara make me 2 dice, I've decided to use only 1 for this piece. For obvious reasons, looking at the photo. Which means I have an extra die for another piece! So wheels are turning for that. I'm very happy with the way the dice turned out, and I think Sara was too. When I brought it to the critique group meeting last night, people's reactions were great — they couldn't figure out if it was a block of cheese or a die.

I have appt with Aaron (photog) next Wed, so much better pictures of all the pillows will be coming in the later part of next week.

Found a few different types of beads that I can use as spacers for book III, and also had the plexi cut for book II and III; I'll need those for display at the Tennessee show.

So, the odd bits.

Now, I always have strange dreams, usually of the down the rabbit hole variety and although things tend to be very involved, they move along pretty quickly without much time for me to think. But last night was a little different. I dreamed that I was considering buying a portable oven that's also a pet carrier, and it's all inside this suitcase, which looked suspiciously like this broken suitcase that I've been trying to figure out what to do with. In real life, I do have a broken oven AND a broken suitcase, AND a pet.

Anyhow, in this suitcase, half of it is an oven and the other half, a pet carrier. But there's only 1 door, and 1 latch. I kept on looking at it and looking at it. Whoever was trying to sell it to me kept on saying how my pet would be perfectly safe in there, all the while the oven is going, but I was dubious. I put a chocolate cake in one half, and a small dog in the other, but I couldn't bring myself to shut the suitcase, thinking why didn't they just put a door on each half, then I'd feel so much better about it.

I must've decided to not trust the oven/pet carrier — the last thing I remember was me eating the unbaked chocolate cake batter.

Somewhere along the line, a tipsy Mrs. 5000 also made an appearance, throwing yellow plastic cups all over a book arts conference!

Had another coyote sighting tonight. At this rate, I'll be able to do my own daily coyote blog. This one seemed like a young one, still had a bit of a puppy look.

Pillow book IV, day n+7

Oops, did I say that I'd have pictures today? I lied, apparently. Did a lot of sewing on book IV, and am about 1/2 way through all the little pages that need to be sewn together. Still need to sew the pillow case itself, and the critique group meet tonight help me decide which fabric to use (I had a lighter and a darker to choose from, and although preferred the darker, wasn't sure that the text would show...everyone thought the text showed just fine).

The group also had a great suggestion for how to finish book III, so that was great. So this was the previous entry on book IV.

The group reviewed the information the gallery at Austin Peay U sent; they had lots of pedestals, but I'll need to order 2 plexi sheets as support for the 2 larger pillows.

Pillow book IV, day n+6

Still no pictures (but I really should've taken some). Finished basting the tulle pages for book IV (took 4 hours!); decided the layout and orientation of the words. See this entry for previous day on this book.

Finally hemmed up book II (so the pillow form is no longer exposed on the underside). Still working on how I want to finish book III, but did make a couple of decisions on that today.

Pillow book IV, day n+5

Continued to hand baste the tulle pages today, but only got in an hour's work in the studio. It was, otherwise, a busy day for errands. Sara brought over the finished swiss cheese-dice today, and they're great! Picture tomorrow.

Random movie: Sweeney Todd. OK, so I've seen this a couple of times on stage, and enjoyed it both times, but somehow, the movie was...boring. And they way over-did the squirting/dripping blood thing. I thought so even during the opening sequence, so I guess I should've seen it coming.

Pillow book IV, day n+4

Time to get back to work. But first, a picture of Laura's inspiring coat, which she drew on to match her purse:



This is the game piece. For a list of all the words in this piece, this this entry. Here you see Brother and Recognize in 8 layers of gocco printed tulle. I had originally figured I'd only use 6 of the 8 that I printed for each word, but after stacking them up, the individual flaws didn't really show much, so I've decided to use all 8 sheets.



Here they're pinned up 2 layers each, to make 4 pages. But looking at these, I think 2 layers is too faint.



So I decided on 3 pages of 3, 3 and 2 layers, with the 2-layer being the bottom page. Here are the 2 3-layer pages:



I also now realize that the gray fabric I bought for this is too dark, and actually I'm really liking the pieces over white. So I'll be heading back to the fabric store tomorrow and see what else I find.

One lazy day begets another

...and so nothing was accomplished in the studio today. I did do all my Sunday chores, some of them twice, but I'll spare you the details. Although it felt pretty good to not work today, I must admit.

How time flies! As promised, I gave the Good Prince a haircut tonight. And looking at the aftermath on the floor, there's but one tenth of what used to be there 18 years ago. Clean up is easier, yes. When I took the sheet out to shake off, the tree by which I do this is now 20 feet tall, and it was just 2 and half feet tall when I first shook out the haircutting sheet standing by it.

And now I have to wear bifocals to cut his hair!

We'll have been in the house 17 years this summer. And have we improved upon it since we took up residence? Nooooooo...

