Well, I wasn't supposed to be here...

Earlier this year, the Saturn's wipers started acting funny. So in June, I took it in and it got a brand new wiper motor. A couple of weeks later, when I had to use the wipers coming back from The Dalles, it was still acting funny. So I took it in again on Monday. They still saw nothing wrong with it, but replaced the then still new motor with yet another new motor.

On Tuesday evening, I started down I-5 heading towards Bend. As you Portlanders might recall, it was raining that evening. I got maybe 2 or 3 miles down the road when the wipers went kaput all together. Now, that was NOT funny. It was dusk, not the best visibility, and I had no wipers in the rain.

So on Wednesday morning, the tow truck arrived and the Saturn went into the shop again. Wednesday afternoon, the shop called and said they don't find anything wrong with the car except the 2nd new motor is most definitely dead, so they're going to give me ANOTHER new motor. Except now I've run them out of motors and they'll have to have one shipped to them.

Well, now, that is not a very satisfactory answer! And I told them so. What are the chances that I'd have 3 bum motors in a row? Me think the car is killing the motors. But apparently, they find nothing wrong with the car.

This is now Thursday night, and I've not heard from them again. Did the 3rd new motor not show up? Did it show up and then died immediately upon meeting the car? What?

So rather than spending 3 days away visiting family in Bend and Hines, I found myself here and trying to get my brain to focus on work that I hadn't planned on doing for a few days.

Write Around Portland

First thing first, this is my very next deadline, the broadside for Write Around Portland. (This is the mockup.) After talking to Carla, the organizer, I found out that although some component(s) of the broadside needs to be printed on the letterpress, it need not be the text part. This makes a huge difference in terms of how I can do the text. So I'm doing all the text wrapped around the tree trunk, and I'm doing the background (the gray on the right, the hawk shadow, and the orange on the left) as pressure prints on the letterpress.



Here is the texture that will go under the paper to create the pressure print. The hawk shadow is cut out in fun foam with the edges feathered and layered (haha, but you know, like haircuts). The rest of the texture is matte medium applied to mylar in varying thicknesses, which will hopefully create varying density of the background color. Not having pressure printed before, Diane will be helping me with this tomorrow. The mylar is sitting on a sheet of newsprint, so where there is no matte medium, you see the yellow newsprint underneath, and that part will not print. Where it's white is where there's matte medium, and that will print, we hope.



On the Relay Replay book

I was able to meet one of my senior's children this week when he came out to visit his dad. We had a very good couple of hours at the coffee shop. He told me about their lives together a bit, and I told him about the concepts that I've been working with. He seemed happy with the directions that I've been exploring, and promises to get me some water from the St. Claire River to include in the book!

And OK, I can't help it, I'm really liking the darker window frame with the orange highlight. Here's a shot from the day time.

Ah...much better!

I painted the front of the window frame (the parts that face the room) a darker shade of purply red (left-over from another project), and it's 100% better:



Before, the orange window just commanded all your attention (well, all my attention anyhow) whenever I was in the room. Now it's much more civilized.

On the broadside

I've been mocking up my Write Around Portland broadside. Despite not wanting to take the extra time to mail-order my paper, I ended up mail-ordering it anyhow, because the Rives Lightweight at the local store is, as usual, all creased up. They really have trouble keeping that paper flat & crease-free. So now it will be the middle of next week before I have my paper, and I'd be gone then. So realistically, I won't be able to start printing until the week after. That's still enough time, so that's good.

Here's the mockup. There's a lot more text. I'm playing around adding some of the text like they're the patterns on the Aspen tree trunk. I'm not sure that I'll do it the way I've started it here; I might just do it to suggest the volume of the trunk instead.

Buyer's remorse?

Well, I don't know. That paint is definitely way orangey-er than the paint chip, and orangey-er than I like. I was looking for something not quite so matchy-matchy, yes. I was looking for something a little unexpected, yes. But it's such a bright & strong color that it's sort of oppressive, especially around the window frame.

