P.S. Nice to see that the pills on the card I made pretty much survived the trip across the Atlantic.
No no, I'm not the one who is in Hawaii, it was my friend L and her partner in crime (and loooove). I received a cryptic text message from her on my b-day that the bufo was in the mail. I had no idea what she was talking about and she wouldn't give any more info. I cheated and googled bufo. A couple weeks later this arrived:
This sticker on the envelope is perhaps my favorite part of the whole package. I wish I knew who wrote it - was it someone back in Hawaii or was it someone here on the mainland who was seriously puzzled by what they were looking at? Oh the mystery of it all.
Here's a couple of "before" photos taken by L in Hawaii. She's got a whole great story about what an ordeal it was just to get this bad boy in the mail. It was worth it.
The theme for this mail art call is "an exhibition about socks and stockings". Not very interesting on the surface, but I do love me some socks. I love wearing fun socks. I only wear fun socks. Life is too short to wear plain socks, and it's waaay too short to wear plain white socks. Ugh. Not only do I love to wear fun socks (and of course buy fun socks and/or receive them as presents...or make them into hats), but I also enjoy knitting socks. I bet I've made around a dozen pairs in my day, three of those pairs being fancy knee highs. At any rate, I knit a mini sock for this piece of mail art. The length of the foot is around 2". It took me a couple of hours to knit, though admittedly I did it while watching tv so I wasn't always the most attentive to what I was doing. The sock and the backing card are now sealed in a clear sleeve and will be sent on their way to Germany.
Did I ever brag about finally finishing my first zine? Why not? I'm guessing cuz it happened during my extra busy summer. (Really, I am seeing that this fall is not nearly as calm and relaxing as last fall. I wish it was. I think a chunk of the problem is that I'm taking a class this fall and wasn't last fall.) Anyways, just in time for the Portland Zine Symposium, I finished the first issue of chickeney. It was a few years in the making, part of the problem being self-doubt (hilarious considering how eager I am to make the whole world look at my visual art) and part of it taking the time to do the production and layout.
I think it's not bad for a first try. (Brag: I even got a great blog mention!) I've sold several copies which is pretty exciting and which also reminds me that now I should be working on the second issue. I have some ideas of topics to write about, but lots of excuses about how I'm too busy to work on it. I do feel pretty stressed right now about getting things made to sell at holiday sales, so that is priority for me above things like zine making.
And speaking of being busy - why is it that people who do stuff do lots of stuff and people who do nothing never do anything? That's my obtuse way of pondering about how involved some people are in community and/or their own business and/or various hobbies, etc. while other people never do anything with their lives. My life is getting fuller of things that I do - I just got elected to the board of directors at my gallery, I'm putting on a juried gallery show about illness, I am participating in a small art-and-culture-promoting group, I attended a meeting about organizing a conference about sustainability and art (haven't decided yet if I'll let myself get roped into that one), I got a contract job working on a museum show. What am I thinking? Am I really capable of doing all of this? Why aren't there enough other people doing some of these things so I don't have to do all of them? I don't know, maybe I won't feel like it's too much stuff once I'm done with these holidays sales (and hopefully they will bring in enough $$ that I don't have to worry about finances). So that is my crisis these days, wondering if I am taking on too much in my life. I want to live life as much as possible so I don't have too many regrets when I am old, but I also have to look out for my well being in the here and now.
Today was all about Maker Faire here in Austin. I can't decide yet if I want to just write everything at once and put in a ton of photos or split it up or what. Probably split it up since I need a bit of organization to all I've seen. Today was the first day of the two-day festival and I'll be back there tomorrow.
I volunteered on Thursday and Friday and earned a free weekend pass. I would have been fine buying my own pass anyway, but I like putting in some time and bartering and feeling some ownership in the event. I worked in the "Book Store" building both days and did things like fold tshirts, arrange book displays, put on price tags, trash duty, and stuff shopping bags with ads. Mostly mindless and monotonous work (I'm amazed at all the tasks we have yet to automate considering how many jobs have been replaced by machines) but I'm totally fine with that.
More posts later, and of course some photos too!
