Zen or Frou-frou?

Another month passes by and I've not documented. Not because I haven't been working. It's true that I don't have a lot of completed projects to show yet though. But I did kind of finish one thing last night—after going charcoal gray on my website for a year, I decided that I really liked the white background better, so I made the switch. (With some small amount of guilt, since the dark charcoal background consumes less energy...but really, how many people are looking at my website anyhow?)

While I was at it, I also investigated various javascript lightbox libraries and used one for the 4 Painting pages on my website. The Prints and Artist's Books pages still use popup windows, since they have a lot more information associated with them and some with multiple images and buy options. I'm still deciding if I can switch them over to the lightboxes and how to include all the necessary information.

Also while I was at it, I added some new images, and got a lot less wordy. I can never decided if I'm zen or frou-frou, that goes for the house and the website. But I'm probably something in between...boring, mainstream, or the Confucian way?



It's not a coincidence that I mention 'house' and 'website' in the same sentence, as I've also been working with an architect on getting some much needed work done. Case in point, someone who came to the paper sale yesterday told me that we REALLY needed to do something about the deck! And so we are.

I'm painting; just don't have a finished painting to show yet. It's gone from "love" to "disaster" and now I'm back up to "like."

I'm working on someone's website. Hopefully that will be done soon.

I'm also working on a proposal for a residency to create an outdoor installation.

So plenty going on, but not much to show yet.

Putting things on the back burner my foot!

I am apparently unable to do that. So instead of shifting focus to start working on my senior's book, I've been putting in 8-10 hours a day for the last 10 days finishing the website redesign. It's almost all done, I just have 1 last page to do.

So of my original goals --

1. Learn to do layout in CSS
2. Learn PHP
3. I can't even remember what the 3rd goal was

I managed 1 1/2. I've got the CSS layout down. I got the gist of PHP, although without knowing a lot more javascript, I can't accomplish what I had in mind. So I'm leaving that to another time. (Just to clarify, quite a bit of those hours are spent reading the CSS and PHP manuals/tutorials. It wasn't all spent on developing the new website.)

But, I did make it so that if people don't have javascript turned on, everything should still function just fine. Maybe that was the 3rd goal...

I have the mostly done new website uploaded in a test spot, if you should want to take a look.

Website redesign

I've been needing to update my website forever but haven't had the time. My original plan was to do it this October after Portland Open Studios and before November, at which point I'm going to be working full time on my senior's book so that I can finish it by the end of the year.

But, between getting sick (I'm still coughing like crazy) and being on a grant review panel, the end of the month is here and I'm just getting started. So that's not getting done but I have a mockup for the homepage. Rest of the pages will follow the same style.

The grant review panel—what a blast that was! I met one of my favorites (Kay French) plus 3 other really terrific artists. Now that our part is done, I figure I can talk about it a bit. It was an amazing experience, although it did take a lot of time. I figure it was probably 30 hours of work by the time I read 29 applications, viewed the supplemental materials, and we had our whole day discussion.

So the website redesign will be on the back burner while I get started on my senior's book. But the plan is to get serious about learning to use CSS to control layout, The home page is completely laid out using the proper methodologies...not that it's that complicated a layout, but it did still take some trying. Next, I need to learn php so I can do a better job displaying artwork images.

But like I say, that will be on the back burner as I get ramped up on the book.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I'm going w/ a darker background to save energy!

Website, website, and more website

I've actually been busy working on a couple of websites, mocking up a website update for myself, and also reading a CSS book (although so far, 30 pages in, I'm not overly impressed with it). My website skills are pretty rudimentary—although it's not bad for being self-taught by reading an O'Reilly html reference book—so I've been wanting to learn more CSS and try more javascript.

Not officially launched yet, here's the GBW's Marking Time exhibit online catalog. Because Stanford decided to shut down their online support for Conservation OnLine, where the GBW web pages were being hosted, the online catalog's launch is delayed until GBW moves to a new host. Hopefully, that will be coming up pretty soon now.

And, again, not officially launched, the 2009 Portland Open Studios website, complete with a javascript slideshow. Not quite as elegant as a Flash slideshow perhaps, but I don't have Flash.

Today was also a big garden day. I've started to clean up around the perimeter of the house (see Ant!), which not only involves trimming & pruning plants, but also means removing all the tree branches and trunks that I've been saving for a variety of vague and undefined garden projects. I ended up using the trunks and branches to build and define a path. Maybe picture tomorrow.

We're back!

The Generation Gap or the Cultural Gap?

