Dispatch From LA

Sunday Night 71 Degrees

I will leave it to your imagination to decide how two red dogs without owners in tow ended up on the porch of Moss Cottage this afternoon.

Then you may be interested in having a look at my sister's travel journal from Italy.

Kisses I Am Blowing You

Visual Journal #9     The last page is scribbled on.  One year coming to a close.

At school someone else finishes her journal entry with a blaze of hearts.  "Kisses I am blowing you," she explains.

Vintage photo frames meet mailart across a divide of woodgrain contact paper.  Sewing goes awry and has to be ripped out.  I like the patterns the broken stitches make.

A vinyl pocket is sewn on the back to hold a photo.

Day 2 of walkway construction comes to a close at Moss Cottage.  The crew leaves.  One member of the cat posse gazes in quiet reflection at the aftermath.

Another pokes around in the dirt trying to find where he buried the red duct tape.

I ponder the combinations to be made of 10 tiles with 3 different patterns across 4 grids of walkway.  After much grave thought I conclude that chaos is the only possible solution.

Stencil Manifesto

I received my TRUE VISION book today.  Rockport did not disappoint.  What good quality books they publish!  LK did a stunning job of writing and pulling everything together.   The book is impressive.  

For consideration in the book I submitted a stencil portfolio I constructed out of cardboard and duct tape.  It's covered with sprayed stencils.  Tucked inside were loose visual journal pages which I collaged, stenciled, and wrote on top of.  The pages were backed with wallpaper to make them more sturdy.   

These are the inside  covers.  

The size of the portfolio is 10 by 16.  A good size for holding a variety of different sizes of collage pieces or stencil work.  Cover them with writing and call them journal pages.  I do.

The pages I share here are not in TRUE VISION, but they have a similar pallette as I created most of them within a few days of each other.  Not wanting to ship my heavy cumbersome Visual Journal #8, I chose instead to make something on the spot for possible inclusion into the book.  When I found a stack of cardboard in the school trash earlier that week the idea for a portfolio was born.  With the shaky pony express service I figured losing these would be less painful than having my entire journal go missing.

 

Having just returned from San Miguel de Allende a few months before,  I enjoyed copying passages from my travel journal onto some of my newly created visual journal pages.  Drives to school yielded other material.  We visual journalers are nothing, if not evidence gatherers.

Here's the whole shebang all stacked up.

It seems as though I made my fair share of these portfolios.  Trouble is I can't quite recall what happened to them all.  Did they all hit the pony express trail?  Did my sister steal them?  The 45 year old brain has difficulty recalling what the 44 year old hands were doing last year.

I took photos of them though.  I have evidence.   

Okay.  Who stole my red duct tape?  That is definitely missing.  

The Miracle Of Air Conditioning

Another blistering hot day in LA, but once again due to the miracle of air conditioning the cat posse and I stayed cool.  My porch sit was limited to 30 minutes in the earliest part of the morning.  I ate strawberries, drank iced tea, and opened up the visual journal and dove inside.  A page yesterday, a page today.  And that quickly she was finished.  Time to drag the ream of Fabriano paper out of the garage, dust an old book off the shelf, and start sewing up a suitable replacement.

Made some more vinyl sandwiches.  A larger shot of this one is coming, but for now look at that tiny bracelet one of my kiddos gave me months ago.  I like capturing bits of things between thick slices of pliant vinyl.  These things feel good.

Dottie gave me a set of soft flannel sheets for Christmas and this enormous red ribbon was wrapped around the whole bundle.  I enjoy rounding up ingredients from around the house to make my sandwiches with.  For example, more Italian artifacts.  No archaeological sites were pillaged or plundered for said artifacts.  Really.

Lately my poetry reading has taken a humorous turn.  Every night's open mic night at Moss Cottage.  But....the cat posse are up in arms about this poem I forced them to listen to more than once this week!   Promise me you'll read it aloud to your cat. Or your human.  It's fun to read.   Come on, be a good sport.  I tried to call my sister to read it to her several times this week but she took her phone off the hook. 

Choosing A Dog 

"It's love," they say. You touch
the right one and a whole half of the universe
wakes up, a new half.

Some people never find
that half, or they neglect it or trade it
for money or success and it dies.

The faces of big dogs tell, over the years,
that size is a burden: you enjoy it for awhile
but then maintenance gets to you.

When I get old I think I'll keep, not a little
dog, but a serious dog,
for the casual, drop-in criminal —

My kind of dog, unimpressed by
dress or manner, just knowing
what's really there by the smell.

Your good dogs, some things that they hear
they don't really want you to know —
it's too grim or ethereal.

And sometimes when they look in the fire
they see time going on and someone alone,
but they don't say anything. 

by William Stafford -  poet among poets!

Things I'm Digging

1. anthropologie dessert plates, 2. brocante, 3. pears on transferware, 4. Mismatched Tea Cup and Saucer, 5. a well worn rim, 6. 6 Vintage Floral Plates, 7. strawberries, 8. 0610 vintage saucers and plates, 9. A New Tea Cup

Things I'm digging this Saturday morning: 

Vintage dishes at Flickr which inspired my mosaic. 

The hand-drawn graphics in BEAST, which look very reminiscent of visual journals.

The REFUELED magazine also at Issuu which is shockingly fabulous. Get the hell over to Issuu STAT and load up on page after page of cool magazines. After all, it did reach 113 hot dry degrees in the valleys of LA yesterday.  No one needs to coax me into a tall creamy iced coffee and a seat in front of the computer. Air conditioning has come to Moss Cottage and baby, it's 100% all g o o d.  As long as the power grid doesn't crash, the cat posse and I will be sitting pretty all afternoon.

 Julia Potts.

The Tuesday Tutorials over at Indie Fixx.  Love the frame with hanging wires!

And finally...the genius extraordinaire who is Trixie Delicious.  Check out what she's doing with your Aunt Critch's dishes.

Okay.  Time to go make stuff.

Building A Time Machine

Sewing up a few family photos to hang on the walls.  Simple.  Vintage wallpaper on the back and a stray ribbon to loop through the top for easy hanging. 

You can't really tell, from the photo but there is a fabulous faux bois tree trunk tombstone my great grandmother, Maria Isabel Guerra is leaning against in this photo. She and my great grandfather, Jacobo Concepcion Guerra, travelled to the grave of their oldest son, Jacobo Santos Guerra who died on September 15, 1919.  They are visiting his grave on the first anniversary of his death in Montemorelos, Mexico, on September 15,  1920.  This fact is made all the more poignant by the next wall hanging photo below which is of their same son's wedding 10 years earlier.

 

That's Mama Ita (Maria Isabel) sitting there on the left in the forefront next to her husband Jacobo.  Across the wedding table sits the younger Jacobo on the occasion of his marriage to Flossie Herrera on September 1, 1909.  I imagine him sitting there relaxed holding the bottle of wine, his little sister's hand (my grandmother) resting on his shoulder, looking across the table at his mother, who is looking at the camera. Safe under the wedding tent, a warm breeze ruffling the crepe paper decorations and flag.  I like to imagine they are looking at me looking back at them.  

Let's move in for a closer look shall we? Next to Flossie in the dark glasses sits Jacobo's other sister, Maria Cristina, who was blinded in one eye by a tree branch, as she rode in her carriage some years earlier. 

I think they meant to invite me to the wedding.   I want to hear the conversations, feel the warm air, look up into the sky later when it is growing dark and see the stars opening, follow my great grandparents into the house when the party is over and listen as Crisanta Florentina (my grandmother) is tucked into bed.

I asked my sister Dottie about the feasibility of building a time machine and going back to the Rio Grande Texas of 99 years ago, to that September day.   She suggested I get my 2nd graders to help me.  Brilliant idea!  Why didn't I think of it? 

I mean let's get serious.  Who better to hire for the job than this bunch?    

Scenes From A Porch

Here are scenes from a porch.

Which is where I spent much of the morning.  Which is where I read this poem that made me laugh loudly out loud.

	

Variations On A Theme By William Carlos Williams

  1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

 	2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

 	3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the
next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

 	4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

by Kenneth Koch

I read that several times over and laughed just as loud each time.  Next, onto the novel.  I keep being reminded of things while I read, remembering things, wondering about things, staring into space and thinking about things.  Once jumping up to see where Grass Valley is on the map. (location of story)  Then thinking of how great to drive there, leave RIGHT NOW, get a hotel room, and read the rest of the book. Take field trips during the day to places mentioned in the book. These distractions do not lead to speed reading.   Oh well.

Where I go, the cat posse follows.  The porch is a perfect vantage point for watching bird landings and take-offs.  Tactical maneuvers are conducted.  All mentally of course.  Calculations are made.  If the effort involved is not too great, some running may be involved, or perhaps a few false starts up trees.

Mostly there is resting.

Friday Night In The Gleaming Metropolis

Friday night in the gleaming metropolis. 67 luscious degrees. Faint honks from down the hill, a few dogs yapping about something, the gentle roar of traffic down on Figueroa, a little single-engine plane just flew over my house. My neighbor a few doors down is singing. Her high, clear, voice blooming through her open windows and pouring down the street. There is an occassional plunk on her piano keys. Where is my bottle so I can pour these sounds inside? 

After a long week at school I was dying to dive into a pool of images and start rearranging to suit my own needs. I combed through my vast photo empire and came up with (gasp!) some shots of Italy. Dug a little further and I uncovered a garden stroll of a couple of months back.

One thing led to another as it always does and these duets were born. The faux TTV pics are fairly simple to do and there are plenty of tutorials online should you feel the need to head in that direction.

As for me, the only direction I'm heading in is the one that leads me to a freshly plumped-up bed by an open window where I can listen to night sounds, feel some cool air, and bury myself in a book and a few poems.

Flickr Summer Bliss

1. beautiful life, 2. .a thing of the past., 3. Leelanau Tarts (fo-lomo), 4. Summer day, 5. wild flowers, 6. sitting in the afternoon sun, 7. pure and simple, 8. Burnt Orange and Blue, 9. LowGasSign

Want to have your own FLICKR mosaic fun?  You can use Flickr faves or your own photos (if you have a FLICKR account)  Go to Flickr's very own Big Huge Labs and click on Mosaic.  My last 2 post mosaics were made with Flickr faves.  Artist/photographer links under the photos.

Wednesday Evening 65 Degrees

1. Untitled, 2. where the purple thistle grows, 3. Incomplete, 4. the date, 5. Untitled, 6. Untitled, 7. Over Our Heads, 8. No Trespassing, 9. Untitled