tashina knight

Feeling a little out-of-sorts today. I’ve felt so, I don’t know, homesick maybe, since moving away from California. I don’t think it was a bad decision financially as California is a very hard place to get ahead financially. Also California has picked up a lot more financial problems, crime, and housing price nightmares in the past 5 years or so. I’m a San Diego native and lived there for 35 years so it’s going to take a long while for any other place to start feeling like a real home.

One of my favorite Scottish songs growing up (A Scottish Soldier) sang out how green the hills were, but the last line of the chorus is: “But they are not the hills of home”. And that’s how I feel. Austin is very pretty. I walk out on the porch and look out over the Hill Country and it’s the prettiest view I’ve ever had anywhere. But it’s not “my view”. I feel as I am am on vacation and will soon go home and rollerskate along the Mission Beach boardwalk or go gallery hopping in La Jolla. We’ve considered that Austin is just not “our place” no matter how pretty it is, and we’ve thought about transferring up to North Dallas. We still need to take a scouting trip up there. But where this all leaves me, day to day, is feeling unsettled. I understand logically that I have to live for today and should just get on with my life. But I feel emotionally as if I’m in a sleeping car on a train - better keep everything near me and neat because you never know when you’re going to have to gather everything together and get off the train.

So what I’ve been doing a lot of is sorting and simplifying. We’ve taken literally tons of stuff from place to place with us - San Diego to Temecula to Pleasanton to Dublin to Austin. And in the last 5 years, the happiest I’ve been is living for 6 months in an Extended Stay America hotel with only 1 box of clothes, 1 box of art supplies and 1 box of books. That says to me that it’s time to give things away. Live more simply. Be ready for whatever comes next. Only I hope that what comes next has more permanence than these 18 month moves we’ve been making.

In other news, I have to spend some time today thinking through how to sell some beads/jewelry. I have sooooo much stuff to sell. Should I start a separate web page like I used to have 5 years ago? Should I go back to eBay (was a powerseller for years). Etsy? I suppose a combination would work best.  I’ve been undecided whether to sell most of it as beads or whether to make some jewelry. But I think my heart is in paintings and mixed media right now so I better start letting some of it go to homes where it can be used.

The pieces above were just a quick thing I played with. Vintage brass pieces filled with epoxy that I had mixed paint into. Then before the epoxy set, I pushed beads and cabochons into it. I probably have 10,000 pieces of brass. Yep, time to clean house.

First I want to thank the people who left comments on my last illustration. I love hearing from everyone and the support means a lot to me.

 

So, as I mentioned, after 6 weeks of hoping, I finally received my birthday present - 8 issues of DPI magazine!!

What a treasure. I’m especially loving issues 86 and 96 (Nicoletta Ceccoli covers) . Today, I’ll show you around the newest issue - #98.

with Mari Kubota on the cover. (top row, 2nd from left).

 

Above is a piece called Bento from Susan Burghart. She’s from Washington state, but did part of her schooling in London, so she has some posters in the magazine for bands and plays going on in London. Many of the articles in DPI are in Chinese and English, thankfully. Bento was a commissioned work and she says, “I draw a lot of influence in particular from Japanese art - from wood block illustration to kimono fabris and origami paper.”

Here is our cover artist, Mari Kubota. She’s from Hyogo, Japan. “She is creating dolls, picture books, and postcards for her original brand, “marie”.” This article has very interesting use of the English language as it’s an interview from a Chinese magazine to a Japanese artist and then sort of translated into English. What I got out of it is that she uses Gouache in her art because of the colors. Her inspiration for her newest work is a “sad girl’s wedding”.

They asked her “For you, what is beauty?What things can’t you bear with?”

Her answer: “Something that is shut tightly”. When something is out, they get dirt and not beautiful any more. I try to bear for anything.”

Sort of poetic, really.

This is Mizna Wada. Don’t miss seeing her dolls on her website. She’s a freelance illustrator from Tokyo and has loved horror comics since childhood. She’s been using the current style for about 10 years and she works in Print Gocco, acrylic, watercolor, cut paper, and dolls. A lotof her work has a circus theme and the one pictured here, from what I can understand, is about a contest of beautiful and talented people. Here is her concept of beauty.

