Freeform post about artmaking

At the family reunion a couple of people asked me if I have shows. Well, no. None. And I don't sell work, and I don't think I want to sell work, at least not the work that I have done so far and have planned. Ideally, like in the true sense of ideally and not the watered down ideally that I usually mean, I would take commissions that involved a lot of dialog and cocreation and collaboration with clients. Or I would say to the world "This weekend I want to make a lazure layered heart on a sunny indoor wall in the Waldorf colors, starting with a stylized embryo in the color for the smallest children and building outward with colors developmentally suited to older and older children." and someone who wanted that would say so and pay me to do it and my art wouldn't just pile up in my house.

So I realized that maybe until I get that system lined up, I should try to do the self promoting things artists are supposed to do. So when I got a forwarded email from my school about do I have any art dealing with faith or spirituality to display for 4 hours at the grand opening of a new faith and spirituality themed floor of a dorm on my campus, I sent a picture and my contact info and now in October I have to hang up my Ganesha painting in public outside of my room and maybe put my name on it.

I can't tell if this is a baby step. It feels like a medium step. It was certainly easy. The only criteria for inclusion was that my piece be smaller than 3'x3' and not profane. And I used a piece I already painted. But at the same time, I am doing something extra that I have not done before. It seems like a solo show (omg, the thought makes me want a giant fuzzy womb to hide in... oh. I am maybe very good at the business of managing my needs) is like miles and miles and miles away from plausibly happening in the next five years.

Oh, why is my art so bad, and why is there so little of it?

Review: Melitta Coffee Maker

Recommended.
More Details:

Looks Like this. Came with that mug.
The hotel provided this nonsense, which I used to heat the water.
Before:
After:
Note that I got my necklace ribbon turned the right way around. I feel pretty tired but that's good because I can sleep on the 4 hour car ride from Ventura to Santa Cruz.

Sock Dream Review

I want to review the socks I ordered from Sock Dreams as my splurge last paycheck. I spent 35 dollars for 5 pairs of socks (shipping is free). To me that is a lot to pay for socks. But I only pay retail for socks, shoes, and underclothes, and if I am going to pay full price for something I want it to be exactly what I want. Also, they are so big and long that I never lose them.

The Sock Dreams website has details about how high and stretchy all their socks are, and they have testers of different shoe sizes and leg lengths and circumferences, but instead of finding a measuring tape I just eyed the model and imagined how the sock would look if I made it stretch more in width. On this round of socks that didn't totally work so I found the tape and measured everything out and compared with their recommendations. I have fattish legs that are long for my height, which is 5' 3".

These are my leg circumferences, from the ground up:

ankle:9"

calf: 14"

above knee: 15"

thigh: 26" at the top, 20" at the part that thigh highs are usually worn.

inseam: 31"

So here are my reviews:

M Stripes Thigh High Socks- $8

From the website description:

Will fit up to 20-inch thighs, maybe 21. They will fit 19 inch calves nicely, though the tops may not go up too high if your legs are larger than 21 above the knee. For more top stretch, you might try cutting off the cuffs and wearing them with sock garters. Length is easily 30 inches from heels to tops.

These are beautifully long and after I pulled them as high as the cuff would go (which made my leg puff out around the cuff) I had some still scrunched up. Also, as I was pulling them on the cuff separated from the sock. So it looks like I will be doing their garter suggestion.

M Stockings Long Ribbed Socks- $10

Description:

45 inches from toe to top before you put them on, less once they stretch to go on your legs. These should fit a standard medium range & smaller, fitting 22 inch thighs snugly and comfortably. We found that, thanks to the ribbing, these stay up quite well!

These are amazing! Very snug because they are ribbed all the way up, and the foot is cushy and thick. My leg pooches out the top a little bit but these are so warm I will wear them in the dead of winter so my skirts might be a little longer. They are very sturdy feeling. I scrunched them down below my knees and it was like wearing soft boots. I am not sure what shoes I can wear them with because they are so thick. Also, the ribbing makes my legs look a lot wider and stocky, which I can't figure out because they only add maybe 2mm on each side. I like the stockiness, it works very well in brown, but I am not sure about the effect if I bought one of the lighter colors.

O Basics- $6

Description:

These start at approximately 24 inches from heel to top, but may only be knee-high on longer legs or thigh- high on shorter legs. The other colors should be fine up to 17 or 18 inches. Anyone with a calf circumference of less than 16 inches should have no problems with any of them.

