See No, Hear No, Speak No....

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Originally uploaded by joannacraddock

MJ, me, and Carolyn as the proverbial monkeys (only less hairy) at the Living Arts event in Tulsa.

'Tis the Season to Socialize

In November there was Champagne and Chocolate at Livings Arts, in Tulsa. MJ, Carolyn, and I made the trek for a lovely evening filled with - what else? - champagne and chocolate. And tasty savory food and much delightful art. Jenan was once again a ceramic corset model, and chocolate profferer.
The following day, Tony's folks arrived from Ireland to attend a real old-fashioned American Thanksgiving dinner, and Tony's graduation from medical school.



Somewhere along the way I had one of 'those' days, in which everything seemed a little awkward and off-kilter. These two spills happened within 10 minutes of each other.



So, in a nutshell, there was Thanksgiving in Duncan, Tony's graduation, Paseo Art Walk - cut short in order to get Tony to his surprise party at Istvan Gallery, where a fantastic assortment of friends and family had gathered to wish him well and congratulate him. After the initial shock (and venting by calling me a dirtbag (albeit with a smile)), he got into the swing of things and a grand, grand time was had by all. Photos here soon, perhaps, but already on fb. Then there was the Christmas parade in Stockyards City, featuring a herd of longhorns rumbling down the street; dancing to the divine, golden age music at Ingrid's Kitchen, and various other escapades that escape me at the moment.
Though the folks were here for Sara's winter orchestra concert at Classen SAS, they flew away early the next morning, no doubt to carry back to Eire tales of the rambunctious, party-a-minute lifestyle we're living out here in the wild west. ;)
They were not here for the Christmas Exhibition at Arctic Edge Ice Rink, in which Sara skated a lovely solo, and then teamed up with Jared for an enchanting duet, skated to "Once Upon A December."
They've taken the show on the road, so to speak, and have skated it twice at the outdoor, downtown ice rink. A few more performances may happen before the year ends.

November has begun delightfully. Tony and I spent some time at the Girlie Show Friday night (my birthday), which may have been a bit too loud and crowded, but at least we can say we've done it now. Saturday we ventured up to Tulsa for breakfast at Queenie's, a browse through junk and antique shops, and a peek at the "Vintage Show", which, as far as I can figure, is Tulsa's version of Buchanan's Antiques Market. Only not every month, like we get it here in OKC.
Sunday I did my duty for IAO's Red Dot publicity campaign, posing with one of several Red Dot sculptures installed around the city. Erin, the organizer, asked me to wear something 'fun and costumey'. Shockingly, as I gazed at my wardrobe, nothing looked like a costume at all. Whatsoever. Sara's Halloween get-up was hanging outside her bedroom, however, so I nabbed that instead. Well, the skirt, stockings, boots, and wig are mine, but I'm wearing her blouse, vest, and jacket.

And as seen below, I won the coveted, first-ever title of Red Cup WinterSquash Queen! Yes, I'm still giddy with excitement. (In the picture I'm bending to retrieve a chandelier crystal that had fallen off my crown.)


As of tomorrow - Oklahoma Arts Institute, Quartz Mountain! Will I be taking some photos? You bet, baby.

success?

I read somewhere that to be successful, a blog needs to be updated twice weekly, at the very least. well, at least I'm successful in some areas.......

Recent activities: mixed media painting/collage for IAO's upcoming Red Dot auction. I'm not too proud to admit I've become rather attached to this piece, and will set a reserve if given the option. (Click to enlarge, if you're interested in details.)

This painting is called "Miss Jeannie", after the homeless kitty who inspired it. By the night of Sit.Stay.ART event, all the animals except one had found real homes. Hooray. I just hope Miss Jeannie's new people look after her real good.

Next, a silhouette inspired by Annie and Bindlestiff Willie, for "Out of Sight", an IAO exhibit geared toward those with vision impairments. A challenge, to say the least, but an enjoyable one.


And lastly, a wee possum playing possum, after snacking on leftover cat food.

