Chandelier/Mobile Creative Direction

Fishy

I suppose I could have a convertible chandelier: that's the beauty of the hook idea! It's about time I put up the kitchen chandelier and I can develop the mobile portion later. I may have found two great creative directions. I don't want to make hundreds of tiny beaded fish only to discover that it doesn't quite look right. So a quick mock-up was in order and I think it may work. The chandelier is just over 20 inches in diameter, and the fishy is 1 inch. There are 6, 14 and 22 concentric sets of rings, or 42 strands. If each ring has 4 fish, that would be 168 fish, and if it has 6 fish, that would be 252 fish. That is doable.

Here is a mock-up of just the outer most row half completed. It already looks like it will appear full. We don't want a constant reminder of overfishing over our kitchen table! This project is on tap for tomorrow. I am putting off the switch because I'm not 100% sure that the electrical box will hold this heavy fixture. But, I know that the six arms will put out much more light than the current 120V inside a plastic coated fabric shade. 

Fishy x252 (but here only 52 of them)

So I must talk myself off the edge, but beads are so sparkly! And by now I've made 6 whole fish. They're mostly blue. I could justify this by saying that I am using up the beads that I have on hand, but ain't no way I have 252 fish worth of beads, who am I kidding? And I have bubble beads, but maybe only 5 or 6. Fun!

Ran out of black flower sequins so 
resorted to some sort of flanged deal
for one fish.

I kind of like the look of the ridged white crystal on the one and only green fish. To supplement my used up supply of eye sequins, I have a bunch of clear ones on order. And I have one more tube of light blue beads before I can justify purchasing more, but that day will come! I heard there are two separate hobbies: beading and collecting beads. They both sound doable!

Bonus Marimekko Free-Form Rugs

A view of rectangular mate reflected in mirror

Beauties. I thought that hemming the contours of these rugs would be disastrous and I was pleasantly surprised. Because I tried to hem the rectangular base rug with yarn instead of thread, most of my problems with this simple job could have been avoided. Having switched to quilting thread makes things so much easier. Like with the rectangle, I couldn't manage to figure out the whip stitch so I just straight stitched both. That was another part of the problem with the larger rug.

So now the question is, do I do one more, in kelly? I think it's time to give the kitchen some love with the new chandelier and cushions (finally for the banquet).  

A rather unfortunate
worn spot on oak floors

Arial view reflected

Let's Get SideTracked with Paper Flowers

It's probably a rose based on the foliage

As if still maintaining a blog isn't throwback enough, I currently work above, get this, a Barnes and Noble store. This hanger-on always has paper flowers for sale and, well, my bedroom has two vases, one of which has a fallen-off bit of my pampas grass stuffed in it and nothing in the other. Also, it appears that Winblaad's Tusind og en nat bride is holding, let's call it a peony. So, combine these two things plus a visit to the library for a book called Paper Flower Art and I am distracted again. The bonus of this new tangent is I need not buy one thing. I used:

• 

  My paper peonies and
  the amazing effects
  alcohol inks can give. It is 
  giving off rose vibes without
  manipulation!

  craft paper
• 93% isopropol alcohol
  
• food coloring
  
• alcohol ink - Ranger alcohol pearl alchemy and was in Clearance at Michael's
• crepe paper
• iridescent pigment powder - Jacquard micro-pearlescent
• craft paint - Americana Hauser Medium Green
• hot glue, hot glue, hot glue

All of this I had on hand. The 93% alcohol was bought previously to use the iridescent pigment powder to try to make my plastic flowers iridescent. I have been on an iridescence kick for a bit. After trying to brush it, spray it, and just dump it onto the plastic, I realized that the one alcohol ink I did buy to see if the problem was my formulation (it wasn't) did not color the plastic bottle it was packaged in and therefore, my experiment was never going to work. Why does it say on the bottle that it works on non-porous materials? 

Now, the book tells me to buy 180g crepe paper from Italy, but I have left over crepe paper streamers from Tootie Pie's piñatas, and so I just used that. It doesn't stretch or cup like the Italian stuff, sure, but it looks 100 times better than the ones sold in Barnes and Noble which are just cut from tissue paper. Oh, and you get to push the crepe paper roll into the alcohol solution which makes each roll unique. And your hands red. I even used gel food coloring, which didn't mix well into the alcohol and so it looked like the roll had deep red pustules, but with time, the pustules spread out across the paper creating a lovely pink. I doused this same roll with the yellow-gold alcohol ink that I actually purchased and my homemade iridescent concoction. After drying, I wrapped the crepe paper around my hand 10 times or so, and then cut out peony petals. I also read that you need a styrofoam ball to make the bud, but I just wadded up some of the leftover crepe paper from my cutting.

