Blibber Blabber

No rhyme, no reason

 

"Inverness: In Honor of Gordon Ramsay: 'Stop staring, you donkey!'"

I'm not sure I like this one as well as the others, but I've been wanting to draw that waiter for months.

I decided this one will go in the solo show.

Planned:
*Try to get into the drawing exhibit in town.
*Enter a beach picture in an exhibit out in CA.
*Do a "blue" themed picture and send it for possible inclusion in a gallery show in KY.
*Make two-three pictures for the Tomato Art Fest.
*Maybe try to get included in a Halloween show in NY.
*And then there's all those pesky entries for the fair!

And those are my tentative plans through September.  And then make stuff for the holidays for the gallery here in town.

posted by: athenawj at 06:28 | link | comments (2) |
art

Feeding Time

I think this is the last piece I'm going to create for my solo show.  I found that a local gallery is accepting subs for a drawing exhibition, which is right up my alley, but the deadline's May 31 for an August show.  Gotta get crackin'!  So much else to friggin' do, too... ain't that the way, though? ;)

posted by: athenawj at 06:22 | link | comments |
art

Art!

Last evening was the Saturday Art Crawl, and a damn good one, at that.  Nearly every gallery we went to had an amazing artist, and two that I completely fell in love with.  I even told one of the artists that: something like how every once in awhile you stumble across art that just immediately grabs you, and you can't stop looking at it.  Well, something like that.  I don't know, I got a little drunk.  I haven't been drunk in seven years, so that was fun, too.

Steven Knudson was the artist I spoke to.  His watercolors and oils are absolutely beautiful; stark and dark and strangely beautiful. 

The other artist I adored was Laurie Lipton.  I love finding people who draw, and make a living at it.  And the details she injects are incredible-- her pieces are the kind that you could own, and months later you'd still be finding new things in them.

Check out the links with their names.  Wonderful stuff there.

posted by: athenawj at 07:01 | link | comments |
art

I've come to the decision that YD is going to be home-schooled from now on... well, after she finishes this school year.  It's partly "I-can't-take-it-anymore", and partly "I'VE-GOT-to-do-something-to-help-my-child".  Disgust with the school system and her school in particular is a big part of it, too.  And safety.  Not the least is how she's had three things stolen-- two right off her person-- in the last two weeks (cell phone, backpack, and thirty dollars).  No, the school will take the reports, but they won't do anything about it.  Neither will the police.

Anyway.  She's out of there.  I'm tired of the way races cannot get along at this school (which floors me-- my daughters went to a middle school where THEY were the minority, and everyone got along just fine, but no one can in a more equally mixed school???), there are gang fights on a weekly basis, they cannot take textbooks home (when they friggin' get them to use, two months into the school year), and frankly, the teachers are not up to snuff.  This is the largest school in the state, and too many kids like my daughter are lost in the system: left to flounder on their own and eventually fail.  Her guidance counselor has been a bright light among all these dark spots, and has tried to help her in any way he can, but he's got one thousand other students to help.

No, I'm not putting all the blame on the school.  YD is partly to blame for her lack of interest and resulting lack of good grades (come on, child, you can't dress out??).  But I can't let this go on, not if I care anything about her.

I've spent the last week looking for secular homeschooling.  It's SO friggin' hard to find, but I think I've found some good programs.  And she hasn't been officially told yet, though I know she has an inkling, since we discussed how out of range private school prices are (though I don't really think that's the appropriate route for her, either), and she resignedly said, "You're gonna homeschool me, aren't you?" last week.

The problem seems to be between me and Mr. Calm, who stares at me blankly when I talk of my searchings and findings.  He seems to think that we can find another school.  And I'm of a different thinking.  I get the feeling he thinks she's just going to buck up at the last minute, but I don't want to wait til the last minute to see.  Does that make sense?  He's aggravating me to the nines, and I'm probably doing the same thing to him.  What's one of the top things couples argue about?  Yeah, the kiddos.

