painting party

The fabrics that come home with me are not treated delicately. Even when they are a digitally printed silk crepe de chine direct from Italy. Maybe this is because I began my sewing career with 2 dollar a yard mystery fabric, and had zero fear in ruining yardage that could be so cheaply replaced. Maybe this is because I am like a bull in a china shop no matter what the price.

Either way, I've been slapping paint on my birthday dress.

This beauty from Mood Fabrics has been driving me wild for about two months (found in store, one leeeeetle bolt with barely 5 yards on it. Although I left 3 yards behind, I think it lasted 5 minutes). The colors!! The texture!!! THE GINORMOUS REPEATING WHITE ROSE THAT WREAKS HAVOC ON PRINT PLACEMENT! 

Here is the offending bud, before. The dress had been hanging out on my Wolfie at a dinner party, and all ladies present agreed that the watermelon sized ghost flower in the middle of the skirt had to go. I pinned a little plastic baggie underneath the fabric, directly on the form, and put a base of Jacquard textile paint on...

Then got to stippling with my beloved Zig markers.

Occasionally I'd goof, shrug my shoulders, and throw some more color over the goofs. This dress is made to party, yo. There's no stress in partying! And with a fabric like this, there were plenty of colors that could join in and correct any party fouls.

I heat set the colors with a silk organza pressing cloth on top, and cotton muslin underneath, to be sure none of the color came away during pressing. No one left the shindig!

She's painted in several places, actually-- here, there's some oona artwork in the left side of the shot, bust cup and below the waist. That bust cup was the first guest at this painting party.

I love fabric! I love knowing more about the world of beautiful yardage, and how to treat to properly, but man, I still love to beat it up. 

Are you a rough mistress, or a cautious lover? 

fugitive no more!

WOW.  thank y'all so much for the awesomesauce words!  i've been laughing out loud and grinning like a fool back-and-forth-and-in work this week, and there are questions to be answered and replies to be made and cocktails to be drunk (always, cocktails to be drunk) but in honor of comic con, and my escape from the law, i thought i'd quickly share a wee gem i found in ruggy's storage loot the other day...

while in LA, i was fond of saying fuck you, i'm batman.  spied it on a shirt made by the peeps behind this superior tom selleck art, and thought it a perfect slogan for going into auditions.  unfortunately it was pretty slow out there, and i ended up directing said slogan at the machine, the cat, the rugster.  still, a delicious grouping of words. 

but did you know, back in the day, batman was not so much the dark knight?  no, our wholesome hero was quite worried about the state of your brotherhood quotient.  GET A LOAD OF THAT LIST.  long hair music! jews! cabbage!

complete with emoticons.  DC, even then, you were ahead of your time.

of course, batman had a li'l prodding from several government agencies.  SERIOUSLY.   it is all so very right and so very wrong at the same time.  were they leading the witness with that list?  or is it just that we don't use certain terms today?  were baptists as a group a hot button?  were they the hipsters of the past?  

the mind boggles.

tongue tied

i really, REALLY want to post about my day today.  i wrote a draft.  it is, in my opinion, a hilarious romp through suburbia and the politics of household.  but i have conferred with ruggy, and i cannot.  ruggy is right. 

so i present for discussion this sticker spied on a neighborhood walk.  WHAT CAN THIS POSSIBLY MEAN. definitely a simpler approach than the tom selleck affair, but still... so cryptic... so intriguing.  and the sticker placement!  i feel, somehow, that they have chosen their street signage carefully. 

no fair googling, please to come up with your own explanation if prince circa 1979 moves you...

spotted on spring and lafayette

WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS.

i kind of love it.

thoughts?

edit: SCORE. a lovely anonymous commenter says this glory is courtesy of the peeps at l'asso nyc, who implore you to "eat the pizza! drink the beer!"  ooh i like these people.  i hope we get to gorge before we leave.  and... THEY SELL T SHIRTS.  you can have a different version of tom selleck on this one, and i so totally need this masked avenger.  thanks anonymous masked friend!

you need jesus

but more importantly, you need thread.

(devorah sperber, after the last supper)

din da da dum do do

we were grown ups again yesterday and went back to moma with our fancy membership.

georges ribemont dessaignes, silence, 1915

apparently georges was not at all the silent type. according to moma's blurb, parisians at dada gatherings could look forward to him threatening to "rip out your spoiled teeth, your pummeled ears, your tongue full of sores."  webster's defines dadaism as "a movement in art and literature based on deliberate irrationality and negation of traditional artistic values."  and very anti-bourgeois. 

okay.  i thought it was a cool painting about a trumpet.  i like trumpets.

marcel duchamp, network of stoppages, 1914

the moma blurb had nothing to say about my man marcel, but this is a very cool site if you like what you see.  in fact please do go see.  he's awesome.  apparently this was dada too.  i thought this painting was gorgeous, and i'm surprised that this was the deliberate opposite of conventional beauty then.

they had an interactive microsoft paint program in the education center. we are appleheads in kalkatroona, but was was very fucking cool.  we took The Child there and she loved it. 

i try not to curse around The Child.

ruggy tubble, the storm before the calm, 2011

(subtitled: i love my wife very much)

it is subtitled thusly because ruggy has been quite dada today and is out buying me a bottle of wine to prove the subtitle.

ulterior interior motives

we're still stuffed from the porkfest that occurred sunday. no, actually that's a lie, i'm hungry just thinking about it. and happy just thinking about it. it's so nice to have a home again, and have it filled with family, and celebrate with your own stuff and not someone else's junk in a junky sublet in a line of junky sublets. 

the anniversarial kalkatroonaans glasses were kept full as their children and grandchildren screamed around the apartment. the under six set were the loudest, though we gave them a run for their money. they also just so happen to be artistes. ruggy thought we could keep them busy with crayons. i thought i could steal their artwork.

EXCELLENT.

as much as ruggy loves my scrawlings, i'm excited to have something else up on the walls. it's becoming more and more of a home every day...

ps: i'm so glad you liked the convertible top, i'm working on a tutorial for y'all!

and afterwards, we took a nice little nap

this weekend, ruggy and i became members at the museum of modern art.

i think this means we are grown ups now.

it went something like this. our out-of-town friends wanted to go, and we like it there (you know, the two times we'd been). i'd handed out hard candies (grown up? more like senior citizen) as we stood in the admissions line. when the friendly ticket man asked for our zip code and learned we were, ahem, new yorkers, thankyouverymuch, he quickly embarked on his membership spheel. ruggy smacked on his mango sucker like we were at a county fair discussing the weight of the winning pig, working out a deal where our friends could get their money back and we could buy them fancy five dollar guest passes. we were sold and directed to refund line, which ruggy proceeded to jump--twice--and without flinching. it was like he had a cloud of membership privilege around him, didn't even garner one dirty look. 

being out-of-towners, it was friends' choice for exhibits, and well, we're members now so moma is our daily bitch. they chose "design and the modern kitchen", which was fairly cool-- above is a close up of a solar powered cooker. it was taller and wider than me, although the same could not be said after lunch later that day.

did you know the army was semi-vegan? for the cause? i did not know this.

maybe it was the hard candy, maybe it was the hard plastic card, but i was really drawn to this old timey display. i love the organization of it, and the labels. i wouldn't call it appetizing, but it's appealing.

there was a neat "material lab" in the education building that we didn't make it to, we were tapped out. well, they were tapped out, i was frothing at the mouth, there was wire and foil and stones and thread and you could MAKE STUFF... we're going back. oh yes, it's probably for kids, but these grown ups are members now. we do what we want.

the night of the day we met

a little late to the valentine party, but here's the story of oona and ruggy:

oona was on a mission. after years of preparation in her earthbound hometown of orange, she had been sent with instructions to entertain the inhabitants of Louis (who apparently was a saint). on her very first day there, on her very first coffee break, she encountered a man, in a green room, peering into a refrigerator, holding a blue gray ceramic cup of tea. he had quite ingeniously fashioned a tiny plate to keep his tea warm.  it was the coolest travel mug oona had ever seen, held by the most beautiful man she had ever laid her very big eyes on. he wore a tweed coat that oddly reminded her of her father's kalkatroonaan dress coat. a faded blue bandana was wrapped around his forehead, more to keep his long blond hair out of his eyes than to keep out the cold. 

unlucky in his frigidaire search, he stood up... and they caught each others' eyes.

oona's earthling coworkers slowed their boisterous chatter as they realized the little kalkatroonan was staring, quite unabashedly, at this man. they turned to study the stranger and realized he was staring, quite unabashedly, right back at her. after a minute or so, someone cleared a throat, and declared into the silence a challenging: "HI." (these earthlings were protective of oona almost immediately, being successfully fooled by her diminutive stature.) "what's YOUR name."

the stranger broke his gaze with some difficulty, and quickly introduced himself in a very pleasing and gentlemanly manner. the green room earthlings were soothed by the hint of his southern accent. oona found she couldn't stop grinning long enough to introduce herself, so her coworkers did it for her. but, there was only time for the two to learn each others' names, as the short coffee break was over for all.

later that day, they searched for each other. oona tied on shoes with wheels (a fascinating and fun invention), and rolled around the sainted town. ruggy stomped about in his tweed coat. although the search was fruitless, oona was strangely content just thinking of the few minutes with ruggy, and she drew happy little doodles to pass the time until the next day, when surely they would meet again.