I used card stock for my stems and leaves and lots of hot glue to attach them and the petals. Each peony was created using different crepe papers. One red one took a bleach bath, and the white got the above-mentioned pustule treatment. I did the red for the bath on all, but the gel one got a second dosing with what was supposed to be orange, but just became pinker and yellow - no real blending of gel colors there. I have one more roll and bought more food coloring to try again. Here they are: 

I sprinkled some petals around the 
vase to make it look legit

This seems like a good way to make money! The worse looking ones sold at B&N are $8 a stem. I created four stems, including a bud. I actually like mine better than the cupped ones in Paper Flower Art, despite mine not having pistels and stamen. The author, Jesse Chui, used double sided crepe paper and for her stems, tubing. Her pistels were created from floral tape - I'll leave this for the clients to ask for. 

I have now a bowl full of petals, but this will only create 2 stems most likely. My version's stems are awful and I bought clear tubing for my refrigerator from an aquarium store years ago, so maybe! This is currently pure profit but if I end up purchasing supplies for Tootie Pie's room, who knows? If I sold my bouquet above at $5 a stem that's a nice $20, but I do believe I spent an inordinate amount of time drying my crepe paper and all sorts of other inefficiencies and it took the better part of a day. A fun day, but $20 a day, man, that won't get you far.

Latch Hook Bonus Rugs and Another Chandelier Pre-Contemplation

Hemming the rectangular Marimekko was too straightforward - let's add curves. I would have liked to have created a larger rug than the 3x5 feet that I ended up working on FOR-EVER, but these mini flower rugs are so adorable and quick to turn out.

Sweet little flower rugs

Also, this is the end, again, of my yarn. Look how tantalizingly close I came to finishing off all of the Sulfur/Chartreuse! I now want to create a freeform flower rug for Tootie Pie's room. I wanted to do a pink tiger skin rug, surrounded by flowers, but now think just a flower. But, my next project will be the lighting fixture installed in the dining area. Here are some of my ideas for the dangly parts for the hooks:

Is it just me, or is no one else noticing anything other than the floaty gathering of objects in the air? We have two arrangements that are orderly above, and two look freeform and natural. Because my floaty gathering is not uniform, lucky me gets the natural arrangement, which will admittedly be easier; I picture one person on top lowering or raising one object until it's perfect, and then what? Knots always make the string ever so smaller and the joy of the arrangements is their perfect hanging. Not for me. I love the neon green behind the boringly dressed mannequins. I have been collecting hand cut plastic flowers for ages and I wanted the string to contain the color, but the magic of these mobiles is that they seem to float, so clear thread it is.

Of course, the two I like best are the naturally hung ones. The one I like best is the first one with the knit blobs, which would be the hardest to create and may look too heavy for the space. I am debating nixing the hanging blooms, but this change in direction means I have cut out the clear plastic flowers for nothing. I also smoothed their edges and pierced them using the hot knife technique meaning I inhaled toxic vapors for nothing, too.

Here are my flowers:

And now that I've made an army of flowers, I want to switch to beaded fish and possibly a blue whale made of beads in an amalgamation of these:

Those tiny 3D fish! I'd need to make around 4,000 of them, but they seem really quick. I feel like fish should be translucent, and flowers not so much, but we're not going for realism. I feel like part of what makes the fish school chandy so cool is the size of the fish to the tiny diameter of the light. My chandelier is wider and so either the effect would disappear because the fish are too small, or I'd need to increase the size of the fish, but they're so adorable like minnows. She gave one fish a trout pout!

It will be flowers in the short term and we'll think about the fish. Do I really need another medium? I just added yarn, I cannot add beads!

LIC artist Eduardo Anievas Blue Fish. I need
iridescence, big googly eyes, and lots of these plump
little jewels

Cutting Gets Easier for Boontje Garland and Sputnik Light Homed

I added a chicken. The 
Queen Anne's lace lost
a tiny floret, ah, we'll say
a bear ate it

My knockoff Garland light is veering further from the inspiration. I collected more milk jugs and then free handed the following cut-outs:

It is getting easier to make my own designs and I added a bird. Tord Boontje never ventured into the fauna. Ha! This is a project that could never end, but since I ended up with an extra ColorCord and have plenty of lighting hardware in the basement, I may start to sell them. They don't melt if you stay away from incandescent bulbs. 