2008 Sock Mending Party!

No work was accomplished today because it was the 2008 Sock Mending Party —

2 coats
1 sock creature
several pairs of pants
and many, many socks were repaired.

In addition, a white coat arrived, well, white, and left with green circles on it; some embroidery was completed; and a quilt was on its way to being finished.

Chicken hat had a great time, as did the rest of us.

The cello was brought out and we had live music as we mended.

What a great way to start 2008! And now I'm off to laze around and read.

Pillow book III, day n+5

No pictures today, but I finished the edges of the tulle pages of book III. Again, took a lot of experimenting to get the tension right on the serger for this task. Of course, now that I have the edges sewn up, I see some other problems with the book which I'll have to deal with. See this entry for the previous day on this book.

Still decluttering the house. OK, I said I wasn't going to clean for the Sock Mending Party, and I'm not really cleaning. But really, there's a lot of old junk mail, old not-junk mail, old postcards, old magazines, old paper work of all kinds, that need to be dealt with.

OK, so here's a somewhat entertaining tale. This actually happened a few days ago, but it took me a bit to figure it out. We had a pretty foggy night, I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday, and I went out for my evening walk a little later than usual. Anyhow, I was walking along my usual route, and I looked up and saw this dog down the street. It had seen me already, and it was frozen in mid stride with one leg in mid air, just tracking me as I walked towards it. I thought perhaps it was tied up to the tree or something, and thought what a horrible night to leave your dog out like that; it was cold and wet.

As I got closer, I could see that it was not tied to anything; it continued to track me without moving. I thought about going over to check it out, but had second thoughts since it was behaving so oddly. At the corner, I turned onto the side street (away from the dog). I walked a few steps and turned to check on the dog. Well, it had moved and was walking towards me, but as soon as it saw me looking at it, it froze again.

I continued on my route for another half a block before I looked again. And this time, the dog had changed directions and was paying me no attention.

I think I've decided that it was a coyote. It was definitely the right size, shape, and color, although it was fluffier, but that might be a winter coat. They're definitely around in the neighborhood, and I heard one baying in the middle of the night about a week ago.

So that's my encounter with the "friendly" neighborhood coyote.

For a daily dose of coyote stories, check this out.

Pillow book III, day n+4

I got lazy yesterday and didn't document, but, I didn't do a whole lot in the studio and we got home really late from the movie and I just wanted to get something to eat and get to bed. So a quick note about yesterday — I was invited to submit a piece for the Lake Oswego Chronicles exhibit for 2008 and had to submit a proposal for what I was going to show, which of course I have yet to make. Anyhow, this all happened back in early December. My deadline for sending in an image is mid Feb, even though the exhibit won't be until June, so I figure I better get cracking on that. So yesterday was looking for materials for the piece I've promised. But mainly, I worked on putting the house back together after Portland Open Studios. Yes, that was months ago; and yes, it always takes me months to put all the furniture & artwork back to where they all belong.

So, today. Well, I'm now 2 issues behind on Pudding. The last two issues of Pudding, in fact. People have asked about PhotoEZ and StencilPro as potential replacement materials, should the unfortunate day arrive when we can't get Riso screens anymore. The two products seem extremely similar and it took me a little while to find where they talk about the differences. (I should note that their data on the Riso screens are NOT correct on the page!) Anyhow, ordered myself two different grades of the StencilPro to try for one of the two remaining issues of Pudding. Not sure what I'll do for the other issue yet. But the two will probably go out together as a double issue.

Anyhow, back to pillow book III in the afternoon. Decided on the text/captions for the pages, and printed them on Rives Lightweight on the inkjet printer. And here they are, sewn onto the tulle pages. There's a dreamy quality to this picture...I think it's the weird light combination (camera flash + full spectrum light directly overhead), and the way the pillow was just kind of sitting on a chair piled high with stuff.



See this entry for the previous day on this book.

Random Movies! We saw 2 in a row (2 nights in a row that is). So yesterday was National Treasure, the Book of Secrets. It was VERY BAD. The night before was I'm Not There, which was really interesting for about an hour and half, and then really boring for another 45 minutes — after I got over the ingenuity factor, there wasn't much else there. Not for me, anyhow.

Pillow book IV, day n+3

OK, the words for book IV were printed today. Here's the laser printer output that I used to flash the screen. All the words were crammed in there to fit the larger gocco screen (slightly larger than 6"x9"). I think the smallest gap is about 1/3".



I put down ink blocks between the words and printed 8 copies of each word. And here they are, all printed. They were printed one word at a time — I'd print a word, scrape off the ink, towel off the spot, and move on to the next.



And here's a detail of 'You.' This was not a clean copy (thus I needed to print 8, in order to get 6 good ones). When I peeled the print off the print bed, any movement between the tulle and the newsprint would cause these smudges, if I wasn't super careful. So this is one of the smudged ones. And on text, any defect is instantly detectable!