I tend to feel like I don’t make enough or do enough creative work. Compared to the output I used to do, I don’t. I try to remind myself that it’s okay! I work a fulfilling, creative job and sleep more and am pretty much happy. But it bums me out, especially since so many folks I know are constantly pumping out notable, awesome work. So when I sat down with my Flickr archive for this year (because Flickr has been my memory bank for years now), I didn’t expect much. This was the year I stopped doing focus months, I mean, how much could I have done?

Turns out? A decent amount.

January
Focus month: Branding Ma-Mé. I built and did the branding work for a friend’s site. It was super fun and I got paid for it! I like making other people’s ideas because I just like making stuff more than thinking of what to make.

Non-focus things made:
• I painted a painting that I then slid behind a bookcase, because I couldn’t throw it away, but why keep it?
• A TARDIS piñata for a dear friend. This has been re-Pinned on Pinterest about a million times.

February
Focus month: Airbrush! I have an airbrush and love it, but spent this month really learning it.

Non-focus things made:
• Rebuilt arbour in yard.
• Murder-wall anniversary present for Chase.

March
Focus month: Mending & old work. Cleaned a bunch of stuff, got rid of a bunch of stuff, a really great feeling.

Non-focus things made:
• I did get a wig that is now my web avatar wig. God, I love this fake hair.
• Wrote a short-short.
• Finished serialising the first draft of The Audacity Gambit.

April
Focus month: Chase’s show production, in which I showed you nothing.

Non-focus things made:
• Nothin. But I did start using Instagram.

May
Focus month: Embroidery. Which was fun, but not a lot produced.

Non-focus things made:
• Taught myself eggshell veneer.

June
Focus Month: Another writing month. Editing The Audacity Gambit and working on the second book!

Non-focus things made:
• Made a sky bison costume for a cat.
• Shot a cover for TAG’s Draft 2 Lulu print.

July
Focus month: Animatic. Which got extended, due to summer fun.

Non-focus things made:
• Swatched my insane nail polish collection.
• Helped manage my workplace’s move to a new place.
• Made Chase a hell of a cake for his birthday.

August
Focus month: Animatic, still. Which didn’t end how I expected. I decided to stop doing focus months.

Non-focus things made:
• Research for a friend’s Halloween costume.
• Ridiculous Adventure Time/Breaking Bad drawing.
• Modified a department store ball-jointed doll into a dryad.

September
•We bought a car, wtf.
• Built rig for San’s cape from Princess Mononoke.
• Wrote lots of TAG book 2

October
• Got my first hand tattoos
• Made Princess Mononoke costume.

November
• Worked on a thing I hope to show you guys soon.
• Made a ridiculous cake

December
• Shot photos of cats in both old west and Avedon’s In the American West styles as presents.

So, a decent amount of things, I think? And through all of it, trying to keep my nails sick.

Not a bad 2012, let’s hope for more in 2013!

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

I bitch a lot about the arts.  I’ve cultivated a fine contempt for most of what I see treacling across my RSS.  However, there are some people who do not make my choke on my own vomitus.  I figure, since I am clearly way too occupied sorting our things away at the new place, I should fill this space with some of them.

First is Chelsea, who’s posted bits of her thesis on her blog, PlainMade.  I think I actually pumped my fist in the air when I read this bit, where she explains some of Christien Miendertsma’s influence in her work:

These politics are evident in my work through the direct, non-gendered use of craft. I use sewing as a simple method of adhering pieces of material together to form a garment. It is not used symbolically to talk about the role of women or gratuitously to suggest an interest in labor. Like Miendertsma, I am using the technique as a means to an end. In choosing textile forms, I try to work with garments that are not immediately symbolic in the way a piece of lingerie or a 1950’s style of dress might be. I am more interested in garments that are familiar and suggest a utility. It is the space within this familiar territory I wish to shift slightly and utilize as a site of communication.

Sometimes stitching is just stitching.

And sometimes strange conceptual work has an underlying sense of that “There’s got to be a better way” bit of David Cross’, Gothic revival gardening, protective camouflage and makes my brain happy and interested.

Chelsea sells prints through her PlainMade site and has another blog focusing on the conceptual work of herself and others, called Fool.  Through Fool is another store, where you can get her freaking awesome flat pack houseplants.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

I’ve always been fond of my birthdate, it pleased me as a nerdy kid to have a birthday right after Earth day (rhyme!) and when I later found out that Shakespeare was born and died on the day¹ it added some class. Two years ago I learned that the day is also St. George’s day, but it wasn’t until very recently I even looked at what he was patron of. Turns out, totally appropriate birth-day saint, since he was also Palestinian. Rock.

Anyhow, as of late I’ve been all embroidery-y and trying to use stitching as just another media, something to draw with and be just another “graphic mark“.  I am not a single media person at all, and I’ve been trying to better integrate my stitching into the other work I do and have done.  So. I figured, birthdays?  Totally a good push to do something about it and what better than a haiographic saint icon to work with as a subject?

There was a lot of image searching to get the brain churning.  What bothered me about a lot of the traditional icons was that a) the dragon came from a lake, not a cave guys; 2) always the dragon is being stabbed in the image, which is false advertising as St. George doesn’t kill the dragon right there— he puts this princess’ girdle on it and takes it back to the village to bully them all into being baptised; 3) he was a Roman soldier and part Palestinian, something not often reflected in his face or clothing (which is just how religious arts work traditionally, but still²).  So I did a drawing, transferred it to my fabric and got to work.

Overall, it worked out to eight days of stitching on the MAX (I tend to read on the bus legs of the trip, as it is jouncy and hard to work precisely) and a lovely afternoon of painting, 12-15 hours total.  Which isn’t bad, especially considering that a chunk of that was technical dead time anyhow.

The end result I’m super happy with, its a step in a good direction, I think.  I love stitching and embroidery because it is like painting and sculpting and sewing all together.

All in all, a nice way to ring out my 25th year and bring in the next.

1.  According to the Julian calendar.
2.  I think this is partially why the knight/dragon thing is so medival and England, because it was painted that way so often, despite the whole thing going down in the late third century.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

A long, long time ago I used to be a painter. It was what I did. I had a mural background and everything. And I discovered sculpting and printmaking and there was a nice time where all those traditional things were meshed nicely and whatever. I grew out of it, because seriously? Committing to one media? As if. Nonetheless, some things stick. So, even though modern tradition in embroidery calls for a (beautiful, tasty, delectable) rainbow of colours as a palette, I still have the mentality of mixing one’s colour so it doesn’t look like it’s straight out of the bottle.

I’m missing a good green, but the plan is to slowly replace the last couple of colours (blue and brown, primarily) with hues reflecting the palette I used when painting, mixed with the palette I currently stock for my random attacks of paint. The colours on the outside wheel (pink, purple, light olive and light turquoise) are novelty ones that are just useful to have.  First off, I need to find a nice <a href=”http://www.goldenpaints.com/products/color/heavybody/colors/1454infopg.php” rel=”nofollow”>Hooker’s Green</a>.

I know I have my old colour wheel from school somewhere, once I find it the process will go easier. It’s hard to remember seven-plus years back.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Chase has some photos in a show this month. He’s part of a group show (MIXED MAGIC Humor in Contemporary Art) at Autzen Gallery. From December 5 through December 22. Opening reception is Friday, December 19, 2008 from 6-8 p and regular hours are Monday through Friday, 9a to 5p. The summary of the show is this:

The artists included in mixed magic all have humor in common. Its form and usage are mixed but the intent is very clear. This group of artists uses the angle of comedy and humor to approach more complex subject matter. After the initial laugh, this work forces the viewer to look into areas and issues they might not regularly consider. The gestures range from small and nuanced to brash and unapologetic. With the current climate of America and the globe, it is important to consider humor as a means of understanding and dealing with our surroundings.

Damned if I know what else is in it, but our friend Matt curated it and he’s pretty much the raddest.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Sneak peek at part of an epic project Chase and I are working on. I finally finished this outfit for him and got him all dressed, so portrait time, etc. Last seen publicly here. He’s the first 1:12 scale doll I’ve ever made (about 5.5″ tall), so there are a lot of problems and he looks more like a doll than a person (the face of his buddy is much more human), he’s a little wall-eyed and oddly proportioned and I am never lining the sleeves of a miniature coat again, my God. But we love him in his awkward glory.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

‘Cause I’m going to be nerding off and on about 1:12 scale dolls for a while now.

Can’t say what they’re for, but I can show you stuff like this. The one standing is so standing on his own, I’m stoked.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Hell if I know if that’s a real name person, but when I was in high school, that was going to be my pen name.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

The world has decided that I am the kind of person who should find abandoned kid’s drawings.  I’m cool with this, because it makes me totally happy.

And those are scientists, making a portal to another world/dimension, by the way.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

So, I will be hard to get a hold of for the next two weeks as we go on our first vacation in four years. And I’ll be commenting even less on everybody’s stuff! I’m gonna try to check the email at least once a day, if I can, using Chase’s mom’s power as the Young Adult librarian to access the local internets and things, mostly so I don’t drown in emails. Though we’re going to be shooting mainly film on this trip (NERDS), I am taking my little digital point-and-shoot and a card reader, in hopes I can toss some snaps up on Flickr intermittently.

Here is my freehand embroidery interpretation of where we are going:

I think this is the cutest state I’ve done in the set. It’s on raw canvas, which—non-surprise—is a total pain to embroider. This guy’s French-knotted head was a terror to do.

*Though he’s spent and equal amount of life both here and south of San Diego**
**Yes, there are things south of San Diego

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.