Octavia The Spy

We all have habits that I'm sure would seem strange to other people if we shared them. Which is usually why we don't tell people about our habits of, say, harvesting and assimilating facts about the people around us. It's not that we do it for any malicious purpose--maybe it was once a survival trait and is now a harmless subconscious reflex. Maybe it pays off when it's time to get a neighbor a birthday present and our husbands are totally clueless but because we have a logbook for everyone we encounter we know they mentioned a renewed interest in fishing last summer and that new tackle box will make us the VIP guests of the Cake Master of Ceremonies. Maybe your habit of cultivating underwear yeast to make a beer out of is weirder! Okay, that was just defensive. Sorry.


Anyhow, because I've got blog ADD and have been REMEMBERING to take a photo a day (usually), I'm over posting it everyday for the time being, lol. Once it gets to a certain point I'll probably start photo-bombing in order to catch up, but that's not for a while at least. In the meantime, I've decided to share another facet of weird with you in a new segment Octavia The Spy, where I share seemingly pointless observations and data harvesting about the people I encounter/see/stalk.


This woman lives behind my house and two houses to the right. She keeps her dogs caged in a kennel in the backyard, and when she goes out to feed them, she says very mean things to them in a very loud manner.

Yesterday I hung out in Lesley's (across the street and to the left one house) driveway with her and this kid came up and would not stop talking about selling his bikes to us. Once he'd reach the end of his speech loop, he'd start back over at the beginning. I suspected he was mentally handicapped in some way, but that didn't stop me from beginning to laugh hysterically at the awkwardness of two adults being held, pinioned, by this child's nonstop spiel about bikes. I laughed at a retarded kid. I'm not proud. Then again, he may just be stunted by terrible parents. Lesley said he shows up every once in a blue moon and talks forever like that about random stuff. This is that kid;

There is a group of teenagers that I need to sneak a picture of and tell you guys about. Watching them walk past my house, I've gathered up some good, angsty intrigue about them. This doesn't qualify as gossip, does it?

Daily picture/ Day in drawings project

I haven't drawn anything in about a thousand years. I used to draw at least one serious picture a week, and was doodling any other time, but I haven't in literally forever. I moved on to other mediums and never looked back.

This is relevant because I've recently decided to jump on the "picture a day for a year" bandwagon that most photographers I know are riding at the moment. I'm not sure if the idea was posed in some popular publication that everyone but me reads or if it was some sort of spontaneous social movement, but after taking the first day's picture, I realized that I have very little pictures of myself in comparison to the mountains I have of everyone and thing else. What is the point of photography if not for some small immortality? I too would like to leave evidence of my existence behind. So I'm doing this project with my camera phone.. I'm going to try to pair each day's photo with a little page of drawings of the day's happenings, but I'm lazy and am likely to miss a few days.

07 FEB (did not have a drawing because I didn't think of it until 08 FEB)

 

08 FEB

but which rabbit-hole?

I really am the laziest blogger on the interwebs. Sometimes I just get too busy, sometimes I have a hard time deciding what to write about (Is that too personal? Should I insert the iron crowbar of propriety between my personal and professional life? Does anyone even give a shit about the swirling carnivale of light and sound in my head? Should I have just said 'Shit'? Does the punctuation go in or out when it's a single quotation mark?), and sometimes I'm just plain lazy.

I've reached a crossroads of some kind, artistically. Only, I'm not exactly sure of not only which direction to go in, but what it is exactly that needs to be decided in the first place. At the moment, I'm having trouble picking a project. I have a few ideas I've been mulling over, and of course there's always the random stuff that I never really have to think about, but gets created pretty easily and pads the shop out. Fighting with the fact the urge to make what the hell ever I want is being levied by the eternal question: But what will sell?

I have two assemblage sculptures in mind. One is inspired by time spent with an insanely talented artist that I've had the good fortune to meet briefly (and was shocked to discover that he was the very same artist that I'd loved for years and never realized it was him until after we'd already met. Ha!), and the other is inspired by the amazingly wonderful box of junk-parts he so graciously brought me. 

I'm also planning out two different photoshoots. One will be a series that tells the story of the rise and fall of a cold-war era KGB spy. The other will be a sort of carnival macabre, "something wicked this way comes," both alluring and repulsive. Is it wrong to be drawn to the strange and disturbing? Is there something bizarre and dangerous rattling around inside of me? Is that why I love Tom Waits so much?

It's recently occurred to me that I have no idea how to be a professional artist. The art part comes natural, in the way of every artist, but how to actually be one? Sometimes I make art from inside me that I love passionately, but know there's zero market value for it. What do you do with art like that? Put it in an exhibition? How the hell do you do that? How do you convince people your art is worthwhile without sounding like a pretentious tool? I ask this because I was inspired by a friend for a cheap, quick 'n' dirty little shoot that I ended up loveloveloving, but I can't imagine anyone actually wanting these prints. I'm not a tease. Here they are.