“Beauty is stuff not perfect. I think that each peculiar distortion that has it creates beauty. Or beauty is balanced stuff of Yin and Yang. I dislike the thing which lean to one side of either.”

I’m not sure if this is an ad or an article, but it’s about noodoll and I liked the drawings.

and lastly, here is another fashion spread:

This is the designer Doris Kalchmann from Austria. She has a pdf file of her dpi article so you can get an idea of how the magazine reads.

Here’s the page on this issue of DPI magazine on the DPI website. Looks like they have a new issue out (#99)l on new art and design from Japan.  I wonder what #100 will bring?

As soon as I can tear myself away from this issue, I think I’ll give it away to a commenter on the blog. Stay tuned if you’re interested.

Just when I thought getting those magazines just wasn’t going to happen, I got some good news. I had ordered the magazines, had my card charged for the magazines but not the shipping and there things sat. I waited a couple weeks and emailed again and no answer. On June 25th, about a month after the original order, I decided I’d have to regretfully do a credit card dispute. I really wanted the magazines so decided to give it one last shot. I emailed them two different ways and this time a woman named Grace answered and was able to help me. It took a couple of emails because we were misunderstanding each other, but in the end I think they are sending out the magazines and I should get them sometime around the end of this week. I’m not quite sure what they are sending, but am pretty sure I’ll get 7 issues (maybe one duplicate) and that’s good enough for me. Funny thing is I ordered them for my birthday and it looks like I’ll get them around my best friend’s birthday which is lucky 07/07/07.

Here’s my latest blog to read - JaneVille. She lives in my hometown and her color sense is sooo much like mine that I love every thing she does almost instinctively.

There won’t be a lot of posting for a week or so while my mom is in town. We’ll be going down to San Antonio and maybe wandering the Hill Country a little. Will try to get some photos. Hope everyone is having a productive week.

Just listened to the free song for the week on iTunes and really liked it. It’s Jarhand from a band I hadn’t heard of called Immaculate Machine.  Sort of alterna-pop but with a smooth folky singer. Give it a try!

Give a listen to The Essex Green while you’re there. A bit Weepies-like but with their own vibe.

Wish I had that MacKenzie Childs cake! ( I believe this one is from Colette’s Cakes)

I’m not sure what to think of being 43. Seems each year brings a new theme. 41 was the year where everything I worried about turned out not to be a problem. All my problems were things I had neglected to worry about! 42 was the year of every appointment with anyone turning into several more appointments. I’m hoping that 43 is the Year of the Excellent Opportunities, or the Year of The Perfect Vacation. Think big!

I didn’t do anything big for my birthday (Tuesday). My husband is on night shift which makes it hard to do much during the week. Maybe we’ll go out this weekend. My best birthday present is one I’ll have to wait a little while for. Remember the crocheted hat in this post that I was swooning over? She’s making me a similar one! She thinks it’ll take about 150 little flowers. What a great mom I have.

I’ve still been a little scattered art-wise. I’m thinking of restricting myself to one or two styles for the rest of the year. That’s what Carla Sondheim did and it seems to be working for her. I can see why it’s hard for people to follow what I’m doing when it’s an acrylic painting one day and a totally different style of computer illustration the next. Do any of the rest of you have trouble like that? I just have so many things I love and I jump from one to the next to the next.

In other news, I still have the original charge for $50 on my Visa card for the DPI magazine. No shipping charges have been added and no emails to suggest they shipped. Guess it’s wait and see.

My mother is vacationing in  Palm Springs this week - only a one hour drive from her house actually, but it is a change of pace. She’s making me jealous because Palm Springs/Rancho Mirage is one of my favorite places. There’s a wonderful street there with an grassy island in the middle and all the way along it there are fun sculptures. Coda Gallery, one of my all time favorite craft galleries is there and so are a number of j.jill type stores. I think it’s about time for my husband and I to take a vacation. He’s had some heath issues this year taking up his vacation time, but he’s been given a clean bill of health at this time so maybe it’s time to start thinking of a trip. We definitely should at least explore the Hil Country more.

