My Own Space Dementia

how the eff did i forget?!

2009-12-09T16:48:32Z

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

I fucking forgot about the muse.mu presale this morning because work is so busy!
I KNEW i should've put that shit on my outlook calendar but i was like "oh i'll remember, it's muse how couldn't i?"

Looks like the arena is all seats - no GA - judging by the ticketmaster picture - so i was really hoping muse.mu would come through with the front row tickets so dom can say "its nice to see some familiar faces, atlanta" again about me... (heh)

sonofabitch

ok ... breathe ... and relax ....

when i realized i forgot i yelled FUCK super loud and slammed my fists down - several people from all over the 12th floor asked me if i was ok.

hahahahahahahaha

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

ok, 99x.com is having their own presale tomorrow - it's on my outlook so i won't forget, or get sidetracked, and hopefully they were allocated good tickets as well. and if that isnt cool at least i will definitely see them which is all that should matter, but as most people know once you go front row its hard to go to the back again.

hhhhhhhmmmmmm

2009-12-08T16:22:32Z

fuck
muse tickets go on pre-sale tomorrow - should i be brave and get GA or be old (and safe and comfortable) and get seating?

for those that don't know, muse ga pits are scary as hell and its not uncommon to walk away with deep bruises and broken limbs.... but oh to be soooo close to mr bellamy.... what to do ....

dilemma for no other reason than everything in my life these days seem to be too dramatic for their own good.

wish art journal page

2009-12-08T00:11:07Z

for Wish Prompt at year in the life of an art journal.

duct tape, paint, my first cut letters from my new cricut!

sunday - art journal pages

2009-12-07T14:51:48Z

a couple of art journal pages from the weekend-ish:

Muse! HOLY SHIT - WHAT?!

2009-12-04T19:15:07Z

WHAT THE FUCK I'M LIKE SO TOTALLY WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!

I NEED TO SCREAM BUT I CAN'T AT WORK CAUSE I'm IN A CUBE AND FUCK OMG

JUST GOT AN EMAIL FROM THE LOCAL SUCKY ALTNERATIVE STATION ANNOUNCING PRESALE MUSE TICKETS FOR ATLANTA IN FEBRUARY ONSALE TODAY AND THERE ARE NO ANNOUNCEMENTS ANYWHERE REGARDING THIS SHOW OR ANY OTHER NORTH AMERICAN SHOW NEXT YEAR AND WTF I NEED TO START PLANNING MY ITINERARY EVEN THOUGH IT LOOKS LIKE AN ALL ARENA TOUR

OMG
OMGOMGOMGOGMOGMGO
OMG.

omg.

"growth opportunities"

2009-12-04T12:34:18Z

interesting horoscopes because they are just too close to truth:

yesterday: "You may find yourself changing course in some important life path, so be ready for anything!

today: Your ideals are pretty close to the surface -- anyone who doesn't know what you stand for doesn't know you very well! Today is perfect for acting on them and moving on with your life.

things at work got very interesting yesterday at our annual xmas party. racking my brain, i don't think anyone i work with knows about this blog so i'm all good writing it :) not like it's super secret, but big corporations come with company politics etc

anyways, i drove with my supervisor, sam, over to the party yesterday and he informs me that he is leaving the company and that he told our boss on tuesday and to expect a "growth opportunity" if i want it. so, yeah ... hmmmmm.

but even more interesting is that tuesday the lone graphic designer in the creative department left which assumably opens up the position. the last couple of months the creative department has exploded with work and i've been talking to both the creative director and senior creative director for months about my desire to move into their department because ultimately i want to be a graphic designer and even more importantly, the company specializes in marketing for non-profits and i've made it very clear to them how motivated i am to learn and hone these skills so i can use them with my real passion, african well fund.

they posted a position on monday for another creative director - something i am unqualified for and i got the feeling they were trying to hire in someone extremely experienced who can cover more bases than just a graphic designer, and i asked the creative director about it and he said they're still debating about refilling the desiner position - that they really want too, but not sure if there's money.

so, i was talking to a co-worker at the holiday party yesterday, and i work pretty closely with her and her team, and indeed her boss recently was trying to get the company to hire me directly so i only work for her (but they wouldn't) and the senior creative director busts in and says "oh, i wanted to let you know we'll be posting a graphic designer position before xmas and we're trying to get a second one listed too and your name has definitely floated around..." d'oh! talk about deer in the headlights cause it would be a pretty big deal for me to leave my current department and especailly stop doing the work for the coworkers team i was talking wtih - add on to the fact the my supervisor is leaving which means the current production department would only have two people left who have each been here less than 6 months!

