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.