Thingedy Stuff and Things

 Hey you- wanna get looked at like you're a crazy person? Go get you in a shoe store, hear a classic 80s hip hop jam, turn to the 1st store worker you see- a very cute black girl proly no older than 19- and yell, "Is this Da Butt?" Yeah. Do that.

Then watch as she yells to all the other workers in the store while you backtrack, "Um... it's not really important" 

while a hot guy in dreads goes, "Is this the what?" and you find yourself going, "You know, Doin' Da Butt, awww, sexy sexy...." 

and start wondering if you're totally confusing this with anything else cuz its been maybe 20 years or more since you heard it and it's not at the refrain or anything....

 as the workers track down the oldest lady in the place... who has no idea why people keep yelling at her about butts...

 til finally and to your almost painful relief you hear "Doin' Da Butt! AAAW! Sexy sexy! When you get that notion/put your back field in motion- AW!"

 Finding yourself unable to hold back a few buttcentric moves. Or they would be if you had anything other than a flat plank of wood where an ass might go, a condition also know as Noasatol Syndrome.
 I've learned to live with Noasatol.

I tried to take a better picture of these.

Y'all ever just loose listings?

Don't know if you hit 'edit' instead of 'copy' or just never listed them in the first place?

Happened with these and those and those.

So here they are, up in the shop.

Also took some very crappy pix of this stuff that isn't crappy but the pix iz.

 Whatevs, I'll take the rest of the images some other time. 

Not tomorrow thought because Mom and I are going to get a new baby sister for Chiquita. 

Squeeeee!

Now check this out. I got these wrapping papers on etsy for just $12. 

I put them in this huge cheap IKEA frame- just double sided tape on the backboard that comes with the frame.

 OK, can't get a decent picture with all the reflections but dude! It's just printed on soft newsprint and all, but its so awesome. I'm so psyched.

I just stare at it like:

And then I celebrate like:

(P.S. Lovely comments about what is an artist still coming in. I'm sure there's some questions I forgot to address. If you ask me twice there's a 95%% chance I'll remember to answer next post.)

solder blobs, patroness thank-yous

 So remember Patroness? She dropped off my radar claiming other unexpected financial priorities, saying I could keep all her haul for myself. I've been using her stuff for a while.  

I decided to make a some stuff for her from some very special pieces that I didn't feel right using up. Like above, this raku cab and huge labradorite. 

I'm just going to give them to her as gifts, not charging for the work, as thanks for all the goodies she's given me.

Here, some super ancient glass in this ring.

You can't see but there's iridescence in these. They're exceptional. 

 Here's some more. I use the the wire to make a cage to protect these very precious bits. As you can see above and below, I used solder in lieu of torch drawing ball pins.

These final two inspired me to make the next two for the shop:

 Here a bunch of silvery green baroque glass pearls. So cool that I actually used a ton of them here which is really weird for me. I usually would parse out different types of things- you know? I'm all about one rusty thing, one refined thing, one old thing, one gemstone thing, one girly thing one masculine thing. So this is weird.

Also as you can see solder is much wonkier than drawing ball pins and doesn't look at all the same. Doesn't pass, if you will. Next time I'll be tidier with the bunching the wire to then get tidier solder blobs around them. I did have to do a lot of dremel sanding after as well. Maybe I'll decide not to care.

 Here I used something very precious from Patroness- rough authentic rubies. Again, just a row of them like above I used a row of baroque glass pearls.

 I riveted this rough tin bezel on to the tin ring base. I just adore this thing.

 Here I used broken rhinestone chain and wired it on to this flat memory-wire-like bidness. The ends, as you can see, I secured with, what else? Solder blobs! Yay solder blobs.

From the comments it seems a ton of people are fans of Caroline Myss. I clicked around her site a bunch. For some reason the thing that caught my eye was "What to do When You Don't Know What to Do Next" because I feel like maybe I'm at an odd sort of plateau that I need to figure out.... 

