please have a seat

i took off for jiffy lube this morning and could not figure out why traffic was so bad that i needed a can opener to get through these normally free and easy streets. then i saw why. caravans of u-hauls, loiterers, yard sales, colossal deposits of crap and a stupefying number of abandoned sofas were plugging up the passage. that's because today is moving day. and it's not just any moving day, but the most important one on any college campus - july 31, when the departing riffraff clean house and dump it on their front lawns to make room for the new riffraff. if there was ever a day to watch this town open its overcoat and air out its goods, today was it. i forsook the oil change and went on a sofa tour instead.

composition time

i adore blank notebooks. i love the freshness, the neatness, the raw potential of an untouched notebook. who will buy it? what will be done with it, written in it, discovered in it? now that it's back to school time - well you can imagine. stacks of notebooks! everywhere! it's almost too much for my mixed up brain to process. simple composition books like these are my faves of the bunch. the covers are rock solid sturdy for collage, the pages are sewn and stay put (unlike those peevish microperf pages in spiral bound books), the binding is hearty and durable, and lucky for me they are only a quarter each at target right now. around this household, the phrase "i need some composition time" is a polite request from one adult to the other for some kid-free time so we can work or invent or do whatever we need to do without interruptions for a few hours. we are now fully stocked here and ready for composition time, but it's guaranteed that i'll sneak back to target and raid the back to school section a few more times. i am a certified sucker for school supplies.

a twisted weekword

hi everyone - if you're looking for the new weekword prompt, please stop by and say hello to the lovely henniemavis. anyone can join in - just leave a comment for hennie and post your creative interpretation of the word this friday. her word choice is excellent, and might i add, rather twisted!

un oiseau rebelle

(l'amour est un oiseau rebelle que nul ne peut apprivoiser / love is a rebellious bird that nobody can tame)

(l'amour est enfant de bohême, il n'a jamais jamais connu de loi / love is a gypsy's child, it has never ever known a law)

i was going to (reluctantly) skip the weekword rebel to stay focused on my maps and cards, but too many interesting things converged at once for me to ignore it! my artsygirl has been stuck on the habanera from the opera carmen for a few months, obsessed with memorizing the melody on her keyboard and playing it ad nauseam to the point that now i know the habanera better than any song on the disney channel. i know, better something from carmen than the disney channel. but i had never paid attention to the lyrics until yesterday, when we took her keyboard to playground camp so she could plunk out her version of the habanera at the camp's high-stakes talent show. during someone's hula hoop competition, i googled the words on the sly and they took my breath away. aren't they so beautiful! and so true! love, a rebellious bird indeed! they even describe my four year old birdiegirl, who has lately been a rebellious bird that nobody can tame. it is truly taking a love that knows no law to survive this phase we're calling 'probably healthy, but really obnoxious.'

and if the above weren't enough to justify this interpretation, the name of the lovely lady who suggested this weekword was carmen. please visit her to meet all of the other rebels.

weekword/number

if you want a stuffed intel astronaut, get thee to funkytown stat - they are going fast! at the time of the mass descent, there were about 100 in the trees, last week there were 50 and now there are only 15 of these popular little invaders up for grabs. we filched 2 of them, leaving 1 cut and paste necklace and 1 little tikes toddler piano in their places. on our way home we left 3 of my happy mixed message magnets on stop signs in the neighborhood. it took all of my willpower not to slap the dirty word magnets on the signs. then we placed bets on how long the magnets would take to disappear. my girls guessed anywhere between 3 weeks and 1 year.

(the weekword is number, chosen by peggy.)

a little dose of love

fun crazy busy week! we got back on sunday from a last minute trip to omaha (finally crossed nebraska off my states-to-conquer), i've been chug-a-lugging through my colossal stack of doodles, had a great visit from this fabulous lady, pulled my artsygirl out of camp for two full days out of pure selfishness because i wanted her artsy essence around me while i worked, and i found this beautiful bit of love in the alley yesterday - clearly the twin to the love shack! i have to make time to get back over to funkytown, too. last week i stopped by and there were at least fifty stuffed intel astronauts hanging from the trees! i hope they're still there when i get back with the camera!

weekword and winners

good morning! thanks for the breakfasts around the world - they were delicious! i picked three names at random, and the print winners are jenni, darnita, and aftml. please send me your addresses at artsyville(at)gmail(dot)com, and tell me which print you'd like. also, peggy chose the next weekword and it is a great one! stop by and say hi if you'd like to participate. have a great week!

weekword/flavor

what is your favorite hot spot for breakfast, and where is it? dish, please, and on monday i'll draw three names to each pick out a 5x7 doodleprint from the shop. just a little thanks for taking the time to stop by my world and for adding so much flavor to my days.

(for more participating flavors: daisy janie, hanna, B, peggy, cath c, christine, ecobatt, s.e. minegar, caroline, natasha, nathalie, christie, veja cecilia, valentina, domestic scribbles, melonie and shannon. hope that's everyone - if not, let me know!)

painting in the parking lot

over the weekend i read this: OLATHE KANSAS !!!!!!!!//AUSTIN TEXAS but first KASKASKIA ISLAND concert tomorrow /////waxed brunhilda for trip -all clean //need to change oil too pack trombone[s] PAPER /road food//SKIF OUTFITS //

and then this:

wiillllll be heading to olathe //monday -sometime //then to austin for trombone festival need any coffee ?????????? really good bean!!!!!!!!!!shade grown organic//kenyan///costa rica//mountain blend how about a painthing portraits of the nina??????!!!!

this meant that our good friend and favorite painter-poet-musician-metalsmith-designer-illustrator-creator dj kennedy was packing up brunhilda (his car) and making a pit stop about 40 miles from us on his way to texas. (if you have a second here's the primer on dj.) hell yes, i was going. and we should have ALL gone, but the four year old was being too four for our liking, so we decided she'd stay behind, and I'd take the mix-and-match artsygirl. "you HAVE to take nina," my husband said, "they're kindred spirits." off we went to the horn doctor, a trombone warehouse wedged somewhere between a cornfield and I-35 in southwestern olathe. "wanna paint?" dj said to nina. she grinned, he gave her a huge panel of what might have once been the side of someone's barn, and they turned my wide-assed car into a true portable studio, where they painted for nearly three hours while trombones honked their tromboney honks in the background.

so it was an awesome evening. as always when i see dj, i went home with my brain buzzing and arms full. a beautiful painting to add to our collection of his portraits, a gorgeous hand knit shrug from his friends at skifo, a bottle of vanilla beans and vodka, a load of coffee, three sweet little silver rings, two sets of copper and silver leaf earrings, a decorated bumper, a girl covered from head to toe in paint, and lord knows what else, i have to go check my car. but most of all it made my heart sing to watch two of my favorite people create together, two of the most free, uninhibited people i know. and again it reminded me that i have to find a spot at home where my babe can go apeshit with the paint, in a spot that won't drive ME apeshit. this is her language, this is her way.

manic month

cue up the manic month of july and push play! between a load of maps and a bunch of greeting cards, i have fifty illustrations to finish between now and august 15. now how is that for procrastination! honestly, i don't think i'll ever be cured of waiting until the last minute. it's stressful, but it's a good stressful. i haven't found many motivators more effective than time biting me in the butt.

up next - how i ended up in a trombone warehouse parking lot last night for three hours. it involved my car and an explosive painting fiesta!

weekword

long ago, the fabulous fruenswerk started a creative prompt called weekword, much like illustration friday, but open to any kind of interpretation - photography, poetry, art, deep thoughts, random neuron firings - pretty much anything that can come out of a creative process. lovely hanna, last week's host, asked me to choose this time. i went to a sweet little greek/italian cafe in chicago this weekend, and it gave me the idea for the weekword FLAVOR. if you'd like to participate, please leave me a comment here so i can link to you, then post your interpretation of the word on friday, july 9. i hope you'll join us!

p.s. hope to catch up on all your worlds in the next few days - it has been an emotional week, my brain is scattered and as usual i'm behind on everything. thanks for your patience!