Pots to the People - Check! Fun and we raised just over $1000

Big Ink printmaking -  Check! 3 large prints are now drying in my office and I'm trying to figure out how best to get them framed. I am so very very proud of myself!

DRAGON - THE LAST PROJECT TO RULE THEM ALL. (or at least last project standing) Working in it! If JoAnns was still in business, or if I could find my sewing supplies, I'd be much further along in making the dragon body. Instead I wait for amazon to drop off a new rolly cutter, and piece together scrap fabric for the body as I wait. And also designed some 3D printed feet for the dragon which will take forever to print and will not fit the first time. But that's how I roll.

No photos yet of Dragon, but soon, Soooon my pretties, sooon.

14 days ago I went glamping/camping/crafting at an event called Figment Alpha. There I ran the first test of my lifesized Tsuro "Game of Dragons" game. And started making 2 more papercrafted/paper mache dragon heads. The game test informed some improvements. The heads are still a work in progress. (also while there I finally learned how to progress from a chain to the next step in crochet. That step took both 20 minutes and 50 years to learn.)

TOMORROW I have a fundraiser at the local beer garden. It's called Pots to the People, where we offer $35 handmade pottery items that come with a complementary drink ticket. We have 67 "pots" of various shapes & sizes. Funds raised support my non-profit Dover art league. I'm anxious but we're ready to rock it. I have 4 volunteers to help man the station! Also, the league is so fortunate to have on staff someone who translates my sketches/ideas to fabulous fliers. Check out this fab "power to the people" riff

The DAY AFTER TOMORROW I will be at the Delaware Contemporary Museum to print my first woodcarved block. Before then I need to sand and brush the board, but everytime I go to do that I start carving a bit more. I'm pretty sure the border isn't carved deep enough, but we shall find out Sunday! My ex is looking after my kid as I spend the day printing. I can't think of a better way to spend mother's day!

Loaner cat for scale. Also, shag carpet is great for hiding wood carving curls & scraps.

12 Days(ish) from now I go camping with 1200 of my best hippie friends. This is where we will play Human Sized Tsuro for real - I have it on the schedule for 1 or 2 hours every day. For that I am making a 10+ foot long dragon as decoration. It is SO NOT DONE. I so want to be spending all my time working on it but (see above) this weekend is already spoken for. Next Tuesday I'm working an election from 6AM-9PM. Today, and next Friday and Saturday I work my museum job. Arrrrgh, I just want to focus on Dragon! It is so not done that I don't even have photos. Le sigh, art life is stressful. But also wonderful and it keeps me busy,

In 21 days I print my first woodblock hand carved print at Big Ink at the Delaware Contemporary Museum in Wilmington. If it was tomorrow I would have something to print. It's done enough. But when is enough enough? I still want to crisp up some lines, clean out some chatter, and make Dante's coat better. (that's the character's name, Dante. With head on fire.)

I'm forcing myself to put that on hold for a week or two -- but not 3, because yo: 21 days til printing! Got other things to do: today is get the grant application to rebuild my Dover Art League's pottery studio submitted, and work on that Tsuro dragon game project that due in 5 days (see last post)

Anyway, some photos of the carved block, then I'm off the write my grant request.

April 23 - 6 days from now! I am bringing human sized Tsuro to Alpha. And apparently dragon crafting, because I told the coordinator that I would have crafting. I have a minimum viable version 90% complete! Minimum viable means:

1. rules (done. Printed and laminated)

2. 36 handheld tiles - done. Wood with lines burnt into each. Past Ursula made these on the laser cutter years ago for no particular reason. Yay past me!

3. 36 matching 2'x2' tiles - done. Cloroplast with vinyl lines

4. Mark the sets to match up the handheld & the large tiles -done as of tonight! 

5. Capes of various colors to mark the players - aquired from Amazon

6. Frame with start points marked - not started. Will be made from furring strips. I'm shooting for getting that done Sunday. 

Oh yeah, I also made a paper mache dragon head, but that's not really part of minimum viable. Still needs painting. I'll probably make that, and decorating the back of the tiles as the craft.

Photos:

The things I have to do. Note to get my thoughts in order.

As I'm apt to do, I committed to some things. Projects. Adventures. All these things have reasons and backstories. But now they are all lining up for attention and I need to make more of a schedule.

Tomorrow: Don't forget your doctors appointment! Also find a dentist & schedule an appointment!!

