Aardvark Art Glass

I got sick again last week. I got my first post-treatment cold in late November. I didn’t mention it because, who cares, really? After being sick so much last year the anticipation of getting that first cold is harder to deal with than the cold itself. Then last week I caught a flu or something, got sick again and it really did not bother me. I figure my immune system is probably less than it should be and I’ll probably catch whatever is going around for a while. In short, I think I’m getting good at being sick. It used to really piss me off but now, not so much.

Anyway, what was unusual about this bout was that 1) It was kind of mean and 2) Don had the same thing at the same time so we got to stay at home together and watch daytime television. It was much better than being sick by myself. For one or more reasons, fever and large doses of Ny Quil among them but also because Don was there,  I was laughing my ass off about everything almost all of the time. The laughter triggered explosive bouts of coughing, followed by body spasms and raspy wheezing. I figured that whatever was so goddamn funny when I sick might prove useful later on so I kept a notebook by the couch and chronicled my brilliant narcotic ideas.

Well, that notebook idea turned out to be pure gold. I’m going to show you a little comic I drew that made me laugh so hard and so long that I coughed up absolutely everything that was in my lungs. Backstory: Food did not taste very good when I was sick so I wasn’t eating much-I subsisted for many days on Ny Quil and a large bag of sour gummy bears. Then on Wednesday or so Don made a can of Chunky Clam Chowder and I decided to share it with him. It was awful, and it made Don pine for the clam chowder at his place of employment which he claims is the best clam chowder around. “There’s always a little sand in it,” he said. We agreed that a bit of sand is a hallmark of great chowder, or at least one that contains real clams.

I asked him if he knew how the sand got into the chowder. He knew, but he seemed to want to hear my theory anyway so I drew the following cartoon:

The original drawing was almost illegible so I had to re-draw it on the computer. I think I’m almost done laughing at that, now.

WordPress sent me an end of year blogging summary the other day informing me that I wrote 17 posts in the past year. As they want me to continue my subscription, it was a very supportive email replete with virtual exploding fireworks and lots of detailed information about which posts were the most popular and who commented most frequently. (In case you’re wondering, Phil and Jean commented more than anyone and a post I wrote at least three years ago about Pop Tarts was the most viewed.) The staying power of Pop Tarts. Just a reminder that you never know what people are going to find interesting. Hopefully, I’ll top 17 posts this year and WordPress will be really proud of me.

But back to the New Year thing…last weekend at yet another party we picked a New Year name. Also at the party-this is news-my longtime pal Bob Foster married his longtime companion Margaret. Here’s a picture of Bob begging Margaret to come out of the bathroom:

And here’s a picture of the happy couple

As weddings and parties go, it was a good one. Don preformed the ceremony and I, as maid of honor, gave Margaret the option of either having T-Bone attend the ceremony or having dancing cigarette box attend the ceremony. She choose T-Bone. Who wouldn’t? I thought it would be a good idea, in lieu of a throw-able bouquet and also because no one else in the room had any interest in getting married, for Margaret to throw one of my old wigs to the waiting crowd behind her. So during the vow exchange I held a wig in one hand and a live hedgehog in the other. Later, when the wig was thrown, people scattered and it landed silently on the floor. Everyone applauded and that startled T-Bone who got all wiggly. I had to put him in his cage after that. Such was the wedding of Bob and Margaret.

After all that, while everyone was still around to put their two cents in, we decided that 2012 was going to be the year of Tuckin’ Yer Nuggets and Weathering the Storm. It’s good advice for any year, really.

As you may have noticed, I have become very comfortable with not writing the blog these days. Not that one activity excludes the other but I’ve been busy trying to make the store go which involves waiting for people to come in while farting around with things. Because I had that nifty port around, I learned about silver soldering. What I learned was it’s really hard to do well and also that I am chicken to solder actual silver. Missy has a lot of scrap copper so I cut out a hedgehog:

When I solder him to the brass I will have something. The thing about learning something new is you have to be proficient at a lot of different things in order to make something work, or at least be confident that you can do it again or fix it if you fuck it up at some point. So it’s intimidating, the metal work.