 Though I am a bit put off by mentions of Astrology and prayer. I'm sure she does it all in a different special way but....

Do you know in a study comparing sick people who had groups pray for them vs. those who didn't, the results were that the ones who had people pray for them ended up slightly sicker or less recovered? (This is reported by my mom who, being a doctor, reads about a lot of studies in various journals of medicine.) In other words, it didn't really help.

Nothing to do with this lovely Ms. Myss, but there's this thing where you're told that its your fault for your intention if you're sick or odd.... if you only wanted it more or tried or had the right attitude.

(New photos of this bracelet.)
And that can be bad for ... well, me who was told all kinds of crap that made me feel like shit before I was medicated and which I later realized I had no control over despite fuckers who said shit like "I could have gotten depressed at that moment but I chose not to!" as if anyone could choose to be in soul-searing pain.

I'm babbling. This is old hat. A well-paved avenue of thought. Lets look at this instead:

And also this is very important:

So no one has any advice for me for my pencil torch that does this? Really?

{SALE}

I decided to have a 25% sale in the shop, thought I'd let me ladies know. Too dark and stormy for pix today but tomorrow I hope. On the plus side, I shaved my legs yew guise! And forced Mr. Devices to feel them before he had both feet through the door. I'm so proud. To share in the smooth experience, reach out and touch your screen. DO IT!
oh yeah, the coupon in TWENTYFIVE. Remember you have to click 'Apply coupon code' right under 'How you'll pay' in your cart.  Otherwise I can't give you the discount. I know, broken record much?
Ninja datschund:
 Except for the bit where you just see waggy tail. That's not very ninja.
This makes me so happy.

See Kim/Wildthorn wrote, "I miss your cute animal gifs." So that's basically my excuse to go overboard, and your screens will never load.


Also new commenter lisa mitchell wrote an epic FIVE PART comment.


Everything I read in my comments I'm like, "Das true." Then I read the opposite and I'm like "Das true too."




Then I'm like, "I'd give it all up if it meant I could cuddle an orangutan."

Conversation continues, plus dark beauties

Two things:
#1- I got longer and more in-depth comments on that last post than eva b4. Imna just quote interesting bits and my reactions throughout this post. And
B) DARK BACKGROUND PHOTOS!!!!!!!! Why didn't anyone tell me they're magical? And super forgiving? I'm angry at all of you for conspiring together to keep this information from me. Even when you were repeatedly telling me to try them, yes.

 They're bright somehow even with much less light and no whitebalance meddling! I'm freaking out.

 Also here's a couple simpler smaller babies. But anyway, back to the topic at hand.

vulticulus wrote, "For me, what defines me as an artist is my passion. My art consumes my waking moments but it does not define my life. My passion is the very thing that gives me the drive to: work a full time job as a writer, study two nights a week for a post graduate degree, spend hours online sourcing ingredients to use in my creations, maintain four shops on Etsy and continue to stock them, write a blog, walk my dog every day, go running most nights and do a few craft markets in person each month."

OK, this made me want to cry with exhaustion then cry with jealousy because I have so little energy and can't do a fraction of the stuff others do. I know you're going to say, "But its hard and I have to force myself" etc, but I couldn't force myself to do all that even if you gave me tons of speed and a million dollars as incentive. So all I got from that is jealousy. But besides that, you're using 'passion' where I used 'obsession' and there's a parallel there.

But also you know, I did fancifuldevices for like 3-4 years before leaving my day job. So why did I forget to mention how many artists maintain via dayjobs? What's my point? idk but dude you have four etsy shops?  

 Sparrow said,"You forgot to mention I likened you to Beyonce!" Yeah, she said I had an entourage like she does. As in, the fact that I have supportive parents and husband is somehow like her crew of stylists and producers. And she wasn't joking. I mean, I know I look like Beyonce ...

