20th and 21st, among other things

Escape Velocity, diptych in gouache (and acrylic surface to be added later).

[These were really the 21st & 22nd panels.]

So these two, and the two below of the monkey king, were cut up from this piece from back in 2006, which went from bad to worse to pretty much given up for dead. Although now that I'm looking at these old photos, I think it could've been saved when I was about half way through. So I cut it up into these 4 pieces (plus there are scraps left).

I'll mount these on boards before I finish them.



On other fronts...

I'm recovering from a long streak of work, work, and more work. Between organizing and installing the Collins show, getting the iPhone app together (and the Good Prince had to get involved too), and installing For the Love of Food (opened this past Tuesday), I had my first day of 'holiday' yesterday since mid-July. I sat around and did nothing...it was bliss.

For the Love of Food!

This started as an exhibit at Cedar Crest College last year. We've since then added to it and will be showing at the Arts Center in Hillsboro in September.

So, to our imaginary dining table set for four, I'm adding:



Food supplements or the variety of drugs that many of us have to take with our meals? I'll leave that to your imagination.

These are wooden plugs with about 15 coats of gesso that's been sanded and then polished with a wet rag. I'm going with the version without the cut line in the middle. The cut lines were incredibly time consuming to make, and I didn't think added too much to the effect.

Some real peach pits that I've cleaned and dried. They'll be on the table too:



There are other objects—reading materials, of course, and reading implements. Anne, Diane and Helen will also be adding their own things.

Our 4 place settings that we all made will also be on the 'table,' of course, along with a variety of other items that tend to pile up on our dining room tables.

Click the tag Critique group collaboration to see the making of my place setting, a game board with blueberry game pieces (those have been a great hit).

And now for something from the garden, a couple of days ago:

The Great Bike Project of 2010 commences

Having said to many people that I would unpack Shu-mei's old bike after Andrew moved his press out of the garage (which actually happened on July 9th), and then failed to do so because the spot immediately filled up with cement and bricks for the Great Cement Project of 2010, I now feel absolutely compelled to unpack the bike immediately before the spot fills up with something else.

So first, I had to actually dig out the box, which had been hiding behind boxes of old books and gardening tools:



And here, according to the label on the box, it contained a "blue vehicle."



The Good Prince is examining the thang with a great deal more interest than he usually shows towards most of my other projects:



Various parts:



And voila! A Blue Vehicle:



It's probably about 30 years old. Three gears. A Summit Catalina 24...??? Couldn't find any information on it.

And I'm happy to report that turquoise is very much back in fashion this year.

The Great Cement Project of 2010

So here are Phase 2 and Phase 3 (and Phase 3.1, yes, revision was already necessary!) of the Great Cement Project of 2010. This is what it looked like in June, 2007; and on July 13, 2010. And here was Phase 1, from June 22, 2010.

And today, we have a seat made from a slab of sandstone I've had for ages, and those infamous water meter rings that I have had sitting around. Plus, a few years back, I got these cement plugs somewhere, and they finally got used too, as part of the reflexology path:



I'll have to see how well this pebble path lasts. I don't think I did the best job with it. It might just fall apart on the first freezing winter we get.





So this was Phase 3.1. Despite my careful reading of the cement instructions, I didn't have quite enough cement, and so it got a bit thin when I got to this part. The next morning, I was full of regrets, of course. After careful consideration, I decided the next course of action would be to chisel out the pebbles, put down more cement on top and then put the pebbles back in.

Well, like hell I was going to chisel the pebbles out. I tried. Nothing budged.

So Plan B was simply to leave everything in place, pour more cement on top and put in yet more pebbles. So now the whole thing is kind of bulging out in the middle:



A detail shot:



So no more cement for 2010. I've returned the neighbor's paver mold. And now there's a open spot in the garage for me to unpack the bike...The Great Bike Project for 2010 shall now commence.

