eyepiece artwork

This was my job yesterday - shooting on a 40x lens, which is a very big, honkin' piece of glass, stationed in the LA river. It was a beautiful day, and while waiting for the shoot to start, I took some pictures through the eyepiece.

 An impressionistic mincing water bird. (Who, much like me, was ignoring the homeless people on shore rolling bottles down into the water.)

I love the architectural dance of these bridges lined up.

eye-motions

Look what you can make with a pile of glass eyes and your own two hands...

nervous and toothless!

scared and dangerous!

Generally good advice: Lay off the pickles after dinner

This one reminds me of how commercials on TV make me feel - angry and overstimulated by the overly-stimulated people and images and noises and colors and sexuality and forced frivolity. That is, unless it's the one currently making the rounds on the internet with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates; that one is wonderful, loopy goodness.

And this one is reminiscent of a dream I had once where images of an owl, then other birds of prey kept slowly turning to face forward, while a voice gravely intoned, "Carnivores have eyes in the front of their heads, so as to see prey better." I woke up and thought lay off the pickles after dinner.

I'm not in a vicious mood today, I swear! Maybe it's all the owl-imagery I've been perusing. While rummaging around in my art boxes, I found these glass eyeballs (from Archie McPhee) that I've had forever...and then I wanted to try out the macro focus on my newly repaired Canon SD800 IS (thanks, K.C.!), and, um, somehow we got here. 

Since I was a kid, I've always loved morphing hands and feet into other things. During college, I often blurred the lines between animal and human imagery in my photography, and I guess I still find it intriguing.

Owl-a-riffic gift ideas

Funny postcard design from Tinaseamonster. When I read this I thought, "I love octopi. And owls. And cupcakes. Am I, egads, swayed by trends?" Whatever: they're easy to love, no? However, I hate zombies. Even have a bit of a phobia when it comes to the undead. Alllrighty, let's move on... My little sis loves owls. So I pulled together a few favorites from Etsy and thought I'd share them with you.

A few owl-y gift ideas, for a hostess, new home owner, or little sister.

3-D crafts are inherently awesome, and this card by Melissa Kate McMurtie is no exception. This brings up a gripe of mine: why isn't there more 3-D in our lives? You know, just in general?

A coaster from Robot Candy, who has other great owl coaster designs on their site (and vintage National Park ones I dig too).

Artgoodies rustic block-printed hand towel would make a great housewarming gift when coupled with a few of their other designs. I'm just sayin'...

As someone who wears primarily tee-shirts with animals on them at work (one of the perks of working on a TV crew: no stuffy work clothes), here are some owl-tastic fashions:

Shrinky-dink rings from Dillon Designs. I like the gold-edging detail especially.

Kalika Designs makes these simple gold earrings. Doesn't it look like the owls are concentrating? Probably tackling some calculus problems.

A macrame necklace from MacraMe. Turquoise is a weakness of mine, I must admit, and I love to see macrame used so delicately. As a kid growing up, my mom made these gigantic brown hanging planters with big wooden beads woven in that held ferns. Cue the 70's flashback sequence...

Deliciously simple white owl earrings from Candy. They're girly but with a handmade feel, like a doily made out of reeds. Me likey.

This "cycling cap" by Paula Deer rocks my world. I would wear this when the cold January fog rolls up from the ocean. AND IT'S REVERSIBLE. Who doesn't love having more options?

An octo-owl messenger bag may not be for everyone, but I love it! This is screenprinted by Deadworry; they also have this image on tee-shirts for guys and gals. Have you ever watched videos of octopi solving puzzles given to them by scientists? No? You are missing out. However, consider yourself warned: once you learn how smart they are, you may not eat octopus again.

I like to keep my civilian clothes relatively simple and liven things up by throwing in a belt or scarf with character, so this belt buckle by Caught Red Handed caught my eye.

I can't say I've ever been a fan of wall decals. They seem too trendy.  Much like I feel too old to shop at Abercrombie and Fitch, and the music in there is just too damn loud, I'd feel silly with a sticker in my home. However, I found both of these on Etsy and have to say, they made me reconsider. I love how the dark brown owl by Sweetnothing looks on the painted wall, and he's perfect for a high unused corner. The second little guy from Oneup Designs looks great next to that lamp. Both are available in a wide variety of colors, so you can go as bold or subtle as you like. Hoot, hoot!

A beautiful pairing

My little sis is in town, so my brother, his girlfriend, K.C and I headed up to Santa Barbara for some wine tasting last weekend.

We took a Cloud Climbers Jeep Tour, and our last stop was at Artiste Winery in Santa Ynez. 

Our tour guide, Jeremy, told us they had easels set up for painting - AWESOME. I don't care if it's tempera paints. Drinking fine wine and painting, I can't think of a much better pairing.

My brother and sister, creating the masterpiece. The three of us took turns tasting wines and adding to our Frankenstein creation. Behold -

IT'S ALIVE!!! You should of seen the looks we got from horrified wine-tasters as they looked at our family portrait :) 

How I felt about the closet before our makeover

The year 1978. My drawing of The Incredible Hulk's father. It's like Edvard Munch's The Scream, but greener.

Organizational details

I think we can all agree that living in 811 square feet with a partner requires smart use of space. My work jackets (layers, layers, layers!) were big and bulky on the back of the bedroom door, and we wanted to get them out of there, but with the laundry closet being what it was (which is to say, looking like a bombed-out abandoned shack straight out of The Grapes of Wrath), we couldn't figure where they should go.

Being frugal (after the Container Store sticker shock) and smart like a fox, K.C. cut off the over-the-door hooks and drilled holes to hang the rack in the closet. (side note: when he suggested modifying the rack, I blurted out, "YOU CAN DO THAT?!" He looked at me like I was crazy. Apparently they make tools that can cut through metal. Who knew?)

 The rack fit the white utility-closet vibe well, and was the perfect size for the wall. We found that designing a useful storage space isn't just about filling the whole space with shelves; usable vertical spaces are needed as well. 

K.C. was an amazing partner in this venture - it's the rare person who can handle me flitting from one idea to another and keep the train on the track. And, as you may have noticed, he's rather handy as well. Did I mention he brought our dryer tubing up to code as well during this process? (Another blank stare met my question of YOU CAN DO THAT?!) I am often in awe of his ability to fix things, like dishwashers and dryers and cars. 

 I've never felt more domestic than when deep in discussion about where a flippin' drying rod should go. Definitely not the rock n' roll persona I dreamt of in my 20s!

Anyway, we didn't want to give up shelf space for a rod, so K.C. zip-tied a dowel to a shelf, in an otherwise underutilized tall and narrow space. Like duct tape, zip ties are a near-perfect invention.

So I have a lot of shoes. In a one-bedroom condo, it's not, shall we say, practical. Work shoes, dress shoes, boots, and flip-flops for every conceivable color combination, they all add up. 

I had looked at the IKEA options for awhile, but they were all a bit cheap-looking for my tastes or didn't fit the space I had, and to make them visually appealing seemed like a lot of post-purchase work, which I didn't want to do. The Container Store had this awesome shoe rack that was the perfect size for this little alcove by the bedroom door. It wasn't cheap (about $170), but it was a very worthwhile splurge. All work shoes go in the new shoe unit, and packed away in plastic bins in the *new* closet are out-of-season shoes, so the only space I needed was easily met with what I already had available in the clothes closet. My soul is at rest.

Lesson learned? Perhaps having every pair of shoes I own in a bison-sized pile in the laundry closet for the past year wasn't the best idea. 

Long story short: I *heart* our new utility closet!

Inchoate yearning aka the closet makeover

A transformation more breathtaking than any contestant on The Swan took place in our condo this week.

The before picture. I'm embarrassed. Truly. If this were my psyche, I'd need to be heavily medicated.

First, we tore down the second, lower crap-tastic shelf and removed all the cedar lining the back wall. (When I say "we", I mean "K.C. did it,  I stood back, taking pictures, and making silly comments about how our closet smells like a hamster cage what with all the cedar.)

Spackling, priming, sanding (cough, cough - wear a mask! -) and a few coats of ultra white satin paint later. I love to paint, so I took over at this stage while K.C. recovered.

K.C. begins installing the Elfa shelf system (we bought ours at The Container Store). 

A word about The Container Store. Simply, I love it. I imagine they were going to name it "Inchoate Yearning" but "The Container Store" was easier to spell. Actually, it freaks me out how it makes me feel, like the most ancient lizard-brain part of me is directly tapped into. The calm happiness I experience upon gazing at shelves upon shelves of small containers is unnerving. Clear boxes, fabric boxes, metal boxes...nirvana. The Container Store and the organized control it represents makes me question the Meaning of Self. Eckhart Tolle probably has something to say about this, but I'm not sure I want to listen.

Okay, back to the Elfa system. Granted, it's not the cheapest system available (hello, Rubbermaid and Freedom Rail system) but we knew we could get all the pieces nearby without having to wait for an order to come in (The Container Store is well stocked with Elfa) and it's a high-quality, easily installed, very flexible system. The shelves come in five standard lengths, and three depths, so we only had to have one shelf cut to size (which doesn't cost extra, but we wanted to avoid lots of nit-picky measuring). Although we went for the basic-white-utility-closet look, Elfa has lots of nice finishing options. If you can wait for the yearly sale (last year it was just after the holidays), do. I wish our free time had lined up with that sale so we could feel great about the extra storage and money we saved. Alas, it was not to be.

Tools to have on hand: a stud finder, level, screw gun and patience. Lots and lots of patience. We didn't use The Container Store's help in designing our space, mainly because we're stubborn, but also because we needed to see/feel the pieces in the room. We originally brought home a bunch of 20" deep shelves, but those felt like they were taking over the space and made the closet feel really small. In the end, only the top shelves are 20" deep, the rest are 16." 

I'm not ashamed to say I have been caught by K.C. - and I have caught him - standing and gazing at our new laundry closet with a look close to love.

favorite foreign finds

My home is full of memories of my travels. Here are a few of my favorite unexpected juxtapositions (Bulgaria and New Mexico?):

A little handpainted box from Bangalore, India sits underneath...

...two watercolors I discovered at a flea market in Sophia, Bulgaria (costume designs for a Midsummer's-esque play), which flank a grass woven Hopi bowl from Gallup, NM.

In the kitchen, a small doo-dad: a glass evil eye to ward off bad spirits from Plovdiv, Bulgaria, which hangs on the window next to...

...this folk cross from Oaxaca, Mexico. Besides the little metal charms nailed to it, I love the vibrant turquoise and mustard yellow color pairing.

evocative titles

I always envision the person who names paint colors sitting in a dim room, illuminated by a pool of light from a desk lamp, old dictionary on their lap, glasses sliding down their nose, murmuring word combinations like "wooden spoon" and "unicorn pearl" to themselves, jotting furiously with a nub of a pencil on a yellow legal pad...

but maybe it's not done like that :)

the eyes have it

Croatian graffiti

Two things I love to photograph wherever I go: antiques and graffiti. 

Zaghrib has a preponderous amount of militant monkeys and eyeballs.

The gift for that friend who likes little funny things

OMG! I want about a dozen of these joke boyscout patches.

monkeys and art

Following up on the last post with the sad monkey, I realized I have a mini-theme in my home of monkeys in or around art...

On the fridge is a postcard by a friend of ours, Karen Baker. Her series of images of The Baby are funny and sweet, you can check them out here. This one of The Baby flying through the air is held up by a magnet I made out of stuff found at Archie McPhee's in Seattle.

In the bathroom I have a framed letterpress print from Elum Designs. 

It's called "Snakeskin" and it matches my monkeys perfectly :)

The saddest monkey in the world

I was frustrated while sketching, and this little guy popped out. 

I told him to go out for a run or bike ride and he'd feel a lot better, but he said something I shouldn't reprint here.

Pet Purgatory

At a rest stop on the I-15 between Vegas and LA.  Just in case you didn't think that this barren stretch of desert was suitable for your pet, this "pet area" sign should set you straight.  

There was an emo-ish teenager taking a picture of the same scene...we bonded when our eyes met over our cameras. "I know, totally desolate, sad, funny, droll" was the psychic exchange. Or maybe I'm imagining things.

Monster take out

Birthday card illustration/photography photoshoppery for my friend Thomas.

cow skull in red

I love combining simple texture pictures that I take with little sketches - finding the right balance between the two is the best part. (Click on the image to view it larger)