 Emmanuelle Roué quoted David Ackert. "Artists are some of the most driven, courageous people on the face of the earth. They deal with more day-to-day rejection in one year than most people do in a lifetime… .(...)Why? Because artists are beings who have tasted life’s nectar in that crystal moment when they poured out their creative spirit and touched another’s heart. In that instant, they were as close to magic, God, and perfection as anyone could ever be. And in their own hearts, they know that to dedicate oneself to that moment is worth a thousand lifetimes."

All I know is it's not courage. Unless it's personally scary for you because of your particular situation.  I mean, I think it takes more courage to, like, go outside if you have facial deformity or something. Doesn't everyone face rejection?

I think Ackert was talking about actors? My actress friend laughs about how people alway say "You're so brave!" when she has a very emotional scene in a play. She's like, "I'm always 5 minutes away from a meltdown in daily life anyways, but if I lost it in reality, people would not approve. Do it on stage and suddenly you're fearless!" Also about that drinking from the nectar of life stuff-. I think anyone who loves what they do experiences that; like when surfers describe catching a perfect wave or when anyone accomplishes a substantial achievement using all their skills and talent. Sharon Driscoll wrote, "when you are an artist you seem to see the world from that perspective. You can't go outside and see the dog poop, or a broken tail light in the street you pick up, or a sunset - just anything and not end up interpreting it in an artistic way. Albeit a comment in a blog, an addition to an art piece, or a color Segway. What you "take in" comes out." Yup.Gardanne wrote, "A few years ago I was discussing with my daughters math tutor what makes a person "good" at math. He said when he looks at a tree he sees numbers, like how many branches on each branch how many points on each leaf, etc. When I look at a tree I see colors, shapes, positive space negative space, and basically the beauty of it all." This is interesting to me because a math genius can be just as zoned out in his/her magical universe of numerical interconnectedness as any artist in her/his magical world of aesthetics.I also find a lot of similarity in the way athletes or any artisans speak of being 'in the zone.' For some reason I truly connected with a description I heard of video gamers when they get stuck in a game and can't tear themselves free. Video games- like the world-building or quest kind- are able to trap our attention by providing a constant stream of little tasks and rewards. That's how you end up with, "I'll just do this one more little thin-" and BAM five hours have passed. That's exactly how I feel about jewelry making. Except that I'm horrible at all games and after you put all that effort in you don't get jack, whereas I have end up with some awesome little thing that makes me yell, "Look what I made everybody!"Peggy Gato wrote, "What an interesting minimalistic but rather limiting notion on what an artist is." OK Miss grumpy. But yeah, I'm trying to define it narrowly and un-romantically. "But then it is an age old idea, I suffer for my art, therefore I am an artist." I don't suffer for my art, I get tons of joy from it. I suffer from my crappy low energy, no-discipline-having personality. So I'm not sure what you're saying but it sounds really grumpy dude.I welcome further grumpy comments below.So after this conversation, I've decided that it's much more productive to talk about degrees of artisticness and not about artist vs. non-artist. How much art do you have in you and what can you do with/about it? If you have none you'll end up some kind of IRS bureaucrat (maybe?). Too much and you're a schizophrenic drooling into your applesauce. That's it! That's my conclusion. [Betsi  asked off topic, "You made those iridescent utee bead theengs? I thought I remembered those being a gift from some one." Those are different. See, she (Claudia) got the idea from some I made ages ago, then she sent me some she made. Then I elaborated them. Then we chatted a while on how to perfect them. Then I made the ones I showed in the last post, finishing them with some super tough epoxy that she searched for on line specifically because it doesn't dissolve utee. It's a fast drying resin that I also used in the earrings above to encase the little opal cabs:

 After I made the beads I remembered why I don't make beads- they're a pain in the ass. And utee seems deceptively simple but can quickly drive you crazy. Plus the longer you heat it the darker it gets so my first few were just brown ugly poop.]

Finally I have another question for you all now about practical matters. Do any of you have a pencil soldering torch like so:

When I try to use mine flames shoot out of it like thus, and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with that.

P.S. Go to Sparrow's blog now to read a super useful helpful post about photographing your shit for etsy.