I just hope i'm not caught in a political struggle. i know my boss (supervisor boss) thinks extremely well of me and i have actually become somewhat of the goto person for my department ... but i really want to get into the creative side of things ... if i grow in my current position, i'll make more money, i'll be a supervisor presumably, but i'll be doing production, something that rather bores me on the overall scheme of things. But i just hope the powers that be - the vice presidents who i know would much rather see me in sam's position and have more clout than the senior director - respect my desire to be on the creative team .... blurgh.

so, ya, interesting days ahead .... interesting opportunities abound ... just going to play it by ear but i'm pretty confident 2010 will be so much a better year than this shitastic 2009, and that my job title will be something much more applicable to what i want to do with my life (or at least make it easier to pay my mortgage monthly).

believe

2009-12-02T12:14:43Z

nice horoscope to ring in my 38th year:

Daily Horoscope Wednesday, December 02, 2009
"Your attitude can work wonders right now -- especially if it's positive. Believe in yourself and your abilities. Right now, there's absolutely nothing standing in your way. If you can convince yourself that you're about to experience -- and deserve to experience -- great things, you will actually have the power to make them happen. Believe it, and it can happen. Need it, and it can be yours."

i'm going to fight my brain today. birthdays are always mind fucks for me no matter how hard i try not to let them be...

good, bad, ugly

2009-11-28T19:25:46Z

back in atlanta.
spent 5 days in ann arbor - man did the time fly!!!!!
good trip - watched, i think, 11 episodes of House with my parents - they're obsessed with the show and i just started watching it, and they own the series on DVD so they were showing me favorite and key episodes.

my brother flew in on wednesday - so saw him for a couple of days which was super nice having the whole family together on Thanksgiving, even though it was a little chaotic as well.

they gave me my birthday present - a CRICUT EXPRESSION!!!! I've been wanting one of these for well over a year but either couldn't afford it or couldn't justify spending the money on it. I can't WAIT to start playing with it, although i'm also a little scared - that is, overwhelmed - the possibilities are endless and i hope i don't get frustrated at trying to learn to do what i want to do in a time table where i don't get impatient. Baby steps.... but i already have a really cool idea of something i want to try for my holiday cards, just hope i can figure it out!

speaking of, i guess the reason why i started this post, is i just got kinda bummed out. I found a 12x12 frame and was going through my scrapbook pages to find one to put in and hang and i came across this one:

on the back i had made a list of everything i was hoping for at the time, and, well, not one has come true and in fact many of them the opposite has happened :(

It was dated December 6, 2008, so almost a year ago and it just really shook me to see a list of hopes for things like health and fitness and happiness that not only did not come true but the extreme opposite happened. It's times like these it's hard to remain optimistic and wonder if i'll ever have the strength, motivation, courage and determination to live the way i say i want to live. Cause obviously thus far it has been all empty words.
Which makes me a hypocrite.

november gauche alchemy circle journal

2009-11-26T16:49:06Z

page(s) for the november gauche alchemy circle journal. the theme is "vintage feminist"

this really is more of a mod podge collage than i'm used to doing, but i was just curious to see what a bunch of scraps i had looked like all applied to a page.
The journal itself was made from a book who's spine was cut off and pages glued together to be thicker and stronger. In the collage you can still see some of the original page and text shown through.

The bird was in a bag of a bunch of goodies passed from person to person to pick and choose and use. A massive part of the background is a zipper holder, a plastic bag (orange lined) and screen.

There's a lot of text on the page - the upper page has text cut out from a children's story about a little plane learning how to fly in the sky with the beautiful sun. The bottom page, over the woman, is one of my favorite quotes from Howard Thurman about coming alive and following your dreams. I wanted to kind of juxtapose the notion of freedom and growth against the traditional looking woman and the old zipper for sewing. So, there's a loose story going on here :)

Font post from Gauche Alchemy

2009-11-25T22:58:29Z

Hello, my name is lara, and i'm a font addict.

When hunting for fonts my first stops are usually Font Space or Abstract Fonts. Both let you search by category then sub category then sub category etc to really narrow things down. Font Space has some wicked descriptive categories (tags) since users upload their homemade fonts there and anyone can add a tag:

I mean, how cool is it that if you want to find something with magical butterflies and killer whales all in the same font set you can? (Although there were no gauche tags...hmmm)

Both sites let you type in a couple of custom words and see what they look like in that font. Abstract Fonts has a downloadable catalog but i've noticed it becomes out of date fast since so many new fonts get added so quick.

