Into the New

This is of course the Southern Oracle (Auricle?) from the Neverending Story. One may only pass this gate with heartfelt confidence in one's worth and purpose.

It's been a big year.
I moved myself, the Kid, the Mister and his Kid and 40 feet of U-Haul to a new house in a new state.

my moving parts were very tired

A new job found me and offered better pay than anything previous to go and take pictures of houses, and measure how big they are, and put checkmarks in little boxes for Asphalt Shingles and Brick Veneer. Sometimes I even get to climb a ladder for better views of the roof.
I can tell it's a good job because all the dogs I've met have been neutered, and the pit bull even gave me kisses.

And I finished another painting, which I will post next year.

Happy 2014

Further Adventures in Janitation

So the Spay/Neuter clinic I'd been working at Is No More.
Now I have a job at a different clinic, which I'll call the Giant Kidney. I had applied as a phlebotomist, but the Universe had better things in store for me. I have returned to my roots.

the uniform

 The Giant Kidney is new and shiny (read: easy to scrub) with a pleasantly repetitive floor plan. By the time my work starts, nearly everyone else has gone home. I enjoy the silence. This is the sort of work that occupies the hands and body while leaving the mind free to roam.

self-explanatory!

 The rate of pay, incidentally, is a mere 25cents less than the highest hourly wage I've ever received in the state of misery Missouri Arkansas.  This job appeared the very same week the last one ended, and will keep me usefully employed until the next thing comes along (enigmatic smile).

largess from my previous stint as a
restroom maintenance technician

"The work to do is to continue doing the work"

New Painting

The Pursuit of Joy

Finally got this one done after shuffling it from one side of the room to another. Now it can live in the car with the rest of 'em:
This may not be the final iteration, but it's a good point. Pursuit with outstretched arms is the heart of Joy; Joyfulness at rest is contentment and I'm not sure there's a fruit for that. Maybe rice pudding.

The rest of 'em:

Freedom

Love

Kindness

Solstice, June 20

SUN, mixed media

Not a very good photo, see my shadow? I cast a shadow on the sun, how's that ; )

This longest day of the year sure feels like it. 

The spay-neuter clinic I've been working at is on hiatus until the new Vet arrives; 

when he gets here there'll be plenty of New and To-Do, likely changes to the anesthesia meds (which suddenly became my department due to pay cuts) and back into the swing of things, but for now there's nothing, and I miss the routine and the busy-ness of that good work.

My hands need work to do, meaningful work, making and mending, loving the living and dying. 

Since leaving the shelter I worked at for 5 years I've felt slightly unmoored. It was time to go, no question about that, but finding the next thing is an ongoing challenge. My previous job was janitorial work; I liked the zen of it, the bringing order to chaos, and the small Saints found tucked among the lifer custodians, the resoundingly human crew of night shift cleaners.

Henry Darger's artwork. Big Fan.

I miss shelter work, though I'm not sure I'll ever return to it. The never-ending tide of lost and unwanted and broken creatures was much to bear, but it was good to help and to hold, to comfort and care.  My friend has dived into it with love and grace, and I'm grateful to her and all the others who continue this work.

I'd like most of all to find a place for the things I make. Literally, as in not having to make little paths around the paintings and clutter in my burrow.

So far the only luck I've had is painting the local sports mascot on river stones.

votive offerings for the Cult of the Big Red Pig

Good thing it's local, the shipping charges would eat me alive. 

This Shit Is Bananas

extend a Hand to a Friend in Kindness
for Life is a Far Journey across the Howling Desert

But seriously, great gift for the Gwen Stefani fan in your life. Buy it HERE

This is the first thing I've painted in many a day. 

Been slightly distracted by The Best Boyfriend Ever

he's actually much taller than this

and my new job, one whole day a week at the Spay & Neuter clinic. I wasn't sure I wanted back into non-profit, but hey. It addresses the source of so much suffering. And, the people there are not guano loco!

Commission! (Updated)

So a friend of the friend I painted Jack for has commissioned me to do a painting, of herself & her much-loved beasties. There are a Rabbit, a ferret, a turtle, a Jack Russell terrier and a Rat(deceased).

This is exciting to me because it's the sort of work I most want to do, and it sought me out! It's like the Universe wants me to stay home in my painting hoodie and make Art.


it's my favorite hoodie

It's only got paint on it recently, and only because I wear it ALL THE TIME. It was made by an Artist as well.


I make my own canvases. This one is 2x4 feet

The beige spots are not schmutz, they just didnt get primed yet



Puttin in the big pieces of color. I've got sketches going of the animals, but must compose the rest with paint. The tablecloth will not be that hideous shade of pink. More tea things & delicacies to be added. This is about one-third finished; I think the background is trying to punch above its weight but, it will eventually get sorted. The egg floating above it is part of my easel : p

Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

Also a guy I know who doesn't like heights sought me out to patch some bits on his roof, around the plumbing vents. I don't normally get paid to climb up on roofs and Boy Howdy is it fun, so double excitement this week.

*UPDATE!* the roofing job went well and hasn't leaked as of yesterday's downpour. I didn't fall off either, butt I have noted that there is no comfortable place to sit on a 45-degree angled roof. Don't let the ridgeline fool you either; between that and my constant crouching and/or crabwalking, my underpinnings were very very sore.

The things we do for money....

Updated 1-29-12

it's weird doing faces. There's always the gnawing dread that you'll show a person their portrait and they'll recoil in horror and go. "I don't look like THAT!"

I may redo this part. Imagine less, trace more. Creep her Facebook photos ; )

Much better.

It was fairly dark when i took this pic. Submitted for final approval 2/6/2012

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself." -Wilde

Sounds about right. Alice is a novice, a wanderer in a strange land. The Hatter is an adept; not a King or Queen, but well dressed, well fed, and in masterful possession of a useful Skill.


I prefer the term "Milliner to the Differently Saned"



Joy to the World

This year's Holiday Card...the friends & fam will all be getting one, but the rest of the world can too, here -----> My Etsy Shop!

it's rather bare at the moment but i will be adding more things to want & buy.
Who knows, maybe hawking my crap via the internets will be my Next Big Thing!

I drew this card over Thanksgiving holidays, intending it for Christmas & such. It's somewhat open to interpretation; I was going to put "Happy Dies Natalis Solis Invictus" inside but that might eliminate a lot of potential shoppers. I personally like Thankful-for-Photosynthesis Day.

and since I'm rambling, I'll also mention my heartfelt thankfulness that Mom is home from hospital & doing just fine, thanks, and when did you say the turkey will be done? She missed Thanksgiving AND the Black Friday sales, poor thing...We will be on each other's nerves again in no time, but I sure am glad she's back.

Very Thankful