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February 27, 2006
doggerel bantering in the clover
I think my days have compressed. We joined a gym nearby, where a friend of mine teaches yoga, and I've found myself going there in the evenings on a daily basis. This, in itself, is a good thing. But it cuts into my writing time. Fortunately, however, we still find time to paint.
We rode down to the lake today. There were hints that March winds were about to blow, that it was on the horizon. I brought a crinkly nylon kite and let Ford have his first go at flying solo. But his eyes were reddish, and snot dangled from his nose, quivering in the breeze. I didn't have kleenex, so my shirt sufficed. Dogs galloped in arcs around us, hollow barks ran through the canyon. I discovered that my children have become afraid of dogs since we sent ours to grandma. Ford cried when a yellow lab pup jumped up and licked him, bumping Ford's lip and making it bleed. Then there was bloody drool dangling in the breeze, suspended, as Chas shrieked like an alarmed chimpanzee.
Clover is everywhere. The sweet smell reminds me of baseball and bee stings, afternoons napping in the sunny infirmary with a swollen hand resting on my chest.
Posted by Steph at 11:50 AM | Comments (2)
February 23, 2006
Fight or Flight Syndrome: does this include eating?
I came home tonight from the gym at ten o'clock, ravenous, to find leftover chicken BBQ on the dinner table. So I dropped my bags, haunched over the table (too hungry to sit down) and started inhaling a drumstick. Outside the kitchen window, the hedge whacked into the pane suddenly. I froze, staring into my reflection: I stood over my food with my hair on end, arms outstretched, and chicken in my cheek, not much differently than my dog does when Damon looks at him sideways. But I wasn’t about to run to the window for a face off, up close, to see what I was up against. Instead, I stood there, chewing the meat, guarding my kill and watching the bush sway back and forth; all I could see were the illuminated leaves beating against the glass. After a few seconds, it ceased.
I kept a blind eye on that black window, until I was convinced the animal had either left or settled comfortably in the bush to stare at me while I ate, and then I licked my greasy fingers and continued engulfing bird parts.
Posted by Steph at 05:56 AM | Comments (2)
February 22, 2006
Commons Ford Ranch
We're on the cusp of Spring, you can smell it in the damp air like pheromones. Grass shoots tint the meadows, still covered with leaves. On some property near home, Chas ditched his wellies to run sockfooted down a long dirt trail, his cheeks bounced up and down as he ran and sang. He shoved his head into a hole in a tree, shouted, and plunged his foot into a burrow near the creek. Life was hidden everywhere. But closer to the lake we passed under a gossiping flock of Red-Winged Blackbirds, a throaty playful labyrinth of song in the pecan treetops. Once we were directly below them, and they noticed us listening, all talk ceased and the troupe flew away like a fluttering, carefree black veil. Chas followed them with his eyes. It was quiet like that for a few seconds, before Ford started belting out White Stripes lyrics (I still have 'Blue Orchid' pumping in my head). On the drive home, close to dusk, a very large Coyote jumped the fence into the chaparral. I shouted and pointed it out to the kids, almost running off the road, but when I looked back at them, both heads were buried into the sides of their carseats, asleep.
Posted by Steph at 01:16 AM | Comments (4)
February 21, 2006
SPT: All of Me :week 2
This is my vice. I remember trying to stop biting my nails when I was about eight. There was a small vial of Stops-It or No-Bite or something, which tastes bitter. It worked for a while, but long enough. Look at this! I can't believe people see me do this. Yet, whenever I have a dry cuticle, it has to GO, and the fastest way to remove it is to....bite at it?
I've just set a new goal for the year. I'm NOT going to walk around looking like this.
Posted by Steph at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)
Something's Gotta Give
The house is thick with testosterone, even when they are all sound asleep. At night, the clean scent of my lotion cuts through it like a warm knife through butter. In fact, I can barely smell a thing, it's that subtle. But Damon will sit up in bed, half asleep, and declare, "I can't take that smell! You don't understand, it's killing me."
I'm outnumbered by men, three to one. And that's not including the dogs, who (for the love of God) are not here right now. The boys are getting older, though, and more willful. Chas is already throwing flailing tantrums, of the head-bashing variety, when his brother takes the basketball away from him. Ford, for his part, is already a little man.
I was carrying my open laptop into the bedroom today and found him lying on my bed, watching some afterschool, non-PBS-type, commercial-interrupted cartoon show. I stood there, frozen in the doorway. And he just lay there, staring at the tv, oblivious to the screaming going on in my head. And I couldn't help notice that his hand was, as usual, in his pants.
