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!

Two more days of appointments

Lets see, yesterday was my appointment to see the rare books buyer at Powell's Books (yes, they have one, and not only that, they buy artist's books in addition to antiquarian books). Due to the current economic situation (and we all know about that!), he has to get approval for everything over $100, but he bought everything that was under $100! And wrote me a check right then and there! That was pretty amazing. I should hear in a few days whether he got approval for the rest or not. So I was happy with that.

Since I've been SO good about doing my marketing—sending stuff out to dealers and making an attempt to sell work—I had to spend the afternoon keeping up with the documentation end of things.

Then today, met with my critique group to cut out our masks (mine is a rat, but of course). This is part of the installation going to Cedar Crest College.

Then, drum roll please...the guy that's going to knock out the wall between my studio and studio annex came this afternoon!

I should have an estimate in a few days, and then it shall get exciting!

What a crazy week

This is turning out to be the crazy week of appointments.

Yesterday, met with Ruth who wants me to work with her husband to do a Relay Replay project. We had a great chat, and I hope this will happen. More to come on this project if things do start to happen.

From there, it was to meet Artist X to finalize how we're going to do our painting collaboration. This is something we started talking about last June but put off because of Relay Replay. It also took us a while to nail down a format since she works in oil and I work in gouache, and oil and water don't mix. But I think we have a workable format, at least to get us started. First piece, due on Feb 1! Yikes, that's really tight, considering how many other deadlines I already have for Feb 1. But I'm determined to make it.

The afternoon was spent at the library, doing my volunteer gig. I find that such a nice break from work, or talking about work.

Today, met with Katy to talk about updating her website. Met with Lane to help her work through a project she wants to do. Then it was to deliver the Relay Replay books out to Hillsboro. The Cultural Arts Center is letting me add the Relay Replay books to the Intersect/Parallel show midway through the show. When I got there, I learned that several people have already been there to see the Relay Replay books, but I was told that they were happy to see what was there even though they didn't see the RR books.

And believe it or not, that pretty much took the whole day. I did manage to catch up on some emails on the critique group collaboration.

Tomorrow, just 1 appointment, but an important one. I still need to pack up the books for it. Friday, 3 more appointments. Saturday, a full-day seminar. I haven't worked on my game piece at all...and the week is more or less gone.

A big communications day

First of all, the article on Relay Replay books came out in today's Oregonian. Yay! Inara did a great job, as did Motoya, the photographer. I wrote a bit more about this on the Relay Replay blog.

So there was a lot of emailing back & forth with friends today. I also met with the activities coordinator at Rose Schnitzer Manor to talk about my volunteering there to do a 'book binding morning' once a month with the residents there. Looks like we'll be starting towards the end of January.

Didn't get any studio time in but I think the critique group wrapped up the statement we've been working on for the show.

I got tagged by Sundry for 10 things that I'm happy I accomplished in 2008...hmmm...it feels like I just did FOUR things in all of 2008 (my senior books):

1. Finished Martha
2. Finished Marion
3. Finished Esther
4. Finished Sheila

Now I'm reaching a bit...

5. Entertained my 8- and 4-year old nieces for 5 weeks, and I think they had a good time.
6. How about this—completed my 4 senior books and I stayed MARRIED!
7. Oh, this one I'm very happy with—I'm starting to get serious about marketing my books (probably because I'm running out of room to store them all). I sent Vamp & Tramp some books and they decided to accept them for representation; I emailed Powells (they have a rare books collection) and now I have an appt to show them some books! I emailed several librarians about the Relay Replay books, and heard back from some. Laura Russell at 23 Sandy is also going to have some of my books on consignment.
8. After years of humming and hawing, I finally made the decision to enlarge my studio. I set up a new guest bedroom and got rid of the old guest bed. And now I have scheduled an appt with the guy who's going to come and knock out the wall...

Now I'm going to sleep on it for a bit for 9 and 10.

Oh yes, I've not forgotten about Pack Rat Tuesdays. It shall return.

Another one of those all day meetings

This was the 2nd of the biannual Portland Open Studios all day board meeting/retreats. It was going to be Dec 14, the day the snow storms started. Now I'm pooped. We're in for another spell of bad weather, looks like. I went out for my evening walk tonight and had to beat a hasty retreat when I started sliding around on the pavement.

Some of us are a little slow

This morning, I came out of the bedroom and looked out the dining room window and thought, "gosh, I never noticed before how the neighbor's driveway looked so bright white in the morning light."

I took another few steps and thought, "wow gosh, even the street looks bright white in this light..."

Then it dawned on me, It Snowed Again! And we had a couple of inches. Just in time for our critique group meeting, again! But we forged on and met for a few hours. Got/gave feed back for each other's individual place settings, got some good feedback on my game (although I have to admit, when I got home, I was "uh oh, what did everyone say again?") Anyhow, hopefully, we'll have a chance to play the game before I finalize everything.

We also came to some consensus on the masks; and I wrote the first draft for the show statement.

On other fronts—I went ahead and uploaded the class description (the paper-making + print gocco class that Helen and I are teaching) to my web site already, under the Classes page.

Better get cracking on that game board...

Yes, now that's it's January, I best get going on this. We need to ship out Feb 1. So here I have a mockup of the board with some of the positions drawn in. There are 7 decks of cards to draw from, 3 decks of Market cards, 3 decks of Eatery cards, and 1 deck of Circumstance cards. Except I had to spell it 'EATFRY' since I had only 1 'E' and I wanted to stamp all 6 letters at the same time; and 'Sircum stance' since I only have 1 'c'...well, you get the picture.



Even though I hadn't been working on my game, I have been working on other projects. Helen and I are planning a combined workshop—participants make paper with her one weekend then gocco on the handmade paper with me the next. We hope it will be a smashing success!

And I've also been writing down project plans and such for 2009, reading about xhtml, and I admit it, goofing off too. I think it was during one of my goofing off periods that I suddenly realized what else I can do with sculpey. I did this book a few years back—



Those are rose thorns attached to the book cover. I've always wanted to another where the entire front and back are covered in rose thorns. I don't know if I got lucky that year where the thorns were unusually large and beautiful, or if I've just been unlucky since, but I have not been able to harvest thorns as lovely as these ever since.

Another problem with using actual rose thorns—after drying, the bottoms of the thorns become concave, which makes attaching them to the book cover very difficult.

But now that I have my new found medium of sculpey/preemo, I can make my own lovely rose thorns, with flat bottoms for easy attachment! Here's another shot, there are two circles of thorns—a small one at the top and the large one at the bottom. This shot is rather washed out: