clear metal:pound&round

often i lay in bed at night before drifting off to sleep pondering my day, my experiences, my immediate reactions and overreactions, and words. words that hang around on the tip of my tongue or have double meanings or words that have no real possibility, ie. clear metal. i was thinking about the different types of responses i have received from my previous post and how blogging can become a treachorous experience about sharing and getting exactly what i've asked for. extreme as i may or may not sound i have decided after discussion and reconsideration to expound and round up this single womans mythbusters.

i'd like to be a clear metal, chemically and scientifically i'd like to be as clear and transparent as possible, to be open and vunerable and still, still be hard enough to withstand the questions, concerns, and critique. i'd like to be a walking, talking oxymoron. what are the chances?

monday night i went out with kate and joel. we caught up. joel added this bit of commentary: he said to me, "kate and you will talk on the phone for a couple of hours about everything and anything and then decide that you are going out to get coffee. how is it that two hours go by and you've still got enough to talk about, enough to go out and talk about"? it is true...true and really hilarious because i would have never seen it from joel's perspective. i think going out with kate and joel is only just a part of a the bigger community i experience on a daily basis.

on tuesday night i went out with my brother's wives, mary and laurie. we go out every week and have been doing so for close to a year now. as you probably remember the three of us took a trip to new york together, traveled together. slept in the same hotel together and even got lost in the city together. it brought us closer together for real. and with three baby boys on the way it is super important that the three of us really get to know one another. i'm going to be spending every holiday with them for the rest of my life. and to top it off. the relationships with them don't always feel good, they don't always seem easy, we all work full time in the medical field, we each deal with life and death in a very serious way...we bring our own struggles, our own stresses, and self centered ness(es) to the weekly dinner table. it is challenging to lay aside defensiveness when listening to mary and laurie talk about my family, my mom and my dad and my brothers. but it is important to hear and listen to their perspectives. perspectives of yet another different community.

on wednesday night i went out with my co worker amy. amy is someone i see every single day of my life. we work together in the same office space doing the difficult, every metamorphising job of oncology billing. amy is catholic. i'm only saying that because we are very open and we talk about everything under the sun. sex, theology, philosophy, television and much much more. amy and i have become close. she gets on my nerves, i get on her nerves. but we help each other, we teach and show and learn from one another. and i like shopping with her. so went to the mall and we went to hobby lobby to find craft supplies, so that she can make notebooks for some of our other co workers. at the beginning of lent this year amy suggested that we pray together every morning in the insurance department. so we do. almost everyday. she or i pray, d.w. and l.w., amy and i take a few minutes to lift our prayers to god. that is community.

last night which was thursday night and then tonight which is friday i am going to work at cvs pharmacy. i have been working for cvs now for over two years. i will work anywhere from 12-21 hours there in addition to my full time job at uoha. i primarily work with a sixty five year old great grandmother who has worked for cvs for 15 years. she is one of my heros. really one of my heros. she isn't perfect but she's a mentor, a true mentor. her life is a pill bottle full of tragedy, abuse, struggle, pain, some self inflicted, some from her husband, and some even from her adult children. her story is long and full of chronic loss and fatigue and joy too, but she tells me to stay away from "tarus men". she warns me not to get stuck in a relationship with an abusive man. she challenges me to never give up. save money, be frugual, provide for yourself, be self sufficent and work hard. we are close, very close and i am so happy when i see her and we get to spend our weekends together. it is hard, we don't always agree just like me and an amy and me and katie but it's good. she is my community at cvs and it is another part of the bigger community that makes up my life.

i have calvary and i have my art and my downtown apartment and space to reflect and quiet my soul. i have community and i do allow myself to be stretched into a capacity god sees fit for me to fill. when i talk about being single and i write about ideas and plans and values and standards it is important to remember that god is my father, my husband, my leader, my guide, my path, my shield, he fights my battles for me. risk is something i take everyday, posting and being this clear metal. i could spend this weekend alone in my apartment and not one of you would ever know if i disappeared. i could go for a walk in the battlefield and disappear and noone would know. i make choices that help validate my exsistence in these communities. and stating the facts and blowing myths up about being single is happening all over the world. do a google search sometime. it isn't just me. i just happen to be the only single woman some of you all know.

leaving you all with some other things to think about:

single men missing

the portrait party via veer

free people via poppy

dwell

sparkability

dwell and sparkability via print&pattern

tonight join the rest of us on the southside for artsmove on main from 3:30pm until 5pm.
have a great weekend friends. take care.

ein.uno.one

aretha's and the train masters game was so good for me last night. i needed a break from my stuffy apartment and green paper quilt collage. but for some reason all i feel like doing today is complaining. honestly my eyebrows have been knitted all morning, my eleven wrinkle is forming a battleline, my mind a bee's nest of conflicting thought and destruction. i am dinocat, hear me ROAR!!! i am going to have to put on the breaks or else i'm going to find myself in a collison course with well, something not so pretty.

