I'm here, keep your pants on....

OK so I have been busy...really busy, filling my head with images and sounds and sights...

I will share some of them with you now....

OK I ate this in the town that the Twilight boy was spotted in nursing his broken heart.
I kind of wanted to see him, even though I am not a twi fan...but I just had a lovely conversation with my sweetie instead



Here is the Edward Hopper painting that made me weep
at the SFMOMA.
(Click on image to see it larger)

Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Untitled (Rat and Bear, Sleeping), 2008/2009; installation

This is a piece called Rat and Bear Sleeping...that scared the shit out of me...they breathe...well look like they are breathing and I was afraid that they would get up and grab me.
I think I am still a little traumatized from it.

I got a head cold...I slept on the couch so I could sleep sitting up...it is not pretty.
I am giving you real life here people!

I completed my edition of bookplates for this show

This is a neighbor showing off his ocean caught fish...

much to the delight of the neighborhood girls.

The fish was horribly embarrassed

This is what I saw last week in TJ's, little girls in 4.5inch heels...

I am not sure I have moved past this either.

The wall of yet sold artwork from the local art auction.
It was hot and packed and there was loads of tequila

building next door to SFMOMA
click on image to see it larger and discover what I saw

More words in my next post...

Social Pressure

After much social pressure and hearing " you MUST read this"

 I was handed a copy of the 50 shades book.

I must say I had ZERO interest in reading it and after it sat on my bedside table for almost a month, maybe in a continued silent protest... I finally picked it up as I needed to return this book to the person who was kind enough to loan it to me.

PLUS I needed to give it a shot, after all it was "just a book"

Well, it is a book...and it has sex in it and in all honesty, I started reading it much like any other book I pick up in the bookshop....open to a random page, read a paragraph and see if I could see reading it any further....

 I figured there wasn't a lot of character development towards the front, so that is where I flipped it open...after reading for about an hour in bed alone.

 Hubby came in to check on me....

***

Stop reading now if you liked the book or don't want to hear my soapbox moment about sexual freedom and liberty.

He started laughing, saying I didn't look too happy.

"what do you think of it so far?"

I looked up and said, well my first impression was that he was a REALLY bad lover.

He told me to give it some more time.

At that, I handed him the book and he started to read and then roll his eyes and then laugh.

We both laughed a lot reading the book.

He agreed, the writing was bad, the story was silly but, we were both thankful for the laughs.

Sadly, this was not meant to be a comedic book.

I must say, the amount of "oh crap" and "see how wet you are" made me cringe, and I was bored out of my head from the email exchanges.

Now I know other women LOVE this series, and I think that is great for them but...

it really made me wonder why?

I know we are still struggling as a gender to find ourselves, to act on our sexual impulses and

be OK with wanting and needing sex.

I guess the fervor this book has caused with women maybe just highlighted for me that a majority of women are still not asking for what they really want or need sexually.

I guess I am a lucky girl, for my lover just wants me to be sexually over the moon, and he is willing to do anything to make that happen.

Demand that from your lovers ladies!

Demand that for yourself!

Then you can write a really hot novel and we can all be smiling from our one handed reads.

***

(stepping off the soapbox, and putting down my megaphone)

Some other women I know have said they refused to read it because of all the hype.

I told them I would report back.

Here I am reporting:

It is silly, the guy is creepy and self centered. The female lead is self deprecating to a level of annoying at the beginning and then just boring after that.

The sex is mild, and if you haven't had some saucy/kinky sex by now, get cracking, because this is not saucy/kinky sex....you can think of far more interesting sex...trust me, I know you are creative!

In the end, I thought it was beyond boring and disappointing.

but hey, we all beat off to a different drummer.

Weekend of color

I actually had an amazingly productive weekend!

It has been far too long since that has occurred and I don't want it to stop.

Here is a visual montage:

I did the walk for First Thursday and saw the SB Museums exhibits
this exhibit as well as a lovely collection of Van Gogh to Munch
some of the work I was lucky to see in other venues overseas in years past.
None the less it was a wonderful visual treat.

Saturday was spent exposing new plates while hubby saw the latest Sci Fi movie that
I had no interest in.

We sampled out first Beignets from a new local Cajun/creole restaurant

Breakfast was hidden under mountains of powdered sugar!
Sugar comma was soon to follow

Local agriculture museum

the reason for visiting that little museum,
An amazing painter that I have been following for years
and her lovely work
pretty horses, pretty horses

The remainder of the day was spent printing an edition that is traveling back east.

Ahhhhh Heaven

Thank you for your patience

 So now that I have your attention

thank you Elle for breaking barriers and allowing a man to grace your cover.

Apparently, he is the first man to be on the cover of the magazine.

I personally don't think he is too horrible to look at.

(swooning at those lovely deep eyes)

Plus, on another note, his tattoos seem to work, nothing bothers me more then a bunch of tattoos that seem totally chaotic and mismatched and scattered. I guess it is the OCD that lives inside me, when I see his sleeves they work...organized chaos.

