helena natal buss

To float like a cloud you have to go to the trouble of becoming one.  

 (Robert Genn, May 15, 1936 - May 27, 2014)

Sound familiar?

More time at the studio, the alligator got drawn out last night to scale and piles and piles of fabric are laid out next to the drawing for official 'try-outs'.  Ready to ROLL!  I'll go first thing in the morning and get it organized a bit more.  And I need to order a roll of Misty-Fuse before anything goes permanent.  I also finished (YEAAAA!) all the 16 frames for the prints-  I think arranging them 4x4 is the way to go so it will cover almost a 5' square, and whammo, there goes a whole wall.  It felt so good to get that project put away, tomorrow I'll wrap it all in brown paper and set it somewhere safe.

Today I went through the calendar and changed all my various appointments for me and the dogs to after Labor Day.  I am still having scheduling issues with getting quilts back to me, but I have time to get in touch and have them held.  And I found some figure drawing classes I can sign on for.  That will be between cleaning out a condo, getting it on the market AND finding a new smaller cheaper pied a terre, a mere place to keep the coffee maker and my heavy boots.  It will be a full 2 month load.

Shoot me now.

Hmmm.

Yipes, Stripes!

This is the colourful candy-striped land snail (Liguus virgineus), and it’s only found on Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba. For years its colourful shell made a popular souvenir for travellers visiting these Caribbean islands, but now a law forbids people from harvesting the shells and selling them.

Back in the day-  Fordite, also known as Detroit agate, is a beautiful stone and a wonderful relic of urban history. The extraordinary gem looks very much like a natural agate, rippling with layers upon layers of the most vibrant colours there are.

The stones were produced by car painting techniques that are no longer practiced – layered spray-painting by hand in automobile factories. This practice produced layers of enamel paint slag on the tracks and skids on which the painted cars and parts stood. As the painted cars were baked numerous times to dry and harden the paint, the overspray below them would also be baked repeatedly before eventually being removed.
Keen-eyed workers who recognized the aesthetic value of the dried paint stones collected and saved them until now, when this car painting practice no longer exists. Their history makes them almost as valuable as real gems.

And finally, some Paul Smith designed fabrics and clothing items-  all made of stripes!  I still like the shells best.

No Stripes.