fanciful devices: New Items in Shop

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.

10/30/09

New Items in Shop

I finally got some pretty decent pics of some new things, and was able to list these in the shop. I've been going to more meetings than I thought were humanly possible to survive, however, so I have fallen far, far behind on my projects. My boss doesn't ask if we want to put in 6 extra hours a week at "training" pay (teachers only get paid their teaching salary for the class hours, all prep and test making/grading/evaluations/etc. are just slave labor.) "Training" pay is less than half our normal wage- though sitting through a meeting w/him is much more grueling than any teaching I've ever done.... wait. What was this post about? Oh, yeah, my boss makes the hair on my arm stand on end. That was the point of this post.

As you can see, a couple of bright spots among a lot of grey grey grey. the color ones aren't really my focus now, I want the timeless ancient grey-black look. But I have these lovely color elements which I feel I should use... But is that then detracting from my overall shop mood? Not as unified.... Hmm...

1 comment:

Penelope said...: I've been wanting the grey, ancient thing too- I've been trying to get it for ages but it slips my grasp. I was to go so much simpler than I am now, with dusty, musty colours. Blackboards, cobblestones, fire ash...; 11/18/09, 10:32 PM