What Is Up

IT'S DONE!

2011-07-01T21:20:00.000-07:00

Gold Diggers of 1829 is almost really totally completely done!

I am not really updating this blog anymore, because I got a bad case of the toomanyblogs. Just thought I should do a quick update in case anyone is still reading only this one. So now I have an art portfolio blog where I just post stuff that would reasonably go into an art portfolio. When the movie is on the internet it will be posted there, maybe not here. I also have a new (not really new) personal blog, where I post all manner of things, including a little bit of the writing about art process stuff that I used to write on here.

So hopefully I will see you over there, or not see you since tumblr doesn't really have easy commenting system for non-tumblrers. But you can still read them and I will know.

Reshoots

2010-10-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

As promised, I have a movie production update! We had some scenes that had to be re-shot because we didn't do a good enough job lighting the greenscreen when we shot them the first time. There were three scenes to reshoot: Barnaby's song, the Prospector's lollipop scenes, and a closeup of the Golden Retriever's paw. So it shouldn't have taken very long. In reality it took nine hours! I'm not sure why.

I actually had to work until noon on Saturday, the day of the reshoots. Channing was supposed to go to his office (we shot in his conference room to avoid cat interference) and set up before I got off work. He was also supposed to get a big lollipop before I met him at noon. Unfortunately he didn't do either of those things, but he did get a pizza so at least we didn't starve to death.

Anyway, one of the first things we did once we got all of our stuff inside was head out to get a big lollipop. I see them every time I go to walgreen's, so I thought it wouldn't be a big deal to find one again. But I guess they had to get rid of the big lollipops to make space for more mellowcreme pumpkins and candy corn, because they didn't have them anymore. We went to a few other candy stores in Chinatown, but none of them had big lollipops. This seemed like it took forever because it was rainy and I was getting upset. At one point I almost settled on using a popcorn ball instead, but I just couldn't do it. So we ended up calling five different candy stores and driving 20 minutes to the only one that had what we were looking for. It was in Berkeley and the guy working there was pretty awesome. He knew everything about every candy! So finally we had what we needed, but I still had to paint it with food coloring to get rid of the blue and green stripes, since those were the reason we had to reshoot the lollipop scenes to begin with.

I made two new outfits for Barnaby. The old one was a cute blue-green plaid vest, but some parts of the fabric were too close to the color of the greenscreen, so the old footage had gaping holes of background shining through Barnaby's fat little body. This is the same problem we had with the lollipop, in case you couldn't tell. So I made a new vest! We're using a bluescreen for the reshoots instead of a greenscreen, but I was still worried that the new vest had some flecks of green in it. So I made a simple orange bowtie as well. We liked it because it makes Barnaby seem like one of Fozzie Bear's fashion influences, but we liked the vest and hat better. So hopefully both will work and we can cut back and forth between the two in a magical fashion.

As you can see the bluescreen we used was kind of magical! It's a grey fabric that comes with a special blue light that you attach to the camera lens. We attached it with fishing wire, since we couldn't figure out how it was actually supposed to stay on. Anyway, the grey fabric is reflective, but it only reflects blue light (or magic, or something) so it appears to the camera to be blue. Pretty cool! Channing's work owns this system, and supposedly it eliminates the need to get all the wrinkles out of the screen before shooting. I hope it works!

So I hope we did a good enough job this time. I'm a little worried about difficulties keying out the 2-tone blue coat and wrinkles in it, but Channing assures me it will be fine.

Shamelessly Asking for Money!

2010-10-21T06:33:00.000-07:00

Hey guess what! I am poor! Hooray! Just kidding, actually I just recently found out that I need some money to pay for my final semester of library school. Usually I have grants that pay for most of it, but since I'm part time next semester I won't qualify for those. And since there's a cap on the number of credits I can take I can't not be a part time student. So it's technically possible for me to pay for this entire semester with a credit card, but I really don't want to do that! So I figured out that if each of my facebook friends donates $11.05 it will pay for my semester! Here is a button:

You can help me! I can pay you back if you want, but not with interest, which is the only reason that would be better than using my credit card. And I can send you a variety of prizes and stuff from my house! Any amount is appreciated.

And by the way, I will have a movie update next week.

Shopportunities

2010-07-19T16:19:00.000-07:00

In case you are afraid of using PayPal, don't have a mailbox, and live in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Cross My Words and Hope to (Verb) zine is now available at several stores for your shopping convenience.

Issues in Oakland has an amazing array of magazines, including my zine!

Dog Eared Books in San Francisco has a tiny zine section, so mine should be relatively easy to find. They also have a large selection of new and used books.

More locations are coming soon, but if you're reading this you should probably just click below to buy a copy, so some strangers can purchase them from the store.

Oh, and I don't have any totally subjective reviews yet, but here's what some of the contributors are saying:

"I got the zine in the mail the other day, and I just wanted to say I think it's fantastic. It looks really well made (the binding is great). And of course the content is excellent as is the concept." - Keith Ecker

"How does it work? I didn't read the instructions yet." - Rachel Weiner

"The Zine is amazing!" - Jacqueline Suskin

"The brilliance of this zine is that it forces the owner’s hand from passive to active involvement. You can’t read the stories as they’re intended until you solve the crossword and fill in the blanks. And once that’s done, you can re-blank the blanks and get a friend to fill them in without context, perhaps while riding in the back of a car. This zine is an instant toolkit to becoming both an artist and a friend, two of the highest forms of collaboration ever conceived." - Channing Kennedy

Get a copy and let me know what you think!

Thanks!

Cross My Words and Hope to ____ (verb).

2010-07-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

The Cross My Words and Hope to _____ (verb) Activity Zine is available now! Only $5+s/h. Here's how it works:

(Click to enlarge/read/understand.)

So for only $5, you get three short stories, six poems, five comic strips, one enormous crossword puzzle, and a lot of mad libs and colorable drawings.

The stories, poems, comics, and illustrations are all amazing. Contributors include
Keith Ecker
Channing Kennedy
Jessica James Lansdon
Gregg Lewis
Lauralee Sparling
Jacqueline Suskin
Allen Talbert
Rachel Weiner
and me!

Click below to order your copy! Heck, you probably need to order lots of copies for all of your word-game-loving friends!

Or, if you see me in person sometimes, just give me $5 and I will give you a zine in exchange. But be sure to let me know you want one so I will have it ready!

Animating

2010-06-30T19:59:00.000-07:00

Things are happening!

Zine things:
My crossword zine is coming together. I have to think up like 10 more clues (which means I already thought up about 300), make someone solve the puzzle for proofreading purposes, work on some layouts, make copies, and it will be done! I even wrote my letter from the editor part today. Maybe I will finish it by the weekend IF the contributors will all send me their bios.

Movie things:
Robin is working on my movie! We met up last weekend and she showed us what she'd done so far, and it was great! She did stuff!

I am also doing stuff! I went to the park and took photos of the town. Here's what it looks like sort of:

Realistic, huh? I made Jessica come with me to protect me from being run over by joggers and cyclists and baseball players while I crouched on the ground in the middle of a dirt patch. She did a good job. I did not get run over by anything.

I am also working on animating the audience for the vaudeville show that happens within the movie. Here is a preview of what a few of them look like:

The audience was drawn by HARVEY JAMES™ who is super cool and good at drawing! He's also taking commissions right now starting at just $6, which is really cheap! Go here! Give him some money! It will be well-spent, I assure you.

Animating the audience, however, is up to me. We tried filming them puppet-style, by attaching strings to paper cutouts, but the lighting was terrible and the cutouts wouldn't stay right-side-round, so it was a total mess. In fact, it's still a total mess in one of my drawers, where all of the cutouts are knotted up in a big pile. So I decided to try doing the animation digitally, which I'm kind of excited about, because I've never done such a thing, but also kind of nervous that it will be really tedious and hard. However, I am up for that kind of challenge. At least it's not confusing, tedious, and hard.

And then in a week or so you (if you somehow managed not to be a contributor) can give ME money when you purchase my zine! And in another 5 years (completely random estimate) you can give me money again when you purchase tickets to see my movie at a movie theater! Hooray!

I am actually not a great singer, despite the implications of this post.

2010-06-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

We finally hired someone to work on editing my movie! Channing just did not have time to work on it, as I may have mentioned in every post for the past year. I had been suggesting hiring someone for a few months, but he kept promising that he would just buckle down and work on it. Clearly it wasn't happening. So now our friend Robin Griswold, who is a recent film school graduate, is tackling the project. I hope she doesn't go insane from listening to me singing too much. Not that you will, when you eventually watch the movie, because I obviously have a lovely singing voice. But editing is terrible and annoying, no matter how classically trained and perfect the voices on the soundtrack are. It is this attitude, combined with my inability to teach myself complicated greenscreen compositing, that has prevented me from editing the movie myself.

In the meantime, I am working on a crossword/story/coloring/mad lib zine. I've received quite a few lovely submissions from various writers and drawers. Now I'm working on formatting everything and adding more illustrations. I might also try to think of a title that's more concise than crossword/story/coloring/mad lib zine. Thinking of titles is always difficult for me.

I'm also doing boring projects around the house, like sewing bags to contain my hand-washable laundry and our stash of plastic shopping bags. Once the shopping bags are corralled, we can fit a mini-compost bin under the sink so we can actually compost a bit more regularly.

I also finally got a zipper foot for my sewing machine, so I'm going to be attempting to make some dresses soon! Hooray for things that don't have buttons or drawstrings!

Oh man, this movie.

2010-04-24T00:07:00.001-07:00

Channing took a day off of work last week to edit the movie because he thought never working on it was having a negative impact on our relationship. Which is true, because I would get mad whenever he wanted to do anything besides edit my movie, which I realize is unreasonable. So I was just really trying not to nag him (not totally successfully) but I was getting really pissed about it. I'm naggy by nature, and keeping that bottled up is a challenge, but I don't want to be a terrible girlfriend, you know? Anyhow, there's still a lot to do but I feel that I am temporarily appeased because some progress was made. I will probably be mad again as soon as I see the next sentence about any movie that is complete.

We will probably have to reshoot this part, which is unfortunate because lollipops are disgusting. Zoom in and you will see why.

De-uglification?

2010-04-06T10:51:00.001-07:00

I'm sure some people will think that I'm making this more ugly, but I like it a lot more now.

Here is my old and improved jean jacket:

Now I will not feel like such a dummy when I wear this with jeans. I haven't decided if I should add more stuff to it or not. I'm going to wear it for a while and see how I feel about it.

I'm also working on a new zine. It involves a crossword and a bunch of stories. Right now I'm waiting patiently as my collaborators work on their story-parts, which should be finished pretty soon.

I haven't done any new projects in a while because I'm depressed that my movie's editor is too busy to edit my movie. I'm now officially trying to work on smaller projects to get my mind off of it.

New Website

2010-02-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

I had my sweet boyfriend make a portfolio website for me a few years ago. Unfortunately I think we (he) ended up updating it like once since then. Since there's not much hope of ever keeping it updated regularly if I can't do it myself, which I currently can't, I'm going to abandon the old site pretty soon. I'm moving things over to a tumblr blog. It sort of seemed like a terrible idea until I realized I could organize everything with keywords and tags! So you can just click on Look, Read, Watch, Wear, or Buy from my page to go to everything from that category. And, after Channing helping me for only a few brief (okay, sort of long) hours, I was able to get everything working pretty much exactly as I wanted! We even finally figured out how to add paypal buttons, so you can buy zines and bags directly from me and I don't have to worry about etsy listings expiring or other annoying etsy things. I'm also uploading my videos to Vimeo so that I can have higher-quality versions online all in the same place instead of having them spread over two youtube channels. They'll still be on youtube, too, but now it's easier to access all of my videos from one page, and the earlier videos will be higher-quality than was once available on youtube. I'm really excited to be starting over, since I've been pretty unhappy that the official online representation of my work was mostly a representation of my work from three years ago. I'm planning to continue using this blog to talk about things I'm working on, keeping the portfolio and works-in-progress slightly separated. So thanks Channing, for helping me realize my dreams.

EDITITITITIING

2009-12-21T17:46:00.000-08:00

Editing sure is boring! Sort of! It's also kind of great. I'm doing a lot of nose-cropping-out, but at least I get to look at stuff like this:

Christmas!!!

2009-12-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

Hey, guess what, I have Santa Fever!!!!

This is my face from when I saw Santa in the Oakland Holiday Parade.

I know that Christmas is terrible for a lot of reasons, but it's also great for a lot of reasons. I especially like it this year because I don't have to go to school, and I had an insanely busy semester. Channing gets a much-needed vacation from work, too. Plus, our friend Gregg is coming to visit on Christmas!

I always like Christmas, whether or not there are friend visits or school vacations, because it's really over the top and ridiculous. I like that there is a mythology involving snowmen who come to life, elves who live at the North Pole making presents all year, and other equally ridiculous stuff. In fact, when I was a kid, the very idea of snow seemed like a crazy mythological thing because I never saw any until I moved "up north" to Missouri.

I like cookies, and my mom taught us how to decorate amazing gingerbread masterpieces from an early age using a variety of colored icings applied with toothpicks. Here's my dad with his freshly decorated Navy veteran in a Speedo Gingerbread Man.

Last year Channing got to decorate cookies with us for the first time. I talked about it for weeks beforehand and it was one of the most exciting parts of Christmas. My sister recently reported to me that her husband gets upset that he can't make the eyes, and she has to remind him that she's had years of practice.

I applied for a job as an elf for a mall Santa a few years ago. I got hired, but I didn't take it after they explained that the uniform was a red shirt and black pants, instead of the pointy shoes and striped tights I was hoping for. This year I went ice skating dressed as a snowwoman.

Oh, was I skating too fast? I guess that's because I am really good at skating! (Not really, but I only fell down once.) Ok, here is a picture of me going slower:

Channing went as a reindeer, but there are no pictures of him skating. He sat out most of the time and took pictures of the rest of us due to an ill-fitting skates-induced foot pain. Instead, for your viewing pleasure, I present you with our holiday card!

I love sending mail, so this is a good excuse to send something to everyone I know. Or at least everyone whose address I know. These are really fun to make. Channing did this year's, with some backseat photoshopping provided by me. The recipients think they are funny or think we are weird, but mostly people like them, as they already know we are weird!

Anyway, lately I've been hearing some of my friends talk about how Christmas is the worst because they're forced to listen to Christmas music for months and all the stores are decorated starting in October to encourage people to buy, buy, buy! And not everyone celebrates Christmas anyway! And I agree, that stuff sucks.

But! I am happy to say that I live an exceptionally charmed life in which
1. I don't have to work in a place that plays Christmas music, so I almost never hear any except in passing or by choice.
2. I don't own a TV, so I don't get bombarded with ads about buying stuff for Christmas. I don't watch a lot of shows so I don't get annoyed that every episode is a Christmas episode.
3. I never go shopping at the mall or almost anywhere else besides the grocery store, so I don't have to deal with crowds and angry shoppers.
4. Absurdity is one of my favorite things in the world, which is great at a time of the year in which there are often costumed gingerbread men or pine trees walking down the street. These tap-dancing Christmas trees, for example, are a yearly fixture in the Oakland Holiday parade.

And here are "Shamu and Friend" riding in a convertible even though it is impossible for them to ride in a convertible because they have to be in the water to live! But here they are, because of Christmas. I tried to get a picture sooner so you could see both of them, but they were driving like 2 mph, so it was understandably impossible for me to keep up.

I think it's an oversimplification to say that people who are annoyed by the media's and merchants' focus on Christmas should just get rid of their TV and stop going to the mall. It works for me, but I guess a lot of people really like shopping and watching TV, so telling them not to do it during a certain season isn't very reasonable. I do think it's reductive to claim that anyone is forcing you to listen to Christmas music, unless you have a job where it's played and there's no option to change it to something else. I've had those jobs, and it was pretty awful. Commercialism sucks, but Christmas really doesn't have to be about presents. It can be about religion, presents, cookies, dancing, ridiculous costumes, eating, getting drunk, or whatever else you want. If you hate what Christmas is for you, start your own traditions. Complaining isn't going to prevent merchants from trying to sell you things or stop the radio station from playing Christmas music. And in case you didn't notice, merchants are trying desperately to sell you things all year long, not just at Christmas. I'm not saying complaints aren't valid, just that they aren't especially productive.

I really want to read the book described here about the origins of modern Christmas. (This blog, Four Pounds Flour, is really good. It's all about historical foods, which the author often attempts to re-create. This particular post includes a recipe for Christmas cookies from 1796.)

We also went to the Nutcracker at the San Francisco Ballet this weekend. It was really amazing. The snowstorm! The set changes! The horses! OMG! The horses come in at 5:30 below, in case you don't want to watch a bunch of dancing but want to see ponies.

So much better than the Oakland Ballet's budget Nutcracker that we saw last year where the funny kids in the audience were the best part. Channing stayed awake the whole time and reported that he liked it even though he doesn't care about ballet at all. Sorry Oakland Ballet, I know you tried.

I'm going to make some cookies as soon as I get some sugar. Mine are going to be a lot less fluffy than this one, and more whimsically decorated.

Oh yeah, the other thing I'm excited about: Christmas vacation means I will have some time to work on editing my movie! I bet you thought I'd forgotten about it, but no! I have been thinking about it day and night, getting the songs stuck in my ears and the images stuck in my eyes. I am so excited to have time to work on it again. I'm currently still recovering from my semester, but soon!

Pilloween

2009-10-31T19:38:00.000-07:00

Pillow and Pillow dressed up like skeleton vampires for Halloween. Aren't they convincing?

They wanted to go trick or treating, but I convinced them that the candy would just fall through their skeleton bottoms. They were happy to hang out with the Great Pumpkin instead.

These scary pillows were made by Gregg Lewis. You can see some more of his pipe-cleaner masterpieces and non-pipe-cleaner masterpieces here. His latest video "A Booring/Boring Evening" is highly recommended, although not Halloween-themed despite the title. Here it is:

Pandaland

2009-09-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

Channing and I made a quick video in honor of my niece's first birthday. Here it is:

We did it in one take because we didn't have time to let the camera battery charge enough to do more than that. Luckily it turned out fine.

This song is somewhat typical of my songwriting style in that I just wrote new lyrics for a pre-existing song. I like this better than the sandman version, but maybe that's because I like pandas. And because I always hated that sandman song.

I've always wanted to make children's television. For a long time I wanted to be a muppeteer. So having a niece is really great because it gives me an excuse to make kid-type stuff and have an audience for it. This is the first thing I've made her, since she doesn't really understand tv yet, but I hope to record many more stupid songs for her in the future.

crossin' the words

2009-09-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

Hey, so I have no time to do anything! Like finish my movie which is almost finished. Boohoohoohoo. I am taking four classes. In grad school! This is a lot of work, but it's okay. I'm trying to graduate as quickly as possible so I don't have to go to school anymore. But, even as I type I should instead be reading some reading about reading for my class about books.

I did have time to make some sweet birthday presents for my sweet Channing. Among other things, he received two crossword puzzles. This is one of my favorite hobbies, the making of crosswords. I made these while I was at work, after I finished my schoolwork of course, and probably did some working actions I guess. Since I made these especially for Channing, they might have some inside joke type clues. If you see any clues like "_______ is hot" the answer is probably "Channing." I haven't actually looked at it since I made it, so I don't know how many times you will have to write that Channing is hot or know something that is impossible for you to know. You should also know that I refer to the TV show Mad Men as Mad Mans. I think that might come in handy. These are pretty hard, so use a pencil. I guess you have to print it out, I don't know. If you click it gets a lot bigger. If you need help I can give you hints. Put your queries in the comments. I will post the other one later, but this should keep you busy for now if you do indeed attempt to solve it.

My own birthday is coming up soon, and I'm going on a plane journey shortly afterward, so if any of you also like making crosswords you can send them my way. I will be ever so pleased to solve them.

The Gang's All Here.

2009-07-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

Almost all of them, anyway. Some of them were lollygagging in the other room for the photograph.

This is the audience for the Pillow and Pillow Show, drawn by HARVEYJAMES (with a little TM after it, but I don't know how to type that).

Above is before they were cut out, below is after. As soon as they get their arms and heads and whatnot attached to their bodies they'll be all ready to see a show.

I'll get around to animating them any day now. It should only take about 100 more hours, after which we will have everything for the entire movie on tape! Hooray!

But now I have to do some schoolwork.

The Title!

2009-06-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

I finally decided on a title for my movie:

This is the rough draft of the calligraphy, by my mom.

See also 1933 and 1935. There are a few more for which clips are not readily available.

Thanks everyone! Now I need more help...

2009-06-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

I'm writing the credits for my movie, and it's making me realize how great everyone is to cooperate with my weird requests. So thank you to everyone who agreed to voice a puppet or help with writing or lend us a car or recording equipment. The credits are going to be really good, because I'm having my mom do them in calligraphy.

I made Channing accompany me to the San Francisco Main Library last night to find the perfect font (or "alphabet" in calligrapher-ese) and we also visited the skylight gallery on the 6th floor, where there happened to be a calligraphy exhibition on display. It was quite impressive, and I would recommend visiting if you're in San Francisco. It's free! And, as an added bonus, you can imagine you're me as a kid, because I was surrounded by calligraphy all the time. Some of the calligraphers in the show have even stayed with my family when they were in Memphis for calligraphy-related purposes.

Anyhow, I am hard at work organizing the details of the movie. I filmed all of the curtains and backdrops for the puppet theater.

But there's one serious problem! I don't have a title! Does anyone have any brilliant suggestions? I want something that's short and that doesn't give away the plot.

The main characters are names Paxinosa Easton and Ebenezer Van Buskirk, so naming it after them is probably out. In the meantime I'm trying to read up on gold rush slang.

A Big Weekend in the Movie Studio

2009-06-09T11:43:00.001-07:00

AKA A Big Weekend at Home

So, I pretty much forgot to take any photos of the weekend's activities. I will add in some photos for those of you who hate words.

On Friday I actually wrote a script for the entire vaudeville show. Channing and Sunny (who was visiting for the weekend) helped me turn my brilliant ideas into a script, and added in some brilliant ideas of their own. I ended up eliminating the hilarious but dirty jokes that Keith helped me come up with, because I decided it wasn't worth it to limit the audience by including a few dirty jokes. Without them the movie is appropriate for all ages, so I decided to stick with the non-dirty jokes. Those jokes are really good though, so they will soon be available to members of the fan club!

That night we recorded the voices of Pillow and Pillow (Burke and Ty) until the wee hours of the morning. Okay, it was only like 12:30am. I had never met Ty before, but I wanted Burke to cast his co-Pillow so they would be comfortable singing and telling jokes together, and so they could show up at the same time. I think his casting worked out really well. We also ate this pie:

His name was Pyman, and he was delicious.

Then on Saturday I worked at my job, but afterwards I worked on fine-tuning some of the songs. Then I rolled up my hair in some rags in preparation for the next day's shoot. Here is the result of my test-curl, before I combed it out, which almost turned out (after I combed it, which of course I didn't photograph) better than the actual curling:

I was really excited because I used to have to get my hair curled a lot when I was a kid, and it never worked very well because I have really straight hair which was really long for most of my childhood, both of which prevented it from curling very well. I kind of want to start curling my hair all the time, but I'm not going to because I am lazy and because it is a stupid idea.

So on Sunday we set up the greenscreen and pushed all of our furniture to the edges of the living room.

We recorded my song first, because I wanted to do it as soon as I woke up. I was very excited. It's a version of the Mongoosnuffle Shuffle Rag, adapted so it fits with music. Mr. Tusks played the part of Mr. Mongoosnuffles, and he got the attitude right even though he doesn't exactly look the part.

Next Keith (a different Keith!) and Jessica came over to help out. We filmed the complicated giraffe song and dance, which required three puppeteers. And of course none of us know how to be puppeteers, so it was a bit difficult. I think it turned out fine, though. I'm a big fan of doing things I have no idea how to do. I made Keith and Jessica sing songs (the giraffe and beaver) as well, but I'm not sure how they turned out. I'm going to attempt to edit them today. Channing is kind of a confusing conductor, but I figured he would do a better job than me since he has some experience recording music. We recorded some backup versions just to be safe.

Later we filmed the Pillows and Barnaby lipsynching and dancing to their parts. This was hard just because these guys are hand puppets, which meant we had to lay flat on our backs with our arms straight up in the air in order to get them in the proper position.

After that there were only three minutes left on the tape and we were tired so we decided to call it a day.

There is still one more song to film, and a few incidental things for transitions and backgrounds, but the vaudeville show is almost complete! After that's done we still have to film the entire ending of the movie, but it feels really good to have such a big chunk of footage out of the way.

Now to start editing...

PS - Rachel, I'll be sending out your fan club materials tomorrow.

The Poo Paw Team

2009-06-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Here's the team behind the soon-to-be classic song Poo Paw, which was recorded last night:

Mike is the golden voice behind the sort-of-golden cat, Michelle wrote the lyrics, and I forced them to do this.

The song is turned out so well! It's the first one I've recorded for the movie, and I'm really excited to do more in the next few days. Sorry, but you will have to wait to hear its brilliance, but hopefully not much longer!

Here's Barnaby, almost ready to film his dance on Sunday. He's eagerly awaiting the completion of the track so he can get his lip-synching down perfectly.

Big thanks to everyone. I would especially like to thank Mr. Tusks for only occasionally having the terrible hygiene problem that inspired the song.

Now I'm off to get some last minute supplies!

It's Curtains

2009-05-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

Curtains for a vaudeville theater! This is one of many backdrops for the very fancy theater in the golden retriever movie.

I think I might make a shirt out of this after I finish filming the puppets.

To make it, first I sewed the two fabrics together with lots of seams to make the pattern below. Then I cut out the appropriate amounts of the top layer to make the pattern. Easy!

Mr. Tusks was helpful as usual. Is it getting really boring to post a photo of Mr. Tusks sitting on my sewing every time I sew something? If so, perhaps you can send him a letter to convince him to stop doing it. Until then, here is a photo of Mr. Tusks sitting on the curtain while I was sewing it.

I just got some fringe to finish up another curtain, which is one of the last things I have to make before filming. I also have almost all of the actors lined up to play the various puppets. We're planning to film on June 7th, which is less than two weeks away. I have lots of little things to finish up before then, but I think I should have plenty of time to get it all done.

Pillowcases

2009-05-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

Those who have already joined will recognize these as parts of the Pillow Pals Membership Packet. Or Membership Pillowcase.

I'm in the midst of finals (and procrastinating) right now. I'm really looking forward to being finished with the semester so I can get to work on the moviemaking again. Most of the puppet scenes are almost ready to be filmed, I just need to focus on getting them done.

I have three more essays to write today, so I guess I'll get back to that.

Airnuts Professbud, Child Star

2009-04-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a vaudeville child star costume for myself. It now has puffy sleeves. I just need to attach all of the pieces together and maybe make an enormous bow for the back. This will undoubtedly take me 18 more weeks. I'm going to be wearing this in the golden retriever movie. Not as the golden retriever. I'm actually playing two parts, making this movie a perfect combination of Air Bud and The Nutty Professor, two movies I have never seen.

I made a wig to go with this dress, but it looked like a combination of a macaroni and cheese head and a fake dreadlock hat wearing guy. It was really bad. So I'm going to make a fall out of doll hair. Does that make sense to anyone who is alive in 2009? It is a partial wig thing.

I keep thinking "Why did I get rid of that half-used packet of doll hair that I had three years ago?" even though I have since moved four times and never until now needed half a packet of doll hair. This seemed ridiculous for an entire week, until I went to the art supply store to get a new packet. Unfortunately I went to the art supply store that is always out of everything, so they were out of blonde doll hair. They had black, white, and auburn. There wasn't even a space where the blonde hair was supposed to be. I guess I will order some from the internet, even though that seems incredibly stupid.

I recently read this book, which is about vaudeville child dance star and pack rat Doris Eaton Travis, who went on to appear in the Ziegfield Follies. She then outlived every other Ziegfield girl there ever was. She's now 104, I believe. It's a really interesting biography because it takes advantage of its subject's huge collection of newspaper clippings and photos and whatnot to tell her life story in collage form. The story is also pretty interesting with or without the wacky format. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in graphic novels, collage, or famous people from the 1920s.

St. Louis Art Show Fun Time

2009-04-19T23:57:00.000-07:00

Snowfakes will be playing on Thursday, May 7th in St. Louis as part of this:

Chataqua Art Lab
MAPPING THE MULTIVERSE
May 2-8, 2009
Temporary art and technology project
founded by Eric Repice and Sarah Paulsen
Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts space
3151 Cherokee Street, St. Louis, MO, USA

More info later. And here at Sarah Paulsen's blog.

Moon, Cat, and Bunny, LLC

2009-04-07T19:48:00.001-07:00

The first membership packets for the Pals of Pillow and Pillow were sent out today. It's not too late to join if you haven't already.

Today I made this enormous moon guy. He's not finished yet. I have to add craters and facial features once the paint dries.

Then I worked on outfitting Barnaby. Doesn't he look dapper? I kind of hate this plaid, but it's the vestiest fabric I have, so I'm going with it. At least it matches the shiny material for the back of the vest. Plus I have such a huge amount of fabric that I can't really justify buying more.

I'm having trouble finishing anything today. Except the granola bars. I didn't eat them all, but I did finish making them. In fact, I should probably eat some more before Channing gets home.

I found out that audio recordings of the Oz books are available for free online. I've never read them before, so I thought I'd listen to them while I work on other things to prevent myself from checking my email 1000 times to see if my group project-mates have emailed me. The reader of this one is okay. Some of his character voices are slightly irritating, but at least he's known how to pronounce all of the words so far. I'm up to chapter 6. I think there are probably other versions available, but I'm satisfied enough to keep listening to this guy. Usually when I listen to audiobooks I fall instantly asleep, or try to fall instantly asleep but instead stay awake for excruciating chapters being annoyed that the person driving the car wants to listen to a stupid old audiobook. I guess it's better if it's a story I want to hear.

When I was learning to read my parents made me cassette recordings of my favorite books, like the one about the guy who rode his bike into a tree. They even used the toy xylophone to alert me that it was time to turn the page. Maybe it's just hard for other audiobooks to live up to that.

Speaking of nerdy things that are online for free, the Library of Congress has a youtube channel and a flickr page where you can look at lots of great stuff from 1904, or whichever olden year you prefer. I'm actually doing one of my final projects for library school about the LOC flickr project, so I spent a long time looking at the photos while attempting to do my research today. Life Magazine also has a huge archive of photos online in a somewhat less browseable format. Full episodes of the PBS series Art:21 are now available on Hulu. It's one of my favorite shows, although sometimes it's incredibly boring. It depends on whether the artists featured seem like genuine passionate people or like people who've spent a lifetime looking up words in a thesaurus trying to justify their artwork. Thanks to the internet, you can just skip the boring pompous people. I kind of like watching them, though, because sometimes it's fun to get mad at the tv. Actually, I think I usually just fall asleep until an interesting part comes on.

I'm really excited that Easter is coming. This year might be the year the Easter Bunny comes to ask for my hand! If you don't know what I'm talking about, this informative video will help you understand.

Did you know that Channing has a video blog where he (sometimes, unless he is taking a break) posts a story every day? The video above is from that (on a day when he was taking a break). So if you want to see Channing talking, usually about things that are funny, you should go watch him.

You Can Be a Pillow Pal

2009-03-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

I've been working on some fan club materials, and I woke up this morning with the idea to do a promotional video/infomercial so I would have more than one person to send them to. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It reminds me, in the best possible way, of the class projects I used to do in middle school.

Don't you think Channing is the most photogenic and best boyfriend ever? I guess there's a slight chance you don't know who Channing is, so I'll go ahead and say that he's the Pillow fan in the video.

You should join the fan club. Email palsofpillows@gmail.com

-Fan Club President

boat and beaver

2009-03-27T11:06:00.000-07:00

I finished that beaver puppet I was working on, and finally got around to taking a picture.

Now I'm building a boat. It's almost finished, I just have to attach the mast and the sail at this point. Mr. Tusks was less helpful than usual on this project, which was great.

Below is an experiment which involves me saving a bunch of trash, as do most of my experiments. Can you guess what it's for?

mail

2009-03-27T10:26:00.000-07:00

I love mail. I get really excited to check the mailbox every day even though I almost never have any reason to be expecting anything. When something does come, besides a coupon for a store I never shop at, it's really wonderful. But I also love the other half of mail, which is making it for all of my lovely friends.

About six months ago, I started documenting the things I sent out, because I tend to spend a long time on them and then sometimes (hardly ever) they get lost, which is terrible. I also thought it would be fun (and useful) to keep track of what I sent to people, so I would know if sending more Garfield cartoons would be an annoyance or a delight. A lot of times I get too excited while making the mail and I seal up the envelope (usually I make the envelopes out of magazine pages for added fanciness) before I take a picture of the contents. Sometimes I even mail it without taking a picture of the envelope, so I sometimes get a message from someone saying "thanks for sending that thing" or "I'm such a bad friend, I totally owe you mail" and I've forgotten that I sent them anything at all. Not a perfect system, but at least now I remember SOME things I send out.

So I thought I would share a few pictures from my mail documentation project, to encourage you to send me something. (Just kidding. Sort of.) You can click on the photos to enlarge.

The tiny envelopes got put inside of a pinata with a bunch of other letters for a birthday present. In case any of you are wondering, my birthday is September 22nd.

Guess how big the leek was!

2009-03-18T19:08:00.001-07:00

This morning when I was brushing my teeth, the faucet broke. The water stayed on all day until the plumber came when I got off of work at 3:00. I read a newspaper article that said really obvious things about how bottled water is stupid, and I felt bad.

I really did get an enormous leek (plus a normal-sized leek) in the CSA box. It's as big as my arm, which is massive! We got rutabagas, too! I have never eaten one, so I'm pretty excited about that. Carrots=carrot cupcakes. We have been waiting two weeks for them because we were so busy that our last carrot bunch went soft before we could use them.

I went to the store and spent 40 cents on a lemon. Mr. Tusks followed me for two blocks when I went, until I scared him into the street. I was trying to scare him back toward the house, but I guess my scaring was too vague. Every time I go outside I feel like I have a thousand tiny cuts inside of my throat, because there are floral items in the air. I got some hate mail and some love mail. The love mail was way better.

I made a vaudeville beaver puppet last night while I was waiting to hear from my partner so I could work on my school project. I haven't added the teeth or eyes yet, but I think I will finish those parts tonight. I haven't settled on his costume yet.

While I was waiting (this was like 6 hours of waiting) I also mended those four garments he's leaning on, so now I will be able to wear them in polite society.

I do have ever so many appointments with polite people nowadays. For example, sometimes the bus driver is polite. Depends on which one you get.

Next week is spring break, which doesn't really mean much. Slightly less schoolwork, maybe.

Now I have to take a shower because I sprayed myself with hollandaise sauce when I was making it in the blender.

Here is a picture of a dogtor from the internet. He has hands just like the pig-faced lady:

This proves that 2009 is exactly like 1837.

Party Plannaz

2009-03-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

Here is the video Channing and I made for this year's True/False party. As the description on the youtube page says: "When we were asked to make this video we knew it would either get lost and not be played, the projector would be missing a cable, or it would be projected through 15 layers of cut up clear trash bags upside down and backwards onto the floor. And we thought the "idea book" that Monica and Ogechi sent us was exploitative/not especially inspiring/featured the same ideas as the 2007 T/F "tribal rave" party. So we just made a video making fun of Monica and Ogechi and their idea book, and it was played through the garbage bags and no one saw it until now."

The party was really fun. Thanks to Monica and Ogechi for doing lots of work to make it happen.

I think we decided that this video was directed by me and edited by Channing. And I made the Casio-mashing score.

some reading materials

2009-02-17T19:54:00.000-08:00

Work on my golden retriever movie project has slowed way down, hence less photos of cats wearing vests and giraffes in boats. But I have a good excuse, which is that I started library school. I have no idea if I already blogged about this, so I will just say that I'm really busy and it is really interesting. Today I went on a field trip to the archives of the California Academy of Sciences. We didn't get to see the rainforest, and it wasn't the "wet collection" (dead things in jars) but we got to see some books and maps from expeditions from 1568 or something like that, some of which featured beautiful engravings of whales and seals and birds. I'm not sure what area of library science I want to get into, but I'm leaning toward some sort of archivist position. I'm really into old stuff and looking at pictures, so I think that an archival career might just be for me.

Another thing getting in the way of me completing my masterpiece is the True/False Film Festival. Channing and I are in the process of editing a video that's going to play at the Friday night party. We'll be in Columbia for four days or something like that, so now I have to try to do lots of schoolwork in advance so I don't get behind. I don't know if we're actually going to see any movies. I told Channing to reserve tickets for the ones he wanted to see, and I think he forgot. I'm hoping to have a full schedule of hanging out with people I haven't seen in a long time and eating ice cream, so it doesn't really matter to me if I see any movies.

I did manage to make an ocean set for the golden retriever movie yesterday, but Mr. Tusks was trying to sit on it, so I had to put it on a high shelf before I got to photograph it. But it looks exactly like this:

Also, it is raining a lot, which is great because there is a drought.

Sometimes I Hate Art

2009-02-07T08:40:00.000-08:00

The first Friday night of every month is a big art gallery open house time in Oakland. Of course, the galleries are all open at other times, but if you want to go and see other people who are going to galleries and talk to them or just not feel weird about being the only person standing in the gallery, the first Friday night of the month is the time for you to go.

We've lived in Oakland since August, and fully intended to go to this art murmur nonsense pretty much every month. But things always seem to come up, usually things like me wanting to go to bed at 6pm instead of going to art galleries. Yesterday we finally went and it was not great. Sometimes I get really enraged at art galleries. This time I just felt sickened. Rage and nausea at viewing art pretty much always comes from the same source for me: the art being crap. There was definitely some good stuff going on. The World's Smallest Post Office was there, for example. But the cool things were vastly overshadowed by tons of art that I felt like I'd seen before and wasn't impressed by the first 20 times.

As you may know, I used to paint a lot. I loved painting. And every painting I made was on the back of cardboard from whatever food box I had just emptied. I spent hours and hours on each elaborate piece of cardboard. When I was in Boston I worked as a model in art classes, and the instructors would always ask me if I was an artist, as most models tend to be. I could never describe the art that I made, so I started carrying some of my cardboard canvases with me and showing them to those who inquired. When I did show them to people, they were always impressed (or at least did a good job of acting that way) and every single one of them told me, in horrified tones, "you can't paint that on cardboard." Because it's not archival, which means all of my paintings are going to rot and the paint will fall off of them after a while. "Paint on canvas" they said, "and you could do really well with these." But I can't paint on canvas. It makes this scratching noise, and the lines are never smooth enough to satisfy my ocd. I can't paint on masonite, either, even though it's a smooth archival-quality surface, because it's too expensive. Even decent paper is too expensive. I kept painting for a while, but eventually I stopped, because thinking about the cardboards warping and rotting and the paint falling off got me discouraged.

So, basically, the feeling I got from the art galleries was "I wish I had money so I could buy masonite." But, more specifically, "I wish I had the money that these people who are doing a shitty job with their art supplies have."

Maybe after I get a real job I will take up painting again. I'm not sure, though. Right now I don't really even have any desire to paint. There are so many things that seem more exciting. So for now I'm going to continue making videos, because it's much cheaper (sort of) and they last forever no matter what shit you use to make them.

We got our own greenscreen last night, so now we can finish filming the golden retriever movie whenever we please.

Chicago MG Fest

2009-01-16T09:59:00.000-08:00

My video Snowfakes will be screening in Chicago next Saturday, January 24th as part of the multi-city Motion Graphics Festival. Snowfakes will be playing during the "Mashitude" event, which looks really interesting. It's an installation showcase, which sounds like much more fun than a plain old video screening. I wish I could go, but alas! I am far from Chicago, and since they just informed me of this today, it's short notice for me. But if you're in Chicago, I would definitely recommend checking it out if you can stand to go outside without your limbs being frost-bitten off.

Also, Channing and I will be jet-setting (or, um, Geo-Prizm-setting) to LA in a few weeks to be dancers in an episode of this show:

We are very excited.

Barnaby Bathes

2009-01-08T21:06:00.000-08:00

He had some loose furs after he was sewn, so he had to take a bath. He still has quite a lot of loose furs, to be honest, but there's plenty of bathing time left before he goes on stage/film.

He's named for my childhood bff cat Barney Anne Foster-Stiltsken, to whom he bears a striking resemblance. I changed his name to Barnaby because he's a boy and Barney is clearly a girl cat's name. Barney was named after Barney the Bear when I was like two or however old I was when I decided to start talking. An example of Barney the Bear's work:

Barnaby A. Stiltsken

2009-01-05T22:25:00.000-08:00

A cat in progress.

I wish you non-seasonal happiness

2009-01-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

We didn't go out for New Year's Eve. I have a somewhat irrational hatred for this "holiday" as it is so terribly arbitrary. Maybe it's just because I'm constantly making resolutions that aren't year-based. Or because I think it's just an excuse to get drunk, and if you want to get drunk why do you have to wait until December 31st anyway? Or maybe it's just that my heart is three sizes too small.

But I love Christmas. See:

Yesterday we sent 31 variously-sized pieces of mail, including some New Years Cards which I felt it necessary to make instead of printing more Christmas cards after Christmas was over. I'll post a photo after the packages start to arrive. There was a terrible line after us when we left the Post Office. Channing said "that was really fun, but it would be more fun if someone mailed us back." Which some people sometimes do, and it is indeed very fun.

One of the packages was this tiny baby hat, which is not completed in this photo:

It's for a tiny baby, so it didn't fit on my head once it was done. But I think I may have made it far too big, so it might not fit her until she's five or something. I've never made a hat for a human before, so it would have been easier if I'd had her to try it on instead of using an approximately baby-head-sized mixing bowl.

I stuffed my giraffe.

And I had this amusing holiday dream, but it's taking 1000 hours to upload, so you can just look at my youtube channel in a while if you want to hear me talking about Jimmy Durante kittens. (Update: it finished! )

Maybe we will paint the living room sometime in the next four days. We are finishing up the "small" home improvement projects now, so maybe we'll have leftover energy for moving on to the main project. Maybe tomorrow would be better.

Cold season

2008-12-14T14:55:00.000-08:00

The pilot light on our heater is out. I just called the electric company and the soonest someone can come to turn it on is Friday, which is four cold days from now. But there's another thing that happens when it gets cold outside, besides getting cold inside. That's right, it's Christmastime!

I love Christmastime! I know commercialism is terrible and all that, but I really like making cookies and seeing snowmen and making cards and eating feasts. I'm not really a huge fan of presents. I hate surprises, and I like giving things to people when I want to, not because I feel obligated to do it. And I really don't want any more stuff. So I asked for boring stuff, like a kitchen knife and books for my upcoming classes, which will be nice to have, but not too exciting to play with on Christmas morn. Luckily there will be a tiny baby (not Jesus) to play with. And ice skating, if there is an ice skating place in Memphis.

We went to the Oakland Christmas Parade, which was really good. So good that we're still talking about it a week later. There were karate kids breaking boards, jump-ropers, tap-dancing Christmas trees, little kids dressed like presents, Taz riding in a convertible, and huge balloons of various cartoon characters which had to be dramatically lowered to clear the tree corridor that was just beyond our curb-seats. Gregg has lots of good pictures of the action, including one of the devastating effects of my Santa fever. Best parade ever!

We decorated the miniature city instead of decorating the whole apartment, because miniature decorations are so much easier! Plus a reindeer lives there, so it seemed like an obvious choice. Of course it's all exactly to scale. Maybe if we weren't going out of town for actual Christmas I'd want to decorate more. I don't know. I think I'd be more excited about it if anyone besides me and Channing were likely to see the decorations. We still haven't exactly "decorated" our apartment for daily use, so we're probably not ready for seasonal decorations anyway. Taking them down and storing them seems like a hassle, too. We might actually get around to painting our hideous living room over Channing's vacation, so that's another good reason not to decorate.

We did invest in some white LED icicle lights, but those are more for mood lighting than for seasonal decor. We rearranged our bedroom, so our bed is wedged into the closet that used to hold a murphy bed. It makes for a magical forest-tent-like sleeping experience and opens up a lot of space in the bedroom. Or it will once we find places for all of the stuff we took out of the closet. Finishing stuff is hard. Also, our closet has fake stained glass windows. There's something really nice about sleeping in a little cubby nook thing, especially when it has fake stained glass windows.

Channing made Christmas pizza today, with pomegranates and spinach and pears for toppings. It tasted a lot like regular pie. And we had hot cocoa with it because it's really cold in here.

I made elaborate Christmas cards, which we addressed last night. So I guess I won't post a picture of one just in case they get mailed at some point and one is coming to you in the mail. You'll just have to wait. Soon I'm going to make some Christmas cookies. I guess I should make a whole lot so we never run out.

A cat with the tail of a beaver! And more!

2008-12-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

I made most of a giraffe for the Golden Retriever movie. He's very tall, but not so very fat. Giraffes aren't really fat, but this one should definitely be a bit fatter. I ran out of stuffing.

Here is his inside-out neck, when I was pinning the mane(?) in:

Here is his cute inside-out body:

I realize that you can't actually tell what anything is. I'll post a right-side-out picture when I finish stuffing him.

I still haven't finished the beaver puppet, because I don't have any suitable brown fabric for his body. Mr. Tusks' body is not very beaveresque, but here he is, delighted to model a fine beaver's tail.

Clearly I need to make a trip to the fabric store very very soon.

Thanksgiving was really good. I was nervous about being in charge of the meal, but it turned out fine. I think it was easier than I expected in part because we've been cooking meals from real ingredients so much more often lately. When I was growing up, cooking things that didn't come from packages pretty much only happened on holidays, which probably made it even more stressful for my mom when those days came around and she felt like she had to not only cook, but cook something extra-special.

We didn't have tiny pies, just a regular-sized one. Tiny pies are all the rage around here ever since I figured out you can make pies in a muffin pan. I meant to make them as portable lunchbox desserts, but both times I've made them we've eaten all the pies too fast for any of them to make it into a lunchbox. As you can see, I didn't even have the strength to take one photo before I ate two pies. I was a bit disappointed that we didn't have time to make them for Thanksgiving, because I thought Channing's mommy would have quite liked them. But the next day they went to Chinatown, where they saw tiny pies for sale in a bakery. 85 cents a pie! What a deal!

I'm looking forward to Christmas. We're going to Memphis for a few days. My mom already spent an entire day putting lights on the Christmas tree. I get to see my niece again (she'll be 3 months old on Christmas) and this time she'll probably be dressed like an elf instead of a pumpkin. I'm dragging Channing to The Nutcracker (which I'm pretty sure he's going to like) and I'll probably make him watch at least five Christmas movies with me. And hopefully at some point I'll get to go ice skating in my holiday elf cape. And we get to make gingerbread cookies! And wear mittens! I'm going to make Mr. Tusks wear mittens! Wooden mittens, so he can't scratch me. And read the Christmas stories, which are banned during the rest of the year! And giftwrapping! I love wrapping presents. And Christmas cards! Sighhhhh. Christmas is so great.

gettin' into scrapes

2008-11-17T22:59:00.000-08:00

The title is actually a pun, and this post is probably really boring because it's about scraping paint, not about mischief and injuries.

After a few months of being disgusted by the paint either peeling or chipping off of or layered globbily onto various surfaces in our apartment, I finally started scraping. The more I scrape the more I want to scrape. Not because it's fun, but because it really looks terrible. I don't understand these people who did all of this painting. None of them ever thought of stripping the old paint, they just covered it up. I understand when you're moving you don't want to do all that hard stuff, but the cumulative effect is ridiculous. There are between nine and twelve layers of paint on the cabinets in the dining nook. There are a few colors in there, which I understand might not be to everyone's liking, but mostly it's just layers and layers of white. I'm scraping down to turquoise because the layer on top of the turquoise isn't really sticking to it. And I like turquoise well enough. To make matters worse, the people who did this painting didn't understand the concept of not painting hinges and clasps. A lot of our cabinets don't close all the way, so hopefully my scraping will solve that problem. Too bad it's not enamel paint. I would like to have some fordite in my rock collection. I would like to make the wood actually look like wood again, but I doubt that I'm going to have that much patience for scraping.

But here's a part about injuries after all, as a reward for reading this far: I got a paint chip in my eye tonight and it hurt a lot. Channing fished it out with a q-tip, which hurt more. Channing broke his arm a week ago in an altercation with a bear. I was going to make him a leafy green mitten and paint his cast like a tree trunk, but it turns out he doesn't have to wear a cast because the break is so close to the elbow that if he didn't move his arm his elbow would fuse itself together. Which is kind of cool. And I'm glad he can do the dishes and take showers. But a tree arm would have been cool, too. So if you happen to break your arm, get a brown cast and I will make you a leafy green mitten for your fingers. I wouldn't suggest breaking your arm on purpose just so you can have a tree arm, because a broken arm seems to hurt a lot.

Beaver Background Update

2008-11-06T22:36:00.000-08:00

They are done! Almost. I just have to adjust the length when I get the actual song from my dear friend Keith. Here is a preview dam:

And they're stop-motion backgrounds, so there are 300 more just like that but slightly different. Exciting, huh? Also, logs. Whatever.

Next step is Beaver Puppet! I don't have any idea how to make a beaver puppet, which means this is the kind of project that I want to do most. I like the ones with thinking.

I'm tired.

I spent almost three hours going grocery shopping today. Most of that was getting to and from the store, and most of that was because I decided to walk two miles to the train instead of waiting for the bus. Too bad the store I like is in San Francisco. Usually I don't make the trek, I just suck it up and go to the store where Channing got called stupid by the cashier for buying organic toothpaste. But today I had nothing to do, so I spent all day going to the store to get bulk spices and loose tea. Also, we got our CSA box yesterday so I've been planning menus to use all the foods that I don't usually eat. This is partly why we joined the CSA, so we would be forced to break out of our ruts of getting the same vegetables every time we went shopping. This week's box had broccoli, broccoli raab, bok choi, salad mix, onions, pomegranate, butternut squash, and tokyo turnips. Our plan worked, because the only things in there that we would usually buy are onions and pomegranates. I would get broccoli, but someone who I live with and eat with at nearly every meal refuses to eat it without making gagging faces. Unfortunately it turns out that this plan is also a lot of work what with the finding recipes and shopping for extra ingredients and cooking the food and everything. I guess it's worth it, but sometimes it seems like I spend more energy making the food than I get from eating the food.

A Serious Message About Voting

2008-10-30T00:35:00.000-07:00

Pillow and Pillow would like to point out that being an informed voter is very important. They would also like to add that it is your civic duty to thoroughly clean your monocle or pince-nez before entering the voting booth so you can see the ballot clearly and mark the appropriate choices.

While voting for president is fun and exciting, you actually get to vote on lots of other things, like propositions and measures and whatnot. But, since reading about all of those things takes so much time, perhaps you could vote based on recommendations from someone you trust. That's right, Mr. Tusks has carefully researched all of the candidates so you don't have to do it yourself.

As you can see, Mr. Tusks is very serious and responsible. Here is a closer view of his recommendations:

It seems that Mr. Tusks plans to write in his own choices, which he is allowed to do, assuming he is registered to vote.

THEE DOGSUIT!

2008-10-29T21:16:00.000-07:00

I just found these photos on Channing's computer, so now you may see it! It's made of what was once a heavy velvety curtain.

This was from the first stage of construction: the chicken nugget stage.

"Roooooo!"

Here I am with ears, about to attach the nose, practicing panting.

And, finally, pretending the nose is attached so I could see what it would look like.

After this I added the paws and tail. As you can see, in these photos the dogsuit is all bunched up so I could use my arms. After it was completed it covered my entire body, much like in the chicken nugget stage, but with paws.

I will eventually get a still from the movie so you can see the whole outfit.

beaver backgrounds

2008-10-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I shall complete the stage set for the beaver's song next. Here is my inspiration:

But with more logs.

A rant about money

2008-10-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

I've always thought it would be cool to get paid to make the things I want to make. I've had very limited success in selling things I make, especially the movies. I sold some (like 10) at the zinefest, but that's all. And even though I make most of the things in my movies out of trash or cheap things from thrift stores, the expenses still add up. I think I spent $4 (and 4 months) on making Snowfakes, but just buying and developing the film for Dreamboat cost probably $200. Maybe more. With travel expenses and craft supplies added up, this golden retriever movie is bound to be the most expensive yet. So obviously I can't expect my friends to support these movie-making ventures by buying a dvd for $7, because it's not happening. Not that I expect all of you to buy one. I totally understand that everyone is broke and unemployed. I too am broke and unemployed (although I start my job on Friday) and wouldn't really want to spend $7 on anything. I'm glad that people enjoy my movies even if they don't want to give me money for them. And even though I've gotten recognition from galleries and even a museum and have been honored to show my work at such places, I haven't made any money off of it. (Unless you count $2.50, which was made at a fundraising event. Round trip bus fare is $3.) But, unfortunately, money is something I need in order to make movies. So... maybe I can get a grant?

Last weekend Channing and I attended the first part of a fundraising and grant-writing for artists workshop. The first part was fundraising, this weekend is the grant-writing portion, which we're also planning to attend. I left the workshop feeling really enthused about finding grants to apply for and immediately looked up a bunch of grant opportunities. Almost as immediately I became pretty discouraged. There are thousands of grant opportunities out there, and most of them are really specific about what they want. That's good, because it saves you the trouble of applying for one that definitely isn't going to fund you, but bad because it's hard to find the ones that you do qualify for. Especially for me.

My art isn't about social issues or women with cancer or multi-culturalism. It's just about making people happy. If there are grants that want to fund things like that, I have yet to find them. It does seem like there should be such things within the thousands of grants that exist, so maybe I just need to spend more time investigating lists of 19,000 grant opportunities to find them.

I'm also having a problem, as someone who has essentially never been paid for or spent much money on my artwork, with the idea of requesting what seem like huge sums of money. When you're seeking funding, you have to include "artist's fees" in the amount you request. Which is really cool, because it means you get paid for the time you spend making art and that you get to pay the people who help you. That's what I want. I understand that my time is valuable, but it's the kind of thing I don't know how to put a price on. One bag of stuffing and a yard of velcro, $7. One dvd, $7. One joke book about sea creatures, $1. Those are easy. Three days spent painting a cigar box to look like a black lacquer box with golden bone details? I have no idea.

Another difficult aspect of applying for funding is the timing. I enjoy making plans. I wrote down almost the entire sequence of Snowfakes before I took a single photo. But then I started taking photos the next day. After applying for a grant it generally take 6 months to hear whether they've decided to fund you or not. Knowing generally what I'm going to do before I start work is not such a big deal, but making a plan and getting all excited about it and then waiting six months before working on it seems almost excruciating.

But obviously, I'm going to try it. Because maybe I can get $10,000 and make the best movie ever!

Goals...

2008-10-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

I'm experimenting with setting deadlines for myself. I wasn't sure if it would work because it's not like something bad will happen to me if I turn in my work to myself late. But I told myself that if I really want to take my movie-making seriously (or to ever finish) then I have to be serious about actually working on it. And it's going pretty well. The first deadline (and only one so far) was to complete Pillow and Pillow today! TICKTICKTICK! Time's a-wastin'!

But I think I can do it. It's only almost 4pm and I'm almost finished. Only a little stuffing and some monocle-making remains. They might not get eyeballs today, because I think I want googley eyes, which I don't have. But those will only take a moment to attach, and there's no way I'm going to the art supply store today.

On a related rant: why doesn't Oakland have an art supply store? I don't understand. I've heard tell that there are more artists per capita here than in any other American city, or something like that, so why do we have to go to Berkeley or Emeryville to get supplies? It doesn't make sense at all.

So, dear reader, what should I work on after today's deadline? Cat puppet? Giraffe puppet? Beaver puppet? Emily puppet? Maybe I should look and see what kind of fabrics I have before I decide. I also got a job! Hooray! So I should probably find out how many days I'm going to be working before I set my next deadline.

But for now, back to work on that monocle.

Pallin' around with the Pillows

2008-10-09T18:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to one of my bed pillows for modeling the moustache for the non-completed Pillow. Doesn't Pillow look nice? Channing thinks he's horrifying, and that Pillow's gaping mouth is likely to bite him. This is probably true, but since his mouth is made of cardboard I doubt it would hurt very much. Hopefully he'll be less scared when I finish adding the rest of the facial features. UPDATE: Channing is slightly less scared now that Pillow has a moustache.

I also finished a very rough cut of the beginning of the movie! Hooray!

A Heck Of A Team!

2008-10-07T12:40:00.000-07:00

This is what I'm going to be working on for the next forever. Making the hosts is the first step.

If you're interested in writing a song to possibly be performed at this vaudeville show, let me know and I'll give you more info.

CELEBS!!!

2008-10-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

We were in LA for the weekend. Here is an artist's rendering of us having fun at a fancy event:

We also saw some other celebs:

Air Bud!!!

I talked to them for a while about being golden retriever superstars and I learned a lot. Mostly that once you're a golden retriever superstar you get lots of curly rawhide treats. Which I guess is good. Maybe they're an acquired taste which I will learn to love when I become a golden retriever superstar and can afford such luxuries.

I also got food poisoning, barfed in a parking lot, and spent most of the weekend in bed. I did make it to the Tokyo Nonsense show, which was the reason we went to LA this weekend. Channing's friend Antonin (Digiki) got flown in from Tokyo to DJ at the opening, and he graciously allowed me to sleep in his hotel room while he and Channing went to the Getty without me. We really enjoyed the show, especially the video pieces. It's pretty unusual for me to enjoy video art, which might seem strange since I'm a video artist. It just seems like so much of the video I see is just boring. I get really angry when I see videos made by people who seem to think that no one has ever seen something in slow motion before. I don't think making a video slow makes it art. It just makes it boring. And, in case you haven't been to the same galleries and museums as me, there are a TON of videos like this. I like seeing things that are unexpected and witty and creative, and most of the videos in this show fit that description exactly. But you don't have to take my word for it... (cue art gallery rainbow theme)

My Summer Vacation

2008-09-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, summer is over. I forgot.

We didn't exactly end up shooting the town scenes. Instead we shot some backgrounds and are hoping we'll be able to piece them together with the action using amazing bluescreen technology.

By the way, remember that lovely bathmat I made? Mr. Tusks has taken to peeing on it. He's never peed on anything else except for his litter box. Why must he be so bad?

Here he is being helpful:

I sewed the velcro (which holds the legs together) while he was sitting on the other end of the dogsuit.

He has a tiny fluff of retriever fur on his nose because he'd just finished sleeping with his face buried in the it. He always wakes up when he hears the camera turn on. In case he might need to follow me when I go into another room.

Sorry I don't have a picture of myself actually wearing the dog costume. You'll see it eventually.

Even though this whole flea thing happened

we still had a really good time this weekend.

These are at the South Yuba River, after we finished filming the panning for gold scene. It's really nice there. I wish it had been possible for us to get there a little earlier so we could swim, but the sun was starting to go down when we finished, so it wasn't warm enough for my tiny body anymore. Plus our swimming costumes were back at the hotel. But I guess people still pan for gold here and all around this "Gold Country" region.

Also, I couldn't wear my dog costume here because we didn't bring a leash.

Blood on the sheets

2008-09-28T03:58:00.000-07:00

I'm in Nevada City, CA. It's 4am, and I'm not awake because I've been enjoying the exciting nightlife of Nevada City. I think we actually went to bed at 10 because we wanted to get to sleep early so we could wake up before sunrise to shoot scenes in town. Unfortunately we didn't actually sleep at all because of the mattress being stuffed with fleas instead of comfortable cushiony stuff. It seemed comfortable at first, but it turned out to be just a huge rectangular block of fleas bound by a fitted sheet. After tossing and turning for however many hours, getting up to take a shower, and being baffled by the fact that I was obviously suddenly allergic to poison ivy (which somehow must have gotten inside of my dog costume), and trying to go back to bed, I finally trapped a flea. Then stripped the covers and saw the streaks of blood and trapped 19 more fleas. Mostly fat guys.

So, yeah, not going back to bed.

Yesterday we shot in the woods, and it went really well. And the Yuba River, where we shot the panning for gold scene, was incredibly beautiful. I'm not really sure if shooting is going to continue as planned in a few hours. We're awake, but both of our costumes might be filled with fleas. Even if they aren't I have so many bites on my back that I'm dreading the thought of putting on my dogsuit. We'll see.

The paws that refreshes

2008-09-23T18:28:00.001-07:00

It's the one on the right.

Mining Tools

2008-09-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

I whipped up this pickaxe last night. Still needs to be painted.

When I was in 10th grade I made a model of half of the Globe Theater out of cereal boxes and tape and a broom (for the straw roof) and paint. Maybe I also did a layer of papier mache. It was probably one and a half boxes high and four boxes around, so big enough that it was really awkward to carry. When we presented our projects we were supposed to say what was difficult about what we made, and I said "it would have been easier if I had used stiffer cardboard instead of cereal boxes." The teacher looked confused and asked why I had decided on cereal boxes as a building material, and I said it was because I happened to already have some cereal boxes. This is still the way I almost always go about making things.

I did actually have some real cardboard to make the pickaxe out of, but I didn't use it because it was hard to cut. I used posterboard instead. It's stuffed with the styrofoam packing from my birthday present that I already opened, so it's slightly less likely to get smashed. I also made some other things out of that packing material, so none of it is getting thrown away. Not yet, anyway.

I got a dress form for my birthday. I was allowed to open it because I bought it for myself (although technically my mom is buying it for me as soon as she sends a check for it) and because it arrived in a box that had pictures of the contents on the outside. My birthday is Monday! I have a job interview on my birthday! I hope this year is less disastrous than my past few birthdays. If I get a job, and my niece is born, and my pie (peach and raspberry) turns out well, it might make up for the Balloogna incident and etc. But at this point I'm kind of dreading what terrible things might happen on my birthday.

My dogsuit is at the point where I look like a dog instead of a corn-dog or chicken nugget.

Whenever I start working on things, I think of more things that I want/need to make. Good thing there's still a little more than a week left to work on movie things.

By the way, even though we're filming the gold mining parts in a few weeks, the movie won't actually be finished for a long time. There's another part which I haven't started working on yet and which will require a lot of work.

GOLD!

2008-09-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

I got this gold cellophane stuff from SCRAP for making gold props. It's only gold on one side, so to make a gold chain I had to cut long strips then fold them in half and glue them shut. Then I glued the folded strips together and finger-crocheted the chain and taped it together at the end. Of course there is an easier way to do this. It's called getting a fake gold chain from SCRAP instead of a sheet of uncut wine label cellophane. Or/and getting a cat who doesn't have gold-batting fever. But I guess they didn't have those when I went.

I made gold nuggets and bone using a covering of the same cellophane, but it was decided to be not quite shiny enough. The nugs looked a bit like chocolates. So now I'm gluing gold sequins to the entire surface of each item. I don't think I'll do the chain because the sequins would probably just fall off. Maybe I'll get some glitter glue or something if it looks horribly un-shiny.

I also made the prospector hat and beard, neither of which are entirely finished yet. The beard needs more hairs, and the hat needs to not be purple. But Channing looks pretty prospectory, right?

Today I'm going to focus on the dogsuit. Definitely. I've been procrastinating on that part, and I really shouldn't wait any longer because I haven't decided exactly what direction I'm going with it. And it's like the most important thing! Eeek!

sewings

2008-09-10T17:59:00.000-07:00

I've been getting cranky lately about my wardrobe. I've had most of my clothes for a really long time (like shirts from 4th grade) and am getting tired of wearing the same things after 15 years. Plus they're starting to wear out. Noooo! When I go shopping I just get more cranky because everything in the store is too big or too expensive or both.

Luckily, I know how to sew. So yesterday, instead of being cranky and refreshing the job listings on craigslist 1000 times (like I did the day before), I decided to do some sewing. I made a skirt out of an ill-fitting shirt that I never wore because it was too big.

Before:

After:

I got the idea from the CRAFT magazine blog. I didn't actually look at the tutorial until I was finished, but I did basically the same thing with the exception of the puffy front pleats. And I moved my shirt's pocket onto the back of the skirt. I think mine is less puffy because the shirt I started with was 100% silk instead of whatever stiff fabric men's shirts are made of, not just because of the different pleats.

I also finished the nose for my retriever costume. Here it is 3/4 of the way complete:

Today I'm going to work on the paws and tail. The filming got moved back to the weekend after my birthday because someone neglected to book a hotel before everyone else who wanted to book a hotel in Nevada City. (Who are these people?) I would have been more enraged, but it's actually good because it gives me a little extra time to work on everything.

Last night Channing asked me "what did you learn today?" and I said "I learned that I'm much happier when I'm making things than when I'm looking for a job." Which I guess I already knew.

The only appropriate way to celebrate

2008-09-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

is with more pretending to be a bear and mauling! Hooray!

And hooray for face cut-out things!

Some of my hobbies

2008-09-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

Holding hands

Celebrating holding hands through pie

Pretending to be a bear

Mauling

Celebrating pretending to be a bear and mauling through.....?

More details coming soon!

Hooray, I did things!

2008-09-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

I am waiting for my ex-landlord to call and tell me when she's going to do the walk-through on our apartment. She told me to call first thing in the morning, which I did. Actually I called about 18 times because her phone was busy forever. I finally talked to the guy who works in the office and left a message for her to call me, after Channing left two messages this morning on the answering machine and her cellphone before the office was open. But now it's 1:30 and I still haven't heard back from her.

Aaaaughhh! But I suppose I am taking advantage of not being able to really do anything to get small things accomplished. I posted dvds for sale on etsy. People don't really seem to use etsy to sell dvds, so we'll see how that goes. Maybe you should buy one! You know someone (besides me!) has a birthday coming up.

Yesterday we finished unpacking everything! And finished a few decorating projects.

I made my own bathmat, which took forever. I used a fabric that was likely to fray if I left rough edges, so I had to sew 28 five foot long tubes and turn them all inside out before I started weaving. But, as an ex-Bed Bath & Beyond Employee (circa 2000) I know that buying a bathmat that's long enough to go in front of our super long tub would be both expensive and boring-looking, so I think my effort was well-spent. I'm really happy with how my mat turned out. It reminds me of a mermaid.

Mr. Tusks really enjoyed the weaving process, but he wasn't too bad because he was pretty tuckered out after going outside for the first time ever and trying to befriend the other cats in/around the building. Actually he's sleeping in pretty much the same position right now, except he hasn't even done anything today. The sunbeams falling on the bed are pretty hard to resist.

We hung these picture frames which I painted to match our turquoise and orange (it's not as bad as it sounds) kitchen.

And found a temporary home for the movie set I built but am not going to use for a long time. It's like Babe, Pig in the City, but with huge non-porcine animals. So maybe it's more like Godzilla. Godzilla probably liked sponge painting. We, however, are planning to cover it up as soon as possible.

For the rest of the week I'm going to be doing a lot of cooking. Channing's birthday is tomorrow, and I'm making sugar-free pear pie! I know that doesn't sound great (because it says sugar-free) but I have a magical cookbook which has really great sugar-free recipes, so it probably will be. Then on Saturday we're having a housewarming/Channing's birthday party, so I'll be making lots of snacks for that. Mmmmm. I love snacks.

movovoeomvoemomoemvoemomevmoemv

2008-08-31T22:02:00.000-07:00

So, we moved. Yesterday we finished cleaning the old apartment and brought the rest of our stuff to Oakland. It was heavy, but luckily Channing was tough and carried five bags while I carried one. Ok, that was only for the last block, but it was still a shocking display.

I've been hard at work on decorating, but I seem not to have actually completed anything. I guess most of what I did was actually unpacking and deciding where things go, not decorating.

Three weeks until my birthday! That's when we're going on a mining adventure to film the first scenes for the Golden Retriever movie. I have lots of work to do before (and after) then. I started on Channing's beard today, but I still haven't finished my Retriever costume. There are only a few finishing touches left on the dogsuit, but they're important ones, like the nose, paws, and ears.

Here is a preview of exactly what we will look like when our costumes are completed:

JK!

finally posting some things on etsy

2008-08-06T20:43:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to posting some more zine-items on etsy. Rainbows Are Not People (coloring books) and More Funny Jokes about Sea Creatures (joke books) are now available for cheaps.

I guess I will post dvds on etsy soon, as I don't really have another place to sell them. If you want a dvd of Dreamboat or Snowfakes, I have them. They feature special features. Any other video artists out there want to give me suggestions on what to do with my videos/where to sell them/where I can show them? I hate for them to be languishing unwatched after I spent so much time making them.

I'm moving to Oakland in nine days, and am trying hard to be excited about it. If you want to tell me any great things to do/places to get a job in Oakland I would be much obliged. I will be living pretty near Lake Merritt. My new apartment has a table and benches that fold out of the wall to make a retractable dining nook. I'm excited about that part.

post-zinefest euphoria

2008-07-21T08:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, maybe not euphoria, but I left zinefest feeling really good. I made a profit, which I wasn't expecting, and met lots of cool/friendly/talented people, which I was expecting. I also ran into some friends I hadn't seen in a while, which is always nice.

If anyone I met at zinefest is trying to find things to buy from me, please be patient. I will post more items either on etsy (but I'm not sure about etsy since all of my listings recently expired after I suspect that no one even looked at them) or here in the next day or so. You can also email me if you want something specific, and I will hook it up.

Ok, I woke up four minutes ago, so that's as in-depth as I can go about anything.

Getting ready for SF zinefest

2008-07-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

This was before he pulled 50 pins out of the shirt I was sewing. I tried to trick him into sitting in his bed by putting it on the table, but he refused to sit anywhere but on the shirt.

Lots of projects.

Snowfakes packages are finished.

Representing CoMO, sweet zines by Gary Lard (AKA Bob Dynamite).

Ashley Brown's contribution. She only made three, but each has an original drawing on the cover. I think these are worth at least $27 each, but I probably won't sell them for that much.

The sequel to Funny Jokes About Sea Creatures is finally done! The illustrations in this one are much fancier, and feature cute animals like the manatee and sea otter. So maybe you will like them even if you don't think the jokes are funny, WHICH THEY ARE!

Not helpful, but, to be fair, I did teach him that paper bags can be fun toys.

I hate making copies, because I always make mistakes and put the originals in the wrong way and hate asking for help. But at least I'm not as bad at it as the good people of Juice Paradise. However, if not for their atrocious window displays, would I still love Juice Paradise? Definitely not. But I've also never purchased anything there, so I guess my affection isn't really doing them any good.

Back to folding and cutting.

Dear Channing

2008-06-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

Your nipples made it onto the CRAFT magazine blog, THANKS TO ME!

New DVDs Coming Soon!

2008-06-10T09:32:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before that I'm going to be releasing some special edition Dreamboat DVDs. But what, you may be wondering, will be so special about them? Well, it's going to be incredibly special because it's going to have, along with the original Super8 version of Dreamboat, the soon-to-be-completed digital version! When we shot the movie, we actually did the whole thing twice. Allen shot it on his Super8 camera, but since the light meter on the camera didn't work we weren't sure if everything would be totally overexposed or not. Luckily it turned out looking awesome, but we had a backup plan in case it didn't. Colin re-shot each scene on his digital camera, which took really high-speed sequences of photos that look almost like film. The effect is really cool, and I have finally gotten it all edited together two years after it was shot. I am making a remix of the song to go with the new version. The dvd's will also contain several interviews with me, and maybe some other surprise special features as well. Plus new packaging!

All of this will be completed by July 19th, which is the date of the SF Zinefest. I'm going to be there selling dvd's, zines, bags, and whatever else I can think of/finish making before I go. I'm also planning to finish the sequel to my joke book "Funny Jokes About Sea Creatures" which is entitled "More Funny Jokes About Sea Creatures."