I.must.have.DPI. Really. I have heard nothing but good things about DPI magazine. From Taiwan, it’s an art, graphic design, animation and toy magazine. Glossy and beautiful and full of artists you don’t see often in American magazines.

So, how do you get one? That’s the tricky part. I emailed them a few months ago to ask if I could make an order to be sent to the US and received not a single word of a reply. So I assumed I was out of luck. Then my husband visited Singapore (and S. Korea) and I asked him to please please keep an eye out for it, but alas, it was not to be found in Borders Singapore nor the Japanese bookstore nearby.

Not to be deterred, when I saw that Anna Ventura was in the latest issue, I thought I’d make another try. I also saw that someone from the magazine left a comment on her blog so I took that as a good sign that someone there speaks a bit of English.

First I went to the site with Chinese translator software running. I actually got everything in the cart and got to the payment part. It connects you to a separate service for credit card processing and that site refused the connection. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! But lo and behold I found a different page to order through and I gave it a try. I got an automatic order confirmation, so I’m holding my breath to see if I get a real person to tell me shipping cost or just to send them. I don’t really care about the shipping cost. They would be be birthday present (next week). The currency works out to $6 per issue without shipping. I expect the shipping will be quite expensive as a year’s subscription sent to the US is $300. I think that’s for 12 issues but I’m not sure. This order should be cheaper since they are not being sent one at a time. If you want to see some more dpi goodness, try these links:

• Small Object - scroll to the bottom
• Joe Bling
  
• Helium Cowboy’s blog
• Kelmurphy
• Alex Noriega
• Nate Williams
• Jill Bliss
• Crick Skipper - has a link to the pdf file of his article
• lili piri
• and my favorite, the wonderful Amy Sol

If my order goes through, I ordered an extra copy of the latest issue (Anna Ventura’s) for a blog giveaway. Stay tuned!

Update: I just got a call from my credit card company to see whether I really made a payment today for $51 to Taiwan. Well, yes indeed I did! Let’s see what happens next, because that’s the amount of the order without shipping. No emails from DPI yet besides the automated confirmation.

Here’s what’s on the “easel” right now. My husband handed me a Coke Zero which got just a wee bit too cold in the top of the mini refrigerator. I opened it a little too near my blank watercolor paper and ended up with a fine spray of Coke all over the page. I’ve heard of tea-dyeing, but not Coke dyeing! I had been planning a drawing on white paper, and considered for a moment being upset about the whole thing, but quickly made lemonade of the lemons and got out my favorite watercolors and oil pastels and covered the paper with salmon pink happiness. Now my problem is with the girlie’s clothes. I keep trying to put her in something fashionable but she insists on a somewhat frumpy mushroom-inspired style.

I had a pretty relaxing weekend around the house. Spent Friday running around to my favorite health food store for cinnamon pita chips and herb popcorn, then came the long-awaited trip to the new Border’s Books in the area where I bought the latest Barbara Kingsolver nonfiction Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - A year of food life. Then I was free to spend the weekend reorganizing my studio. My studio, alas, is not like all those pretty pretty studios you see in the magazines and the lovely blogs. We live in a regular house but we live as if we live in a loft so we spend most of our time living in my studio (which was “the game room” in new house speak). When we first moved in, I had the whole room to myself and my husband used the media room and his office nearby. But we are used to being in the same room so we moved a big comfy chair in the studio for him. So then there were two chairs and the little TV in addition to my art desks and supplies. Then a few weeks ago, he decided to be a model shipwright building wooden sailing ships. And guess where the best light is in the house? Yep, my studio. So I gave him one of my tables under the window - I love him and it’s nice to have him close. I fear though, that I am not the sort to ever have the studio that will be featured in a magazine.

