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