One thing I am pretty good at is stamping snarky things into copper:

I’ve found that the brilliant thoughts really start flowing and my stamping gets better after a cocktail or two. Is there a market for un- inspirational copper tags? Maybe well find out in 2012.

What else to show…in Nov. I spent about a day making pill bottle lights for around the front window:

That was the extent of my holiday decorating. There is a shop up the street that, to borrow a phrase from John Stewart, looks like the yule tide version of “Hoarders”.  I’m not a crab about the holidays, and that shop’s decorations are very pretty, but, because I am lazy and I’m short on storage space I tend toward hanging decorations that can stay up at least until Valentine’s Day, if not all year long.

Speaking of the year and everything, we had a very successful New Year’s party the other day. No one remembers for sure but I think last year, because I was sick and all, we broke with tradition and did not come up with a name for the New Year. The source of the confusion on this topic is the loss of the Grand Record of year names (a pizza box lid from 200o-something with a list of all the names on it). I don’t know…it might have gotten thrown out in one of the great junk purges of 2011, of which there were two. I can’t be expected to keep track of every box lid with writing on it. Anyway, because the tradition continues, I’ve re-constructed the list from past blog posts and also from memory. I’m putting it here where we can have it for reference without picking up a grimy piece of cardboard:

2006 The Year of No Consequences

2007 The Year of the Apocalopse

2008 Year of Curbing Your Inner Dumbass

2009 Year of Blessed Traps

2010 Year of Miracles of Little Consequence

2011 ?

Now that I think about it, 2011 might have been the Year of Polishing the Turd. That sounds familiar to me, though that might be because it is one of the phrases I stamped into copper the other day. Hmmm. Anyway, a by-product of Saturday’s festivities is a long list of names for 2012 from which we have to pick one and then get on with our lives. We’ll probably do that next weekend, so I might have that to post, at least.

I was a dancing box of cigarettes for Halloween.

Sometimes, I was a peeing box of cigarettes. Had I known the best shot of me would have been the one on the toilet, I would have worn black underwear. When I get dressed, I never think about people seeing my underwear. I think that’s normal and ultimately a really good way to prepare one’s self for the day. At least there weren’t any holes in this pair.

I got the idea for this costume from this You Tube video. I chose Marlboro cigs over Old Gold because the box design is much simpler and I only had 4 days to make it. This project is noteworthy for several reasons:

1. I got an idea.

2. I decided to make a complex Halloween costume (I have not done this during my entire adult life.)

3. I made the costume all by myself.

4. The costume is very well-constructed and, unlike my awesome sandwich board,  painted exactly the same on both sides. I can’t remember ever painting anything the same way twice for any reason. I’m glad I got over that because I really need to finish that sandwich board–two-sided sandwich board, you got something. One-sided sandwich board, you got dick, and also a lot of people asking you why your sign is painted on only one side.

The event that spurred the creation of this get-up was an annual party put on in part by my shop mate, Missy, at the Howard Academy For Metal Arts in Stoughton, WI. The Howards do not mess around with the party throwing so I didn’t want to mess around with the costume wearing. And I figure dancing cigarettes are entertaining enough that they can be worked into other events throughout the year-New year’s for sure. I don’t know…I have to figure out something because I don’t have the room to store that thing.

 It’s

It’s my port-the one that was in my chest for a year. It was removed this morning! The thing probably cost a couple of grand so I figured after it was removed I’d take it home and turn it into the most expensive piece of jewelry I’ve ever made.

Isn’t it brightly colored? Isn’t that weird? I’m sure I saw a picture of it before they put it in but I must not have been paying attention. Purple and blue were a surprise, but, you know what’s really surprising, gross, but kind of cool about port removal? OK, the purple thing was down near my boob and the blue tube was attached to my jugular vein. When they took out the port, they made an incision near the purple part, lifted that out and then gently pulled the tube out or off of my jugular vein, which was a good 6 inches away. And that worked-they didn’t need to stitch the vein closed or anything-it just came right off and I didn’t bleed to death. They applied pressure, of course, but I was expecting something more involved. That blows my mind. It’s almost as though they could have tied one end of the port to a doorknob and then slammed the door-that’s how simple it was. I have to say the disengaging of the tube freaked me out, but by the time I realized that was what they were doing the procedure was mostly over. I’m glad I didn’t ask a lot of questions ahead of time, because that would have made me anxious.

