A Cupful of Fabulous

My weekend was wonderful! Full of movies, mostly. Every year James and I try to see as many Oscar nominees as possible before the Academy Awards Ceremony is broadcast, and we were able to pack four of the Best Picture films into this weekend. With yesterday's viewing of '127 Hours' (intense!) we're now cotched up; all ten nominees for Best Pic have been seen. My fave is still 'The King's Speech.' But films like 'The Fighter' and 'The Kids Are All Right' completely surprised me. I doubt I would have gone out of my way to see them if they weren't Oscar material.

Between movies there were trips to the book store and laps around the mall, creative conversation over cups of steaming chai (chai: liquid pumpkin pie for the senses!), brief moments of sun and the delight of watching feathery clumps of snowflakes alight on my jacket sleeve (stellar dendrites? The only 'snow' word I know....). I scored a free audio book (The Talisman by King/Straub) for this winter's studio listening pleasure. I found two lucky pennies, one quarter, and a dime! I ate popcorn and covered my eyes and had my mind opened a little bit. I knitted a pair of slippers for the Grandbug, logged a bunch of miles on the pedometer, made a friend on Twitter, and did some Mystery Mentoring. I curled up in front of 'Downton Abbey' and stirred rich droplets of melted butter floating on the surface of my supper of oyster stew.

And now it's Monday and time for me to get back in the studio.

As it always does, the weekend went by so fast! But as it almost always is, it was a cup full of fabulous. I hope yours was, too. :)
...

One Memory Leads to Another...

I don't know what made me think of this recently....

Back in the early 80s my studio was a little mauve-colored, calico-wallpapered room right off the kitchen. It was the hub of the house, and from it I could keep tabs on everything. While working there I could supervise my grade-school-aged girls as they sat doing homework at the kitchen table. From its single window I could look out at the swing-set by day and listen to the crickets at night. A lovely room! And one not yet filled with the mountains of print inventory that Mayfaire would one day bring to it.

During that time I did contract work for a large company in Minneapolis that designed products for students, things like workbooks and flashcards and the wonderful stuff that makes school bulletin boards (in my opinion) so inviting. Products my own kids were enjoying in their classrooms. A grade school friend of mine that I'd kept in contact with over the years hooked me up with the job, bless her heart; it was just a lucky turn of events that when the company needed a freelance artist she thought of me.

God bless that company for giving me the opportunity that it did because I couldn't have asked for a more perfect engagement! I'd tuck my girls in at night and then draw until late, creating everything from flashcards to puzzle designs, sometimes working until dawn when I'd wake them for school. Then while I dished their oatmeal and made their lunches, like clockwork a courier would arrive at the door to pick up my work. It was such a fabulous arrangement that a day didn't go by that I didn't pinch myself to make sure it wasn't all just a figment of my imagination.

That same company still exists, only now it has a staff of in-house graphic artists who create its product designs on the computer. And here I am: A pencil-and-paper kinda gal; too 'old school' for this new age. But the job was wonderful while it lasted.

And right about here is where I'd planned to end my post.

Except that during the time I spent proofreading it and making changes, I learned via Chase's Online Calendar of Events that January 27 -- the day this was all to be posted to my blog -- was the 25th anniversary of the day in 1986 that the space shuttle Challenger exploded just 10 miles above the earth, killing its crew members and teacher Christa McAuliffe. And if I have to reduce those Mauve Studio Memories to a single one, this is it.

Like the assassination of JFK, I know where I was and what I was doing when the Challenger met its tragic end: I was sitting at my drawing table designing a Chinese New Year puzzle and living my dream. And on my little minuscule black-and-white television I was watching Christa McAuliffe live hers.

And then she was not.

I still don't know what made me think of that little mauve studio and give me the urge to write about it now, but the fact that its story would post on this day of all days gives me a little shiver. Not to mention it hits me upside the head with the reminder that things can change in a heartbeat, even when you're right in the middle of living your dream.
...

5 Magical Things About My Day

The world's best place to read and dream...

Make that 'Five Magical Things About My (yester)Day':

1. Blue snow shadows and dripping icicles.
2. A front window alive with the whirs and twirls and clicks and nods of solar-powered devices all worshiping the sun.
3. Playing with knitting needles and designing a -- slipper?
4. A breakfast of oatmeal with agave nectar and a handful of pomegranate seeds.
5. My living room's fairytree alight and glowing in the dusk of a winter's evening.

What made your day magical?
...

Welcome to Tumbledown

Home is where the art is... :)

The first thing I should probably do is welcome you to my home, and here it is. Or at least here is its front door. I named the place 'Tumbledown' years ago when it was even less scruffy than it is today. (And this is not an up-to-date photo, so you can imagine what state it's in now!) Picking my house out of the neighborhood lineup is a piece of baklava; in my opinion, it's the only one with any character.

I've lived at Tumbledown for over twenty years. It's the residence I've been connected to the longest in my lifetime. I have some mixed feelings about it, mostly because several big life changes of both the happy and sad varieties occurred here over the years. And now that my daughters are grown and married and making lives of their own, I'm torn about staying in the house they grew up in....

James lives here with me now. He doesn't have the history with Tumbledown that I have. Occasionally I ponder what it'd be like to pull up stakes and find a whole new place that is ours alone. But about the time I begin to think seriously about it I open the door to the upstairs closet and see the pencil marks on the wall there of just how tall my girls were at different stages of their lives and I know then that it'd be impossible for me to leave. Which means that Tumbledown will be my forever home. Or at least the last one before the Nursing Home.

I'm not a housekeeper. The word is not even in my vocabulary. My mom, however, is an AMAZING housekeeper, and a day doesn't go by that I don't see a cobweb or a cat hair out of the corner of my eye and hear her voice in my head admonishing me to put down my pencil and sketchbook and do something important with my time. Sometimes I can tell myself that keeping house is her art and she's a master at it. And sometimes I can say with conviction that art IS important, more important than a clean house. But most of the time that voice in my head just saws away at me and I begin moving in circles: draw a bit, see something I should be doing, do it poorly, feel guilty, go back to the sketchbook, draw some more, lather, rinse, repeat....

James and I love stuff (especially books) and we love to collect it, and the odder the stuff the better. As a result, Tumbledown is a bit like Disneyland in that you can't see it all in one day. When my mom visits now, she can hardly speak her eyes are so busy! But her reaction over the years has made me self-conscious of my nest and more than a little hesitant to share it with others. I love it here, but I know it's not for everyone....

So this shabby front door is all you're gonna get for now. And I'll try to introduce you to the rest of the Tumbledown Experience in little bits, 'k?

Trust me. 'Little bits' is best. :)
...

Art in the Family

My eldest, who lives in Grass Valley, CA, just opened a charming photography studio and is open for business. As part of her cheering section, I'm posting the announcement of her first big Giveaway here by doing it the old-fashioned way: by copying and pasting it verbatim from her blog  -- Blissful Blatterations -- because I have no clue as to how to link it here otherwise. (Pssst. The canine subject matters? Yep, they're my granddogs! Cute, huh?):

Sarah D. Butcher Photography:

My first Giveaway: A pack of 4 Dog Lover notecards!

    

HOW TO ENTER:

(1) Follow me (one entry)

(2) Favorite me on Etsy (one entry)

(3) Follow me on Twitter (one entry)

(4) Comment about my giveaway on YOUR blog (one entry)

(5) Follow me on Bloglovin' (one entry)

Post a separate comment for each entry! 

Winner will be chosen from RANDOM.org

GOOD LUCK!

Winners will be announced on Sunday Jan 23

Me here again. Cool, huh? And please check out her cute Etsy storefront, the variety of photos on her website, and her blog posts to learn more about her wonderfully creative way of looking at life.

Lots to see, everyone! Enjoy. And may the best contestant win!
...

Break Time

My day is already full of Busy and I need a reason to take a break, so as long as I'm having tea we may as well have tea together. I hope you like Earl Grey. :)

My world is a mess at the moment and I'm picking away at it by degrees.... I didn't tell you that I'm gutting the studio and giving it a much-needed overhaul as my New Year's gift to myself, did I? I've been dreaming about doing so for years and the happy day (make that week; or maybe even month) has finally arrived. I thought it would never get here!

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point my studio became the receptacle for everything here that doesn't have a proper place, and now it looks like a science experiment, overgrown with a fungus of 'stuff.' Or at least it did up until last Saturday. I'd open the door to it and know that somewhere under all that clutter there lurked my behemoth of a drawing table, wondering what it did to deserve my neglect.

The idea of wedging myself in there to deal with the mess was overwhelming, so I avoided the task completely. But that didn't stop me from fantasizing about the end result. In my Studio Overhaul dreams I imagined myself magically recreating the room like something out of a magazine, complete with beautiful built-ins and cute baskets full of art supplies. Not just perfect, either, but Martha perfect.

Well, it would never get anywhere NEAR Martha perfect with me just sitting around dreaming about it magically being so. So last Saturday I went in the room with dozens of empty boxes and shoveled stuff in willy-nilly, just like the clean-up crew on an episode of Hoarders. Then James and I spent the rest of the 3-day weekend hauling crap downstairs and stacking it everywhere before painstakingly building shelves and putting them in place.

The 3-day weekend was my time frame, and Monday night was my deadline. But the shoveling of the stuff and the carrying out of boxes took up so much of it all that I missed my opportunity to paint the room prior to putting up the shelving units, so it's still blue. Which kind of bugged me (still does a little) until I walked into it in the middle of the night on Sunday just to revel in its emptiness and picked up a vibe that seemed to suggest that the Old Studio had been afraid that I was trying to eradicate it completely but felt better now that I'd at least left its walls alone.

Anyway, it's Thursday and I'd planned to have the boxes all returned by now so that I can begin the long process of organizing their contents, but by the looks of my living room that didn't happen.... Well, if there's anything I hate worse than my inability to be organized, it's having to climb over mountains of the evidence. I want my life back! So how about we have just one more cup of tea, and then it's back to work for me, 'k?

But if you don't see another post from me by the weekend, send a search party. :)
...

Meet Mr. Right

James and Boo

This is James, the awesome guy who lives with me and puts up with my nonsense. What I'd do without him I can't imagine. He's the funniest and most interesting man I know, and life is just so colorful with him in it.

We are too alike for words, yet polar opposites. I'm Eeyore to his Tigger. He's Leonard to my Penny. The two of us are fascinated by absolutely everything. We brainstorm together and bounce ideas off each other and spend more time knee-deep in rich conversation than any two people I know. The man's got the world's best laugh! And I'm directly responsible for his girth and gray hair....

But dang. The gray hair is beautiful, isn't it?
...