 

and indeed, they found each other the very next day, and with a little nudging from the green earthlings, oona walked right up to ruggy. he caught her before she could run away, and he bought her snapple, and stood with his legs wide apart so she could be at eye level with him, and she sang to him, and they listened to marvin gaye, and he stopped her from cutting vegetables with the wrong end of the knife, and she bought him a samurai sword for christmas (cause that's what you do on kalkatroona), and they have been together ever since.

we are home

we have two chairs, a coffee table, a tv and a bed, but we are HOME. after living in 5 strangers' spaces filled with what had to amount to 500 strangers' crap. in each apartment. over 12 months.

when we left ny for la, we were ready to get the hell out of our apartment, not to mention ny. we were this close to selling it. we rented it out instead. found a tree house in la, where i learned to sew. plans changed, and brought us back to ny without a home. we'd peek in occasionally to grab something we needed, and leave in horror at the sight of our subletters cluttered life. we boxed and bagged and moved our things so much, things became things and started to get left behind. we took care of other people's spaces better than they took care of them themselves.

the same cannot be said for our tenants. our place was demolished. they are the reason i'm writing this from a chair in the middle of a bare living room.

but no matter! let's make some lemonade! IT'S REDECORATING TIME! here, for your before and after pleasure (well, really for my pleasure, as my blogger slacking has deservedly lost me all of my readers. did i mention i've moved six times in one year? come baaaack!) are the before shots...

the living room. yes, that is ben-moore-watermelon-red and martha-stewart-cornstalk-yellow living together. martha would not be happy with this bastard child. picture it instead with magical white walls that shift color as the light of day changes (seriously, r's sister hepped us to some awesome paint at farrow and ball) the two chairs and the table, and you have our current situation.

the living - dining - loft - kitchen room. it is new york living, after all. table, chairs, clutter, chartruese, orange, yellow and gold gone. i'm adding some color back, that would be one serious cold turkey of a quit. luckily r loves everything i paint and wants my art to be the color on our walls. luckily? i think? isn't it kind of pretentious to have only your art hanging? etsy to the rescue...

the bedroom, currently in a state of shock from severe water damage that happened the day we moved back. yep. it's actually been happening for years, but the old super never really solved the problem. what's left: torn walls, bed on floor (because, natch, the renters broke our bedframe), and that funny little squat thing under the stairs. that, my friends, is a wine refrigerator. full of wine. that ain't goin' NOWHERE.

even in its current spartan state, i could kiss the ground. the months of moving have really made us appreciate our home, and our building filled with people who own and care for their own homes. i think you call those people neighbors. we haven't seen that life form in a loooooong time. our home is going to rock. and i'm going to give you proof. assuming there are any witnesses out there.

(SIX. TIMES.)

i've got music on my brain and blisters on me fingers

 

i've been thinking about the impending creative cacophony swap thrown by casey. the swap is about music as your muse, and what tunes really get you going. well, i have this affliction? gift? where there is music playing constantly in my head. never nothing. no commercial breaks. always something. this was inherited from my pops (big daddy, for those taking a gander at the comments). so this swap is waaaay up my alley. i often feel like a very mild version of the folks in awakenings. though my head is occupied by its own constant soundtrack, without sound pumping through speakers that are located somewhere other than between my ears whilst creating, i just sort of stop. and i need different sounds for different creating. for sewing, it's jazz, brazilian, anything fun, steady and constant. but for painting, it has to be someth

*i'm sorry, r is currently clapping on the 1 & 3 rather than the 2 & 4 in honor of reverend jeremiah wright's little speech this weekend, and my brain cells cannot function*

*clapping over, stevie wonder's "sir duke" resumes unscathed*

where was i? yes. for painting it's usually something moody, quirky or intense. so i thought i'd share a few paintings with you, along with the songs that inspired them. the painting above was inspired by and titled after jeff buckley's unfinished song, everybody here wants you.

and i love me some peter gabriel:

painting: lovesick song: the book of love (cover tune, originally by magnetic fields.)

this was inspired by an album rather than song, from the postal service:

painting: untitled album: give up

and, inspired by the music of sofia copolla's flick, marie antoinette. i had to rely on the speakers in my brain for this one, which might be why it took me so long:

painting: sunrise at versailles

and oh, here's the "blisters on me fingers" part (well, actually f'ed up hands from sewing, i just like that lennon quote)... if you'd like to know about what inspires me sewing-wise, i am the featured member over at burdastyle!  tee hee.

what's your muse?

jeb & co.

these are some of r's ancestors... hopefully they had a sense of humor.





they live on the veranda, dontcha know. hopefully soon these flowers will have actual living mates.