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Pinewood Derby II

Sunday, March 1st, 2015

This happened yesterday. The boy’s witch’s shoe car, which I wrote about in the previous entry, picked up an award at the district Pinewood Derby. “Best Design That Is Not A Car”.

We were incredibly proud of him. Of course, I just had to sermonize on the way home. “See? If you work hard and you’re persistent, sometimes it pays off.” Then, about two minutes in, I thought better of it. Let the kid enjoy his trophy in peace. Not every darned thing has to have a moral.

The hardest thing, though, was keeping my blasted mouth clamped shut before the awards were handed out. You see, I saw a fellow take cars up to the announcer. One of them was the boy’s. Five cars – five awards. Hmmm. Perhaps I was mistaken? Perhaps the man was taking all the cars up so they could be handed out and admired one at a time, regardless of whether they’d won? Best to keep my observation to myself.

The boy’s prize was the last style award handed out. He was ricocheting around with tension by then, desperately hoping to win. Everyone wants to win. I reminded him of that fact, that all the boys there had worked hard and wanted to win, and we needed to applaud their efforts. Probably I sounded like a parrot in a bad pirate movie. “SQUAWK! CLAP AND SMILE FOR OTHERS! MOMMY WANT A CRACKER! SQUAWK!”

But then his car number and name were called, and he did win, and for just a few minutes he had the world by its tail. And I got to be there and see it.

Here’s a big thank you to Pack 492 of Cupertino, which hosted the event. It’s a big darned deal putting on a function like that, involving everything from finding a space to run it to setting up an immense aluminum track and having staff on hand to check car specifications as they’re brought in. It’s no simple matter of throwing up a few lengths of Hot Wheels track and sailing the cars down, either. Today’s tracks are, I don’t know, maybe 30-45 feet long and employ electronic timers and computers for data collection. The setup can be finicky and precise, measuring times down to a thousandth of a second.

Pack 492 did a great job, and as a result all the kids and onlookers had a wonderful afternoon.

Posted in Fun | 1 Comment »

“Why Knot” plus Pinewood Derby

Monday, January 26th, 2015

I’m happy to say that “Why Knot?” will be at AQS Lancaster this March. I wish I could be there as well, but I hope that at least visitors will enjoy the piece. This is my first fiber piece which veers into using computer-assisted imagery rather than purely painting on fabric, and I used the opportunity to plant a few jokes in the background.

We’ve just finished up the Pinewood Derby here, an annual Cub Scout event in which boys prepare and race cars cobbled together out of blocks of wood. I always enjoy it because, since I don’t yet feel comfortable turning my son loose with a band saw, it’s an excuse to collaborate with him and work in a medium other than fabric or CG. (Whether he enjoys my working with him is quite another question!)

The Pinewood Derby began in 1953, held by Don Murphy, a Manhattan Beach Cub Master who wanted an “activity he could do with his 10 year old son who was too young to race in the Soap Box Derby”.

It was a clever idea, one which has evolved and endured. Today when one buys an official B.S.A. Pinewood Derby kit, one gets a block of wood about 7” x 1.75” x 1.25”, four plastic wheels, and four nails to use as axles. One can do whatever one likes to the block of wood provided that the finished car weighs five ounces or less, is three inches tall or less, and conforms to a few other specifications.

The Derby is a nice opportunity to do a design and construction project with one’s kid, a project which has set specifications but which is also a bit free form. Thus, a few weeks ago, I corralled the boy and said words to the effect of “The Derby is x weeks away. What do you want to make this year?” He hemmed and hawed, then allowed as how he’d enjoyed getting a style award last year and he wanted to try for one again this year. He was thinking of doing something which wasn’t traditional, maybe a shape like a shoe.

Okay, a shoe. What kind of shoe? Whose shoe was it? Maybe he could sketch his idea out on paper? I gave him a piece of paper with the dimensions of the wood block outlined, and had him sketch his idea.

The shoe started as a nondescript garden clog affair. Over the course of a few more discussions and drawing sessions, it evolved into a fantasy design, a witch’s shoe.

Clog

Heel added

More pronounced witchiness

Final pattern for sawing

This would prove to be an interesting design to execute since the provided block of Pinewood Derby wood was too shallow. We would have to laminate another chunk of wood on top, which meant digging through my wood pile and doing some cutting and gluing.

Since I’m paranoid about the boy having an accident – he’s a little too interested in things like axes and chain saws for my taste – I made the cuts with the table saw and band saw myself. Maybe next year he can make a car with the scroll saw. Although bandsaw accidents can happen in the blink of an eye, one has to work pretty hard to lose a finger with a scroll saw.

There was plenty of other work for him to do, though, sanding and puttying and painting. Provided that one’s Scout has patience and perhaps a parent to nag them into working a bit each day, some fairly decent results can be achieved. It also really helps if one has a spray booth, even if it’s just a cardboard box, which we do.

Here’s the shoe in its primed state, adding weights. The goal is to get one’s finished car as close to five ounces as possible without going over. Sometimes that means adding weights; hiding them can get to be a challenge. Our plan was to cement the weights in place inside drilled holes, then putty and sand over them. As a side note, if one uses Revell’s round chassis weights, they can be cut in a matter of seconds using a bolt cutter. It’s far, far less taxing than trying to hacksaw the blasted things!

Here we’re testing and weighing potential accents before adding wheels. Note that the holes where the weights were inserted are all but invisible. I guess I should be ashamed to admit that I had all of this stuff, the ribbon and flies and pumpkins, on hand. However, my philosophy is that you never can tell when you’ll need a glow-in-the-dark plastic fly.

The finished shoe. We unfortunately didn’t tune the car up before the race, doing things like insuring the axles were in straight, so it placed in the middle of the pack. However, it did receive a style award for best workmanship, which is what the boy had really wanted. He even had a back story for the shoe, something about a bunch of flies using it to smuggle pumpkins for making pumpkin stew. There were also tons of other fun entries made by other boys, including a sailing ship, a pencil, and a box of french fries.

Here are our entries from last year, the boy’s Gravedigger and my ant car, Mandiblur, for the family competition. We seem to have a black theme going. I can hardly wait for next year’s Pinewood Derby!

Posted in Fun, Shows, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Christmas in the Park

Wednesday, December 24th, 2014

Aren’t those awesome tree ornaments? We saw these at Christmas in the Park in San Jose. You take a couple of squashed aluminum cans, add some felt tip pen and a couple of googly eyes. Badda bing badda boom, you’ve got yourself a yelling/singing ornament.

Going to Christmas in the Park has become something of a tradition for us, a good excuse to get out of the house when we’ve been stuffed in together for a few days and are at the point of biting each others’ heads off. We admire the trees, get a wristband for the boy so he can enjoy rides liberated from Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, maybe share some nachos or a funnel cake, and head over to the Fairmont to check out their gingerbread display.

There are usually tons of trees on display, trees decorated by organizations such as businesses, schools and Scouts. The ornaments are mostly made of materials which can stand up to weather and aren’t something miscreants would want to steal, thus the crushed can ornaments above. Some of the choices may also come down to what you can lay your hands on when dealing with a bunch of people: you need stuff, you need a lot of it, and it needs to be inexpensive. Thus, there are a lot of recycled goods in use, ornaments cobbled together from the likes of light bulbs, compact discs, and candy box liners.

There’s a lot of heart on those trees. There’s a lot of love which comes out when people get together to make ornaments or memorialize an idea or a deceased loved one with a tree. Many of the ornaments are frankly awful, and that’s part of their charm. Here, in no particular order, are some of my favorites. I hope that you’ll enjoy them just as much as I did.

Miniature hot air balloons made from light bulbs. It’ll be interesting to see how people deal with the squiggly fluorescent bulbs as the incandescents are phased out.

Jack Skellington’s head atop a tree. Fun.

Cool.

More lightbulbs.

I think there’s a tree under there somewhere!

It’s fun to see all the different organizations which come out to decorate trees. This one featured photos of prominent humanists. Buckminster Fuller appeared several times.

A “can’t mess up” ornament suitable for young kids or drunk adults.

Snowman made from bottle caps. Neat idea.

Penguin rendered out of a water bottle. I could wax philosophical about this, about how we humans are wrecking the planet with our need for crap such as these water bottles, and it’s resulting in the eradication of species. But what the heck; since it’s Christmas Eve, I won’t. Have some eggnog and pass me some roasted penguin breast, would you?

Bwahahaha! This snowman-tree is flipping us the bird! I suspect that the tree may have had a little “help” after the fact; I doubt the hand position is part of Girl Scout Canon.

In addition to tons of decorated trees, Christmas in the Park features animatronic displays. Many are old and – if you’ll forgive the pun – a tad ratty, as with this rodent whose ear has long since disappeared. I like that. The displays have character. Not every darned thing should be or needs to be “perfect”.

A tree dedicated to Martin Luther King. I wonder why there’s a police car ornament on it?

This made me laugh out loud.

There’s a sight I don’t see every day. Sweet Christmas dreams, kiddos.

That’s just plain fun.

Alright. Whatever chocolate-sucking pig left this mess here, you should be ashamed. Yeah, maybe you knocked your drink over and you can’t clean up the liquid, but you can jolly well pick up the cup and the spoon. We don’t want to see your mess, okay?

This snowman inexplicably and somewhat creepily would inflate and deflate.

This is neat. Gather random crap, coat it with glue and glitter, and you’ve got yourself a color-coordinated theme going! Well done, Glitterati Craft Club. I hereby give you a 21 Epoxy Salute.

There was a tree full of these. Some resembled Jesuses, some skeletons, and then there was this Elizabethan (?) fellow drifting along in his ship. “It’s Shakespeare!” exclaimed my son.

Gingerbread display at the Fairmont. One year they had a gigantic walk-through house, which children greatly enjoyed strolling through and destroying/snacking on the gingerbread. I notice they haven’t done the walk-through thing since then. Can’t say I blame them.

A phrenology head! How cool is that? It was atop the tree of some psychology organization, I think. Could have a whole theme of old school quackery going.

Also from the psychology tree. Not sure what it is, but it’s neat. A neuron, maybe?

Another neuron. Dang, those are festive.

Fun.

Also on the atheist tree, an imaginary creature, the winged unicorn. Someone has a sense of humor.

From one of the animatronic displays. I timed this so it would look like the craftsman was picking his nose. I’m mature that way.

The TiVo display. I do love TiVo’s product, and the sight of the sad pile of collapsed TiVo guys at the base made me laugh my guts out.

Hideous bearded foundling left outside a tree-orphanage? What it needs is a can of Coors.

A shower head tree topper, courtesy of one of the local utility companies. Clever.

Okay. That’s it for now. Come back a year from now and I’ll no doubt have more photos posted.

Posted in Fun, Photography | 2 Comments »

What I did on my summer naycation

Monday, August 18th, 2014

Show stuff: The Thief will be at IQF Houston this fall, and Flooded is making an appearance at the AQS show in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I hope there’ll soon be more show news, provided that I get my rump in gear.

Ten weeks ago, this was the scene in the morning:

Ryan

This was the scene that afternoon, the last day of school:

I had all sorts of plans for the summer. I was going to be super productive and crank out a bunch of artwork. The boy and I were going to build a hovercraft, a go-kart, and a bird feeder. This is what actually got done, a “water blob” made from a water-filled sheet of plastic whose ends were fused together. It began leaking by the next morning. “Oh, let’s drain it and drape it over the bench,” I told the boy, “I’ll get out the iron and fix it later.”

It’s still on the bench.

blob

Other than worksheets, acting and ice skating camps, and drilling the boy on math, we didn’t get too much done. We did get out a bit, though, and visited the Pez Museum in Burlingame. $4 total for a personal tour by the proprietor, who’s a super nice guy. Such a deal!

Pez

We went to the amusement park. Dear lord, did we go to the amusement park.

amusement

This milestone occurred. I suspect that deodorant and other significant events will soon be in the offing.

pimple

We celebrated Father’s Day by tying a ribbon around a box of spark plugs that happened to be laying on the dining room table. I figured it was the least I could do. Note the Mobius Strip bow on the bottom center package.

fathers

We tromped all over Lick Observatory, way up on Mount Hamilton. I may very well have set a new world record for becoming car sick on both the journey up and back, despite the fact that I was driving and was therefore theoretically in control of what occurred.

Lick

We visited the Carmel Mission Basilica, a gorgeous remnant of California’s colonial mission system.

Carmel2

Since Carmel is right by the ocean, we sent the boy in for a dip, which coincidentally washed off a few days worth of dirt.

I took many awful, blurry photos of cars at the Blackhawk Automotive Museum in Danville.

car

Here’s a sight one doesn’t see every day – these were, I think, in a shopping center in Danville. Group crapping, anyone? (To the tune of Dueling Banjos.)

toilets

We took in the water temple in Sunol, which I’d driven past for years but had never seen up close.

Sunol

At some point I looked at my studio, realized that it needed cleaning, then thought better of it. It’s still a disaster. I’m trying to care.

studio

We made our annual pilgrimage to the Adventure Playground in Berkeley, one of only a couple of adventure playgrounds left in the U.S..

adventure

A new motorcycle was acquired. (There goes the neighborhood.)

motorcycle

I chaperoned three days worth of Cub Scout camp, which felt like an eternity but was quite a bit less than many other parents did. I also demonstrated my capacity for bellowing, which horrified the other adults.

archery

This summer I read an article which indicated that many people are depressed by Facebook, due to the relentlessly positive and unrealistic depictions of others’ lives. I vowed that I would offset this by showcasing some of the worst and messiest aspects of my life, so that people could feel good in comparison. My vow lasted for a couple of photos, then I forgot about it.

The dining room table still pretty much looks like this, only now it’s covered with books, Lego, and Hexbugs.

dining

The boy and I visited the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito. He’s mostly aged out of it, but it was fun.

CDM2

CDM3

CDM1

We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s incredibly noisy.

bridge

We took in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle exhibit at the Cartoon Art Museum in the city.

Cartoon

Cartoon2

Later we visited Yerba Buena Gardens, which has this ridiculously short maze (How are you supposed to lose your child?), then tried making an animation at the Children’s Creativity Museum.

Yerba

There were Cub Scout events, bowling and this water fight. It’s nice to see that the boy hasn’t lost his penchant for sticking strange objects on his head.

waterFight

We headed down to Big Sur.

BigSur

One of the murals in the restroom at Nepenthe.

Nepenthe

A brief hike at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park led us to this nice waterfall overlook.

Pfeiffer

Down near San Simeon, we ran across a large group of elephant seals. From the highway, they look like giant flaccid sacks of laundry.

ElephantSeals

Hearst Castle.

Hearst1

Hearst3

Hearst2

A giant mucous plug of rock, which some now-dead volcano once rather rudely sneezed out.

Morro

My husband scored an awesome hotel for us, which I relished. There were gardens, deer, woodpeckers, and jays.

Hotel2

Hotel1

After the Big Sur trip, we visited a horribly overcrowded Lego show, where we nevertheless managed to do a little shopping:

Lego

I decided that since the boy is beginning to hide out in his room more, it should be arranged to look more like a lounge. This weekend we scurried around and found pillows, and I spent a day sewing covers. (I didn’t choose the color scheme!)

boysRoom

This was the scene this morning, as the boy headed back to school. I imagine that if anyone asks what he did this summer, he’ll say “Oh, not much.”

firstDay

It’s time for me to get back to work.

WhyKnot

Posted in Fun, New Work, Photography, Ponderings, Shows | 2 Comments »

Restless

Sunday, June 1st, 2014

This arrived in my mailbox:

A nice surprise. One of my pieces is in the current edition of American Quilter.

AQSMag2

Whoever handles their layout/retouching does a nice job. This is one of the most accurate reproductions of this particular quilt that I’ve seen.

Last week I bought a planer. It was on sale due to Mother’s Day or to honor deceased veterans or some such. I put a yucky, rough board through it. The planer transformed it into a satin-smooth length of wood with beautiful figure. I am in love.

PlanerCover

So in love, in fact, that I made a cozy for the planer. I briefly considered a touch of machine embroidery, too. “Planer”. You know, in case I confuse this tool with the lathe or the drill press or the table saw, none of which it resembles in the least.

I like to keep my tools nice and clean, wipe them off after use and cover them after they cool off. I have no idea whether that makes them last longer, but it makes me happy. I don’t suppose Quilting Arts Gifts wants projects like this, “Cozies For Every Tool in the Shop”? No. I didn’t think so. There probably aren’t too many folks who work with both fiber and wood. There are probably even fewer who want their tools covered with chintz or a bold botanical print.

Actually, the real reason I made the planer cozy is that I’m going nuts with impatience. I thought I’d imitate the cool kids, you see, and have some fabric printed up at Spoonflower. I duly made a digital painting and sent it off, but didn’t pay rush fees for production or shipping. Tomorrow will mark two weeks since I sent the file off. The order’s current status reads “We estimate that this order will be shipped in the next couple of days.” I found that encouraging last Thursday or Friday. Now I’m wondering if I will see the shipment by the end of the week.

This isn’t meant as criticism of Spoonflower, by the way. Their production isn’t taking much longer than any other commercial printing I’ve ever had done. It’s just that if I’d thought about it and added up the numbers, I might have either said “You know, I should really pay a rush fee” or “2 1/2 – 3 weeks is too much of a delay before starting on this project. I’ll be better off if I just slap paint on the cloth myself.” I may very well end up doing that anyhow if the print isn’t what I expected.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Please may the order get here before I’m forced to make another shopping bag or a cozy for the lathe. I only have five days before school is out and I’ll have to somehow shoehorn this new project in around child care.

Posted in Fun, Publications | 1 Comment »

Making it

Tuesday, May 27th, 2014

Here’s the latest. It’s a filler project, the sort of thing one does while tapping one’s foot and waiting impatiently for art supplies to arrive.

A few years ago, for environmental reasons, communities in California’s Bay Area began phasing out the use of one-use plastic shopping bags. That led to my purchasing reusable polypropylene bags, many of which are now wearing out. When I get a few minutes now and then, I make sturdier replacement bags from fabric. Hopefully this is a net positive for the environment, plus it never fails to remind me how much I genuinely don’t enjoy utility sewing and can’t wait to get back to making artwork. (When will my supplies arrive?)

This bag, which I just finished, is almost entirely made of leftovers: narrow batik slivers, hideous substrate fabric, salvaged batting, old cotton bedsheets, leftover quilted strips. These are the sorts of things which anyone else would have the sense to throw out or send to a fabric recycler.

To create the bags, I first make a sort of Frankenfabric by fusing the batik slivers to substrate fabric, then make the standard sandwich from that, batting, and the sheeting. The quilting is a good opportunity to try out different stitching motifs, or so I tell myself until the process becomes annoying.

Here’s an interior shot of the bag, showing the bedsheet lining. This lining happens to be blue. I tend to wear giant holes in the middle of our bedsheets, leaving vast swaths of fairly decent cotton around the edges of the sheets. While I’d be reluctant to use these pieces in a serious project, they can get a decent second life in shopping bags. When I’m doing some dyeing, I throw these chunks into the dye bath as well, so that I have a ready supply of hippie fabrics. You know, in case a wormhole sucks my house back to 1969.

Here are some of the quilted strips from which I form bag handles. I have many yards of these things, a result of my trimming off the edges of art quilts to square them up. They’re pretty densely stitched, so they’re fairly sturdy. After serging the raw edges of these trimmings, I color them with some old fabric paint that I’m trying to use up. That helps them give a more unified look with whatever bag I’m creating. It may also help disguise some of the filth inherent in being carried around or thrown in the back of the car.

Sometimes there are odd bits left over after one has cut out the rectangles for the bags. These make decent bookmarks, coasters, and cup cozies. I have no idea whether any of the Native Americans in the family tree chased down and ate buffalo. However, the old story about their using every part including the dung comes to mind when I’m considering these fabric tidbits.

Alright. One bag down. I hope the art supplies arrive before I’m forced to make another.

Several weeks ago, I read a Slate article on 3D printers.

3D printing is an enticing, exciting technology. Although 3D printers have been around for years, interest is ramping up. Everywhere you look, it seems that people are doing inane or amazing things with 3D printing – printing pancakes, printing dental casts, trying to print with cells so as to create human replacement organs. The temptation is strong to go build one and experiment oneself. How hard could it be?

Then I think about what I would probably do with such a device: print up a few flimsy replacement parts for broken things, then fill my house with hideous little printed sculptures. After a month or so, I’d grow bored or distracted and the printer would begin to gather dust along with the iPhone microscope, child washing station, PVC marshmallow shooter, and other things I just had to build. In the meantime, technology would continue to advance and new, more efficient, less costly printers would come to market. Such is life on the bleeding edge.

The kid wash, used here to form a low rent water slide. It totally makes sense to build a water toy in an area experiencing serious drought. See Instructables for a parts list and how-to.

Thus, I found myself nodding in sympathy with Seth Stevenson’s description of trying to print out a simple bottle opener. Oodles of expensive plastic filament wasted, jammed nozzles, plastic blobs generated, printer giving up halfway through a job. Yep. Standard stuff when the kinks are being ironed out of a developing technology. I’m sure these sorts of issues will steadily get resolved, but at the moment there just isn’t a compelling reason for me or most other consumers to run out and buy or build a 3D printer. I’m not doing a lot of whizzy product design which requires prototypes, nor am I doing medical research so that people can walk into a doctor’s office and have a new kidney printed on the spot. I’m not in a situation where the benefits of this technology outweigh the current annoyances. Besides – if I get the yen to print, the local library has a 3D printer.

I found myself nodding in sympathy, that is, until I got to this paragraph:

“Consider: Once upon a time, people purchased sewing patterns (like a program from Thingiverse) and yards of fabric (like filament) and they made their own clothes. I wasn’t alive back then, but I’m pretty sure the process sucked. It took lots of time and effort and the clothes were often amateurishly constructed. Sure, consumer sewing machines got better, and made things faster and easier and more professional looking. But nowadays, save for DIY fashion enthusiasts and grandmas with lots of time on their hands, people aren’t buying many at-home sewing machines. They’re a novelty item with little practical purpose. Most people would much rather just get their clothes from a store—already assembled by people employing industrial-level efficiency and a wide variety of materials.”

Bwaaaa? Speak for yourself, Buddy.

I’m neither a DIY fashion enthusiast nor a grandma. My sewing machine is not a “novelty item with little practical purpose.” It’s a tool, one tool in an arsenal of tools with which I create or repair. I have tools for woodworking, gardening, repairing plumbing and circuits, and so forth. I used to have automotive tools until I threw that task at my husband. (I can repair cars. I really don’t enjoy it.)

My sewing machine probably gets more use than all of the other tools combined, with the possible exception of the plunger. Perhaps Stevenson could have chosen a more accurate analogy.

Alexandra Lange, an architecture and design critic, has also written a response to this article, “3D Printers have a lot to learn from the sewing machine”. She makes several points which didn’t occur to me.

Hmph. “Novelty item with little practical purpose” my foot.

Posted in Fun, Ponderings, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

But is it art?

Saturday, December 21st, 2013

Before I forget, happy holidays to everyone:

ZombieBlog

This is from this year’s Christmas cards. I should have aligned the text differently for the screen. It looks rather uncomfortable sitting there, left aligned but relating to nothing else on the page. But, you know, lazy. Hand me some spiked eggnog and watch me get even lazier.

I never thought I’d view cold weather as a luxury, but my perspective has changed this year. I spent the fall clambering up and down ladders, repairing and repainting the house. I was out there so long that I became notorious among the neighbors, with the lady across the street repeatedly asking “aren’t you done yet?” and a few women making pointed comments about having “a man” do something. (Because, I don’t know, maybe the dangly bits act as ballast so men aren’t as likely to fall off ladders? Surely there’s some logical reason for specifically suggesting “a man” beyond sexism?)

For their part, men would stop by on their walks and chat companionably about ladders and air compressors. “Yep, that’s a GOOD ladder you have there,” one elderly man wheezed, “My son-in-law, his ladder wasn’t good. He fell off, got hurt really bad.” They would often bring dogs along, so I got sniffed and licked by many neighborhood hounds. That was nice.

In addition to painting, I sprayed foam insulation in every crack I could find. We had rats in the attic last year. I don’t hate rats, but I don’t want them up in my attic having turf wars and extramarital sex, growing fat on Cheetohs stolen from hapless schoolchildren. I don’t enjoy the whole live trap and peanut butter toast thing, loading bewildered rats in the car and deporting them to distant fields. (Where, no doubt, they’re simply killed by hawks instead of me.) The problem is, rats are smarter than me. Darned if I could tell where they were getting in and out of the house. Although spray foam won’t stop them from getting in – in fact, they’ll snicker at me while they chew through it – maybe the evidence of chewing will tell me where they’re getting in. That would be something. I really don’t want to call an exterminator and have them killed.

There’s more to do out there but – oh dear – cold weather is here! Gosh, I just don’t feel up to shoveling or shredding when it’s thirty or forty degrees out. Nope, I’ll just have to hole up inside until the afternoon, when it warms up a bit. I’ll just have to do inside things.

wreath

Things like this, for example. Get yourself some squashed toilet paper tubes, some spray paint, a few red beads from the junk jar in the laundry room, and you’ve got a low rent wreath. Is there anything toilet paper tubes can’t do?

I glued eyelet to the individual panes of the window, too. The yellowed, 1970s-era door curtain finally got to me. It spoke of stained shag carpet, dim rooms, and people chain smoking around a 13″ TV set. It turns out that the eyelet provides a pretty good degree of privacy and lets in a gentle glow as well. If we grow to despise the eyelet, it’ll scrape right off with a razor blade.

bowl

Perler beads. Why did I think that we needed TWO LARGE CONTAINERS of fusible beads? We have an energetic male child. I’ve engaged him in craft projects. He prefers to bash things with foam swords and swing from chandeliers. In fact, one of his fantasies is that I’ll build him a zip line with a chandelier hanging off it, so he can simultaneously go down a zip line and swing from a chandelier.

Anyhow, it turns out that if you smear vegetable oil on the inside of a glass bowl, put Perler beads inside, and put the whole mess in the oven awhile, you can make yourself a flimsy, ugly bowl. It’s a far less tedious process than making anything else with these beads. It also is reminiscent of Dominic Wilcox’s War Bowls, which I covet greatly.

minecraft

Perler bead Minecraft gear. I have no idea why anyone would want this stuff, but my kid was delighted with it. He spent one entire dinner whacking at a roll with the little axe, which I guess says nothing good about the level of etiquette we adhere to in this household.

micro2

iPhone microscope. This conversion stand, which includes a lens filched from a laser pointer, allows one to use a smartphone as a digital microscope. I found the instructions over on the Instructables site, courtesy of Yoshinok.

Aside from the phone, the project is incredibly cheap. All it requires is some acrylic, a few nuts and bolts, the lens from a cheap laser pointer, and a chunk of wood. Here we can see the microscope lined up to magnify a dime.

micro1

Another view of the iPhone microscope, with FDR’s metal visage onscreen. I should really find a teensy LED flashlight in case we want backlighting. You know – for that theoretical day when I manage to tear my kid away from Minecraft and bashing things with foam swords and force him to inspect the world around us.

QuiltScene

Here are a couple of recent print appearances of my work. This one is from the latest issue of International Quilt Festival: Quilt Scene, which had a gallery of some of the work at IQF Houston. My portrait, Under the Ginkgo Tree, is on the left. Karen Eckmeier’s Random Rose Garden is on the facing page.

I appreciate being featured in the magazine. That has to be a job and a half, combing through several hundred works to decide which to show, not to mention the layout and design. It looks as though they tried to feature a wide variety of styles and techniques. I hope that’s inspiring for those who couldn’t make it to the show.

CuttingEdge1

This is from Mary Kerr’s Cutting-Edge Art Quilts, which was published earlier this year. I was happy to see that she and the publisher did a wonderful job. Tasteful layout, interesting information, nice variety in terms of style and technique.

Yeah, that conservative-looking woman in the little postage stamp-sized photo is me. If I had known that photos of the artists would be required, I wouldn’t have submitted work. However, I would have missed out on being in a nice book. I won’t be offended if people who own a copy draw a mustache on my face.

CuttingEdge2

Another spread, this time featuring Creepy Boy, Siesta, and Suspicion. One of my friends squinted at this photo and asked “What’s that pink hairy nipple thing in the lower righthand corner?” Well, thanks. From now on, when I see Suspicion, I’m going to think “pink hairy nipple thing” rather than “napping flamingo”.

It’s good to see Creepy Boy in print. I never submitted him to any shows because I didn’t think he’d be well received. People who see him in person usually shudder and go “ewwww!” However, it’s actually one of the pieces I’ve found most effective.

tree

Whee! I can use a plugin to create a tree skeleton!

Meanwhile, I’m off studying Objective C and Blender 3D. There are things I want to do.

I’ve missed doing 3D CGI. Aside from some product-related 3D work for advertising, I mostly had to put it aside during the goldrush era, when I was frolicking at one of those infamous Silicon Valley startups. Then there was the whole having-a-baby thing. That period doesn’t last forever, it’s an investment in the future, and I kind of feel one should be present to whatever degree one can. However, it sure can bring other pursuits to a screeching halt, particularly if there isn’t outside childcare.

Time marches on. Kids’ needs for intense, constant attention taper off as they continue down the long path toward independence and adulthood. There’s school, peers, outside interests. I’m now at the point of having to schedule regular outings with my kid, to ensure that the time doesn’t simply ooze by unmarked and that he has memories other than my badgering him about penmanship and multiplication tables. For the parent, it can be like a miniature version of a midlife crisis: “Wow. I have more time. Who am I? What was I doing when this all began? What do I want to do now?”

Well, I miss working in 3D. I miss making my own strange little worlds. I have no idea how or whether my 3D work will tie in with my fiber work or portraits. I’m simply tired of telling myself no. Sometimes we have to embark on a hike into the wilderness and see if it leads anywhere.

On that note, here are some things I’ve been taking on that hike, things I really appreciate:

The Blender 3D Noob to Pro Wikibook
Blender is a marvelously full-featured 3D CGI package, a free one at that. Alas, it has a notoriously quirky interface and can have a steep learning curve.

The people who put together the Noob to Pro book have made the process less hideous, though, by stepping through each feature and obscure set of key commands and providing tutorials. They don’t get paid for their work and have done this out of the goodness of their hearts. Bless them.

Matthijs Hollemans’ iOS apprentice series.
I’ve coded in a wide variety of languages. However, there’s quite a bit of distance between fixing a problem in an emergency, hacking together an ill-conceived application which may break if one sneezes at the wrong time, and writing clean, elegantly conceived code.

Amateurish tutorials and books abound, their covers festooned with claims that they’ll teach you a language “In 24 Hours!” or have you publishing your own gee-whiz apps in no time at all. Many of them contain slapdash code, bizarre variable and function names, and lousy explanations.

Hollemans’ series is far superior to these in terms of clarity of writing, helpful screenshots, and decent coding practices. It’s also saving me the annoyance of having to shower, put on clean clothes, and sit in a classroom to learn a new language.

CartoonSmart
I’m not a fan of video-based classes. That’s particularly the case if the speaker is a novice in terms of teaching, is disorganized, or is a mumbler. Give me written material and I’m far, far happier. However, CartoonSmart consistently offers a wide variety of inexpensive tutorials and kits on hot or fun topics. Want to get up to speed making giant robots in Flash or get a quick introduction to Maya? They’re a good place to start. Whenever I’m in the mood to try something new or quirky, I scan the classes at CartoonSmart.

Here’s to adventure in 2014!

Posted in Books, Fun, Ponderings, Publications | 2 Comments »

A public service announcement

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

I’ve always been kind of a dull person in terms of my appearance, no tattoos and only one set of piercings, eternally a decade or two behind current fashions. A few months ago, I thought I’d jazz it up. Live a little, you know. I dyed my hair bubblegum pink.

I was pretty pleased with the dye job. The effect was fun, but subtle. A little pinker than strawberry blonde, and a good introduction to dyeing. Alas, the dye wore off too soon, so I started looking for a more permanent dye. I thought I’d found it with something called “Splat Rebellious Colors Luscious Raspberry.” The color on the box looked a little deep, but what the heck? I’d thought the same thing about the Manic Panic dye and that had turned out okay. What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing, as it turns out, if you like purple. If you don’t like purple hair, well, that’s another story. Also, if you’re turned off by a scalp dotted with bright pink/purple spots like the coat of a psychedelic Dalmatian dog, that could be a problem.

Well, I thought, “at least it covers the gray.” This morning I duly walked the kid to school and took the dog for a walk. As usual, the dog did his balking thing where he lies down and glues himself to the sidewalk when he doesn’t want to walk in a particular direction. I did my usual thing where I pick him up and drape him over my shoulder for a couple of blocks until he’s had a chance to rethink his strategy.

He isn’t a huge dog, maybe 40 pounds, but he’s long, a basset-dachshund mix. And me, well, I don’t think about it much, but I guess I’m short. The dog’s body covers me from waist to shoulder, leaving stubby little legs and a hound head propped up above me.

As I walked down the street, which was bumper-to-bumper with rush hour traffic, I noticed something. Motorists pointing at me and laughing. Motorists jostling each other and trying to get their kids’ attention.

Here’s what I learned: if you’re short and have purple hair, don’t walk down the street with a basset mix slung over your shoulder. Otherwise, people will laugh at you.

Posted in Fun, Ponderings | 3 Comments »

QN and SoCal

Saturday, February 25th, 2012

Last week, I attended the opening reception for Quilt National at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. It was fun. I renewed my acquaintance with Lura Schwarz Smith and met a number of museum visitors, who had insightful comments and questions. It was a pleasure to see the exhibit again, a different experience than perusing the works in the show catalog. I was glad to see that Farmer Brown is holding up well, still grinning at people and threatening to smack them with his gargantuan straw hat.

I can’t really post any photos of the exhibit, other than this sign:

Try not to hurt your eyes squinting. The Museum’s curator, Deborah Corsini, kindly gave me a “shout out” in the second to last paragraph. Remember the song from Sesame Street, “One of these things is not like the other …”? Yeah. It was all I could do to not hum it at the reception. Although there are several representational works in the show, by and large the show is abstract. So abstract that the likes of Mondrian and Pollock would squeal with joy, provided they were the types to squeal. I appreciate the Quilt National jurors’ giving Farmer Brown a chance.

(Speaking of jurors, Nelda Warkentin will be speaking March 18. I’m looking forward to an insightful talk. I’ll be participating in the gallery walk again as well.)

Immediately after the reception, I hit the road, driving 450 miles south to San Diego. I still haven’t caught up with email or blog comments sent during the last couple of weeks. (*cough* months *cough*) I wish I could claim that was atypical.

Why Southern California? Why, Lego Oland, of course!

Yes, it’s always a pleasure to visit Lego Oland in sunny Fornia. One can throw a child on a ride, then kick back with a cup of coffee and admire the many giant Lego sculptures. Slothful parenting at its laziest. For those without a suitably-aged child to act as a beard, I have the following photos:

There’s something ironic about creating a giant dinosaur out of petrochemicals, although I suppose actual dinosaur remains would comprise a very tiny percentage – if any – of the stuff pumped out of the ground.

A tranquil family grouping, also rendered in plastic bricks.

Legoland has some joyous fountains which almost rival those at the Place Igor Stravinsky in Paris.

Yes, of course. That’s the first thing female firefighters do after donning full SCBA gear so they can battle a raging fire: they slather on the lipstick. Sexism lives.

“Is that a Lego banana in your pocket, or are you just …”

Oh, never mind. I shouldn’t go there, particularly after getting hinky over the firefighter with the lipstick.

Very nice sea monster-inspired ostrich. Wish I’d thought of this.

Legoland employee toiling in the model shop, with only a sheet of plate glass between him and visitors. Poor guy. There is no escaping The Eyes.

Heck yeah! My yard would be about a thousand times more interesting if I had little grace notes like this around.

You know what this means, don’t you? That’s right. Somewhere, there are voracious aphids the size of a German Shepherd. Lock your doors and keep an eye on the Aspidistra.

I love these cars. I’d totally drive one around town if it was street legal.

A trip to Southern California also means a visit to Balboa Park. It’s practically a requirement. The Mingei had a neat exhibit of Post-War Modern San Diego design.

There I discovered a new favorite artist, Barney Reid. This wall hanging is very scrumptious indeed.

Jane Chapman, 1950
This shot is just to establish that we’re looking at a very tall, narrow wall hanging.

Here’s a little closer look at a section of it. What do we see? Abstract shapes rendered in fiber and heavy, very textural threads. The sort of thing the art quilting world often regards as Innovative Contemporary Art. However, this piece was made over sixty years ago.

At the end of a post on her blog, Kathy Nida has written a couple of thoughtful paragraphs about work being perceived as more or less artistic depending upon the medium in which its rendered. She asks what “makes a line made with a paintbrush or pen or pencil more artistic to those who consider what is art than the line made by a piece of thread or fabric?” In my opinion, it is because fiber is a pink collar ghetto. It isn’t intrinsically more or less artistic. It simply isn’t used as much by males, and therefore it isn’t as highly valued. If Kandinsky had chosen to create his abstracts in fabric, rather than in paint, there wouldn’t have been a question about whether the work was art or not. As far as the mainstream art world goes, a work’s artistic value is determined by the artist, not by the art.

Sixty years ago, Jane Apple Chapman and her cohort were making abstract shapes and marks with fabric and thread. Art regarded as craft. Today, we are still making shapes and marks with fabric and thread. Some of us create abstracts rather than figurative works because that is what we love or what we’re driven to do. Others of us create abstracts because we hope that in so doing, our fiber pieces will be regarded as serious Art. The same ground Jane Chapman trod sixty years ago.

Good luck.

Phyllis Wallen, Funform

Barney Reid, Cocktail Napkins, early 1950s
I like this man’s work.

I saw several of these signs around. This one was on a chair covered with faux fur. On the one hand, it’s amusing. On the other hand, I’d like to liberally plaster them all over my work. Many venues are scrupulous about keeping the bare hands of visitors away from fiber-based pieces. Some (*cough* Mancuso *cough*) are not. Last fall I watched dozens of people stroke and pat the piece I had at PIQF. They meant no harm, but the damage does accumulate. A little hand lotion there, some natural skin oils and soils there, perhaps a ring snagging on the work. Suddenly the piece I took to the show in pristine condition has acquired a shopworn aspect. And you know, I can’t exactly throw it in the washer to clean it, nor will anyone want to buy it if it’s soiled. Thanks loads, folks. So, bottom line, I wish people wouldn’t run their hands over things until they’ve purchased them.

From a Maneki Neko exhibit at the museum. They had an astonishing variety of these friendly cats.

At the San Diego Museum of Art, tucked away in a room beside the cafe, is this Huichol art car. It’s encrusted with literally millions of tiny beads. My photo is ghastly, but I hope will give some sense of the car and encourage others to go see it.

Another bad photo. My apologies to the artists.

Anyhow, it was a good trip and it’s good to be home. It left me with renewed energy to work, and work I shall – I’ve been pounding away at the current piece since October, and it isn’t anywhere close to done.

Posted in Fun, Photography, Ponderings, Shows | Comments Off on QN and SoCal

Offcuts

Saturday, July 23rd, 2011

I do some woodworking now and then – or, more accurately, wood butchery. Sometimes when I do a project like this:

I end up with a lot of these:

Offcuts. Pieces of wood which seem too small to do anything useful, but too big to throw away. If you do only one project a year, even if you plan carefully, you’ll end up with enough offcuts to sink a battleship. You can use some of them as building blocks for the kids or grandkids, of course, but what then? Doorstops? A kid only needs so many building blocks, and a household only needs a handful of doorstops. No, sometimes it’s nice to have some variety.

Here’s one thing I made with them: a colorful abstract art mirror, which coordinates nicely with the Miros and so forth in my house. (Someone please stop me before I extend that thought to its sad conclusion and say that I like the Miros because they match my couch.)

For this project, I used a Malma mirror from Ikea as a base, then glued on small painted offcuts. These particular mirrors have a pretty wide frame, which undoubtedly makes them popular with the gluing-stuff-on-other-stuff crafting contingent. They also cost a pittance. ($3 as of this writing.) With a little acrylic paint and some wood glue, one is good to go. This particular project might also be fun with unpainted wood. Either way, it’s a good afternoon project for kids as well as adults.

Here’s another thing I made, a bench for the garden:

It isn’t the sort of large, generous bench which invites lolling about with a book and a cold drink, but it adds a bit of whimsy and makes a nice place to perch. All it took was some threaded rod, which I hacksawed to length, and a handful of nuts and washers. Drill holes through all of the blocks, thread them on the rod, and voila – a rickety bench!

If I ever do this project again, I may make the bench deeper or shape and paint the wood blocks to look like stacks of books. Long carriage bolts would have made nice improvement over the threaded rod, as well. If you use rod, you have to be careful to countersink the holes in the top board so the end of the rod won’t poke somebody:

Unfortunately, these projects didn’t make much of a dent in my collection of offcuts. Guess I’ll have to think of some more projects.

Posted in Fun | 4 Comments »