I noticed while my parents were here that a great deal of importance is placed on whether someone is male or female. It is something you must specify at the beginning of a story. For example:

Me: "I meet with this group of artists once a month to discuss..."
Parent: "All women, or mixed?"

***

Me: "My neighbor..."
Parent: "The husband or the wife?"

***

Or we're driving down the freeway and—
One parent: "Hey, look at the passenger in that car, they've stuck their feet out the window!" (They're constantly amused and amazed by such behavior.)
The other parent: "Is it a man or a woman?"

***

In short, you simply can not talk about anyone without having to specify whether it's a man or a woman. Yes, it drove me slightly nuts. And it makes me appreciate that here, people care slightly less about that than perhaps in other countries.

So this reminds me of another gender related story

In one of my visits back to Taiwan, when my brother & his wife still lived with my parents, my s-i-l would collect my laundry every morning and by the evening, my clean clothes would magically reappear on my bed. That is, everything except for my socks. I didn't say anything, thinking that the socks took longer to dry in the humid weather. After 7 days, I was out of socks and had to enquire after them.

S-i-l: "What colors are your socks?"
Me: "Black."
My father, quite surprised: "But why do you wear black socksl?!?! You're a girl!"

But back to work

After a month of traveling with my parents, life is more or less back to normal. I'm trying to finish the GBW's Marking Time website, which I did manage to work on while my parents were still here. I should be finished this weekend. And not a moment too soon, I had said I'd be done mid-June. Here's a sneak peak. I'm further along than that, just haven't uploaded the latest yet.

And for something unexpected

Check out the video on our (the critique group) exhibit For the Love of Food at Cedar Crest earlier this year:

Strange tale of the spider

It was a glorious day here today, sunny & warm, and as I was coming home this afternoon—riding on the passenger side—I noticed an itty-bitty spider on the window. It was running around on the window frame and up and down the window like crazy. And when it would stay put, it waived its legs about like crazy.

I couldn't figure out exactly what it was trying to do, as it didn't seem to be having trouble moving around, nor sticking to the window. I touched the window glass and, no, it wasn't very hot. I watched it for quite a while, wondering if I should've let it out while we were still in the parking lot (didn't seem like a suitable place to let out an itty-bitty spider). I finally decided I would just have to wait until after we get home to let it out in the garden, seeing how we were going 60 mph down the freeway at the moment.

I took my eyes off it for just a few seconds, and when I looked back, it had balled itself up—hanging by a strand of silk attached to the widow—and was lifeless. Dead.

It dangled there, waving back and forth along with the movement of the car. Thoughts went through my head: "oh my god, that was like, a life & death struggle that I was watching," "I definitely should've let it out in the parking lot," "I just witnessed a living thing pass into a non-living thing..."

It was a bit of a downer. I like spiders, and the baby ones are so cute. Finally, we got home. I thought, well, I guess I might as well clean it off the window.

I took an used kleenex and tried to wipe it off the window. It had hung itself really close to the window frame and I couldn't get it very easily. So I tried it again. This time, I barely was able to scrape it off the window, and as I held the kleenex in my hand, the spider suddenly unballed itself and started running around like crazy on the kleenex!

It was just like in the movies, I could almost hear the crowds roar, "yay, yay! Itty-bitty spider! Go! Go!"

So the story had a happy ending. I let it out on one of the plants. Of course, it might be bird food by now, but at least it had a chance and didn't die inside a car while some idiot watched.

OK, onto work. Made a big push to update the Portland Open Studios website for 2009, and we're almost there. But yesterday and today were both pretty low key work wise. I gessoed some boards, and worked on a proposal for a show in Salem. Got some much needed yard work done, saw La Cenerentola (the Met simulcast) and the new Star Trek on the same day. And now it's time for bed.

And I haven't fallen off the edge of the planet

I've been working on planning for next year, and helping another artist work on her plan. I've also been reading Web Design in a Nutshell 3rd Edition. I taught myself html by getting the 2nd edition a few years back and just sitting down in front of the computer and typing in html and rudimentary css using bbedit. So I really desperately need to upgrade my skills. I think I do ok web sites for having taught it to myself using a reference book, but I can definitely do better. Anyhow, while I'm waiting for my copy of Transcending CSS to show up at Powells downtown (I managed to get a used copy of $25), I figure I'd read the 3rd edition to catch up on all the new stuff that she talks about in there.

Web site revamp, already!

After sewing the extra pockets in my Rock Star senior's books today (and I only made the extra pockets for the copies she'll get, not the copies I'm keeping, since I won't have things to put in there), I reworked the Portland Open Studios web site. Yes, up for 2 weeks and I'm reworking it already.

