This Week's Favourite Things! November 17th - November 23rd 2014

It's been a long week of glazing all sorts of stuff, and taking a lot longer than planned! But hopefully by next week I'll be able to do a firing. 

This week's list:

1. This song "The Snake" by Al Wilson, which was actually written in 1963 by civil rights activist Oscar Brown. 


Here are the lyrics:

On her way to work one morning
Down the path along side the lake
A tender hearted woman saw a poor half frozen snake
His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew
"Oh well," she cried, "I'll take you in and I'll take care of you"
"Take me in oh tender woman
Take me in, for heaven's sake
Take me in oh tender woman, " sighed the snake

She wrapped him up all cozy in a curvature of silk
And then laid him by the fireside with some honey and some milk
Now she hurried home from work that night as soon as she arrived
She found that pretty snake she'd taking in had been revived
"Take me in, oh tender woman
Take me in, for heaven's sake
Take me in oh tender woman, " sighed the snake

Now she clutched him to her bosom, "You're so beautiful," she cried
"But if I hadn't brought you in by now you might have died"
Now she stroked his pretty skin and then she kissed and held him tight
But instead of saying thanks, that snake gave her a vicious bite
"Take me in, oh tender woman
Take me in, for heaven's sake
Take me in oh tender woman, " sighed the snake

"I saved you," cried that woman
"And you've bit me even, why?
You know your bite is poisonous and now I'm going to die"
"Oh shut up, silly woman," said the reptile with a grin
"You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in
"Take me in, oh tender woman
Take me in, for heaven's sake
Take me in oh tender woman, " sighed the snake

When I saw the lyrics online I noticed the song is similar in theme to this poem I wrote in the spring "Lucy and the Snake".  Must be a lot of people running around who have been bitten by snakes!

2. WestCote Bell Pottery! In LaHave.  This is a beautiful artist run studio, right on the ocean, full of really great work.

3.   I thought I'd watched everything on psychopathy this year but here's a good video I listened to while glazing:  

"How to Deal With a Psychopath" 

4.  Classic "Spinach Dip" only instead made with Kale and mostly greek yogurt.  The recipe I ended up with was a LOT of steamed chopped kale - probably equivalent to at least 3 packets of frozen spinach, 4 cups of organic greek yogurt, 1 cup 1/2 fat mayo, 1 big pouch vegetable soup mix (eg, the size that makes 4 cups of soup), 1 big pouch leek soup mix,  bunch of greek onions.  Really good! Though next time I'd try it with onion and garlic powder instead of soup mix.  awesome use for the bags of kale we steamed, froze and put by this year.

This Week's Favourite Things! November 10 - November 16th.

1.  The talk by Vandana Shiva at Dalhousie last week.  It isn't online yet that I can see but was excellent and optimistic.  She pointed out that if everyone everywhere would just switch to small farms, and small farming based communities a lot of the worlds problems would be solved immediately: fossil fuel depletion, climate change, economics, health, water shortages, pollution....  Why doesn't this happen already? Because of a handful of powerful Agribusiness companies that were formerly into weapons manufacturing that are now in bed with governments.  The talk validated some ideas I had in this draft 'Behavioural Ecology of Sociopaths and how to save the world' post.

2. This Australian radio interview with Richard Bach (link is to a youtube video).

3. This youtube video by Wayne Dyer about interpreting the Tao Te Ching

4.  The Tao Te Ching (full pdf)

5.  The new Mother Mother cd "Very Good Bad Thing".  awesome!

6. Cafe Chianti on Barrington Street in Halifax, it's really nice, run by the same chefs that cooked at Trattoria in Lunenburg.

Merry Creatures! November 14th 2014

The first batch of "Merry Creatures" one of a kind papier mache Christmas ornaments that I've made since 2007 are now at Jenny Jib.  

Each ornament is initialed and has a "Merry Creatures" label with its name - the labels are made out of recycled cereal boxes etc that were fed through an inkjet printer.  The Merry Creatures are made out of recycled Chronicle Heralds, masking tape, cornstarch paste and sometimes wire for the armatures.   Their gold coloured elastic cords are sculpted into them.  They're painted with professional quality acrylic paints and varnished with an acrylic varnish.  The early ornaments weren't documented, but from now on I'll be naming and photographing each Merry Creature, with posts indexed on this Merry Creatures page.

