A while back, I was chatting with a group of women of a certain age *ahem* about breasts. Mostly, how gravity has taken over, and ours, for the most part, are sagging. For those of us who are greatly endowed with ample breastage, it’s a dangerous time. It is frankly not safe for me to go bra-less any longer. Someone could lose an eye. Most days, I wear a sports bra, which isn’t pretty, but wrangles my girls into a safe corral where they won’t do any damage.

So, in describing the removal of said sports bra at the end of the day, I used the term “unleash the tits of fury”, because seriously, after a day of being mashed against my chest, that’s sort of what it feels like. And from the response, I assume everyone in the conversation knew exactly what I meant, and had experienced this feeling themselves. I’m afraid you will be seeing this phrase elsewhere, because several of them vowed they were stealing it…

Anyway, cut to a few weeks later, and I receive a journal from one of the participants in that same conversation, who also happens to be a large-busted woman. In fact, she posted a photo recently, illustrating why talking to her neighbor while wearing a white tank top and no bra left him speechless. So, I couldn’t resist doing this set of pages in her book.

Now, lately, I’ve been trying to incorporate my own photography into my pieces, but occasionally, I just can’t make that happen. I resort to stock photos, usually from iStock. So, picture me, trying to come up with the appropriate search terms to find a photo of a woman either holding her breasts, or opening her shirt. I generally pride myself on being able to find the perfect photo in one search, but several tries yielded nothing usable. So, I set up my tripod, whipped off my shirt, and shot half a dozen really ugly photos of myself in a white sports bra. A little clipping, some digital manipulation, and they were exactly what I needed. And probably a better choice than stock photos, because a perfect model holding her breasts is not the same as a middle-aged, fat woman’s self-portrait in a sports bra—and that’s exactly what this required to make it work.

When I finished these pages, I posted a photo of them to the little group with whom I’m doing this project, and tested the waters to see how they’d be received. I got a good response, so I went ahead and cross posted them to another, larger group that many of us frequent, which is friendly to all manner of weird topics, and where I originally had the conversation about breasts. Again, a good response, followed immediately by people christening their own breasts. I think we had Tits of Angst, Tits of Indifference, Tits of Sadness and Resentment—well, you get the picture. It was a pretty hilarious conversation.

And then, a man had to open his mouth.

Let’s just say that the male perspective on this particular piece was not well received by my sister artists. And there will now be a sequel to this piece, in a book I receive next month, because I am pretty angry about anybody sexualizing a lighthearted conversation about a piece of artwork, and women’s feelings about their breasts. It was icky. So I have to make art about it.

I hope to return to PG themed content next week…

Anyway, this dark circle journal project I’m doing right now practically requires me to unleash the trash mouth at regular intervals, because we are all a bunch of foul-mouthed women, and we have a nice, safe, tiny little private group in which to speak freely, without worrying we’ll offend any of our respective readers. It was bound to creep out into my work at some point, since I’m now working in other people’s books, and trying to do things that are somewhat connected to the relationship I have with them. Cuss words and all.

Exhibit A: this page in Katie’s book. She uses this expression regularly when she’s surprised or excited or overwhelmed or it’s a day ending in Y. And every time she does, it makes me chuckle, so I wrote it on a scrap of paper, thinking something might come of it. Then, our merry band started playing with Luna’s drawing of Sister Mary Whatsername, and patron saints started getting stuck in my head. Whirl that together, and this page is the result. This morning, Katie dubbed this piece Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment. She’s actually based on a prayer card of Saint Catherine of Sienna.

I think this sort of sums up my reaction to my week. I’ve been idea-free all week, other than doing this piece. I haven’t come up with a new project, or a class idea, or even new collage sheets. My brain is just in the Bahamas or something. Also, it’s been really stupidly hot this week, so I’ve had the shades closed and the air conditioner on, which always makes me want to put clean cotton sheets on the bed and take a nap.

Actually, that sounds like a really good idea…

This does not bode well for the summer. Last year, we had a miserable, long, ugly string of days over 100 degrees that went on for what seemed like the entire summer. We were in a drought, which is still going this year. And we have water restrictions leftover from last summer.

We didn’t really have a winter this year, which was kinda great, but also kinda creepy. Having spring-like weather in the middle of December just isn’t right. The result was that we had no freeze to kill all the things that need annual killing. Like weeds. And bugs. I have pulled my weight in weeds this spring, and my poor dog is completely sick of the baths, sprays, drops and collars I’ve tried to kill off the fleas, which have bitten the tops of my feet so many times that they look like raw meat.

And it’s only May. What’s it going to be like in August?