 

Just so you know, it gets slightly naughty here. Was making a pretty obvious, subtle statement about the penis as a weapon. Or something like that.

 

So yeah. What the hell am I supposed to do with these? On the one hand, I'm all about making art for art sake. I don't need other people to see or even give a shit about these to feel validated for making them. On the other hand, a girl's gotta eat. Opinions? Thoughts? Random insults?

Trials, tribulations and the future of apple dumplings

I've been scarce in the past week; here, on facebook, and in my etsy shop and for that I apologize. It's been a very trying week for me.

After 18 hours of travel last tuesday, flying back in from Europe, I came home to find that sometime in the week between my roommate going out to sea and my return, someone broke into the house and stole his brand-new $5000 television. They tried crowbarring the backdoor open, and when all that accomplished was screwing up the door and jam, they just busted the glass and helped themselves. I also found they tried prying open the windows (and just accomplished tearing the screens and denting the frames) and apparently tried getting in the backdoor connected to my roommate's room as well. I found tired tracks in the backyard. Someone had the balls to just drive through our neighbors backyard, into ours, bust out the backdoor, load up the TV, and drive off. And somehow none of our neighbors saw or heard anything. Anyhow, it was the last thing I wanted to see upon just returning. The police were called, but the detective didn't actually show up until yesterday to take fingerprints and look at the tracks and footprints. A week went by before they come to fingerprint and take photos!?! The door was already boarded up and it's rained, washing away the evidence. I took pictures the day after, with a little tape ruler like they do on TV, but I doubt even if I send the pictures to the detective, anything will come of it. I'm not looking forward to my roommate coming home just to find this out. I know first-hand how that feels.

My roommate is on my list as well. Apparently he took it upon himself to install several locks on his bedroom doors before leaving. This pisses me off for a few reasons. The first is that for some reason, the telephone company installed the internet port in his room. The modem is in there. It was wireless capabilities, but in case there's a problem (everyone knows how often modems need to be reset) I have no way to access the internet. And of course, there was a problem the moment I got home. He knows I'm trying to run an online business here. I even explained to him that I need access to the modem and he said he understood. And then he pulls something like this. The second reason is that him locking his room up like that is ridiculously hypocritical. He'd been rifiling through my things while I was gone, helping himself to books and movies to borrow without asking me first, and yet I'm not even allowed access to his room to fix the modem? The third reason is that it speaks of a great huge ego on his behalf, for him to think I would even be remotely interested in anything in his room aside from the modem.

My mail lady has decided that it's too much trouble for her to get out of the truck to bring my packages to the door, and instead has started leaving "we missed you, come pick it up at the post office" slips in my mailbox instead. She did this yesterday when I was home all day. I don't have a car, I can't go to the post office everyday to do her job for her. Luckily my BFF's sister, Tina, is a wonderful lady and went to the post office for me to pick up my boxes, and have a word with the postmaster about it. My BFF's family are some of the most wonderful people on the planet. I'm truly fortunate and blessed to have people like that in my life.

And then on top of all that is the fact that up until last night, my motorcycle (my only means of transportation) was dead. I finally got it running last night, hallelujah.

So there's been some seriously crap things happening (I'm not even going to get into what a mess Roommate left the house in, especially MY bathroom, ugh, or the weird way his Dad keeps acting like I don't live here) but yesterday things finally starting going well enough. Well, good things started happening at least. Which is good, I couldn't take another day of everything going wrong.

I'm sorry about the whine-fest, I just needed to get all that off my chest and hopefully it explains why I haven't been around much. I'm working on getting my studio in order after the disaster Roommate left of it, and I should be back into the groove of creating soon enough.

Thanks for letting me vent, everyone! I hope you're having a great day :)

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I've been featured!

Today's feature is a wonderfully creepy collection by JaneElizabeths that plays out like a sinister Terry Gilliam movie. Basil and Paprika play a supporting role of Kitchen Antagonist. I just love love love it :)

I think they fit right in with this misfit crew :)  View it here.

JaneElizabeths shop is beautifully eclectic, mixing different styles of photography and lush canvas sachets filled with French lavender. I'm seriously in ♥ with those sachets. There's 5 different styles in her shop as I type this, each with a different, but equally lovely, artwork printed right onto the canvas. Go check her shop out and show some love!

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I've been featured!

Huzzah! My very first treasury feature (that wasn't made by me, hehe). It's wonderfully colorful and yet, flows well without being over the top. I just love it :) Check it out here.

AryalAmesJewelry is such a peach for including me. Definitely go check their shop out for sleek and elegant (and totally affordable!) handmade treasures ☺ Thanks so much Aryal!

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New Treasury "The Shankill Butchers"

I decided my next treasury should go back to my love of the macabre. It probably won't make FP this time (I think I've been spoiled now), as my tastes for the darker side tend to turn people off, but I just can't help myself. There's some wonderfully dark things on Etsy and really, is there a better time of year to celebrate things like that? I worked pretty hard to tell a story with this one, hope you like it ☺

 The Shankill Butchers

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