With a spirit so willing...

I lost a gallon of gesso somehow.

It seems impossible, but I don't see it anywhere.

Yesterday I lost the C plate to my Cuttlebug, and while I was using it.  Still haven't found it.

Several months ago I lost my complete set of keys -- car, house -- and it was quite costly to replace that key and remote for the car.  I found the keys last week.  They were in a box under my bed where I had several folders of things saved for my art journals.

No idea how the keys got in there really, although I can surmise.  And I still need the gesso and the C plate.  I'm optimistic that at least one of them will reappear.

I wrote recently that this getting old process is wearing thin, and this is the sort of thing I'm talking about.  I still have lots of projects I want to complete while I'm still able, and I feel as though I will be able for a while yet.

I found a large square children's book at a used bookstore last week to make an art journal.  The book doesn't have many pages, it's about 12x12 and is perfect for what I want to do.  Thus, the need for
gesso to begin preparing the pages.

When this sort of thing happens, my creative urges get overrun with frustration and a feeling really close to anger which can quickly move into depression.  Then I start questioning what the heck am I trying to do here?  Do I really need to make this particular journal now?  Of course not!  But the anger comes from feeling that things are a little more out of control now.  To be using something and have it disappear, well, that happens more and more lately.  I have a lot of things going on right now, none of which would seem essential to anyone else.

My focus the past several months (has it been that long?) has been learning parchment craft, which is so relaxing and meditative.  In the evening with something on television or an audio book for company, I trace and emboss until it's time for lights out.  It feels like I've only been doing this for a month at the most, however, this is September and I see some files I downloaded in May on the topic.
This is what I mean about feeling out of control.  The time is whipping by and I am trying my best to keep up.

(During the past month too, I had a bout with a computer crypto virus which wiped out all my photographs and clip art, and believe me, there was a lot.  I got the virus off my computer, thanks to the Geek Squad at Best Buy, and thanks to Carbonite, most of the files were restored.  After that I upgraded that computer to Windows 7 from Vista, and this studio computer from 7 to Windows 10. Now I find that they are both old enough to be slowed down by these newer operating systems, and of course Best Buy would like to sell me a new desktop computer.  But really, what do I need a computer for?  Just think about it!)

I have a smart phone.  I have a tablet.  Both of those things can blog, or read Facebook funny quotes, and check Twitter to see whether a tornado is coming our way.  I can't do graphic arts or use my cutters on those things but the computers I have still work (as I am currently demonstrating.)  But because I am retired (translation: too old for anyone to hire) the desperate need for a whiz-bang computer is really just not here.  As I daily remind myself.

You see, when people say "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak," it's not always about sex.  It sometimes applies to people like me with an inborn entrepreneurial bent, and we are absolutely driven to create, or produce, or do whatever it is we can do.

Keeping busy is a good thing, at least it is for me.  But now I have to deal with all the things that go with it because of the change in my circumstances, putting it kindly.

I really do wish I could find that gesso.

Finding new ways to use old stash

People like me who work with all kinds of mixed media tend to be hoarders, and since I am in what my friend Mary calls my "twilight years" I decided this year to begin seriously de-stashing and it's amazing how much more efficiently the items I do work with can be stored.

When I moved here five years ago, things just got tossed into storage bins here and there, with no real thought to saving space.  I have kept (and accumulated more) things since then, and the chaos has contributed to my already stressful existence.  I am feeling really good now about the changes I made in the studio and the choices I am making about what to keep.

Do I really need a hundred baby food jars for paint?  Why not just a half dozen?  And those coffee cans for washing brushes, why not just one or two?  It's hard to let go of things I "might want to make something with some day," but now I'm either using them for sure, or tossing them.  Or sharing them with other artists.

In the process, I have found things I forgot about and am having fun creating a bit differently.  I'm finally enjoying monoprinting.  I'm making greeting cards, and prepping card fronts from these results.

Change is good.  Aging, not so much.  I'm slow, I'm getting a third as much done as I plan, but ideas still abound and I'm having a good time.

I will try to confine my comments about the complications of aging in my other blog, Klothospin.

Valentine's projects at a snail's pace.

I have received several dozen emails from various sources with links to Valentine's projects, and downloaded a few.  And I decided I would make my granddaughters' valentines for school this year.  One needed 22, the older one needed 25.

This used to be simple.  It took me TWO WEEKS.

This is starting to not be funny anymore.  There are so many projects I have in mind, and I have to remember that I probably cannot get to all of them in the time frame I normally would.  Adjusting to aging is very, very difficult for me.

Paper swap

I am taking part in another paper swap hosted by Donna of CollageUnleashed Yahoo Group.

What happens is we each create papers, letter-size, decorated both sides with paint, stamps, ink, stencils or collage, and this time we are doing two sets of 20 each. We send them to her before her deadline and she parcels them out to all of us; we each get 40 pretty papers to either bind for a journal or whatever.  Some I have saved for large collage projects.

In any case, it has been a couple of years since we did this -- or at least since I participated.  (I don't always check all my group messages.)  I decided now would be a good time to jump in, and set about preparing to make my papers.  I had some 80 lb paper and of course lots and lots of paint and stencils.  Or so I thought.

The first thing that happened was I couldn't find the paper.  I have reorganized my studio several times in the past several years, and have been working with wood, and clay, and canvases. (I do spend an inordinate amount of time looking for things, it seems.)  So I ordered another ream online.  It's way more than I'll ever need and of course I'll find my other paper later.  I will give it to my granddaughters for drawing.

I set aside the time to begin; I looked for appropriate spray bottles, watercolor which doesn't clog the spray bottles, and got ready to paint.

I somehow didn't remember what to do.

Anything I sketched, or sprayed didn't really look like what I have done in the past, and I wouldn't want to send to anyone.  What on earth was I to do?

I know! I've always been good at monkey-see-monkey-do, so I went to the file of papers I had received two years ago that are still pretty and unused, and it finally jogged my memory.  (I guess this is another sign of old age.  Seems there's a new sign every day.)  Okay.  So what I want to do, I said, is paint one color, and make a design of some sort in another color.  A pattern.

I began to paint, and using watercolor on a paper that is not watercolor paper can be a really sloppy experience.  The paper was curling, taking forever to dry so that I could do the second side, and stencils were not working at all.  No shapes at all, just dribbles.

Gesso.  I forgot about that.  I use that all the time on canvases, so I had plenty on hand.  I started over, gessoing both sides of the first 20 pieces of paper.  And eureka, the paint began to behave.  Even using gesso and the bigger brush got me started thinking better about what I would like to do.

This has been really a surprising experience for me -- I, who have created art journal after art journal in the past four years, had very little memory of how it is done.  I have made many other things since then, and this process just somehow got pushed into a deep crack of my memory department.

I have two more weeks to finish, and let's all hope it goes smoothly from now on.

On another note, I found a big container of all my previously created art journals that has been stored outside, with ten inches of water in it!  The container's lid had blown off before the last rain, and nobody had noticed.  Devastating.  I thought they'll never dry, the pages will glue to themselves, and we'll have no history of my better days.   I set them out to dry in the sun, and every now and then I go and turn a few more pages. We are not expecting rain for a few days.

The pages are not going to stick together after all, which I feared.  And why not?

Gesso!

Am I getting old or what??

Today is one of those days when I am ready to sell my studio -- a 12x20 Tuffshed complete with insulation, shelving, air conditioner, and over $10k worth of tools and art supplies -- all for $20,000.

The thing is, you'd have to move it.

Once in awhile I get like this.  Overwhelmed with all the things I could do out here, but wondering why I do it.  I spend at least one day a month organizing so I can go from one activity to a different one, and when I do that I find things I forgot I had.  I would say that easily 30% of my time is spent looking for things.  This has become very annoying.  Stressful.  Makes me want to scream.

Yep, this is that kind of day.

I just finished making (and dressing) about half a dozen polymer clay dolls, in several different sizes from 11" to 20".  I have some wood pieces I want to refinish, and printer's trays that I want to collage things into.  As I have worked on these other projects I have created a pile of "ephemera" for this project.  Yet I like to finish with any given project before I start a new one.

In 2014 I have done wood carving, made little houses, painted a bunch of paintings using the styles of Glenn Farquhar at Art Fusions  after downloading a few of his lessons.  Oh, and then my granddaughters used this computer and it crashed, so if I want to see those lessons again I'll have to go download them again.  Haven't done that yet.

I have accomplished a few things today.  I guess I should be satisfied with that, and go see if the Roku came today.

Mother's Day 2014

I've been a mother for quite some time now, and the thing I most want every year -- and every day, actually -- is peace and quiet.  I so enjoy time to create, and I do best in total solitude.  I do entertain myself with podcasts and I subscribe to three.  I've been behind in listening to them and have three more to listen to before I'm caught up!  This I will do today, as I put the finishing touches on the first little house I have ever made that isn't a square or rectangle.  This one has a porch, and looks much like the last house my grandparents lived in.

I'm also working on a self-portrait, trying out some new clay, and would like some time just to experiment with some inks I've had for some time.  It seems to me that everything takes me three times as long as it used to... for instance, yesterday it took all day just to miter and glue frames to the house I'm working on.  Somehow I will develop a system for that.

Pictures to come!