dupont mesa lignite

"A jug fills drop by drop." (Gautama Buddha)

Well, what a day.  I picked up the house early, walked the dogs at 7, back inside to gather some wits and some stuff and hit the studio early right after the drug store.  It was one of those days that I generated messes rather than cleaned up messes, but I did get some [ants hemmed in between appliquéing clams and mussels on a shirt.  Dropped stuff at Goodwill, changed my pin at the bank because I haven't used my debit card in a few weeks and FORGOT the number sequence after using it for several years.  Old age is hell,but pretty soon I won't even remember that.  I did remember to pick up a load of chicken parts to make the dog's soup.
Then the second photographer from the real estate company was due so I spent  time stashing stuff in the ovens, in the washer and dryer, all the closets, wherever the 'things of life' would fit.  A friend gave me a pumpkin with sunflowers in it, like a vase, and I love it in the middle of the table but it's too season-specific and I had to get it out of the frame so it's under the sink.  Other stuff was put in the car.  The dogs were relegated to the garage because I didn't have time to stick them in the studio.  And of course within  three minutes they set off the motion alarm in there and I couldn't get it off.  Very exciting and frustrating day, one thing after another.  
Never made it back for Round 2 at the studio-  the plan was that I would have to go back to pick up the dogs but that never happened.  

It’s not hard to imagine what Dutch design trio We Make Carpets, makes. True to their name, Marcia Nolte, Stijn van der Vleuten and Bob Waardenburg create carpets, but not they kind you’re thinking of. Mixing traditional pattern making with a critical view of consumer society, the group creates unusual carpets using everything from crayons and fireworks to cocktail umbrellas, plastic forks and dried pasta. From a distance we simply see a decorative carpet. But upon closer inspection the meticulously assorted collection of dense materials reveal themselves.

After 2 weeks of labor, Japanese artist and painter Yusuke Asai has completed a stunning mural that looks as though it was created with a large palette of brown paints, but in actuality he used 27 different types of soil. Since he was commissioned to do this work in Houston, Texas, Asai used dirt that was local to the area. He was expecting to have 10 different shades, but was pleasantly surprised with the 17 bonus soils, collected by students and volunteers, which included shades of red, green, and yellow. Although Asai has been doing this work since 2008, he has never worked with so many shades. He calls this piece “yamatane”, which is Japanese for “mountain seed”. Surprisingly, the only art training that Asai has had was a ceramics class in high school. When he realized he could not afford art school at a university, he studied folk and tribal art on his own at zoos and museums, and perfected his own techniques.

So, only a few hours to go wit this Halloween thing, barely got this doggie in on time.  Hope it washes off by morning, and nobody is caught in the bathtub with him.

And finally, we cannot move on to November without the requisite Squirrel Celebration-  it involved donning a very small pumpkin and carefully checking out the insides while scaring off smaller rodents.