More info on the zinefest:
Saturday, July 19 from 11:00am – 8:00pm
Sunday, July 20 from 11:00am – 7:00pm

SF County Fair Building
(formerly Hall of Flowers)
9th Ave. at Lincoln Way (in Golden Gate Park)

Free admission

Golden Retrievers

2008-06-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

Craig Party U.S.A. (the band that Channing and I started) has decided to be a movie project instead of a music project, which makes sense since neither of us know how to play instruments. Channing just purchased a fancy camera so he'll be able to get videography jobs. That means I get to use his fancy camera to make movies! Hooray! So I'm kind of waiting for him to finish school, which happens in 2 or 3 weeks, and then I'm going to force him to work on our movie. I've already started making my golden retriever costume. Mr. Tusks is in love with the golden retriever fabric. He's constantly sitting on it or scratching it, and his devotion to the retriever is making it a bit difficult to work on the costume. I have to wait for him to fall asleep somewhere else before I can work on it or else he just bites the fabric the whole time. Here he is modeling a retriever paw:

That disheveled pile of books in the background is Mr. Tusks' work. He enjoys jumping on top of them and knocking them on the floor. We're hoping to get a bookshelf soon.

Mr. Tusks hates it when I do pretty much anything besides playing with him. If I try to read, he bites the pages of the book. If I try to paint, he bites the paintbrush or tries to lick the paint or steps on it. If I try to sew, he pounces on the fabric and bats at the super-sharp fabric scissors. My laptop has tiny tooth-marks on the corners above the screen. I love Mr. Tusks so much, but I hope that when he turns 1 (June 25th!) he'll take his adulthood seriously and start cuddling more and biting less. Especially since we have a lot of work to do on our upcoming Craig Party U.S.A. film.

On a non-tusky note, the interview Channing did of me for a class project is now on youtube here. Everything you ever wanted to know about the making of Dreamboat. Maybe.

uppity dates

2008-05-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

I DID get hired to run the carousel! Hooray! It's so much fun, and half of the people who ride it are tiny children who get incredibly excited. Plus it's super cheap so I don't even feel like I'm ripping anyone off.

Also, someone bought my collage at the Southern Exposure auction! Hooray! I was really excited because I'm pretty sure no one there knew who I was. The theme for the event was "optic illusion" so of course there was a 3d Sigfried and Roy movie playing in the back room along with some other more mechanical optical illusion machines. Awesome! See:

Channing and I started a band. It's called Craig Party USA, and it's really more musical theatrey than bandy since neither of us really play instruments and the one song we've been slavishly rehearsing is very story and costume-based. We might be playing a show soon. Maybe.

We have lots of visitors coming in the next few weeks! It's nice living in a place that people want to visit. Hopefully they will still want to visit again after being asked what drugs they want to buy 18 times every time they exit our apartment and seeing approximately 2 dudes peeing in the street per day. In case you didn't know, our neighborhood isn't the best.

Also coming soon: Special Edition Dreamboat DVDs with amazing special features and behind the scenes footage! Hooray!
Dreamboat is going to play at an owl-themed extravaganza in Kansas City. I don't know any facts about this, but if you're in KC you should ask me to find out about it and I probably can. Maybe it already happened? I don't know.

Cabinet just came in the mail!!! I ordered my subscription like 3 months ago, and this is the first issue I've gotten because it's totally quarterly. Best magazine ever! Now I get to read it! Bye!

Etsy!!!

2008-04-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot to mention on here that my etsy shop is now fully functional. Please buy things. I don't think I'm going to get hired to be the carousel operator in Golden Gate Park, so I have to find some other summer job which will obviously be lamer. Does anyone know how to answer the question "How do you like for people to know you?" in a job interview for a job where you will not be interacting with any coworkers? I definitely didn't. I also accidentally said I was an introvert instead of an extrovert, which is the truth, but the kind of truth you're probably not supposed to admit to during a job interview. I guess there's a chance that all the other applicants were totally awful, but it's not that good of a chance. So here are examples of things you can buy from me so that I will not have to work quite so many hours at a potentially terrible job:

And there's more if you follow this link. And, as always, if you tell me what colors and measurements you want, I can make a special bag just for you!

Thanks!

My Mom

2008-04-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

This is my family tree:

It's made from a real tree, because my mom made it and she's really cool. And now you can look at her new website which features other really cool calligraphy stuff that my mom has done.

But she doesn't just do calligraphy! Of course not! My mom can pretty much do anything. She stopped running marathons because they weren't long enough. Now she enters super-marathons or something. She recently carved an enormous memorial stone for a horse. And she's currently painting a jungle mural in what will be the baby's room (after it is born) in my sister's new house. It features Aztec Pyramids and I assume a variety of animals, although I can't remember specifically which ones. Jungle animals. She used to paint murals in people's houses all the time, but she got tired of carrying ladders around so she switched to a mostly-calligraphy business. It was more fun for me when she did murals, as my sister and I were at the age where we were often brought along to be watched while she worked. Which a lot of the time meant hanging out in really fancy houses with bathrooms twice the size of my bedroom or backyards with crazy swimming pools.

You can hire her to make stuff for you, but she probably won't paint a mural in your room unless you're her grandchild.

bears and worms

2008-04-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

Click to watch We are at a really fun party, true or false?

I hope my webpage will be updated soon, but I'm not really sure when that's actually going to happen.

Last night I found my notepad from a few years ago that I used to carry everywhere I went. My to do list is still pretty much the same. Please note the fangs on the evil butterbeast.

I've been rethinking my huge multi-faceted video project. I'm officially putting it on hold until I figure out some technical details. In the meantime, if anyone knows of a cheap source for gummy bears and worms, I would be most appreciative. I need a lot of them, and not just because I'm addicted to sugar.

I just got my box of art supplies sent to me from my parents, so now I have paints and markers and all sorts of wonderful things. But before it arrived, I was supposed to be making a piece for Southern Exposure's annual fundraising auction. I finally finished something I liked after about 17 nervous breakdowns. It's collagey, but also mixed media because it involves a print that I made in my first ever attempt at printmaking. The event itself looks like it's going to be really cool, and I'm pretty excited about being a part of it. I'm hoping my piece fits in with the surrounding things being auctioned, but I've never even been to an art auction before, much less one for this gallery, so I don't really know what to expect. Here is some more information, and a link you can click if you want to know even more:

OPTIC ILLUSION
Southern Exposure Annual Spring Fundraiser and Art Auction
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Location: SomArts, Main Gallery 934 Brannan Street
MAIN EVENT: 7:30 pm - 11:00 pm
VIP RECEPTION: 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
LIVE AUCTION: 8:30 - 9:00 PM
SILENT AUCTION: 7:30 - 10:30 PM, lots begin to close at 9:45 pm
Tickets: $30 advance purchase, $40 at the door
$65 tickets includes a one-year membership to SoEx
Tickets for the VIP Reception start at $150
Buy tickets online at www.soex.org or over the phone at 415-83-2141.

Video Under Volcano

2008-03-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited! Snowfakes got accepted to a screening at a museum in Italy! It's the Casoria Museum of Contemporary Art in Naples, and the screening is next Friday. So I guess if you're in Naples you should stop by. I might be doing a brief interview at the screening via Skype, which is also exciting/scary.

After the screening my video (and the 30 others that were selected from almost 300 entries) becomes part of the museum's permanent collection. So maybe someday I can go to Italy and maybe my video will be on display there. I'm so excited, as I haven't ever been involved in anything so fancy. And, as a person who is constantly visiting museums, I have always wanted my own work to one day be in one. So now my dream has come true, but luckily it is easily replaced by other dreams.

Sneaky Preview

2008-02-12T13:47:00.001-08:00

For some reason, I decided to start this blog while I was also looking for an apartment and a job. I actually do intend to update this, but I’ve been busy with moving, going to New Mexico and driving back with my sweet boyfriend and all of his stuff, and setting up our new apartment. But luckily I don’t think I actually told anyone that I started a blog, so no one should be upset that I haven’t updated it.

I finally finished my much-anticipated joke book entitled “Funny Jokes about Sea Creatures.” It was met with wild critical acclaim. Or, at least one person said they laughed. I have many more copies, so let me know if you want one. Here is a funny example page:

I also managed to complete my video project for the True/False Film Festival (the party part of the festival, not the documentary part) and the i^3 festival, thanks to Channing’s cat-distracting abilities and his possession/knowledge of final cut pro for doing the bluescreen parts. Originally I was making a video to be played at a True/False party, but then I realized, after looking up the definition of interstitial, that my concept also fit quite well into i^3’s interstitial theme. The two fests are happening on the same weekend, so there’s a slight chance that my video will be played at the exact same time in Columbia, MO and Chicago. And then something magical might happen, especially if I manage to psychically play the video here in San Francisco at the same time. It is leap weekend after all. Actually I don’t remember what day the T/F party is on, so there’s a good chance that it will be totally non-magically misaligned.

So my video is called “We are at a really fun party. True or false?” I will post it on youtube after it premieres in the living world, which will be February 29th approximately. Here is a non-moving picture preview:

In other news, I have decided to start an Etsy shop so I can continue to make/sell E.A.T. Bags even though I am far, far away from Maude V. I haven’t done it yet because I haven’t had time to make anything. But soon!

Cats and Crafts: A Bad Idea

2008-01-05T15:35:00.000-08:00

We all know they shouldn't be working with yarn, because of the terrible tangles they can get themselves into, but did you know that other craft supplies are also very dangerous for cats? Here are a few examples:

No concept of sharpness!

Love of licking!

Maybe I'm making a zine about this. For the safety of cats everywhere, I think this will be an important tome.

You're welcome.

That massive multi-faceted project....

2007-12-27T20:34:00.000-08:00

It's a movie! Not a feature-length one or anything, but one that involves making a lot of things. There's a city and then there's the forest. I built some city already:

I was going to destroy it, but I changed my mind at the last minute.

It's currently in my desk drawer, patiently awaiting its moment in the spotlight.

My Blogna has a first name, it's B-L-O-G-NA!

2007-12-27T20:27:00.000-08:00

I made a blog! It's here as an addition to my sweet webpage, www.emilyaldenfoster.com. But that's more of a portfolio page, and since I'm currently working on a massive multi-faceted project, I wanted to post bits of it as they're completed. I'm also planning to post other things, like maybe reports on what my kitten is eating and other projects I'm working on that aren't related to the aforementioned massive multi-faceted one. So that's why I have this blog. Soon I will post something that fits into those categories. Maybe in a few minutes!

Word.