My other jumbled thoughts are about envy. Primarily city envy. Maybe I’m just not used to Austin yet, but I haven’t found a lot of my sort of art here. I’m sure I need to explore more, but I think that a lot of what I love is based on beach communities. I lived in San Diego most of my life and shopped at Gallery Alexander, Gallery 8, Many Hands Gallery, La Jolla FiberArt, etc. There was a certain bright and pastel colored whimsical aesthetic there that suited me more than say, the Southwestern Style or the Alternative Craft movement which is what Austin is known for. I love a lot about Austin, but I’m not sure my people are here, if you know what I mean. But coastal areas are sooo expensive. We are in an interesting situation in that we can move any of about 12 locations in the country that have offices of the company that my husband works for. As long as he is within about 20 minutes of one of the offices, they don’t mind which one. Problem is I hate cold weather, and the company doesn’t have any really tropical type locations. No Florida, no Southern California. We could go to Portland where there is a thriving art community, which Kelly Rae makes sound wonderful (!), but again, all that cloudy weather would do me in I think. I lived in the Bay Area for a number of years and was depressed like a Seasonal Affective Disorder thing. As soon as the sun comes out and there is warmth on my skin I am instantly happy again. I miss the palm trees and tropical flowers of San Diego. Today, I just don’t know where I fit in. Where is my place?

I’m told I cried as a child when my mother tried to teach me to crochet. Unfortunately, I generally got my own way and I was never taught. I know it’s not possible to be a master of every craft or even have time to try them all, but this hat sure makes me want to try crocheting again.

This hat is by Helle Jorgensen. Visit her blog or her flickr account for some amazing things crocheted out of recycled plastic bags.

My mother, Valerie Dawson, is a master crocheter. She really can do anything. If she’s seen it or thought of it, she can make it. I’ll have to post a few of the things she’s made me - in my post on Stitch Austin, she crocheted the kitty ears I’m wearing. She is really amazing. I told her to submit one of her crocheted necklaces to Belle Armoire for their jewelry publication. She wasn’t sure they’d want to use it, but I was pretty sure they would. They didn’t end up publishing it in the jewelry publication, but it is in the current issue on newstands now May/June 2007.

Here’s a scarf she made for me:

She’s very prolific. She made about 7 scarfs that day and sent me photos of all of them asking me which I wanted! Here’s a what-do-they-call-this? A shrug?

She’s moving to Austin at the end of the month and maybe I’ll try to learn from her again - without crying this time. Here’s a necklace - maybe the same one she has in Belle Armoire?

I have to go pick up that issue on Friday.I wrote a little something for her birthday that just got published in Letters to My Mother - in bookstores for Mother’s Day.She doesn’t have a website yet. We’ll be working on that when she moves here. Isn’t she great?

This is what I am working on this week.

The old:

The New:

Trying to make my web page look just a wee bit less like it was designed by a 1st grader. I can write html by hand in notepad, but it’s none too fancy when I finish. So my challenge was this: How do I get a reasonable web page? My first inclination, even though I am a cheapskate, was the do-it-yourself-and-throw-money-at-it solution. Buy Macromedia Dreamweaver for $500 and learn the program and make a website. It would sure be handy to know a program like that, wouldn’t it? But this year, I am set on improving my Photoshop and learning Illustrator and I really don’t need another complicated $500 program to learn. Besides, for $500 I could pay someone to make me a simple web site and I could be painting or drawing. Life is short.

Then I considered a fancy flash template. I was seduced by the gimicks. What I didn’t realize at first is that you need to buy this template and then you still have to buy Dreamweaver to personalize it. So now I need a $60 template, a $500 program plus a flash add-on of some sort and then I need to learn flash on top of Dreamweaver. Might as well give up on making art this year. Geez.

So, I looked around at templates I could work with. Something that I could take into notepad and actually understand it. And lo-and-behold, there are open source sites that allow you to use their templates for free with only a link. So I spent an hour at Open Web Design looking at the possibilities and was able to find a workable template. It’ll still take me about 20 hours total since I have to redo all my art into the right sizes for the template. I also had to test colors in the style sheet (with the help of Web Developer - an add-on for Firefox). All the original colors were earth tones which wouldn’t work for me. But in the end, after one week, I should have a usable web page and can get back to creating.

I’d love to hear how other artists handle the internet world, where we are expected to know Photoshop, web design, etsy, eBay, blogging software, shopping cart technology and still have time to create.