Yesterday was a musical sort of day.
( Ramblings and pics )

Date:	2009-07-09 21:04
Subject:	running, running to stay in place
Security:	Public
Mood:	anxious

Wasn't it Alice who was told that she had to run faster and faster just to stay in the same place? That's what life feels like right now.

One fun part is getting to do drawings like this, though:

Thumbnail drawing for size, composition and personality for shannachie's painting.


A thumbnail for composition, clothes study for shannachie's painting.

shannachie's project is particularly enjoyable, though I'm juggling making time for it between other paying freelance work (which is a lot less fun, but helps pay bills). I'll be going on to drawing tighter drawings and doing color roughs next.

I seem to be juggling ever more projects these days, trying to make more money with fewer resources.

Almost every spare moment is given to making things to sell in my Etsy store, though my freelance art projects are piling up as well. The boys told me that I was the hardest working person in the whole town. Which really can't even be true, but it's hard to argue with their perceptions. And scheduling what's work and what's spare is becoming an ever-grayer area as the spare side of all my projects starts making some money as well.

Paul still doesn't have a regular job, though he too is freelancing these days. I've been applying for full time in house jobs as well, though I have not had any takers so far. Obviously. I've applied for a number of jobs lately that I could do and do well, but I haven't even gotten any nibbles for possible interviews. There are a lot of hungry artists out there and it's not a good time to be a working artist. And huh, all my working experience and life has been spent doing, well, art, so I have very little else on the resume as far as transferable job experience. It's like a Catch-22; I guess I did too well as an artist for far too long to acquire any other significant job experience which I could translate into another kind of job. Not that I even want to, mind you, I love doing art. But it'd be nice to be given even a chance at a regular art job. Though there aren't many out there that haven't gone overseas, it seems.

What I really want is to stay home with the boys and keep freelancing, but we're getting down to the bone and something will have to give soon, we can't keep on in this holding pattern. I keep working more, working at lots of different things. Maybe in some ways it's so I won't have to stop and think or look at our situation, but durned if I haven't been making a bunch of fun cool things lately. It's like some added bonus that I can manage to sell some of them and it helps pay the bills. :)


And you know, aren't the beads pretty? How can I resist making pretty things?
www.artbeco.etsy.com

Date:	2009-07-04 11:50
Subject:	Happy Birthday, Paul! And Happy Fourth, all!
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

Paul and Jamie: Paul is the bigger kid on the left. Gotta love those plastic pants. ;)

Paul's birthday is today. Happy Birthday, crazy man. We met in college back in 1980. Seems like yesterday, but somehow here we are lo these many years later, still together, still in love, still silly and kidlike and he, at least, is still playing games. What did he want for his birthday? A family game day.
Happy birthday, Paul.
( Many funny pictures of Paul hide behind the curtain )

And recently.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Kwinn. Hope you make it to 100, surrounded by friends and family and lots of music and games.

Date:	2009-06-29 23:42
Subject:	Knitting for an audience...
Security:	Public
Mood:	anxious

I've been looking into various alternate bits of possible income streams. Well, trickles, honestly. I'm taking in various freelance art projects, I'm trying to get the Etsy goodies to take off in some modest fashion, and now I've gone and opened the door for designing knitting patterns for a knitting shop up in Oakland. The owner is a designer herself and is looking for designers willing to work up fresh patterns for her shop to sell in the store as well as online, and ultimately to use for a book of patterns. I went last Friday and had an interview with her and brought along a bin of knitted goodies as well as a rather reluctant Casey.

( I really may need my head examined... )

Date:	2009-06-25 21:01
Subject:	State of the meltdown
Security:	Public
Mood:	indescribable

The flowers in the front yard are blooming. I went out and watered yesterday. It's been warm but not stiflingly hot. Sometimes I think getting out and watering is all that keeps me sane.
( Read more at your own risk )


The boys and the dog are having a really good time, at least. Lots of time off and walks and fetching of sticks. Dogs and boys and sticks all go together really well.

Little pleasures. Little things shall keep me sane.
I hope.

Date:	2009-06-15 18:58
Subject:	Life happens
Security:	Public
Mood:	determined

Taken last Saturday at the San Francisco Folk Music Club's Festival. A free get together with lots of classes, jams and concerts. Lots of amazing musicians.
( more musings )

Date:	2009-06-05 15:10
Subject:	Boys, D & D and Etsy
Security:	Public
Mood:	busy
Music:	Shrek Super Slam

I ran away this morning for a bit after dropping off the boys at school. I went chasing the light on the nearby hills. They're all brown and fuzzy looking.

