Monday, May 28, 2007

Shameful and shoddy

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Lorelei shot this of me at the Hotel Congress in Tucson. Posing for SG consists of this: arch your back till you feel silly, point your toes, and SMILE! SMILE! SMILE! I made the skirt, shirt, and brooch and the sheets are from my bed at home. Then the plebians at SG rejected the photos. Plebians! I've got nothing else I can do with the photos, so I entered them into their Second Chance Sundays thingy. If you're a member, and legally an adult, etc, you can view the rest of the pictures here. Let me know if you think I should have done something differently or not, please.

I've been trying to remember how to make free-spine books. It's been years since I made a book, so I used some shoddy materials to jumpstart my memory.
a finished book

finished cover

text block
I used a pair of a friend's old pants for the bottom cover, and I can't recall who sent me the shirt for the top cover, and I used the wrong board, the wrong glue, the wrong thread, and the wrong everything else. But I'm not going to use pricey materials until I can get it right again. I used to be so good at this, and now look at the loose stitching on that text block! Shameful. There's further process photos on my Flickr, so click on the picture if you're interested.

This doll, "She was better prepared for misfortune," was purchased ages ago, but I only recently got around to mailing her off to the saintly patient purchaser in SF. Not only was she made out of my favorite winter coat, that I only cut up when I realized that I'd most likely never wear it again as there's no call for a floor length hooded coat in Phoenix and it was too big to travel with, but she was also ridiculously hard to balance. There's giant metal weights in all those little feet to keep her face from toppling her over. Is it creepy that I talk about my sculptures as though they were people? Behind me are the prints for Solecist, all ready to sew. The fabric is from generous people with expansive wardrobes. And now I'm all out of black ink and must order more before I can print anything further.
just before I sent her off

What did I do for this long holiday? I've been painting flies and listening to Maria Callas sing about murdering her husband and children. Sadly, I've yet to see Medea performed live. That, and stress out about my stuff waiting to clear customs tomorrow. When it does clear, I don't know how I'll transport it from the airport to my house, and I don't know where I'll put it in my house, but I do know that I'll be making belts, floggers, and dildo harnesses all bloody week, as I've now been twice back-ordered.

Oh, and lastly, do you know what "solecist" means without looking it up? I was recently told that my show titles have too many $1.50 words in them, and it puts people off. So now I want to if I'm being confusing or not.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

"Irrefragable"

Should you be reading this, diptegenarian Illinoisan, I hope that I did not contribute to your decision to delete your journal. If I embarrassed you, I apologize and I'm willing to delete my past journal entry if you wish. Please let me know. My plan was to try to convince you to send me your old clothes, because I'm always on the hunt for more materials. But perhaps I'm a bit too much of an opportunist.

Currently, I'm in the process of printing and carving for my next show, Solecist at Kayo Gallery. I'm also at the baby stages of a collaboration with a local comic book artist, and I'm beginning to suspect that he's far more talented than I am. My intention is to become more talented by proxy, or through osmosis. This is the shirt I made him after he gave me the Zardoz shirt:


Yet again, I ventured onto Frontpage. But this time, it was because I had scanned some new images to use, and knew that my harddrive is going to commit sepakku at any moment. I had to get those images online before they dematerialized, especially as the amount of guff the scanner gave me was not something I was willing to put up with twice.
greenshirtbg (Small)rosesbg (Small)

Nerve (highbrow adult content warning) has a monthly photo contest, each month with a different silly theme challenging photographers and models to come up with something sexy. I won third place in last month's contest, whose theme was "Laundry." The judge called it spacey and that I looked vaguely unhappy. Evidently, these are positives. This month's theme is "bubbles," and even though I'm all psyched to try again, I'm at a total loss for ideas.

laundry2

Thanks to the Westboro Baptist Church for informing me of the existence of the word "irrefragable." It was committed to memory by whispering it under my breath as I did laundry, telling the modest little piles of separated colors in one word that it was incontestable, and could not be denied.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Excessively Self Involved

That shortness of breath and rapid heart beat? It's because I'm far too excited for my own good to go see The Wolfs perform tonight, in only a few short hours. The lead singer manages to have an eerie resemblance to Charlie Brown, yet can sing songs about specific sexual positions without being creepy. Most of the lineup for tonight is from Salt Lake City, so I'm preparing to be assailed by great waves of nostalgia and sentimentality when I get to the bar, especially since summer is speedily approaching Phoenix, reducing its inhabitants to reverse eskimos, baring too much skin and constructing their lives to facilitate maximum exposure to A/C.

My desire to be back somewhere with tolerable weather is of such power that I was actually manifested in SLC. Yes, my sister saw me walking across the street last night.


It was, admittedly, in Tracy Strauss's painting form, but I take it as an auspicious sign. That, and the plane tickets, destination SLC.

photobooth

While searching for a particular article about me, so that I could cite it in my press clippings, I came across two somewhat perplexing things. Firstly, there is a racing horse named Lady Camilla Taylor. I hate horses. They are horrible animals and I hope to stay as far away from them as can be physically managed.

This is secondly:
Have I yet elucidated how explosively hot Camilla Taylor is? She's hot. That's it: I must age six years in the next fifteen seconds and fight her (probably) sleazy, horsecocked boyfriend. The future is looking bright.


Why, oh why, is Camilla Taylor 26?