"Ford, this show has guns. You know how I feel about guns! I hate them. Guns and greed are the root of all evil." Well, except testosterone, right?
"Well, Mom, you'll just have to keep your eyes on the laptop, then, okay?"
Posted by Steph at 12:05 PM | Comments (1)
February 20, 2006
I lay draped over him like a lead apron. I am shielding him from any lingering resentment hovering in the air around me; in the last half hour I’ve kept busy while stewing in anger. But I’m sinking deeper and turning softer, as we breathe together. Nothing else matters at the end of the day, even if neither of us can understand the other’s point of view. What matters is that we’re here in uninterrupted silence, in a heavy pile of forgiveness, on the bed together, (alone!) staring at the wall and the ceiling with relaxed faces.
Posted by Steph at 12:13 PM | Comments (5)
February 18, 2006
Mommy Time
It's my time, now. I waited upstairs this morning while the workers installed floorboards. I ran errands, and babysat the boys in a toyshop while Damon tested guitars for purchase. I have read a bedtime story, explained the concept of "gold medal" to Ford while watching speedskating, and tucked him in. I never took the walk I promised myself this evening, but we spent dinner together at a table, and everybody ate at the same time. No, I take it back, Ford talked all during dinner about his new wand. still, we all sat down together at dinner. Finally, it's time for me to breathe. It's my time.
Chas is in bed. Every half hour he wakes tonight, which is unusual. He is still wearing his romper from earlier in the day. Strawberry stains, rubbed in by fat fingers, are now dry. Those sweet stains mingle with smudges of vanilla yogurt and margherita pizza to saturate the air around him with the smell of fried churros. He smells like a carnival on a Saturday night. I want to eat him up, maybe dip him in a warm chocolate (for added magnesium and antioxidants, of course). His fine, caramel hair tickles my nose as I try to inhale him whole. His index finger is still bruised from the morning he closed it in the bathroom door, and I ache to look at it. My skin shifts across my back in a painful way at the sight of it. My eyes rove across him in admiration: how he has succeeded to go to bed without washing, less brushing his teeth. A dirty toe looks as if he might have stepped in wood glue, then dipped it into a dusty corner somewhere (surely from the floor installation); it looks as if it's teeming with a colony of penicillium. It's really funny, in a totally gross sort of way.
Damon, for his part, is in the boy's room. He is wearing the 4000-watt technical headlamp I gave him for his birthday. He is lying in bed, under the covers, reading a book. Something science fiction, I am sure, but I didn't peek when I stopped by to give him a kiss. I'm just happy that he is enjoying himself, donning the headlamp with the "find me" blinker, in case he gets lost among the piles of disorganized toys. Not that I won't be able to find him by his snoring, which will commence in approximately five minutes. This feature works like clockwork; his ability to fall asleep within twenty minutes after cracking a book in bed is absolutely mechanical. I envy him.
In fact, all of this is making me quite sleepy. I want to sink into something horizontal, letting my mind peacefully unfold. The icy wind shoves the juniper against the gutters, and the day exhales upon me. I slow to a pause, then start typing again, in and out of sleep. But I am forcing myself to type, showing up at the page. I am showing up for the date with my self.
Yeah yeah yeah, this is ridiculous. I'm going to go snuggle into bed with McGuyver and his novel.
Posted by Steph at 11:45 AM | Comments (2)
February 17, 2006
Studio Friday: What's Your Poison?
Ruta Maya organic coffee. If I'm not drinking water, I'm having a latte. Stainless moka pot. Whole milk. Not that I'm always able to sip and paint; I paint or draw in 15 minute spurts throughout the day, whether I have a cup in hand or not. It's just nice when the two activities collide.
Posted by Steph at 09:49 AM | Comments (5)
Little Theories
Ford was his usual, curious self today, with the questions about Black Holes, wormholes and portals, wanting me to read A Brief History of Time to him so that we could dissect current knowledge together over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And then he sat still for a moment at lunch to ask the question,
"Mommy, does the sun love me?"
"Of course it does," I replied cautiously, "Does the sun follow you around all day?"
"Yes."
"And does the sun go to sleep with you at night?"
"Yes."
I thought about this all day. How he takes apart our concept of the universe into fragments and puts the pieces back together (Big Bang theory, bits and pieces scattered, cooled, then formed planets; the sun is a dying star, etc) and reviews it out load (he did this with the digestive system to his pediatrician at his second annual checkup). I thought about the frequency of questions, these days, that I am unable to immediately answer. I thought about how uncomfortable I feel, anthropomorphizing the sun. I took a deep breath and started to paint. In a few minutes I felt much better.