So, no more treatment. Anymore. For real. I have to get back to work.

I finally painted a sandwich board for in front of the land store:

It took me 16 years to get that done-partly because I’m lazy but also because I already use two open signs and feel that any one who questions my openness probably isn’t all that interested in coming in anyway. For the past several weeks, though, there has been extensive facade renovation to the buildings that flank mine. All the activity as well as the ratty-ness of my facade compared to the new ones makes me look a lot less open, even with signs to the contrary. So I finally made a sandwich board, just like a real business. I hope it works, because there isn’t anymore room for signage on the front of my building.

In other news: Gallery Night was uncommonly successful. It’s probably because I bought this on Etsy:

Knotworkshop makes these nifty coffee and travel mug cozies that are highly amusing and don’t cost an arm and a leg. I had a banner day street vending the first time I incorporated this cozy into my reality- I think it’s because previously no one realized what a fucking professional I was. It’s an easy mistake to make–when I’m vending, I don’t feel especially professional when I have to clean bird shit off my inventory at the end of the day. Since I’m superstitious about totems and rituals that improve sales, I think the cozy is helping. Get one for yourself and try it out.

Hello everyone. I’m back at the blog now. I got my last Herceptin treatment on September 20 and things are just ducky. This week marks the first 3 week period in a year that I haven’t had to go to the doctor and have a $6000. bag of chemicals pumped into my chest area. Happy like a clam, I am. Not that Herceptin is horrible or anything, I’m just glad that treatment isn’t hanging over my head any more.  I get my port removed on October 20 and then I’m all done.

So, meanwhile, back in real life we’ve got Gallery Night coming up on Friday, Oct. 14. I bring it up because at the center of that whole thing are the paper pieces I’ve been working on with my mom since the Spring and I want people to look at them as well as (also on display) that weird cancer necklace I made.  Here’s a picture of the shop:

The MMOCA scheduled Gallery Night on  Homecoming weekend this time around so it should be pretty busy. The city will be full of people, for what that’s worth. Here is  a map of the participating venues for you to peruse. As you can see Aardvark is the only participating gallery on East Johnson. Wah. The seclusion makes me sad, but, it might bode well for people who want a parking spot.

In addition to my stuff, which is always here, I’ll have metal work from Erika Koivunen and some very amusing pieces for sale that I’ve purchased from artists on Etsy. If it isn’t raining, Don and the gang may be playing live music out front and I’ll be doing bead demos from 7-9pm. As usual we’ll have food from the Honey Bee Bakery  and delicious liquid refreshments. My mates from Lost School should be hanging around so if you enjoy talking to art people, you’re welcome to hang out and enjoy their company while you have a beer. Sounds like fun, yes? Why walk from gallery to gallery when we’ve got the best one?

Hope to see you there!

Here’s a true story:

This fellow, Jeff, is a friend of my vending partner, Katy. Jeff mans the Veterans for Peace table near the Capitol, across the street from my stand. Several weeks ago Jeff had an unpleasant encounter with an unusually vocal and batshit End of the World proselytizer. While encroaching on Jeff’s space, the proselytizer was was screaming about whatever it is they scream about. Words were exchanged, etc. After the incident, Jeff went home and modified his “This is What Democracy Looks Like!” sign to read “This is What Going Off Your Meds Looks Like!” Every Saturday, Jeff brings the sign with him in the hope that, when the preacher comes back, he can stand next to him holding the sign while the guy is screaming. Such dedication to what would be very funny joke. I hope the guy comes back soon. Certainly he wasn’t raptured after hassling the Veterans For Peace. Straight to hell with people who do that, I say.