Another must go to font site specializes in handwriting fonts - Font for Peas. Yup, I'm one of those journallers that HATE my handwriting, although i'm beginning to at least accept it as i have been doing so much art journalling lately. This site has hundreds of REAL handwriting fonts and for a charge you can get your handwriting turned into a font and posted!

Lastly, a site that has saved my butt MANY MANY times in my dayjob is What the Font? You upload a sample of the font you like, or are searching for, and their database gives you matches! And probably 75% of the time i have found the font or something so close to it only a design professional could tell the difference! The only problem with whatthefont i have found, which isn't really a problem *wink wink* is most of the fonts it finds are "foundry fonts" which means you have to pay to use them.

Listen to me ... i could go on for hours about finding fonts. But what do you do when you find them and you're not into digital scrapbooking? Well, i'm sure there are some amazing things out there, but since i don't hold the copyright to them, i'll just show a few from my own gallery, if you don't mind:

Obviously, this is the easiest to do - print an easy to read font out (don't forget to spellcheck :D ), crumple or ink and glue on!

I love the look of sentences cut a part and placed in different angles - adds an extra interest to what's being read, IMHO

As a caveat, I prefer to use laser print outs - that's tonor based. But i also have the luxury of having a laser printer in my office. But tonor isn't water soluable, so if you want to do something with the print that involves water (like some transfers, paint on) you can't use an inkjet who's ink is water based.

Image transfer is pretty easy with packing tape and you don't need to worry about mirror imaging

Lastly, painting over print outs is a easy way to add custom color and make it look "digital." I prefer acrylic paints with lots of water, but water color works well too. If I know i'm going to be painting I use a higher quality paper, one that isn't as pourous as regular office paper. Actually paper made specifically for color copying and laser printers works the best.

So, go and download and create and mix and match! Please leave comments and post to the Gauche Alchemy flickr group any other ways you use fonts - i can't wait to experiment in new and exciting ways!

Thank You Art Journal Page

2009-11-16T17:32:21Z

For this month's Gutter Girlz challenge I did kind of a "lift" of an idea i've been enamored with for awhile now. I have this printed out at work and at home - something about it really feeds my soul:

Inspiration

Actually all her stuff is AWWWW-MAZING and completely INSPIRING!

I like how my "version" turned out - I used different materials and related it to the song prompt.

This month prompts are:

THE PROMPT: My Glass
THE SONG: Thank You by Alanis Morissette
PRODUCT/TECHNIQUE: Newspaper clipping

For the background I tore up bits of newspaper and glued them down with modge podge - didn't be super neat about it so i'd have edges sticking up and stuff. I then went over it with a very light coat of white gesso to obscure the text a little but keep the texture. The fun part was dripping the acrylic paint which i cut with water to make it more drippy - man it was exciting to see the color spread in front of my eyes!

Finally after drying time i got super down and dirty and took paper napkin, dipped it in white gesso and ran it over my hand to cause the reverse print.

Here are some background shots before I gesso'd my hand on:

You can totally see how yummy the texture is - i love this effect! I will definitely be using newspaper and acrylic in the future!

Vicarious Art Journal Page

2009-11-15T17:32:50Z

Art journal page for Year in the life of an art journal.

Word is Vicarious

close up:

Duct Tape, Gesso and acrylic Paint.

ok... time to start

2009-11-14T18:42:36Z

Saturday, November 14, 2009
You're feeling the urge to kick back and daydream today -- and you should do just that! Your energy is somewhat diffuse, but you may be able to get a glimpse into a sweet possible future.

Just because things are going a certain way now does not mean they will continue in that direction forever. If you're bored or fed up with the status quo, take some time out of your day to dream a little -- visualize what you want for your life. If nothing else, the mental effort will bring the right kind of energy into your consciousness. Where that goes? Who knows? It's up to you to make it happen.

whoa, thanks for kicking my ass horoscope.
so, odd that this is EXACTLY what i've been thinking yesterday and today.

This week has been one of the most stressful of my life and that is saying ALOT seeing as though my life has been so chaotic and distressed for 14 months now.

I guess it all started 4 months ago when i discovered the only way to sell my house was through a short sale, which means my house is worth sooooo much less than what i owe on it i couldn't sell it and even break even - i.e. i'd have to PAY the bank about $60,000 if i sold it. $60,000 might as well be 1 million dollars in my world. So, my realtor applied for the short sale and it's been a fucking rollercoaster since.

About 2 months later my realtor finally got in touch with the bank to find out where in the process they were and they hadn't even started because i had been too responsible by keeping up on my mortgage payments and they were so backlogged they were only processing short sales for at risk accounts (i.e. people who were not paying their mortgage). So, basically they were saying unofficially i needed to stop paying my mortgage for them to start the short sale.

Ok ... done. it felt weird and irresponsible and awkward and nerve-racking even though, yes, i was saving $1200 a month. Fast forward to 3 months later and the bank is calling me literally 12 times a day - every 30-45 mins starting at 8:30am and sending me letters about foreclosure but my realtor assured me the short sale is still being done and that she's only seen one case of a bank foreclosing before the home is sold. of course ask any other realtor and they've also heard of one or two cases of the same instance - so, ya, it can happen... and no one will or can guarantee one way or the other if it will happen to me.

As it is my near perfect credit score has already taken a major hit with the 3 non-mortgage payments. Then Eric, ex-husband, calls my parents freaking out because some how the bank got his phone number and called him and said the house was being foreclosed on and he couldn't believe i would let this happen and they needed to step in blah blah blah. Problem is he's still on the mortgage and even though we have a notarized divorce decree stating he's given me 100% of the property and his name isn't on the property deed anymore the bank doesn't give a shit. Moreover now he's involved and the bank wants all of his information for the short sale.

So, we go through 1 week of emails (well him and my realtor) trying to get the financial information for the bank and he's either being a completely ignorant dumbass or an asshole - i'm thinking more that he was being a dumbass, but we finally get his information so the short sell can proceed.

Two weeks later i get a call from my realtor asking me if i was paying the home equity line which i said yes to because that is (only) $90 a month and i wanted to avoid even more credit damage. Well, this put another wrinkle in the short sale - apparently if i could afford this equity line payment they thought i could pay the mortgage or something and they were going to stop the short sale. WTF.
So i was advised to stop paying the equity line. This moved the short sale back two more weeks as well as put an even bigger question mark in front of whether my house would foreclose first or sell.

So this is pretty much up to earlier this week. Monday.
My realtor was trying to call the bank to find a foreclosure date and she couldn't or was having trouble because she was calling the short sale division who don't know anything but short sales. So finally Tuesday I decided to call on my own, which i'm so fucking embarrassed to admit it was the first time when i really should have months ago.

Chase is the bank by the way - huge fucking conglomerate with hundreds of different divisions. The number i called brought me to collections so i had to explain why i hadn't been paying and then they told me that my account was being sent to the foreclosure division 11/20 - in 2 weeks. After that it's only anyone's guess how long it would take them to process it. Could be longer than the short sale, could be less. So Tuesday is when i'm really starting to freak out. I call them back to see if i can get any information whatsoever aboout the foreclosure but of course they couldn't. I also told them that it was in my divorce that i had to get my ex-husband's name off the mortgage before January 2010 and how could i do this. The only way is sale or refinance. I asked about refinance but the refinance office was closed because of veterans day so i'd have to wait until the next day to call them. In the meantime the rep (finally) tells me about the Obama "Make Home Affordable" plan and says i would qualify for a modified mortgage payment but they couldn't do it if my house was on the market.

So, about 6 xanax pills later, 14 hours maybe, i call the refinance department who basically laugh at me - my house was appraised last month (for the short sale) at $127,000 - not even close to what it would need to be for a refinance seeing as though i still owe $177,000 on it. So i call back the bank to find out more about the Make Home Affordable and pretend like my house isn't on the market to get information (they wouldn't know one way or another since it's a different division). OK, I qualify. I can get my payments lowered about $300 a month which is something i could pretty much afford every month especially after revisiting some of my expenses. When asked if i wanted to apply i then told them my house was on the market and they then said to take it off, call them back and we could do it.

OK, this is when i decide to go see my therapist because i'm having MAJOR meltdowns. I haven't popped xanax so much in months. I can't even decipher my thoughts or figure out my options I am so anxious. I only had one real panic attack, was able to thwart others off, but i couldn't control my anxiety level whatsoever and was walking around all day dizzy and breathless and blurry and even one minor choice or decision threw me in a tizzy.

I relaxed a bit after the therapist who reminded me to acknowledge my anxiety but not give into it and i somehow was able to separate the options and try to figure out the pros and cons.

The most important thing to me was NOT getting eric's name off the mortgage because i think of all the risks involved with this, the least risk is him actually taking me to court and suing me for not taking his name off the mortgage. The most important thing was saving my house from foreclosure. That would be the worst since it would kill my financial record for at least 7 years. So pretty much the only choice was to do Obama's plan and keep the house.

And i'm not disappointed. I'm relieved. Although i had to take more money out of my 401K and borrow some from my parents to get my mortgage caught up. The biggest thing for me personally is now i can start living like my life isn't on hold or in transition anymore. And i'm scared shitless to still be responsible for a house and keep it clean and repaired, but i'll get through it.

