My Precious

1. Dave, Judi and I went to see Precious this morning. That film kicked my ass. It is relentless and amazing. It is amazingly relentless and relentlessly amazing. In anticipation of the film, I read Push by Sapphire and I have to say that in many ways the movie was much more heartbreaking.  It is just a fine, fine film. Mo'Nique killed it as the mother. She was just absolutely devastating.

2. I took this photo of myself a few days ago and of course it was a blurry mistake, but I like it anyway.

Here's why I took the photo: If you know me at all, you know that I am not a girly girl.  Every once in a while I rouse myself and kick it into girly girl mode (which is much, much more high maintenance that I'm usually willing to commit to). Recently, I've been playing at girly girl by doing my hair and makeup every day and (sometimes) taking a picture of the completed project.

You know, I've never understood those women who get up and "put on their face" as a matter of course. (I'm even creeped out by the phrase "put on my face," actually.) But now I've been doing just that, every day. It's weird, but kind of fun in a useless, Stepford Wife kind of way.

3. I took this photo this afternoon, at the studio, while I was carving some frames for mixed media pieces.

There is everything you need: coffee, water, clay, a book of animal drawings, carving tools, a spray bottle filled with water, and a CD player with your own "Jittery Mix" (with songs from The B-52s, Paramour, The Clash, Joan Jett, Flogging Molly, and Elvis Costello, among others).

This is a small sample of the frames I carved tonight. These are about three inches in diameter, with a 1 1/2 inch depression carved into them. I'll either embed the interior collage pieces in resin or in another non-resin, resin-like substance.

Each one has a name that I carve into the back. The one at the front with the coconut-like texture is called "The Gift of Complexity."

These are a long way from being finished, by the way. This is perhaps step four in a twelve or fourteen step process.

[More over at my long-neglected craft blog.]