Busy weekend, and beyond

A cat painting in the works for Sit.Stay.Art; a painting accepted for the upcoming "Out of Sight" exhibit at IAO, and Plaza Festival coming up tomorrow. In the morning, 11 am til 1 pm, come see me at the Spirit Fest, First Presbyterian Church, NW 25th and Western, Oklahoma City. All kinds of free and festive things will be going on, including my body painting.
After that, pop down to see me at the amazing Plaza District Festival, NW 16th between Classen and Pennsylvania. That one doesn't begin until 3 pm (lucky for me), but it carries on till 11, with music, open studios, artists, performers, and who knows what else. I won't be sticking around all night, but as long as there's enough light to see what I'm painting, and enough people around, I'll be there. Besides body painting, I'll have my necklaces, charms, pendants, and brand new shawl pins on offer.

A Gorgeous Beginning to September

People may grumble about clouds and rain and gray days and cool winds and no sunshine, but not me, baby. I love it. I eat it up! Maybe not eternally, but in a place known for mild (hot) weather and no end of sun, I embrace these cloudy cozy days.
My autumn plans included some private parties, some possible art openings (well, definite art openings, but possibly containing my art on the walls), the Plaza Festival, Oct. 3, and the Peace Festival, mid-November. The latter part of all that has changed today, with a phone call. The Oklahoma Arts Institute down at Quartz Mountain has contacted me about modeling for a portrait painting workshop, and having just spoken about the event a week ago with someone else, I simply couldn't say no to this opportunity.
Having checked the website of the artist giving the workshop, I'm ever so impressed, and hopeful that by osmosis I might take away a wee grain of inspiration.
Anyway, with the weather, I've been channeling Bohemia lately.

Here Comes Autumn

The sun is still warm on bright days, but as evening air cools and thins, I know it'll soon be time to dust off the cozy layers, and the stockings, and maybe even hats and armwarmers, in preparation for the season of Scorpiofest. I can't help but be happy.
Of course, I'd be a smidge more happy to acquire an old canoe, like this. We were treated to a glimpse of the Red Cup employees and friends Labor Day bash this weekend, in the wild woods outside of Stroud. A beautiful, peaceful place, with a little pond I could drift on for hours. Or better yet, take photographs, sketch, lounge, and sip a drink while Tony does all the work. ;)



A visit to the antiques market was a fun diversion Saturday afternoon. Several old patterns (both sewing and knitting/crochet), magazines, 2 photos, 2 tiny tins, a pair of battered old fedoras, and a mannequin head all found their way home with me.

This was a lazy day (after a 7:30 am client for me, and an early hours run for Tony). We cooked an egg, onion, cheese scrambled, sipped some French pressed Columbian coffee, lounged a bit, then eventually took a drive out and about, ending up at the book shop for a coffee and shared pretzel. (B&N wasn't our choice, but seemed to be the only coffee joint opened today.)
As the sun lowered behind the magnolia, leaving the front step in cool shade, we cooked a couple garden burgers on the mini charcoal grill. And a foil packet containing broccoli and sliced red onions. Mmmm. Maybe I'll come back and edit in the photos once I retrieve them from the camera. Or maybe I'll just incorporate them into the next post.

Lovely Rainy Day

When I don't have to work (Tuesdays, mostly) I get to play with my wardrobe. Today, after having spent time recently catching up on the vintage forum at Fedora Lounge, I decided to wear my new silk dress. And some pearls, because why not? After coffee at the Red Cup, I hated to go home, but didn't like to go shopping & risk spending money, so the best option was a damp stroll through the cemetery, camera in hand.

I wonder if faeries are buried beneath cemetery mushrooms?


Then there's the kitten Sara picked up in the street last week. She calls it Esther (all sounds pronounced; if you sound like Sylvester when you say it, you're doing it right.) I'm all about another name, at least one for me to use, but nothing has come to me yet, which is odd. It seems perfectly fine to call her kitten, little thing, wee thing, etc. I liked the idea of a literary name. Hopefully I'll discover it soon.

