Monster Town: July 2006

fractured atlas

Wow! This looks like a wonderful resource! I haven't yet gone through it all, but I'd like to recommend that you check out fracturedatlas.org . It's a resource for artists, including the ever elusive health insurance! Wouldn't that be lovely?

found via designsponge

a peacock made out of candy!!!

It's not really made out of candy but it's just as great as candy, don't you think?

thinking about vintage clothing

I've been selling vintage clothes for a long while now, and the kinds of pieces I'm usually looking for are the 50's and earlier dresses and higher end things. Pieces like this one:

A totally gorgeous 1950's party dress.

And this one:

A very expensive hand-crocheted dress from Bergdorf-Goodman, probably from the early 70's.

But this week, a little vintage store on eBay came to my attention through Katey from That's Hot and then again it was on Modish and I checked it out. My first reaction was "really???" . Her dresses are ummm...not my thing. They look really cute on her, because she is a pretty hipster model doing model-ish poses. I actually have the same slip that she is wearing with a belt and that is currently at $42.00. It's a gorgeous slip, it's from the 50's and it's made by Barbizon and it would make a pretty dress. It's constructed well, with a side zipper and everything. I'm going to put it up on AppleSeed today, but sadly only my little mannequin will be modelling it.

And then I saw MeCozy's excellent post on the flickr Wardrobe Remix group, and I went and checked that out. And I guess I'm learning that right now the vintage to look for might be the stuff that I usually pass right up. The secretary blouses and weird 70's house dresses and the 80's silky layered dresses? Right?

cutest. melmac. ever.

I found seven of these beauties! Vintage melmac plates. The style name is "Prudence".

AppleSeed

I've started a new side project as sort of an alternative to eBay selling. As readers here may know, I've been selling things on eBay for quite some time, and I still love it, but the fees are high, and eBay really isn't very pretty. (If you need shoes right now, you should check out my auctions because I have some adorable Dansko's and Sanita's and some red Camper's for cheap-o-rama)

In the past several years, I've collected lots of insanely gorgeous vintage textiles, super cool housewares, jewelry, accessories, vintage clothing, ceramics, craft and sewing supplies, paper goods, etc. Things with an aesthetic that I think fellow art and craft bloggers would appreciate, and that maybe a lot of eBay users wouldn't.

So I'm starting a store called AppleSeed. For now it's a very simple site and I'm hard at work getting it stocked,(there's not much there yet) but if all goes well, I will make it into a vast and powerful vintage empire and get it designed all cute and professional like.

I plan to update once or twice per week, and I'll post sneak peeks here on monstertown.

If you like what you see, please spread the word!

fargo

my daughter did a photo shoot with Fargo today in different costumes.

finally---sketchbooks!

It took me several months, but the new improved ghosty sketchbooks are finally for sale on my etsy shop. They are now 80 pages of mixed paper with a stapled binding. Perfect for tossing into your bag and sketching or writing notes on the go.

love of things

I love taking photos of things. Just plain things. Things that I've found. I had some brilliant luck at the thrifts today:

new painting in progress

lots of white space, a delicate drawing. not quite what i'm after but getting close...maybe?

so hot

it's too hot to think or make things or do anything but lie around and drink water and complain about how hot it is, so here is a photo of the sculptural lid of a Portugese Majolica butter dish that I took.

William Cordova

I've started experimenting with painting really big. I'm working on two panels right now that feel like they are HUGE! One is 36" x 42" and the other is around 25" square. They are so much larger than my normal work, it's kind of tricky with the encaustic. But anyway, what I'm working on doing with them is creating large white fields with small fragile delicate drawings on them.

Here is someone who is doing amazing work like that. William Cordova. His drawings are so intriguing and they really resonate with me. He is represented by Richard Heller Gallery, and that gallery has a lot of amazing talent. (including one of my all time favorites, Brendan Monroe.)

printing and painting

Andy

Andy's pill portraits were featured on the Make Blog today.

He and Laurel have a collaborative installation opening on July 20th in New York at Mixed Greens gallery.

If you're in New York, you should go and see it.

Zelia's Fairy Soup (Vegan)

This recipe is from my daughter, she felt like cooking and whipped up this delicious soup to tide us over between lunch and dinner:

4 small carrots sliced
1 red potato sliced in small slivers
fresh green beans from the garden
1 baby sweet orange pepper
firm tofu cut in cubes with a splash of teriyaki sauce
small handful of soba noodles broken in two
health valley vegetarian beef flavored broth
parsley from the garden

seasonings:
garlic powder
trader joe's 21 seasoning salute
dash of jane's krazy mixed up salt

maker's note: this soup is absotively positively delicious, even for kids!

to cook:
Saute the carrots and potatoes in a bit of olive oil, add broth and other veggies, bring to light boil and add the soba noodles and tofu. When the noodles are done, the soup is done!

printing!

I spent the whole day yesterday working with Jayson Taylor, making prints of one of my paintings at his print shop. We worked it up as a 4 color screenprint, but in the end decided to go with three because the paper couldn't handle it. It was really fun and I learned a lot about the printing process. We did it the old school way, cutting out the fill colors with ruby-lith, and listening to Led Zeppelin.

We ended up with an edition of 70 three color prints on bristol vellum in water based inks, and a tiny edition of 4 four color prints.

p.s. The print is for sale on my etsy shop.

global collaborative mosaic

thebroth.com is the coolest little art toy I've seen on the internet in a while. It's addictive and fun, so be careful! It's a collaborative mosaic project where there are tiles scattered on the screen and together with whom ever happens to also be visiting the site, you make a little artwork. I worked on this bird with about 20 other people.

peep peep

What a beautiful day. Scott has taken the kids for a hike at Olompali so that I can stay home and get the work done on drawings for my new website. It is very enjoyable work, even though I only know the very basics of Illustrator. The thing that is making it even more enjoyable is the sound of the peeping baby birds in the nest that is in the climbing rose trellis right on our house! So many times a day I hear the five tiny fluffy babies peeping loudly for their food.

I tried to take a picture, but the nest is kinda hidden.

mmm...lunch

I love taking photos of food. Here is a nice photo of my tasty and strange fusion cuisine lunch.
Naan bread with mexican queso fresco and little tomatoes and basil from my garden.

art's art show

I participated this week in a fun art show that my friend Art Moura put on at his incredible place. My photos didn't come out that well except for a few.