Got Wood?

Okay, that was sort of rude. But since this is about wood working, I thought it was appropriate :-)O

First things first though: the house:
Wiring is cooking right along. HORRIBLE storm with BASEBALL sized hail hit CB but didn't hit out here. House in town though, another story. Roof is trashed, 7 windows trashed, several skylights trashed, Damm damm damm... although Dave is ridiculously busy now and he's sort of delighted about it all.

I'm staining posts inside now and still have more outside stuff to paint and stain, we're moving along though, although right now we aren't getting as much time here as we were hoping to get.

But the good news is, we've been collaborating again, something I've truly missed (years ago, we collaborated alot, I'd make stained glass, he'd make the cabinets and I'd do funky paint finishes on them), we loved collaborating but life sort of got in the way. Now though, we are back at it but this time we're using wood primarily. Loads of fun. Wood wall hanging, made from all sorts of this and that, upcycled, reclaimed, some new, some painted, some washed, we've been digging into our "treasure stashes" and pulling out really nice pieces.

Best of all, we're inspired. And it is really nice to be working together again, even though anyone would say we do NOT have time to do any of this and we should be spending all our time building. And we know we should. But we're also artists and creating is da lifeblood. We get so excited an animated that sometimes it's just funny to watch and listen to us.

Man, oh man, I cannot wait to be in this house, I CANNOT WAIT!!!!!

Chicken Stew and Art

What does chicken stew have to do with art?
Why nothing, other than I am making chicken stew in the slow cooker and I feel really artsy today.

I have discovered, like so many artsy friends have, that there is no time to get the things done someone thinks they can get done in a single day. I thought with more time I'd be so amazingly functional, yet I find that I've tried to cram so much into every day, that it's really really impossible to keep up. I have half finished stuff everywhere. Here and out at the build, stuff everywhere. Bordering on out of control, actually, but I find myself not really caring all that much. Life is very very good for me right now. And I am very very happy and grateful for every single second of it.

Art excites me. And today is a good day. Not for any special reason, although I did do a mini self-portrait of me in the theme that keeps coming back again and again to bug me.... "With my hair blowing free, I face the winds of change..." 

Thats me. Notice the curves :-)

All this house building, and all this new stuff that I do with my life now is so different than my life of a few short months ago that it's like I'm a different person.  Well, come to think of it, I AM a different person. I'm now 30 lbs lighter, (which is a very good thing), and I have my new found art kindred souls that inspire me every day, and I have this house build thing that I find both exhilarating and frustrating at the same time. I like to think of it as "re-engineering" my life... yes... yes that's good... I like that :-)

I've realized that I don't know shit about doing wall mosaics. The "undersea world" master bath I see in my head my have complications because of that. :-) I mean, I seriously don't have a, well, a fucking clue. I see octopus and starfish, and sea horses and all sorts of exotic fish, shimmering in metallic colors and swimming along my walls, interspersed with glass tiles of various jewel tone colors....... and I have no clue as to how exactly I'll get there from here. What I see is there. I am over here. hmmmmmmm..........

.... still, it's been a very good day so far :-)

I'm sittin on top of the world.......

Well, sort of :-)
It's August and the heat has abruptly given us a reprieve and we are not wasting one single moment of it building this house. Doing everything ourselves has taken us a long time for this baby (we broke ground in June of ... lets see.... 2008) and we don't know when we'll be finished EXACTLY, we think end of Sept. but who knows.
    Septic: Done. Plumbing: Done. Wiring: 3/4 done. Insulation: about 1/2 done.
    I spent the gorgeous day today painting the deck joists as our deck has a garage under it and you'll be able to see them when you pull up as our house is built into a hill. We took the cat out today (her third trip) and she loved it and was completely at home and wandered out onto the deck and we finally had to grab her and bring her back in before she thought it was okay to take off (with the coyotes near us and there are ALOT of coyotes, well, she'd be a nice little snack in no time). 

Speaking of coyotes, we saw two baby deer out in the road today, no mama in sight. The were confused and very very young and little twins and they took off together stumbling into a cornfield and out of sight and we both looked at each other and said the same thing... "Oh man, they will SO be eaten shortly poor things".  Life is hard in the country I'm discovering. Alot of bad things happen to alot of animals out here and  you can't help but feel their pain. I hope they make it the little sweeties. The odds are against them but I so hope they make it. (DON"T COME OUT AT NIGHT!)

I have been having the very best time with art lately. I think it's related to the positive way I'm living my life, and eating, and the exercise and well, all of it. I appreciate every moment of my life right to the core.  I've also met the most amazing women at Wild Precious, Effy and her crew, fellow artists who are more than fellow artists, they are kindred spirits and I'm already feeling like I've known them forever. A great, positive shot of adrenalin that I did need, art is a solitary experience for the most part and going "arting" with the gals is the most fun! Thankyou WP "esscees!" Thanks for taking me in from the cold!

I'm very lucky. I've always been a very positive person and seldom am depressed or down at all (when I am I can barely cope because it's so unusual for me, I find it totally debilitating. ). I was born this way, perpetually happy.  I am making sure this entire crazy art/building journey is the best days of my life (actually all days you have in front of you are the best days of your life, I've always thought), but in this case I am making sure I appreciate not having to go and work a job as if I'm on summer vacation every single day. I work hard and in order to live this "hippie" happy lifestyle I HAVE to do alot of work for it, but I do it cheerfully and I'm truly grateful to have this chance at this life. Who knows what comes at you in life, right? Making homemade bread, salsas and teas instead of code meetings? YES!

The other night I painted these dancers. Sort of got inspired and rememberd how much I used to love the costumes and the sequins and I wanted to do something sort of abstracish yet not..... I've gotten lots of positive support and feedback on them so I went ahead and threw them up on etsy as prints (I couldn't bear to part with the originals, there's something about them.... I put them up in the "Angieclementine" shop.) :-)
   Well, anyway, I'm rambling. I've also been working on wood blocks and texture, thanks once again to things I'm learning from "the ladies"... Courage is a recurring theme for me lately, probably because of the fact that building our own house and forging out into this art thing takes alotta "cahunas" but also because all of us, every single one of us, face all kinds of crap in our lives and it takes courage to just get through it all to get to that golden nugget called happiness. Also "Courage My Love" was a store I once went to in
Toronto that I used to love. If you're still there, props to you my friends!