Even if you don't believe it, I really do have all sorts of works in the works around here, just nothing quite completed yet. So I took the camera and a fresh eye, & captured a few old pieces of art gathering dust around the house. There are more than this, but picnik has been freezing my computer during editing; I think my images are too big.
And before you give me grief, yes, I KNOW wings and hats are way, way overdone. Or at least they were last year. They are definitely de trop, and one can only hope maybe, finally, out of vogue. But my winged circus babe collage on cardboard was created in 2002, so maybe I'm forgiven.

Quickie update: I went to Colorado, car didn't break down, weather was gorgeous, scenery was magnificent, cool nights, fog, fireplace, vandalism and eerie noises from wild animals; Sara competed in the National State Games (or something like that, I'm no good at remembering titles); got home safely.

Body painting parties, wiffle ball game, working on several art projects that I don't like to show until they're complete. Here's a hint though - one (maybe two) is an entry for a show designed for the visually impaired, no color allowed! Now that's a challenge.
Last Monday night, just as she was leaving to hang with her pals, Sara knocked on the door and presented me with the wee beast you see below. Said it was wandering around in the street, in the dark, just asking to get knocked over. Beast is a girl, soft, scruffy, skinny, sweet as can be. And still here, obviously.

In the mail; I worked out my budget to allow for a replacement of the Canon Rebel, and even found a silver-bodied one on Ebay, silver being hard to find, and more expensive on the rare occasion it does turn up. Package arrived today - hooray! So these pics may be the last you see for a while, taken with the Sony. I have to refamiliarize myself with the Canon, of course, but that will be a pleasure.
The other week, the most charming, sweet little surprise arrived in the post - this delightful eensy Trollflings snail! Isn't it the bee's knees?

On The Road, Briefly

What have you missed by not being me? The teen finally getting her license to drive, after two consecutive, early morning trips to the DMV; the teen actually buying bits at a salvage shop and installing them on her car (impressive); Tony and me using random nuts and bolts and washers from Ace Hardware to put my gearshift together again; a paper parasol in the afternoon sun; face painting happy, upper middle class birthday kids, & face painting 'life isn't fair' emergency shelter kids; a dead cat; Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art school, July edition.




Tomorrow morning I hit the road for the high country. That's right, Colorado here I come. Only for a quickie though; the now-driving child (who is NOT driving on this trip) is off to the ice skating national competition at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs. She's actually traveling with her coach, staying in a hotel all week, and that sort of thing, while I'm driving to mother's digs in the foothills of the Spanish Peaks. I'll dangle around the quiet mountain town for a day or two, then head for the Springs to watch Thursday's competition. Must drive home Friday though, as I've a job Saturday, body painting at the Bethany Library's ice cream social. Ya'll come.

Moliere

One good thing about starting over (I'm trying hard to be positive here), is you don't have to wade through tons of photos when looking for images to upload. The latest text pendants are a mix of Tennessee Williams ("Streetcar Named Desire"), and Moliere, translated of course.

A matter of perspective

Yes, my new Canon Rebel is gone, along with my computer filled with years' worth of photos and a lot of music. Yes, the car we just bought for Sara requires over $700 in repairs to be roadworthy, so yes, I could sit in the corner, in a nasty, bitter mood.
Or, I could look on the bright side of things.
Saturday night, instead of moaning about the sudden storms that brought rain and lightning, throwing a spanner into some July 4th celebration plans (not mine), I delighted in the cool downpour that's been too long in coming. I also popped down the street, where our pals Stephen and Christina were throwing an 8-track party, no doubt inspired by the hijinx Tony and I sometimes get up to on long weekend nights. Little did I know, the 8-track thing was just a ruse, a lure to ensure my attendance. It turns out a collection of my friends, old and new, near and far, had cleverly conspired to bring me to tears with the presentation of a laptop of my very own! Amazing. So here I sit connected to world again. Friends are priceless.
I have no photos to share, but if you wander around Facebook you just might see a few from the party.
Now, a cool-ish, bearable day is beckoning, so I think I'll contemplate the mysteries of life in the dangly chair, with a good book.

An act of theft

Laptop, camera, purse with all important contents, cell phone, all brazenly taken out of my house while I worked in the front yard. No pictures for a while............

