A little overwhelmed, but not completely

That's what my studio (er, my countertop) looked like when I came home from Art & Soul Portland. It's worse now. But it's worse because I'm working on the artist book, so I've piled on other stuff that I might use and that I'm definitely going to use.

I'm not the neatest person, but I can only tolerate so much visual chaos. Then I have to clean up the mess, or set it on fire.

I'm a wee bit stressed for many reasons:
-- The Husband's birthday is this weekend. I've bought one present, but I need to get another, surprise present and wrap them.
-- His dad and stepmom are coming up for a fly-by. (They're not judgmental, and they stay in a hotel for the 24 hours they're up here. But no vacuum cleaner has disturbed our carpet in months. And we have a diaper pail near the front door.)
-- I've signed up to do the Holiday Craft Fair at work. That means I'm going to alter ten regular-sized composition notebooks, and ten more small ones. By November 29th.
-- I need to put together clever packaging for three other altered notebooks, so I can impress someone who might be interested in selling them in her shop. (My inside contact says that person's indicated it's all about the packaging.) I have a good idea, but I haven't done it yet.
-- I have a commission (my second!) that needs to be done. The client's very accommodating, but my sense of guilt... not so much.

And that doesn't include other things I should be doing, like:
-- Working out
-- Taking The Boy out more often, and setting up some play dates

OH CRAP. I just remembered my new niece's first birthday is coming up on November third. I need to send something!!!

Okay, now I'm going to do things completely out of a common-sensical, efficient order. Back to the artist book. I'm doing what I expect will be the hardest page -- maybe not technically, but the one that means the most and that I want to turn out the best. It's part of the chorus of "Someday":

We'll take a swim in the deep blue sea
I go to leave, but you reach for me

No pressure.

Name the 800-lb. gorilla!

So my coworker and I were talking the other day, and the topic of nicknames for mega-corporations came up. You know, the kinds of nicknames that ticked-off employees or devotees will come up with. For example, I've heard "Whole Foods" is often called "Whole Paycheck," 'cause that's what you pay to get all that gorgeous, ecologically-correct food. (I've only been in there a few times, and I'm always overwhelmed by the culinary seduction that pervades the joint.) Some other examples:

-- Nike => "Nike-stag" (rhymes with Reichstag), to describe the corporate headquarters
-- Disney's animation division => "Mauschwitz", courtesy of the laid-off animators during the 1990s. (No offense intended to those related to concentration camp survivors and inmates.)
-- Boeing => "Boring." (I didn't say they were all scintillating.)

There must be one for Microsoft, but I don't know it. The closest I've heard are the nicknames for the employees, who've been called "Microsofties" on a good day, and "Microserfs" when the subject of outsourcing comes up.

Do you work for a corporate behemoth, or live in a company town, with a great nickname? Let me know. I could send you some blog candy...

UPDATE: Found some on Wikipedia... there were a lot, but I'm only listing the ones I liked and didn't know before.

-- Bed Bath and Beyond=> Bloodbath and Beyond (now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!)
-- Starbucks=> Four-bucks, Bucks, Starby's
-- Kodak=> Great Yellow Father
-- Home Depot=> Home Despot (knew this one, but I like it so much)
-- McDonald's (the hatred here is impressive)=>Mickey D's, but also Maccy D, The Golden Nightmare, McDeath, Rotten Ronnie's, McDogchow, McDick's, McConvicts, double-yuck, American Embassy, MacDo (mainly in France), Smack-Donald's
-- Microsoft=> Microsloth, The Borg (I thought only The Husband and I called it the Borg)
-- Walmart (again, impressive levels of hatred)=> Evil-Mart, The Evil Empire, Hell Inc., Evil Inc., Mall-Wart, Wal-Merde ("merde" is the French word for shit), Wally World, Wal-Fart, Small Fart, Sprawl-Mart, Wall-Junk, and my favorite -- Mordor

UPDATE: Mija came up with Suckway for her local Safeway supermarket. I like it... the quality of their stores varies so radically. Keep up the good work, peoples!