As I pulled out of the parking lot tonight, I noticed the moon on the hill, squinting through the atmosphere in a sleepy haze. As I kept driving, damned if it didn't surprise me in the way it followed me home. There was nothing usual about it. The sky was the color of the asphalt under my high-beams. Nobody else was on the road. The air, balmy and warm, smelled metallic and a light southeast breeze blew into the car at the stoplight. Winding my way home through the hills, the moon swung playfully left, and then right. It followed me out of my car and down the driveway and up to the stoop, before hiding behind the junipers. It tucked itself in, an hour ahead of the rain that followed. And then, Ford's naive question made perfect sense.
Posted by Steph at 12:42 AM | Comments (7)
February 16, 2006
Reason #212 Why Our Dogs Don't Live With Us Right Now
"What the fuck is that?!"
"Oh, shit! Who did...wait, that's just brown Play-Dough. Gross."
Chas arrives at the scene:
"Poo-poo?" "Poo-poo?"
He stoops down, picks it up off the floor and puts it to his mouth, eyebrows tilted. "Poo-Poo?"
Posted by Steph at 06:19 PM | Comments (1)
Corners of My Home
Our kitchen table. This is as pretty as it gets (in the traditional sense), somewhere in the sunny hour between art time and lunch, after I've sprayed and wiped the surface, moving the essentials to the center: flowers (thank you John and Amy!), the water pitcher, the empty vase (which will be filled with markers in the final phase of clean up, after they've been picked up off the floor) (thank you, Chas), the paintbrushes, and the small vase with forsythia blooms. Yes, it's already that time.
Take a peek at some other people's corners.
Posted by Steph at 06:19 PM | Comments (1)
February 15, 2006
My Son, the Hit Man
At the park, Ford helped himself to another child's sand toys while I was spotting Chas on the gym. I watched him engineer his play and block out the rest of the world, as I often try to do when I'm, say, typing on my laptop. So serious! I stood there smiling at him.
The other child's mother, when I glanced up at her face, was smiling down on him also. Then she bent down to hand Ford a shovel.
"What's your name?"
"That's not important." he responded, like a calculator.
Posted by Steph at 05:54 AM | Comments (2)
SPT All of Me :week 2
One of those neverending, nagging summer days alone at home with the boys. I have a negative default response to stress that, over time, has begun to improve. It takes work for me to think positively. It's important to be positive for your children. They learn to cope by example. I'm unlearning, rewiring my brain.
See other real people here.
Posted by Steph at 04:12 AM | Comments (7)
February 13, 2006
Surreal
I return to the exhibit on impulse, after viewing the installation of Eva Hess' drawings. I know the corridors by heart: the oak floors creak in the east wing, but enough to surprise me every time; I am always arrested in front of the Ernst frottages, three paces north and an immediate left lead to the painting of the pipe, Leger on the diagonal wall across the room. This time, there is something different (after all, things usually change after ten years). An alcove off the Surrealism exhibit with its own security guard outside.
It's like walking into a jazzy vacuum chamber. A dark room, painted blue the color of Chas' eyes, the sky on a full moon. It is a wonder-room filled with tribal masks, katchinas, headdresses and totems. In the center, a sculpture of a human being, with pins radiating from all surfaces. The opposite wall, above my head, hangs a charming sculpture of a man riding a whale, the two of them casting animated shadows on the wall. It is a collection, tribal and oceanic, curious and natural. Things collected by the Surreallists. I stand in this dark room, awestruck, wondering why this feels like home.
In a corner I notice Dominique De Menil's provincial desk, filled with ephemera: keys, marbles, blue butterflies, feathers, coins, seashells, buttons. "For the children who visited her home." It's a Darwinian duplicate of my dad's roll-top desk. I stand in front of the desk for a good five minutes, examining treasure. Wealthy couples circulate in camel coats and leather shoes, fresh out of the box. The men are distinguished and chiselled, the women have long, glossy hair and everyone smells of ambigously scented soaps. They speak softly of travels to Fiji, and smile at certain masks. They feel at home, too.
I exit the museum onto the wide open expanse of green lawn and sunshine. Down the block, behind a rambling old white oak tree, the boys run circles around Damon. As he waves at me from the void between branches, Chas stumbles onto the grass. Ford is laughing, calling me. I take the children into my charge and urge Damon to go see for himself. We are playing gallery tennis, allowing the kids to be kids while we struggle to be grownups.