I haven't vanished

Continued to have photo uploading frustrations, so I've neglected my little blog in favor of more tactile expressive endeavors. But I've done a bit of redesigning and who knows, that may lead to more activity and updates.
Meanwhile, I can always be found on flickr, on facebook (as clarissa sharp),
and around the neighborhood, having fun and trying to beat the heat.

Paseo Arts Festival!

Camera issues are solved, but Blogger issues maybe not. I would have been back earlier if things hadn't gone wonky whilst trying to share photos last week. Maybe you'll see these, maybe not; it's pretty certain you won't see all the ones I wanted to share, but there you go. No time to mess with it further, as tomorrow is the start of Paseo Arts Festival - a three day extravaganza of artists, performers, galleries, cafes, musicians, etc. all along The Paseo, Oklahoma City. In fact, I shouldn't even be here typing when my tent is still there in the front porch rather than being set up in its designated area down the street.
Come see me, and maybe I'll tell you about these photos there.....

Not Lost...

...just doing stuff. And experiencing camera issues. I originally chalked it up to one bad disc, but as the unpredictability continued - unpredictably - I had to conclude it's either the camera itself, or the new breed of mini cds available. It's not always a big deal, but when 20 teens have gathered in a secret secluded castle of a home, all eager for creative prom night photos, and more than half of them mysteriously vanish (photos, not teens), one realizes just how disappointing it is for a piece of technology to malfunction. As someone who relies in more ways than one on visual stimulation and expression, I accepted it was time to bite the budget bullet and purchase a new camera. After a bit of research, I went with Abe's of Maine (cleverly located in New Jersey), for quick service and free shipping. The Rebel Xsi was ordered Monday, and arrived on my doorstep Thursday. I have much exploring to do, which will be more a pleasure than a chore.
One of the first photo ops came this morning; at the gate of my 7:30 client, I reached out the car window to punch in the entry code, and noticed a pale green fluttering in the pansies. Could it be an elusive luna moth? I left the car to investigate and that's just what it was. But so sad - frantically scrambling, awkward, damaged, unable to fly. So beautiful, so doomed. I collected it and laid it in the passenger seat, hoping it would calm down (or die, to be honest, since I didn't want the dilemna of considering a mercy kill). It settled in the shade of a magazine, where I hoped it would stay while I spent an hour with the client. After that hour, I peeked carefully into the makeshift grotto of the car seat, to discover the moth was gone. Checked that I hadn't sat on it, or that it wasn't about to be crushed on the floor, but it was nowhere in sight. Now there's not a chance it would have flown away, with an entire hind wing missing (bird attack, I presume), so I drove away, figuring I'd give the car a thorough search when I got home. A few blocks down 23rd street I cleverly avoided an accident when I turned my head to the right and caught a startling glimpse of big green moth wing perched on the headrest. Yikes! It stayed there while I shopped for groceries, carried on home, went inside to fetch the shiny new camera (I opted for a silver body 'cos I think it looks classy and camera-like; Tony says it looks cheap), returned to the car, stopped Booger climbing in, and took a few photos.

Later I played with roly polies on mica.


Last Sunday was Dr. Sketchy again. I only attempted a few photos with the old camera, most of which seemed a bit unsatisfactory. This pose is one of my favorites, an not just because I covet the corset.


The moth is still hanging out in my car and I don't know what to do with it, poor thing.

Art, Life, and Music

Spring has sprung, the world outside is full of rainbow hues and lush greens, making it awfully hard to stay indoors long enough to accomplish much. But I have several projects on the go and they're coming along nicely. A bit of distraction came in today's mail, in the form of a surprise package from my pal Corrina, girl from the North Country. It's the Edward Gorey oracle, The Fantod Pack. Now, while I consider myself quite the Gorey aficionado, clearly I'm not obsessive, because I didn't know such a thing existed. Imagine the fun I'll soon be having, interpreting cards with symbolisms that include spasms, champerty, wispiness, loss of saliva, morbid sensibilities, an accident in an elevator, hangnails, loss of eyelashes, mumbling sickness, cafard, rust, a forged snapshot, barratry, misconstruction, and pique. How will I ever get any work done now?
Thanks Corrina, you're a dark, kohl-eyed peach.
Perhaps the cards' timely arrival today was a portend of my gardening discovery:
In more lively news, Sunday afternoon I made it to the art museum to take in Harlem Renaissance on its last day. The art, photographs, and film were all amazing. I lost track of time watching footage of Josephine Baker as she sang, danced, shimmied, & bubble-bathed her way through the 1920s.
The day was rounded out with a stellar performance by Jason Webley, master of funky, punky, melancholy originality. Accordion, guitar, audience orchestra, poetry, and a bit of story time too. You can find him on YouTube; here's a link to get you started: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3M0fhFwL2k&feature=related