Life is hectic; Paul has spent this week taking an on-line training course in some arcane aspect of programming for Windows with the hope, I think, that it will make him more marketable. He seems to feel it's been worthwhile. And hopefully the job hunting will continue apace. He has several companies who are interested in further interviews; one is in the north bay here and one is in Seattle. They're talking of flying him up there for interviews later this month. We'll see what happens...

I've been busily working on some freelance projects and filling in every spare minute making goodies for my Etsy shop. I'm having a good time making new things.
( Chat and goodies behind the cut )

Date:	2009-05-21 16:55
Subject:	Etsy, Life and Logos
Security:	Public
Mood:	frustrated

Amythyst Rose, inspired by mdlbear. :)

So I've posted a bunch more things over on my little Etsy shop. It's at http://artbeco.etsy.com; I forgot to post the link before, which just shows how tired I am. Or something. There are a bunch of photo cards, sets of cards and other things, along with knitting goodies and art cards and such.
( Goodies behind the cut. Aw, you know you want to look... )

Date:	2009-05-13 21:00
Subject:	tortured creativity
Security:	Public
Mood:	thoughtful
Music:	Woodland Dream, Dave and Tom

My friend pafuts has been writing a series of essays on her process of healing and growing and becoming her own person. It's a fascinating read, well written and painfully honest and brave.



( thoughts on creativity and all that stuff )

Even the cat is reading these days.


Roses for Mother's Day.

So the boys each gave me a hand-made card for Mother's day.
Here is Riley's:
To Mom
From Riley K.
Topic: My Mother
Topic Sentence: This tells how good a person my mother is. My mother is a very great artist. My mother is a very kind person and can play harmonica very well. My mother has lots of knowledge when it comes to animals. My mom has sold art cards she made herself.

Here is Casey's:
My Mother
I like my mother because she is smart, kind, a good drawer and a great friend. I also like my mom because she does the dishes, cleans the cat box, calms me down and loves me.
from Casey.

Well damned if those don't really say it all. ;) My life summed up in a few terse sentences. Could be worse.

Okay, I confess. When I read these on Mother's Day they made me get all choked up. Not that that's hard, of course, but they did. And we all laughed so hard at the 'cleaning the cat box' line.
I love my guys.
*sigh*

Date:	2009-05-06 22:40
Subject:	Etsy, work prospects and avid 8-year-old reading matter
Security:	Public
Mood:	accomplished

So I have gone live over at Etsy: http://artbeco.etsy.com
I have some artsy and craftsy bits up for sale over there, though not as much or as many or as pricey as one might expect. I'm mostly doing small scale items at reasonable prices, on the theory that with this economy, let's be honest, people are not going to splurge on big art prints or whatnot. So there are tiny art prints instead. ;)

( Musings about life and such )

Date:	2009-04-26 21:03
Subject:	music and books
Security:	Public
Mood:	good

I wanted to say thanks to everyone for sending me comments and all after my last whiny post; when I logged on a day or so later it made me all verklempt and emotional to see all of your kind and supportive comments. Thank you. :)



Paul took this, the sneaky devil. He was messing about while I was working and ended up asking me how to work my camera. Subtle he ain't. :)

So we went to the 'Sunday Salon' today put on by our Unitarian group; they have a talent show sort of event every year as a fund-raiser, and Paul played a couple of tunes, I played along with one, and Casey made his performing debut, playing piano on two pieces that he'd memorized. These were 2 classical pieces he'd been learning in his piano lessons. He was quite chuffed afterwards because he didn't mess up in any way; he played perfectly, with dignity and great concentration, much the way he goes through gymnastics competitions. He couldn't help wondering afterwards how he did compared to most of the other performers, so we were honest and kind with him, I think, and he was well pleased with the whole thing.

When Riley quit gymnastics we told him he'd have to do something else during that time to help out, and so I have drafted Riley into being my apprentice to help me make things to sell on Etsy; he's been learning about making art cards and prints and sewing things; I'm planning on teaching him how to use the sewing machine next week, though we'll have to see how it goes. His fabric cutting is really abysmal, but he's surprisingly good at other things like putting jewelry pieces together, so maybe it'll teach us both some things, working together.