I like it well enough around the door frame and along the floor, but I'm thinking that I'd repaint the window frame...

Last + (Last - 1) == New Last

Michael5000 was asking me the other day if the Last Bedroom was still the Last Bedroom, and the answer was "yes, of course." In fact, the Last Bedroom has combined with the (Last - 1) Bedroom to become the bigger & better new Last Bedroom.

The new, smaller but better closet contains pretty much everything that was in the walk-in closet that was twice the size. In fact, see those 3 large boxes smack in the middle of the picture? Those did not fit into the walk-in closet before and were just sitting on the floor in the (Last - 1) Bedroom. Now they fit:



Years of photos (both family photos and from my photography days) occupy the top shelf, including my collection of cameras. I think I will sell some of the old photos during Portland Open Studios this fall.

I did have to leave out the box of wrapping paper and other rolled up things, as they're too tall for the way the new closet is organized:



In this shot, you see the biggest change in Phase II of the studio remodeling project—the room opened up quite a bit from closet-downsizing, and my work table is now oriented the other way. Also the (Last - 1) Bedroom has not yet been painted:



Turn to the right, and here's the bonus wall:



Turn to the right again:



And again:



Again:



Again and we're back to where we started. The symmetry on the two sides of the new closet is a coincidence. I only just noticed it now as I'm looking at the photo:



I was thinking of attaching a bone to this hand...or maybe attaching a bat to each of the fingers:



But on the other hand (I've been waiting to say that all night...) is the chain of hearts:



And now I must go get some sleep. I've been working 10+ hours for many days, and sleeping only 6 or so, trying to get this finished so I can get back to some real work soon. So that's what's on tomorrow's agenda.

Why does the chicken sit on the molding?

Why? To hide the shoddy workmanship from the painting department, of course. And the cat is just keeping the chicken company.

Well, after 3 coats of the "Peony Red," I'm done, even if it does still look rather more orange than their little chip shows. And talk about the sloppy painting department—the floor sure does need some cleaning! Man, this type of painting is a lot harder than the other kind. I had previously thought that the death star would be fully operational by today, but it was not meant to be. I have most of the floor to clean still (paint splatters), and tomorrow is a full day of volunteer activities, plus a social engagement, so now it's looking like Thursday would be the first possible day that I'll get back to doing any actual work as opposed to just making sketches and doing research while I watch the paint dry.

Progress on the Relay Replay book

Speaking of research, I have some information about the book that I'm working on with the senior out at The Dalles. Can't remember if I've already talked about this, but I wanted to enclose some water from the Pacific ocean, water from the Columbia River, soil from the farm he grew up in, and soil from his farm here in Portland in the book itself. So I checked into enclosing the said materials in either glass or acrylic. Well, the glass guy didn't get back to me yet, but the acrylic people have gotten back to me with useful information. Plus, I've talked to a rare books librarian to see if they'd have problems with having water and dirt enclosed in a book, and sure enough, I was glad I asked. Yes, they would have problems, but just with the water part.

Double enclosure would be what's necessary. So now we have a plan, some shopping to do, and getting a sample made and getting a price check.

It's looking mighty orange!

The floor guy was here yesterday and the floor is installed. I picked up where I left off as far as painting went and finished up the walls and started on the window and molding.

Since I didn't have enough left-over paint to do the woodwork, I did have to go look at paint chips. I had 3 top choices—black (homage to the bats), red ("Peony Red" it said), and a olive-y green. The olive-y green actually looked the best with the floor (and the avocado closet doors), but I decided that it was a little too calming. I mean, It's the studio, we want to be energized, not fall asleep! And besides, I've been painting all those peony images, I figured it was fate that I should go with the peony red. And then there was the Good Prince, "you're Chinese, go with red."

Since the woodwork was originally painted with oil paint, I had to prime it first with this special, stinky primer before I could paint over it with a latex paint. So that pretty much took care of today—one coat of primer and one coat of "Peony Red".

All I can say is, after the second coat tomorrow, this better get more red and less orange!