The long story — there's now a competing event! Just started. The domain name was registered in April, and is registered to someone who lives at the same address as an artist who was rejected this year. So they registered the name after they got the rejection. They only registered it for a year though, so I guess this is just a trial run. The application deadline is the end of July, and the event is the end of September...just 2 months. I don't see how they can put on an event that quickly.

Anyhow, according to their web site, they're really positioning themselves as Not Portland Open Studios, although they'll produce a tour guide and people have to travel around to see the art. One of their catches phrases was not your mother's open studio!

Anyhow, so I revamped the home page a little. There's a bit more information, and I added a Featured Artist, eh, feature. So of course, the first thing the Good Prince asks is if the Featured Artist is dynamically generated. Since I go to the Just In Time School of Javascript Learnin', the answer is no. He thought perhaps it's time. So perhaps I'll be looking into that.

It's waiting for board approval before I upload.

MiT book, another change of plans

Back in my original mockup of my Rock Star senior's book , I had planned a hidden print in the spine.

Since then, I've modified the envelope design to eliminate all the clumsy flaps but to still look like an envelope, and that means my envelopes are now at least twice as thick at the spine (four times as thick where two of the folds meet up). So today, when I tried sewing the envelopes to the accordion spine, I ended up with a super thick spine that didn't want to lie down flat.

This is bad.

So. I'm going without the accordion and hidden print in the spine. The envelopes will now be sewn together, each envelope treated like a signature. I might leave the spine exposed, or not, I haven't decided on that yet.

On other fronts, the Portland Open Studios web site went live this morning at 12am. I'm still making small changes as edits come in though.

Dotting the i's and crossing the t's

OK, pending the proof reader's results (thanks Margaret!), the Portland Open Studios web site is all revamped, updated, completed. We'll go live on Sunday night. And now I'm off to get some well deserved reading time.

A working weekend

This was a pretty full weekend — the advanced gocco class at IPRC, 4 Topics in 4 Hours, yesterday and then yard work (in the pouring rain!) and Portland Open Studios web site today.

I'm too much of a cheapskate to miss the Monday morning yard debris pick up...it is already paid for. So I was out there in the downpour deadheading the pieris and pruning the pine that was getting in the way of the mailbox and newspaper box. Spent the rest of the day finishing the web site. It needs final proof reading, and at least 1 document still needs a group discussion, but other wise, it's done.

The gocco class yesterday went pretty well. We went half an hour over — the printer prints so very slowly, one group waited a long time for their first project's printout and that set us behind. As always, people loved the food segment. And I got smart, instead of using the sour cream+hershey's ink combo for the class, I brought the pb+hershey's ink combo. The pb lasts from class to class; the sour cream, I had to get fresh each time and I end up with these tubs of half used sour cream that go bad in my refrigerator. Why didn't I think of this earlier?

Of course, I didn't do everything I hoped to do this weekend...but yeah, right, like there was any hope of getting them all done. Didn't get to the Portland Open Studios board minutes at all, and didn't get to William Park's profile, but I do have that started in my head, at least.

The end is in sight!

I'm getting close with the Portland Open Studios new web site. That's all that I've done for the last two days (including the first workshop meeting tonight). All the artist images are up. Most of the main pages are up. A few of the secondary pages still need work. A sneak preview here.

The Sort Of Random Movie tonight (picked by the time, it was the only movie we could still see by the time I got home from my meeting) — Redbelt. I have no idea what transpired in the movie, except that it was a con from the very beginning. But it has Chiwetel Ejiofor in it, so it was good.

Continuous improvement?

I've been slowly getting ready for the 3 person exhibit at Alicia Bailey's Abecedarian Gallery in CO. But of course, I always forget that sometimes frames are not available the same day you order them. I must try to put that in a permanent place in my head. Anyhow, my original plan for the day was to mat/mount/frame, but the frames weren't ready until after 3pm this afternoon. By then, I had been sucked into another project (still making changes to my web site), and sucked in good. So I just ended up doing that. (Actually had an appt with my first senior this afternoon, but she cancelled...family gathering for Passover.)

It took me a long time to decide which way to go. I tried a bunch of different things and stared at each one for a long time. I took out a lot of the explanatory text on the home page, and grouped the labels for the images together at the bottom. I also decided to switch to Garamond which is not as dense as Baskerville (what I had before), so it doesn't look like there's so much stuff there. We'll see how this works.

The reason why I wanted to make the change—I notice that some people come to my web site after googling for variations of 'gocco'. Then they probably just promptly click on the Portfolio link without looking around first, and that defaults to the painting page. I'm guessing that since they don't see any gocco related stuff there, many of them just bail out and leave at that point. So I'm hoping that, without all the explanatory text, the home page will actually be easier to navigate. We'll see.

