fruityfantastica

breadcrumb trails

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:19:43 -0600

I didn’t want to say anything until I felt like these things had roots, but I have two new seedling projects: f ruityfantastica the third (with a real domain! at last!) and thingadingaday.

The new incarnation of fruityfantastica is meant to be a place for those of us who need a little steadying as we figure out how to do that one thing that gives us deep joy every day, whatever it is. I’m hoping that eventually it will be bigger than the sum of its current parts (cheap domain registration, free Blogger blog, unremarkable design, me) but the only way to do that is to make a place where other people want to camp out, too. This is, I think, what is called ‘building community’?

Well, it’s an experiment anyhow. Please make yourself at home. Beer’s in the cooler.

Thingadingaday is a sketchblog where I try to do a thing a day. It’s looks like it’s going all over the place, and I am okay with that. You’ll be relieved to know that there are no comments enabled there.

I’m going to keep this little place for the occasional thing that doesn’t fit anywhere else.

You’re good people. Thanks for sticking it out with me.

addendum(b) - or, what the hell did I expect, anyhow?

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:11:21 -0600

I’m almost a year into my life as a truckstop refugee. What do you know, semi-automatic rage, hello again. Time to listen to the pinch. I’m being pushed back out into life, this life of mine that refuses to wait me out. Time to make good on making good stuff.

I’m still scared.

Insufficiently courageous.

Thu, 26 May 2011 12:57:37 -0600

Insufficiently courageous.

I just got one of these and I’m getting acquainted with...

Tue, 24 May 2011 16:18:00 -0600

I just got one of these and I’m getting acquainted with it. More noodling to follow while I learn what all the buttons do.

Whistlepops acrylic, oil, and alkyd on canvas 5’ x...

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:53:13 -0600

Whistlepops

acrylic, oil, and alkyd on canvas

5’ x 5’10” or so.

Cookie Jar Clown acrylic, oil and alkyd on canvas 5’ x...

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:50:12 -0600

Cookie Jar Clown

acrylic, oil and alkyd on canvas

5’ x 5’

Baseball Birthday Cake acrylic, oil and alkyd on canvas about...

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:47:12 -0600

Baseball Birthday Cake

acrylic, oil and alkyd on canvas

about 5’ x 5’10”, something like that

More old art. (Mold art? Old fart?)

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:16:33 -0600

More old art.

(Mold art? Old fart?)

Some college-era paintings, found on an old camera. Not a great...

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:09:21 -0600

Some college-era paintings, found on an old camera. Not a great quality photo, but it gives some idea of what I was doing circa 1796. So actually this is a pretty good photograph, considering. And yes, I am 240 years old. I may not have mentioned that before.

The Fudge That Got Away

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:28:00 -0600

I’m putting up some pictures of recent work (somewhat recent? recent-ish? No visible mold?). There isn’t a lot of it and may not be more for a while, for I am currently studio-free and time-free and a couple of other frees too.

But there’s no reason to let perfectly serviceable blog fodder go to waste.

I present to you: Remarkable Fudge.

Acrylic, oil and alkyd on primed paper. It’s, oh, 24” by 30” or so. One of these days I’ll measure.

I did this a year ago, but it’s a throwback to my art college days, when I made a series of very large food paintings using images from my collection of vintage recipe books. I was particularly fond of off-register, over-saturated pictures with ridiculous props and questionable food appeal.

I haven’t done a food painting in years, but when Kate and I realized that HOLY SMOKES, we’re doing an auction for Haiti and it’s going to be big and it has to happen a week from now if we want to get matching government funds, I decided to make a new painting for it (on top of the eighteen hour days of email mayhemmery and frenzied goodwill). To get it done in time, the painting had to be about something I knew well, so an off-register, over-saturated picture with ridiculous props and questionable food appeal was in order. My safe place.

I spent a few busy nights in the studio-with-the-ghosts and one loud night with a Zombie Sex Cult gig going on in the adjoining common room.

I’m not sure how the ghosts felt about that.

Athough I finished Remarkable Fudge in time, it never made it into the auction. By the end of the week we were turning donations away because we had so many, and my stuff… well. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea.

For example, this fine piece, Self Portrait With Teeth, only got one bid. From one of my oldest friends, who loves me and my dentistry.