While I was waiting for the floor guy...

I didn't just sit around and twiddle my thumbs, I got a bunch of Portland Open Studios stuff done, including this profile of Sabina Haque. And I interviewed another artist today, Kamala Dolphin-Kingsley, hopefully the profile to come in a few weeks. I have three more interviews to do in the next 3 days, in between finishing painting and moving furniture. I probably won't paint the other half until later. I must catch up on studio work.

I best start selling some art!

When I was still working in high tech, one of my fellow engineers walked into my cubicle, sat down, and asked "how many times have you been laid off?"

I thought that was a very strange question, and told him so, and told him I had never been laid off.

His eyes bugged out. He thought that was highly unusual, given the state of high tech in the Portland area from the 80's through the 90's.

Then I told him that the Good Prince had never been laid off either. He thought that was doubly strange.

Well, after a combined approximately 50 years in high tech (and related industries), we've had a layoff! Yes, the Good Prince took a voluntary layoff from his job and today was his last day. He came home with a packet of information of his 'Career Transition Benefits!' Career transition. Who think up these terms? The benefit, I guess, would be the severance pay. The first time either one of us got a severance. Unfortunately, it was not as good a deal as they had offered during the last layoff. Too bad...but it's better than no severance pay.

Anyhow, so he's reviving Five Bats (consulting). And this time, he says his website will say something other than 'There is nothing here.' (Which is what it says now, check it out.)

The garden in this 100+ degree heat

For years, I've been trying to pitch my garden to Portland Open Studios for promotion, and finally, this year, when my garden is looking pretty weedy, they want pictures! So here's one I snapped today, when we had about 3 seconds of cloud cover. Weeds and all:



More about the studio remodeling

Mainly, I'm just waiting for the floor guy to install on Saturday. In the mean time, I'm doing a few things that I can do, like hanging things back up on the wall, and making this bulletin board:



I bought the frame at a garage sale for $0.25 a few years ago and made a bulletin board, except that I didn't quite get enough of those cork tiles. Rather than making another trip to the store, I just made do. Well, this time, I did it right. Here's a close up of the frame. It's really a very nice frame, and you can't beat 25 cents!



And I'm also getting other things accomplished while I wait for the floor guy—Portland Open Studios artists' profiles and website changes are all getting done...

Another type of painting

There have been a few occasions when someone's said "I'm a painter" and I think one kind of a painter when they mean another. So I've been busy doing the other kind of painting lately. As always, it takes longer to clean the walls/ceiling, paint, and also more muscles, than you might think. I have a pretty good kink in the neck from doing the ceiling yesterday. But here we are, it's close to finished. They'll need to remove the molding and re-caulk to do the floor on Saturday, so I left the bottom foot of the wall, along with the molding, to do after the flooring goes in.

When the interior of the house was painted (18 years ago!), the color was Polar White. It doesn't look so white here any more, compared with the new Natural Ivory that's going in.



Here's the bottom foot unpainted:



Here's the new closet and the newly painted new wall:



Now I'm off to finish Katy McFadden's website...

Oops, before I do that, I keep forgetting to mention that I got a bonus wall:



This wall was never very usable before because it was the narrow hallway that the walk-in closet created. I could hang tools from it, but that was it. Now I have this big wall that I can use for art!

Write Around Portland

A couple of months back, I was invited to print a broadside for Write Around Portland. I was thrilled to be invited and happily accepted. I was given a selection of 9 short pieces written by participants in Write Around Portland and I was to choose one to print. I liked many of the pieces and selecting one was difficult, but I ended up choosing A Shift in Focus. I don't have permission to excerpt it here, I'm sure, so I'll just say that the way she talked about how "...everything looked the same..." and then realizing that "the shift was inside me..." really resonated with me.

I finally started sketching out some ideas this afternoon, doing some research on images, etc.

More about the studio remodeling

The floor installer called today, and it was a good thing I wasn't planning on waiting for the floor before I started painting, since they're not going to install until August 1, a whole week away. If I paint now, I can be back to work by Monday, August 3. If I wait until after, I'd be out of commission for another 3-4 days after that. And I do need to start working on the broadside soon. It's due on Sept 4.