The Random Movie this week, which we saw a couple of nights ago, was Under The Same Moon. A bit of a melodrama, but very sweet. The boy was phenomenal.

An Engineer's Guide to Cats



And it was why I did not document my action filled day yesterday. I got so sidetracked by watching this guy's cat videos, and then somehow went from there to a video of a cat with 2 faces, and from there, videos of deformed babies.

Both today and yesterday were mostly computer work. Updated fingerstothebone.com with new photos; updated the paintings section with the new format (now same as the prints and books section). Put the new issue of Pudding up, put the new painting up. I'm thinking that I'm too wordy on the home page, so I'll probably change that sometime.

And on the good news front, 2008 is shaping up to be the Year of Long Lost Friends! Earlier this year, I heard from a college friend who googled me after the NYT article came out. This morning, I heard from a very dear friend from graduate school (and we lost contact after a couple of moves). Needless to say, I'm thrilled!

Portland Open Studios web site update, continues

I'm still trucking along on the Portland Open Studios web site. All of the main pages are up (although some don't have a lot of contents yet), none of the artists images/links are there yet, and a few of the detail pages (which bring up a 2nd, smaller window) are up.

Made a new banner; put in the 'always on the 2nd & 3rd weekend', using zapfino, thinking that would jazz it up a bit; but now I"m thinking it's too much. I'll probably do something a bit more sedate.

Not sure about the rest of Portland, but after our sunny 70+ degrees weather this weekend, we had hail here in SW PDX. And it was pretty cold and wet. Glad I did my yard work yesterday.

April newsletter and web site update

I finally put together the newsletter (with class announcements and such) and sent it out. And I sent images of Fatherland to Karen. That's only two of the five things on my list for the weekend, not good. The reason—I got really sidetracked and started updating the Prints & Artists Books section of my web site, which really needed updating. I also reorganized how each of the sub pages linked to the other pages. Hopefully, it's easier to use. Eventually, I'll do the same thing to the Paintings and Design sections.

Here are a couple of screenshots. Before, I was using arrow keys, which gave no indication of where you are in the collection of items. Even though you can't really see the content of the tiny squares, I think this is clearer. I thought about adding popup text when you mouseover the tiny boxes, but I think learning DHTML will have to wait for another day.

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 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!

Watching the ink dry...

Well, the printed tulle still felt a bit tacky today, so I didn't do anything with that project. Moved on to get ready for this weekend's gocco class — printing and binding small notebooks. Trimmed all the paper and punched all the holes, clipped all the spirals...for 75 notebooks! Takes longer than you might think!

Then it was onto the critique group meeting. With the Tennessee show coming up Real Soon Now, we actually got a lot done tonight, like what we're going to use for the postcard image, and what we're going to call the show (Six Points). Rachel will be mocking that up, so an image later once I get it. Worked on Shane's site's layout some more, based on the feedback I got from her.

And I almost won again! This time on a real Honest to Goodness Thursday Quiz (which is supposed to be The Hard One). I got a silver star...I got confused about where Kinshasa is...

Pillow Book I, day 1

No, it's not that kind of a pillow book.

These are the books I'm making for the Tennessee show next Jan; they'll be printed on tulle and sitting on pillows. I did the prep work yesterday -- taped the tulle to sheets of newsprint. From my first experiment with printing on tulle, the tulle came up with the screen every time, so I was hoping that taping it down to the paper would prevent that. And it did. Here's the pile of them:



The screen is half inked up. I decided to use the silver ink, to go with the gray silk that I'll use to edge the tulle pages, and also for the pillow cases. Gray was chosen initially because 'gray matter' = brain, but I also now realize that 'gray' & 'silver' are often used to describe the hair of the elderly, who are the majority of those suffering from memory loss.



Here's a print on paper:



And here's the screen after I finished printing and scraped up the ink. I did not clean the screen, I wiped up the extra ink and I'm letting the screen dry with the ink on there. I think I'll use these screens for part of the project. How, I'm not sure yet.



And this is the mylar that I put down on my lightbox so I could photograph the screen, and I'm really liking this. I'll see how I can us this as part o the project too.



And here's a sheet of the printed tulle...hard to see that there's anything on there! I peeled up the tulle and held it up to the light, and yes, it's on there. Hopefully, when everything's dry tomorrow, I'll stack them up and the image will actually be visible. Some are more visible than others, which is fine; I'll use the less visible ones as the last pages.



On other fronts, worked on Shane's web site. Have the initial layout done; now I wait to get some feedback before I put much more work into it.