April 23 - 25 days from now I'm going to Alpha  which is kinda like adult summer camp for artists. I'm bringing human sized Tsuro board game, where humans are the pieces instead of pawns, which means I need to make supersized Tsuro. Also this will come with a side of dragon themed crafting. The things I still need to do for MINIMUM VIABLE is FINISH 35 human sized 2'x2' tiles. So far I've finished 1 and 5 quarter tiles. Probably won't work on it much until next week, but sometimes I'm inspired and get at it. One of the reasons I'm doing this project is to prep for Playa del Fuego (see below), which is towards the end of May.

May 1 - 33 days from now applications for Delaware's "Community Reinvestment Fund"  are due. I committed to putting in an application to revamp the Dover Art League's pottery studio. The room needs a floor without holes in it, and walls that reach the ceiling, less dumb use of space and other things of that ilk. Plan to get a draft grant request done this week. 

May 9 - 41 days from now is Pots to the People. I talked my Dover Art League into this fundraiser -- we are bringing 30-50 pottery pieces to the local brewpub. There we offer them up for $35 which includes a drink ticket. Check out the cool flyer/poster in the link - the Art League staff of creatives are amazing. I mentioned I wanted a "Power to the People" vibe, holding a mug, and wow. Anyway, now I just have to arrange staffing, signage, transport, and assist in getting all the pottery items made/glazed. This week, line up staffing. 

May 10 - 42 days from now is Big Ink at the Delaware Contemporary Museum. I have been following Big Ink for some time on Insta, and kept saying "if he ever comes to Delaware, I'm signing up!". Well, last fall I noticed he scheduled a Delaware date, so with some trepidation, I signed up. So yeah, working on that project. For Big Ink, you sign up to make a 2' x 3' or larger woodcut for printing. Mine is going to be Limbus Company fan art of a sort. I started carving a few days ago. This week: carve ~1hr per day.

May 23 - 52 days from now is Playa del Fuego. I'm bringing Dragon Themed Art project wich includes Human Sized T'suro and a 10' Dragon. I need to make a 10' dragon at some point between then and now. "Need" is the word here, because I applied for an art grant which included making the 10' Dragon. I got the grant, now I have to deliver. This week: do nothing more on this except the stuff mentioned for Alpha.

Late November 2026 - like 235 days from now I'm installing two large storefront windows for the Winter Window scene at, you guessed it, the Dover Art League. I decided one of the two windows will be a 10' hibernating dragon. Which is why Playa del Fuego art grant was for a dragon, which led to Tsuro and then Alpha. I hope 235 days is enough for it all to come together. (There is also a second window, which I plan to be Snow Queen themed)

oh yeah, I also have a date in a couple of weeks. I wonder if he'd be up for making a paper mache dragon instead of, dunno, dinner & a movie. 

So resolutions: is that still a thing? It's Ephiphany already so guess I should get mine out there.

I don't really have resolutions, I more do goal setting. 

Goal 2026.1 - See the milky way with my naked eyes. This means finding a place with minimal light polution on a moonless night. There are darksky maps to aid with this. I have not planned a trip for this, I'm simply stating this as a 2026 goal.

Goal 2026.2 - Read the following books

1. Yi Sang - The Wings + Crow's Eye View << this on in particular is proving hard to source. I might have to settle for something else by him
2. Johann Wolfgang Goethe - Faust, a tragedy in two parts
3. Miguel de Cervantes - The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha
4. Ryunosuke Akutagawa - Hell Screen
5. Albert Camus - The Stranger
6. Cao Xueqin - Dream of the Red Chamber (also known as Story of the Stone)
7. Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
8. Herman Melville - Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
9. Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime and Punishment
10. Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy
11. Hermann Hesse - Demian, the Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth
12. Homer - The Odyssey

Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis is also on the list, or lets say crossed off this list as I read it last month. 

Why these particular titles you might ask? Well, my kid got me into this video game and the main characters of the game are the characters from each of these books. (Except Yi Sang, who is the writer. Maybe he writes about himself? I guess I will find out.) 

I mentioned to my bookish fam this list about 2 months ago. And the books started showing up. This is about half of them - the rest are scattered about the house. An item of note not shown in the photo: CM Adams gifted my kid the almost complete works of Hesse and they are now ensconced in her bedroom. That "The Age of Goethe" book I found in my garage and though the commentary is in English, the Faust (errr, UrFaust actually) is in German. So that doesn't help me much. 

I anticipate a number of future posts will be about progress on this goal. 

I *know* I always feel good when I finish a project. Why do I instead sit on my butt most days and let inertia settle in? Dunno. But anyway, today I did a thing.