All the work in this book is 15×20 inches unless otherwise noted. I told you it was big…

Maybe I’m wishing that some of my plants would grow teeth, and snap at people who invade my garden. I have a very shallow front yard, so the front window next to my monitor is maybe 12 feet from the sidewalk. I can see people walk by, and if the window is open, I can hear what they’re saying. Usually, “oh, that’s pretty” while pointing at something that’s blooming. Yesterday, a little boy came running up, and yelled back to his parents, “we should do this to our front yard”. I like those people.

The people I don’t like:

• People who walk into the yard to take pictures. Usually teenagers, but not always. I don’t mind if they photograph things from the sidewalk, but when they walk up the paths to the front door, it annoys me. My front yard is not the botanical garden.

• People who gawk with their mouths open. Several times this week, couples walked by, and just stopped and stared. Didn’t say anything. Just stared, and then wandered off.
• People who pick flowers, or try to pick them, because if I see them reach out, I yell out the window not to. Last year, I went out to do some errands, and while I was gone, some idiot cut all the blooming stalks off my red yucca, which is in a raised bed, six feet from the sidewalk. It’s a plant that blooms once a year, and produces long, showy stalks with red flowers on them. They last a really long time, and the stalks can stay on the plant until I clean up the yard in the fall. In the interim, they attract birds, especially hummingbirds. It burns my butt when someone disrupts plants that attract bees, butterflies, or birds. My front yard is designed as a habitat for them, and picking flowers disrupts the flow of food to them. Also, it’s just plain rude to pick flowers from someone else’s yard.
• People who say that it must take a lot of water to maintain all those plants. Nope. They’re all native and naturalized species, chosen for their low water use. Because they’re not all cactus, people assume they need to be watered. I usually water in August, when it’s blazing hot—but even then, only once a week, because the plants naturally go a little dormant when it’s too hot. As soon as it rains, or the heat breaks, they burst into bloom again. All in all, I water considerably less than my neighbor with the perfect green lawn—and I have birds and butterflies in my yard, while he has fire ants.

Yeah. I’m that cranky lady with the garden…

I missed posting here last week because I was finishing up my first sample book for my da Vinci Inspiration Book class. If you haven’t seen it yet, go look. It’s pretty terrific.

As soon as I finished that, I jumped over to work in the next book in the dark circle journal project, which finally arrived after three weeks of wandering through the mail system. Since this book offers no guidance, visual or verbal, as to what the owner wants, I’m just doing whatever the heck I feel like doing. This week, I’m venting about hormones. Or about people who use their hormones as an excuse to act irresponsibly. Or I’m sending an affirmation to someone who is experiencing hormonal issues. You decide.

I also spent part of yesterday working on my first hand-drawn, totally original paper doll set. I’ve been doing paper dolls at Ten Two Studios for quite a while, but they’ve mostly been cobbled together from vintage imagery. I’ve wanted to start drawing my own dolls, but it takes so much time and thought that I just haven’t been able to make it happen. Well, it’s spring, and I usually do new things at this time of year, to sort of shake up my product line, and keep it interesting at a time when holidays aren’t driving sales. I’m rolling on the spring class—so, why not start doing some paper dolls? So far, so good. I flashed a little preview on my Facebook page yesterday, and got the thumbs up. I might flash another one today, if I get a little more done.

So. Today’s missions: make paper dolls, and do another layout in the current journal, before I mail it out on Monday.

This kind of small, weird work appeals to the artist side of me, rather than the side that produces products. My current problem is that my artist side is veering very far away from the products I produce. I’m toying with ways to start producing products that are more in line with what I’m doing now, while not completely alienating the customers who keep me in business. It’s a problem, and one I’ve been discussing with the women in the circle journal group, some of whom are also experiencing a disconnection from what they do for a living vs. what they do to satisfy themselves as artists.

I had a conversation with someone recently, where I expressed the thought that my best business happens leading up to Halloween. Not because Halloween is such a hot holiday, but because I love it, and the design team loves it. I have more Halloween/dark/creepy products than just about anything else. There have been times when I’ve thought I should break that portion of Ten Two Studios off, spin it into its own web site, and just embrace the dark and creepy stuff year ’round. These are the conversations I have with other artists who use their creative skills to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads—how can I be the artist I want to be, and still pay the electric bill?

Now, I know some of you are picturing me killing off all the lacy, pretty, Victorian stuff in favor of bleeding hearts and FrankenDuckBunnies. Some nights, I lay in bed and think about doing just that, but only in the way you think about doing things like taking a sledgehammer to the wall between the garage and the living room because you need more space, or swapping your bedroom and office because you need more room to work. Well, OK, I’m really doing that last one, but you know what I mean. You think about it, and it makes you a little giddy, but you’re not really going to do it.