Self Portrait With Fever didn’t get any bids at all.

Some people just don’t want a beautiful, original, larger-than-life sized hallucinating head glowering above their sofa.

Apparently.

Here she is, installed at the John V. Hicks gallery this summer...

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:25:33 -0600

Here she is, installed at the John V. Hicks gallery this summer as part of the I.D. V. 6.0 show.

I never did show you this finished, did I? Well...

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:19:53 -0600

I never did show you this finished, did I? Well then:

Annunciation (a work in progress)

Oil and alkyd on unstretched canvas, 2010

I haven’t measured it yet, so let’s say life sized.

Some stray pixels from summer. Here we are in a new year,...

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:46:00 -0600

Some stray pixels from summer.

Here we are in a new year, hooray to all of us. We’ve made it.

I have a small bit of writing up at the Hedge today. I hope...

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:34:41 -0600

I have a small bit of writing up at the Hedge today. I hope you’re well.

and a partridge in a pear tree

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:13:00 -0600

This week in the extended Fantastica family, by the numbers:

flooded basement: 1

enemas: 1

chemotherapy rounds: 1

worrisome mother-daughter blowups: 1, but it felt like 4 because I am an efficient jerk

late night trips to the E.R.: 2

people slated for eye surgery: 3*

school fiascos, including band concert disasters due to faulty oboe reeds: 3 and counting

a child in tears: numerous

Christmas trees up: 1/2

Still, feeling weirdly buoyant about life. For I am a clerk, and I got paid yesterday, and promptly bought myself some fancy cheese.

And how are you, my dears?

*edited to add, because I forgot it when I posted this

Sometimes the Plot Doesn't Work

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 11:55:00 -0600

I don’t know how to put words on this thing. Maybe because it looks like failure from where you sit, flushes plot down the crapper, is grotesque on one side and completely ordinary on the other.

I got a part-time job as a grocery store clerk. I wear a red vest and a name tag.

(Okay, now I’m giggling.)

On the day I turned forty (FORTY!) I applied for a job on a whim, promptly got hired by virtue of not having a criminal record, and have since been a terror with the pallet jack and that little pricing gun.

I don’t know what comes next. I should feel some alarm about throwing my life around in such a random way, but what I actually feel is the hot release of stepping into a truckstop after hours of white-knuckle highway driving. Blizzard, black ice, knock in the engine, kids scared silent in the back seat.

I got paid the other day. It made me cry with relief. And I finally had an explanation for this thing I’ve done:

I hate being self-employed more than I love being an artist.

My dad, Subash, died suddenly seven years ago today. I am...

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:46:00 -0600

My dad, Subash, died suddenly seven years ago today.

I am exhausted and in an in-between brain place, a vestibule really, so it’s hard to sit down and write. But:

Both his anger and his compassion ran hot.

He was an excellent listener.

And an extravagant worrier.

He did kind things for people in secret. We found out about some of them after he died.

He loved us.

One of the regular features at the Hedge Society is Our Daily...

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 11:27:00 -0600

One of the regular features at the Hedge Society is Our Daily Bird; a tidbit of art or story or music that has something avian about it. I went hunting for Daily Birds the other day, and found this egg at the National Film Board’s online archive.

I would love to be adept with the personal blog. I don’t know how; the cat’s got my digital tongue. I blister with the slow-burning fret of wanting to be seen and understood and not having the tools to get there, where you are, from this lonely here.

Until I figure out how to do that, this video is my proxy.

Uh oh. The Sketchbook Project.

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:25:35 -0600

I’ve joined up. Updates to follow.

It’s been an open secret for a while, but now I’m...

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:26:00 -0600

It’s been an open secret for a while, but now I’m making it official: I’m a contributor at the newly minted version of the Hedge Society, a group of friends paying attention to things that are hopeful, beautiful, silly, tasty, helpful, interesting, infuriating, ordinary, and sometimes y.

I came to blogland tribeless and gormless. I’m not sure I have achieved gorm, but finding a group of people who feel like home is a pretty good feeling.

Karen, our ringleader, shared this Barbara Kingsolver quote with me last year:

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.”

I think this is what the Hedge Society is all about.

photo credit: rileyroxx