Wish me luck.  I'm going to need it.  And no matter how many fits and pleas I'm greeted with, I'm standing firm on this.  I HAVE to.  Leaving school is not an option for her, nor is spending the next two years bombing out.

posted by: athenawj at 07:47 | link | comments (2) |

Someone I used to know twenty-three years ago tracked me down via Myspace and wrote to me.  A girl (woman now) that I was friends with when I lived in Florida.  Weird, huh?  The magic of the internet.  The only downside is that she's from a period of my life when I was a completely bitchy, self-entitled, problematic teenager, and I don't like thinking back to that period of my life, mainly because I haven't totally forgiven myself for the way I was (and certain other people haven't completely, either, which is probably why *I* can't).  But I can't hold that against her.

***

Spring has sprung around here, and I'm almost done planting.  I've got my burgeoning perennial garden that I can see out the living room door, which I'll surround with zinnia seeds.  I've got perennial grasses that I'm putting around the birdbath this morning.  My coleus, marigolds, petunias, caladium, and geraniums are in place, and I'm itching for my black elephant ears to come up.  The herbs are potted, the azalea is blooming, and my three-year-old hydrangea looks healthy (bloom already, dammit!).  I have lots of pretty to look at, but oh, it's tuckering getting it that way. :)

posted by: athenawj at 07:35 | link | comments (2) |
gardening, memories

I Was Supposed to Garden, But I Decided to Draw Instead

posted by: athenawj at 21:12 | link | comments (1) |
art

I convinced Mr. Calm to come with me to a lake/nature trail yesterday.  The weather was nice, about sixty-five degrees (it cooled off after a storm), and we'd been talking about doing something like that for awhile (after a childhood spent hiking all over the damn place, I eschewed it as a grownup).

I didn't take my camera.  I just wanted to walk and enjoy things.

We walked for a little over an hour.  Along the way, I: brushed a frog with my foot and knocked him ass over teakettle; saved five snails from certain squashings; watched turtles sunning themselves on logs on the lake; gazed at the beauty of blooming cottonwoods; watched as Mr. Calm touched the tail of a green snake (very cute- I like snakes), and attempted to see how long a half-buried centipede was (yuck- I hate centipedes).  And, we stood fifteen feet away from three deer and watched them graze, and watch us back.

That was TOO cool.  Like I said, I've avoided nature trails, because my parents really did burn me out on them, so I've never been so close to deer in the wild before.  And for them to be so calm, to let me stand there for five minutes and watch, was wondrous.  I realize they're just deer, but they're beautiful creatures.  And too cute when they wag their tails.

***

Mr. Calm and I had a really great day yesterday.  On the flip side, we've got some major Teenage Attitude going on in the house, and trying to deal with it takes up too much of my mind.  Yes, I know it's supposed to be "time".  I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with it, because frankly, I don't want the drama.

Sigh.  The yin and the yang of things?

posted by: athenawj at 06:55 | link | comments (1) |
spring, memories, wallowing in self-pity

I started thinking of Jim Jones and Jonestown yesterday while on my walk.  A little morbid and misplaced, but the path was strange-- where the day before caterpillars had been winding their way toward their final destinations, now there were only crushed and fried black and yellow husks.  Yes, nature is strange, especially if you're not a biologist or an... etymologist (?).  Do they just die?  I know they couldn't have all been crushed beneath sneakers and bike wheels- I could not have been the only one to extend the courtesy of not abruptly ending their little lives by pretending to be Godzilla.  Were they sizzled by the sun?  Did they drink spiked Kool-Aid?

Poor things.  I don't even know what they would have become, had they lived. 

posted by: athenawj at 06:40 | link | comments |
animals

"Mrs. Rigby Did Not Receive Her Raise, So Unfortunately, the Family Pet Bore the Brunt of Her Temporary Aggravated Insanity"

Yes, that is the title.

posted by: athenawj at 16:27 | link | comments (1) |
art

Promises Unkept

When I was seven, my left thumb was accidentally slammed shut in our car's back door.  For about thirty minutes, I was trapped there- no amount of kicking, pulling or yanking would get that door open.  And I screamed my head off- it felt like my finger had been cut clean off.  The only thing that got the door open was the jaws of life.

When I got to the hospital (and why don't I remember the ride in the ambulance?), a fireman told me if I calmed down, he would give me a sucker.  And I did calm down, once a sourpussed nurse forced me to look at my finger.  A little flat, and broken clean through, but still intact.

I never got that sucker.

Fireman should not promise children things if they aren't going to deliver.

posted by: athenawj at 07:19 | link | comments (1) |
memories