Sometime back I ordered some fast fashion for next to free from one of those websites. I can't remember if it was Shein, or Ali Express, or Temu or whatever. I have a young teen, who sometimes NEEDS OMG NEEEEEEDS! something or other from such a site. Sometimes I acquiesce to the need, then typically pad the order with several too-cheap-to-be-real items. And sometimes those items are clothes. But sizing is a crapshoot. I used to order off the site's sizing list, but almost always it came in too small. So I size up these days. Of the 5 dresses ordered, 1 went straight to goodwill (cause it felt like it was made from a shower curtain), 2 pretty much fit, 2 were sized for a MUCH heftier body than mine. And the one pair of pants were cut for a 6ft tall person. Ok, maybe a 5'11" person - and I'm 5' even.

And today, a mere 3 weeks after they arrived, and 2 days after retrieving the sewing machine from the depths of my basement, I hemmed the pants and took in the oversized dresses. The fun thing about altering cheap clothes is there is no pressure to get it perfect. I did not get it perfect - but it's perfect enough to wear. Yay me!

Tomorrow I'm hemming some sweatpants I've have for 3 years that I love but are 1" too long. And I also hemmed a pair of shorts for a neighbor. Doing the things!

So I'm feeling good about life just now (despite being stood up for a scheduled call). I think I'll get some wine and play Baldurs Gate.

Checkout the glorious pattern on this pair of $6.81 pants! (I looked it up. SHEIN.) And that straight hem!

<< part of my continuing series recording memories to assure myself I've actually been to the places I think I've been to>>

I'm doing New York in two parts. This part is just about the New York City area. At some time in the future I may write about the not-NYC part of New York. 

Excelsior is Latin for “Higher.” And the NY state motto. Now you know.

Despite growing up just 3 hours south of New York City, it was never an experience for me as a child. NYC was that far away overwhelming dangerous big city. Nevermind that we went to DC a lot,  Philly sometimes, and Baltimore upon occasion -- I do not have one childhood memory of going to NYC.

My first NYC memory is when I was about 19 and I had an interview in NYC for some summer internship (that I didn’t get). I stayed with my cousin who lived in Brooklyn, navigating my own way via Amtrak & subway. By this point I’d already spent time in Madrid and maybe London - city transit did not intimidate. About that same age - maybe a year plus or minus, I met up with a few friends in Manhattan. We went to my first Broadway play - something forgettable with Mark Hamilin (yes, of Star Wars fame) as the lead called. . . queue me going on a google dive to find the name . . .yes, found it THE NERD 1987-88. That would have made me 18. I remember it as it was my first NYC play. And I remember noticing how the sidewalk of Broadway sparkled in the night light. I thought then, as I do now, that more sidewalks should be sparkly. 

Across the years I’ve had a number of trips to NYC. I've had a work meeting or two there; a work meeting or two just outside the city that I would tack on a day or two to visit into the city. Plus a few other personal trips here and there. One that sticks out in mempry: while I was living in San Franciso, 3 of us gals did a weekend in NYC in November 2008. We ate our way through top chef restaurants, went to night clubs and speakeasy style bars. It was wonderful and we felt so chic doing the cross continental weekend trip to the Big Apple. Here, a photo of us at Buddakan. 

In January 2017 CM Adams ​​​​​​​ invited me to this event in NYC (well, Brooklyn) called Zlatne Uste Golden Fest. It became a mini-reunion as a few other college friends joined; we’d do the event and then some city tourist things. I must shout: ZLATNE USTE GOLDEN FEST IS THE BEST PARTY. Rooms of music, tons of dancing, great food, fancy fancy location “Grand Prospect Hall”.

I ended up going back 2018, 2019, 2020 and then it didn’t happen in the Pandemic years. The venue got sold and demolished. Very sad :-( I thought the Golden Fest would become one of those awesome things in my past, never to experience again. However, it appears they have found a new location and it will happen this May 2024! Same bat party, new bat venue! I just got tickets & bringing my kiddo!  WOOT WOOT. Also WOOOOOT.

Just last fall I did a 3 night jaunt to NYC to see the Broadway revival Sweeney Todd - the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I was only vaguely aware of this musical, but a friend really really wanted to see it. I was happy to join her and have an excuse to visit the city. The musical was great. The eateries we went to were great. The Brooklyn Museum was well worth it. Consuming too many mimosas (because we couldn’t find any Bloody Marys) and talking about art for hours was definitely worth it. It’s always great to have an excuse to visit NYC. I’m glad I have another one coming up soon.

So yes, New York City. Been there.

As the years go by, my lack of memory intensifies. I can no longer recall which memories I recorded for this project. 

