Dispatch From LA

Remains Of The Day

A welcome 24 hour vacation in the middle of the week!  And it's a cloudy day that feels like autumn.   Let me just go build a roaring fire in the stone hearth and I'll be right back...

Okay, now I'll explain the class name change.  There was a trademark issue with the other name.  Which, by the way, was cheerfully resolved with nary a bloodied nose or hurt feelings on either side.  

I've had great fun finishing up the prototype today.  Ideas ricocheting off each other.  Zip Boom Zwap there goes another one!  This is the prototype but not the exact same one you'll see me build in class.   If you're attracted to working quickly & intuitively and aren't currently in a love affair with perfection I think you're in for a treat.  I'm just sayin.

Supplies will be minimal:  scraps, tape, scissors, glue stick, sewing machine, more scraps, bits of fabric, photos, security envelopes, thread, and a good inky pen.  

Absolutely no heavy duty lifting or thinking.  No painting.  Think of this as a weekly or monthly diary on steroids.  It's a perfect travel journal format or a shabby book you toss in your bag (along with your camera) as you head out the door to record the conversations of complete strangers on the bus.  Or...you know...you're own smooth thoughts.   Save your bus ticket, it's going in here too, along with more paper scraps & photos than you can shake a stick at. 

Someone's going to see Leonard Cohen in concert on Friday!!!  Plug your ears.  I'm picking up my bullhorn and I'm getting ready to sashay up the street singing "Joan of Arc."  I think my neighbors may be confused by some of the lyrics,  but I don't think I'm wrong in assuming they will appreciate my impressive falsetto singing voice.

Panning For Gold

Sunday in the city.  All weekend I've been rummaging through scraps of paper.  Finding all the old pieces calling out for a new life.  Some are vintage, most are not, just random collage bits or thick slices of paper I've been meaning to do something with.  But haven't.

I sat on the floor and pulled down box after box of scraps and began sifting.  Panning for gold.  I store EVERYTHING in labeled rectangular plastic boxes that are about 1-2 inches deep and 9 by 12 inches wide.  It certainly looks efficient and orderly.   Until scraps began to migrate into boxes not their own.  It's bound to happen.

I began building my prototype.  As I cut, folded, stitched, and assembled things, new ideas swam to the surface.  Old ideas gave way to better ideas.  Which is why I hatched the plan to not only build the journal with you, but to FILL IT UP with you too!  Who needs another fabulous blank journal sitting around gathering dust? 

Imagining, then basting together ideas for an online class is a real boon to the creative psyche.  As I whittle down and sharpen my ideas for SHABBY SCRAPS, naturally I'll share them with you, kind and indulgent readers.  An enormous, but quiet thank you for being such a constant audience for all of my creative impulses.

Pure Experimentation: Class Is Almost In Session

My next PURE EXPERIMENTATION online class is being constructed.  I've aptly titled it Shabby Scraps.  While I toil away in the classroom cracking eggs and educating the fine young punks minds of tomorrow, at night I am building big bonfires (in my mind )and scribbling away in my writing journal.  Diagrams, blueprints, flowcharts.  Oh my!   Since I have difficulty narrowing down my focus, I've taken my usual approach of more is more.  Conceptually, this class will be a combination of a few shabby scrappy journals I've made in the last year.   Not those exact journals per se, but a brand new one that will incorporate my favorite parts of each of these old darlings: 

example A

example B

example C

example D

I dig going on archaeological scavenger hunts in my tiny studio and finding long buried treasure to use in these journals.  I find all sorts of things that have been laying around - sometimes for years.   Security envelopes, ledger paper, scraps of fabric, wallpaper, old photos, maps, book pages, and tons of other scraps.  Every last thing found, assembled, stitched, and bound into a shabby scrappy journal.  Disordered splendor at its finest.

MORE DETAILS COMING SOON TO A BLOG POST NEAR YOU!

I Finished

I finished my little journal booklet a la Teesha Moore, who by the way has just added 8 or 9 videos detailing her journaling techniques to HER BLOG.  Fascinating.  I love watching other people deep in thought about their collage habits.