So here are the painted bi-fold doors installed. The green is actually much paler and not so minty green. The name of the color is called Avocado Essence, although it's not quite as yellow as I think of avocado colors.

Who am I kidding?

Or should that be 'whom am I kidding?'

Whatever.

Yesterday, I said I'd wait until the floor goes in to decide what I'd do with the closet doors. Today, I realized that I will not make a better decision then as I can now.

I mean, really, I'm not much of a decorator. Having the floor in will not inspire me to become incredibly creative in home decor.

So today, on went a coat of primer and a coat of some leftover pale green paint I had from painting some shelves I built a couple of years ago. Tomorrow, the 2nd coat. Then I'm done with it. Then I can paint the walls (while). Then, MOVE ON.

Closet be back!

Ta da!



This is actually just slightly deeper than a normal sized closet, but so much better than that stupid walk-in that was in here before. In fact, it's about the exact size of the door to the walk-in closet, and now the door has found a new life as a member of the closet shelves team:



Two years ago, I bought a couple of drawer pulls for some other project but they didn't work out, so I've had these drawer pulls sitting around, and now they too have found a new life as the door 'knobs' for the bi-folds.

And now I'm wondering if I should tart the whole thing up by painting the doors some funky colors? The rest of the flooring is going in next week (I hope), so I guess I'll take a look-see and decide. I might also put cork on there and use the doors as a bulletin board. So many choices...

Closet be gone!

Before:



After:



I've always hated this walk-in closet. It made no sense. It was a walk-in closet in a room that was barely half again as big. And it was situated such that it created this hallway after you walk in to the room. It blocked the light. And worst of all, moving anything in and out of the room was a great pain as I had to negotiate this 'L' with two long skinny hallways.

Soon, it will begin a new life as a normal closet, appropriately sized for the room! I had already brought in two of those bi-fold closet doors without having to twist and cuss to make the turn. Yay!

Popups at RSM

It was a big hit!

Four ladies came (although my favorite resident was away and didn't come), and we made cards with popups in them. Two ladies had the worst case of the giggles, and that kept the rest of us pretty well entertained. One lady made a card for her boyfriend—I'm sure this was unrelated, but her popup card had a frog, and lots of kisses—and another made one for her grandson.

My week at The Dalles

I've been working with a senior, a WWII veteran, out at The Dalles. The Dalles is about hour and half drive from Portland, so it's not really practical for me to commute back and forth each time I visit. I had gone out to visit him on several 1 day visits, but his wife and I, with the help of one of the social workers at the Veteran's Home there, planned for me to go out and spend seven days with him, while staying with the social worker. So that was July 6-12.

It was a pretty intense week, for both me and the senior. His wife gave a a lot of personal items—old family photos, more recent photos, school year books, papers and speeches he had written, etc. I read his papers and speeches out loud to him, I think he really enjoyed hearing those, although he couldn't remember writing them or giving the speeches. That was actually one of the toughest moments of our week together. He had been given an award by his alma mater and was honored at an event at the school. His wife brought a video of the speech, and I later found his handwritten notes for the speech, along with the printed program for the evening with an introduction of him. He couldn't remember giving the speech, although he remembered watching the video of it the day before. When I read him the bio of him in the printed program, he kept on asking me if he had really accomplished all those things, which of course he had, to the best of my knowledge. There were a lot of tears that day.

I have to say that he's a very courageous person—he readily acknowledges that he's having memory issues, which I think must be a very hard thing, and terrifying thing, to say. Not only to a relative stranger (me) but to himself. And even as he acknowledges this, he's always kind and gentle, never angry. I know people can become angry when they suffer from memory loss, but I've not seen that in him.

In retrospect, I think 7 consecutive days was really hard on both of us. It's pretty intense to absorb someone else's life for 5, 6, 7 hours a day and 7 days in a row, and it was pretty hard on him to go through all that on a daily basis too. If I have another opportunity for something similar, I'd probably do 2-day trips with breaks in between.