My very favorite socks in the world are the O Basics. They are cotton and they are just perfect with everything! They come in 27 colors! However most of them don't look like my kind of colors. There are a lot of pastels and dark colors. I like brights and neutrals. I have dark brown, denim, gold, natural, plum, and teal. They need pulling up after walking somewhere, and I think the denim pair I just leave at knee height because they shrank in the dryer or something. The O basics look really nice with my low heeled character shoes, and I usually wear them with plain flats (my school is in a forest so heels aren't the best).

Brown Knees Over the Knee Stripey Socks $6

Description:

Medium size range, fits about shoe size 6-10.5. Larger feet may fit into these, but will likely wear through the toes and heels sooner. Length about 25 inches from heel to tops (or less when worn, depending on your leg size). Width is 19-20 inches at the tops but only 17-18 on the calves.These can be a bit loose around the feet and ankles.

this picture makes them look so cute! Maybe the bagginess is cute, but it's not comfortable to me.

I wouldn't buy these again. I think these would look nice with knee length pants, which I don't intend to wear. The brown and the blue are cute but I like stripes that contrast a whole lot. And, they are indeed loose around the feet and ankles. I think I will see if my mom or boyfriend want them. It's cool that you can pick from a lot of different base colors and a lot of different stripe colors, but they are too baggy on my feet.

Thigh High Topless Fishnet- $5

Description:

Label says: One size fist most (90-160 lbs), but we've had feedback telling us they fit much larger folks very well!

Love! Definitely need garters but these are so comfy. I was surprised how soft the material is when I opened the package. The diamonds are very small compared to the other fishnets I have which means more warmth and less dramatic lines. I think they sort of diffuse light over my legs. The effect is a little like pantyhose. I bought these in beige and they're rather paler than my summer legs. I think that looks fine, but I know they will look totally different on my winter legs.

After trying a few pairs of socks over them I think ankle socks are perfect because I like how long my legs look this way. These are Leg Avenue brand, which I usually avoid because I like cotton socks and their socks are all nylon, sheer, not breathable, and made for thinner legs than mine. However fishnets are so stretchy and open that none of that affects the wear. They don't have a reinforced toe which is silly, and they caught on my rough fingertips and toes, but they are strong so that doesn't make them run. I definitely want more but none of the colors catch my eye.

Fishnets for Everyday Wear

In this photo I tried to demonstrate that a very short skirt and fishnets can look ordinary. I might be deluding myself but I LIKE both of those things and DON'T LIKE lusting strangers so I am trying to make this work. The first picture I took still looked a bit sexy though so I did the opposite of a lady pose, and took up a lot of space and looked big.
I love tall socks! They make short skirts so much more comfortable in the October-April weather. Also, if you lose a 2 1/2 foot long teal sock in the wash it will turn right up! But this post is about fishnet socks. If you have not worn stretchy fishnets, I really recommend them. They are super comfortable, kind of like a light massage (if you have thick leg hair you probably can't feel them though). I also adore how they look. Ones that contrast strongly with your skin color (on me that's black or white) have a gridded cartesian effect, mapping your contours. It's like I'm wearing a drawing of my legs, on my legs. It's especially cool because that same pair, or an identical pair, could map practically any person's contours- fishnets are the stretchiest things ever.

Fishnets with less contrast look alternately like a low res video game version of myself, with tiled/pixeled skin, or maybe they look like scales on a fish or chainmail. But fishnets have this huge connotation of being way sexy, and while I might someday want to look sexy-cause-i'm-trying-hard instead of sexy-cause-i-am, I want to wear fishnets a lot more often than I want to look sexy, and I want to wear them in contexts that I don't want to look sexy, such as for example in public. So I am figuring out different ways to wear them. I already like to wear socks over them, because I don't want my feet touching my shoes through the net and getting smelly. I hear that people like to wear them over socks, and I tried them on that way and it is so pretty, in this case the pink over teal pops! But it does not feel like a massage. I didn't wear them that way for very long but I think it would be frustrating to try to pull up socks through fishnets. I think another way to make them everyday is to wear a color that matches my skin or is close in shade but drab or neutral. That way it's subtler. Another way might be to wear a longer skirt.

I'm drinking expired milk.

Today, as I lay down on a bare mattress for a lunch hour nap, I felt really confident in my ability to navigate the world. I've been able to work, launder clothes, budget for groceries, exercise, pay bills on time, almost as soon as I moved out (I was almost 19). But in the recent past something new snuck up on me, which is that I have learned to do all the things it takes to keep me going sort of automatically. I also know my boundaries really well, the nuance of when it is worth it to stay up really late and have fun, and when it is worth it to say no thanks and go to bed at 10. I shop before I'm quite out of food. I use up my gasoline instead of religiously refilling it when it hit 1/4 tank because I was scared of getting stranded and ruining my engine. I'm pacing myself and prioritizing my time, I'm balanced. Then after my nap I forgot about this until a minute ago when I got home from the farmer's market and tucked 2 ears of corn into the fridge for Mum to eat on the drive down to Ventura tomorrow. It's so simple, but I:

-remembered it is Wednesday, farmer's market day

-contacted my carless housemate so I could meet her there and drive her home

-bought strawberries for the drive and then remembered when I saw the corn that it's Mum's favorite

-peeled open the corn like I saw everyone else doing, even though I felt embarrassed to, like I was questioning their wares

In the past I would almost certainly have skipped one of those things.