Audrey The Christmas Haddock $25

Mark the Christmas Piping Plover, $25

Jason the Christmas Piping Plover, $25

Doug the Christmas Piping Plover, $25

Mike the Christmas Piping Plover

Frank the Christmas Bluebird $25

Beatrix the Christmas Rabbit $25

Bill the Christmas Dinosaur $25

Alfred the Christmas Owl $30

Esther the Christmas Owl $25

Glenda the Christmas Octopus $35

Julia the Christmas Goose $25

Kim the Christmas Owl $30

Lucy the Christmas Cat $25

Oscar the Christmas Pig $25

There are 3 other Merry Creatures from this batch with pics that can be seen elsewhere on the blog:  2 Christmas Hockey Raccoons: Brendan and Nazem, and the second "My Little Lobster" Christmas Ski Jumper. 

Pulp Creatures November 14, 2014

These pieces are now at Jenny Jib and $45 each:


Deer John

Morgan Moose

My Little Lobster #2 - Christmas Ski Jumper

Here's the 2nd "My Little Lobster" - one of a kind papier mache lobsters.  This one's name is "Christmas Ski Jumper" and is also a Merry Creatures ornament.  

Christmas Ski Jumper wears a Santa hat and stripey scarf and likes to ski around on downhill skis holding his magic candy cane.

Christmas Ski Jumper is available as of this afternoon at Jenny Jib for $35!


Front view: 

Side view:

 

Hockey Raccoons

Here are the first ever papier mache "Hockey Raccoons".  Two "Pulp Creatures Raccoon Figurines" and two "Merry Creatures Hockey Raccoon Ornaments".

My husband (devout Habs fan) helped me make this video to celebrate.



Hockey Raccoons from Pulp Creatures on Vimeo.

All four of these raccoons will be available from Jenny Jib.  These are all one-of-a-kind hand sculpted, original art pieces which I made from recycled Chronicle Heralds, masking tape, cornstarch paste, painted with professional quality acrylic paints, and varnished with an acrylic varnish.  

They were inspired by The Raccoons television specials and cartoons I loved watching when I was growing up; eg, Raccoons on Ice.  In fact this show might be part of the reason I went into conservation biology; unfortunately there are a lot of "Cyril Sneers" in positions of power.

Here are some pics!

Andrei The Hockey Raccoon (Pulp Creatures)

Phil the Hockey Raccoon (Pulp Creatures)

Brendan the Christmas Hockey Raccoon  (Merry Creatures ornament)

Nazem the Christmas Hockey Raccoon (Merry Creatures Ornament)

This Week's Favourite Things! November 3rd - November 9th, 2014

This week's list is late and light where I've been painting up a storm, finishing up some Merry Creatures and Pulp Creatures, excited to bring back these labels for naming all the animals I make.  There will be a post or two or three coming about these, Hockey Raccoons and My Little Lobster #2.

1.  Videos by this actualized.org guy, especially these two:

How to Stop Being a Victim  



How to Stop Caring What People Think Of You




2.  All sorts of music by the The Doors and the Rolling Stones

3. Art by Lori McNee.  I've followed her Art Tips for awhile but only just looked at the artwork Lori does last week, it's really beautiful!

4. The discovery that my printer will print on bits of boxboard that I send through it for making tags for creatures, eg, cereal boxes, ziploc bag boxes.  Fun!

5.  This documentary about Andy Warhol; especially the bit in it about when he started saying "So What?" a lot.

“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, So what. That's one of my favorite things to say. So what.”
― Andy Warhol

 Part 1



Part 2

This Week's Favourite Things! October 27th - November 2nd 2014

1. Bad Mouth Soap.  Picked up a couple bars at Jenny Jib, so nice to find that some of these handmade soaps are made without palm oil! So many different kinds!  'East Coast Hangover' was really nice with a recipe including Propeller beer and ground up Just Us Coffee which actually makes a nice scrub 

 2.  Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work

3.  Youtube video. Wayne Dyer:  How God Tells You It's Time For A Change



4.  Spirit Science 26: The Big Picture















5.  James Altucher's Blog, which I found after reading an article on how he lost millions of dollars.  I like this post on How To Deal With Crappy People, and this quote from it: if you get into the mud with a pig, you get dirty and the pig gets happy.  I liked this post too: "It's your fault."