Riley is finishing up the last Harry Potter book and so we're looking into other books and series that he might like. Dave suggested Lois McMaster Bujold's series with the Warrior's Apprentice, and last week I got him the first book of the Inkheart series, since Riley loved the movie and the books are supposed to be much better than the disjointed movie.

Does anyone have more suggestions for books Riley might like? He's a fast reader, but I suspect that stories with themes that are too adult or have too much talking and not much action may not hold him; he is only 8 and isn't into girls and kissing and that sort of thing, though he got through those sections of Harry Potter with girls and dating and stuff that he said kind of dragged. ;)

Riley was quite upset when Hedwig got killed and then later Dobby got killed too, and this weekend he worked his way through Snape getting killed. He told me that they sure killed a lot of people in Harry Potter and why did so many people have to die? I said something about how they might have wanted to make it clear that the magic world wasn't all fun and games and life was tough and sometimes bad things happened to people, and he gave me The Look and told me, "Mom, J.K. Rowling wrote them and she could write anything she wanted. She made all those people die." And I said, "Well, you're right. Um." So then he said "I wouldn't have killed Hedwig and Dobby, though Hedwig I sort of understood because she got caught in the crossfire of a Killing Curse and that was just bad luck. But Dobby. Well, that was too much. How are we supposed to take that?!" I haven't heard his thoughts about Snape's death yet...

Tomorrow the boys start Star Testing, the state mandated testing scheme that's part of the whole 'no child left behind' malarkey. The teachers all hate it; we'll see how the boys do. It may be a week to take it easy on them with other things...

Date:	2009-04-22 22:27
Subject:	let the shadows fall behind
Security:	Public
Mood:	depressed

I haven't posted much recently.

( life and all that stuff )

Date:	2009-04-02 15:54
Subject:	Old movies and many questions
Security:	Public
Mood:	thoughtful
Music:	My Favorite Things

Who is she? I took this from an unlabeled yellowing photo at the Essanay Silent Film Museum in the Niles District near us, where Charlie Chaplin had his first film studio and theater.
( Read more )

Date:	2009-03-26 18:33
Subject:	Riley
Security:	Public
Mood:	thoughtful
Music:	Tom and Dave

So a few days ago Riley sat me down and we had a talk about him quitting gymnastics.

He told me very clearly, "Mom, I don't want to go anymore. You're spending all this money to send me to something I don't even like, so I'm going to quit. You keep worrying and fretting over the whole thing and it's totally unnecessary. You should just stop worrying about it and let me quit."

Ookay. It's hard to argue with him when he's so clear about the whole thing on so many levels. So I will let him quit.
( More musings on boys, and Riley in particular )

Date:	2009-03-17 22:36
Subject:	finances and hope
Security:	Public
Mood:	determined
Music:	crickets

An older pic of Taunya. I miss all of you guys out there.

So we're tightening the belt more around here. We're currently negotiating with our credit union to try to renegotiate our mortgage payments, and they seem quite willing to work with us to try to help us out, which is good.

We had to make the difficult decision about whether to sign up for Cobra, the health insurance extension program for people who've been laid off. We've avoided it for two months because it's so bloody expensive, hoping Paul would land a job with health coverage before we had to decide by Cobra's sign-up deadline to shell out a ton of money we don't have. In effect we've been doing without any health care or coverage and hoping like hell we wouldn't need it. So after much agonizing and searching other health providers and coming to the painful realization that Cobra was indeed the cheapest option that was reasonable, we went ahead and signed up. There are cheaper options out there, but then they don't cover prescriptions (a significant expense for us) and the kicker: they want lots of previous history and a listing of pre-existing conditions, and there's nothing quite like a previous diagnosis of cancer to make them sit up straighter and decide to jack up the prices on us. Anyway.

So after signing up, the very next day we are told by a friend that Obama has signed the stimulus bill, part of which will provide relief for families who are having to come up with those Cobra payments. The government will provide reimbursement to the insurance companies of up to 65% of the Cobra costs, so the insurance company is supposed to charge the families less. This starts next month, so it won't save us from the huge initial payment we'll have to make, but if we have to stay on it for several months it will help us significantly. You can read a bit more about the program here. This will allow us to actually have health coverage; we were seriously thinking we might need to do without, though the costs associated with my broken leg last summer pointed out to us a bit too painfully just how financially dangerous that could be for us.

