My artist friend Kim Zsebe had the incredible idea to create tiny pencil/watercolor/ink paintings of her facebook friends' profile photos. They look amazing in a big grid together, and I just had to share.
(Please click on the pic to enlarge.)
I think the coolest part was seeing how everybody she painted reacted to finding themselves in a little piece of art. By the look of all the positive comments she received, everyone was pretty thrilled to see how she had turned our grubby mugs into something quite beautiful. How intriguing to find our tiny digital profile pictures, just bits of data and pixels, translated into a tangible painting made with hands and paper and pigment.
Kim is ridiculously talented, and is offering custom paintings in her etsy shop. What a wonderful gift for mother's day, or as a special memorial, or for any loved one who already has everything. Not many people have the opportunity to own a custom piece of artwork at such an affordable price.
The Scribble Project posted my "scribble carriage" submission on their blog today. How cool! My little train car will (hopefully) be part of the Big Team Scribble, a huge collaboration of train cars scribbled up by doodlers everywhere and compiled into a coloring zine. Awesome. There's still time to submit to the project - check out the details here. And be sure to take a look at last year's amazing totem pole scribble collaboration.
I'm thrilled to bits to participate in Blog It Forward, a mashup of sorts organized (and man, did it take some organizing) by Victoria of sfgirlbybay. Really, I don't know how she figured it all out. (300 bloggers?! Eeep!) But all I know is that today is my day to talk about what inspires me.
And that, my friends, is ridiculously hard.
Especially hard because I certainly don't have enough space. I tried writing this post a couple of times yesterday, and nothing felt right. I always got the feeling that I was leaving something out, or that it was getting too wordy. You really don't want an essay on why my dog inspires me. Really, you don't.
So here. A mashup of what spewed from my head over the past couple of days. It's really just the tip of the iceberg. I will say that doodling/drawing/jotting down words has been my main source of creative energy these days, soooo.....
1) This week I'm participating in Blog It Forward, a "blogger mashup" hosted by the lovely and talented Victoria at sfgirlbybay. My assigned day is Friday, Feb 12, so keep an eye out for a post about things that inspire me. Seems simple enough, and should be fun.
2) I've been a busy girl and have lots of new jewelry to photograph for the shop. I'm also working on a custom order for a buyer, which I'm very excited about.
3) Dave is practicing his glass + fire skills using the "cracking off" technique to make us some cool drinking glasses and flower vases. This seems quite promising! I'll show the finished products later.
4) I'm keeping somewhat quiet about it, because I don't want to jump the gun, but we are veeeeeeery close to buying a house. Still some loose ends and details to wrap up. But to say that I'm excited would be an understatement. The margins of my work notebooks hold the truth concerning what's really been on my mind lately. If all goes well, you can be sure I'll have a lot more to say about that.
I don’t write about music much these days, but it’s an integral part of my life and I’d go mad without it (in fact, I really have been going mad without a piano to play for the past few years). And every once in awhile, an artist comes a long that gives me spine-tingling shivers, and I want to shout about it from the rooftops. I also want to hold it all in and protect it for my own. There’s a fierce pride that comes with treasuring the obscure (not that this is quite obscure any more). And so, if you haven't already heard...
A. A. Bondy. He has been on my radar for a couple years now, and the pulse of the radar only continues to grow stronger. When it comes to music, I'm normally I’m the type of listener who pays closer attention to the rhythm and instrumental parts of a song than to the lyrics. But my listening habits completely shifted when I first heard the song American Hearts.
Something about his presence made me listen harder than I ever had, to anyone, in a very long time. And then, in 2008, I heard him open for Bon Iver at Neumos in Seattle and my heart just about split open. I stood up front with my palms on the gritty stage and my eyes closed, feeling the vibration of the harmonica and the stomp of his boot in Vice Rag. He was vibrant and energetic, a little ragged around the edges -- and underneath you could tell he was just a guy with a guitar and more talent that could ever be measured by human standards. I had the thrill of watching him play again at the Tractor Tavern a couple weekends ago, and the energy level at the show was completely different. He was slower, more measured and relaxed, but still so passionate it gave me chills.
My current favorite song is I Can See The Pines Are Dancing. And to show just how obsessively my mind works, here’s a sketchbook page of my attempts at deciphering the lyrics. Kudos to Dave for figuring out “echo.” I played the song hundreds of times trying to figure it out. I'm still missing bits, and none of the lyrics I could find match up consistently with each other, so until I get a chance to ask the man himself it shall remain a mystery. I’ll end with Slow Parade (don't lose patience with the intro - it picks up gloriously around 1:30). It's a song that pulls and pulses and shuffles and lazily spins like a slow dance in a high school gym, and when it all stops you look around and realize that you haven’t moved a single inch.
If you’re craving more, HearYa (link above) has a lovely collection of live sessions and reviews, and the fuel/friends blog has a nice writeup. And remember to support the artist and buy the real thing from iTunes or Fat Possum Records.
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