Can’t you just look up what you’ve written? Well sure, except I’m on a plane on my way to Los Angeles for a mini-vacation. And I don’t want to spend the $29 for wifi. I’m reading a book that mentions sound & light at 40Hz can improve brain function in mice. Maybe in mice and men? I’m thinking I might make one of my LED strip flash at 40 hz and see if that does anything other than annoy me.

But I’m pretty sure I did NOT record Oregon yet, so here goes.

This same 40Hz book mentioned memoirs aren't just recorded memories, they are reflections on learning from those memories. I will endeavor to be more reflective, but for now just MEMORIES of OREGON, not a Memoir.

Oregon. I don’t know its motto since again, NO WIFI. That will have to be a learning from a future time. 

Portland Oregon is a town I went to a few times for work, I’m thinking around 2007-2009. At the time, there was an Antiques and World Goods shop there that I really enjoyed owned by Stalin’s niece (maybe great-niece). It was called Monkey something. I bought a spirit house and some corded dragons there, and some Indonesian style puppets which I gifted to my mother. Later, when she passed, my cousin asked for them and displays them in her house to this day. This store is no longer in business - I looked. They have that massive bookstore Powell's which wasn’t as magical as I had expected. They have a hot-chocolate shop - like a coffee shop but for hot chocolate - a different interesting experience. I remember noticing there were more folks with dreadlocks than I was used to seeing in San Francisco or elsewhere.

Eugene Oregon is a town I went to a few times for work in the 90s. I recalled microbreweries and a campus art museum that I never got around to visiting. The work there was at a semiconductor factory, the only semiconductor factory I’ve ever been to. It was super clean and they certainly used some different equipment than the power plants and water treatment plants I was more used to. ALSO, I just remembered, this was the site of the worst car accident of my life. I was a passenger in a car driven by my boss and we were t-boned on our way to the kickoff meeting. No one was hurt but the rental car was totaled. Boss was super shook-up. I popped into the nearby drugstore to get a disposable camera as this was well before cell phone cameras. And documented the carnage, which turned out to be useful in the ensuing insurance issues. I remember two weeks later when I came back to continue the software implementation, the rental car folks were all “Hi, we remember you!”

Just this year I went with my brother and cousins to Oregon for a nature/hiking vacation. We visited Crater Lake National Park which was cool. Crossed the border to Lava Beds National Monument - which is more about caving than surface lava beds. Also cool - well actually it was super hot. But interesting! And we hiked/rafted the Rouge River. We had an outfitter who arranged the trip which was a 40 or so miles hiking along the river, with stays at lovely lodges every night. And if you decided you didn’t want to hike you could ride the supply raft on the river instead, I opted for about 60% hiking, 40% rafting. It was a very enjoyable experience and I’m thinking I’ll do more outfitter supported multi day trips in future years.

Ok so, I’ve been to Oregon. Check!

When I lived in New Orleans, there was this sketchy run down convenience store around the corner for me. My neighborhood was in that transitional space between genteel and super-rough. I recall when we bought the house and asked about the crime in the area the response was "It's fine! There hasn't been a murder in this block for at least a year!" The convenience store was run by folks of a far east persuasion -- I'm pretty sure vietnamese. It was the type of place that had 2 dusty cans of all the staples and was always out of milk. It kept weird hours and had bars on the windows/doors. It also had a food counter. The only two things I recall from the menu was Fried Chicken and Special Soup. I never knew the soup name - it was just "soup" on the menu - or maybe they said the name but I didn't catch it.

At the time I was young and brave enough to try random dishes from sketchy places. The soup was the most amazing soup I've ever had. Complex broth, melt in your mouth beef, spaghetti noodles, a hard boiled egg, plus scallions I think thrown on top after it was ladled into the togo container. After I moved away from New Orleans, I assumed that I would never have this soup again. I thought it was a specialty of that store's cook, and it was to just be a cherished culinary memory.

I learned its name just recently - it's apparently a traditional New Orleans hangover soup called "Ol' Sober" or "Yakamein". It's a mashup of Chinese and Cajun cooking, and this weekend it showed up as a New York Times recipe! NYT recipes are firewalled but here’s a different link. Or, that same link with just the recipe and no chitchat. (I learned last week that if you put cooked.wiki in front of any web recipe, it distills out the recipe, removing the color commentary & ads. Neat.)  I'm quite keen on making Yakamein as a day-after dish for the next big shindig in my life. Or maybe just the next time the family gets together. 

So anyway, another Louisania memory to say yes, indeed, I've been to Louisiana. Check that one off the list twice.