Jazz Books

I don't have too many books, just haven't arranged the ideal storage system yet. Nothing quite equals the feeling of getting fresh books in the mail.

Byron in the Attic

When your attic is in three parts: the attic, the way-up attic, and the way-back attic, it's not hard to lose track of certain items in your possession.
Looking for something this afternoon (I can't remember what now), I found myself in the way-back attic, my head between the dangling light bulb and the box I was digging in making it awkward to know exactly what I was finding.
It was a box mostly of books from my grandmother's house, including a Somerset Maugham reader that I'm happy to have found. This tattered, epic volume of BYRON'S POETICAL WORKS, though, hadn't been hers. At least I think not. Though I barely remember having seen it before, my suspicion is it came from one of the Friends of the Library book sales, and found itself tucked into the attic for safekeeping. Despite the rag-taggy condition, isn't it handsome? Despite the foxing, aren't these engraved portraits wonderful?

And the gold embossing and marbling - simply delicious! I don't like to handle it too much, for fear of causing bits to fall off, but I'm glad to let it see the light of day again. At least for a little while.

Saturday, before the rains came, we had a picnic just outside the kitchen door. This is the best time of year for such things - no bugs yet! Well, a few flies, but moving the cat food dishes (empty thought they were) a couple yards away distracted them from our repast.

Cupcake Violation, and Art

Nice to have Medieval Fair behind me once again. In classic OK spring festival tradition, it was too much to hope for three days of decent weather; Friday was pleasant (though the school kid crowd was noticeably smaller this year), Saturday was okay, despite the wind. Nothing was destroyed by it, and sun & mild temps encouraged lots of patrons to descend upon the park, keeping me nonstop busy for 8 hours or so. Sunday morning, I woke to a fierce north wind, clanking trees against the house, giving me a feeling of trepidation, along with a strong urge to stay in bed. I didn't, of course. Got up, packed my gear, including a couple of foil-wrapped samosas in case I had a chance to eat sometime during the day. Saturday night Tony had valiantly ventured to Cuppies & Joe, fetching me a three-pack of cupcakes, one of which I consumed on the spot. The other two were intended to create a moment of tastebud bliss at some point during the remainder of the weekend. If you snooze you lose, apparently, because as you can see from the crime scene photo, my cupcakes were quite violated in the night. The cellophane wrapper brutally ripped open and frosting devoured, tongue-lick by tongue-lick, by a phantom sweet tooth.

As if that wasn't a disappointing enough start to the day, at the end of my thirty-minute drive to Norman, I was greeted by the sight of my canopy frame in a twisted, tangled mass, fabric sides flapping pathetically in the strong gusts. Not much to do but pick up the scraps and go home. I console myself by thinking there wouldn't have been much business on such a raw day, but then I suspect I probably would have earned enough to buy a new canopy.....
And here's a caveat in the "be careful what you wish for" vein: that morning, as I was putting on my medieval clothes, Tony was smartening himself up with a tie and such, preparing to go to church. I said, "when you're there, why don't you pray for this stupid wind to stop." He replied to the effect if the wind's blowing, it's meant to blow, which wasn't the consolation I was seeking, so he acquiesced and agreed to pray. Turns out he didn't address the wind issue, but simply hoped I'd have an easier day. Reading Scott and Zelda's letters, napping for an hour, then having a Frito pie at Red Cup is certainly easier than spending 11 hours battling the elements, but still.....
I'd like to do more atcs.