Seriously, Knox, internet, go fuck yourselves. I am overreaching, and to a greater extent than usual. And it is your fault. And now I am going to do homework and think about Camilla Taylor and be mopey and wish that I too could be an extraordinary weirdo genius troubled by a devilish imagination and a sickly constitution. Alas!

Huh.

Huh.

Quoted, not linked, because being an aspiring Lothario (look it up, it's appropriate) doesn't merit potential mockery and unwanted attention, in my mind anyway. My reaction to reading this was alarm, but not really of the sort that one would expect. Sickly Constitution? Really? I've always thought of myself as rather hale and hardy, albeit with an irritating belief in the merits of sunscreen, but healthy nonetheless. I don't foresee a romance between myself and this young scribe, but I'm somewhat baffled that my age, a difference of 6 years, is such a barrier. Six doesn't strike me as that big a difference. I once dated someone that much younger than me. He looked chokingly beautiful with his shirt off, played the cello, and I snuck him into bars when I should have known better. Evidently both of our friends had adviced as against it because of our age, and perhaps they were right as he and I don't really talk anymore. Or perhaps I'm getting all nostalgic about him because Rostropavitch just died.

But then, maybe that kid talking about a different 26 year old Camilla altogether.

Additionally, the first entry reminds me of how much I loathe eighties teen movies and the way their conceits have infiltrated society. Yeah, I'm talking about you, John Hughes.

Pretty new things in my shop. I've got big elaborate plans for my website, which will be implemented later in the week.

I'm finagling a trade out of Abbyjane. How does she make those beautiful birds and how does she keep them from toppling over? Some sort of black arts, I suspect.

Oh, and if you've got old button up shirts that you don't want, then I recommend giving them to me. I'm nearly out!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Highly Effective

I hate updating my website. It seems like it will be such a treat when I wake up and think about how I need to finally switch out the old stuff, and show off all my shiney new stuff. But it is not a treat at all. Frontpage was not designed as an intro to web design, it was designed as a highly effective means to leech the souls from its hapless users.

After all that soul-leeching, I've now got some new (and some old) shirts for sale, new wristbands, and finally posted the teacups and a hideous internet abortion that I will continue to direct potential patrons to.
teacups

shirts

My upcoming solo show in July at [URL=http://kayogallery.com/]Kayo Gallery[/URL] is simply too exciting for words. I'm working on new pieces for it and sewing like crazy. And somehow, I want to engineer some sort of demonstration on medium and technique. When you understand how something is made, it completely changes your approach to it and the manner in which you think about it, or so I think. Understanding the process makes it approachable and, depending on the process, gives it that edge of artisanship or let's you know that a preschooler really could have made it. Mostly, though, I'm just really excited to see my siblings and friends. I've already got a box full of presents to give to people.

tomato
I grew a tomato! Oh, come on, I live in Phoenix. If you have any idea how hard it was to grow two tiny tomato fruits, you'd be excited too.


Last night, I met with David B., and I gave him a shirt that was not even half as awesome as the Zardoz shirt he gave me. And then I neglected to get a picture of him in it even though I had brought a camera expressly for that purpose. Now I'm all giddy to have a new friend, and I'll probably end up just creeping him out instead.

I've got a new goal for the year. A new way to measure myself and probably find myself short, but it's the attempt that matters. Or so I think, but then, I'm addicted to fear of failure. It's my cocaine.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

LA Times


Last night, I drove. In a car. All the way to Willowhouse.

It was terrifying.

In other news, there's a picture of my work in the LA Times. They've got the wrong title on the piece, but I don't care as long as they spelled my name right.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Culpable, II

Last night, I had a weird dream about one of my favorite internet comics. Mr. Jeffrey Rowland, true to form, wore an animal costume throughout the dream, and we ate large tomatoes together. His animal costume got sticky in a completely nonsexual way.

Onto more relevant blog subjects. Friday was the second reception for "Culpable" at Trunk Space Gallery. It went amazingly well. I sold quite a few pieces, and all to people who I was happy to have bits of me in their homes.

I had a completely new piece for the show, that I finished just minutes before the reception. Nop one purchased any of the edition for the new piece, but it was recieved pretty well anyway, and I'm very pleased with it. It was whipped out in less than a week, including sketches, mockup, carving, printing, and finally sewing (although, I was only able to sew two of the projected 60 in the edition).
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In contrast to the last reception, people engaged in a little less "family making." Here's an example of bullying by proxy:
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Although, one man went through the gallery and hugged all of the pieces. It was lovely to watch.
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IMG_5933 (Medium)
IMG_5925 (Small)
Noodle, the homeless gallery cat, made a brief appearance and sniffed around, before he finally got scared away by the crowd.
IMG_5967 (Medium)

The show got some great publicity, which I'm certain helped to get people there and convince them to spend some money. Lilia Menconi did a studio visit with me, and was kind enough not to mention the ridiculous filthiness of my studio, or dwell too much on my bondage gear business as I'm way too familiar with journalists doing when ostensibly writing about my art.
(click on the image to read the article)
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Lastly, and most importantly, I got the most awesome rad thing. And this thing, this most wonderful of things, arrived in an appropriate way. A quite boy who I had just met, after buying a piece fromt he show, returned to the gallery with a package secured with a big bulldog clip. What I found inside made me squeal and make horrible noises, so overcome with excitement was I. If you don't understand, it cannot be explained to you.
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