So. Baby steps. I’ve been working on a new class this week, that uses familiar images, but also fine art supplies like gesso and pastels and paints. It’s colorful and a little grungy. (Photos of two test pages are posted on the Facebook page.) The first sample book is about halfway done, and it looks much more like the work I do when nobody is looking. We’ll see if anyone signs up for the class when I offer it. That’s always a worry—that I’ll go down a road, and invest time, energy, work, and angst, and then nobody wants to come out and play with me. My little inner outcast sits on the curb and cries pitiful tears…

This post is part of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. On the 15th of every month, gardeners around the world step outside with their cameras, and snap photos of whatever is in bloom in their gardens. Join in!

Then, I started the Gluebooks group on Facebook, as sort of a more social, interactive cousin to the long-running Gluebooks group on Yahoo. I had to post a few tidbits to get people talking there, so on a whim, I scanned one of the doodles, and shared it with the group on Facebook. They liked it.

Great. I have a pile of doodles that I like, and other people like. Now what?

At about the same time, I discovered the wonders of Skype, thanks to the ladies in my dark circle journal project. We’ve been calling each other once a week, doing video chats, which initially sounded a little crazy to me, but has turned into a wonderful way to connect with other artists more regularly. I flashed some of my doodles there. I also got into a conversation with one of the women about these big, fat, lovely journals we both had purchased, but hadn’t worked in yet, because they were just so pretty. You know, that “oh, I can’t work in this because I might ruin it” thing? We both had it. And we both promised to get over it, and bust open our pretty journals, and do some real work in them.

So, a few days later, I posted this:

Yeah. I’m not kidding. This book is huge. When open, the pages measure 15×20 inches. But that’s pretty perfect in terms of scale for the big doodles I’ve been doing.

(Totally off the subject, I sort of love this photo, because it shows you what’s going on outside that empty space you always see me photographing when I do step-by-step instructions for something. There’s an 18 inch square of empty table, surrounded by mounds of utter chaos. And that never changes, even when I tidy up. There are layers of stuff laying on either end of the table, from projects I did months or even years ago. I kind of like it that way.)

Anyway, this is the start of my next journal project. This time, I’m doing a book that will stay home when it’s finished, and there’s no deadline. I can just work in it whenever I want. The first few pages will be this sort of thing:

Big doodles on magazine pages, stuck to the page, and then collaged with pieces of my photos, and prettied up with paints, pastels, charcoal pencil, stencils, and pens. I’m learning to mix my media more. That was what I took away from Traci Bautista’s class at Strathmore, which is still posted if you want to view the videos and flip through the class materials. I didn’t connect with the type of journaling Traci does, but I did learn a lot in terms of how she uses various media in her pieces. For me, that’s a successful class experience—I came away with something new to explore, even if I don’t follow the exact steps. Maybe you’ll learn something there, too.

So. New journal project. Look for more pages in the coming weeks. Yay!

So, last Monday, I woke up with what I thought was just the early onset of the usual spring allergy stuff. About halfway through the day, I realized that no, it’s not allergies—I’m coming down with something. By Tuesday, I’d decided that it was the full-on plague. Sneezing, coughing, aliens from another planet taking up residence in my lungs, more coughing, and at one point, coughing so hard I started puking, which I seriously don’t recommend. Ever. Also, sometime late Tuesday, fever.

Repeat every day for a week, and you’ll understand why I feel like white death today. Since I run a fever pretty much at the same time every day, I’m going to assume this is viral, which means there are no drugs to get me through it faster. I just have to ride it out. This is the first time in quite a while that I’ve been this sick for this long. I can usually shake it off in a day or two. I can honestly say that right now, I think I’ll be down with this until the end of the week.

Needless to say, I did not make this art doll last week. She was hanging behind my workroom door, finished, by the time the first cough occurred. What wasn’t finished was the March issue of The Monthly Muse, which I always upload on the 1st of the month. I finally uploaded it this morning, five days late. I hate being late. I will go out of my way to avoid it. I read an article once that said that people who are always late subconsciously think that their time is more valuable that everyone else’s—then, it REALLY became a pet peeve. Must not be late. No, no, no.

I caved, and sent out an email saying I’d be done today. And I was, even though I’m still hacking up alien life forms.

Obviously, all other art making is at a standstill at the moment. I mailed off my dark circle journal on Monday, but the next book has not been mailed to me yet, so there’s a lull. I just signed up for a hand carved stamp swap, but it’s not due until the end of the month. I’m working on an enormous journal, but haven’t managed to finish any pages in it yet.

All things come to a grinding halt when I’m sick.