So, guess what? It’s really hot here. I bet no one has discussed that lately. We made an air-conditioned zone in our living room within which I built a nest made out of pillows and blankets so I can sleep with the a/c and the fan blasting on me. T-Bone moved downstairs, too, since it’s over 90 degrees in the upstairs bathroom.  About the only time I’m outside is when I walk to work or walk T-Bone around the back yard. Here is another picture of the boy:

The foliage in the back yard is dead, pretty much, except around the tractor tires where the hedgehog likes to dig with his tiny paws and also where I like to sit on my ass and pant. Such is the Summer time. Enjoy it while it’s here.

In case you want to buy some earrings that will look good on you as the Earth hurtles into the sun, I have the store open. Back in the day, excessive heat and humidity used to make my front door swell so, even if you wanted to, you couldn’t get in here unless you yanked really hard on the handle. That was too much effort for some people who would just yank once and leave. The good news is that over the past 15 years the building has settled into the ground and the door swings freely now. The floor lists dramatically to the right, but I can deal with that. Anyway, if you come in this week  I’ll give you a bottle of water and a Twinkie that we have leftover from an impromptu Open House we held last Saturday. If you don’t come in it’s no big deal-I can save the Twinkies for Gallery Night in October.

I was just sitting at the computer drinking grapefruit juice and minding my own business when I noticed that there was a giant white moth in my drink.

Something to write about! Finally!

Since the cap was on the bottle, I have no idea how that guy got in there or, more importantly, how he got in there without me seeing him go in. Usually I’m pretty tuned in on anything hovering around my drink. It’s also notable that this was probably the first time in my life that I put a cap back on a beverage that I was in the process of drinking. Could he have been on the underside of the lid when I put it back on? I always knew lids were a bad idea.

I wanted to save my beverage so I fished out the moth with a plastic spoon. The extraction took a surprisingly long time and it was stressful for both of us. Due to his hearty constitution and mysterious, bottle entering qualities, I named the moth Miracle. His antennae were at haft-mast when I pulled him out but he was still alive.

I released him back out to the wild where, doubtless, a bird will enjoy him especially now that he’s infused with delicious 20% grapefruit juice and sugar. Better luck next life, moth. I hope you didn’t lay eggs in my juice because I’m drinking the rest of it.

Meanwhile, everything is going well here in Aardvark Land. Business is picking up so I feel like I have a job for the first time since last year. I made a cast paper piece using skin shed by Lucy, my beautiful iguana.

The dragonflies are the skin part. Here’s a detail:

Neat, yes? I think this is my favorite piece so far.

I also framed that cancer necklace thing I was working on for months:

I used several of the beads I was gifted last winter-Beau Barret’s heart, Nancy’s boobie bead and Patty Lankensmith’s crazy pendant, which is a glass mouth inside a metal cage. That one perfectly represents the metallic taste you get in your mouth from chemo. And it’s cool-looking. My beads include chemo monster, radiation zombie and sun, needle biopsy tumor, happy tumor, sentinel lymph node, yeast infection and red and white blood cells. It’s pretty impressive. Also impressive is the fact I finally posted a picture.

Well, I have to get back to work. If more bugs get in my juice, you’ll be the first to know.

I’ve been waiting to have a picture of something to post here. Not much has been going on. Business is at a slow crawl. I started doing some wholesaling to the Cave of the Mounds gift shop. That might be the best gig ever. Kudos to the gift shops that buy local artwork at a decent price. You don’t see that everyday.

In other news: I am obsessed with T-Bone now. He’s always been pretty great but recently I found out he likes going outside and digging in the grass. Outside used to freak out all of our other hedgehogs, but T-Bone just sniffs and digs and sits on his ass right out in the open. If you wait long enough he’ll make a nest and go to sleep in the Creeping Charlie. Sometimes he sniffs with such vigor I can’t get a picture of his face in focus.  So, we’ve been doing that every day, going outside, and it is a blast. I want to take him down by the lake next and see if he likes that. I would like that, very much.

Boy, I sure wish I could think of something to say. My brain is working really well right now. That’s news. Unfortunately, I have nothing to chat about so I can’t dazzle you with my newly-found thinking powers. Maybe next time.