Strange Angels.......

After unpacking their Christmas decorations today Ruth posted some beautiful angel pictures. I decided I would follow suit but since we haven't gotten our decorations out of storage yet I'm just going to post the angels I have lying around the house. My brother-in-law gave me these three metal angels in a bag of collaging junk when he was here on Thursday. (He really should have wrapped them up and given them to me on Christmas...I love them!)

(The angel that watches over our living room.)

(Untitled, Mixed Media sculpture by me, approx. 13"x24"x44")


(an old Christmas card from one of our friends in Ann Arbor)

(All the Saints Salute You by me, Mixed Media assemblage, 6"x8"x2")

(Production Image from Tony Kushner's Angels in America)



"Strange angels - singing just for me
Old stories - they're haunting me
This is nothing
like I thought it would be."
~Laurie Anderson

Old Print

(Photoshop collage of some of my old show fliers, catalogs, magazine & newspaper articles, etc.)

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

(Kitara and Moonbeam momentarily tolerating the turkeys)

There are a lot of wild turkeys in Story but we haven't had them at our house in a couple of years. These showed up yesterday just in time Thanksgiving.

I hope all of you are having a really great day.
Happy Thanksgiving!

It Is So Decreed................

Last night’s dinner conversation consisted of a very sincere and impassioned declaration by Larry that all of the major architects of, and participants in, the mortgage crisis should be tried and hung.........which he then changed to being lined up in front of a firing squad.......which soon became “forget the trial, off with their heads!”........which was then met with Zoe and I rolling our eyes and changing the subject.

This morning at breakfast however he actually had a good idea. Now I know this won’t seem like much to any (all) of you who have never been there, but let me assure you that it’s a brilliant plan! Larry has now decided that all those found guilty of being criminally self-interested, deceptive, and greedy; thus perpetuating the collapse of our nation’s economy, shall hereby receive a life sentence to be served in Worland, Wyoming housed in a FEMA trailer, and employed by McDonalds. Trust me, it would be worse than a firing squad!

My Murderous Heart or How We Came Back to Wyoming

Now, I don’t believe in an interventionist God who needs us to justify our existence through a series of ego deflating, existential hurdles, but I am always amused when just as I’m feeling secure in my self image fate reminds me that, like Woody Allen, my psyche is just one big comedic soup of tiresome self doubt. That was the case in the 90’s when I went from being an animal loving pacifist vegetarian who avoided leather to some kind of crazed serial killer.

We had been living near Lawrence, Kansas for a couple of years and were really loving the whole vibrant, artsy, inclusive, academic, culturally rich, atmosphere. We had a tiny victorian on a nice corner lot, gardens, beautiful trees, and a meandering stream. It was a nauseatingly normal suburban existence. After we’d been there for 4 years I was sitting on the back deck reading a gruesome article in the paper about how one of the students at the University of Kansas had almost died from a brown recluse bite. Poisonous spiders in Kansas???......I had no idea!

Larry and I had always made a conscious effort to live life as harmoniously as possible. Most bugs who entered our house would be captured and moved outside if they were annoying, but the spiders I left alone. I had never understood what the big deal was. They certainly weren’t bothering anyone. Eventually that newspaper article sunk in. I had been living in a recluse infested region for 4 years without ever killing a single spider......in essence I was breeding them without check and they were everywhere! My skin crawled, my mind raced, and instantly I went from being a naturalist wannabe to some kind of insane Orkin apprentice when one day I walked into the living room and Larry was tuned to a Discovery Channel special on brown recluse spiders. One hour of watching teary eyed mothers explain how their allergic children needlessly died sudden and horrible deaths juxtaposed against images of black infected lesions endlessly eroding into permanent fleshy scars was all it took. I lost it. Not in a hysterical get me the hell out of this house sort of way, but in a calm lets move back to Wyoming sort of way.

Just before we moved Zoe was actually bitten. Luckily she wasn’t allergic and the nasty welt on her back went away after a couple of months. My self image on the other hand has permanently changed. I’m now an animal loving sometimes pacifist spider killer with a new pair of leather shoes and I’m okay with that! :)

To see some really nasty bite shots click here and scroll down.

Studio Shots

Ground Control To Major Tom (revised)

Loring sent out a link today to the You Tube video I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts. I just love that title. It should be my personal mantra. Although I’m not a big fan of organized religion, I do connect (in my seriously limited understanding of it) with Zen Buddhism and Taoism; both being more philosophies than religions. Part of Zen’s Eight Fold Path is often communicated as not thinking bad thoughts, or as pursuing “right thought”. I wish I could proclaim to the world that I embody such mastery over my brain’s incessant chatter but I’ve gotta say that I’m probably as far from being able to own that skill as anyone can be. My mind spends more time spiraling in negativity and self flagellation than anything else so I can definitely see how some measure of control would be a relief, at least on a personal level. Unfortunately, I also recognize that there are times when those annoying little voices have something to say, when immersion rather than repression can result in growth, insight, and understanding. Plus I’m not entirely sure that the world needs more collective passivity or that it would really benefit society if we all forfeited judgment, and ceased concern. So, what is it I’m rambling on about? I don’t know. I guess what I’m saying is that there’s a part of me that finds the idea of never thinking another negative thought very tempting...........if only I could.

He's Back!

Hanging Horn is back! He pretty much serves as the tacky immovable pink flamingo in our yard so when he disappeared a couple of weeks ago after re-injuring his head we assumed the worst. I did eventually muster up the resolve and fruitlessly scoured the woods this week, luckily, without finding anything.

Then just like a guy who's been out carousing all night he strolled in this morning expecting breakfast and a little TLC. I imagine his hormones got the better of him and frustrated with the platonic nature of our relationship he wandered off looking for more suitable companionship. The amazing thing is that he lost his bad antler along the way and his head is completely healed. A HUGE blessing!

Of course the antler will grow back in the spring but this means added months of undistorted vision putting an immediate end to his blindly and pathetically bashing into trees....Hooray! He did return with a couple of wounds, but he's recovered from worse so we aren't too worried. The picture above was taken after we doused him in peroxide. We have to assume that the other guy won so I'm guessing that I'm still his favorite girl. Anyways, I just wanted to post that he's fine, and all in all in better shape than he was when he left. I'm going to let him sleep it off and then I've got an apple with his name on it.

Have a Great Weekend!

The Seemingly Endless Magical Potato Drawer of Mice.

Once upon a time in an ordinary wood there was a house made out of logs. It looked like any other cabin in any other woods. Inside the house lived 3 humans who were ordinary and not particularly important. In fact, this story isn’t about them at all. This story is about the cats they belong to. At first glance you might mistake the cats as ordinary too, but don’t be fooled, they’re bewitched.

It is rumored that one autumn day, long, long ago, the cats tired of the never ending monotony of sleeping, eating, and licking the little tufts of fur buried deep between their toes. So they decided it would be great fun to play a trick on the humans. They spent many mornings snuggling in bed together, the sun angling perfectly toward them as they plotted and schemed. I don’t know how it was decided, or who actually cast the spell, but a successful charm was conjured enchanting the ordinary cabin in the ordinary woods..... forever. As a result of this mischievous prank whenever the first snowflakes drift downward from the heavens a call is put forth; an irresistible siren radiates throughout the forest and every single wide eyed, whiskery, deer mouse within miles is drawn to the house of cats. Now you might be thinking that the cats aren’t bewitched at all or that the mice might simply enjoy the human’s love of a cozy fire and careless housekeeping. That crossed my mind too until morning after morning I watched as food bowls were filled, water refreshed, and pans scooped, to see the cats gather. They’d wait expectantly as the incredulous humans revealed, for the zillionth time, a tiny brown creature entombed in a live trap, and born of the seemingly endless magical potato drawer of mice. Don’t be fooled when all 7 cats turn away indifferently, if you watch closely you’ll see their whiskers twitch with suppressed and bemused snickers. These are very clever cats who enjoy the irony of seeing pacifist humans frustrated at their utter lack of rapaciousness. Exhausted by the absurd joy of it and quite pleased with themselves the cats file back up to bed where they spend the rest of the day peacefully dreaming their predatory dreams.
The End.

Iraqi War Veteran Josh Hisle

"If I’m wrong, if they let me die a traitor’s death. If I’m wrong, give me a gun, a bullet, and a magazine, I’ll lock and load and do it on my own."

~Iraqi War Veteran Josh Hisle

It's been a really great week seeing our country engaged and calling for change in domestic and foriegn policies, creating history, and restoring hope for the world. We have definitely turned a corner and are on the right track! But watching the video CSNY Deja Vu tonight was a hard reminder of the war. I so want to believe that it will soon be behind us.

On a more superficial note: I finally discovered that you can change comment setting on each individual post! Yeah, I'm not too slow!!! Anyways, I set comments off on this one because I really wanted to post Josh Hisle's song for myself to remember but in no way want to "use" his suffering (or the war) for anything external.

Paula Poundstone on Sarah Palin's Wardrobe Expenditures

"Count how many days between the convention when she was first appointed.....to the election day, and it wasn’t 150. If you can’t dress yourself for a $1000.00 a day....
please, don’t go anywhere near the national budget!"

~Paula Poundstone
Npr's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me
(11/01/08)