And now we need a slate
grey or shamrock starburst
ceiling medallion to set 
off the crisp blossoms

I suppose my apprenticeship ends and my artistry begins. Although, it hardly looks bushier since I added the new stems, but there was a bare patch that they covered. I love this.

The cutting will continue at a greater pace since I discovered how to make cottage cheese. I am still trying to perfect my yogurt and had success once out of three attempts. The milk that doesn't turn into yogurt becomes cottage cheese and I get the jug afterwards. Pretty much perfect if I could manage to set yogurt consistently, but hopefully soon.

Too high now and cord
isn't hung correctly

Also love, my Sputnik. It is bright. I need to extend the wire again. For reference, it was shorten, lengthen, shorten, and now lengthen again. 

Wire correct length and cord
swagged. Now I need to
introduce more fuchsia
to this corner

Triumph and Pain in New England

It was a beautiful weekend full of nostalgia. I didn't get to spend the day with my mother, but the next best thing is the charming Auntie Bernie and I got a double helping of her! Too many people Bernie and I loved have passed and she witnessed my beloved Gramps go. I had the honor of witnessing my mother bear untold misery with joy and with her philosophical outlook not ceding an inch. I have had a miraculous life, thanks to her, and I need to commemorate her after an eventful Mother's Day.

She skated. I don't know her record, and I don't know who to ask, but I do know that she attended regional sectionals in the old ice rink in Flushing Meadows Park. She and her mother drove down from Boston and I can just picture the two of them on the Parkway missing the exit over and over again. After all that effort, she did not compete in the national competition that year because it was held in California. She also qualified in pairs and quads, which needs to make a comeback. My passion for ice skating is from her.

My mother was once young.
Her family built their world
around her skating. This costume
was made by my Nana. My mom
looked good in clothes!

I need to start further back, with her parents, my grandparents. Nana designed and executed Mom's costumes and possibly her partners', too. I'm sure it wasn't "fun" in the way that my creations are never actually fun, but getting this photo was a family affair. I wish I knew more about her programs and her music. The stories she told involved mishaps and her trademark anxiety. I am certain that she was a vision. What a pity that my Gramps never had the experience of moving images. He'd be out with his drones, I'm certain, if he was still here. Did he print the signs for the competitions? Programs? One thing is for sure, he did take still pictures! Thank you, Gramps, for saving what you could.

One of my mother's dying wishes was to have my father get together with his family "on the water". Last year, I tried to make that happen, and got three out of the four in one room on the Coonamessett River. I was a bit disappointed but I tried my best. And then it happened. My magical Uncle Pat made a phone call and the last sibling showed! And then the mom magic began.

I've been saying since Mom died that she is powerful as a spirit and she has rightly chosen me as her vessel. I became her. It was wonderful! I was possessed by a very, *very* friendly spirit. She has been gradually leading me to a total takeover and it was as gentle as her love. Just for a moment and a quick photo, and then she was content to watch again but WATCHING SHE WAS. 

Everyone could have been someone else except for X. My X was when my family uprooted to the Midwest, and I don't know the woman who I would have been if I stayed. I am looking for clues. Who would I have been and would I choose her? I feel unfaithful. I would choose her, no questions asked. But, what about Tootie Pie? No, right? I'd still like to get to know this fascinating woman.

I remember not caring about my mother's stories, so I understand that Tootie Pie really doesn't care about the tuna fish sandwich that I threw. But I care now about Mom's tales, and I pretended to care at the time. Not with follow-up questions, mind you, but with an emotion that whole generations are not familiar with: politely listening and nodding, all the while composing your grocery list or otherwise occupying your brain with everything except with whatever your conversational partner feels like going on about. I think we should name this. Let this percolate. In any case, kids today don't indulge their parents, and I think it's to their detriment.

My quest will never end. My BFF from kindergarten, whom I met with now three times, remembered a field trip that was taking up space in my brain but was formally inaccessible. These type of things are gold! Another boy friend reminded me of the reason we were on the lawn that day when I was so deep - planting a tree in memorial of the wonderful Mr. Short. I changed his death into retirement when I left and it took an old friend to remind me - Mr. Short died. I got to relive the pain again, because in my mind, he didn't die, and that didn't make sense. A lot of my childhood didn't make sense.