I have a few ideas for the format of his book, and will need to research the feasibility and cost of the options. In the mean time, I'll continue to visit him as part of my Central Oregon Senior's Tour—visit my mom in Bend, come back through The Dalles. I did just that this last Thursday-Saturday, and it worked out pretty well. Although my visit with the vet was pretty short, he was really absorbed in the baseball game.

From baseball bats to flying bats

My visit with my mom went really well. We went to the High Desert Museum for the live bat talk & presentation! There were 3 bats there (not five, sigh...), and they were all adorable and beautiful. The talk was given by Rob Mies of Bat Conservancy, and although it was mainly aimed at kids, it was great fun. And I got an autograph!

My mom talked about the presentation several times during the evening, and the next morning when I went in to wake her and to say good-bye, she opened her eyes and said "Did you enjoy the bat talk? Wasn't that just amazing?"

I think it went over well.

World Grapevine Wrestling Champion

I never seem to remember to take the before picture, but trust me, the grapevine was one monstrous mess with long vines hanging down over the garage door, growing into the roof, and blocking the way to the mailbox. After the wrestling match, it's looking much more civilized:



And look at these grapes:



When they're ripe in the fall, they're so fragrant you can smell them from the street.

And phase II of the studio remodel

I decided to scale back on this part of the studio remodel. Originally, I was thinking that I'd take out the walk-in closet all together and put in another window. But after thinking about it, having a normal sized closet in that room would be good, future owners can always turn the studio back into 2 bedrooms again easily. So we're getting started on that tomorrow—turning the walk-in into a normal sized closet. I picked up bi-fold doors for the new closet; I cleared out the contents of the closet; I moved half of the furniture. See the big empty spot here:



It's all here instead:



The rest of the furniture I'll move later in the week, before the floor guy starts. I'm hoping to finish my DNA painting before that, so my painting table is still setup.

Studio remodel, phase I complete!

In the morning, after the rug was removed:



In the evening, after the floor went in:



Several people have been surprised that I chose such a dark color. Well, most light color laminate or wood floors tend to be yellowy, and I'm just not that crazy about a yellow floor. Another corner of the room:



There were a few unexpected hiccups—many of the Pergo boards had slight defects in them! Ugh. I'm not happy about that. So there are 3 boxes of the boards that have been set aside. I'll have to see if I can exchange them. But there's no guarantee that, even if there are more boxes available for me to exchange, they won't have similar defects. Ugh again. I guess I can at least console myself that I did not pay a whole lot for them.

While the floor was being installed, I worked on the painting that I'll be trading with Artist X on Thursday. It's not going so well, and that's all I have to say about it.

Helen came over after dinner and we worked on the banner for the Food Confessional, this is for the Cedar Crest show. At least that's going pretty well. I'll need to get back to the game board really soon now.

Look at this mess

Tomorrow, the floor is going in in the 'new' half, so all the furniture is now in the old half (and the bathroom too):



And here's the big empty room where the kitty can spread out:



Fortunately, I can still find my way to the table where I'm working on my collaboration with Artist X, who shall remain nameless for now, as requested; and also as requested, no images of work in progress. This is important, being able to get to the table, because I hope to be working on it all day tomorrow while the guy's putting in the new floor.

And on the Cedar Crest show—I've been trying to figure out what containers to use to hold the blueberry chips. Finally decided that they have to be clear glass as to not obstruct the painted blueberries. I searched around on ebay for a bit but didn't see just the right things, so I checked out Value Village this afternoon (a thrift shop). And wouldn't you know it, I found 4 little glass cups and a drink 'thingie' (I don't think it's a wine glass, but I don't know what it is).

The 4 little glass cups are kind of in the way of the utensils, so maybe I won't set them on the board itself but rather put them on the sides. No, the board is not finished yet, but I have to finish the painting to trade with Artist X by Thursday, so the game board is on hold until I get the painting done.