I've been living like i'm in an unknown transition for 14 months and i've not only gained 50 pounds but gained some really bad habits that have been reinforced for far too long. So now its time to do what my horoscope today says "visualize what you want for your life. If nothing else, the mental effort will bring the right kind of energy into your consciousness"

It's time to unpack some things, maybe paint the walls a new color, set up a studio room so my art shit isn't all over the kitchen and living room preventing me from cooking and move on. Start going to the gym rather than make up excuses like "oh when i move i'll start going" or "when i move i'll have a fitness room and will start working out" or "when i move i'll start eating healthy" blah blah blah

no time like the present to start.
although, i'm thinking today i need to figure out how to relax.
my therapist asked me what i would do to relax after making this decision because i don't think i've stopped unclenching my butt cheeks for a week now. I don't know how to relax. I've done some arty stuff but can't really get into the groove which stresses me out. I'll take the dogs to the park and walk around since its so beautiful out.

Then, hmmmm ... i guess sit on the couch and daydream about the life i want to have? And not feel guilty about doing nothing, or rather stressed out about how there is so much to do and i'm just sitting on the couch doing nothing?

B&H

2009-11-10T16:31:56Z

interesting every time i feel a panic attack coming on i feel like listening to "Butterflies and Hurricanes" by Muse and it makes me feel better.

Art Journal Pages - BONO

2009-11-09T12:36:45Z

Two art journal pages about ... ummmm ... bono :)

I've had this photo since 2001, someone sent it to me in gratitude of me sending them a U2-inspired holiday card way back when. Instead of it continuing to gather dust in a box, thought i'd pop it on a journal page so I can see it more often :)

The background of this page was a list i made in NYC when waiting for U2 to either enter or exit the NBC Studios for their SNL gig in September. I was just passing time listing all the ways to stalk a rock star - apparently they don't always work (but sometimes they do). I then covered the list with some used wax paper and did a tape transfer of Bono from a photo I took at the 2nd night at New Jersey's show. The lyrics are from "City of Blinding Lights" which is a song i never cared for whatsoever (hell when they played it at Obama's inaugauration party i was baffled and disappointed) but after seeing their treatment of it during the tour and Bono repeating those lyrics over and over, well i must say it's become a pretty powerful song in my life these days.

blue toes!

2009-11-07T18:08:27Z

i forgot to mention the other night i got my first pedicure!

i LOVE the color!!!! teehee
one of my friends is going on holiday to Jamaica (actually she's already gone) and she invited me to get a pedicure with her so i said "what the hell!"

don't know if it was worth $30, but it was still an experience to have, i guess.

my toes are awfully purty now though :)

oh hello gauche alchemy!

2009-11-06T20:07:59Z

my first post for gauche alchemy is up!
no cut and paste - go here to see:

http://gauchealchemy.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/oh-hello/

Biggest Loser

2009-11-05T21:11:41Z

i've never watched the Biggest Loser.
i've intended to watch it but haven't for various reasons (mostly not knowing when it's on).
the few times i've seen pieces of it i catch it at the end when they're eliminating a contestant and i'm always a little disturbed because weight loss shouldn't be a competition, but a personal goal.

anyways, i caught the last 20 minutes of it the other night - right at a part when they were in a gym and one of the chicks was on a tradmill and the guy trainer told her he was going to make her run as fast as she could for 1 minute and then he turned the speed up and she got a look of determination in her eye and just fucking did it.

i remember that exact moment when that happened to me - probably almost two years ago now.
it was exhilarating.
i used to take pictures on my cell phone and send it to my trainer when i'd achieve a milestone - like my first 12 minute mile, then my 11 minute mile, then my 10 minute mile...

that one minute of tv has been kind of haunting me this week because i've fallen SO far and SO hard i can't even walk up a hill these days and talk on the phone i get so winded. I've gained almost all 60 pounds back that i lost. what the flying fuck. all i can do is bitch, complain and moan - everything BUT go back to the gym or push away the pizza and beer. Again, what the fuck.

I know i feel horrible physically because of the gained weight - my ankles swell again, my feet get cold all the time even when the rest of me is hot, i have heartburn again, headaches i had once gotten rid of, having to shift sitting and laying positions because of awkward fat bunching, squeezing into pants and waiting impatiently for the time i can undo the buttons and zipper, walking around in positions i hope hide my rotund tummy or wearing extra baggy clothes hoping that will do the traick (which it never does).