i am over it. i have come to a conclusion and resolution. not anything i really want to share about right now, but it is all going to be alright. i will survive. i will thrive. i will grow. i will be strong. sounds ridiculous, much like a cat-anthem. i was sort of just upset because being single means that many people (in love) want to help me but the idea that i have to be fixed or helped is actually the most bothersome thing in the whole entire world. a long story short: this single woman mythbusters part 1:

a. i am not lonely or depressed

b. i have lots of friends

c. i am an artist who loves her space and her free time to be alone, reflective, and quiet

d. i love children but probably would like to foster +/ adopt

e. i am not indebt and do not need a man to help me financially become stable

f. i do not want to marry a man who has been married before or who has children from a previous relationship

g. i am not desperate and believe my high standards are perfectly fine

h. god wants me to be with a christian man and not just be a procreation station

i. i do like men, even though i think we are culture breeding weakness in men and that feminism will be the death and porn is hell, no matter what kind of marriage you have now, whether your man dropped the porn soon after you married him or not. i do not want to be compared to a twelve year old hairless baby girl.

oh so?whatcha gotta say?

tomorrow i will have better things to share. thank you mom for your quick and wise outlook. thank you kate for your free love and accountability and bird caps. thank you jen for your phonecalls and lovely new post.

peace

small&blurry

i am constantly exploring and learning new ways to store my very precious paper supply. in a small apartment like mine the challenge often mounts and overwhelms me, i get by, by the skin of my teeth. throughout the years i have managed to limit my paper supply to only two small rubbermaid containers. one of them holds a myriad of paper, from vintage japanese tickets, postcards, photos dipped in wax, sandpaper, mesh origami, swapped paper like the great vintage wallpaper from kristen and the like. in the second bin i have every little scrap of wrapping paper that i've ever been given or snagged from any gift giving party. i do have a larger bin of rolled wrapping paper and i do have a stack of old "vintage" wrapping paper from my nana, other than that the paper source hasn't outgrown me or my desires. it is really important that i use what i have and don't get too carried away by new origami designs or one good bumblebee's mini piles o' paper. have you all noticed the incredible new improvements over at one good bumblebee, i suppose i may be behind, but i love the atmosphere that katey has created.

i am working this weekend and will have limited time to finish my green paper quilt, but i hope to come through for everyone that is waiting with baited breath, yeah right?

to be

best coffee

since none of you seem to be reeling with ideas and i happened to drink two large cups of the very best coffee in the whole world last night before i went to bed. i was up at two a.m. pondering all of the framing possibilities...

Yellow Paper Quilt Collage & WIP

i am so excited to present to you my third completed paper quilt collage. i cannot tell you how thrilled i am to have finally finished work on this little doodad, afterall it took me two weeks or more. saturday i slept in big time and when i woke up, i jumped right into the yellow. i didn't stop until 5 o' clock or six, no shower, barely anything eaten, surviving the day with coffee and a few cigarettes. i am really pleased with how everything came together there at the end. i was debating on what kind of drawings to do in the two boxes and happened to be thumbing through an old delia's and saw this shirt and thought the design was cool enough to make into flowers. i cannot find it on the website but honestly this little photo of this black and white shirt was enough to pump my spirits up. the arrows on the left were a simple way of replicating the origami directions in the middle. the arrows also remind me of little trees. you'll most definitely be seeing arrows again. i am so so so thankful for this color in my life. it has brought a tremendous amount of sunshine. it adds yet another element to the whole of my little project and this collage like the previous ones has given me insight and new ideas, new inspiration.


on sunday i started the next:green. finally i'm getting around to the month's color. i am really excited about this little 8 x 10. it is sort of how i felt about the red&pink one. i think i'll be able to come up with a little bit more green. at least it hasn't been so difficult thus far. after the green i'm going to start orange. and then i will have a problem probably because i am not going to do purple, so i will have to pick between black, grey, or white. i'm just not a purple girl, maybe lavendar or violet could work. we'll see, cross that bridge when i get there. anyway. i am also thinking about how i want to eventually frame and put these pieces together. so if any of you have any ideas i am open for suggestions. by the end of it all, i will have six 8 x 10 collages. wondering if i should frame them all seperately or what...i just wish you all could see these up close. it has been a real pleasure to play like this for these weeks and months. hope you've had fun too.

attic-tions

i know that i should probably be thinking about green but yellow is still prominently playing in my mind. as i have not even come close to finishing my latest collage. i'm a putz for slowing to a snail's pace. instead of making yellow, i ventured out to play with my friends, tromping around the jefferson heights playground and construction site with k and fam. i am encouraged by my friends, encouraged for my friends, and happy that they are moving maybe two minutes away, around the corner and down the street. it was really nice outside last night, cool or warm enough to wear flipflops and my shirt from parable ink without a long sleeve underneath.