Posted by Steph at 06:05 AM | Comments (4)
Primitive
They are often called primitive for want of a better name.
They are the most sincere and most unself-conscious art that ever was and ever will be. They are what remains of the childhood of humanity. They are plunges into the depths of the unconscious. However great the artist of today or tomorrow, he will never be as innocent as the primitive artist—strangely involved and detached at the same time.
What could never have been written is there, all the dreams and anguishes of man. The hunger for food and sex and security, the terrors of night and death, the thirst for life and the hope for survival.”
Dominique de Menil, 1962
Posted by Steph at 12:21 AM | Comments (2)
February 11, 2006
Studio Friday: FEAR!
This week's Studio Friday topic is a challenge (and I'm on vacation this weekend, so I'm not up for any added challenge besides the enormous challenge of travelling with kids). How do I illustrate my approach to fear, within the context of my studio, my work?
I posted one of these photos this Halloween, after Ford won first place in the neighborhood fair for the costume he is wearing, the one I made with him. After searching my workspace and my desktop for a clue to this week's topic, I kept coming back to this series. This costume was the keystone of several months of Ford's fear, and by including this triumph of his (over his fears of this imaginary creature) I am displaying my own attitude towards creative challenges: I like to face them head on, without fear of rejection.
I think design school (and I was talking to a friend about this today)(Hi MaryEllen!), despite the fact that I am still paying for it (and will be for a while) taught me to accept criticism. It taught me that jumping in headfirst, and giving all of myself to a project, would yield back every ounce I put forth. What I create may be a flop, but as long as I persist, it's the process that matters (to me. Screw everyone else!). No effort is wasted.
That said, I am also a perfectionist, so for years now I have resented myself for certain flop projects in school (that really weren't flops, but mediochre work). The other day, Damon walked into the kitchen, where I was having coffee, and plopped five of my school sketchbooks onto the dining room table. He was cleaning the garage. I sighed when I recognized them: each handmade, handsewn and bound, oversized and beginning to mold. It was funny that, while I knew most of the books contained great (naive, hopeful, expressive) stuff, I was drawn to one section of 1992 where I sabotoged myself brilliantly in a particular class on designing for the future. I remember slipping into a horrible funk after the required reading, Future Shock. I'd never been introduced to speculation. I didn't grow up with science fiction; in fact, my family avoided it (I never even saw Star Wars until college). You can imagine the shock that I, this mega-naive college coed, felt after reading the book. In me, it planted little seeds of nihilism. I floundered in the class, got my first "C", dropped off the dean's list and got really bummed.
But I showed up at the page. I did the work. Sure, I was afraid of failing. I was also afraid of failing when I was in dental school, but I busted my ass and survived. Well, until I realized I didn't want to become a dentist. When you try, when you do the work in earnest, and miss a little sleep or lose a few hairs, you grow stronger and get to know who you are. Some efforts are successes and some are failures, many may be in between. Over time, the successes eclipse everything else and begin to define you. The portfolio speaks for itself. I ramble when it's late and I'm on a mini vacation. I'm going to the beauty parlor in the morning and I get to see my grandmother in the afternoon, so I feel giddy and chatty. Maybe a little preachy.
I feel like Chas, in the photos: bring it on, I say. I also identify with Ford, who is wearing the costume I made to resemble the creatures in The Village, whom he had been reckoning with for months, wondering whether they lived in our woods, too. He faced his fears in his own way. In fact, I don't know who was more proud in this photo: Ford, for winning the costume contest, or me, for having a son so brave to confront his fears in a creative way.
See more Studio Friday.
Posted by Steph at 11:16 AM | Comments (7)
Art Time
I decided to document a moment of our own famiy drawing time after reading a post about just that the other day on WhipUp. I just luuurve whipup. Can I say that, again? Just love it.
Posted by Steph at 06:04 AM | Comments (5)
February 09, 2006
Corners of My Home
Kid's Kitchen
When I am cooking at of the stove, I'll glance around the corner and watch Chas pull the bowls off the shelves of his small kitchen. One bowl is filled with chubby markers, another is filled with small Swedish tartlet molds, another is filled with cedar balls. He'll sit atop the lambskin and rearrange contents, draw on the floor, throw the balls across the kitchen and into the living room. I'll find them later behind the sofa, or between seat cushions.
Posted by Steph at 08:05 PM | Comments (2)
February 07, 2006
34
The car feels strong and bottom-heavy, it keeps going when I feel the need to pedal faster. It's disorienting driving a car after cycling for several hours.
