The Interloper Artist

Sweet Christmas Times (Just thought I'd share a few pictures from home)

2012-01-21T15:24:00.000-06:00

Screaming at Christmas

2011-12-20T19:51:00.000-06:00

Oh my goodness.

I screamed at someone today and you should too and here's why:

you just gotta quit placating grifters.

In our shop today, I actually called a mature looking man in his early 50's "the silliest most arrogant man I have ever seen."

If you know me, you probably know that at least when I am speaking in polite company, this is out of character for me. You probably also know that it's not completely outside of the realm of possibility.

I don't like it particularly that I lost my temper with this man because he certainly didn't deserve to be told off (by that I mean he was not intellectually worthy of it), but my goodness: In my thirty years of working with the public I've never run across one like this.

Here's my side of the story.

This man's frames were less than perfect. Here's what happened.

FIRST: He ordered a cheap moulding (paid for by his wife who works while he doesn't work... most men would have been embarrassed to admit this but he was pleased about it... ha ha ha!). I agreed that his moulding was NOT up to our standard. I told him we would happily replace it after Christmas but if he would like, he could take his framed pieces home and we would re-frame them for him after the holidays instead of us keeping them so he would have a gift for Christmas day.

SECOND: one of the frames needed to be refit. It wasn't clean enough. All three of his pieces were chalk pastel drawings and some of the chalk on one of them had smeared on the textured surface of the black mat. Pastel sketches are notorious for shedding and really need multiple mats with a spacer between them to catch the chalk debris. His cost-conscious frame job only had one mat each so there was no catch mat. However, it should have been cleaner, absolutely.

Again, I apologized profusely and offered to refit that one and any other he was displeased with and bring by the frames to him to his home later in the day in addition to ordering replacement moulding for those that were scratched.

THIRD:

This was still not sufficient.
I surmise I was still not humble enough.
I still did not understand him.
I still had not listened enough.
I was interrupting him while he was telling me off for the third time.
He still had pertinent telling off to do and since he was the customer it was my JOB to listen to him no matter if he wanted to do it FIVE times or a million times!!!
I still was not eager enough to fire my employee, who had helped him earlier.
Goodness-gracious-rachel-peaches, he wanted her to get her comeuppance!
Plus, he wanted some money for his troubles.
He wanted understanding.
He wanted some suffering to take place from those who were incompetent and he wanted them to lose their jobs at Christmas!
He wanted apologies!
He wanted Little Debbie Frosted Oatmeal Cakes!
He wanted hot chocolate with marshmallows in a warm mug with a snowman and he wanted it delivered by Federal Express on Christmas morning!
He wanted a free car wash!
He wanted sore throat lozenges that didn't sting his throat!
He wanted me out of business!
He wanted me behind bars!
He wanted me hit by a bus!
He wanted me to be MORE HUMBLE!
He wanted more apologies!
He wanted good things for his life!
He wanted his just due!
He wanted recognition!
He wanted world peace!
AND BY GOLLEE, HE WANTED $100 OF HIS MONEY BACK PLUS HIS FRAMES AND HE WANTED THEM RIGHT BY-GOLLEE NOW!

Uh oh, I'm losing the focus of my side of the story here.

So anyway,

FOURTH: let's discuss the scratched frames: These frames were scratched mainly inside the rabet area but there were other small blemishes as well.... Larson Juhl doesn't do "by-the-foot" quality checks on mouldings in the price range he paid because they don't unwrap it. That sort of quality check is cost prohibitive and is not performed on cheaper mouldings; however, because it is Made in America, we offer it to our customers as an alternative to Made in China.)

Anyway, no matter the concessions, he was still so terribly unhappy.

So anyway, basically, here's what happened:

He determined at some point that he WOULD BE HAPPY IF:

I (not only continued to be contrite and humble but also)

1) fired our girl who had helped him or at least advised her that her job should be in jeopardy and

2) refunded all but $100 of his money for three 16 x 20 projects with museum quality mats and acid-free backing and UV glass.

If I complied with his wishes, in his new found spirit of generosity, he would reward me by accepting the three projects. By goodness, he would take them with him right then and there and not pursue it further (with whom? Santa?) if I gave him that money (that his poor wife had earned and he hadn't for her Christmas presents).

So I didn't want to do that.

And I eventually yelled at him and called him the bad name listed above. The truth is, I might have said it somewhere before the time when he gave me his list of unrealistic ultimatums. I wasn't keeping very good track.

I think I said it more than two or three times.

I tend to repeat myself when I am mad.

I say things over and over when I am mad.

I removed his pictures and refunded the $200 he had paid and made some unkind remarks in between the unkind remarks he was making to me.

As this man was finally leaving he said I made him have a bad Christmas!

In all my years of working with the public I have lost my temper one other time. The other time was with a young attorney who also seemed bent on bullying and humiliating those she deemed vulnerable to such antics. In addition, I have had verbal disagreements with three other customers over the years, but these were favorably resolved two of the three times. Good night, America! I even made up with our hot shot little lawyer!

According to research, 2 to 3% of a retail shop's average customer base are not viable customers. (In other words, frankly, they are grifters.) This is NOT true for our shop.

Our percentage at The Frame Shop, oh my goodness, of undesirable customers it is so extremely low that I can't even begin to imagine what it might be. Our customers are astonishing and we are extremely blessed to be associated with them. They are smarter and more informed than average consumers, compassionate, educated, generous, value-minded and aware of what their money is really buying. They value their hometown and their community and know their neighbors well. In return, we work as hard as we can, we value each and every customer, we work until a job is finished even if we must do it over and take a loss, we give as much as we are able to our customers and community, and we show a spirit of love and friendship to the best of our ability. We are not perfect, but we are striving daily and in all things to be fair, generous, kind and competent.

Today's experience was so bizarre I am just absolutely astounded. Viola, this long and actually, quite boring, blog entry!

(BTW: For our customer base it would mean we should be experiencing an average of 3 customers who are so disgruntled we cannot retain them as customers every month! We have experienced four in the past ELEVEN years. What do you suppose that might mean?)

Nevertheless, to this man, I didn't respond in a wise way. After some point in my encounter with him, I lost my focus and lost my grounding. Now there are two ways to look at that, of course.

My husband said he wishes he could have been there but he was out buying Christmas presents for me (with money he worked for). For those of you who know him, you understand why he wanted to be there, don't you? Ha ha ha!

But, I was not wise today. I didn't follow my own advice which is to behave towards others as if they just ran over their cat. I was impatient. I was immature. I was loud and boorish and every bit as silly as he was. I was ill tempered and fed up. I didn't remain calm and normally, I do. Because he was an outrage, I became outraged. That is not acceptable behavior.

And so, according to this man, I ruined his Christmas. . Poor little lonely strange man. And yet I'm sure his wife and family love him.

I should have acted better. Calmer. Shame on me.

Still no money back and no free frames. But I gotta tell you. Normally, when we mess something up, we always discount what we do and we always make it up. Always. One-hundred-million-percent of the time. He would never have been cheated. But I couldn't control my temper. I acted like a tired old grouchy shop keeper. And the truth is, he doesn't decide how I behave. I do.

I'm sorry strange little man who may have run over his cat earlier in the day. Sorry about your cat and sorry about your Christmas.

Love to all, Ebeneezer.

What I am going to remember about today...

2011-08-26T15:56:00.000-05:00

After thinking about what I wrote last time, I did this today:

I went outside after taking a shower and lay in the sun on the picnic table for 30 minutes and waited for my hair to dry.

While I was there, Tickles, our dusty old kitty cat, at first made himself comfortable on my stomach then, after I petted him too much, moved next to me where he purred and fisticuffed my earphones.

Frankie cried and whined at the back door the entire time because he wasn't allowed outside. Lucy carried on too, but she didn't know why. She was just following brother's lead. That's what Lucy does: follows brother's lead. Brother loves being the leader. When I got inside I gave them both a biscuit for pretending to be overwhelmed with happiness at seeing me.

On the way to work I took the scenic route and drove past Springcreek. Last time we were there, my older daughter Ashley, found little grey frogs by the bazillions. I didn't have time to look for any today.

Once at the shop (amidst what I felt to be great chaos and dozens of time pressures... even though this is a gigantic over statement) I stopped for a few seconds to look at my old paint set from when I was a girl. My dad bought this for me for my tenth birthday.

Tomorrow I will go by to see him and remind him about those paints and tell him about what old Tickles did and how Frankie and Lucy acted and about the little frogs at Springcreek.

God's blessings on my family.

2011-08-24T20:45:00.001-05:00

Gimme Fall.

Gimme Vegetable Soup Saturdays and Roast Beef and Potato Dinner Sundays and a great big pile of covers where I'm crowded up with shivering fat wiener dogs and a very dubious husband who really doesn't want to watch Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho again, but will.

Gimme warm Angel Food Cake when the neighbors come for Bible Study... all covered over in the last of the years' strawberries and whipped cream that begins to steam when it touches the cake. Lord willing, we will always meet together.

Gimme a fire too hot for good sense in our old black rusty wood-burning stove that billows smoke into the house and into our clothes and into our lungs. (The number of years added to our lives by the warmth from that old stove vastly outnumber the days taken from inhaling all the smoke.)

Gimme windows that are shoved all the way open and propped with broken dowel rods on days too cold for such as that and clear black nights when the stars aren't drowning in humidity.

Gimme an end to this Summer Hibernation when the days are too long and too hot and too sticky and too many.

When I began working on a revision for The Frame Shop's website, (trying to update it for a sort of seasonal look with colors, etc.) I came down with such a homesickness for Fall. I feel this antsyness every year in August but this year has seemed inordinately hard. I don't know why but yes, I really do...

My whole life: I wish it away.

I wish it wasn't so hot. I wish it wasn't so late. I wish it would hurry up and be Fall then Thanksgiving then Christmas then Spring. I wish dinner was ready and I was done working and I had this office cleaned up and my thank you cards out and my dogs washed and my laundry finished and...

Somehow, I always think it's going to be better as soon as...

And what needs to be better?

Well. I don't know.

If only I had a cool night and could breath then I'm sure things would be better.

One time, fifteen or more years ago, a woman I worked with told me to stop wishing away my life. She said one day I would no longer be young and I would have wished it all away.

Ten years before that, I had a boss tell me the same thing.

When I was in high school, my grandmother told me to stop wishing away my life.

I'm not a young woman anymore. The woman who told me that fifteen years ago has been dead now for half a decade.

While I'm wishing and waiting and saying Gimme Gimme Gimme, my life is going by and I think I'm missing the majority of it.

I wished away today. There were too many problems at work. Too many hard things to do. Too many interruptions. Too many aggravations.

I came home and cooked green beans and roasted ears from my uncle's garden and mindlessly gobbled it while impatiently waiting for the computer software to catch up from the changes I'd made while editing a huge photo. The only thing I know about dinner was that the green beans were limp from overcooking and the corn was so hot I couldn't stand it. Because I missed it.

And so, I came to think about all this because of the picture I decided to use for the header on The Frame Shop's website. I regularly draw these intense pictures with millions of things happening all at once, but I can only handle about a half thing at a time in my own life. When it gets to be more than that, I just wish it would all get over.

Wonder why that is?

Why do I like such chaos in those pictures but I long for simplicity and peace?

It occurs to me that maybe I live this stupid way on purpose?

Working on your Crown?

2011-07-14T23:52:00.001-05:00

Do you suppose that when we're goners and get up to Heaven God will give us a real for goodness-sake crown?

You know, the Bible says we get one so I'm betting on it. And I am very intrigued by this crown.

A year or two ago I started fiddling with the idea of this promised crown and wondering what exactly our crowns will look like. What will they tell about us? What will they mean? Will we be embarrassed if ours is just some litty-bitty gold loop thing like a hair band and everyone else has a big fine mighty one?

My thinking is, that while I want one that is ludicrusly humongous and diamondy and intricate, I don't want to get too set on a design because I'm pretty sure God will have an idea for a crown for me that's ten-millions better than any dumb idea I can think of. I don't want some lame preconceived notion to cheat me out of the dilly-whopping crown God would have thought up for me, if I should have earned one.

Along these lines of thinking, however, in the last year or two I whipped together about 15 or 20 mixed media crown pieces and I still have several of them. Each tells a different story but it must be deciphered. Some are lively and chaotic and others are simple and sweet. Some tell stories that are bold and strong and some tell stories that are meek and small. A few are showy and a few are understated. There are party hats and crowns designed for big strong proud aggressive lives.

Jesus wore a crown of thorns.

Maybe I've been on the wrong track with my crowns.

Maybe I need to think about these projects some more... My silly little mixed-media pieces, sure; but mostly the crown God will choose for me when I'm up in Heaven.

So, just what exactly does a crown of righteousness look like, anyway?

Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. 2 Timothy 4:8

Love to all, d.

P.S. I'm also hoping we get to wear shoes with pointy-up ends that curl around like my Hot Snots wear. But, PLEASE! I do not want pointy-up toes that curl around.

Another P.S. If you're not standing aside and allowing God to design your crown, time's a wasting. If you don't get with it, mine might end up all bigger and fancier than yours and won't you feel so stupid then? Seek, grasshopper, seek!

Who does she think she is.... entering a contest?!?

2011-06-27T17:10:00.001-05:00

Entering contests sort of reeks of self-promotion and a big giant bobbling head. I never could understand why so many people would do it... especially when I would (very critically and superior-ally and judgement-ally) look at whatever they had made to enter the contest and think to myself, "who do they think they are? I could do better than that."

Oh my goodness. I should not admit that.

But unless you're a fat liar, you must also admit that you have looked at the decisions others have made to enter a contest and laughed at them.

Seeing someone enter a contest and then deeming that others are not very good contestants is funny. Because we know -- completely KNOW -- we could have done such a better job if only we had entered. We end up feeling all superior. And the fact that we did not, indeed, enter, proves that if we had, we would have won. Period. No need to enter the contest.

It came to me in the last few weeks that I have had this snotty attitude and I am appalled to realize it.

Since when did I begin to believe I was something superior? I never thought I was... no, I never consciously thought I was. But subconsciously, I'm not so sure. Why have I always acted so silly over someone else's decision to try things I was unwilling to try? Why so smarty-pants and know-it-all? Why such a jerk?

It came to me in the last few weeks. My friend Amy is excited to enter her photos in the local fair. We are going to frame them. She told me she always enters and it's not for the prize money ($5.00 top prize) and not for the competition, per se. She does it because it's an adventure and it's fun and it's something to look forward to. Mostly, she does it because she "just wants to."

And so, because of Amy, I thought about contests. And I thought about what entering a contest might really mean to a contestant.

When someone enters their creative endeavor into a contest, that person is vulnerable. It follows, I think, then, that that person must also be confident. They are going to risk sometimes enduring the snickers and sneers of others. They are going to risk losing. The bottom line is, they are risking baring their souls for others to simply dismiss.

Brave thing to do.

And even if you win, some are going to think your entry is the worst.

And so, because of Amy, I thought about contests some more. And I thought about what entering a contest might really mean to me.

It would mean actually doing something instead of just talking about it. It would mean risking (perceived) humiliation when people laugh at my entry. It would most likely mean losing and feeling sad even if I told myself I didn't care when I entered (which is what I always do).

And so I did it.

I entered the Cloth Paper Scissors contest called "Home Sweet Home" and I was so embarrassed and proud and, good grief, I have logged onto that site numerous times to look at all the other contestants entries and, good grief, has it ever been fun!

A picture of my little entry is posted above. And here it is on the Cloth Paper Scissors website:

http://www.clothpaperscissors.com/media/p/17660.aspx

and:

http://www.clothpaperscissors.com/media/p/17661.aspx

If you decide you are going to rate me, I hope you aren't secretly sneering at how stupid my entry is. Believe me, this has crossed my mind!

Love to all, d.

Bringing in the Laundry

2011-06-22T20:39:00.009-05:00

After coming home late this evening from my mother's where we celebrated my sister's birthday, I hurriedly brought in three loads of laundry from the line. Almost everything had dried stiff and scratchy and full of sunshine and wind and the prayers of thanksgiving I had uttered while I hung each towel and sheet.

Mosquitoes weren't quite biting yet and lightning bugs weren't out as I started removing the linens but they were before I finished. The air wasn't quite crisp with night, but my down comforter was beginning to dampen with dew as I folded it into the last basket on my third trip. It will need a tumble in the dryer.

I had told my sister I had to leave her little party early because I was afraid of seeing a 'possum when I went to the clothes line. Although Frankie, my wiener dog, raises his hackles routinely as he guards the yard, nothing is afraid of him except a silly pit-bull-faced-bushy-tailed neighbor dog that my younger daughter thinks looks ferocious. Frankie runs all over the field and into the weeds barking at rabbits and gathering ticks. Lucy, my other wiener dog, is deaf with old age. She doesn't wander as far but spends most of her time sniffing the clothes as they come off the line or wallowing into the wild onions that are everywhere on that side of the yard. If I pay too little attention to her, she licks my toes until I acknowledge her.

Even with companions like these, who isn't scared of 'possums that are bold enough to come up to you at the clothes line in the gathering darkness?

I'm scared of a lot more things now than I was as a kid. I'm scared of the darkness that envelopes the yard after dusk. The skies will still be blue and clear, but not the yard. It's full of shadows that could harbor anything at all. My grandmother told me that's where the Booger Man is. Who's to say she wasn't right.

I'm scared of twilight and the mosquitoes and not being able to make out what a noise is. It's a perfectly wonderful and delicious shivery unease that I remember as a little girl as I willed my feet to fly home on the dirt road from my cousins'... surely something pursued but never quite caught me....

Then night comes and the mystery is completed. The dusk-to-dawn lights speckled across the 30-or-so miles we can see from the back of our house become our neighborhood and someone is home. The frogs sing. Whippoorwills call to one another. Crickets chirp. Sometimes I hear owls. Oftentimes I hear the coyotes as they meet up for the evening.

During the summer, my sister and I, along with our mother, gather ourselves into blankets and watch the stars. It's cold out at night no matter the time of year and you always need a blanket.

And you lie there and feel important. The same God that made all of these made each of us.

God Bless.

Sweet Little Cupcakes

2010-05-02T19:20:00.003-05:00

I could eat a half dozen German chocolate cupcakes if I had some really cold milk and somebody to bring them to me and then somebody else to clean up after me.

I could also eat a lot of cheap plain ruffled potato chips, a really rare steak, some meatloaf, a bowl of vegetable soup or some baby carrots and dip. Actually, I already ate the potato chips and I am grossed out. That's why I need a cupcake chaser. That and the fact that I ate potato chips for supper. That's so pathetic.

Last week we made a spring cupcake display at the shop with Andy donning her vintage little apron and the faux cupcakes older daughter Ashley and I made last fall. I cut and glued and painted and ran around in circles until I had made a few simple and quick mixed-media pieces and suddenly we had a tiny bit of spring in our windows.

The shop still doesn't look up to par. We recently sold one of my favorite sculptural pieces -- a pair of free-standing giant wings -- and someone borrowed some of our easels and didn't return them... the gallery looks like a mess and inspiration has been hard to come by because its been so gloomy EVERY SINGLE DAY until the last week or so.

Tomorrow I'll try to remember to take pictures of our new "Wearer of the Crown" display with those pieces and I'll post them. I like them and they look fresh and springy. I want the pink one and because I recently discovered a brand new place in my house where I can hang yet another picture maybe I'll just see about it!

Today, I've spent the whole afternoon printing Hot Snots cards and wondering about a lot of things that kind of make me sad. Sitting and tending a printer gives a person too much time... That's why I decided I need some cupcakes. If I still lived with my mommy I bet she would make me some and she wouldn't even growl about it. At least not after the initial shock of me begging for cupcakes subsided and after she recited her list of all the OTHER things she needed to be doing besides waiting on me.... good grief! just forget it!

Love and kisses and sweet, sweet cupcake dreams to all, d.

Full Out Lucy

2010-04-01T17:49:00.002-05:00

Dogs.

Cuddled into covers even on the warmest of days.

Not concerned about anything except maybe a motorcycle flying by on our gravel road.

Soft and furry and smelling like sunshine and greenies and flea shampoo and some questionable things they rubbed themselves on in the grass.

Dogs are available.

They have time enough for everything and they only hurry when its fun.

They sleep full out.

They run full out.

They love full out.

They squabble full out.

They cuddle full out.

They eat full out.

Sweet little Lucy is past eleven now. Same as she ever was except now she needs help onto the couch and down from the car and she wants to be carried on any walk longer than around the house to check on the status of the cats' food. She still likes to wolverine Frankie, her brother. She still likes to hide under the pillow and still doesn't care that you can see all of her except for her face. She still likes a pillow on the floor and a stranger at the door.

Full out Lucy. Full out Lucy.

The Trouble Chair

2010-04-01T11:08:00.003-05:00

When my girls were little we had a beautiful old chair with a needlepoint cushion that was their official "Trouble Chair." When you stretched that little toe over the line, you were honored with a stint sitting on that chair.

My younger daughter, Alicia, spent many afternoons and mornings and evenings and nights plopped on the Trouble Chair. She was never a mean kid - to the contrary! She was extremely sweet and funny. However, she never really seemed to catch on to why certain things would not be a good idea. To help her think more clearly, she had to spend some time with her bottom (perhaps stinging and perhaps not, depending on what she did) snuggled onto the Trouble Chair.

A lot of things happened on the Trouble Chair. Alicia carved her name into our piano one day when she sat on the Trouble Chair (and then said her sister had done it... yeah, Ashley carved Alicia's name into the piano... that's diabolical!). She captured and held our old mean cat, Comet, for hours on that chair. Poor Comet felt as much in trouble as Alicia did. Alicia squirmed on that chair. She squalled on that chair. She pouted on that chair. She kicked her feet and wiggled from side to side on that chair. She grew up on that chair.

When she left home, she took the Trouble Chair with her. She had earned it.

Trouble Chairs are for dreaming and planning and feeling persecuted on. Trouble Chairs are for wishing for things to be different and planning for things to be different. You sit there being misunderstood and mistreated and you sit there being loved and adored. You sit there thinking everyone is clueless and you sit there because you are clueless. You sit there wanting time to pass and with time passing more quickly than you know is possible. One day you sit there for the last time and you don't even realize it has happened.

We made a Trouble Chair for the shop and sold it last week. It had a little bird perched on a branch for you to whisper your troubles to (in case you don't have a cat you can coerce). In the little stool we secreted a pair of wings. After all... Trouble Chairs are really meant to allow you to fly on your own.

And then one day you do.

I love you, Alicia. Fly, fly, fly.

Mommy

"Daling-ching-a-drrring!" Poof!

2010-03-12T17:47:00.004-06:00

Completely bamboozling.

Somewhere in this house or in our cars or at the shop is a pink polka-dotty box filled with everything important a person needs to do a project on the fly. The last time I remember seeing it I was toting it back and forth from work to make things like my little shrine (unfinished above). It's a deep mystery.

While looking for it, I found:

Under the bed - a fairy wand that goes "daling-ching-a-drrrring" when you push a button but DOES NOT make your lost box appear! (What it does do, I can only speculate... and I have no memory of WHY it is under the bed. I must say, this is something I'll think about later.)

In my dress closet - the instruments I bought in Africa three and a half years ago... the ones I am going to do something neat with someday when I'm not so tired

In my regular closet - The Christmas videos I'm supposed to be putting onto DVD so everyone can have a copy! Well, maybe NEXT Christmas.

In my coat closet - Alicia's birthday present from her aunt I forgot to give her

In the back of the truck - A bag of clothes destined for the Salvation Army

In the den on the couch - My friend Andy's framed picture that I was going to give him a couple months ago

In the den in my old sewing desk - My WordPerfect update and all the covers I thought were lost

In the bookshelf in the den - A "Hot Snots" bag filled with a project in the works... I can't tell what the project was?!?

In the apartment (where my daughters used to live) - an unmade bed, the heat on from their last visit and a roll of toilet paper we really needed in the house!

In the trunk of the car - Two brand new crafting magazines I've never even looked at!

In my studio - Two chain saws (one mine and one my son-in-laws), a box of moulding cut-offs to be used as kindling in our stove and the unfinished shrine (above)

At the shop - Supplies to make "Hot Snots" bags and a package for a woman at church that I was going to give to her at her birthday last fall

This is getting out of hand. I really need help! This is two lists so far today about what a disaster I am. Tomorrow I'm going to try to write a list about something more positive.... like a list of all the stuff that was in my lost box when I found it!

More Giant Messes

2010-03-12T09:54:00.004-06:00

My daughters have been perplexed by my fascination with a show called "Hoarders" and they wish I would quit retelling them about how one lady had two or three dead cats amidst her mess... she had been wondering where those cats went. I, too, have had cats come up missing over the years. It worries me.

I haven't completely become an addicted hoarder (yet). I still love to throw things away (especially dirty dishes that are too hard to wash). But in the basement of The Frame Shop I have a disconcerting number of uncompleted projects that need this or that and I stick them down there waiting for either the energy or motivation to fix or finish them.

Someone wanted to buy this chandelier. It was one I had picked up at a junk-mart, then taken apart to repaint and spruce up. We would sling together different decorations for the seasons and hang it in our window at the shop. I had probably 15 bucks in it and she was willing to pay about a 20-time mark-up. But I think that during one of my decorating frenzies I pulled too hard and some of the wires became loose so it was constantly flipping the breaker. I took it apart - real quick, you know, because I didn't really want to work on it that day - and couldn't see any obvious damage. I couldn't sell it to her when it had a short. I couldn't find the short in two seconds. And so now there it still sits and I hate it-hate it-hate it.

In that same basement, off the top of my head, are also these unfinished projects:

A 4-poster, 2-story dog bed made from an old table waiting for a ruffle...

A Paris-street-scene side table waiting for wood glue...

A 2-piece world-globe lamp set waiting for a price...

A huge candlelit chandelier waiting for a fluffing and new candles...

A traveling suitcase dog bed waiting for a safety latch...

A checkerboard side table waiting for frames that have now been completed and just need to be attached...

An entry way bench waiting for the canvas seating to be applied (canvases are ready!)...

A child's "Mary Had a Little Lamb" chair waiting for... I don't remember what it's waiting for...

A huge sign board waiting for a repaint...

A group of vintage suitcases waiting for an airing and cleaning...

A pile of vintage coke cases waiting to be made into a primitive shelving unit...

About six lamps waiting to be refurbished and rewired...

A beautiful old typewriter waiting to be taken apart so I can have the round keys...

A poodle-themed chandelier waiting to be wired with a plug...

A crystal chandelier featuring vintage artwork waiting to be wired with a plug...

Two or three old 50's swing lamps waiting to be re-purposed...

A "Three Little Bears" tea set waiting to be assembled and packaged in a vintage suitcase...

AND THESE ARE JUST THE THINGS OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD!!! Rattling round in there making me crazy because I can't seem to finish anything. Such a loser!

I'm worried that my younger daughter who is a superb organizer may be coming home in a weekend or two. She cleaned out my ridiculous home office -- painted, organized, probably found a dead cat -- and left me with the paperwork (which she would have done too if she had known what to do with it) to finish. She took pictures of the project because she may someday start an organizing business. Anyway, she's been gone a couple months and although I have worked at putting away papers, I'm still not done! I'm not done! I'm not done! The art work is hung, oh sure! The craft supply shelves have been shuffled and mulled over, oh sure! I made a bulletin board with expensive upholstery fabric and a beautiful four-inch frame which is actually too pretty to hang anything on, oh sure! But put away the paperwork! NEVER! Alicia is going to kill me. She is going to say, "I knew you wouldn't get this done." She is going to think she wasted her time. She is never going to do another project for me!

And yet, somehow, I find I'd rather tackle that 15-dollar chandelier and find its wiring problem than sit in here for three days and find out where all these papers should go. And really, I find I'd rather see if the museum glass looks as good on my 1969 Christmas Santa shadow-box snow scene (with authentic mica snow!) as I think it will... I'm going to work on that today as soon as I finish a jersey and a tassel for a couple of customers. And I gotta hurry up and do deposits and paperwork real fast before I do that.

Two more Excedrin migraine. They don't even help.

Fairies and Such

2010-02-22T19:22:00.003-06:00

These long gray days are the hardest of the year. Once Christmas is put away, it seems like there is nothing to do but hold your breath and wait until the wind begins to blow up something exciting: maybe some spring thundershowers or some body's brush-burning getting out of hand so you can go help fight a fire with your neighbor. Exciting stuff you do in the spring, you know.

We're doing everything we can to hurry along February. We dressed the shop's windows with spring, including Andy, our doll, who is delighted to be a May Day fairy (above). Last night I slept with the bedroom windows open and listened for frogs (I didn't hear any, plus I nearly froze this morning when it was time to get up. My poor husband traipsed into the living room and slept by the fire in the middle of the night he was so cold!) Tickles, our big fat smokey-gray kitty is shrugging off his fluffy winter coat in big hair balls all over the yard. And sometimes I even imagine I can smell lilacs when I go outside...

But still, it's cold.

And still we are making chili and vegetable soup and roast beef and potatoes and pots of beans for supper because we are so cold all the time. I'm hungry for barbecue hamburgers and hot dogs and an off-brand of really salty crinkled potato chips.

I made a strawberry-banana pie yesterday hoping it would feel like summer. It didn't feel like summer at all. It felt all wrong. It felt sort of lonely somehow. What I should have done was make a pumpkin pie or a peach cobbler or maybe some bread pudding.

And that's how it is this time of year. All lonely. All gray. All cold. All wrong. And at the end of the day a person just feels all used up. There are no frogs to listen to outside your window...

but the coyotes have had babies. They're celebrating and calling to one another in little excited yips. So maybe -- maybe they know something is going to happen?

Aprons and Strawberry-Banana Pie

2010-02-21T14:46:00.001-06:00

Aprons, of all things. That's what I've been thinking about lately.

I went a couple days ago and finally chose some fabric to make a ridiculously-ruffled apron. I've been collecting patterns, too, but like always, I tossed aside the patterns and decided I'd just make it up.

I'm not a gifted seamstress. My sister is. She sews everything PERFECTLY. Last week she wore something to a friend's house that she had made in high school and it looked spotlessly professional. My sewing looks pretty cobbled together and like I got sick of the project before it was finished.

Anyway, I'm cobbling together this apron and I want to make about eight ruffles running across it in all different colors. But my thread keeps breaking because it's about 25-plus years old. I said several words in a row, several times, that I shouldn't have. Probably hurt my little wiener dogs' ears.

Then yesterday, I went and bought new red thread. I wanted to sew today but had to work finding pictures for a bank we're working with at the shop and then I have to make a strawberry-banana pie for a meeting tonight.

And, I have to make this pie without my new ruffled apron on.

If I could have worn my apron when I made my pie, I would have felt like Grace Kelley.

Or even someone better.

Like my mom -- the world's ABSOLUTE BEST PIE MAKER!

Instead, I just feel like a jittery, tired, overwhelmed, bumfuzzled housewife who is not nearly desperate enough to even be the slightest bit interesting. Kind of like that old Martha Stewart. Except without the makeup.

Happy Anniversary

2009-08-11T19:19:00.003-05:00

Love always on our 30th and 27th anniversaries. There's no one like you. No one in the world. I love you. d.

For you, there'll be no more crying,
For you, the sun will be shining,
And I feel that when Im with you,
Its alright, I know its right

To you, I'll give the world
To you, I'll never be cold
cause I feel that when I'm with you,
It's alright, I know it's right.

And the songbirds are singing,
Like they know the score,
And I love you, I love you, I love you,
Like never before.

And I wish you all the love in the world,
But most of all, I wish it from myself.

And the songbirds keep singing,
Like they know the score,
And I love you, I love you, I love you,
Like never before, like never before.

Pretty Girls Dancing (all in a row)

2009-07-09T18:45:00.004-05:00

At Sierra's wedding a couple weeks ago, my mother took down the house with her Saturday Night moves.

My mother, who in her later years is a more reserved woman than I knew her to be when I was a child, told me once that if she could do what she wanted, she would like to sing and play (guitar, piano, mandolin... many instruments -- she can play them all) on stage. She and her family -- all musicians and singers -- are all quite entertaining people and they often get together and have what they call music parties.

Isn't it the truth that sometimes a person wishes she could have an admirer...? Someone could admire how you do this or that and what you say and think. Someone could be looking at you with wonder all the time. And it would just be honest astonishment at how great you are all the time. They would completely overlook you when you were ignorant or stupid or slow or incapable or nonsensical or hysterical or ugly or awkward or just plain wrong-wrong-wrong.

But the truth is no one really gives much thought to another person. Not really. There isn't time. There isn't energy to go around all the time admiring someone. It's too exhausting. It's too much effort. It's too taxing. It's too boring.

It's not out of meanness that we don't pay enough attention to our friends and family and those we love. It's not even out of apathy. It's just because we're too exhausted with having to get up and go and come back and get ready to get up again.

That being said: I liked seeing my mother in such a joyful state. I liked seeing her two-stepping and people admiring and seeing her as she is: cool. I liked seeing her jig for a group of 20-somethings who cheered her to high heaven. I liked seeing her dancing and then worrying if she "needed to go up front at church tomorrow because I'm dancing, ha ha ha!"

I say, if you're gonna go up front, do it when you're dancing and let everybody see. Same thing, even if you're at church.

Love, d.

A Snotty Little Display

2009-06-30T08:43:00.006-05:00

These shots are from a couple weeks ago at the shop as we began making our Hot Snots display in the gallery.

We made our own card display racks (well, actually, we've only completed one so far... there are four, but it's been too hot to paint) because we couldn't find anything on the market that we liked that was affordable. Because our line is at 140 designs now, the wire racks aren't ideal, but we may eventually have to go with them... I do think the wire racks are ugly.

I made a few Lil' Snot cards and like the translucent envelopes we bought for them. I think they are pretty cute and retail for only a buck each.

Our prototype bags turned out nicely but are made from a thinner material than I would like to ultimately use. I only bought enough material for about 40 of these so, hopefully, we will use them quickly and move onto more suitable fabric.

I finished several pendant necklaces last week but haven't photographed them yet. I had lost my camera (which turned out to be buried in my purse!) and so maybe I can get that done today.

Sadly, I woke this morning thinking about Christmas in the gallery and wondering what in this world I am going to do. I have one idea for a tree but, like last year, I feel some apathy about it. I am NOT into the discount Christmas market and refuse to go there. So, basically, what that means is a lot of work and a lot of imagination but nobody wants to buy until everything is at least half-price. I guess we could do a "Hobby-Lobby" and make a fake price to begin with, so that when it's half-price it's really full-price, but something about that seems deeply unethical to me and I won't do it.

Who knows. I might start on a snotty tree this week!

Love to all and especially to new bride, Sierra. Welcome home! d.

Girls coming home... leaving home...

2009-06-18T12:35:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow, my girls, Ashley and Alicia, will be coming home for younger niece Sierra's wedding on Saturday. My girls are coming home - just for a couple days. My sisters little girl is leaving.

All these girls - my two and my sister's Savannah and Sierra - have been away from home for years now -- all in college, some of them married. Both my sister Linda and I are left with only little lap dogs for our babies (and recently, my sister acquired an inquisitive peacock who according to her possibly lying husband decided on his own to leave in a day or two... do you really believe that?) but we don't have any real babies anymore.

As I got dressed for work this morning I looked at my old fat head in the steamed-up mirror and said to myself, "I will never be young again." This is still coming as a revelation to me. I will never be young again. Wonder what that even means.

My husband called the other night from work just to tell me the news that the son of friends of ours just turned 30. We were both astounded by this. Little Brian was 3 years old when David and I got married. THREE YEARS OLD! And he's 30 now! HE'S THIRTY!

No wonder I will never be young again. You can't still be young when you got married nearly 30 years ago.

And so our littlest niece will marry and my girls are already married and, no doubt, Savannah will be married before we know it and one thing's for sure: Christmas will never be the same!

When I grow old I shall wear purple?

I ain't gonna wear purple. Nobody cares if you wear purple. That's no big fa-looten deal. That's not like it's some wild thing just because you stick on some absurd stupid red hat. Purple sucks. That whole idea sucks.

When I get old I'm just gonna go around with no pants. That'll make somebody remember me. And even if they don't remember me, they'll at least say, "what was that old thing that just run by here with no pants? Did you see that?"

Nobody will believe their eyes. And it'll be me that done it! It'll be all about me-me-me!

Sierra, the Bride

2009-06-13T14:12:00.002-05:00

I took down our old hammock today, put up its replacement, then stood there for several minutes and just looked.

The trees in this old yard are huge. The trees we planted for the girls when they were babies now tower above the house and the limbs have to be cut back every few summer weeks because they brush against the roof. The other trees that my own father planted are all over 50 years old now and there's too much shade. The grass doesn't grow and flowers don't grow and the house is dark. But it stays cool all day long without air conditioning.

The wind always moves in the trees here. Our elevation is high enough for a breeze to stir almost constantly. When you lay on the hammock, it never stops moving. The breeze lifts you like a gentle, soothing hand.

It's never quiet here. The wind chimes move. There is wind in the leaves. There are locust in the heat of the day; frogs and crickets at night.

It's always quiet here. The wind chimes move and there is wind in the leaves and the singing of locust and frogs and crickets.

And so it's how we look at our life.

Our baby Sierra, my youngest niece (I only have two) and the youngest of the four (my two girls and my sister's two daughters), will marry next Saturday and change will come. Such is how life is lived.

All in all, though the days are filled with racket and worry, when the days become years, we find it's made for a quiet life of enduring meaning.

God's blessings on our little baby Sierra. We are so happy for you. What a beautiful bride you will be.

Love and more love to our Princess Sierra,

Princess Aunt Donna

Storms and Stuff

2009-06-10T10:44:00.006-05:00

Lots of storms around and more coming.

Dogs are worried. Lucy is 10 1/2 and just stretches herself out to relax but Frankie is still young and he wonders what to do.

Lots of turkey and deer crossing the road where they have for decades (on the treeline in the picture above)... I saw some almost every night this past week coming home from work. Later someone ran over a raccoon right there where all the critters cross. Guess raccoons got someplace to go too. They should look both ways first, even at night when you could be fairly sure no car is coming.

There were snails in the cat's metal food bowl yesterday out on the deck. I left them there and fed the cats in something else. They were gone this morning. And, noticed that Gandolf the Grey Cat, a stray that has lived here for years, is really a pretty ugly, rangy old cat. I had been defending him to my daughter Ashley when she laughed at him and asked, "WHAT is THAT?" but now I think he's ugly too. He was all the uglier because he was wet. Poor Gandolf the Grey Cat. He is the ugliest cat we have.

Grass needs cut again and it was just cut Saturday. Trees are growing over the roof of the house again.

Bird baths are full of rainwater. Never saw a bird in one yet. Whoever thought of a bird bath? I like the idea of a bird taking a bath and splashing around all happy and singing and being cute like a cartoon. To an ordinary real-live bird I suppose it has no appeal or they would be taking baths hundreds of times a day.

Hammock is all wet.

Last night after it rained steady and long the sun came out one last time and the woods went wild. Squirrels were chirping. Birds were calling. Locusts were humming. Woodpeckers were pecking. It sounded like a classroom of naughty kids who'd been pent up all day.

I bought my wiener dogs a pool. It's a one-ring, 3 feet around and cost five dollars. Husband says it's stupid. I wish it had only cost three dollars.

Snotty Birthday Greetings

2009-05-29T18:26:00.004-05:00

Inside: Any girl can look glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid. Hedy Lamarr

Inside: Aren't the 'good things that come to those who wait' just the leftovers from the people that got there first?

So, here are the beginnings of the birthday collections. I'm fairly happy with these two and I did have a third one posted but I have just pooh-poohed it off the collection. I just hate it too much.

I consistently mess up about one-third of my drawings. Not really. But I do mess up about 10% or I pooh-pooh them because I hate something about them. The one I hated of these three had a weird shaped ugly face. I'm always cutting those chins short and this one I cut until it looked like some stupid little goldfish. I just couldn't stand it. After all, even though I have very little pride, I do have some standards.

These cards will have humorous quotes inside and sell in packets or individually. I wish you'd buy some and buy some right quick before I get desperate and get that goldfish out of the trash!

A cleaner, safer studio... !?!

2009-05-29T15:25:00.004-05:00

David (my hubby) got home much earlier than usual last night because all the games around here were rained out (he's a sports reporter as well as about a hundred-ca-billion other things) and he got his pages done earlier than ever.

I was working like a dog in my little studio trying to quickly put together a 10-card line of birthday Hot Snots before I send out catalog requests from the NSS. He comes in and says something like, "well, you look happy out here surrounded by all your stuff." And I says, "what do you mean? I can't even get the dogs to stay out here with me. I'm mad at them." And he says, "I mean all your stuff. It's all around you."

Well, like every other woman on the planet, I was really offended. I said how dare he and stuff like that and said I needed help to clean up my studio because it was too crowded and I made a lot of nonsensical accusations.

This morning, I went back out to finish the first phase of my drawings and I had never seen such a mess in my life. Nothing had changed. I just hadn't looked at it. Every nook and cranny was piled with VERY IMPORTANT projects I had abandoned at one point or another. Even my sister's birthday present which I started about two years ago and never finished (it was just TOOO hard!) was still laying there. Good night America.

So, instead of working on my drawings and doing what I said I would do, I spent the morning and all afternoon cleaning and throwing away. I even threw away some of my big projects that I know I'll never complete. As my little friend Lynne knows, that is VERY hard for me to do... I always think I'm going to rescue some abandoned thing but I guess, unless it's a dadgum cat, I never do.

During the course of my cleaning, I decided to put a few little abandoned cards into little abandoned frames and I think I kind of like them. I'm going to take them to the shop and incorporate them into our display for Hot Snot cards.

We spent yesterday working on the layout for the display at the shop... and as usual, we made everything harder than it needed to be because we refuse to spend money on anything. We are making the display racks (I am NOT going to pay two- or three-hundred dollars for stupid display pieces from China!) and so now that will take me at least a week because everything has turned out to be harder than I bargained for. I get so sick of me I could vomit almost all the time.

Anyway, it was Erica's idea about how to do the birthday cards. Actually, she had a more elaborate concept than I am willing to bang out in time for the catalog, but she had the idea about the little birthday hats. All the Hot Snot dolls wear things on their heads so I didn't know what it would be like, but now that they are well on their way to being ready for drawing, I pretty much think they are cute. If they dry thoroughly this afternoon, I will try to finish one and post it to see what you think.

Lastly, I am really grateful to have everything I need, to do everything I need to do with my Snots. Many times in my life (and still many times now in other areas), I feel I struggle against not having the resources I need to adequately do what I want to do or need to do. When I was little, we had a series of Childcraft books and, as I have told my daughters to their eye-rolling laughter several times, BOOK NUMBER NINE was my favorite. Book Number Nine was the Craft book and BOY! Did I ever want to make EVERYTHING in that book! It all looked so premium.

Alas, I never had the supplies. We had the standard things a kid should have: notebook paper, glue, scissors, crayons, pencils. But that was it. I wanted real bad to make a cardboard hide-out like in the book out of big appliance boxes. But nobody ever brought big appliances in boxes to our house. And I REALLY wanted to make a pair of sandals for school. I did make them too. But notebook paper sandals that are glued together (we didn't have fancy tape to waste on our crap... that was for my mom!) won't even hold up all the way from one side of the living room to the other.

I would always plan out my projects in my head before I made them too. So, after looking in the Childcraft and seeing how good it all looked, I was always so surprised that MY sandals were pieces of crap when I was done with them. I just KNEW they were going to be beautiful leather sandals when I was done. But they never were. Not even once. I always lived with a series of letdowns. Nothing ever matched my imagination.

Thank you to my hubby and to my God for giving me what I need to make my pretties. Now, if only one or the other of you would help me kind of keep that stuff cleaned up, I would be mighty appreciative. After all, I can't do everything around here.

Love, d.

Creek sa Rising

2009-05-27T20:43:00.006-05:00

With thunder so far in the distance that the computer never winked and the satellite TV never stuttered, it frog-strangle rained for I don't know how long with just me and dogs here at home.

After it was over, I went out to feed the cats and found mist tiptoeing up the holler (that's Ozark for hollow). In the distance, the Gasconade River was traceable by its little snake of fog and down at the bottom of the drop off in back of our house the mostly dry-bed creek was running so hard it sounded like the ocean. All that water will make it into Springcreek and then all that water will make it into the Gasconade. By morning, some cows will be standing in it all cool and still as cucumbers

It was pretty near dark when I took these pictures. Dogs were barking at the neighbors like they do almost 100% of the time but they live all the way across the woods - about half mile or more the way the bluebird flies. Couldn't hear a whippoorwill yet but I bet I can now and some kind of frogs that sing almost all night long every night unless its too chilly for them

Time to settle down and turn off this America's Next Top Model rerun and listen to whatever I can hear. Time to hear those words: "what am I doing here

The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the
presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart
and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind.

After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was
not in the earthquake.

After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in
the fire.

And after the fire came a gentle
whisper.

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face
and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here,
Elijah?" I Kings 19:11-13

Congratulations Alicia!

2009-05-27T15:03:00.003-05:00

Congrats to Baby Alicia, my younger daughter, on her graduation with a BS in Business Management / Entrepreneurship from Missouri Western.

At this point, she and hubby Josh are beginning the process of relocating to Silverthorne, Colorado where Alicia will operate their own Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Josh, a mechanical engineer who is now working in St. Joseph, Missouri, will be looking for a new job out there and this may be tough, so keep him in your prayers.

My main concern is how is Buster, their wiener dog, going to do in all that snow? His little short legs! His little shivering long body! His being so far away from home!!!

The Shopping Cart Button!

2009-05-27T14:15:00.006-05:00

This little stinker is finally ready and working on our Chocolate Panache wholesale website and, believe it or not, on The Frame Shop's site for retail! That means you can now buy Hot Snots (greeting cards and prints) on-line, both wholesale and retail!

I know it doesn't look like much but, dog, it was a job.

I used Paypal's shopping cart because it was easy (as with everything I do, I am also a hack webmaster and I do everything myself... so I've got to be able to figure out what to do) and I also think people may tend to trust it more than other shopping cart sites because it is familiar. I know I do because I ain't been done wrong yet.

Anyway, I'd been hearing it and hearing it and hearing it that I needed to get my shopping cart working on our website but I needed a couple of days to sit and work on it. I have to do everything twice because I always screw it up and lots of unanticipated things happen in the progression of any of my big projects - that's why it takes me so long. I spent all day and night for two days and then a few hours today trying to make sure it works. I still need to get the View Cart button to work on the retail site, but I'm too exhausted (I'm never tired... I'm always exhausted) to figure out what its problem is today.

I still think The Frame Shop's website is lame looking. I don't know what to do. I have remade it about four times in the last seven years but I always think it's inferior. Using such old software is one problem but that's not the REAL problem. The real problem is that I just don't have a vision for what I want and even if I did, I probably wouldn't be smart enough to do it. I often find that the imagined outcome of any given project is severely adversely affected by my own brain-power. I do not know what can be done about this and believe me, the older I get, the worse its getting as my expectations are ever-increasing and my brain-power is ever decreasing. Plus, I have less will-power than ever and zero pride. This makes me lazy and the prospect of being humiliated no longer impacts my decisions. Combined, this makes for a negative life experience that is spiraling out of control. Thank goodness for the comfort and familiarity of mental illness.

Surprisingly, both websites have seen a little bit of activity, even before the National Stationery Show. I don't know how people find you but they do. That's like when David and I used to do Davesports... I was always astonished at how many people were out there looking at that thing. Of course sports people - I have never understood them. I spend all my on-line time on Etsy.

Anyway, thank you to my beloved and darling husband, David, who works so hard day-in and day-out (literally - he's a 70-hour-per-week reporter and also our cutter/joiner at The Frame Shop) to allow me time to piddle with all this stuff and never says a mean word plus he cooks hamburgers and hot dogs and ribs and chicken and steaks and roasted ears and french fries and the world's nastiest baked beans for us to eat. There is no one on this earth like you and certainly, no one else could tolerate all the things you put up with.

Now, that being said, how great you are and all: Will you please bring home the dolly and empty my burn barrel so I can burn trash? I want to do it so bad! If you empty my burn barrel, I will give Frankie and Lucy (our wiener dogs) a bath!

Love, d.

The National Stationery Show in New York

2009-05-27T12:32:00.019-05:00

Thought I'd go ahead and share a few of our NY pictures from the NSS.

Here's my daughter Ashley and her husband, Matt. We were down in the subways being mortified by the rats. Okay. Really, we were looking everywhere for rats and when we'd see them we felt - well, secretly - thrilled, I think, but freaked out. It's a complicated thing. Most women can understand it.

At the Javits, our boxes had already arrived when we got there and we made an arbitrary decision to try to be finished with setting up the booth by 2:00 p.m. so we'd have time to run the roads. We got done at 2:15.

Here's my beloved son-in-law Matt. You can't use step ladders at the Javits because that requires a Union Carpenter and the paying of the accompanying wage for a minimum of one-half hour. So you either have to wobble precariously on a little stool trying to install your lights and curtains or you have to bring a big, tall, handsome, darling, sweet boy from home. I love Missouri boys. They work hard and never expect a thing for their work except supper. Well, mostly just supper.

Ashley Fawn worked on our press kits. I don't know what good it did, but we left about 20 in the press room and at the end of the show they were all gone. I thought they were pretty cute but David (my own beloved Missouri boy) thought they looked homemade. I told him the term is HANDMADE and that was the goal. Sometimes these Missouri boys don't know when to be quiet and just shake their heads in approval. Seems like they ought to know that that is what they need to be doing ALL THE TIME!

So in about five hours we were set up and everything was working the best we could do it within our budget and shipping opportunities and talents.

We were delighted to be asked about our beautiful cornices (the little black frilly doom-a-flatchies at the top of our curtains)... they are cheap plastic garden fences - four bucks a piece - and we used them to hold up our curtains in what, I informed Matt (who is an engineer), was a brilliant piece of engineering by yours truly. As usual, he only pretended to be impressed by made my pre-engineering efforts but, as usual, with a few little pocket tools and some wire, he made them work like a dream once we were on-site. Thank you, Matt. But a little humility on your part would be most becoming. What a show-off!

So here are a few shots of our booth. We moved stuff around after the first day. And we moved stuff around after the second day. And the third day. We moved stuff all the time.

Here's the baby Ashley. I'm mad for my Ashley. She's spectacular.

Here we are in our fancy little girly dresses. I had a pink dress, a yellow dress, a green dress and an old ugly black and white dress. New Yorkers, apparently, don't know that you can wear colors - but they seem to like them. I got a lot of compliments on these dresses and I was really proud about that because my clothes are usually pretty much "less" in every category; however, no one admired my shoes. They were the ugliest shoes on creation and they hurt my feet too. I had pretty shoes, but I always dumped them by 10:00 a.m. because they hurt my feet even worse than the ugly shoes.

My advice to New Yorkers: wear some color. You all look very pale. And very serious. And sort of boring. And the black-makes-you-look-skinny thing like one woman told me (she was from Jersey)... get over that. Everyone can tell if you're sort of fat, even if you're wearing black. Might as well be sort-of-fat in pink.

My yellow dress. Alas, no picture of the green one.

Here's our Bump Watch: Hot Tots and Snots that was a finalist for the New Products Award in Social Stationery. We didn't win. Dang it. But the display did bring some traffic to our booth. If we'd have won, I would have had this at the TOP of this posting!

We had time one afternoon to go down to Ground Zero and see the construction at the Twin Towers. It's smaller than I imagined (my imagination is almost always bigger than anything that is real), but it's hard to get any sort of perspective. Matt tried in vain to explain many things to Ashley and me while we were down there but we always just pooh-poohed him and thought we were right no matter what (Matt is a construction engineer and not only designs but builds buildings for a living... we, on the other hand, are experts because we just know something. Matty, it's really stupid to argue with people who just know something to be so.)

After the show was over, the take-down was incredible. The floor went to this condition in 12 minutes. It was astonishing.

The fork-lift guys were incredibly rude and silly, however, and not even good looking. Obviously, none of them had mothers or their mothers would have slapped the crap out of them. The exhibitors on our aisle were all appalled... because none of us were from New York we didn't know it was even possible for men to be so lazy or so dumb. I, personally, had never seen it before. They don't make boys like that in the Midwest or South. Thank our loving God!

We got our booth down in record time. Matt worked like a champion (he's from Mexico, Missouri, so he knows how to work and he never complains and he doesn't quit until everything is done... he's a man, you see, and his mother raised him right) and got everything in the boxes despite the stupid way Ashley and I threw everything in them because, you see, we were tired. Matt even contended with our cheap, glued-up scissors and didn't even complain (although Ashley and I did). Thank you so much, Ashley. Thank you so much, Matt. I love you both more than you'll ever understand.

So we flew home the last night of the show. We were sooooo happy to see our beloved homes.

Now, about real men again. This explains what I mean about those wussies in New York. When we got back to St. Louis, it was close to midnight. We waited for our shuttle because we'd parked in long-term off-site parking. When our van showed up, the middle-aged-slightly-overweight driver hopped out of the bus, grabbed our suitcases and those of some other travelers and stowed them into the luggage rack. He then drove cheerfully to the lot and delivered each of us to our cars -- where he unloaded each person's bags. He even rolled our bags to our car because we were the last ones to get off. Now THAT'S A MAN! He didn't expect a tip. He didn't expect anything from us. He was just WORKING - like men do. Like good men do.

How could anyone ever accept anything else after living here? Nothing compares.

Thank you, God, for bringing us home safely. Thank you for your prayers.

Home Again Home Again Lickidy Split

2009-05-26T23:43:00.008-05:00

Good night America.

The National Stationery Show is over and let me tell you, those are the longest hours I ever spent in my life - standing in that booth.

Two things I learned. I really dislike New York. And I really dislike standing still.

But we did it and thank goodness we are home and done with that racket. Thank you Ashley and Matt. You are my heros. I NEVER could have stood it without you.

About New York.

I've visited the touristy parts of New York before and had a higher opinion of the place. But this time we were in Midtown and we weren't being treated like tourists (except that everyone did constantly want our money). It's dirty, expensive, smelly, garbage-infested, crowded, noisy, cold, wet, clogged with traffic, clogged with people, and clogged with rats... yes, rats. Our old and rickety three-hundred-dollar-a-night hotel wouldn't go for 39 bucks around here - and you'd have to have a refrigerator and microwave to even get that price! I am really shocked and appalled at what our brave New Yorkers consider to be of some sort of quality. The entire joint is sorely lacking.

Okay. About the rats. We only saw about 5 or 6. But that's more rats than I needed to see.

Here's what's positive about New York: Manhattan still has a lot of little independent shops, especially delis and restaurants. There are few box stores and so the independent retailers are thriving. It's terrific. There is a small town feel there - even among all those buildings and people and rats - that I fear is lost forever in most of rural America (thanks to Wal-Mart, I suppose).

Since I've been home all I've done is work on show follow-up. I'm still not nearly through it. More info on that later, too.

I think most of the wholesalers thought the show was a BIG FLOP and I agree. After doing market in Dallas, Atlanta and Chicago, I gotta tell you that this show, by comparison, was a flop. The NSS website is still claiming 1000 vendors when they actually only had 699 (I counted them because I have OCD). Also, the majority of the people wearing "retailer" badges seemed to be artists plying their wares (we didn't want any.. we got our own). I believe that Trade Shows are in decline just like everything else. At least this one is. Word is that even the NY Gift Mart is suffering the same fate as the NSS and is becoming an increasingly regional show with easterners preferring Atlanta. I certainly prefer Atlanta if I gotta go east.

Anyway, I'll tell about it more later and post some pictures.

Love and kisses to all, especially Martha and Little Ashley. Thank you for the prayers. God bless.

A Holy or a Broken Hallelujah!

2009-04-29T16:27:00.004-05:00

I'm less than a hack of a piano player. I had about one year of lessons when I was a kid - thanks to my generous and patient grandmother who put up with hours of endless plinkity-plinkity-plinkity on her old upright player piano - and mostly I play by a not-very-good ear.

But I've been wrestling with Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah and I am mad about that song. I've read several theories on the meaning of the song on the Internet and, as you would expect, most of them are so godless they haunt you for days that you even read them. I'm more inclined to believe Cohen's own ideas: he wrote it as a homage to God (not religion)... and although I believe it's possible he may have had a sort of confused glimpse of God when he wrote it, don't we all.

Thank you, baby Ashley, for introducing me to that song.

Today it is spring here. I did something that I know is a complete and utter luxury and I'm still endlessly amazed every time I have the opportunity to do it. I came home from needing to work and took a nap trying to get rid of a five-day headache (same-old-same-old stupid headaches for 30 years). Anyway, when I woke up, I found out I could procrastinate another day about something I need to do at the shop (boxing the rest of a shipment... the truck won't arrive until noon tomorrow so I can do it in the morning)... and so I thought I would go ahead and gesso some drawings I am trying to finish.

When I walked into the den on the way to my little screened-porch studio, it hit me. The air smelled like Hallelujah. It was raining softly sometime in the afternoon because it woke me up (or probably, my wiener dog Frankie did because he feels nervous when it rains), and the air smells like... I don't know what it smells like.

This old house we live in doesn't always smell that sweet. It's just the truth. We burn wood all winter long and so by spring the chimney is wet-ashy and everything else smells smokey. We have two little wiener dogs who are always underfoot and, even though I am reticent to acknowledge it, they do sometimes stink quite a bit. I am also a less than pristine housekeeper (i.e., my house rarely smells like cleaning products and when it does, it's usually a kill-all bleach). A lot of times in the spring this old house just smells sort of damp and musty unless the windows have been open.

Sometimes it doesn't smell too bad. On Saturdays, if we're cooking, it smells terrific: like roast beef or vegetable soup or chili or maybe even barbecue. When we burn wood in the fall it smells like the world is new and the smoke alone could be a thanksgiving sacrifice that the Lord would accept. At Christmas it smells like evergreens because I have fake trees and so I burn evergreen candles (tacky, huh.) But other wise, it's less than great. Don't feel smug. Your house probably stinks too, just I KNOW mine does.

So I came into the den and it smelled like hallelujah. When I went into the studio, it smelled even better.

I went outside with my terrible photography skills and snapped some pictures. They aren't too terrific. Actually, they are - as my dad used to tell me about my carpentry attempts - very poor. Very, very poor.

So it smells like hallelujah today and I am so honored to be here to be a part of it.

I've been re-reading some of the Nancy Drew mysteries I read as a kid and I am now reading "The Hidden Staircase". When Nancy's father comes up missing, she is having trouble figuring out what to do next, so she remembers some of her father's advice about what to do when she is confused. Take time for nature.

Usually, I think I'm going to solve some stupid problem by running in circles. I never do, though. After 45 years, a person should know this. I need to be like Nancy. I need to take time for nature. I need to take time for God. I need to take time for a holy or a broken hallelujah. Sometimes, a broken one is all you can manage.

So I didn't gesso my drawings yet and I didn't get rid of this headache, but I did smell the sweetness of this old house and remembered my broken hallelujah. God will make it holy for me.

Months passed - Very little done!

2009-04-08T09:19:00.002-05:00

Where has the time gone and what have I been doing??? No one has an answer to either question!

I don't know what I've been doing, but nothing has been getting done. (It's like when you don't know what you've been eating... you just keep getting fatter. Wait. I don't think it's like that at all. I have nothing to show for what I've been doing. At least when I eat all the time I get fatter.)

New York (National Stationery Show) is in mere days (we leave May 14) and I'm still drawing dolls for the card collections. My goal is to complete 100, and I've almost got it, but I still have to finish about 15 or 20, then get them into final format. The printing equipment is in but I still haven't ordered paper (I don't know why) or packaging materials (I don't know why either). Most of the collections have been finalized or are in the process or being finalized.

The booth has been completely re-thought and simplified (something it seems I always have to do because I am a clutterer) and it will be shipping off, probably, within 10 days or so. That means I gotta be READY!!! (And so, instead of getting ready, I'm here writing this boring drivel.)

On the idea of simplifying, I dropped the Advent cards until next year. Their look is somewhat different from the Hot Snots and they are also a more complicated concept, so I thought I would drop them and try to launch with collections that are simpler to explain. We'll be doing Hot Snots & Tots (Bump Watch), Hot Snots Tie the Knot (Brides), A Snot a Day (Everyday Cards) and Nose to the Grindstone (Hot Snots at Work). I had already dropped the Goody-2-Shoes Snots because they had a different look and I think I'll push back their debut for at least a year. Who could know what will happen.

In my bid to get something-anything done, I got up early one morning and photographed about 30 of the new drawings and not one photograph is acceptable (one of them is above). I have to do them all over. Shows you what mornings are good for: nothing.

There is so much piled up on my desk to do that has nothing to do with this little venture that I don't know what to do first. Really, I just want to go back to bed! Stupid taxes have to get done. Stupid bank statements have to be reconciled. And it's really cold in here! How can a person work when they are so cold???

Okay. Enough complaining. I hope the next time I post I don't sound so grouchy. We'll see.

Making the 2008 Christmas Card... oh, I don't wanna

2008-11-11T12:19:00.002-06:00

Saturday morning I made a fire and sat down to force myself to begin the 2008 Christmas card for The Frame Shop. It should have been finished in October but I haven't been in the mood to do any watercolor or even any sketching. I don't even wanna make Hot Snots. I guess mostly, all I wanna do is pout.

Anyway, I did a sketch and threw it away because it was so incredibly awful. It looked like some sort of very young insane asylum escapee. Then I did this one (above) and liked it better even though she looks kinda like she's gotta fat double chin... but can't think of a thing for the verse. Also, I drew about three different hats on this kid and then erased them (with my clever eraser machine) because they, also, looked lunatic.

The truth is, I don't care too much about the holidays this year. I normally love Christmas. I normally love Thanksgiving. I normally love New Year's. Normally, I even love my birthday and I am well too-old to be doing that. But this year is so off.

At first I thought it was the election and when that was over, things would get to normal. So, now that's over... but it's no better.

At the shop, without Karen, we wouldn't have ANYTHING ready for Christmas. She has completely carried that load because, truthfully, I just feel so b-o-r-e-d with it. And that's how I feel about this Christmas card. That's how I feel about everything. It's a uselessness that has settled over me and I can't shake it.

Today I am driving with my husband (who is still working 100 hours per week... he's a reporter... and I am very sad and lonely because of it) to Jefferson City for a ballgame of some sort and I think I'll go trudging through the stores there to see what's happening with Christmas while he covers the game. Maybe I'll feel like I'm in the 1940's at Macy's. But I think my clothes are too ugly to even pretend that.

Then, tomorrow, I'm going to make another fire and try to sit down and finish the painting for my cards. I have to have them ready by Friday, which is when Open House begins and we always give cards away.

A little good news is this: I am really happy to have sold another original at the shop, "For the Sake of 10" which was a mixed-media piece on Abraham's conversation with God about saving Sodom and his nephew Lot. It was extra-cool because it had broken glass and salt and lots of destruction and corruption. It was probably my second-favorite piece at the shop (my favorite is Shattering the Darkness) but I just realized that I have misplaced (or permanently lost is more likely) my snapshot of it and all my others of my original pieces. I am very sad to not have a picture of it.

And, obviously, I am just wanting to moan and groan about everything so I will just STOP IT right now!

Love, d.

P.S. to my friend Mary from Mary's Madness... I love your blog and how do you stay so not grouchy!?! You guys should go see her spare bedroom vintage hats and bags. I need to go there and borrow a set-up before I go pretend to be at Macy's while I'm really at old stupid Wal-Mart.

Lace and Pink and Gold

2008-11-05T08:17:00.004-06:00

I opened the door to my studio
On this breezy and beautiful day
To find that somehow, incredibly
I'd cleaned it the last time I played!

I almost didn't recognize...
I just really couldn't believe!
How pretty it was and so inviting
I knew I would NEVER want to leave!

The light filtering in through the windows
The wind tugging at the sheers
Puppies lazing on their pink beds
Alleviated my creative fears.

The main thing you gotta know though
When you go to your studio so clean
Is you can't really do much of nothing
When you're worried about being a neat-fiend!

Now this poem is some of the worst
That I'll ever admit to have doing
But the point is that when it's too neat
Your studio is really pooh-poohing.

You know you're not going to work there
You don't want to make a big mess
So instead you go to the computer
And write and tell and confess...

St. Louis City Art Museum

2008-10-26T17:25:00.002-05:00

My older daughter Ashley and I went to the St. Louis City Museum this weekend and it was fabulous. You should go.

On the way there, I drove under fabulous skies and also found something else: these days, it's no big deal to get a clear shot (I didn't say a good picture, I said a clear shot) with these digital cameras. The bottom picture was taken out of the windshield of my little red pickup while I was driving along at 70 mph.

Unfortunately, there must be SOMETHING to it though, because just about the only picture at the museum I had that wasn't a blurry mess was this one picture of Ashley (top) and the crayons. I took a total of about 40 pictures there! But I guess because I was trying so hard to do a good job, they all were a shaky, terrible, ridiculous mess. That, and I went down the 7-story slide and I am pretty old to be doing that before I took the majority of those pictures.

Hope you all had a great weekend and that this week is a safe and excellent one. d.

P.S. Ashley wasn't as awed by the big basket of crayons as I was. She wasn't flabbergasted at all. But me, I was like: DID YOU SEE THAT BIG BASKET OF CRAYONS!!!!! I took three pictures of them!

Another P.S. I am now kind of regretting that we did not roast marshmallows at the campfire at the museum. You should always do everything you want to do while you have the chance. It might be too late later and you'll never have the chance again. Man, I am really pretty sad about it! I could have eaten some of those marshmallows and it would have been nice.

Yet Another P.S. Despite what Ashley and Matt say, Nacho Libre and Stuck on You are great movies. You should watch them. Especially Stuck on You. You should try to watch it more than once... you should try to watch it at least twice! Especially if its your friend who is renting the movie!

Said the Night Wind...

2008-10-22T15:43:00.001-05:00

and it's saying a lot.

I've been working on the slide show for Chocolate Panache.

Here it is so far!

Thanks! d.

A Hot Snots Wiggling Leg

2008-10-21T20:01:00.005-05:00

I worked quite a while late last week on making a wiggling leg for our Chocolate Panache banner and had it up there only intermittently seeing if it was satisfactory. I finally just decided I had wasted a ridiculous amount of time on something that didn't matter.

But then Sierra calls and says she likes the wiggly leg. So it is now re-wiggled and maybe it's good enough.

Unfortunately, the process of re-wiggling the legs meant I had to go in and actually read some directions. I am against this, you know. But the sacrifice was worth it, I suppose... (plus, I only read the first three on the list and the list went on and on and on... who can read directions that go on and on and on like that!)

And I'm with Sierra. It needs to wiggle.

Then, I called my son-in-law Matt and he's going to help me motorize a posterized Hot Snot for market in May which will lounge over our booth sign in NYC. See, one thing just leads to another.

Isn't it fine how life works and everything.

Thanks Sierra.

Thanks Matt.

P.S. It appears that blogger doesn't support my animated gif, but it's working on Chocolate Panache. Love again, Donna Ann

Baby Sierra

2008-10-21T19:41:00.003-05:00

Making something is hard.

It doesn't matter what it is.

If it isn't hard, you might not be making much.

My little neice, Sierra, has been making-making-making.

And she knows it matters and she knows its hard.

But still she thinks she oughta be making more.

Oughta be doing more.

Well, baby Sierra.

You do.

You are.

To me, you are a superior and authentic encourager.

And man, but there aren't very many of them.

I get so happy when I see a little note from my little neice.

You can't even imagine (it's really kind of pathetic).

I see your little face and know that fury of a do-it-all you're feeling all mixed in with exhaustion and a brain that's thinking-thinking-thinking thinking while at the same time knowing, "ah, I don't even care about this!" but I still gotta work-work-work like mad to do it. (Only YOU can understand THAT sentence!)

So I made a little Sierra.

Baby Sierra, bride-to-be (do you like your big ring I made?... show that to Blake and tell him that's the size you were really thinking of when you said size didn't matter.)

Baby Sierra - the baby who is always so determined.

Love to you my sweet little neice and precious little friend, Princess Aunt Donna

Sunday and Princess Shoobydoo

2008-10-19T18:03:00.002-05:00

I'm thankful for

the sun that is clinging to the horizon long enough to cast long inviting shadows outside my window

the last of this season's crickets and frogs which are singing as the sun fades

the breeze through this window that is pushing all my undone paperwork into even greater chaos

hands so cold it is hard to type

today's roast still on top of the stove for dinner tonight

our new stray kitty Princess Shoobydoo because now she's one of our babies

the translucent green of the leaves on the elm as the sun passes through them... and some of them are yellow

the hum of the freezer

Excedrin

time to think

my truck that always goes

and

Johnny Horton's North to Alaska song.

Workin' for a Livin'... Making our Booth!

2008-10-18T19:02:00.004-05:00

I decided to add a fun thing to our Chocolate Panache website: a page off the See you in New York link about Lynne and me as we work on designing and then constructing our booth for the May 2009 show. I know I would like looking at what other people are preparing for their booths, so I thought I'd just start taking some pictures of our adventures and putting them into a little DIY video.

Here's the link!

...and no laughing at our obvious stupidity. Okay, no laughing at MY obvious stupidity. Lynne is usually the voice of reason. (Who wants to be that, Lynne. That's BORING!)

Thank you Huey Lewis for that song!

d.

A Saturday in the Studio

2008-10-18T16:36:00.003-05:00

In their little pink bed

They slumber and sleep

And dreaming of art

They don't make a peep

They're studio dogs

It's the Saturday quandry:
Back and forth from a project
A little cooking... some laundry

It makes a dog tired

It can be such a pest

But old dogs know the drill:
"Stay baby dogs and rest!"

As the twilight falls its:

"Pups, this days a wrap!"

And they race to their other beds

For a well deserved L-O-N-G nap!

Love and kisses to my Lucy and Frankie from mommy-o-e-o-e-o-e-o

Marketing 101... like I know what that is!

2008-10-16T01:13:00.003-05:00

I have been a marketing machine today.

Having decided at some point this week that if I was doing this for someone else, I would be going all out, I decided I needed to get with the program and quit being so silly.

So I added my name all giant and grandiose onto all the Chocolate Panache slide shows and I also (sort of maybe) finalized the backs of my cards - which now includes my own big drawing of me-me-me.

I also began designing the wholesale catalog (I posted it on-line for the critiques of my critiquing buddies) and was aghast and delighted at how fast the money adds up and how easy it was. What in the world do I think I am doing???

I'm still working on the Business Plan - which I hate but also love - and I haven't had time to read but one or two pages of Brisingr because I have been up at the crack of dawn (if dawn were at 7:00 a.m.) and staying up until the next day (this part is not exaggerated).

While Frankie is still all loyal and everything right here with me, Lucy has long-gone gone to bed.

Love to all and hope you are sleeping snug as your own little puppies,

Donna Ann

P.S. Hey Harold! I had no idea! Why don't you leave me a note? Or, you're a big computer magician. Give me your e-mail address and help me by critiquing my wholesale site.

Love again, Donna Ann

You know that Business Plan and the whining?

2008-10-14T16:27:00.005-05:00

After I wrote my last big post I thought, you know what? That is RIDICULOUS!

I wouldn't accept that behavior from anybody.

So I thought, I gotta get out there and clean that mess up and then I gotta get in here and clean this mess and quit acting so stupid. If somebody was paying me to work for THEM, I wouldn't be acting so stupid... I'd just do what I needed to do and I wouldn't even complain!

So... here this is for my own good and I'm a whining and a squalling.

So I go out there (with my Five O'clock World song all a-playing so I can hear it and kindly dance like Drew)...

and I'll be a monkey's aunt!

Since I was out there to take those pictures about ten million wasps have moved in!

Okay.

Ten million wasps did not move in.

But four did.

And I'm not staying out there with four wasps because they might sting me in the ear again and that's a terrible painful deal!

So now I gotta wait until those wasps go to sleep so I can spray their new and tidy little hives (I saw three new hives! When did they do this???)

So I took a picture of one of my new wasps and I took a picture of the hive but my hand was so shakey that you can't even tell what they are. I was a-sceerd!

So, I got you this picture instead right off someone else's blog.

My whole point is: I gotta get outta there so I can't do this work TODAY! Tomorrow, yeah yeah sure. But right now, the only safe thing to do is to take a nap.

So, I'm gonna.

Until I have to go pick up my mother so we can bravely go to a ladies thing tonight at church (it makes me a nervous wreck but if I ever expect to get over some of these ridiculous panics, I'm gonna have to quit acting like I'm completely insane.)

That's neither here nor now.

But I do think a nap is the answer.

Love, d.

P.S. Why is it here NOR now and not here or now? Is it because NOR sorta rhymes with NEITHER? Is it like this: I could say it's either here or now, or I could say it's neither here nor now... but you just can't hardly say, It's neither here or now. You know what? What does that even mean???

Oh my goodness! It's not IT'S NEITHER HERE NOR NOW!

What an idiot! I think it's IT'S NEITHER HERE NOR THERE!

Really, just run-forest-run! I DO need a nap!!!

The Messy Studio and The Business Plan

2008-10-14T14:54:00.003-05:00

So.

How am I supposed to work in this mess?

I came to the urgent conclusion today that I need to be investing some time in a Business Plan for Chocolate Panache but there's no place in my head to work on such a matter.

All I got is confusion in the studio.

The office looks like a tsunami hit it. I can't get any work done in that hole. I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture of it it's so horrendous.

Everywhere I look, I'm supposed to be doing something.

Everywhere I go, I'm behind.

Everything I do, I should be doing something else.

So, what I like to do is run away.

Run, Forest, run.

Dear Lord, make me a bird so I can fly far-far away.

Clara and Lana

2008-10-12T21:10:00.007-05:00

I don't know what to think about this idea.

I snapped a picture of two beautiful women at church this morning (above). These two women have been friends for decades and today were wearing green dresses in similar colors, all dolled-up like they always are. I asked them if they had ever had their pictures taken together and they said no. So, since I happened to have my camera with me, I asked if I could snap one.

On the way home later this afternoon after running over all creation, I was going through the mental list of things I want to get done tomorrow (okay, I never get anything DONE... just STARTED tomorrow) and I was thinking about what to do with those pictures.

I thought that those women (Clara and Lana) are really, to me, like a real-life Hot Snot. They are always beautiful and are the ultimate in class. Elegant but vivacious. Prissy but competent. Feminine but determined. Vulnerable but strong.

So I thought I'd make them into Hot Snots and give them the drawing.

Then I thought, well, now that's an idea, maybe.

I could do Hot Snots portraits for commission. But then I'm not sure.

So since I had to de-DHTML my Chocolate Panache website links anyway (because they are malfunctioning and I'm sick of it and I don't know what I'm doing to fix it and they looked stupid anyway and loaded slow and I think they were actually cornier than I could stomach long-term) I added the Commission a Hot Snot Portrait offering with a dead-link on Chocolate Panache so I could look at it and think about it.

I put that link on and took it off twice before I just left it. (After all, no one's looking at that site yet anyway and it's sole purpose up there is to assist me in figuring out what in the world I am doing.)

So I stuck up that dead link and here's what I thought about commissioned Hot Snots portraits:

Do I really want to fool with it?

If I do, I want a lot of money to do it.

I don't want retail hassles... I just wanna make stuff but this would involve tete-a-tete.

I would have to listen to the person paying for the portrait about what it's going to look like to some extent.

I probably wouldn't like being bossed about what to draw or how to do it.

I would have to hurry up and get it done even if I thought I was too-too busy with something else and wasn't in the mood to work on their old picture (you know how that is!)

I actually probably wouldn't like any body's input about it and (hopefully) secretly (as in, hopefully I wouldn't just say it out loud!) I would think their suggestions were stupid (even though they probably wouldn't be).

I would not like constructive criticism from someone not paying me or from someone I didn't ask for it from and even though they might be paying me, I would always think it wasn't enough money to authorize them to tell me what they don't like about what I am doing.

The only input about my Snots I ever listen to, pretty much, is Lynne's and David's.

David doesn't care what I do with my snotty pictures. He doesn't even like the snotty name I picked. (He says they are for a certain kind of audience and that that audience is not him. Isn't he a clever little diplomat? Well, he's not a girl so how can he be expected to know about stuff for girls. I'm glad he's a boy!)

And Lynne doesn't think I listen to her anyway so I probably don't really listen even though I think I try to.

What to do.

I'm going to ask Lynne and then do what I want despite what she tells me.

Just kidding, Lynne.

I'm sure you'll tell me the right thing to do.

And, as always, I will quickly think up a bunch of reasons why your completely sensible idea can't possibly work.

Love and kisses, d.

Influenced and changed through 30 years of BOSSES!

2008-10-11T07:27:00.016-05:00

Talking about some of the people I've worked with in the past combined with a night of practically no sleep made me remember a lot of things.

It's interesting how the way we interpret things changes over the years. I've never been much of a black-and-white girl because, as I said in the last post, both sides of my brain work. ha ha ha

But having the opportunity to work for a wide range of people (yes, all these people were my bosses in one way or another... isn't that gross?) in varying situations and in different climates over the past 30 years has had a tremendous impact on how I now think, reason and react.

That girl who worked at Dairy Queen at age 15 was so gullible and innocent and wide-eyed and vulnerable. I believed in everything. Those attributes caused me a lot of pain over the years but also saved my sanity. You gotta balance that locus of control.

So, thank you. Even you old bosses that I still hate because you were such jerks. Thank you. ha ha ha

Here's what I learned from you (five words each):

Bill Cremer: Watch out for those hands

Terry Cremer: Sweep under the cigarette machine

Rick Cremer: Marrying the boss has advantages

Joe Marling: Speak up about free-cling peaches

Vernon Light: People misunderstand and tell fibs

Dixie Peck: The night shift gets screwed

Marsha Fuller: Answer phone... work 12 1/2 hours

Dan Waggoner: Change your displays between visits

Bill Snow: Those you admire can fall

Stan Williams: 26 year olds are ignorant

Bobby Lawson: 24 year olds are too

Hal Sel: 60 seconds equals 60 words

Jim Byers: Small companies make big money

Ken Kwantes: Stay outta the batting cages

Gary Heaven: People do what they can

Everett Briggs: Being meticulous is under appreciated

Jim Tarr: Military men love their wives

Gene Humphrey: Saints can have checkered backgrounds

Don Brookshire: Men look different without hats

Mike Gyovai: Military men are secretly vulnerable

Jim Matlock: People are watching your Fridays

George Lewis: Rush Limbaugh isn't a jerk

Dennis Spurgeon: Wild boys can be good

Steve Hargis: Understanding breeds empathy and patience

Merle Strouse: City Councilmen like to gripe

Floyd Ferrell: People always have their reasons

Kent King: Being upfront and clever works

Lenoard Westbrook: Everyone walks a difficult road

Nick Ginos: Being social saves your tail

Allen Litz: Even accountants are really fun

Larry Ewing: Idea people work too hard

Dana Rapier: Take the next step reliably

Annie Bass: Energy combined with talent rocks

Randy Stratman: Small town political knowledge rocks

Sharon Meusch: Elegant and savvy really rocks

Robert McKay: Miscommunicate and they'll throw rocks

Carol Green: Think carefully through all options

Nadine Miller: God knows what's most important

Lynne Bergman: Our dreams are God-owned

and my favorite boss, Dave Roberts: A man loves you anyway

Love to all of you and thank you for EVERYTHING. Like I said before: You rock! Even the ones of you I still hate because you, well you know, you were my boss!!! d.

P.S. Thank you, also, Joel Goodridge for the me and Skipper picture from 1982. That's what I looked like at the beginning of this so-called career. Look how young and sweet and hopeful. You people know what I look like now. You know how bitter I've become! You've all had a part in killing me and I'd say not a few of you have hot pokers waiting for you.

Love, d., your best employee

I gotta tell you... I kinda like it!

2008-10-11T00:11:00.012-05:00

I just finished (okay, I quit where I was and went ahead and did it... there is a difference... ask Lynne. She knows it as this: "Better is the enemy of Good Enough." Ken would be so proud!)...

So, anyway, I just finished putting together a drawing demo for Chocolate Panache and decided to do it more than less. I know how I love watching them for other artists, so I thought it was a good idea.

Here's where the slide show is on-line (with it's too-cool music)...

And I gotta tell you: I kind of like it! Which surprises me. Because I normally hate everything I do until at least a few days have passed.

Many many years ago when I was still young and listening to people, I messed up something or other at work and my boss said this to me, "I don't need to say anything to you. You'll feel worse than I could ever make you feel."

(P.S. I was working as a secretary and my boss was, OMG, an engineer! I am not suited to work for an engineer! They only use one side of their brains... ! I'm not saying they're not smart. They're smart, but can be so essentially stupid because they are so left-brained. Both my daughters married these types of creatures. So, I've seen it numerous times up close and everything now and these boys, along with that first good boss, I gotta say: NOT REALLY about the stupid part. He was a great boss and I was crazy about him. He was instrumental in my beginning to learn to get over myself. And all this has nothing to do with anything I am trying to tell. But it's 12:30 a.m. and I am really getting wild. But my husband is not left-brained. He's a writer. He just comes across as left-brain to me because he's just disinterested in all my big pile of crap for other reasons I suppose, most of which have to do with me always having yet another big pile of crap that I'm trying to sell him on. ha ha ha Look how it doesn't even bother me! Man! Have I changed!)

Anyway, that was a painful epiphany for me: that I could make myself feel worse about myself than anyone else could. I thought I was just trying to be good at my job but really I was indulging in what has tried to rear its head over the years as a mental illness that will begrudge anyone of EVER being successful in anything because all you do is beat yourself over the brain for all your failures. And believe me, I have amassed a lot of those.

So anyway, I don't really know what I'm saying here: But I think I like the how-to-draw-a-hot-snot and I bet I dream I'm running around naked tonight because I feel like I have let people into my big secrets that nobody cares about anyway. It's so dumb.

I watched that video five times: once I obsessed over how crackly my hands look. Then I obsessed over how old lady my fingernails are. Then I read through the retarded (still struggling not to say that word after watching the new Ben Stiller movie) stuff I was quoted as saying. Then I was freaked out by how ignorant my drawing is and that I didn't even finish or start it on the show. Then, as I watched it through for the fifth time, I just felt all on display and exhibited and ridiculous and out of control and like I was showing too much (the pictures of my messy little studio are enough!)...

So why is it so different on here? Because this is for my friends (and ka-billions of fans who will be buying my stationery products in May ha ha ha). It's really embarrassing to market. But I knew that was one of the major obstacles I was going to have to get over.

(The truth about marketing is: nobody is paying attention anyway. So get over yourself and do what you gotta do. If you look stupid, that's no different than usual. The only one who didn't realize previously that I looked stupid was me. Now I'm in on the secret too.)

So, Lynne. To market to market. You know what they say next don't you? To buy a fat hog. That's what they say, Lynne! How come you just keep egging me on? Well, I love you for it.

And I waxed on in my big slide show like a nut about women needing to be vulnerable and now that's it! It's that feeling vulnerable and knowing - just KNOWING - there are people who can't wait to see you screw up and look like a fool and die laughing at you.

And you know what? And it's the truth. It really seems to have become the truth somewhere over all those years since I worked for an engineer and both my daughters married engineers. I still love to indulge in cruel self analysis and judgement. But I'm also over it. So to-market-to-market and for those who don't like it - or me - and are waiting for me to fall apart... well, I probably will.

Because that's what vulnerable people do.

And that's why they can be vulnerable.

And people who can't be vulnerable are the REAL wounded ones.

And they are the ones who really have nothing. And will never have anything but.

Thank you to all and each one of the people I have been blessed to work with over the years. I sometimes think of people like Jim Tarr and Rick Mercier and JoAnn Boatman and Bev Mitchell and Mary Alexander and they've all gone on... and I think of the ones I loved the most like Gene Humphrey and Millie Street and Anne Falkenrath and Lori Vaughn... and now my beloved Lynne Bergman and Shonette Jones and all the girls at the shop.

You guys have pushed me to ever greater realms of mental illness and to such a despair that now, I truly WILL, do anything.

ha ha ha

Love, Donna Ann

Hot Snot Artist

Apparently

And the "new me"...

2008-10-08T11:58:00.008-05:00

Okay. I wanted to show you my "me" too.

This is my self-portrait that I did for Chocolate Panache. I want you to notice that it looks just like me except that I am uglier, fatter, stupider, and don't have wings. I do, however, have more wild, dry, broke-off, and fuzzy hair.

Here is the real me:

Actually, this is my drivers license picture from last year and the only current picture I have.

Anyway, this is what I used as my reference. Here is what I do:

Each drawing usually has some aspect exaggerated, many times the eyes.

P.S. I sort of think it means you're not very loved when there are no pictures of you AT ALL except your stinking drivers license picture. My friend, Dana Rapier, once said that she needed to have pictures taken in case she was ever murdered and they didn't have any pictures to use for the TV's America's Most Wanted show but her drivers license picture. I thought that was hilarious! Now I know exactly what she meant. Of course, when people love you so little that they never take your picture, doesn't it sort of indicate that if you were to be missing and murdered, probably no one would really be looking for you so hard that they would put a picture of you on TV's America's Most Wanted in the first place???

Love, me, the unloved and unpictured and unsearched for.

P.S. Blogger's spacing between paragraphs is retarded. I actually DO go in and fix the html, but it just changes it to whatever retarded spacing it wants. Also, please forgive me for using the word retard. I understand this is no longer allowed. However, after watching Ben Stiller's new movie, I can't seem to stop myself. Now I have to re-break a habit I had as a kid!!! Seems like I heard that word a lot as a kid. Wonder why???

P.S. That is my sister's dog Misha on there peeking from behind the stool. I wanted to look real prissy-butt and I have wiener dogs and they aren't very prissy looking except for Lucy and she is so fat and old it's kind of ruins the prissy-butt affect. So I used Misha as my model. And now, after writing this, I feel REAL guilty about what I said about Lucy. And here she is, right here beside me, laying out on the floor all sprawled out and fat and fuzzy and old and wonderful just like she always does... right next to handsome curled-up-in-a-ball Frankie. How could I be so cruel as to deny my true heritage and show a dadgum poodle in my self-portrait and not my beloved little angel-wienies??? I will surely burn several days in Hell just for that. And I'll deserve it too! But there's no way I'm doing that drawing over! I have too much work to do!!!

Back to work in the (now cooler) studio!

2008-10-08T11:18:00.005-05:00

Hallelujah!

It's cool enough now to get back into the studio (in our converted screened-in porch) and its wonderful, glorious, splendid, beautiful and very dusty.

And the dust doesn't bother me. That stuffy nose I get from it reminds me of when I was little and so busy that I didn't even notice that snot dripping onto my top lip. I like that feeling. Maybe not the snot on the lip per se, but the single-mindedness and complete involvement in the here-and-now it once demonstrated.

I finished remaking the entry splash to Chocolate Panache. I hadn't been really happy with it but needed something up there so I posted using things I had... now what I've got is more in line with what I had envisioned.

To finish this drawing I had to take a clue from Christopher Paolini's Eldest (which is a shame since the child writing it could be my son... but taking advice where you find it is actually wisdom! And besides, I adore Mr. Paolini, find him quite insightful and I prefer reading children's books whenever possible anyway because they aren't usually filled with filth and I like that I can actually accomplish finishing a book without my eyes rolling back into my head and causing even more permanent damage!)...

Anyway, Eragon said that the finest human trait is determination. I have very little determination. I always poop out when the going gets tough. That old saying, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going..." well, I have always done that. I get going right out of the room and abandon that too-hard-for-me-deal. So I wrote down the word DETERMINATION on my drawings and got busy.

Now I'm in the groove and I like it again.

Is this another last born trait: this abandoning of projects whenever they get too hard or too tiresome or just too too? I'm going to blame it on that. Surely it can't be just my lack of discipline, intelligence and will and of course, those ever persistent voices-in-the-head that whatever you do is going to be nothing but a big failure and waste of time anyway. Surely it must be caused by something I can't control. Otherwise: What a loser! What a complete and ridiculous loser!

Any last-borns have the same problem? What about you middlers and firsts? I know those firsts have all the advantages (except for staying out late when they are teens... that's reserved for the baby).

Anyway, advantageless by my lack of determination though I am and crippled by the coddling I received from my brother because he was the oldest and I was the (apparently very cute and sweet little) baby... (ha ha!) Here we come a wassailing! (p.s., I don't really know what wassailing is. You probably don't either so I'm using that word. It feels kind of slick on the tongue today. But that might be the snot. Who knows.)

Love and kisses and keep in touch! d.

P.S. My older daughter is a great believer in birth order. I have found that she exhibits all the strengths of a first-born but all the glamour of a baby. I think this is due to excellent parenting and someone tutoring her with the sort of knowledge one might some day pick up in a Christopher Paolini book. Don't you think?

Star Watching and the North Star

2008-09-25T23:16:00.003-05:00

This is for my sister, Linda:

How can I find the North Star?

The easiest way to find the North Star (also called Polaris) is to first find the Big Dipper in the northern part of the sky. To find the North Star use the two stars that form the edge of the cup of the Big Dipper away from the handle. These stars are often called the pointer stars because when you line them up they point to the North Star. Follow an imaginary line through these two stars and this line will point you toward the North Star. The North Star is not a very bright star, so it might take some practice to find it easily.

Also, let's make it known:

on this night...

I saw 10 falling stars.

My sister saw 3.

Mom saw 1.

Now, who has the longest attention span here (and probably deserves several apologies)?

And, who can sit under these stars and doubt they were not created? Who would be so arrogant? Who would be so proud? Who would be so blind?

At the Beach (in August)...

2008-09-17T10:07:00.004-05:00

We are so blessed to have taken a trip with my parents and both our married daughters and their husbands in August. We all went to the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Above is our view out the back of the condo where we stayed. That is hubby David in the picture above.

We spent one day in Montgomery touring the World War II battleship there. Above is David, my mom and dad, and my daughter Ashley and her husband Matt. (Alicia and Josh had to leave early for Josh's new job.)

If you ever get a chance to go through the ship, you really should. It makes you better appreciate not only the danger those crewman were in, but also the sheer sacrifice they made day-in and day-out by living in such cramped quarters for months on end. We should all fall on our knees to them and kiss their feet.

P.S. This was our first vacation in FIVE years! Where does the time go? But maybe the next time we go to the beach we'll be taking a little grandbaby along! Wouldn't that be a peach?!?

Working on the Living Room

2008-09-17T09:05:00.010-05:00

I've been updating our living room by retro dating the furniture and looking everywhere for 50's and 60's "prissy-butt" pieces. I've been collecting them for about three years now, waiting for the big change-over when the kids were all gone and the dogs were all perfect angels (yeah, sure!)

The first picture in each set is our before... the next picture is the after (forgive the messiness... I didn't do anything but snap the pictures).

Also: All the curtains aren't hung yet (and certainly not ironed). The walls haven't been repainted. The floors aren't done. The rugs aren't vacuumed. The old rocker needs recovered. The pictures aren't hung yet. The TV is blaring... but here's what I've been puttering around with.

This first area (above) is the entry way.

This is the regular living room area (above) with my cool French Provincial couches I bought from this lady off e-bay for a hundred bucks each. Until they became ours, the only time these couches were ever "sat upon" was for a bridal shower and a wedding shower. She had had them since 1965!

Following is part of the dining room, including the humongous old china cabinet that I am remaking into a coat closet (it wouldn't fit by our front door... about four inches too big for the opening, poodle-dogs!) I've taken out the shelves and am re-glassing the doors with yellowish glass you can't see through (like old church window glass) then I'm going to put hooks for coats inside. The cabinet is from 1967 and was also in the same family since it was purchased. I bought it on e-bay for $50.

First picture is before, second is after. All are in the works still.

This is the no-mans land between the dining room and living room. We have this horrible huge bump on the floor where the "new" living room (in the 50's) was connected to the old house. I guess I'll just have to paint it. It makes arranging furniture a challenge, but I guess that's part of the character of these old houses. I love it... wouldn't trade it for a newer one and I'm sure no one with a new one would trade me either!

P.S. My cool old phone actually works. We use these old dial-up phones to call between the house and the apartment (where my girls lived after high school when they were in college and before they got married). I feel like a regular Doris Day when I talk on this telephone!

Here are some pictures of some odds and ins that are in the room, including the old color of the room and what color it will be after I (ever) paint.

My beloved Nancy Drews... several of them courtesy of baby daughter Alicia.

The prissy-butt box that serves no purpose and is made of plastic but which, for me, is pretty much as Hollywood as it gets.

One of several of my prissy-butt 50's lamps with the little night lights in the bottom. That's the best part!

Our stellar Syrocco peacocks that actually were stellar before I got them and broke the plume off the boy. Lasted in tact for 50 years in somebody else's collection... 10 minutes in mine!

Here are the frosted windows I'm working on for the china-cabinet-not-any-more-now-a-coat-closet-so-now-you-can't-see-the-coats.

And here's the paint. It's pretty much the same, I guess, just like the curtains are pretty much the same... but really it's REAL different (that's what I tell my husband).

Soggy Wiennies!

2008-09-17T08:01:00.005-05:00

Our baby dogs at the big swim for canines a few days ago!

It's my Lucy (the long-hair), my Frankie (in his fashionable life jacket), and my daughter Alicia's Buster (the red). Handsome and gorgeous all. Brave and brash. Wet and smelly, mostly.

My favorite picture is Frankie with the big dogs. What an expressive face!

Our Chocolate Panache Business Cards

2008-09-17T07:48:00.004-05:00

Oh yeah!

And I forgot to show you our Chocolate Panache business cards for the show. What do you think?

A Lazy Blogger; Confusion Reigns

2008-09-17T07:25:00.005-05:00

Months. It's been months. And I knew it too. Usually, I don't realize how much time has passed, but I even knew how lazy I was being on this thing. Well, here goes.

I've been making drawings for my cards and trying to figure out how in the world to get these ballyhoos printed. Good grief it's complicated. Okay. No, it's not. If you have oodles of money to spread around, it's easy. But when you're not just budget conscious, but budgetless conscious it takes some creativity.

My old faithful buddy Lynne has been a constant support and unbelievable good adviser. We haven't figured a ding-dong thing out, but we at least keep trying and somehow - despite all the other things she is trying to do - she is managing to keep me from just giving up.

I read the other day about this dude who went to the National Stationery Show with 16 card designs and now he and another guy are employed full-time with his little company, trying to come up with 24 new card designs in the next 12 months. ha ha ha! That blows my mind! We have so many card designs we don't know what to do (the Lord has set my drawing fingers on FIRE!) and we're trying to decide if we need to reserve designs in order to limit how much money we're going to have to sink into getting the initial runs printed. Sixteen designs. Humph. Sixteen designs is a Saturday afternoon spent in the studio. Sixteen designs.

Anyway, obviously, there's a grouch sitting here typing this today. What is YOUR prescription for being at a crossroad where you have no idea of what you're doing, but you're hell-bent on doing it anyway?

I'm signed up for market next May. I have our hotel room. We almost have our booth designed and a lot of it is constructed. We have lots of card designs in the works. But I don't have a clue as to what to do next. It's hard to get any reliable information about what to expect... so we go from expecting the moon to expecting the grave. Makes me plum tard.

Blessings to all and love love love, d.

P.S. Check out my new humongous signature next to my drawing here. This was Picasso's advice: Sign your name big.

What's up with the youtube videos?

2008-06-25T21:44:00.002-05:00

Okay. Okay.

I got about a-hundred-million copies I have to make and I've been making them for about a-hundred-billion hours (on second print cartridge now) and so I've been tubing.

I won't bore you with anymore (for the moment) though because now I'm watching Alfred Hitchcock Hour on NBC's website.

Love to all, d.

My Little Fox

2008-06-25T21:04:00.002-05:00

Drawing like crazy...

2008-06-25T16:00:00.006-05:00

I've been drawing like mad.

Thanks (again and as always it seems) to my little buddy Lynne, I've figured out some direction for my card series and have been working on them. In the last week, I've completed artwork for over a dozen of them -- all the while beating through a week-long headache, which, for some reason, seems to have sort of stopped in the last thirty minutes or so! It feels iffy though, like it could start again any minute so I'm trying to hold still... ha ha.

Anyway, above is a few of them. I took more pictures, but most of them are so blurry you can't make out anything but my shaky hands.

I finished the artwork for another High Maintenance Girls series (number IV... that's a four... I also learned this from Lynne). I regrouped my first two series into one I was happier with and it is now series III (that's a three... aren't I brainy?) Anyway, series IV has all pointy-toed girls. When I die and go to heaven, I'm going to have those kinds of shoes. I'd have them now if I knew how to make them. I think they are extra-good unless you have to have the pointed curly toes to go with them. That would, somehow, be less desirable.

The other series I am working on is enormous, part of a Christmas series. More on that big secret idea later.

Other than that, how is everybody doing? I have been holed up for a week. What is going on out there?

Last, my bedspread arrived and is beautiful (see two posts ago), but my bedroom is still a misshapen heap, sort of like me humped up under the covers with a headache, griping because I am too hot but also too cold all at the same time. Frankie, however, never cares about the temperature. He is a faithful and loyal wiener dog. However, for my bedroom, I fear, there really is no hope.

The Evolution of Dance: Worth it!

2008-06-25T15:47:00.002-05:00

Retro-dating my bedroom (and Tickles)

2008-06-18T19:40:00.011-05:00

Somewhere between shabby-chic (I hate that word) and 1940's Hollywood... that's what I want in my bedroom.

Of course, what I really want is to be a vamp from the 1940's. Lately, the closest I am getting is looking like some kind of vampire born in the 1940's.

So today I started some small prescriptives to my itsy-bitsy (smallest room in the house) master suite bedroom that I share with my master sweet husband who doesn't care in the least (or notice unless I point out) what I do.

I started by hanging my chic new 1950's chandelier ball and I did it all by myself and didn't get electrocuted even once. I had watched my sons-in-law Matt and Josh change lights for me and figured since they could do it, so could I. I took five or six pictures and all of them are blurry... must be too much caffeine - couldn't hold still. But, as you can kind of tell, it's a charmer.

Next, I am finally putting up the curtains I've had for several weeks. I had to rehang the rods and though I had believed it would kill me to do so, it turned out to be no big whoop. Because I have constant migraines, I have black mini-blinds from the 1980's still hanging behind them and I also have heavy gold drapes to pull over them... but Doris and Rock would have liked them, I hope.

My bed is a metal four-poster canopy in gold and I have shiny gold (tacky but I love it) bedding that I picked up on sale. I don't know how it will do long-term with the dogs, but it was just so soooo.

I found a VINTAGE 1940's ITALIAN CUT VELVET TAPESTRY BEDSPREAD with cherubs...

* * * * * OH! I JUST SAW TICKLES OUT THE WINDOW RUNNING DOWN THE ROAD AFTER A BABY RABBIT AND HE CAUGHT IT AND DRAGGED IT AWAY! THAT'S TWO IN TWO DAYS! I'M GOING TO DIE! JUST DIE!!! How can anything as beautiful as Tickles also be so deadly!!! * * * * *

...in golds, greens, reds and pinks to use with it. I'm going to fold the comforter at the foot of the bed for my fat wiener dog Lucy to lay on when she is in one of her moods.

Next, I have to paint (icky) the room because now it is a ghastly purple that I loved five years ago but hate now. I think I'm going to paint it a sage green but...

* * * * * OH NO! HERE COMES TICKLES WITH THAT BUNNY ONTO THE PORCH! NO NO NO!... and there he goes. Oh but my heart is beating too fast! Poor little bunny!!! * * * * *

...if it looks...

* * * * * THAT BUNNY GOT AWAY! IT'S RUNNING AWAY! BUT TICKLES JUST CAUGHT IT AGAIN! OH THIS IS HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE! * * * * *

...I'm sorry. I'm Tickled out. I've got to go see about the bunny.

The Widow's Mites

2008-06-17T11:33:00.005-05:00

Finally, I've photographed some of the original art I want to offer for sale, but good-night-America, I forgot to bring home the descriptions Lynne wrote for me and I am just too exhausted (i.e., lazy) to write them for myself when she's already done all the work, so I won't be posting anything until at least tomorrow or the day after.

Now that's a sentence. And it's sort of whiny too, so it's probably making your ears wince. It is mine.

I just appreciate Shonnette and Sarah at the shop who took the glass out of several pieces to make it easier to photograph. God love them. That's such a lot of work for a whole bunch of nothing. I love those girls.

I don't know whether to be excited, discouraged, exhausted, or melodramatic. Like always, I guess I'll be all of them at once. I think mostly I just feel underwhelmed.

I guess sitting here, I'm just delaying doing any real work around here.

I still have to finish my sister's birthday present (from last year and then one for this year) because her Par-tay is Friday.

I think I'll go eat some cornflakes first. And maybe take a nap because my head is killing me. Then by magic, maybe something will somehow, someway, get done.

Angel Mrs. Stormes

2008-06-17T10:31:00.003-05:00

I love an art mess.

It's just pretty.

It looks kind of important and like something is about to happen.

It's like art class in grade school. Especially the smell of that glorious Elmer's Glue.

My art teacher was Mrs. Stormes: too mild-mannered and too patient for classrooms of 40+ rural children.

Nobody listened to Mrs. Stormes and that made me mad because I wanted to MAKE SOMETHING!

I wished she would whip those mean little boys or at least send them to Mrs. Harris in the Principal's office. (We girls were almost always good.)

I liked getting busy with those art supplies. I liked cutting and pasting (especially pasting) and ripping and snorting with that paint. Tempera paints smelled like something big was about to happen. She would mix a lot so we wouldn't run out and we had big fat paint brushes to use, and huge coffee cans of dirty water to slosh our brushes around in... then enormous old hopelessly stained sinks in the hall where the water splashed onto your clothes and into your face when you washed out the brushes "good." Mrs. Stormes didn't care how many times you got up to clean your brush "good".

She knew it was necessary business even if you were acting silly while you did it.

Mrs. Stormes bragged about the bonnets of tissue paper and paper plates we made for Easter. She liked the dinosaurs we cut out and glued, along with rocks and moss to dioramas made in cardboard boxes. She thought our Valentines Day mailboxes made from shoe boxes were stunning. She saw art everywhere she looked.

Maybe that's why she was so kind.

So patient.

Why she never whipped those mean boys.

Maybe everything she saw was beautiful... a beautiful mess.

In all our little excited, freckled, dirty rural faces: artists.

Maybe that's why she knew we actually were listening. Listening with a part of ourselves where our excitement couldn't be contained. Even the mean boys.

Angel, Mrs. Stormes.

Finishing the cards last week seemed an exercise from Mrs. Stormes' phenomenal art class. I wanted every interrupting thing to get a whipping. I could smell glue and excitement. There were lots of pairs of scissors to choose from. I jumped in and out of my seat dozens of times. No one got in trouble. No one fussed. No one complained.

Blessed angel, Mrs. Stormes.

And the shoppe is OPEN!

2008-06-12T00:19:00.011-05:00

I am exhausted and tickled pink!

But, believe it or not, it's up and running with eight great items (and forty delicious pictures) of things for you (anybody!) to buy!

WWW.LUCYBLUEPEACHES.ETSY.COM!

I made the deadline date that I had set for myself too, although this posting is the next morning because it's after midnight. It's taken two 16-hour days to complete the chore (not just posting, but getting everything prepared) but now that it's up and running, it should be a breeze.

I posted two collections of High Maintenance Girls greeting cards and six rings made from vintage earrings and brooches.

I am happy happy happy and ready for bed.

Wonder what's going to happen today?

Visit my new shoppe at http://www.lucybluepeaches.etsy.com/! THANK YOU!

George the Cat

2008-06-08T22:28:00.004-05:00

Alicia found her cat!

Sitting pretty as you please on the deck for all to admire, was George, the illusive hiding cat which wouldn't even meow for me for the past three days that he's been hiding, when his daddy came out of the house to see what he'd done to the screen.

Thank goodness.

Peace here at home again.

Buster

2008-06-08T21:16:00.003-05:00

Whoops!

One more thing.

Little Buster, above, is going home in the morning.

He's my daughter Alicia's dog.

He's been a fine studio mate for the past week or so.

It's nice to be around a dog whose heart is full of art.

He and Frankie fought over the "good" bed (for some reason they prefer one over the other) and Lucy, my almost-10-year-old hot dog, pouted on the floor next to my chair. She loves Buster but she hates him.

This is Buster in my studio chair, where he would park himself every time I would get up to do something.

I think that dog has some dominance issues. But I adore him!

Leave it alone...

2008-06-08T20:59:00.004-05:00

I couldn't leave it alone.

All afternoon I have been in my little studio with the suitcase from Friday night.

And all afternoon I kept wanting to mess with it.

I've been working on my High Maintenance Girls and I thought it looked like a pretty high maintenance suitcase.

So I added a high maintenance doll.

I love her because I'm pretending she's me.

I was going to put Doris Day because I love Doris, but I didn't have a picture of Doris handy.

So I made this instead.

Now.

I will try to leave it alone.

Those High Maintenance Girls!

2008-06-08T17:22:00.005-05:00

I'm just pretty much hooked on drawing these dolls.

I have been making them for a couple years or more. But I never seemed to know how to finish them. Now, I think this does it. (I still have to add the color pencil, but it's too hot in there to dig around doing that. That can wait 'til morning.)

Anyway, sometimes I wish I could settle down and do one thing and stick with it like it seems other successful artists do. I don't know how you make the same thing day after day after day after day and not go out of your mind.

Discipline, maybe.

Enough about that carrying on...

The point is, I am going to have enough of these done to do what I said I would do which is post something for sale. I'm not too worried about these because they will be 1) easy to photograph and 2) easy to photograph.

Who knows what is next.

Looking for a cat, I guess.

I lost Alicia's (my younger daughter's) cat through a window during a storm Saturday (it clawed out the screen) and she is due in tonight from Minnesota to look for him. So I guess I'll look for a cat, even though he hates me and won't come. Poor little George.

And also, goodbye to my little Buster, who I have loved keeping and who I wish was mine. That's Alicia's wiener dog. He's a fine one.

Altering is Altering, Unless it's Life Altering

2008-06-07T14:34:00.004-05:00

So, I says to Lynne last night during the middle of our creative endeavor marathon... I says, "Hey! We're doing something completely different from last week (when we altered books)."

And Lynne says, "No we're not. Instead of altering books we're altering suitcases."

Here I was under the impression that we were doing something so radically different and new and outlandish. And here was Lynne, practical as always and head on her shoulders.

Is altering altering no matter the alterations or what's the alteree?

Here's what I do know: Altering changes me more than I change the thing I'm attempting to change.

Altering things has changed the way I look at the world. Everything has potential for altering. Old books. Old jewelry boxes. Old luggage. Old clothes. Old jewelry. Old hats. Old statues. Old habits.

Mostly old habits.

Looking at things for ways to change them and make them your own is what this new millennium is all about. And the green thing too. Reusing. Redesigning. Rethinking. Regreening.

As for me, I hope God keeps altering me.

I hate it, because change is not very fun when you're enduring it.

But I love it, because when God is done with me... well, I'm going to look like one of those high maintenance girls posted earlier. I'm going to have wings.

Love to my LIFE-altering buddy-of-buddies, Lynne.

Love to Jennifer... send me a note when you're settled.

Love to my Tammy who I don't see often but whom I think of day-by-day (how do you like my use of the word WHOM?)

Love to Alicia, whose cat is hiding under my shed.

And love to Ashley, whose Bonsai tree I have begun to alter also.

Also, love to my sister Linda, whose birthday present I have not touched since my last big day with it. How about a nice present for when you turn 50?

Art and the art buddy

2008-06-06T08:24:00.004-05:00

It's a rare and phenomenal thing to have an art buddy.

Now, an art buddy is not an art critic; although they do serve in that capacity (often with sharp ridicule that they deem very humorous and that you do not.)

And an art buddy is not a competitor, by far (although you are driven to always do what they just did when you see how cool it turned out.)

And an art buddy is not a person who, when the two of you are together, finds excuses for not getting started (oh, you won't start cleaning your house or cooking your supper... but you will start making something.)

Instead, an art buddy is someone who you can sit quietly (maybe not so quietly) and contentedly beside and make stuff.

Your art buddy doesn't make you nervous.

They don't stress you out if they think your big creation is a crock.

They are never in your way because it doesn't bother you to reach over their head or under their leg or behind their back.

They share their scissors and their glue and their paint and there is hardly ever a fist fight over the gel medium.

Even if your art buddy is like my art buddy, Lynne, and only likes stuff real old ladies would like, they can still be your buddy.

(Not really. Well, sort of this is true. But it's less true now than it used to be. She is changing before my eyes. She has become so wild that she wears bracelets with dingles on them and sometimes even a big giant sized ring.)

An art buddy thinks of things you don't, sees things you don't, knows things you don't, and shows you things you don't imagine.

An art buddy is rare.

An art buddy is a gift.

I got mine from a prayer.

And mine is coming over today to play!

No one or some one... which is worse?

2008-06-03T17:28:00.004-05:00

Why is it that so often we find ourselves paralyzed about the inevitable step of either showing or offering for sale a completed art piece?

I don't know which part of the fear is worse: that no one will be interested or that someone actually might. Both seem a terrible fate.

One of the purposes of this blog was to help me overcome my fear of showing my art. But another objective was to prepare the items for sale.

How long am I going to cringe into a sweat just thinking about it? When am I going to just get it over with?

Maybe I just need to set myself a deadline.

I hate deadlines. I hate any sort of timeline. But that's just because I'm a big baby.

So I'll make myself a deal. I'll post for sale by June 11. That's next Wednesday and it should give me a day or two to prepare.

I could almost puke thinking about it and it sure makes my head hurt worse.

High Maintenance Girls

2008-06-02T18:46:00.006-05:00

Another Monday.

Working on the altered book with my buddy Lynne gave me the confidence to go ahead and risk ruining my art dolls (a.k.a., high maintenance girls) by trying a process I had seen in a book about artist trading cards. I tried it first in the altered book and liked it. It involves applying gesso to an art project then utilizing the underlying pattern and colors as a template for the piece.

Here are the results so far. They aren't quite finished, but I kind of like how they are starting out. (I think if you click on them you'll get a bigger image which will show greater detail... as Alicia used to say, "I think, but I don't know.")

Everything on these pieces is hand drawn in ink, which feels risky and can be nerve wracking when a wiener dog is bouncing your arm around. That is why it is so important to realize that perfection is a myth for us human doings.

I'm hoping to complete a set of these dolls to incorporate into greeting cards.

Do you like them or do you just think they are weird? I think they are kind of fantastical... they remind me of my favorite mantra: In our dreams we are able to fly. And that is a remembering of how we were meant to be.

Hope your week started well! d.

Adle-Fatique and the Altered Book

2008-05-31T07:45:00.008-05:00

Yesterday was another magnificent, wonderful and excellent day spent on the little hot and dusty porch, a.k.a., my new art studio!

My awesome and quite insane (not senile) friend, Lynne, and I spent about ten hours beginning our first altered books.

One more thing I love about Lynne: she will spend ten hours in a hot and dusty porch with three hot dogs at her feet (my two and my daughter's one), eat only disgusting cheap little frozen pizza and drink water which probably has a gnat in it... and she likes it as much as I do. She also loves to dig through boxes looking for stuff. This makes her an excellent artist companion.

Lynne is making a book of her favorite Bible verses and I'm making one of the Proverbs 31 woman.

We both got about four pages sort of finished and I started on a fifth one, but we were starting to get pretty slap happy and unreasonably optimistic about all the great art we could put on these pages when we finally realized we must be suffering from adle-fatigue.

I've always wanted to make an altered book... I've collected books on making altered books... I've collected books to make into altered books... I've collected even someone else's altered book... but oh! How much more wonderful just sitting your hiney in the shiny little chair and working on your own altered book.

Okay. So it could be considered a waste of time.

My sister is always telling me this: DON'T START ANY MORE PROJECTS! (by the way, I started this altered book deal without finishing her birthday present for last year. That was swept aside like so much debris to make room for this new idea!... and her birthday is in a mere 23 days... then I'll be past due TWO birthday presents!)

But starting something new is so HARMONIOUSLY WONDERFUL! It makes my blood move quick and my heart feel happy and my feet want to wiggle and my eye balls pop out a little bit.

And it looks like that's how Lynne was feeling too.

I should have taken a picture of our table we were working on. We were both being so courteous to leave room for the other person. We even shared the same glue bottle for ten hours without serious incident. But then Lynne says: "look... look... this is the space I am working in." It was about a six-inch-square right in front of her chair. I realized I was doing the same thing. We had piled and styled every inch of available space with our pretties and it was just magnificent.

I asked Lynne, "I wonder what people do with their time who are bored and don't make stuff."

She said, "I don't know. I am never bored."

And so I said, "Maybe they clean their houses."

We both thought that was probably right.

Meanwhile, we let the dogs clean up the pizza that hit the floor and we never worried at all about the mess. It gave those bored dogs something to do.

P.S. Perhaps, as I have heard, an altered book is a great place to try something new. Usually, when I try something new I like to throw it away because it is normally a piece of trash. Maybe there is another way.

I have recently discovered that if you resist the temptation to throw something away (of course, with a grand flurry of artistic haughtiness or desperate self-hatred and loathing) that you think is stupid -- burying it in the trash under a banana peel, two rubbery carrots and stray dog doo-doo you find hidden behind the sofa -- sometimes, the next morning, you decide it is sort of b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l!

Soldering and Making Crowns

2008-05-28T19:24:00.004-05:00

Today has been a fun and busy day.

I worked all day, from 9:00 this morning until now - which is about 7:30 p.m. - soldering.

I'm trying to finish my sister's birthday present from last year because her birthday this year is less than a month away.

Now that's some pressure and some procrastination.

I've been planning to make a birthday celebration crown but it's such a big undertaking that I have needed several hours to dedicate at once to the task. Today I spent the whole day working on it, and am still not finished.

My soldering is really rusty, but I still love it. I don't mean I love it, I mean I LOVE IT!

Here's what I have so far.

I'll post some more as I get to it.

Later, I'll have to tell you all about my "new studio."

Love, d.

P.S. My el-cheapo Radio Shack soldering gun is also el-crapo. It's tipped burned off within a few sessions today (the first time I've used it!) and now it won't really heat. I'm going to change tips but I wouldn't recommend it to any one. I do have to say, however, that it is really easy to solder with... it's just junky.

The Most Precious of Studio Supplies

2008-05-25T17:04:00.004-05:00

And who could forget...

the most important items -- supplies, if I may -- in the studio: My beloved Frankie (left) and my beloved Lucy (camera shy today and therefore not pictured).

I feel exactly the way Edith Wharton must have the day she penned this:

"My little dog - a heartbeat at my feet."

God bless all our little studio mates who support and love us no matter what we do. If God gives them even a smidgeon of the joy they give us, they are living in Heaven now.

The Glamour of Beautiful Art Supplies

2008-05-24T00:16:00.007-05:00

As you have heard and heard and heard and heard, I am trying to get my things organized to move into my new make-shift studio.

Tonight, while I continued pulling things together, I noticed once again - as I have before - how much I love the way art supplies look.

I love all the colors, shapes, textures.

I love all the different categories: adhesives... stamping... storage... craft brushes or art brushes or wax brushes or gel medium brushes or glue brushes... oil paints and acrylic paints and water color paints and craft paints and iridescent paints and inks and pigments...

I love the chaos of it.

I love the abandon of it.

I love art tools: dremels and sanders and soldering irons and toaster ovens and timers and heat guns and scroll saws and drills and jigsaws and sanders and staple guns and glue guns and glue pots and candle making machines and slow-melt pots and sewing machines.

I love flux and copper foil and beveled glass and microscope slides.

I love German Glass Glitter.

I love collections of ribbon and different kinds of tape.

I love charcoal pencils and HB pencils and battery operated erasers.

I love books that tell about art and books that show art and magazines that show work you can aspire to.

I love beads sorted into tiny compartments and boxes of wire and all the assortment of wire working tools.

I love big scissors and sewing scissors and special scissors and photo-only scissors.

I love plaster-of-paris and crayola clay and spackling compound and high gloss finish pour on acrylic and bee's wax and Sculpey.

I love broken vintage jewelry and pieces of old lace, old tassels and jars of buttons.

I love scrap booking paper and mulberry paper and watercolor paper.

I love cut-apart magazines and old books for altering.

I love old dishes for making broken china jewelry.

I love embroidery thread and colorful yarns, old pieces of fabric and rolls and rolls of lace.

I love quality colored pencils and oil pastel crayons and pastel chalks and India ink.

What a blessing to have a wonderful husband who is clueless about the cost of art supplies.

Love, d.

Keeping a Sketch Book

2008-05-23T23:59:00.006-05:00

If you've never kept a sketchbook, now's the time to start.

I never kept one either and over the years, I can't think of but one or two drawings that have survived.

When I decided to actually try to discipline myself to keep a sketch book, I also purchased an inexpensive portfolio and I eventually move my sketches into that book. It surprised me to learn this evening that I have completed almost 25 sketches in the last few weeks. I had no idea!

Many of the sketches are simply "thinking out loud" quick drawings.

Others are like a journal entry which shows what I'm feeling or thinking.

Some are studies of a particular aspect of a project I may be having trouble with.

I used to jot down ideas on any piece of scratch paper I could find, but I have learned that these little snippets of paper never survive. By trying to contain my ideas, whether sketches or a short note to myself, in a sketch book venue, I have found that not only are these ideas more likely to survive, but going back and looking through the drawings is really fun.