Mind over matter, but unfortunately right now it's a hardcore matter over mind, and i can't seem to switch it around.

weekend art journal pages

2009-11-02T12:54:38Z

inspired by the "u for underneath" prompt at A Year in the life of an art journal and my love for colored duct tape and paint and screen and zippers.

and from underneath
the colorless place i have been inhabiting
came a new energy
a renewal of life
i see color,
i dream in color,
i feel color.

In my "art Journal #2" - i found these photos from when i was shining and skinny and healthy and happy - i thought i'd put one on the page since i tend to look at my art journals more these days than shoeboxes of photos :)

More duct tape and some "punch waste" from a gauche alchemy kit.

gauche alchemy art journal

2009-10-28T12:07:11Z

Here's this months layout for the circle journal.
The theme of this one is "vintage bling" and i have to admit i was stumped almost all month!
But with the deadline of Nov 1 looming i pulled it together and tried some new techniques.
I'm pretty happy with the outcome! And it's something i would normally not do, but it still has me in it :) The size of each page is 8"x 8"

The future needs a big kiss

not a fan of the song, but love this line in it. I've been wanting to do something with it since the first U2 show in New York.

OK, one of the cool things I've discovered is wax paper will adhere to other paper and I've been using sheets of wax paper i've used under and between projects - when glued over the top of something it makes a cool almost beeswaxy but with muted paint effect. For this I put it over a thin children's book page that otherwise tears too easy because it's so old - YAY! It preserves and looks cool!

To add some additional color and texture and lines i adhered some sewing pattern pieces on to the pages too. And then the title is a package tape transfer! Don't ask me the font ... can't remember ;)

The flower is made from ribbon odds and ends, mesh fabric, gold punch waste and vintage buttons. I didn't have any thread so i used wire :)

I super like this page - it's just something different for me. As i said i was having difficulty being inspired by "vintage bling" and i knew i wanted to use the u2 lyric - somehow by great fortune my supervisor at work wanted to show me where all of our archived clip art cd's are (along with print samples) and i saw this CD called "Adobe Image Library - Yesterday's Lifestyles" and went through it and found a couple of kitchsy images mixed in with mostly the scary "nuclear family" images. Four pieces of packaging tape later - and voila! The bitch is on the page!

toot!

2009-10-27T18:36:40Z

eeeeek!
guess who's a new "team captain" (albeit temporary) over at gauche alchemy?

can i get a "toot toot"!

(OK, for non-scrappy people a toot isn't a fart or a train horn, its an exclamation of happiness, accomplishment and announcement!)

i'm ho honored and giddy right now!
YAY!

Tasty Art Journal Page

2009-10-26T12:34:26Z

Did a spread for A Year in the Life of an Art Journal "T" Prompt. T was supposed to stand for "Tasty" but since that is semi-related to food, and seeing how horrible a time lately i've been having with my relationship with food, i just journalled about my emotional eating then found a quote, i believe from Buddha, about it.

I discovered something SO COOL i could do with wax paper on this one!!!!!
I use wax paper to paint on so my table doesn't get dirty. I also put it between pages when i'm working so nothing drips on the pages i don't want it too - so i had a couple of sheets of wax paper with some paint on it - i took gel medium and put a thin coat over the journalling then pressed the wax paper over it and let it dry - and voila! a Semi-obscured page with some paint.

Also i used packing tape transfers - i've given up on trying to use gel medium to create a transfer, which would be much cooler than tape, but whatever i do it never ever works. So, tape it is!

Some Birthday Cards

2009-10-19T18:58:27Z

I made a couple of cards this week for my brother's birthday and a friend's baby shower:

This is for the baby shower! They are super into pirates and their baby is going to be named Nigel, thus the "ahoy nigel" on the front :)

**************************************************************

My brother is obsessed with raven's for a variety of reasons. I couldn't afford to buy him a real taxidermied one, so i tried to make him one out of mixed media. My feelings about the outcome are mixed as well, but for the most i'm please and it was just plain fun to make.

3 different kinds of black paper i ripped up and screendoor and felt ribbon. Eye are washers and a button. Beak is newspaper with Gesso and ink on it.

Read Me - Art Journal

2009-10-19T12:08:08Z

This is the "R = Read" page for the Year in the Life of An Art Journal Project.

It is the cover of the journal! I thought it appropro since art journals aren't meant to sit unlooked at after they're done! And this journal is extra special to me (even though we still have 6 more weeks to go!)

Close up of the cover - from my last art journal cover i learned not to apply to many things to the cover that could fall off or be knocked off by mistake. So i used pretty low profile felt thickers. Underneath that is what I've been using as my paint palette off and on and then covered with burgundy netting.