I used to go to Mom for answers, and I don't have her any more. So, somehow, that makes me want the answers even more. I will return to Greenville and it will slowly reveal itself to me. That's what makes life grand.

Am I Self-Made? Not Society-Failed, At Least

Things went wrong in my childhood, naturally. I once was sent to the principal's office for successfully scaling a drainpipe to the 2nd floor. I carved "I hate Mom" into the softened wood of our window sashes when I was deprived of some long ago forgotten luxury. She absolutely could not deal with my grass stained knees. Normal stuff. So I was woefully unprepared for when, at 10, the wheels came off the bus and I moved from my idyllic New England town to Cleveland. Poor Cleveland is finally failing on its own merits instead of its poor comparison to Rhode Island. Puberty timed its entrance perfectly, making this life's earthquake all the more difficult, but as much as I was up against, I had a secret weapon: my three ladies. My sisters seemed like my world, because we were on a different level than Mom, but I'm the oldest, and Mom and I had a special friendship that was kind of unhealthy, I am realizing now. We built up a boogey man for our problems, and he had a face and name: Dad. Despite the fact that she was brutally ripped from her home and family, she faced the Midwest with her typical spirit of total dominance, done with a beautiful smile. 

I had my struggles with her, of course. Most notably, London. Oh, my, how we argued over that! I broached the topic one night of maybe trying out London for a summer because my roommate was, not because I actually wanted it. I paid for school on my own and was practical, and so it wasn't really an option, until my parents went code level orange because I floated an idea. Then my mind was made up and I was going to London whether I felt like it or not. Three months later, when I told my parents that we needed to talk, she said, "You're not going to London." I can be dominating, too, Mom, so it was too late. The tickets were bought, passport obtained, and it wasn't as if they could threaten to cut me off. Quite the chess move on my part! I was going to be self-made and visit abroad! And, so, I did.

So, I did do it solo financially the minute I was an adult, but whose idea was this? As long as I remember, I was going to college. Then I realized there was no money for it, but that was okay, because I'd been working hard at school which came easily to me, so I got grants and scholarships. A complete success story and I did it alone. I went back to London, then Paris. I got a frantic phone call one night from her because there was a problem with the lines and she made me pick a date to return and so I did: Thanksgiving. I wish I could have lived out my little adventure on my own time instead of artificially truncating it, but I was breaking Mom's heart.

So I returned to fucking Grand Rapids, Michigan, to live near Mom and Dad. It was a memorable year! Dad insisted on going to swim with me and always wanted to race. Mom did her pristine breast stroke so as to preserve the 'do. I introduced her to my date and she said, "Nice to meet you, Kurt". We left and he said, "That's weird! Your mom called me by my brother's name!". I had no idea what my date's first name was and had to look him up in the phone book. It turns out, he was unlisted, but not his brother! In any case, I had a true friendship with both of my parents, I guess you could say. Although, if you do say that, I'll have you know that Dad was a friend of my real friend. I hated that they were a package deal.

Picnic at one of Mom's secret beaches
and a custom summer dress for Lucy.

It is not fair that my friend is gone. I was planning on at least 10 more years. But, I have to look at the bright side which is that I had her for 53 years. And as for self-made, there is no such thing. Everyone once needed help. But there is such a thing as society-failed and it is only the luck of the draw that makes us one or the other. Many of my students were facing puberty without a solid parental figure helping. It is of course usually the female that helps these "self-made" individuals. I am fortunate. I had the best.

I just celebrated my daughter's 17th birthday at a wonderful Peruvian restaurant. Reminder: I have a minimum wage part-time job. She has a pretty awful parent, but I like to think that I am the parent she chooses to align with. I know that 95% of the rationale for that is our shared female connection. She is as independent as it is possible to be at that age but still in that weird area where she relies on us for cash and rides and food and - basically we're staff. Then we're vacation rentals and ATMs, I get it. I want to make college easier than it was for me, at least financially. She did the real work, though, which is getting her education and taking it seriously. 

I may be the only generation who got to sort of envision a future that actually panned out. Mom thought 4 years of college was impractical, because lengthening college shortened the amount of time she'd need to work, which would just be until she became a mother. Until me. But, ten short years later, she was back in the work force and I had to "prepare" dinner twice a week. She could have been the leader of the universe, but she constrained herself using the information she had available at the time. I lived the dream for a moment: I had a career in a male-dominated industry and I made a killing. I made a nest egg and now I can enjoy it. I did it, Mom! I wish you were here to celebrate your success. I wish, I wish, I wish...