We contour the gilded canyon bowls at sunset, travelling north. Long shadows like blue fingers hug the hills. A dip in the ridge reveals downtown on the right. Deer tracks jog up the limestone bluffs, Yaupon berries are still red, cast in a mini-explosion along the bottom of the bluff. In traffic at an intersection I notice a pair of cowgirl boots with silk flowers inside, roadside bouquet. I think this is very Austin and wonder whether this is a resting place.
At the restaurant, I struggle to wipe chocolate buttercream icing off my pink merino sweater; small brown crumbs sit high on the wooly pile. In the middle of an anecdote I forget what I am talking about as I watch Chas lick the remains of a large block of sweet cream butter off his fingers. While wiping his right hand, the left dumps a cupful of toothpicks onto the floor. Ford asks me where the chef has managed to catch a baby squid. He demonstrates how the squid consumes food, I notice how dirty his hands are as he puppeteers the cooked squid's tentacles, directing invisible food in towards the squid's mouth. "I don't like shrimp anymore," he declares, while Chas pours ice water on my lap.
It is dark. Focused hypnotically, I migrate home beside fellow lights. we are travelling synchronously, automatically, snaking our way through the black canyon. Rut is over, I am seeing no more deer at night, a relief.
At home, I park the car, and carry a package of diapers under one arm along the moonlit driveway. It is a half moon, and I could play badminton on the lawn. The birdbath sparkles as I pass. You can hear the night in it's crackling quiet, with a band of coyotes wailing a mile away. Orion has bookmarked the sky, and it's especially bright, even as I approach the yellow incandescent halo of our home.
Posted by Steph at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
February on Town Lake
We leave the playground, and I weave along the lake, trailering the boys. In this warm winter weather, Austin has molted and begun to grow again in little green patches along the water. The rest of the landscape is still dormant, less agressive than the shoots. Clusters of Elephant Ears brazenly crowd along the bank, submerged and waving in the breeze.
The wind awakens me, and my rhythm intensifies while growing efficient. My muscles remember well; I biked for many years before children. I love the way my quadriceps begin to feel warm. I don’t feel this way when I run. My neck burns. I am smiling.
I pass under Riverside drive, and pause to watch reflections dance uninhibited on the bridge’s belly, winding up the concrete posts like white fishnet. Sliders anchor the river, basking in the sun, and we count them. I notice a canoe, motionless, with a fisher aboard, waiting.
It’s a dry day, and chrushed granite crunches as joggers pass us under the bridge. One woman smiles at the trailer, and I follow her eyes to find Chas’ sleeping head on Ford’s shoulder. I return to meditate on the coke bottle water, crystalline turquise jade with a fuzzy rockbottom, brimming with rippling silvery fry.
Barton Springs feeds the creek, the creek feeds the river.The dedicated swimmers, all three of them, are lumbering the length of the pool, their slow, regular paddle lulls me.One is wearing a wetsuit . The elm trees lining the pool are tipped with new leaves, on the pecans, empty shell cases gape at the sky on bare branches, so that we don’t forget that Fall ever happened. But it did, and so did Winter.
Posted by Steph at 09:19 PM | Comments (2)
And now for something completely random
Closing windows on my desktop, I was cleaning up two days worth of clutter. Beneath three Ecto layers I found a cryptic little poem. Did I write this? I sat frowning for a few seconds. Then my eyebrows lifted my face; I had written it last night, my mind replied, but I needed to string together what facts I could recall: I had put on heavy eyelids, a light shone down the hall, metered by snoring, the laptop was too warm on my lap. A car dealership ad jostled my thoughts, Forwards, backwards, backwards. I had written this in my sleep:
I'm stop an elderly gelding
White and mellow
He is standing on a tidal flat.
A poem? Or was I dreaming? Did a TV ad filter into mysubconscience?
Did something happen to Marshmellow, the grey gelding I sold in Point Reyes? I feel compelled to search for his owner and find out.
I just turned a year older while thinking this over in my mind.
Posted by Steph at 12:22 PM | Comments (2)
February 06, 2006
OUR Game Plan
Posted by Steph at 12:20 AM | Comments (0)
Not Watching the 5 O'clock Kickoff
Posted by Steph at 12:03 AM | Comments (1)
February 05, 2006
Credit is Due
Kathreen inspires me to seek out color
and to perfect my stovepot coffee technique
(she compiled an excellent how-to)
Brownies with kids
sweetened last Friday afternoon:
(...video would have been even better)
and the easy pants tutorial is on my calendar.