Ugh - I can not wait until it is done!!!!!!! It looks so cool as it is right now and I am constantly looking at it! It's so cool to have a visual summary of this topsy turvy year!

thoughts on what i did last night...or how i met Hanson...

2009-10-18T17:49:01Z

last night brian and i volunteered our time to help out at the care and One "take a stand against poverty" fundraiser here in atlanta.

it's really the first time i've done such a thing - always been too timid in the past for some reason - well shyness issue, confidence issues etc.
it was a great experience for many reasons.

we feel like we hardly did anything, but we just helped where ever they needed help - making boutonniere's for the vip guests, setting up the market table and selling the market stuff (all things handmade by women from around the world) and then cleaning up afterward.

some notable thoughts i wanted to jot down before they became too faded by time because the more i think about them the more incredible, special and significant the night turned out to be!

even though i should be thinking in terms of helping causes on a grander scale, there were some personal successes i really want to write about because even though i feel a little selfish about doing so, i think it'll make me a more effective and better networker in the future.

- the biggest success for me personally was getting up the guts to talk to David Lane who is the President and CEO of One. To me, for some reason, he is like this person i could never imagine mixing company with. Which i know is stupid, and as brian put it, "he shits like we do", he's just such a MAJOR player in Washington DC as well as this international advocacy group, One, that has blown to the proportions i only dream of AWF growing to (it helps to have Bono as it's megaphone though :D )

To get face time seemed like a gift, cause i can't imagine how much time he would have otherwise for someone like me! Anyway, after nearly being dragged by brian (literally!!!!) and discussing how to approach him for 5 minutes with diane on the phone (yes i called her at 10:30 at night!) i waited nonchalantly for him to finish his conversation with a small group of people to walk up to him, extend my hand and say, "hello mr. lane, my name is lara wineman and i work with the african well fund." and he was super approachable, gracious, friendly and amicable and amazingly down to earth.

Apparently we talked for about 5 minutes about:

-grassroots organizing (he said it was really easy for him to get caught up in the washington dc lobbying culture and his board of directors and forget about all the important grassroots work),

-africare dinners (how long and boring they tend to be and that he thanked me for reminding him that the next dinner was quickly approaching and that he would be there if he wasn't going to be in Tanzania which he wasn't sure about - ummm imagine not knowing whether in two weeks you would be going to africa or not?!) and bush vs clinton as a speaker at the dinner (bush being formal and like clockwork and clinton being laidback and more humorous),

- visiting africa (i told him about awf visiting Ghana and Uganda and planning more trips in the near future and how hopefully next time we go i can get the vaccinations),

- wearing big boy clothes to events (apparently he was not comfortable in the tie he was told he had to wear since he was a guest of honor which soooooo reminded me of my friend rob who is our current awf chairman)

- and then he said he needed to check AWF out and that's when we traded business cards :)
So ... cool.

In retrospect, I guess i was mostly terrified at being the face of AWF and representing us correctly. Brian who was observing said i came off calm but animated in an enthusiastic way (when he asked me where AWF was based I waved my hands in a big circle over my head and said "everywhere! we're all volunteers that started in 2003 over the internet - i decided to leave out the part about Bono consciously) and also brian said i didn't sound like i was promoting the AWF as a brand but talking about it in a partnership kind of way where we're all working for the same end so why don't we work together? I mentioned how i thought AWF could be so much bigger if we had some sort of significant backing or partnership and i believe that's when he said he would check us out and i gave him my card.

Ummm ... i think that is all?

- another less stressful situation but personal success for me, for some reason, was i saw Zach Hanson off to the side talking with an older woman and decided to wait it out and see if i can talk to him about AWF. Yes, i was on a mission!

Hanson, the band, definitely is not on my radar, however they were also guests of honors and given a philanthropy award by care for their work in extreme poverty issues. over the course of the evening, through a video and their own "storyteller" type acoustic music set, i learned they have done some crazy amazing stuff to help bring the extreme poverty and health issues of africa to light and given tons of money and time to it.

they're promoting their new book and cd "take the walk" with these "journey's to action, awareness and hope" walks across the world where they ask people to remove their shoes and walk one mile. zach said it's amazing how many people are hesitant to remove their shoes for fear of getting hurt or even just getting dirty - while in africa many people can't afford shoes and thus are unable to go to school or work and many people get diseases and infections fetching water or going to the bathroom even in bare feet. I was like "wow, another thing that we take for granted."