when i got home i felt like a thinking lab. i asked myself, "what do you feel like doing now, cat?" and the answer: "fool around with my digicam." a little self portrait play. i cannot imagine what i would do if i had other people living around me, i'd go crazy taking tons of whacky fotos.


bside: lately things have been feeling right, or better. i have been working on my heart lately. thinking before i speak, trying to be slow in my reaction, smiling and waving more. kind of neat that my foto reflects a light and warm color around my mid section-heart area. i also wanted to say that i saw this really cool thing about yoga the other night on pbs. i think i may try it out sometime. in the past i've always thought it was weird and sexual or something. who knows? but i think my eyes were opened to seeing-feeling past insecurity. and honestly i have not been working on my s.m.o.k.i.n.g attic-tion. but walking everyday helps me think about quitting. i am still even steven at or between 145 to 147. plateau city is calling my name. i'm outta here.

.amber.bisque.buff.gold.lemon.saffron.

are you a good speller? are you a walking, talking thesaurus? if you are i would like you right now, i'm just sure of it. confessionally speaking, my color vocabulary has been sinking lowly style for a week. so i am pulling out all of the stops, grasping at straws, falling for all of the thesauritic possibilities. and i'm actually coming up with little bits here and there. i am learning that there are many shades of yellow and that monochromatic can also mean the my paper quilt collage can appear to have only one color. i'm not sure if that makes sense or not but as you can see my scrapes show little evidence of good yellow.

i wish that i had a constant supplier of all things good color paper, i'm wishywashy about design. i am not ungrateful though and am willing to compensate, by any means. i'd like to be sponsered, sponsered by a paper making company, a printing company, a shoe company would be nice too considering i've got baby feet. i could be the perfect spokesgirl for your little company. right?

i only have this snippet to show, not a whole lot to show for all the effort. um, tonight i'm off to the meeting place. i cannot wait. i should have the yellow wrapped up by the end of the week. anyone have a suggestion for my next color, green? since it is march and all and st. patrick's day is right o' round the corner.

catalog card

interest.summer.activity

don't you just love fresh guacamole? i used to make it all of the time and truthfully i got burnt out. summer seems to be around the corner though. at least it is in the air today and maybe the good old guac could make a come back. it is this afternoon at least, my lunch served up amigo style. i was watching a slice of television before bed and the truelove, and caught up with a couple of ideas. i have long abandoned no waste wednesday but thought i would sorta bring it back today. inspired or not. really cool summer activity for your small children. start setting aside a couple dollars each week, save up a little to send your little tikes out into the world of camp!!!

1. Circus Camp: this looks really awesome you guys!!! if i had a kid or two i'd have to send them to barking legs theatre for a week in july just so that they'd have this opportunity and the ability to thrive outside of the daily routine. by the end of the week your child has been lifted into a new world where art and music and performance becomes their life. by the end they've got a circus to perform and you get to watch!!! your little guy only has to be four years old and it's for a short time each day, 8:30am-12:30pm {snacktime included}. the day is split into four sections: visual art {planning, designing, creating the set for the circus}; music {writing music and song, developing the instruments, and playing instruments for the circus}, performance {learn about stage presense, acting, behavior, how, where, when to come onto stage, write circus script}, and finally movement {learn how to dance, act like, be the animals in the circus}.

doesn't it sound so...well go check it out and starting saving the moolah!!!

2. Chattanooga Zoo Camp: unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of info on the website yet for this yearly upcoming event. they promise to update soon. i think if your kid is into animals and says that he/she wants to be an animal or a vet than this would be a place for them to go and see, play, and do. i remember when i was a senior in highschool i volunteered at the zoo as a "friend of the zoo." for an entire semester i went and cut up all kinds of food and proceeded to feed all of the animals, even the tigers. the zoo then, wasn't what it is today and i'd definitely go to the zoo and see if it is an environment you'd want your kid to be in but this sounds pretty neat! let me know if you have got more info or if your kid has ever been...i'm interesed.

3. Chattanooga Nature Center Camp(s): the CNC has a whole lot to offer all year round, but especially in the summer for your kids!!! i personally was involved with the CNC camps many years ago when they were first getting started and the camps were so much fun, kids and parents loved it alike. it is a little different these days, more organized, more age specific and of course the nature center continues to strive in growing little people's minds. when my brother was a young kid he was able to volunteer as a junior camp counselor, he was actually their very first counselor in training. and was the little boy so eager to be outside and in the nature that they actually began a CIT program. this is really perfect for your older children's needs. how cool, how adventurous is that?

anyway. it's not a crafty post today but hopefully one that will help and give you some summer activity ideas. i'd also like to suggest that if you are short on the fundage you should offer to volunteer at one of these camps for a discount rate or maybe you and all your mommie friends should start a summer camp of your own. a co-op camp or something. learn to teach your children about the grassroot efforts and opportunities in our little community.

