fanciful devices: 2-Year Anniversary

A Stone Is Nobody's

A man ambushed a stone. Caught it.
Made it a prisoner.
Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the rest of his life.

His mother asked why.

He said, because it's held captive, because it is captured.

Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know whether it's in a garden or not. Eternity and the stone
are mother and daughter; it is you who are getting old. The stone is only sleeping.

But I caught it, mother, it is mine by conquest, he said.

A stone is nobody's, not even its own. It is you who are conquered; you are minding the prisoner, which is yourself,
because you are afraid to go out, she said.

Yes yes, I am afraid, because you have never loved me, he said.

Which is true, because you have always been to me as the stone is to you, she said.

Russell Edson

FAQs

1. Are you a Southeast Asian dancing girl from the 1800s?

No, sorry to disappoint. My avatar and banner images are from an ancient book I found in the depths of my grandmother's cabinets. More on that here.

2. How do you make everything look so old?

First, you need a good oxidizer to brush on every bit of metal you can reach. I'll tell you all about it here.

Then there's this wax. I first mentioned it here. You'll have to scroll down a lot.

3. How can you be so productive?

I'm insanely obsessed and I have no offspring. I do nothing else- I don't have a day job, I don't clean my house or cook, I spend all day in pjs, often completely abandoning personal hygiene... I only interact with other humans when I walk my dog. And I like people! But I prefer dogs.

And I'm sloppy- but I make that sloppiness work for me.

4. Any tips you'd like to share?

No! Except for these 16 posts about techniques and this one about how to find your aesthetic.

5. Would you be offended if I took some inspiration from your designs?

Well, I'd be happier if you outright copied them.

No really, imitation is how we learn. I have enough ideas to go around. And even if I don't- please. No one's going to do this obsessively enough to threaten my business. (Probably.) I learned by copying others and I've seen others copy me as a step toward developing their own voice. So feel free. (I'd love if you tossed me a link in my comments, so I can feel like a proud momma.)

6. What do you look like?

Why, what have you heard? Really? Wow.

10/28/10

2-Year Anniversary

GUYS! I just realized that my 2 year etsy anniversary is coming up!!! This whole time I've been thinking it's been 3 years, that's how time-confused I am. But, damn! This is awesome. My dad actually was the one who noticed, he said he wants us all to go out and celebrate it. Awwww.
Actually, I've been wanting to get a celebratory tattoo. My 1st. Thing is, I'm crazy picky about every last detail. My husband (whose arms are covered with 'em) doesn't want me to get one cuz he say I'll never be happy with it. But If I design the damn thing I will be! It's gonna be based on yr classic gypsy gal with just a touch of the ol' calavera thrown in:
traditional gypsy girl

But just a touch! Just the ornamentation. In these stylized pictures it always looks like the teeth and jaw area are stitches and a random black glob. I gotta try my hand at it...
My dream is a royal blue and red one with the skull-esque ornamentation barely there in a pale aqua.... And maybe instead of a gypsy scarf she'll sport one of these wacky Spanish headdresses, since I have Spaniard in me but not Roma/gypsy.

I mean, what are these things? Europe is so weird.

Oh, so I went to fix this listing because I'd forgotten to add the measurements:

Edible Poetry. Vintage Glass Berry Drops.

I was laughing about it when the hubs came to look. He was all impressed but then read the title:
Edible Poetry. Vintage Glass Berry Dangles.
"But 'berry dangles' makes me think of 'dingleberries,'" was his comment. Which made me just about crap myself. And the crazy thing is that I wouldn't have thought of it in a million years but he hadn't even finished saying 'dangles' when right away I knew and was already crapping myself. So I changed it to berry drops.
School was cancelled tonight because of these crazy storms that blacked out the whole block around the building. Yay.

And, I just spent a year looking up images and messing with them on my old photo editing program and got this far-->
But then it should have tons of scrolling banners everywhere, maybe saying something like, 'Otherworldly' over top and 'Beloved' curving under?

4 comments:

stregata said...: So - weird, are we? chuckle
So, you want to know what the lovely Spanish ladies are wearing?
Go take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peineta_(comb); 10/28/10, 1:24 AM
steufel said...: I'm excited to see what the whole thing will look like! Let us now.; 10/28/10, 5:03 AM
fanciful devices said...: HAHA- stregata, i just had to re-read that entire post wondering what you meant by 'weird, are we?' I was thinking 'did i write that my blog readers were weird? why would i have written that?' when i found 'europe is so weird.' LOL!
so in response to you...
well, you're from germany, right? one word: lederhosen! (that is to say, yes. yes you are weird); 10/28/10, 2:21 PM
Desirée said...: I think they look like dangling grenades, but I'm a little strange (or so I've been told...) so you are welcome to take my opinion with a grain of salt ;)

I would love to see a version of the classic gypsy tattoo with those ornate Spanish comb/veil thingies!; 10/29/10, 5:42 PM