Collins Gallery exhibit

This was an exhibit that fell into my lap 3 weeks ago. The original Collins Gallery exhibit for the time slot fell through; then the substitute exhibit fell through too. At which point, I was at the right place at the right time, and got the opportunity to put together this show.

We installed yesterday, and it all went very, very smoothly. I am very happy with how well it worked out, given that there was so little time to put it together. So in short—

I was asked if Portland Open Studios would take the slot. The board approved to do it that very evening. It took another week before we all agreed how to select the 11 artists (we ended up w/ first come first serve) and to send out the call. The slots filled in 24 hours and we had 10 different mediums covered. I ended up slipping in a 12th artist as well.

Then it was a matter of chasing down 12 artists for their statements and titles (which always turns out to be more time consuming than one might think), making a postcard graphic, putting together tour guide sales for the Friends of the Library store, scheduling installation times for everyone, writing up a contract for the artists and getting our PR guru to write up some PR materials. And installation.

We managed to wrap up early too. But of course, I forgot to take pictures. So maybe next week.

One of a gazilion natural wonders of the day

And this one I noticed.

On my morning walk, I noticed two bees of different species, snuggled up together under the petal of a very pink rose. The rose is bright pink and very uniform in color, so anything stands out like a sore thumb. So these two bees were really noticeable. I walked up to take a look, and saw that there was a spider there, too.

Being a little slow on the uptake, I thought, hmm, what could've gotten 2 bees and a spider all interested...before it dawned on me that the spider had both bees in its grasp. A two fisted bee sucking, as it were.

By the time I made the round trip home to get the camera and got back to the scene of the crime, one of the bees had fallen down between petals and the spider had the other bee's head in its pinchers (you can click on the image to see a much larger view), and you can see a shadow of the other bee's body directly below:



And here's a shot of the spider:



Unfortunately, the lens is having some focus issues, besides the fact that I'm using a lens for a film back on a digital camera, so the image isn't so sharp. It will just have to do.

20th

Rocks & Wings, gouache on paper mounted on board. Yet to be sprayed w/ the GAC 500.

This one has had a long wait. Here's how it started, as a pour, on Feb, 19 this year:



Then I started working on it again on July 11:



Then over the last few days, it went through several phases, including one in which a mosquito made an appearance. But I quickly swatted it out. The rocks went from pink:



To blue:



To spotted & lined:



And finally to marbled and it stuck:

The pecking order

The black chicken is always the boldest, coming right up to me as I'm digging in the garden, waiting to grab something tasty.

So in this picture, you see the brown chicken & the b&w chicken having themselves a nice dust bath, the black chicken foraging. But before long, the black chicken would go over and join the other two, start pecking at them to make room for herself for a nice dust bath too, right in between the other two.

In the background, you see the progress of the cement path around the strawberry patch. Only did 200lb of cement today. Didn't want to over do it, I'm supposed to go to the weight room tonight. Since the path curves around a crop circle, the paver mold leaves gaps in between. I'll fill those at the end. See yesterday's entry on why there're bamboo poles all around the strawberry patch...

I win!

In the battle of Shu-Ju vs Chickens to see who shall get the strawberries, Shu-Ju has won Round One. (I should note that the Good Prince placed his money with the Chickens.)

Remember that bamboo those unfortunate college boys had to remove last year? Well, they sat in a pile in the backyard until today, when they found their purpose in life:



And I did not observe the chickens going into my strawberry patch today. They walked around it, they walked by it, but they didn't walk into it. And as a bonus, it even has a slight Asian flair to it.

And please note that the chickens are walking around in a rose petal strewn path...what luxury!

19th

Wet Spring, gouache on paper mounted on board

Again, have yet to spray it w/ the GAC 500.

Here's a shot from a little earlier:



And before that, see this entry.

Most of the 'spots' on the first layers got covered up; and then as a last step, I uncovered them by using a stiff damp brush to remove the layers on top, controlling how much of the top layers to remove and therefore, how much of the spot to reveal.