old photo part 2

More photoshop playing with an old favorite picture of Kerri and myself. Taken during a tough time, but we got through it and am very happy for this picture to remind me of it.

old photo in my mind.

Played around with an old photo of my sweet little niece and myself. Now it looks more of how I remember that day instead of super sharp and bright. Memory filter! We were fishing in a West Texas stock tank on a hot day. Her big sis pulled in a giant catfish on a Barbie pole. As usual, I got nothing. Except some time with my adorable nieces and their dad...

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YES

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pinterest ramblings

Happy Birthday, Dizzie Gillespie.

Love, Google.

Anybody been here?

http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/

A classy guy.

Today was his birthday... Paul Newman was a rare class act.

Lack lack lack

I have had such a lack of posting that I have no excuse but paint fumes on which to blame it. I want to write about Advent, all the great books I've been reading, these amazing artists I've seen online, and exciting things I've been creating...but all I can say is I've been painting and staining in my house for what seems like an eternity. I'm full of gratitude for all that is going on, but I can seem to feel it. And it's the most wonderful time of the year, apparently.

Waiting, then. Isn't that what Advent is all about? But not about waiting for the end of a construction project, originally. So we continue, painting, staining, and losing brain cells... but with the Pandora station on filling the house with wonderful messages of Christmas.

Happy second week of Advent, y'all!

A Continuous Lean keeps crossing my path.

Gadi Gilan Presented by ACL x Cole, Rood & Haan Co. from Michael Williams on Vimeo.

What a great video of a very interesting character with an unbelievably cool voice. He sounds like a Star Wars character. I'd love to wander in that shop.

Fun workspaces.

I came across the most fantastic site, sort of a clearinghouse of all sorts of finds from design to type to furniture to artwork to sculpture... but the section that caught my eye most was their workspaces photography, chronicling different artists' studios.
Check out the pix below, of awesome studio spaces, via the super cool sharesomecandy.com
All pix are from that site. Inspiring, envy-inducing...












And the picture above caught my eye: a teeny poster I have and love from local Nashville printmaker/awardwinner/illustrator Bryce McCloud, the Look Up Moon. One of my favorite pieces of art of all time!!

And the lovely collages from artist Miki Sato on there! Love looking at them.

I know this is random...

But it is so incredible.

Uncle Ted? Not the same one.

I learned last summer that "Uncle Ted" is not used to refer to Teddy Roosevelt, but to Ted Nugent. An honest mistake.

A friend of mine put this on Facebook but I have to share it here. I know at least Abe will be interested...Oh what fun! Graphic signage plus National Parks.

Then the article mentions a documentary coming up on PBS this fall: The National Parks: America's Best Idea. I've not seen all of Ken Burns' works but I must catch this one. I've been meaning to read up on Teddy Roosevelt for over a year now; hopefully I can find a good objective biography of him. Not knowing anything about his politics, I'm in it for the view of turn of the century America and the Parks. Oddly, I just read The Virginian for the first time, which was dedicated to our first Roosevelt president.

Raining indeterminably.

Will it ever stop. Has this February morphed into March? Maybe it was the flu. It just seems like spring is far far away.

Here's a few sites I've been distracting myself with. Click on the pix for the links.

too many things.

There's too much to look at. And I want to either do it, buy it, or make it all. Sigh.

Awesome journals.

Coloring wallpaper.

Awesome fabric.

Making my own fabric.

Someday learning to use a camera.

Watching this all day.

Do this for fun and/or profit.

Create my own to-do lists.

Hang out here. All day.

Take a quilting workshop by a master!

Making adorable cuteness in 57 different ways.

Stop wasting so much time.

Seen in rural West Texas.

All I can think of is Kramer...& Assman.

found type...and other things

What an excellent project! And this one gets many many extra points for originality.
From the flickr site of very talented dude at www.onpaperwings.com.

owls.

So it's not just me. Except I tried it last year.

I'm afraid not...

This article on cnn.com got me to thinking how many of us have irrational dislikes and even fears of the most [seemingly] benign things. The woman interviewed first spoke of her dislike of anything wooden, here:

"If I saw someone lick a wooden spoon, I had to turn away," says the 41-year-old massage therapist from Portland, Oregon. "I'd break out into a sweat ... and I'd just get sick to my stomach. I could not even look at someone with a toothpick in their mouth." It wasn't just looking at wet wood that freaked her out. It was touching it, too. "I could not eat Popsicles to the end," Carnese explains. "As soon as I got close to the end, I would give it to my kids. I would not even own wooden utensils because I could not wash them. Not even in the dishwasher because they would still be damp when they came out."

Well, I wouldn't say I have a phobia, but I too cannot use a wooden utensil, nor eat a Popsicle all the way to the stick. I discovered in a college ceramics class that I got the same loathing to touch unglazed pottery; shiny slickly glazed pieces were a delight, but that matte, dry-potato feeling of unglazed? Eeek. A friend of mine in elementary school couldn't stand to pull apart cotton balls. People hate to fly, go to the dentist, be in a cramped and crowded room, but these things are a little more justifiably feared.

I wonder what your crazy loathings are. You don't have to leave your name, of course, but I would love to know... just to make me feel a little better about getting all sweaty and freaked out whenever I have to cross over a bridge...

Elementary.

I've always loved the Periodic Table of Elements, and I don't know why. Maybe it's the graphic nature of the table: so clean, set in Helvetica, in little boxes placed just so, with each corresponding number and cool if inexplicable abbreviation. Or maybe it's just where my mind wandered in Science classes when we got the awful teacher that one year. Pasty-faced and expressionless, no personality, just like a turnip. Awful.

Not that I understand anything about the Table. I just think it looks cool. But I'm pretty sure I'd have done better in Chemistry if I had been able to see the Periodic Table of Videos...This is an ingenious learning tool, an entertaining site, and brilliant idea. I know my dad will love this, plus all the teachers I am lucky to know. Thanks to the folks at the Earth & Sky blog for the link.

Interestingly enough, there's a huge variety of takeoffs on this seemingly banal scientific guide, including a Comic Book Periodic Table of Elements, a Beeriodic Table of Elements, one on Red Wine, and one on *ahem* amorous positions. It's been printed on ties, mugs, socks, and tees. But I think the best one is the Table set to music... I dare you to not have it stuck in your head after just one listen.

Friday randomness.

Here's some really inventive and beautiful numbers to admire... in a set of fonts by those amazing geniuses at H&FJ. (I've already raved about their font Archer here... oh it's amazing.)
Their descriptive copy for the font Indicia says it all:

Indicia, inspired by the numbers on hand-held rotary rubber stamps, evokes a vanishing world of written correspondence and flap-pocket library cards. The distinct style of these numbers is shaped both by the limitations of rubber as a medium, and by the considerable engineering challenges of creating forms that can withstand the physical pressure of repeated stamping.

Plus the forms are just simply lovely. Anything that reminds me of old-timey library cards is appealing! I rather miss that in the modern library experience. What I don't miss is paying hefty fines. I've managed to avoid it by doing the self-check, but I'm sure guilt will win me over in the end.

And on a totally different note,


I thought these little twins were so cute! I think that building is the twin of a playhouse my father built for my own little monozygotic nieces.

I guess that's it. I need to get ready for the day, if that is ever possible!