UPDATE 2: Tally reminded me of Target=> Tar-zhay (well, of course... what was I not thinking), and added Chuck E. Cheese=> Las Vegas for kids. "Mom, I just need more tokens to get out of this slump. I can feel a winning streak coming on!"

ATCs for everyone!

Art & Soul -- series finale

Yeah, it looks harmless from here, but working on this book is like trying to breathe water sometimes.

The above photo is a close-up in the book I started in "Illuminated Vision: Giving Voice to a Favorite Poem." In the class description, our instructor LK Ludwig said:

"This class hopes to focus on the use of narrative (in this case, a poem) to inspire personal content—we will use a poem as our structure for this project giving you a foundation to then create personally meaningful work around your own musings. The product will be a treasure-filled 5-6 page book, bound into the covers of an old book. "

I haven't really read much poetry since college... the only one I could really remember much of was "If" by Rudyard Kipling, thanks to a fragment quoted in "Harriet the Spy": "If you can keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;" But it wasn't really doing much for me. So I chose to use the lyrics of "Someday" by Sugar Ray.

This was a double-edged sword for me. That song was playing in heavy rotation the summer that my mother died, and I knew I'd never hear it again without thinking of her. When my father died, I added those memories on as well. Which is fine, when the song comes on the car radio and you can lose yourself for a moment, then move on.

But I found myself delaying printing out the pictures I wanted to use. Then I delayed packing up the class materials. By the time the class rolled around that Monday, I'd accepted that I probably wouldn't make it through the class without at least tearing up.

LK's demo of a technique helped push all that to the back of my mind for a while.
She places something patterned (a fern frond, a stencil) onto brass or copper mesh, then sprays it with patina solution. The exposed part corrodes and darkens, while the part covered by the other item remains shiny. One of the other students realized a stamp coated with Versamark ink (a clear embossing ink) will have the same effect, so I used a gate stamp I bought on Alberta Street the day before.
She also showed us how to do water transfers, using cheap photo paper and a Magic Spoon of Power:Then she displayed some of her finished books for us to page through. And that was about it for instruction, which probably would've been enough for me if I weren't on edge that day.

I've never really used eyelets or much metal before. And my emotional vulnerability was dragging me back to habits that I normally have under (better) control: wanting to be led by the hand, wanting to do it 'right,' and all the other stuff that goes along with it. I kept asking my poor seatmate Deryn what we were supposed to be doing, and if I was doing things right. She must've been really close to stapling my mouth shut. ("There is no right way! Just do whatever the hell you want and leave me alone!") But she didn't; she just said things like, "yes, you could do it that way if you like the way it looks..." Good God. Makes me want to smack myself just thinking about it.

And then I finally started to get it when I picked up a piece of ephemera LK had brought to class, the page of a children's book in the first photo here. It was the words in the first definition of "close":

"The lamb is close to its mother."

Finally, the page plans started to unfold as the song played in my mind.I didn't have most of the stuff I wanted to use, but I knew it was waiting at home. Like the golden hand-dyed ribbon on the top, center and bottom of page two. My mother's favorite color was yellow (so of course she painted my room yellow! It took a long time to get over hating sunshine yellow), so I looped a snippet of ribbon next to our picture. LK urged us to 'use the good stuff' some of us -- okay, I -- tend to hoard and then forget we have in our stash.

Here are some of the pages I've finished so far:I was the last person in class to finish up, since I didn't have to pack or catch a plane. When I was mostly ready to go, I stopped by to thank LK... and that's when it all came to a head. I started blubbering about how I probably chose a narrative that was too meaningful for a learning experience like this, which brought my creative flow to a halt, and I'm not usually this much of a mess, and the first time I saw her work I was so stunned by its beauty and fragility and strength... and, and, and...

She was so kind. She just let me get it out, and hugged me about three times.

I suppose I'm not the first to melt down in or after a class, but it meant a great deal to me that she listened. I was so touched, especially considering that she had so much worrisome stuff going on at home while she had to teach 3,000 miles away. I will never forget that.

Just posting this makes me feel kind of raw. Yet and still, I need to express it more than I worry about how it will look or sound.

And th-th-th-that's art, folks. Remind me to post pictures of the book as I go.