On top of infusing her blog with such goodness, she conceived Whip Up!
Thanks, Kath!
Posted by Steph at 11:33 PM | Comments (3)
February 04, 2006
Horizon
There's an open door before you
Shed last year's skin before you go
A gift, upon the hearth below
Postcards, from a swap that Christina organized.
Posted by Steph at 01:12 PM | Comments (3)
This is not the itsy bitsy spider, but a dead baby desert tarantula in the bottom of an empty bowl (left outside by the front door). Let's bring it inside for examination! Here, under the bright sunlight in the kitchen:
...oops! don't panic, it's not dead, I guess!
Let's take it back outside:
...oops! Shit! Back up, kids!
Posted by Steph at 12:55 PM | Comments (3)
February 03, 2006
Illustration Friday: Glamour
Here's Ford anxious to staqrt adding his special touch, always a collaborator:
having user-end issues with scanner, grumble grumble. this will have to work for now, the kids need more of my attention.
more illustration friday
Posted by Steph at 07:49 PM | Comments (5)
Spring?
Brushing my teeth before the window, I noticed how hazy the horizon looked. Yesterday was so clear and sunny! And today, it looks as if we are covered in a thin veil of smoke. I had to stop brushing so I could look more closely. Squinting beyong the Live oaks, a patch of smoke caught my eye, lifting up between our lot and the one next door.
I spit into the sink and wipe my face.
"Damon, is this smoke?!"
He came into the room for a peek out the window, his toothpaste-breath blowing over the top of my head.
"Well, it looks like it. Wait..."
And we both realized what it was simultaneously: clouds of juniper pollen releasing into the wind.
I guess this means it's Spring already?
Posted by Steph at 10:44 AM | Comments (1)
Insomnia
Somewhere between the dishwasher's rinse cycle downstairs and the moment I usually fall asleep is a quiet time of night where I listen to nothing after a day's fabric of noise. In the middle of this spell, the silence is usually broken by a pair of great horned owls. One has a perch near the deck, the other a block or so down, and they rally back and forth for several minutes over this and that. It always makes me smile. I enjoy this time. Sleep follows soon thereafter.
A few months ago, a little toy truck of Ford's awoke me in the middle of the night (in my BEDROOM!) with a shorted battery going BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP chuggachuggachugga and, without opening an eye, I lurched for the toy and chucked it out the window. I didn't care that Ford loved this truck so much that he took it into the bathtub with him (explaining the short). I didn't ponder how he'd feel about it's sudden disappearance.
Well, he didn't ask for it after the toy disappeared. But I felt the bad karma might return to me. And it has, with the BEEP BEEP BEEP sound of a reversing toy truck rattling from the forest floor below my window. It's a little elfin hardhat area hammering away at my nerves.
See? This is why I am getting rid of all the plastic, battery-op crap. What's a Waldorf doll going to do to me? STARE me to death with two beady little embroidered eyeballs?
Posted by Steph at 12:28 AM | Comments (1)
February 02, 2006
Corners of My Home
Ford had my camera and was taking potshots at the clutter. Behold: Trains.
Take a peek at some other people's corners.
Posted by Steph at 07:33 PM | Comments (0)
Studio Friday: Happy Accident!
Last week, I mentioned that I manage to sketch whenever I can during the day, right alongside the boys. We do this indoors and out. I prefer outdoors.
A good workhorse for outdoor drawing is a long masonite slab. Ours holds three sheets of drawing paper in a row: One for me, one for Chas, one for Ford. Ford oftentimes abandons the art for something else: playing cars with drawing/ painting tool "x", playing spaceships with drawing/ painting tool "x", playing Harry Potter with drawing/ painting tool "x". Chas imitates Ford until he sees that I am drawing, at which point he picks up drawing/ painting tool "x" and begins to assist me on the page. We work together for another two to three minutes, and then I stand back and watch.
And here we are: I'm now standing behind the glass, watching the two of them devour the carcass of a clean work station. More performance art than painting, red and black paint are beginning to slosh beyond the edges of the masonite and onto the floor. Within minutes, there will be little red footprints peppering the deck and two naked boys running around the yard like bloody red Banshees. Later, I will be rinsing curly pink hair in the bathtub and scraping petechia-red gunk out from underneath longish nails as they watch *tv.
But wait! There are more studios to see here.
* tv is handy for: trimming nails, cutting hair, brushing teeth, taking measurements, but not much else.
Posted by Steph at 11:26 AM | Comments (6)