i told him how AWF has a fundraiser we designed that schools and churches have picked up called "a mile in her shoes" which educates people about the distances women have to walk to find clean water sources and i kind of hinted at how we could get the two fundraisers together but we were interrupted twice by people wanting to take photos with him (people = women) and it was so interesting that he was exactly like matthew bellamy when i'd be talking to him and people would interrupt us to have photos taken - stop almost mid-thought, smile and pose, then continue the rest of the thought like nothing had happened.

then we talked about that i was really happy that him and his brothers were using all their success and fortune to really help those in extreme poverty, not just talk about it, but do things about it and he started going OFF on celebrities who pretend to help but don't - he's like "it's great that the One campaign got so many celebrities in their ads which i'm sure raised their profile but i have to tell you kanye west really doesn't give a shit" and i had to hold myself back from giggling at the thought that this cute kid just said "shit" to me. i told him i didnt know much about kanye west so i couldn't truly say whether i thought he cared or whether his publiscist told him to do it and zach looked me right in the eyes like he had an important point to make and said "he doesn't care" and he actually seemed really pissed off about it!!!! he even then stepped back and apologized! weird....

then he asked me if i was familiar with henry david thoreou and then he paraphrased an idea that corporations don't care about the little folks who need help but the people who work for the corporations do and how they run their own record label and he said that's probably the hardest part about his job as a musician and activist because corporations need to make money any which way to stay afloat but it's the people who work for them who can make the real difference. I was like, very interesting and actually honest point!

We also talked about how the world has gotten so small because of the internet and he said that Hanson were lucky to get popular right at the start of the bubble and i asked him how old he was then and he said 12 and i laughed and apologized about not knowing all of these things and he was totally gracious saying no problem and i touched his arm and said "i'm 38 so i wasn't really your demographic when mmmbop came out" and he laughed again.

i can't remember what else we talked about - i'm actually impressed in retrospect we talked about that much! but then his handler came over and kind of rudely grabbed his arm and pulled him away. but we shook hands, i gave him my business card and thanked him for his time.

this morning i looked up his website and saw the their charity does donate money to clean water issues with Blood:Water (which is a Jars of Clay water charity) and then it occurred to me "i should've friggin asked for something to auction for the AWF auction next month!" crap i am soooooo kicking myself about that!

sooooooo .... however there is an alternate plan i'm trying to devise in my head now - they're playing a concert here on Oct 28 and my friend susanna, who i used to work with but now she actually works at care, mentioned last night she may be able to meet them before the show, or i'm going to email the woman who organized this event and is the southeastern region co-chair for the One campaign and ask her if there's a way to meet them or have her get something from them for us. Stay tuned for all of that...

speaking of this woman, she was the one who gave me the 1% chance of meeting bono oct 6. i had traded a couple of emails with her before the show and told her bono knew of awf and really all i was hoping for was to have him sign a book for us to auction and she said that she usually sees him when he's in town and she'd let me know. well, she never let me know, so obviously i did not meet him.

i ran into her in the ladies room yesterday and she said "sorry we never got to see bono, he was supposed to record a psa for care before the show but he canceled at the last minute" and she shrugged like she was kind of disappointed but not surprised. I was like all chill about it and said "he's a very busy man, i know." then i said "he did a pretty amazing shout out to care during the show" and she said "ya, i know i was there, probably because there was a group of us in the front row all wearing care shirts" and i said "i was in the front row wearing an african well fund tshirt!" and she said they were standing in front of The Edge and where was i standing and i said "in front of edge too!!!" and we laughed cause we were probably within a couple of feet of each other!

ok - so that's a bit about why i'm kind of proud of myself today.
I've been pretty modest and shy about speaking about awf to non-friends and family (or at least in comparison to other AWF Board members) because i'm not good at remembering facts and figures and specifics, but i feel like i've actually finally broken out of my shell and can talk about AWF on a personal level telling stories we've heard from recipients, communicating what having clean water means to people who don't have it and how it transforms lives (i guess i retain the more emotional part of it rather than the statistical and i've finally figured out that's just as important).

i intend to email some of the care and one people about volunteering at future events (i know they're planning something for Word AIDS Day Dec 1) and hopefully somehow i can also represent AWF at these on a more notable or public level.

i also talked to a couple of women who said they would be interested in volunteering for AWF and got their emails. AND there was another woman there who runs a music consulting company here in atlanta whose sister lives in Kenya and helps build wells there and she has a charity called Water is Life - Kenya" and we talked a bit about grassroots fundraising and i gave her some tips on things AWF does to "cut costs" and she said her and her sister are planning a music album to fundraise and that we'd have to discuss the project and how AWF might get involved in the future but she's going to Kenya for a couple of weeks so she'd email me when she returns.

So, we'll see....
future is bright.
feeling pretty effing optimistic right now.
cool!