A wee bit more information about this game piece

OK, so it's clear that not everyone can read my mind, so maybe a bit more information would be good before I proceed—

The game is part of an installation called For the Love of Food that I'm doing with 3 other artists—Helen Hiebert, Diane Jacobs, and Anne Greenwood. It will be shown at Cedar Crest College in PA in March.

There are two parts to the installation. There will be a Food Confessional set up with a video camera and 4 masks (rat, cat, horse, pig). Gallery visitors will be invited to don a mask and talk about their relationship with food in front of the video camera. The four of us have already 'primed' this portion of the installation by taping our food confessions, and that will loop on a monitor/projector in the gallery. I, of course, did my confession as The Rat. And I talked about the different ways that I cheat on my diabetic diet.

The 2nd part is a dinning room table, set up with 4 table settings, one from each of us. We're each doing very different things, but mine will be the game. Here's the portion of the artists statement about my piece: "Shu-Ju made a game that looks at eating trends and highlights the consequences of the consumer's enthusiasm to embrace a new super food and devour it at every opportunity, disturbing the delicate balance of sustainability."

Of the 15 'superfoods' in the game, quite a few are pretty benign, things like broccoli & walnuts. But then you get into things like coffee/soy/chocolate/banana/tiger penis/shark's fin, the damages start to add up. Although you only land in 'jail' if you draw a tiger's penis or shark's fin card, some of the others will land you in a 'quandary.'

Anyhow, I don't have the game board done yet (which is good, because as I was cleaning today, I found something that I had saved from an issue of Natural History years ago that made everything click into place). I've painted the faces of the cards, but have yet to write or print the text. I printed the first layer of the backs of the cards today; although I'm not at all happy with the colors I chose—I wanted bright childlike colors, but I think I went overboard and they look rather garish. Now I'll have to fix that.

And I'm supposed to come up with a title for my game before 9am tomorrow morning.

About the studio remodel

Oh happy day! (Besides the fact that it's inauguration day, that is.) I picked up the flooring today. Of course, by the time they nickel and dime you on everything, it's really more than the advertised fee which they so liberally post on every flat surface available in the store. But it's actually still very reasonable, and frankly, I was a little concerned that their advertised installation fee was so much lower than the next bid, so now I can worry a little bit less.

The flooring needs to sit in situ for a week before they can install. At this point though, I think I'll put off the installation until after my class on the 31st. I've got plenty of things going on through the rest of the month, I don't need to spend another day moving furniture around.

And talking about cleaning...

More happy news! Remember that I was bemoaning having lost a beloved pendent my American dad brought back for me from Iran? I found it today! Yay! I had taken it to RSM when I first started the project with the seniors, as an example of personal items that they can use to create images from. So today, when I was cleaning, I finally unpacked all that stuff, and there it was!

And in there, I also found this photo:



The artist as a 3 year old who did not appreciate having her photos taken, not even for her birthday. (I don't think I ever smiled for a photo until I was 17.) I still remember that dress, too. I did not like it. It was scratchy and it did not breathe in that hot humid weather in Taiwan. Yuck.

No poker face, I

This last Saturday, before the wall came down, I had gone shopping for some flooring possibilities. I was considering either Marmoleum or Pergo laminate. I had already checked things out online and found a particular Pergo product that I liked (Bombay Rosewood). Anyhow, I checked out a couple of local floor places and when I got to Lowe's, I saw that Bombay Rosewood was on clearance, for 70% off!

OMG, I just had to jump! I was ready to just buy a bunch of boxes of the stuff based on my own estimates. After talking to the floor guy there and found out that they have to send someone out to measure for themselves, if I wanted them to install, which I did. And he wouldn't come out until after the wall came down!

So the floor installer came out yesterday to measure, and I waited anxiously all afternoon for Lowe's to call.

No call.

Today, I just couldn't wait any longer and went out to Lowe's. And those boxes of Bombay Rosewood were sitting on a pallet in the middle of the aisle.

