Rainy Day

Gimme!

Wherever the green beans are, there's Franny, hoping one will jump into her mouth.

Raindrop

This. This is what we have been looking at for days and days and weeks and weeks. It finally cleared up, and it looks like it will stay mostly dry for the next few days.

I wouldn't mind winter so much if we could just see the sun once occasionally.

Cardinal

This little guy stopped by a couple of weeks ago. I love that we have cardinals year round. They're like bright and cheerful little strawberries in the midst of the winter greys.

A Visitor

We had a yearling deer visit. Franny was absolutely beside herself, because I was a giant meanypants and wouldn't let her bark at it.

I Made a Book

The Mirage
three needle, single sheet Coptic bound book using recycled materials
7 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches

The boards used to belong to a college yearbook. The pages were cut down from larger pieces I did years ago and meant to bind but never got around to it. They were single folded sheets, then, which would have been easy to do as a Coptic binding with single-sheet sections. But I've been wanting to try out one of Keith Smith's single sheet Coptic bindings, so I decided to cannibalize some old work to practice on.

Why single-sheet Coptic? Because I've got all kinds of single sheets of things that I want to turn into books, but I don't want to stab-bind them. I want the pages to lay completely flat.

It's not perfect. Because I was working with single, unfolded sheets, it was a little too easy to get them flipped upside down. Which I did. Which meant that the center section of sewing is a little skewed because the center holes in the flipped sheets did not line up properly. Also, though this is actually less annoying, those pages are now upside down. I'll have to go in and rework them so that they make sense. Story of my life. Boys and girls: Never attempt bookbinding while drinking bourbon. It's a bad combination for a lot of reasons. Like blood.


When Art Attacks

No Sunshine

It was supposed to be sunny. Now they are alleging that we'll see the sun on Thursday. I am not holding my breath.

Unfinished

10 x 8 inches
mixed media (graphite, gesso, and collage) on canvas

The bottom layer is a page of art history notes from college. I believe on Rodin, hence the repeated refrain of "Unfinished." The tree is graphite, and the map is from an old world atlas.

Confidence Level: Zero

Comcast sent me a "new" modem last week. I finally had time to set it up today. Opened the box to find that the modem was scratched up and had what looks like a cigarette burn. It did not inspire confidence, but okayfine. We can't have nice things. I'm used to that. Then I plugged it in and turned it on, and smoke came out of it, accompanied by an acrid smell of burning electrical wires.

I spent 45 minutes on the phone, on hold then talking to a very nice man from India. Not much he could do for me, which I expected, since it was a clear equipment failure. But he filed a report, and now I have to go to the Comcast office tomorrow to get a (hopefully working!) reacement.  I was hoping to avoid driving over there, because I hate going to the west side.

Pomegranate (Again)

So. Much. Yum.

Pomegranate

The most infuriating, delicious food in the whole wide world.

Dear Frances: WTF?

I can't imagine how that could be comfortable.

Wine and Glue

All else confusion #art #collage #artjournals #muybridge #Tennyson #suffragettes

A photo posted by @ellypdq on Nov 11, 2014 at 6:42pm PST

We can sense the universe's margins #collage #art #artjournals

A photo posted by @ellypdq on Nov 11, 2014 at 5:37pm PST

There was wine. And then there were two arts.

The top one has a line taken from an Alfred Tennyson poem, The Princess. It is tl;dr, yo. The poem is about higher education for women. The image is photos of an academic honors society, from a 1957 high school yearbook.

La colère petite

I love how he throws himself into the flop position when he realizes I won't let him explore under the fir tree. Other than that, he quite enjoyed his snow adventure. He only decided he wanted to go back inside when the neighbor's Weimaraner came flying out their patio door.

EEEEBOOOOLAAAAA!

Paw

Piglet likes to hold hands. And by hold hands, I mean he likes to put his paw on you and hold you down. Preferably while sitting on your chest, so you can't breathe.

To Be Read

Gimme!

Piglet is, well, a piglet. He will eat just about anything, including potato chips. Maybe especially potato chips.

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

Sunrise over Wright Quad

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Sunrise

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Sweetness

Sometimes she's so sweet it just about kills me.

Want.

Mine.

Karen Green's Bough Down

I got this from the library and read it and reread it and then I didn't want to give it back, so I bought my own copy.

Goodwill Haul

Because I needed more books.

Autumn

It's a foggy, melancholy post-election morning

I had to stay home today, because our fire extinguishers are being inspected. I thought I'd better change the battery in my smoke detector, too. I tried two different new batteries, different brands from different stores, and neither worked. So my smoke detector is dead, I guess. I'm stuck at home until maintenance shows up to replace it.

Hmf.

Happy Damn Tuesday!

If you can vote, please do so. If you cannot, I am sorry. I voted twice as hard on your behalf. Hopefully we can get some of these infuriating voter disenfranchisement laws repealed.

Morning

Morning Belt of Venus

Franny and Polly

Bad Seed

Maintenance cleaned the gutters on Friday. They tossed the fetid, decomposing leaves on the ground, and my darling, angelic little hobgoblin, who never rolls in anything but freshly cut grass, decided to go for a wallow. OH. MY. GAWD. The stench! It was unbelievable. She was punished with a bath and the wearing of the hippie collar.

The bath removed most of the smell, except on her face and ears, where I'd been reluctant to wash too thoroughly. Someone in my dog group suggested a mixture of 2 parts water and 1 part Listerine. I applied it with a paper towel, and yo! It is MAGIC! No more stinky dog.

Goodwill Haul

Neil Gaiman and Judy Blume. It was a good day in bookhuntingland.

Library at Dark O'Clock

Herman B Wells Library in the early morning

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Trees Outside the Indiana University Art Museum



Bald Cypress Grove in Dunn Meadow

Maple and Redbud

Maple Tree on Jordan Avenue near 10th Street



Redbud Tree at the Herman B Wells Library loading dock

Spam

My aunt and uncle got this for Frances. I *heart* it. (I'm from Austin, Minnesota, the home of Hormel and Spam, so it's not as random as it might seem. I wanted to get Franny a Spam shirt when I was visiting last month, but the Spam museum was temporarily closed.)

I love the expression on Franny's face. She looks like she hates it, doesn't she? But she actually didn't care one bit about getting dressed and wearing clothes. She was annoyed because I made her sit on the couch and pose, when she wanted to go play with her stuffy.

Sassafras and Flame-leaf Sumac

It's officially fall when the sumac turns red.

Little Brown Birds

Ladymusings #246

It is not my job to make you feel better about being a dude.

Shovels and Rope

Beautiful music from some beautiful people.