if they were me

if they were me, and i was you, and i was you... would you want a present too?
happy birthday happy birthday ! [name that band?]



my papa [grandpa] would have been 94 today. it's kind of ironic that my husband's birthday and his birthday are a mere 2 days apart. they have many similar characteristics.... one of my favorite being their sharp wit.

above is a little line drawing i did of him from a photo... it sits in my studio above my desk. pinned to a beautiful board made for me by sally shim .

anyway - when shanna asked me to write a memory about my grandparents a bunch of them came to mind. so i thought i'd share a bit more about papa on this his birthday.

so... he was big into safety [there were always signs in the car - fasten your seat belt!] and big big into teaching me things. he would always present me with some kind of puzzle or challenge to figure out. he was also always trying to get me to learn something in a fun way. as we used to drive around los angeles he would sing and have me spell out the names of street. P-I-C-O that spells pico! he'd mispronounce names to be funny [but still have me learn to spell them correctly] sep-pull-veeda for Sepulveda - al-U-min-eeum for aluminum.

he was a big whistler too. you could almost always hear him coming before you saw him. i don't remember him actually whistling too many tunes that you recognized, but it was just this constant sound. it was usually an upbeat rif... with some good gaps for wetting the lips and filling the lungs....

there was one song he created, that has stuck with me [with my whole family]. it's so simple, but it was so much fun to sing with him in the car. and i can't wait to sing it to the little in the car. i wish i could sing it to you here so you could hear the tune, but here are the words. it's all about stop lights:

when it's red on top it means STOP STOP STOP
when it's green below it means GO GO GO
when it's yellow in the middle means WAIT A LITTLE
and that's how the stoplights go.

happy birthday papa. i miss you.....

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the month of anyone being a guest on habit is almost up. i'm going to try to keep it up as i have been.

above is a shot from the studio yesterday. i looked down sort of shocked as normally there is so much color in my work. and here was all this black and white.... the drawings of tonka are for a show that's all about aesop fables - curated by the working proof - it will be at rare device in november. i'm trying to figure how big to make him, and if i want to embroider all or some of him... but i had to find the right pose first.... the other stuff is de-forestation based imagery [i think i hinted about this in another post awhile back?]. more on this soon.

enjoy your week everyone!

the rainbow connection

the amazing project hereby to be referred to as the GREAT OFFICE CLEAN-UP or GOC has begun. it's in it's infancy, but it's happening. old anthropologie catalogs recycled, papers are being shuffled, re-organized, re-stacked. boxes are being moved into the studio where they will have to be shuffled, re-organized and absorbed into other boxes and the like. this phase 1 of cleaning resulted in 2 things. a bunch of sneezing, and the re-discovery of above.... plexi plastic samples that i garnered from somewhere. i love them. i think they'll have to go on the wall as art.

i have a thing for objects arranged by color [or in color scheme]. or things that are just plain colorful. i do. if it was considered an addiction i might need to seek professional help. hello my name is lisa and i'm a color-aholic. [miniature-aholic too].

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i just finished my piece for august's art in a box .

i have to say - art in a box has inspired me and allowed me to be a bit free in the studio. it's a singular piece [although sometimes i dig something out of my flat files or archives to put in] - it can be kind of quick, and whimsical, and doesn't have to fit into what i've been doing otherwise in the studio.

i dug out some of the letterpress prints that didn't make it into the edition . and just had fun on top of it. thanks to paper monkey press for the lovely letterpress work. [i always rub my finger over these prints with respectful glee].



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the rainbow here is on the right.... in the GOC i ended up recycling many a anthropoligie catalog, but not before tearing out a few sheets first.

how much would i love to just enter the scene on the left? so calm. so reflective. the detail of blue striping on the sides/front of that sofa slay me. and i still love birdcages. they haven't been overused for me ... at least not yet.... and that necklace? something about how wild and sophisticated it is simultaneously appeals to me.....

