14 April 06
Lakewood Rabbit
Here’s one of the sketches of the cooperative rabbit (and Federal employee) I saw Tuesday.
12 April 06
Dreaming
While Numenius was away the catalog came for the San Francisco Center for the Book. There was a week-long class I thought he’d be interested in taking, Mapping as a Creative Strategy. He always ends up with a lot more vacation time than I do. (If I had a week to spare I’d probably take the Weeklong Letterpress Intensive.)
Encaustic painting, pochoir, surface techniques, Turkish marbling, flag books, nature-print books with hidden hopenings: I want to take them all. Some are during the week in the evenings which is not practical and helps weed out some, but not enough.
I am left with longing and difficult choices…
11 April 06
Prairie Dog Companion
My workshop has been at the Denver Federal Center, which is a 670-acre site in Lakewood, very spread out, with lots of open space between the buildings (one of which is 19 acres in size!). Walking back to the hotel yesterday, I saw my first prairie dogs! I’m not sure which species they were, of the three in Colorado, but I’m now quite a fan of the genus. On the way back today, I sketched several, along with an extremely cooperative rabbit: I’ll post a sketch or two when I return.
10 April 06
Letters From My Adolescence
In boarding school, in Derbyshire, we were corralled every week to write letters home. I enjoyed writing them, I think. I know I wrote often, more often than the weekly corralling.
Looking back on these letters now, if I can bear to (oh you’re not supposed to READ them, says my mother, who had handed them to me in bound packets the week before), I see a lot of experimentation: inks, papers, hands. Not much experimentation with what I said, because it was all in what I DIDN’T say (this was a co-ed boarding school, it was the seventies).
Am I that person, unrecognizable? Yes. I’m thinking of ways to contain her, this adolescent so frightened of authenticity. Collage with paint over it, my current handwriting, different calligraphic hands.
Another project. Like I need any more of those…
9 April 06
Not What I'd Fly In For
I’ve just arrived in Denver for a training workshop the first part of the week. On the shuttle to my hotel, there was a couple who had flown in from Seattle just to see the Body Worlds exhibit at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. A German anatomist has come up with a technique for impregnating tissues and organs with various polymers so as to preserve them for “didactic eternity”. 200 human specimens are being presented at the museum. I never was much of an anatomist—I’ll stick to mapping, thank you!
In other health profession news, it turns out there were dentists 9000 years ago.
8 April 06
More Packing
Got back from the coast this afternoon having delivered another carload of things from my mother’s house to various points. We had a good time: managed to watch some video in the “toss” pile of Northanger Abbey, which was a good silly gothic thing to do among the rubble. I managed not to forget the iPod this time so I sang all the way there and all the way home. I’m tired but singing is good for the soul and it reminds me I should do this more.
In Davis we were able to catch up with Ron of Toad in the Hole and Joe and a friend of theirs who had come up for the UC Davis Arboretum plant sale. Some good Swainson’s hawk sightings with them, including two copulations. Ron is encouraging me to plant in half-barrels… out of the reach of gophers, and easy to tent against spraying.
7 April 06
Earthquake In Jello
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. In an exhibition at the Exploratorium entitled “Magnitude X: Quake Science and Survival”, artist Liz Hickok has created a model of the City in multicolored Jello. (From The Map Room.)
6 April 06
Designing for Post Office Requirements
I attended a class this morning: Mail Design 101. It was the last thing I wanted to do. We had our first sun in days and our classroom had no windows. It’d be more interesting to watch paint dry anyway, I thought. Still, I enjoyed my bike ride onto campus.
For someone who spends a lot of time online I do seem to send a lot of mail that involves a stamp, or several. Turns out I’ve been slowing myself down a bit, or the mail I send out.
I will not entirely give up my calligraphic envelopes with wavy lines that might be illegible to young post delivery people who’ve never learned how to write cursive, never mind OCRs. But I won’t expect them to get anywhere in two days. Now I know why. Anything lumpy, anything that sloshes around, anything non-standard goes in the “non-automated” pile, where it languishes.
Much more fun this afternoon was working on design ideas for bookmarks and wallet cards featuring mountain lion pawprints for our upcoming booth at Picnic Day (April 22).
6 April 06
Two Of Three
The A’s just beat the Yankees 9-4, coming back from a 4-2 deficit, to win the opening series of the season two games out of three. Of course the baseball season is barely in infancy, but this is quite satisfying, especially after they shelled the A’s opening day. In some ways the Yankees are the American League reference team, but they are definitely vulnerable. They have a potent offense, but lackluster pitching and a somewhat shaky defense (two errors tonight, one of which figured in the A’s five-run rally in the bottom of the eighth tonight). The A’s seem to have a very good mix of players—I was especially pleased to see Frank Thomas, their newly acquired slugger and DH, come up with a two-out, three-run double late in the game.
4 April 06
New Independent Film Venue to Open in Davis
The Varsity Theatre, an Art Deco building that has seen a good few years of mediocre community musicals, is getting a makeover and will re-open on Thursday (they were still laying carpet yesterday when I walked past, so they’re cutting it fine…). A project of two Davis enthusiasts, one of whom owns Mishka’s Cafe just up the street, the theatre will now offer independent films for Davisites who have otherwise had to go to Sacramento for the pleasure.
The opening film—sold out already for the first night—is Thank You For Smoking. I’m eager to see it based on the rave writeup of the titles on Typographica by Stephen Coles.