Religion and my Nana

This is a card I made for my Nana. The picture is awful because it is nighttime and if I wait at all to send a letter it will never happen.

Those are a pair of blue and dark gray blue jay feathers. My Nana loves nature and she always has baskets of pinecones and individual pressed or dried leaves, photos of the flowers she grows and finds, turkey feathers, seed pods. Anyway, when I found a right and a left blue jay feather I immediately thought I would send them to her in a card. I got out copper finish paper to make a cog to fit between the wings but I realized that wouldn't mean anything to her (just to me and my dad, actually, it's a steampunk take on his artcar fest flying tire bumper sticker) so I did a bird.

I pick colors intuitively, like most do people I suppose, and when I was done it looked exactly like a bird Virgin Mary. You can't see it but the gold wash goes outside the ink line of the head exactly like a halo. My Nana is very Catholic, and I used to be very Catholic until a couple years ago, when I was agnostic for a few months and then atheist.

It was a gentle but unnerving deconversion. I had to figure out new things to do when I was scared or hopeful. I had to completely shift my expectation for my life trajectory, since now I'll be mortal. For months and months I felt freer and strangely light, but now I'm used to that. And I spent a long time trying to construct ethics based on this and that and reading and thinking, but you can't construct new ethics from scratch and have them stick so I kept my old ones for the most part and use reason and my heart to work things out as new things come up.

Loads of atheists like to argue with theists, but the truth is right there for anyone to see so I never bring it up except very casually. It's not a secret that I'm atheist except it is kind of a secret from my Nana. I didn't plan on that but it felt like the most natural thing in the world to get into my nice clothes and do the 30 mile drive to church with her on a clear Sunday morning, listen to the irishman, kneel, sing (I can sing in church now that no one is watching, which made me cry when I realized), and then I went up and got and ate a communion wafer, which is only for Catholics. It's hard to explain how much it is only for Catholics, it is kind of like using a disability placard if you are able bodied.

The rest of the family knows or is allowed to know, but I don't want her to worry about me. I want her to go to heaven to be with my Papa and Jesus forever. I don't want her to consider that one of her 13 grandkids isn't planning to go to heaven. I think she has a rich life but heaven is a big deal, I don't want to mar her anticipation. She is very strong in her faith and I don't think I could shake it but I don't want to chance it; reality is so compelling.

So my subconscious took allllllll that and made a Virgin Mary Bird.

Lyrics that seem fine until you actually listen to them

I love you, always forever
Near and far, closer together
Everywhere, I will be with you
Everyday, I will devour you
I love you, always forever
Near and far, closer together
Everywhere, I will be with you
Everything, I will do for you.

I love you, always forever
Near and far, closer together
Everywhere, I will be with you
Everyday, I will devour you
I love you, always forever
Near and far, closer together
Everywhere, I will be with you
Everything, I will do for you.

Say you'll love, love me forever
Never stop, not for whatever
Near and far and always and
everywhere and everything

Say you'll love, love me forever
Never stop, not for whatever
Near and far and always and
everywhere and everything

Say you'll love, love me forever
Never stop, not for whatever
Near and far and always and
everywhere and everything.

Donna Lewis, I Love You Always Forever. I started singing along to this because it is how I feel about my boy, but then after singing it like 3 times, with 3 or so more to go, it starts to sound like an obsessive/possessive mantra.

I'm shedding
Shedding every color
Trying to find a pigment of truth
Beneath my skin

Hilary Duff, Come Clean. First I was trying to figure out what that could mean figuratively and then I visualized it literally and.... icky.

And now a song that I liked immediately but the more i decode the lyrics the more I love it, and the more I want to make my car a SPARKLY PANDACORN GLITTERPARTY

I googled "SPARKLY PANDACORN GLITTERPARTY" and google told me:

-Make sure all words are spelled correctly. check!

-Try different keywords. But, I want results for these keywords.

-Try more general keywords.

-Try fewer keywords. I tried but they are all very neccessary to the gestalt.

Didn't your slogan used to be Don't Be Evil? I hope you've changed it and aren't a liar pants on top of everything.