So, while I'm sure people can and will argue that President Obama is spending too much, the program is going to make some smaller companies lay off more people and some go out of business and a lot of other gloom and doom, this particular program constitutes government spending that is very directly benefiting us, here and now. Yeah, us little working stiffs who are laid off and hurting for money to pay our bills. It is unprecedented for us as middle-class working folk to get this kind of help from our government; I cannot remember a single time since I have been an adult (or before) when the government reached out a helping hand in such a way for folks like us.

And yes, the big banks have their greedy bonuses for executives. The health insurance companies bill you more if you've had health problems, quibble over every small claim and bleed people dry, and they do it no matter who they hurt. They are the ones who should be reducing their demands, rather than the government stepping in and footing the bill for their insatiable greed. I hope there is a special hell reserved for these people who profit from others' misfortune. And they make me so almighty angry that I can't even express how offensive I find them. And god knows the government shouldn't have to be stepping in and using taxpayer money to foot the bill for their demands. People are arguing that the stimulus package is insane, that the Cobra funding is stupid, all sorts of things.
But.

But. If we can, step aside for a moment from political and monetary disagreements about how such problems should be handled. Right now, to me, it feels like I have been given a gift of not only a helping hand in this one matter, but a gift of hope, justified and repaid from last November's election. He promised to help the people of this country, and here it is actually happening in a real and concrete way for our little family.

It's amazing to me. I have never felt such direct benefit from the act of voting before.

I knew I had become extremely cynical about our government and whether the country could pull up out of the tailspin, but this small concrete example that directly impacts us gives me hope. Hope that things will improve, hope that there can be a new era, and hope that my small family can survive somehow.

Erica during her toastmistress concert. She did a lovely concert as well as doing a stellar job as toastmistress (despite later twisting her ankle, she kept going as mistress of toast). This will lead you to Erica's latest cd. Her cd is a lovely album that deserves more attention and recognition. I love her rich alto voice. :)

I've put up some actual Consonance photos on my Flickr site:
artbeco: Consonance 2009 will take you directly to my set of Consonance photos, or you can meander through my photostream stream by clicking on any photo, if you're interested. These are culled down a bit to the better shots (I have some truly blackmail-worthy photos of Kristoph now, which I have not posted because I want him to remain my friend, but I have kept them, heh). I didn't take as many photos as usual for a variety of reasons, and honestly the ones I got weren't up to my hopes and standards. I really need to study up more on how to take better shots under bad conditions. Musicians caught in bad light with ugly backgrounds with their mouths wide open, bellowing for all they're worth-- well, you get the idea. I have a lot of blackmail-worthy photos tucked away. (hee)

( More pics behind the curtain )

Date:	2009-03-11 14:48
Subject:	More pics from pre-Consonance, and life goes on
Security:	Public
Mood:	sick

Jeff with his cutaway Taylor.

More pics from Consonance posted to my Flickr site, in the Consonance 2009 set. Many more to come a bit later, including Mary's adventures with surfing. :)
( More pics and a quick update )

Paul has now delivered Erica and Mary safely to the hotel for Consonance, despite our best efforts to lose them and keep them for ourselves. It's been a fabulous week, at least from my perspective. We've sat around the kitchen table a lot drawing and crafting and gabbing (always gabbing a mile a minute) in between meals and jaunts out into the wider world. Yoda Bob Dog has two new friends that he constantly tries to get attention from.

We've gone to various places like Redwoods and Santa Cruz. Weather has been totally crazy between hail and torrential rain and fallen trees and mudslides and miraculous sunny periods which tend to occur when Mary wants to go on outdoor jaunts. We have concluded that the sunny weather follows Mary around like the eye of a hurricane...

Some pics here and more in my Flickr stream from our first outing to the Marine Reserve at Moss Beach. More will follow when I get a chance. :)
( more adventures and pics behind the curtain )

Date:	2009-02-25 18:52
Subject:	Artists in America. Or not.
Security:	Public
Mood:	distressed

It's been raining a lot and so the hills have turned that bright green that means it's spring. Of course by June they'll be brown again, but for now it's very pretty. The hills up above Fremont make the world look simpler, easier somehow. Wish it were more than an illusion.

( Status report on the job front and warning about a long-winded rant )