OK, enough eye candy.

I want to soap box for another moment here:

Swim suit season is around the corner.

One of the worst parts about living in the land of beautiful people,

is that anyone who is not a yoga instructor or a professional personal trainer

 is shunned from wearing and or feeling good in a swim suit.

I am not sure why they are called these, because of the people I know who have them, they do not use them to swim in...or bathe in...so they really should be called sun suits.

Ok, so I include myself in this group of sun scared, shunned, and sun suit phobic women.

I own one again, finally...for years I refused to own one because

I didn't like the way I looked in one.

Then we went to a lake house with friends and I decided I would not explode if I had one and someone besides my reflection saw myself in it....and it was hot and I would be glad to have something skimppier to wear.

This being said, a fashion blogger was recently featured on a morning news show because she posted her "fatkini" photos and then other women sent in theirs to her.

You can see the whole thing HERE

I applaud it and find it interesting what women see as fat within themselves and what we have been taught to think is fat or thin or normal or freakish.

So I guess the whole point of this post is still lost to even me,

but it seemed really important to talk about.

I am fearful of the sun in general, if you have seen me in "real life" you will and can attest to the fact that I am pale, paler then pale. In fact, when we went to Hawaii or that before mentioned lake I hide in the shade. I love being outside, but fear the sun.

I got burnt A LOT as a teenager so now I am in a constant state of fear that my whole body will be covered in cancerous moles or something...

so instead, even when I fantasize about a getaway in a beach chair with a huge umbrella shading everything but my toes....but cancer can even grow there.

So maybe my full shaded chair can still be on the beach or lake and a nice cool breeze on a warm day....hell I could even use a lemonade or a iced alcoholic something with a paper flower or something.

Ugh, I think now that this post is really just insight into my current mental state.

Scattered.

but colorful

Moral of this rambling:

 wear sun screen, dream big and don't be afraid of sun suits

or how beautiful and wonderful your body really is.

Post birthday

OK so I have really sucked at posting to my own darn blog...I am tired of saying sorry about it so this is my last time!

so there.

In the last two and a half weeks, my mother has essentially almost literally imploded and I was running back and forth like a crazed lady trying to keep things straight, keep myself emotionally in check, inform way too many people about every move via text messages,
and get some food and or sleep.

Yes, these were often interchangeable.

So now that the pace has slowed down...to a lower humm of chaos. 

I am back at trying to tackle the lofty aspirations I have for myself and my art calendar.

Sadly, in the wild and crazy wind of it all, my birthday approached and
when it arrived yesterday I was spent.
I had nothing left for myself or to give to others.

This made me very very sad and I started my party early the day before
 by throwing myself a pity party.

After about an hour of crying, I pulled myself up by my tattered and worn bootstraps
 and got myself out of the house.

My goal was to get hubby a CD that he really wanted.

I was grumpy still, not totally happy with my choice to leave my own party early...

As I was driving to the shop, via side streets (just to keep me out that much longer) the car in front of me slowed WAY down for what looked like a little leaf in the road....well when I saw three men standing on the sidewalk watching, I pulled over. It was not a leaf...it was a baby possum!

the smallest little wild thing I have seen in a long long time!

not the one I saw but just as cute and small

These men, stopped traffic in one direction and I stopped it in another, and slowly and lovingly escorted this little lost baby back into the garden it had wandered from.

It was a good deed, we were all very happy to see it waddle back into the undergrowth of the urban garden and hopefully tell the tale to its momma there.

At this point my mood shifted totally. I didn't want to go back to that stupid party...it was silly

I stopped at the overloaded and sensory overwhelmed beauty supply store and

I bought myself a bottle of the liquid gold that seems to tame the mane, I only buy once a year:

$20 a bottle for conditioner seems too much
so instead I buy it once a year and ration it out

After that I bought some brownie mix and headed home to eat some leftover Chinese food and bake brownies for work. Hell, if my birthday was gonna suck, it was because I was gonna let it.

I would have none of that.

When the sun finally came up, well actually, when the alarm finally went off (far more accurate)

I made some "I am awake sounds" to let hubby know...once he made his, he grabbed me and said, HAPPY BIRTHDAY...that made me smile and then I sang at the top of my lungs and much to the cats disapproval this song that was playing on the clock radio:

This act had us in hysterics in moments....

it ended up being a quiet birthday. A vast vast change from years before when there was usually a party or loads of friends. But it seemed fitting, I was emotionally spent and it was about all I could muster. As I am now in the day after birthday reflections, I am very thankful for my hubby who wrote me a crazy romantic love note on facebook which just about knocked me out of my chair...my family who loves me dearly and the friends who took time to wish me a happy birthday.

I really really am OK...a little shaky at times, but it is gonna be another exciting journey around the sun this year!

Thankful Thursday

Feel Good- Do Good

worktable-wordless Wednesday

I am busy in the studio creating new work...but thought I'd share: