Favorite Phrases

Another glorious weekend has slipped into the past. Todd and I had another work weekend planned but alas did not accomplish everything that we hoped too. So, to practice my new favorite phrase.. "Oh well..".
We did go for some great walks in the Spring Sun, invited ourselves in for a tour of a young couple's backyard (with their permission, of course) and met an adorable English Bulldog named "Farley". 60 + pounds of wiggly love. I thought that Mia and Farley would really hit it off, but Mia was more interested in exploring the premises and Farley just wanted our love. In fact he got quite jealous of Mia when she tried to let him know that we were her Mommy and Daddy! Ha Ha. : ) But the yard was amazing and gave Todd and I some pretty cool ideas.
We did start digging out the plot for our back patio. Whew! what a lot of work. and dust. and weeds. We probably spend 75% of the time rescuing and moving earthworms and only 25% of the time actually moving earth. "Oh well.." : )
Had a barbecue at another neighbors house that night and I embarrassingly (hopefully only to myself) became intoxicated on Mike's Hard Lemonade. Wow. I usually don't drink those and they can really be deceptive....I wonder how many I had..."Oh well...". The shishkabobs were amazing.
As an extra punishment we got home to a very sick little dog. Yes....all over the living room...and it continued through out the night. At least we made it outside at 3 am and at 6am but each session then had to be followed by a pretty wet spit bath....."Oh well..." Now is a great time to be totally done with drinking for a long time. : )
I spent Sunday out in the yard again. Got a little more digging done, my strawberries finally planted and played with Mia. She seemed to be fully recovered and was rolling around on the lawn just loving life and the warm sun. If felt so good to just lay in the grass with her and know that I didn't have to go anywhere or honestly do anything. My life was a lazy blissful trickle. I must make time for more of these moments.....

Friday End

Another Friday has come and gone. I do seem to pack them to the busting point. Today was a good day though...I found time to sit in the grass and sip a mango smoothie. Mia rolling around next to me.

I'm not quite sure who enjoys Fridays more. Her or me. : ) She loves it when I am home and by now has me quite well trained. Sitting at the computer and trying to type is accompanied by whines, yips, yelps and finally nips to the elbow. When I try to sculpt, she is at the back slider, scratching on the glass and barking. She has a one track mission - Go outside and play..with me! If those actions still do not get my attention she then pulls out the trump card and torments Jasper...knowing that his yowls of protest will always bring me running. Yes...I would say that I am quite well trained by now. : / Despite the countless trips around the back yard, cat rescuing, and one unsalvagable roll of shredded toilet paper, I was able to make progress on my sculpture today. : )

I am moving out of the skeletal stage and into more of the pose. I continued to work on the rib cage and then moved into the legs, blocking in one side on the butt. I know that my backbone is not quite there yet but I think that as I starting to add some of my connecting core muscles I will see the adjustments I need. I also added the clavicles and started to get a sense of the traps.

Tomorrow is scheduled to be another yard day with Todd, but I plan on finding at least an hour or two to finish the other side of the butt and maybe define the shoulders.

Mia had a 2pm appointment to meet with a new Vet. I am trying to find one that is close, good and experienced with bulldogs. Success! The place was immaculate, the doctor very nice and knowledgeable and best of all, less than a mile away! The only disappointing thing was that he couldn't tell for certain whether or not she was in heat. I was going to spay Mia before her first heat but think I might have missed my chance and that she is already in or entering the heat cycle. I learned that female French Bulldogs often tend to develop breast tumors later on in life but if you spay before the first heat then the chances of tumor development is 0%. Pretty good. But now..if I have already missed the first heat..I am wondering if I should consider not spaying her and perhaps breeding her next year. She has beautiful conformation, coloring and temperament...I guess I will think about it for another week. It might be way more trouble that I want to get myself into.

I am posting some picts of my sculpting progress today, Jessie tormenting Mia from her perch on my studio bookshelves and Mia wondering why I am always take pictures of her....and hoping that she will get a treat for sitting so nicely. : )

Progress 4.22.09

I was able to carve an hour of sculpting last night out of dinner, clean-up, family phone conversations, walking Mia and countless wiping of dirty paws...

I am starting to see the soft action that I love in this piece. I never cease to be amazed at how fast the week goes by! I am looking forward to tomorrow. : )

Sunlight

I woke up this morning to sunlight streaming in the windows. What a glorious and rejuvenating feeling. Since we have just emerged from our dark, gloomy and over cast winter, sunlight seems especially wonderful and amazing to me right now. And warm. : )

Todd had to run off to a workout but I leisurely made myself a latte and am now enjoying that with a piece of peanut butter toast. Life is good. It is remarkably warm outside. If I wasn't afraid that Mia would scratch through the screen I could leave the slider open and let all of the spring smells flow in.

Life Follows Light. Four days a week I work for a Residential Architect. Our mission is to design space to harness and celebrate natural light, improving the quality of life for our clients. Right now..as I sip my coffee, and think about planting some new seedling strawberries and the tomatoes that have been languishing on my window sill for a week and just soaking the sunlight into my soul... I am happy that I am part of that mission. : )

I made some progress on my sculpture this week. I am still working on the form of the ribcage and hips. She is almost ready to move on to some much needed supporting core muscles. I have her hands and arms moved out of the way and in the progress photo it looks very much like she is dancing. I suspect she must be celebrating the sunlight that streams into the studio from late morning to afternoon. : )

Filling Time

Sometimes I view life as a rushing river with me moving along in the middle. As I rush along, or flow depending on my mindset, I try to draw things into the river with me. Accomplishments....progress....things that I think will make my experience downriver more enjoyable and fulfilling. I set a lot of deadlines for myself and I always expect that I can accomplish more than I actually do. When I don't meet my personal expectations I start to pressure myself and accept stress. I think that my life is going to be less happy unless I can "pull it together", "pick up the pace", "make up for lost time"... Why do I do this? This is stress and a quality if life that I am giving to myself.

I have several personal mantras that I believe in:
"I can do anything that I set my mind to do"
"I Live my Life...Life does not Live Me."
"Thoughts become Realities - Change my Thoughts, Change my Reality"
Sometime these mantra's war with each other. I create a river of goals and ideals and then feel trapped and out of control because I don't accomplish them. I need to adapt and re-adjust. I get stressed because I accept stress.
I have created the rushing river of "time". I can change the direction and slow it down to a lazy trickle or fill it to a bursting torrent. I am the author. Do I want to live in a world of not enough time or plenty of time? Do I want to run behind life, trying to catch up? or walk in front and love the view?
As I write, Mia is at my elbow, barking and whining and giving my arm an occasional nip. I think I shall give in to the plea and go for a walk. : )

Boundries -Physical and Relational

I did not sculpt today. No..today was a Yard Day. And what a day...I can hardly hold my head up. The back of my neck aches soooo bad.

Todd and I tried to finish laying a gravel path on the side of the house, connecting the driveway to the back yard. We don't have the gravel down but the edging is in.. the area is level..I can totally imagine the space with the completed path. Beautiful. : ) I also defined the edge between my side yard and the neighbors. Something I have been hesitant to do ever since we moved in. I think I was afraid that she would come rushing out and demand an explanation for all of the lawn I was cutting up and claim that I was on her side......ha ha. : ) Not true as her lawn did make a wide swoop into my side but I still worked exceptionally fast....just in case. Once you have a flowerbed cut in it is hard to remember what the border line used to be. The new defined straight line (complete with grass barrier) between our yards looks so awesome and I'm sure improves the value of her yard as well as mine! Mission accomplished.

I had fun trying to capture some pictures of Mia and Jessie playing this morning. Jessie hides behind the shower curtain and peeks and swipes around the edge or will punch out really fast from the middle and Mia will push back or try to look around the edge without being hit. Very Exciting stuff. : ) Don't know if any pictures turned out but it was fun to watch them. I could tell that Jasper wanted to play as well but was just a little too dignified to allow himself to. Several times he raced over to them as if he just couldn't contain himself...then stopped, drew back and would watch from a safe spot with aloof disdain. I took a picture of him sitting on my new children's church pew.

Poor Jasper. He is such a big baby and was the hardest hit when we got Mia. To add insult to injury, Mia totally dominates him. She tries to dominate Jessie too but those fast little claws keep her at bay. Jasper unfortunately is clawless and I have to keep a sharp eye on Mia that she doesn't hurt him. I think she only wants to play but she is much to rough and that bully instinct of hers worries me. Many times I have caught her straddling him on the bed...

I heard from a couple that bred and raised Boston Terriers and Frenchies that you have to be exceptionally careful around cats and other small animals. The Frenchie is not vicious but they LOVE to play. Their favorite toys are anything fuzzy that squeeks....hhmmmm...that could be kind of cat-like. Because their mouths are so wide, they can easily smoother a cat or other small animal. This exact thing happened to this couple and they lost one of their cats. Despite being warned themselves of the danger. : ( So I must consider myself twice warned.....

So far, excessive "no"s and "separation from the family" -being locked outside by herself -have not seemed to deter Mia from tormenting Jasper. My next action will be to get a squirt gun and maybe a loud horn..... I hope that does the trick.

Now I think I will watch a movie with Todd. Maybe make a Mango smoothie.

I wonder what it would taste like if I added some white wine to the mix? : )

Progress & Power Struggles

11:30 am to 5:00 pm. A very productive day. It is almost 8pm and I am feeling good but exhausted. I ran out of worked clay last week so broke open a new block I had purchased a while back. Horrible stuff. Hard, inflexible and constantly breaking mid-strip. For really good plastelina you have to work it for years...adding body oils and small imperfections. The more you work it, the more supple and elastic it becomes. It glides under your fingers and warms up quickly to the touch. I have known sculptors to have 100+ year old plastelina in their possession. Well-worked clay is so prized that it is passed on to future generations.

But today I ran out of my supply. So I struggled for hours kneading and molding and trying to form supple sausages that I could apply in strips without breaking. But...just like everything else, all clay has a beginning and what I worked today is no longer "new". Wow. That was deep. What am I rambling about?...I must be really tired. : ) Looking at my progress photo - I am pleased.

I did some gardening tonight. I should clarify that "Mia" and I did some gardening. I would pull up and nice clump of weeds and give em a shake and then Mia would proceed to snatch and completely kill them. Shaking and tossing them in the air, she would cover herself in dirt..then proceed to run around the yard with them. When they had completely given up the ghost, she would race back to me and dance back and forth in the flowerbed, barking and yipping at my trowel. I almost lost the new shoots on my hosta to her quick little paws.

I have discovered an amazing thing. You can have a nice flowerbed with a puppy. Just buy an abundant supply of tomato cages and put them over all plants with tender new shoots. Then when she tears through the flowerbeds at bullet speed, she avoids the cages and my plants are safe. : ) I must run to Fred Myers tomorrow for more cages...

Mia and I also experienced our first little power struggle tonight. I have been trying to teach her that "Mommy" goes through the door first, then Mia. But.....I have been pretty lazy with actually enforcing this. Tonight, after eating her share of my weeds she proceed to race around the yard barking at imaginary intruders, so I decided to put the noisy and grubby little girl inside while I finished cleaning up my tools. When I tried to exit the house without her she panicked and attacked my leg with her teeth and paws. She was not going to be left inside! This was the first time she has used her teeth to express herself against me..not ok. I immediately gave her a firm no and grabbed her face firmly in my hands and gave her the stare down until she looked away. Right away her attitude changed and she actually sat as asked while I exited. Animals are so interesting and complex. Dogs especially, as they are so pack orientated. You just have to make sure you are always the pack leader.

I should probably give her a bath before bed......Now, there is once place that she totally has me wrapped around her little paw. I have not been able to enforce sleeping in the kennel and not in our bed. I can't resist that sad little whine and her big eyes. And when I give in..she is such an adorable little cuddler.: /

First Clay

I have been craving fat and carbs all morning. Thinking about anything from the mac-n-cheese at the Deluxe on Broadway or Top Pot donuts and coffee in Belltown. Hmmmmm..... maybe I will walk to the Bagel Deli and get a plain bagel toasted with cream cheese. A good dose of carbs can almost fix anything. There's really nothing wrong with a "little" comfort eating. : ) Just as long as I acknowledge it for what it is and enjoy it! I don't really know what is causing it......my insides seem to be buzzing with anxiety. Maybe it is just excitement that tomorrow is Friday... : )

I put down the first clay on my new sculpture last night. Spent about an hour and half shifting the wire into the pose, rolling more clay and then starting to build up my hip width. I still have about 1/5 to 3/4ths of an inch to mass on each side. Once I finish that, I will move to the rib cage and start massing in the egg shaped form.

I can already tell that this piece is going to have a lot more action than my first one. A subtle shift of weight..upper body turn...it will be very sweet and protective. I thought of my previous sculpture as very strong....beaming proud...full of anticipation. The pose is almost exactly the same in both....same hands wrapping around the baby..... I am excited to be able to bring out the differences in these equally beautiful women.

I want to spend more time exploring this thought...but if I don't hurry I wont be able to gather some satisfying carbs before my lunch break is over...

Awww..the carbs must win!

Two New Babies.

Pictures of Mia from our photo shoot yesterday and my brand new armature figure - the first step to a new sculpture. : )

Mia was cuddled up on the couch taking a snooze so I decide to take advantage of the opportunity to get a picture that was actually in focus. She is such a bouncing bunny that so far I only have a nice photo collection of fuzzy black blurs. : / Puppy pictures? Not a chance. Well... except for a few of her sleeping. I think that is why people think that French bulldogs are so calm. Most of the photos are of them sleeping! The rest are so blurry they never make it into the book

Mid-snooze she sensed an "intruder" outside and while protecting our territory from her perch on the back of the couch I was finally able to get some in-focus shots of the handsome little girl. She slept all night last night. 10 pm to 5am! Either her wee bladder is finally large enough or our four miles a day are paying off... whatever the reason I certainly won't complain. I just hope it happens again tonight......

I am mentally tired tonight. I had errands to run after work and they always take longer than you want. Then dinner to make. Dover sole for the first time. Not sure if I am a fan but it is possible that I didn't cook it correctly. Quick pan fry with Tuscan seasoning......sounded good. I did roll some new clay in preparation for my sculpture. I was hoping to bend the wire into the pose position but that will wait until tomorrow.

Now...it is off for the evening walk with Mia and Todd and hopefully another night of blissfully uninterrupted snoozing. There is always hope. : )

Week One - April 5th, 2009

Spring has arrived in Seattle! I didn't realize how depressed and down I was feeling until we actually had two days in a row of sunshine and temperatures hitting 70! I don't think I could ever live anywhere but here....though last week when it was snowing and in the 30's I'll admit that I thought about Wyoming much too frequently. : )
Despite the snow and cold of earlier in the week, I was able to rally myself and really accomplish a lot. I met with the foundry on Friday and the bronzing and patina cost is going to be Half of what I was expecting. Great news....now my art can be beautiful and affordable to more people! I still don't have an estimate for the molding costs but with such a great bronzing price, I am not worried. Though, with that price comes more involvement on my part. At the very least with the wax editing. I have never bronzed a sculpture before so I am still trying to determine what that will mean......

I also accomplished my goals for Week One on my second piece. I completed the wire armature, completed and posted my measurements as well as my timeline. I will post a picture of my wire armature tonight. I plan on extensively documenting the process, stages and steps on this next sculpture. It will hopefully inspire me to see the progress and with a weekly deadline of Sunday night, I will have an incentive to sculpt faster and with greater confidence. : )

Mia posed for me in the sunlight yesterday and I got some beautiful pictures. This inspired another idea within me.......though I still need to wrestle with it for a while........so now it is off to the coffee house to write down some thoughts and savor that latte!

Endings & Beginings

I have been working on details every night this week. Focusing primarily on the lower hand and arm. It is progressing.... Though with every session I seem to see more and more that I want to refine. Originally I wanted the focus to be on the hands and arms ....wrapping around the belly. The finish needed to be tight with a lot of energy. The rest of the body could be looser and less refined. Lately, I find myself falling into the dead hole of "smoothing". Refining and refining an area until all of a sudden I realize that it has lost it's energy. No! This must stop. I need to remember to back up and see the piece as a whole and not just the back of the arm, the fingers, the neck...etc.. Tonight, before I jump into finishing I will step back and just look. And look some more.....then work.

I have also been working on my preparation for my new piece. The calculations are done. I have most of my measurements drawn out. I need to finish those tomorrow as well as compile my portfolio of photos. Lots to do. I also meet with the foundry tomorrow. : )