So keep a sketch book.

Then share it.

(More sketches later.)

Love, d.

The Art of Storytelling

2008-05-23T19:18:00.012-05:00

(note: this introduction to The Art of Storytelling is used in the gallery with a collection I am showing. I will just copy it into the blog as an introduction to this series. Thank you! d.)

(top, a close-up from "Shattering the Darkness")

The Art of Storytelling

Mixed Media Interpretations by Donna Roberts

Storytelling was the method of teaching used by the Israelite nation as each generation imparted their experiences with and knowledge of God to their children. Jewish children knew not only their family's genealogy, but also how their ancestors were used by God to shape history.

Roberts, a great lover of the stories of the Bible, is utilizing mixed media art to present these stories in a fresh three dimensional way that is relevant to today's generations. Her artwork attracts the viewer's eye and holds their imagination captive as they discover, examine, and analyze the intricately rich detailed layers. Each piece is designed to unveil itself, provoking a complex and strong subjective response, stimulating discussion and encouraging reflection and application to today's culture

Before beginning a new work, Roberts thoroughly researches the subject to ensure an accurate understanding and strict adherence to scripture. Some of the chosen stories are well known, others are more obscure. Each is a dramatic retelling of God's Word. The method for portraying the story is discussed with Christian friends to make certain that the symbolism is neither too subtle nor too obvious. The goal is to communicate truth and exhibit the very character of God which has not, does not, and will not change with the passing of time

Roberts has combined her passion for art and her love for God to create a dynamic and unique method of storytelling. Her hope is based on the same principles that Moses told the Israelites before they crossed into the Promised Land

"Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul...

"You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up." Deuteronomy 11:19a, 20

About Lightning in Abundance

2008-05-23T18:31:00.010-05:00

"Lightning in Abundance" is the piece I finished last night, cleaning off my maddening dining room table so I'd have room to lay the canvas down and add the bee's wax.

This is another of the pieces, in addition to "The Blessed Birth" (below), from the Storytelling series (that I have yet to introduce and talk about)... (as usual, with all us flaky types, everything I am doing is in a helter-skelter order and makes no sense to anyone, not even to me.)

I know the pictures (in the next post) are terrible and I am sorry. I didn't have time to set up my lights and screens this morning so I just laid the piece down on the counter then stood on it and shot the pictures. Later, I'll take real pictures that won't be so embarrassing. (It just occurred to me, I could have just laid the canvas on the floor and stood over it... it served no purpose to put it on the counter then stand on the counter... if I had a brain I would be downright not-as-stupid!)

This is a multi-media piece and uses a variety of materials including: feathers, bee's wax, Old English Furniture polish, acrylic paint, chalk pastels, 100+ year old song fragments, gel medium, iridescent medium, various dyes...

The inspiration comes from King David's Psalm 108:6-16:

In my distress I called to the LORD;
I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came before him, into his ears.
The earth trembled and quaked,
and the foundations of the mountains shook;
they trembled because he was angry.
Smoke rose from his nostrils;
consuming fire came from his mouth,
burning coals blazed out of it.
He parted the heavens and came down;
dark clouds were under his feet.
He mounted the cherubim and flew;
he soared on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering,
his canopy around him—
the dark rain clouds of the sky.
Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,
with hailstones and bolts of lightning.
The LORD thundered from heaven;
the voice of the Most High resounded.
He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies,
great bolts of lightning and routed them.
The valleys of the sea were exposed
and the foundations of the earth laid bare
at your rebuke, O LORD,
at the blast of breath from your nostrils.
He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.

Bless you all, d.

Lightning in Abundance

2008-05-23T18:23:00.005-05:00

Cluttering Up that Table and Using Bee's Wax

2008-05-23T18:11:00.007-05:00

Last night, after cleaning off that infamous dining room table, I finished the bee's wax process on the new piece and I really like it. It was fascinating to watch it as it melted, how it affected colors, texture and even the sculpture of the light.

Here, again, is that table. Immediately after cleaning it off, it all started again...

Before I show you the piece, a little about the bee's wax.

First, it's very interesting. I gathered together five pounds of purified bee's wax, a couple candle warmers, small glass and tin units for melting... I used old brushes I had and they were very destroyed after the process (well, at least they'll be good for nothing but applying wax in the future.)

When you first apply the wax -- and you have to do it quickly because it cools like a jack-rabbit -- you really can't tell much about what you're doing because it cools to a white, matte finish. After you get it where you want it, use a heat gun to smooth and disperse it. This was the magical part for me. I loved not only the smell, sizzle and flow of the wax, but also the few moments when the wax was living on the canvas, finding its place.

The wax seems to do a great job of sealing a piece if you're looking for something like that. I think it's worth trying.

Beware: out of the three Daschunds who have looked at this piece so far (my two and my mom and dad's dog), all three wanted to lick the bee's wax. Probably wouldn't hurt the dog, but it's not too good for a person's ego!

Cupcakes Sweet Cupcakes

2008-05-23T08:12:00.008-05:00

Last night I had to clean off our dining room table because I brought home a fairly large mixed-media piece I have been doing and wanted to add bee's wax, so I needed a large flat surface.

I was down to the last few items to put away and there still sat my unfinished (faux) cupcakes. I didn't like them because I inadvertently bought large size cupcake papers (who knew they made different sizes these days!) and these dudes were humongous.

After I cleaned all the way around them and they were the only thing left and I stood there and looked at them for a minute -- I had even removed the table cloth -- I took both tins of them and dumped them over into the trash with a great big satisfactory clomp.

Maybe it's better just to start over sometimes than to try to save something that isn't working out. Maybe when I make my cupcakes next time, I'll have learned something. Maybe, but probably not.

Here's a picture of that dining room table. This is something you'll likely never see again.

One last thing, to my Jennifurry - love to you and Lenni and remember where I am. Fifty miles isn't very far... but it seems far to me today.

Love to you, d.

The Blessed Birth Sold

2008-05-21T16:03:00.008-05:00

What a day!

I sold a piece from the gallery, "The Blessed Birth," which was the first of a Storytelling series I am doing.

I didn't talk about these yet because I hadn't photographed any of them, but I love these pieces. They are mixed-media and intensely personal. I'll do a post later that tells about the series, etc.

Also, unexpectedly, I feel sad at selling this piece. Somehow, you want to keep them all because they are sort of like children. At the same time, HALLELUJAH!)

Love to all and more later, Donna Ann

P.S. I'm sorry the pictures are terrible. I didn't have time this morning to set up my lights and screens... just for hurried shots. The reflection is so bad on the full piece that I don't think it's worth posting. This will still give you some idea. It is actually a five-panel series that covers the annunciation, birth, visit of the wise men, the shepherds, and the entire story of the birth of Christ. Thanks for your patience with my photography.

No Brain, No Headache

2008-05-20T12:32:00.008-05:00

Wonder what it would be like to wake up in the morning without a headache?

Wonder what it would be like to see the day through a clear vivid mind?

Wonder what it would be like to think swiftly and reliably without being either impaled in the eye or sickened at the stomach by endless Excedrin...

Wonder what it would be like to open your eyes wide and let the sun in.

For over 30 years these migraines have impacted my daily life and at other times have ruled it. In the last two years, they have ruled.

This is despite visits to physicians, neurologists, chiropractors, and the health food store.

This has been with strong anti-migraine drugs and without.

With a good neck and back popping every other day and without.

Nothing makes a difference.

I know God designed me to be this way for a reason. I can't imagine the reason or what it's good for, but as of late, I've just tried to accept it. Rather high or low, in pain or out, thinking clearly or not, I'll take what God decides to give me.

The next step is to stop complaining about it.

Frannie's Little Crowns

2008-05-19T21:14:00.011-05:00

Hope you've had a beautiful day!

Ashley, my older daughter, and I spent a few minutes working with her dog, Frannie, trying to photograph a couple of the little crowns I have been making.

These crowns are made with tiny glass seed beads and a variety of larger beads on pliable wire to allow some moulding for better fit.

I started working in earnest on these crowns after altering a checkerboard game for a furniture piece I was working on (and am still not done with!). I made crowns for the checkers that would be "Kinged" and just loved that process.

The next crown I made, I think, was Frannie's little green one. It has flowers and hearts, none of which suit Frannie's personality. Frannie is a spit-fire who, the more we love her and chase her, the more she hates us and runs away. It's a terrible thing to see! I love that little dog to pieces! Ah... unrequited love.

I worked on photographing today -- the crowns and some of the kits I'm putting together to sell. I don't like how much of it is turning out. It's so tedious to get a good picture that truly shows your work. Thank goodness for so many on-line sources with great information for clumsy photographers.

About my little studio -- I hope to start working on it this coming weekend. I'm going to make a designated place for all my pretties on our screened-in porch. Later we are going to make it all-weather. I'm not going to get to do everything I want because, unfortunately, it all costs money. But I think I'm going to go ahead and patch the area together as best I can, do some painting, and then go ahead and put my stuff out there. We're drowning in it and I feel hopelessly disorganized and confused by everything in such disarray.

Love to all and especially Ashley Fawn and Frannie Rose. Thank you for the pictures, my beauties

My poodles (they're goners now)

2008-05-17T20:42:00.005-05:00

Well, these were my poodles.

I made these little crowns for them, then decided they still didn't look very pretty... so I added some bouffant hair... still thought they were ugly.

Actually, it may have been a little too much hair (is that possible?), but who could know what to do.

Lucky for me, they were chained together and so when they fell off the precarious place at the shop where I had put them, both of them broke.

I threw those ugly old poodles away but kept that luscious hair for another unwitting project and also stashed away my little crowns.

And I've been making crowns ever since.

Tomorrow I'll take a picture of Frannie, my daughter's grouchy dog, with her new crown। Then I'll show you some others I made. I made one for a mermaid, but probably a dog will have to wear it since mermaids are rare here in Missouri.

I am also wanting to make some human crowns, but I'm not sure if any humans will wear them. They should, but not everyone is crown-confident.

Love to all poodle lovers, d.

Get Your Red Hots Here!

2008-05-17T20:04:00.007-05:00

And this is my Red Hots. I did this piece as an ode to my we-wienie dog, Lucy, I think in 2006 (maybe 07).

It's another mixed-media piece utilizing newspaper, tissue paper, paint, buttons, wire, other 3-d elements, and great dog quotes.

To exaggerate the length of the dog, the tail is outside the frame...

I stumbled upon a man eating a hot dog with the headline, "Get Your Red Hots Here!" and couldn't believe my luck.

Also in case you can't see the perspective, this wiener dog is flying (it has wire wings) and its legs are sprawled out... you are looking from above.

I would encourage everyone on the planet to get at least one wiener dog. Then I would encourage them to learn how to spell wiener.

Would you look at this mess?

2008-05-17T15:02:00.007-05:00

I keep getting a little closer to putting together my first things for sale on Etsy.

I've got about 30 crafter kits ready, but I have to photograph them and figure out about shipping. Everything takes so much time. I don't want to do anything when it seems like everything needs to be done.

Take a look at these disturbing pictures and you'll understand.

This is our dining room table and it has been this way for weeks. I've got (faux) cupcakes making, letters cut out for my "Chocolate Panache" sign, paintings, gift bags, ribbon that needs sorting... it never ends. And this is just in one room.

How is a person supposed to function like this? And who thinks its ever going to be any different.

Skies and Squalling

2008-05-15T09:53:00.007-05:00

Good morning!

I've got to get to work -- I'm late, but wanted to hurry up and post something before I left.

This piece, "Skies", is a 3d multi-media work we put into a shadowbox.

Like what happens to all of us big-and-busy mothers, I hadn't paid any attention to clouds for years until the first time we went to the ocean, I think in 1994. Down at the Gulf they looked close enough to touch, and substantial enough to carry you in their wings.

After coming home and getting back to real life, while still working at RPS (schools), I was a bawling my head off in the car for whatever reason on the way to work one morning.

Always, when a person has to bawl, I have found they also have to flip around the channels on the radio to try to hear a song that will commiserate their horrible life.

While I did this, I happened upon Nichole C. Mullins singing her new song: "I Know That My Redeemer Lives."

Wailing as I was and being a cloud looker now, I looked into the sky, and through my bawley-squally eyes saw the most beautifully formed angel.

She was spread enormously across the sky, flooded from behind by brilliant white light. It was her full body, clothed in a long flowing gown that swept behind her. Her arms were stretched to the front of her as if they held something. The folds in her gown were deeper hues of grey and she was edged in blinding sunlight.

I watched her gliding through the wind all the way up the "you'll get a ticket if you go too fast hill" on 63 coming into Rolla.

It broke my heart and took away my breath so that I couldn't even get out a good boodle-boodle.

Having felt ridiculed by the world for the predicaments I always find myself in (now is that being the center of the universe or what?!?), it came to me how foolish my thinking often is. It's not that I didn't always know in my head how silly I was, I needed to know in my soul. In my head I knew better... this spoke to my soul.... Laughing at us for goodness sake? Revelling in our dismay? Our compassionate God doesn't laugh at our traumas and dramas (though sometimes he must shake his head and say, goodness gracious rachel peaches what a whiner!). He is compassionate. Just like we are with our own children.

Love to all, d.

P.S. Still don't have time to figure out how to do these pictures better, so am posting another shot in the next doo-dad.

Another P.S.

One more thing about "Skies"...

I forgot to mention, but these two shots kind of show it...

You can notice that you can see two sides to this cloud's face. One seems judgemental, the other accepting. Which is your God? Which do you allow yourself to see?

Love more, d.

The Icebreakers Mixed-Media Piece

2008-05-13T13:12:00.006-05:00

Okay, so here it is.

This was my icebreakers piece I did (see below)... what I can tell you about it the most is that it sure is shiny and it sure was fun cutting apart all that mirror!

Doing it Anyway - Easier but Harder

2008-05-13T09:25:00.017-05:00

After Lynne's encouragement (see first blog), I went ahead and published a Christmas card to sell in our shop. This was 2005. It was a watercolor, completed in about six minutes of flourished embarrassment and sheer gall.

The inside said, "Hope some snowflakes stay on your nose and eyelashes."
We sold out (but it took two years), 400 cards.

Every time someone would look at my cards, I wanted to run to the backroom and hide. I couldn't bear their comments and I didn't want anyone to know I had done it.

The next year was easier, but harder.

Now I had two of them sitting out there. Who in the world do I think I am?
That same year, I also did a mixed media piece related to our Christmas decorating theme. It was called Icebreakers. I'll put it in the next posting, because it's messing up (because I don't know what I'm doing!)

It has an Aristotle Onassis quote that says, "If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning."

Having this hanging in the gallery helped me overcome some of my anxiety over the cards, I guess because it was so flamboyant the cards seemed pretty tame and safe.

I still felt like an outsider. That old interloper, you know. Who in the world do I think I am?

The Interloping Artist - Such Arrogance!

2008-05-12T19:51:00.010-05:00

It feels as if there is something terribly arrogant and presumptuous about sitting down to write about my own big self as if anyone in the world could possibly care in even the briefest of moments or slightest of ways about my big to-do.

I feel this same "who in this world do I think I am???" wonderment each time I decide I've either got to get up the nerve to show some of my work or just shut up about it. This hot-cold, tense, bipolar indecision has paralyzed me for years, and not just about art.
Lynne, my old buddy, actually freed me from some of this paralysis three or four years ago. I was carrying on about the impossibility and hopelessness of my watercolors one day and this was what she said: "Everybody else puts their crap out there... I don't see what's the big deal about you putting your crap out there too." (And let me tell you, I still to this day don't think she even said it in a very nice way. But she remembers none of that, of course. She only remembers her gentle urging and encouragement. Ha!)

The truth is, I felt free as a bird after I thought about that।

Because here is the deal: If I'm going to wait until the things I paint or collage are perfect and wonderful and the whole world is clamouring to see it because of their great admiration of my greatness as a human being and all, chances are better than fair that I am going to die without having done much... and worse than that, what in the world am I going to say that I've been doing for the last ten years at my next class reunion?

Anyway, so here comes the old Interloper Artist. Interloper is how I feel. I'm embarrassed. I feel foolish. I don't belong. I'm a fraud and I know everybody is surely going to catch on quick to my arrogance when you read about my big artistic self. And this will naturally bring about the just reward for such behavior: backlash from an antagonist ridiculer who will instantly recognize me for what I am. An idiot.

So today, as I worked feverishly on my latest piece... and oh my goodness! The exuberance I felt while immersed in the process is something that I want to share. It's something that I want to encourage others to participate in. It's something that seems as life-giving as pure, sweet, fresh air. Perhaps the process of creating something lifts up a human soul to commune with God. And maybe, in the briefest and faintest of ways, when we are immersed in creative endeavor, we sometimes glimpse God's own hand on ours just as we guide the hands of our children when teaching them a beloved skill.

And so a-interloping we will go।

P.S. Actually, I don't believe for one second that anyone will care what I've been doing when my next class reunion rolls around. I am very well nuts, but at least I'm not under THAT particular delusion!