^above: the poison tree my most "interesting" photo, according to flickr. what is the most interesting photo you think you've ever taken? i mean really, it has got to be more interesting than my poison tree.

i have so much to post today: a specific discussion i had with my mom last night, one of those great thought provoking conversations, that i'll have to post about tomorrow or something. have a good day and stay interested in what you and your family are doing!!!

remember happy?

i am freezing cold. i went outside to my car, heard a review of the debut album from the trucks. i have never heard of the trucks before. another girlie punk band. i like how i became the bomb. i like the website. i don't know much from the shins but saw them on saturday night live. i thought the shins were supposed to be punk, how did i come up with that persception. i wonder if i could be a music critic?

i did not get around to working on the yellow paper quilt collage this weekend. i did however make a list on saturday morning and accomplished everything on that list. all except baking my junglegym chocolate chip cookies. i will save that chore for tuesday or wednesday night. laundry piles up as if i had a family of five. piles of magazines need to be organized. and my bills needed to be paid. afterall it is the beginning of march. funny.

i had a conversation on the telephone with my mom last week. at one point i told her that i was alright, really alright and that i needed to remember to remind myself that i am actually very happy. my mom laughed at me. and she's told me since that i needed to post along the lines of our conversation. i do not know if posting all of this is all that important. nevertheless, i am very quick to forget what it is i am happy about. joy is stolen from me, as if i'm mugged around every corner. i am to blame though. solely responsible. because i walk around with my ears tuned to hear the impossible, the critic, and the struggle. it is a focus not really worth living for, to chalk it up. a focus revolving around my relationships and my art and jobs are really worth living for. the small minute victories there between the lines i live.

i'd like to think and discuss more of the possibilities. my mom and i would like to collaborate and write:illustrate a children's book. my mother is going to be a grandmother for the first time in her life in a few short months. i will be an aunt and so there are these new little people that are going to enter our lives and we are a family of readers, writers, artists, builders, and healers. what will our legacy be?

i see myself becoming more involved with the art community in chattanooga. i do not know how it will happen or when but there are more and more possibilities opening up everyday.

***i am happy because i grew up safely. without domestic violence, alcohol or drug abuse. i am happy that i wasn't neglected or orphaned. i am happy because i never broke a bone or had to get stitches. i am happy that i have my own car, my own apartment, my new cellphone. all of the stupid little things like my bird collection and button collection, and tiny things collection make me happy. and music from out of the woodwork makes me happy. i even like wearing my grey coat inside because it makes me warm and happy. what makes you really happy?

*there you have it*

okay so it has taken me a little longer than i told you that it would, to complete the Blue Paper Quilt Collage. to begin with i had some trouble coming up with the right drawings, then the paintmarkers were being fairly stubborn. this go around i pencil drew the sunshine and welcome tree first, then went over it with blue ink, added the paintmarker color, went over the blue ink a second time, then the paintmarker again. fine lines are really vital, my goal is for the collage to look as though it has been printed or manipulated on the computer. i am not about to critique, i'll leave that to you.

i am just as happy with my second in the second series, as i am in the pink&red. last night after work i even got around to preparing my next canvas board for the yellow&"hint o' green" paper quilt collage. this process is going really really smoothly. i cannot wait to pursue colors beyond just the primary. yellow will be a challenge, just because i don't know how much yellow paper i've got collected. all and all i haven't had to purchase anything, it has all been about recycle, reuse, renew!!! hahaw!

i feel like such a dork. i wanted to mention that i will not be putting any of my new work up for sale quite yet. i am saving one piece for someone who has already expressed interest. and the rest i am storing up for a possible future exhibit. at the time of the exhibit-when it happens i will do my best to give everyone a fair opportunity to purchase. that is if there happens to be a high demand.

as already mentioned; and to add to my dorkiness; i have been officially invited to the month of may, to participant in the lovely Paper Quilt Project. i cannot express how happy i am. how utterly humble i feel. by just looking at the other artists that i have the honor to share the month with i'm overwhelmed. i suppose to some it may not be that big of a deal but i do have the deep desire to be recognized for my talent and gift. most of all i want to share, give and express my thankfulness and joy through my art, through creating. the paper quilt project was a small goal, a small dream, hidden away in the recesses of my brain, a chance that i wanted to try and achieve. it may not mean that all of a sudden my art "takes off", but it gives me a feeling of great accomplishment. if nothing else i will have given my very best. a small glimmering light. peace in this cat heart.