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and one last good thing:



shanna's garland decal in my studio. a sneak peek of my studio for you. a corner of it. more to come soon. i promise. the architect who built it was here the other day and took photo after photo of the outside... and i promised that come jan when all my shows are complete i will do a massive clean-up organization and photo the inside properly. that will be the GREAT STUDIO CLEAN UP .... in the meantime - get your own decal

13 minutes and counting

oh mr. warhol, how did you know? how could you have possibly guessed that in the not too distant future with you tube and vimeo and all of the insane reality tv that we would all indeed have our 15 minutes of fame?

some of my domestic scene drawings are hanging in Kearny Street Workshop's office at the moment. they are calling it the KSW artist gallery. my work will be up through the end of august - so if you are wandering around folsom street you can visit them.

they also asked if i would answer some questions on camera for them. and i reluctantly said yes.... and now you can see me [purposefully NOT looking at the camera] blabbling away about the work in the show. i think if you read here regularly i won't be saying anything new, but hey.



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let's just look at more images of me shall we???

actually, though, this image was taken by katrina - the dress was made by her as well. she's exhibiting her amazing dresses project at theatre artaud in SF and i was lucky enough to catch it. you can too. read more about it on her blog and go before the show closes !

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thankfully there are no more pictures of me to show you



the other day i took some polaroids. and that felt SO good. it was like hanging out with an old lost friend.

this whole summer has felt a bit disjointed. it feels like there's a funk. i've chatted about it with a couple other people. it's not that anything is wrong or bad - for me it's just this rather odd feeling of uncomfortableness. and then the occasional feeling of malcontent [which is no where near as severe as unhappy]. it comes and goes as it pleases ill regard of the weather or what i'm actually doing.

maybe i should just give into it. maybe it's about all the stuff that's about to happen this fall. maybe it's about figuring out how to balance all this stuff. maybe it's because i'm worried about making sure all the i's get dotted and t's get crossed. maybe it's that i hate uploading things to sell on etsy [this is for a project i'm working on - more about this in another post]. maybe i'm too tied to my computer. maybe i'm missing the studio more than i want to admit. maybe i'm tired of cramming too many things into small chunks of time.

i'm thinking i should just stop worrying about it [ha!]. or maybe i should make a a good list like heather.

ok - here's a go :: how the little says K now when you ask her OK, cucumbers growing in the garden, rhubarb compote, homemade japanese curry, kittens that purr on your lap, the smell of cut grass, meet-ups with cute internet pals and their cuter children [hi christine hi sally ], dreaming of seeing alice neel paintings with julie , figuring out and working on a piece of art that is bigger than me, treats brought over by my parents, how the little says PA-PA and BA-BA with the biggest smile on her face... better now... happy weekend.....

the halfway mark

i'm always a little befuddled when we make it through 1/2 of the year. this year i'm particularly remiss that i have YET to clean up the 2009 files from my office. cough. embarrassing but true. [the office continually ends up at the bottom of my list of things i must accomplish. maybe if i talk about it here i'll actually get to cleaning it].

last week was also no fun in the studio department. i just didn't get very much done. let's be honest and say almost NOTHING got done. this makes for a cranky me. it also stresses me out as i feel like i have that much more to catch up on.

i don't see deadlines the same way i used to. i can't pull all nighters right before one to finish everything up. i've become the the turtle. slow and steady. and so when i'm not on "pace" the butterflies start to gather.



i did make these necklaces for a couple of friend's birthdays.

sometimes making jewelry is just so much more rewarding and instantly gratifying than making anything else.

in another life i wish i was a jeweler - or a flower arranger. if you could have any occupation what might it be????????

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fun things in internet land:

ONE: whip up is doing a mini quilt-a-thon - and giving more copies of the mini quilts book away [see it on chronicle books].

TWO: my dear friend shanna is hosting a remember your granparents week on her blog. i was today's guest. read here

THREE: sadly i did not play along this year, but poppytalk just finished her summer color week . if you have time to kill go look at the flickr pool . such gorgeousness

FOUR:

i've been trying to keep up the habit on flickr.... but this month you can play along with habit . for all of july post your photos/words [30 or less] in the habit pool . molly and emily will pick participants. [this pool is another great way to waste some time]

hope everyone is well....