My journal zine booklet thing is going to document my week in and out of the classroom.  The craft monkeys were dumbstruck.

 

The most rambunctious monkey in the class was silenced for a full 94 seconds when she picked it up during recess to have a closer look.

 

We're going to make journals like this.  Shhhhh don't tell anyone.  It's our secret.

She stared at me.  Mouth open wide. No words coming out.  Then...

It looks hard.

Everything looks hard if you don't know how to do it.  I'm going to show you.

You will?

Our versions will be constructed out of a dazzling mountain of scrapbook paper donated by you, kind readers.  And collage bits, magazines, and other stuff.  We're going to start this week.  Shhhhhhhh...

 

In my pamphlet journal I used blown up photos of some of my old visual journal pages as my base collage.  Then I added other bits over the top.  Next, spraypaint, stencils, some writing.  You know, the usual routine.

I randomly added days.  I'll write in those spots on that day of the week.  Naturally they aren't in order.  You would be surprised at how no-duh kinds of thought processes (like keeping the days in order) completely fly under my radar at times.  I came to after I'd glued them all down.  Then cheerfully disregarded the mild urge to do it again.

 

I dig this little 3-hole pamphlet stitch.  In my continuing education on book-binding I've discovered that the smaller the signature the easier to bind.  If you saw the size of the signatures in some of my older journals you'd think:

You got the needle through THAT?

And with a woeful look on my face I'd nod my shaggy head up and down and squeak out a very small,

"yes."

 

It would be wrong of me to end this post without a proper weather report from the city of angels.  Wouldn't it?

65 degrees.  Winds from the West at 2 m.p.h.  Visibility 6 miles.  Tomorrow another hot 85 degrees like today.  Sweet dreams.

Washing Paint Out Of Buck Moss' Tail

Sunday morning at home.

Eating pot roast for breakfast.

Washing paint out of Buck Moss' tail.

Drinking pots of coffee.

Making my version of Teesha Moore's 16-page journal with scraps from other projects.

Wheee!

Listening to ITunes shuffle of course.  Because with shuffle you run into all the music you didn't know you wanted to listen to.

Ending sentences with prepositions because you don't care and neither do I.

Making more visual journal messes in LITTLE while the 16-pager dries.

Stopping for a second to blog now going back to workbench.

Will open windows first because it's a cool 74 degrees and birds are twittering and tweeting in the trees outside the window and the sun is shining and it's Sunday and I have the entire 24 hour day OFF.

Someone down the street is playing Dirty Dancing's Hungry Eyes.  It's booming down the street.  It is not unpleasant.  Not at all.  Now Patrick Swayze is extending his hand for a dance.  Oh crap.  I hope he doesn't think he can lift me like he did Baby.

Happy Sunday xoxo

I Will Be Less Hostile Toward Following Directions

I finished the little journal!  It's a disaster!  But it's my disaster.  My beautiful little disaster.  See, because I can't help but love 99% of everything I make - disaster or not.  Which is why I've always lived by this creed of Winston Churchill:

Success is going from one failure to the next without loss of enthusiasm!

So you'll be wanting to see the errors of my ways.  Here.  I will show them to you.

 

Not so apparent in this shot of the book open.  Perhaps a closer look is necessary.

 

No closer.  Wait.  A comparison shot is best.  I left out a very important step while making Little.  A step I thought I could eliminate.  See my writing journal below Little?  Notice how all of the signatures are so marvelously lined up.  (I bought that journal on Etsy).  

This exposed tape binding needs a coptic/chain/kettle stitch about 1/4 of an inch from the top and bottom to hold the signatures together.  The stitch I eliminated.  Without it the signatures are wonky wiggly.  Screwy.   BUT...they were perfectly lined up and looked good until... I glued the first page of the signatures to the covers and each first signature page to each other because I didn't want the gaps between each signature.  Insert big hearty laugh here.

 

Little is no longer wiggly.  He is a very sturdy fellow.  Tightly wrapped, unlike his creator.  He smells of glue.  I LOVE that smell.  And he opens perfectly flat.  

Next time I make this type of book I will throw a bit less caution to the wind.  I will remove my blindfold before beginning.  I will be less hostile towards following directions.  I know what I did wrong and I know how to fix it.  In the meanwhile I am dying to dive headfirst into Day 1 of filling the new visual journal!  First though let me wipe the cream from my muzzle and finish off these strawberries.

A Stroll Through Flickr On A Friday Night

1. pop, 2. one, two, three ... BOO!, 3. more essential packing..., 4. Untitled, 5. first shot at bokeh, 6. Vintage, 7. Almost Gone, 8. Untitled, 9. Red lanterns

I am SO making THESE with my craft monkeys next week.  

Are THESE security envelopes fabulous or what?

Collage LOVE.

Teesha Moore has a video tutorial HERE.  Fun!

Of Making Books & Eating Poems

saturday & sunday diptychs

Began working on another visual journal.  Let's call this one little and the other one big.  For clarity's sake.  I have no plan for little.  He's taking shape in my mind as I build him. 

Okay, let's eat some poetry shall we?  So infatuated with the quirky and strange!

Eating Poetry

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man,
I snarl at her and bark,
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

by Mark Strand

There Is A Fine Line Between Surprise And Heart Attack

When I went out to the garage to do laundry I saw the spraypaint.  When I saw the spraypaint I started rooting around for the stencils.  One stencil in particular.  While I was doing my squirrel-looking-for-a-buried-nut routine I noticed the "dustcover" was full of portrait experiments I haven't seen in a few months.  Wait!  I need scissors.   20 rememberings and forgettings later...

I completed the very last page in my journal.  Wahhh.  I listened to BLUE by Cat Power 49 times in a row.  That is NOT on my playlist, but GREATEST is.  And you can hear it if you click play.  It's great!  I'm throwing away every cd I own and I am just going to listen to CAT POWER from now on.   I'm not doing laundry.

 

Mama Moss turned 82!   See that little bottle in her hand?  That is her holy water.  Here she is performing her dousing ritual on my sisters.  She probably did their car too.  Mama Moss loves to bless things with holy water.  She hasn't figured out yet why the water hisses when it hits me, but she's going to get to the bottom of it by her 90th birthday.  Can you imagine, 3 daughters and not a grandchild for M.M. in the bunch?  All she got is a pack of wildcats who like to play tricks on her. (and each other)

p.s.  dottie: mom told me about the hiding under the blanket in the backseat trick and then reaching up and tapping her after carol started driving.  please try and remember there is a fine line between surprise and heart attack.

 

I'm getting another PURE EXPERIMENTATION online class ready for a December 1st launch.  This time it won't have 14 different start dates and 29 different stop dates and 2 different price points.  It's going to be available for 10 months. 1 start date.  1 end date.   Available to anyone. 1 price.   A crap load of videos.  A big fat juicy PDF document.  And of course, ME.  Pardon the blatant self-promotion.  It's vaguely embarrassing, but someone's gotta do it.  Maybe Mama Moss will do an infomercial for me.
  saturday diptych

For those of you monitoring our weather in LOS ANGELES...94 degrees today. Off to the swimming hole!  See you tomorrow!

Doing The Shuffle

In a cruel twist of fate autumn has abandoned Los Angeles.   The days are groaning under the weight of 80 degree temps.  In keeping with our summer weather pattern I moved slowly and deliberately outside to rattle some paint cans around.  I'm craving red and yellow and blue.  And red.

1 page left in the visual journal.  I'm shuffling towards a conclusion.  Like Tim Conway on a Carol Burnett skit - remember the old man?

I'll probably spill some profound thoughts onto these pages after I finish this post.  Dip my nib in ink and do some doodling.  Maybe put a box fan in the window.  Find a swimming hole in which to splash.  You know, leisurely  Saturday night activities

 

I'm doing a comparison study on the Elvis cupcake versus Vanilla.  I'm torn.  Conflicted.  Hesitant to commit and file my report.  Which is why there are 2 of each in the box.   No I will not eat them while watching The Biggest Loser.    That's on Tuesday and these will be long gone by then.    Someone put the coffee on!