... because usually you get a porn site, but I was looking for artspan (dot com) and instead typed artspan (dot org) and lo, behold, and all that jazz, I stumbled across all these fantastic bay area artists who had recently exhibited work in their open studios.
they remind me, of course, of Wayne Thiebaud. I love Thiebaud's paintings, but pictures don't really get the whole idea across. Up close, they're all shiny like cream cheese frosting and the gallery security staff pace around muttering "please do not lick the paintings." Here are some of his:
I'm posting from work as a standby painter on a movie, my posh gig for the week. I occasionally have to run to set and patch a nail hole, but otherwise am left to my own devices: paid to blog, read, write, eat catered food, and take naps.
Glamorous Hollywood! I knew I would find it someday.
Happy holidaze!
Advice for the new year: don't make any resolutions you really don't want to keep.
I think my computer is trying to tell me something.
First, there was the Johnny Appleseed note.
"Dear Kate, Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. Take care, John Appleseed."
Thanks, John.
And then there was Pandora.
"Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features electric rock instrumentation, mild rhythmic syncopation, minor key tonality, electric rhythm guitars and an unintelligible vocal delivery."
Then there was iPhoto.
Hm. Not sure how this all ties together ..
With this I conclude day nine of my annual ten day fast, having scoured all illogical places in my apartment (the refrigerator, inside books, the newspaper recycling, the cat food cabinet) for the Netflix flick I need to return, to no avail.
It reminds me of this old Sandra Boynton mug that was in our family for years (who has it now? I don't know, but I should be up for my turn at it, along with the abstract Maziarz painting my parents got as a wedding present. To me it's always been a furniture store. If you ever see the painting, you should be armed with the knowledge that I was nearsighted by age five).
Oh how I wish I could find a picture of the mug. It was purple and saturated with hippos fornicating in every possible configuration.
Wonder how much it would fetch on eBay? But really, I doubt we could ever part with it ...
Natalie brought me to an amazing sushi/potluck Thanksgiving. I spent much time in the kitchen making the sushi, thus ensuring a repeat invite next year. Someone contributed a turkey with a duck in it (this I discovered in conversation, not by inspecting its innards). There was a sacrificial fire in a welded flower firepit made for the occasion, and the hostess introduced this thanksgiving ritual: everyone wrote on a little paper something he or she was thankful for (the French have a gender neutral pronoun that doesn't turn you into an inanimate object. I suppose I'm not keeping with the Thanksgiving spirit by being pissy about it, but it's necessary to sublimate one's disgust surrounding the history of the holiday if one wants to have a proper, celebratory Thanksgiving anyway; so best I merely expel my pissiness on pronouns and get on with things) .. on etait thankful for. (maybe that's right. it's been only about eighteen years since I studied French. And I doubt the French let you stick a preposition at the end of a sentence either.)
Anyway, then we each took a rose petal (representing things for which to be grateful) and a piece of a smashed up coconut (ego, things to be let go) and were instructed to approach the fire, say a little prayer if desired, and drop the lot inside. "I ate my ego" said one guest, en route to the fire. I had taken a small piece of coconut, broken it in half and returned part of it, concerned there wouldn't be enough to go around. Oops.
Yesterday I went on the lunch ride at Sunset Ranch with Sharon and Lou and various members of their entourage. Appropriately, I rode a mustang who wouldn't stay in a single file line and, as a parting gesture, smashed me into a solid wall of rock.
So I worked on this Burger King commercial awhile ago, and it's a big YouTube hit.
Here's the commercial:
It goes by pretty quickly, so now check out some photos of the dojo and environs, complete with ladders and paint equipment:
(not me in the condor with the silly hat)
all the wires you see below, snaking around the foo dogs, are fx cables with which things got knocked around during the chicken kicking.
mostly, my job was to age the doors and the (don't call them lions!) foo dogs:
Well, that was fun! I don't often get to see my stuff finished .. which is fine, since you can't inspect the afternoon's worth of aging on the foo dogs in the nanosecond the chicken kicks Big Foo's head off .. (par for the course) .. and that actually was a special breakaway foo dog, which was covered with new plaster and didn't take the paint very well so looked shoddy anyway. boo. Well, they pay me all the same. You see the photos of the nice ones. Wish I could show you the reference, but it's covered in paint and dust, stuck under a rock or in a tree, or in the back of some folder of Blaise's, or at the shop with a paint can ring in the middle, or maybe the art director's got it. I can't find anything like it on the web.
It was a million degrees out that day. Everyone was whining, epitome of workaholism Blaise included. Local people (unphased by the sweltering dust pit and, evidently, by gravity) kept arriving to climb a rock we had co-opted for the paint department's use of its shade; they left, then, miserably. (Thanks, spell-check. Wouldn't have guessed "unfazed" is the way you write that. but I much prefer it this way.)
On a completely unrelated note, or mostly unrelated to people who live here, but quite related to those who live in a world entirely outside of the black hole that is the film industry:
Are you confused about why the WGA is on strike? Never fear.
read this. (oops, gone.)
and/or this. (gone too. It happens ... )
and/or (especially, although it helps to be previously informed by other sources as to what the bickering is all about) this (not really written in 1969, I'll guess), in which the writer makes eloquent and very appropriate use of the word "sophistry."
or, if you are very lazy, at least watch this:
Negotiations resume next week. Let's hope the writers don't completely take it up the bum.
Raz has been ill, cowering under blankets. Fever of a hundred and five. I've clearly done something to anger the cat gods. With a little help from some antibiotics, he's slowly coming back to life ... walking around with his fur all on end (dehydration? got the chills? dunno) looking rather like a stuffed animal that's been through the wash.
He's cute this way, but I do wish he'd get better.
(oil, bronzing powder, & sheet music on canvas!)