This couldn't possibly be good news.

I was standing there and looking at this pile of MY, MY, MY Bombay Rosewood when a different floor guy came up and asked if I needed help.

"I was here on Saturday and saw this was on clearance and I had already checked it out online and liked it so I just jumped at the chance and the installer came out yesterday to measure and you should already have the paperwork but now all these boxes are sitting on the pallet in the middle of the aisle does that mean they're sold?"

The guy's eyeballs basically rolled backwards into their sockets and he said "hold on, let me check..."

A short pause.

"Yes, that's all been sold, on Monday."

I was so disappointed..."Oh, I just KNEW that would happen."

"Let me see if we have more of it in other stores..."

A LOOONG pause.

"Ma'am, I found some, in Idaho."

"Idaho? Do I have to pay shipping for that?" I mean, if I do, that just wiped out my 70% savings, probably.

"No, we'll eat it. We should've put it on hold for you on Saturday."

I almost started jumping up and down, I was so happy!

After looking at the paperwork from the installer and wrapped up what he needed to do, he stuck out his hand to shake my hand, but I was so happy that I just couldn't help myself and gave him a BIG HUG.

I said, "thank you, thank you, thank you!"

He said, "well, you just looked SO disappointed there..."

So not having a poker face has its advantages.

But here's a photo of the opened wall all trimmed up neat:



Oh yeah, and more good news—Laura sold one of my books on her last trip!

Some most excellent & crazy daze

OK, the wall is finished. I'd go and take a picture, except that would disturb the kitty on my lap, and we wouldn't want that!

The floor guy was here today to measure. I hope to hear from Lowe's tomorrow regarding availability of the flooring I want.

But most of the excitement today & yesterday was actually generated from the class that Helen Hiebert and I decided to do together. We're doing a 2 session class, session 1: make paper with Helen, and session 2: gocco print with me on the handmade paper.

Well, the class must've really hit a spot, because we filled up the class in 24 hours. Plus I had so many email inquires about the class. I think we'll have to get it on our schedule and do it on a regular basis.

And Alicia Bailey of Abecedarian Gallery has been hard at work selling my books left and right, cats and dogs! She's sold a copy each of all the Relay Replay books, and today sold 2 smaller books.

On the down side—heard from Powell's that they're going to hold out on the other books. But I'm hopeful that they'll eventually want to pick them up when the economy is better. I'll just have to remember to stay connected.

But hey, so far, this marketing stuff has been going REALLY well, so my whatever-hormone-it-is (you know, the stuff that makes you feel good, I guess) is getting rather a lot of stimulation! Hopefully, that all works its magic in its own way and makes me keep at it!

On other fronts, the Cedar Crest show has been getting the short end of my time lately, but I (almost) finished my mask today. I'm just missing some whiskers:



But, of course, I'd be a rat!

Lake Wall-Be-Gone

So, there was this Norwegian bachelor farmer...



Oh, there he is.



Well, it's not exactly ice-fishing,



But it could be exciting.



Yah, you betcha, very exciting.

Catch up some, fall behind some

While I'm busy doing admin/marketing/business related stuff, I'm falling behind in my studio work. There's been no progress on the game, or the painting experiments, but I—

1. attended the Westside Cultural Alliance's panel discussion on artists/arts organizations and the media
2. shopped around for floor options for the soon to be revamped studio annex
3. completed and submitted my final RACC project grant report (still need to deliver hardcopies of a variety of things)
4. prepped the studio & studio annex for Monday's demolition derby
5. sorted through years of accumulated diskettes, CDs, and old technical books to get ready to take them for recycling or resell

Now this last item seems only remotely related to my studio life since it's all the Good Prince's stuff, but I do need to occupy the space when I'm doing computer stuff. I was convinced that he would find a family of possums living in the corner once he dug out the boxes, paper, old computer stuff that have been accumulating since 1995 (it hasn't been cleaned in all these years!), but alas, no such luck.

So, the knock-out-the-wall-guy is showing up at 9-10am tomorrow morning!