the living room/bike rack/art mess area

Hopefully this is something of the full 360 around the room:

My drafting table is GINORMOUS.

View from the kitchen

My fireplace. I couldn't get it working in time for my party so there are melted candles in there. Knock on fake wood I think I have my head wrapped around how to set this thingy up now, so we can have christmas around the fireplace.

Patio: The Big Reveal

Well, sort of. I don't think things out here are finished by a long shot, anymore than I think that I don't have things to do in the living room or kitchen or bathroom or bedroom. I mean I've only been living in LA for less than 2 years (Fun fact: my two year losangeleversary is exactly a month away! WOW!) and I find the amount of home stuff I own to be kind of minimal. I don't have much art. I don't have more than 2 chairs, or 4 plates, etc. I don't have a bed. I do have a couch and coffee table, some curtains, a DRAFTING table, art storage, a wicked cool chandelier and some hangy racks in the kitchen, lest you think I'm complaining. It's just that it's a slow process to get settled into a place and accquire the right things.

So the patio. I moved into an apartment with outdoor space. Patio and dishwasher were the big things I looked for in a new home. And this patio had a pretty perfect railing from the design aesthetic I really desired: cat proof. Which is to say my cat can't get up on it, get in trouble. But it did have a major flooring flaw. It looked like they took concrete, coated it with glue, put down some fake grass, and then after they go over it, and ripped up the grass (leaving a waffle textured glue floor with fragments of astro turf embedded) they painted it a battleship grey which really made the public school beige stucco, the studio apartment white accent wall and the state park brown railing pop, as they say on Project Runway. (Fun fact: I've been watching season 4 of project runway pretty much exclusively while I worked on this project and last night I had a dream that I was both the designer and modeling my look and I'd not finished in time and Nina Garcia was really snarky at me, and Tim Gunn was disappointed. Boy. I wish my model had showed up! Of course my dream dress was a pretty flimsy cotton print, so it was also my dream self's fault.)

This is the before:Mmm sexy- I want to squat on that dirty floor and read a book so bad.

So I put in just the weensiest bit of work on this patio...say..5, 10 minutes top to get this result:

The view from my bedroom of the same corner

Floor closeup of happily imprisoned kitty cat

The other corner

My string of pearls pots.

Closeup of the beach pails I just bought to make into hanging planters.

I still have lots more vision for additions to this space. I'm in love with Woolly Pockets and perhaps later on, when I've saved up 40 trillion dollars I can festoon the railing with pockets and pockets of gorgeous plants. I'd like to up the awesome factor of the furniture with cooler chairs, and maybe some side tables for beverage swilling, and an ashtray for my friend Bridget (we're working on a concept called guilt-trays, which will be ashtrays that make you feel bad about smoking, in a humorous way.) I definitely will be putting in some kind of mat for footwipage as I keep going in the house with muddy-ish feet- althought the worst is over.

Also you might note that the underside of the seats contain a lot of bags of dirt and the like, or that some of the pots are empty. That's because some pots are renovations in and of themselves- I'm working on creating an entire garden of subirrigation planters (the two white containers are sub irrigation planters from Ikea- which are so/so), but the installation of said planters is taking a bit of time as all the instructions I've found out there are for making planters which I think look ugly. Also I want a good way of monitoring the water levels- very few of the planters designs have perfected this yet. Expect a sub-irrigation primer in the future.

BUT! The tile is in! The grout and mastic have been scrubbed off with a wire brush and pads of steel wool. There are plants (many of whom are thriving more than I expected given the only moderate light of the patio). Oh how I love the plants! And most are edibles. I'm concentrating on herbs for now, except that I do get distracted and grab other things which are pretty at plant sales. Like the maidenhair fern or the string of pearls or the polkdot plant in the planter. You know how it is though, they sit there at the store looking all sad in their too tight pots, saying, "If you don't take me home they're going to KILL ME!" And then I feel guilty and try to get them all fake norwegian visas and smuggle them out of the store.

So. Patio. Done-ish.

Happy Sunday

So...in home news I'm grouting tiles. But that's not ready to be shown off. Instead, its been a while since I made myself food. I've been eating take-out, and chips and all kinds of shameful things. I think that might have something to do with the fact that although I have a dishwasher now so clean up isn't arduous like it used to be, I don't really have a trashbin. There's no floor area for it in the kitchen and I haven't figured out how to cope. So I make up these little baggies of gross food scraps and then get grossed out. I know, I know, listening to my trials and tribulations really puts things in perspective doesn't it?

Anyway. This week I roasted a pork shoulder in the oven overnight. It worked out pretty well, although I am pondering whether or not I should slow roast things uncovered or covered. (Pretend there is a long digression about meat juice and basting here.). The only drawback to pork roasting overnight is you might step into a crowded elevator at work the next morning and suddenly have a horrifying thought that you might just smell noticeably porky. Of course, if this were you you would have done smart things like sniffed yourself (my nose is stuffy!) or hung your clothes out on the patio overnight or something. But being myself I turned to Josh (poor Josh, he's a good sport) and using the least whispery whisper ever said, "DO I SMELL LIKE ROAST PORK?!".

Apparently I did not, but I did make some people laugh.

Anyway, the pork appears here in a taco with a jicama pineapple salsa. Starring with mr. pork shoulder is beans and rice, and roasted plaintains. Mmmm....


Also I mixed a drink using the pineapple goo in the can, grapefruit juice, a lime squeeze, seltzer (from the soda machine!), gin and lightly muddled mint. It is quite good. Gin, why are you so delicious, do you want me to become a lush? Because I'll do it!

The 'Do! Who? Whoo!

2 weeks ago or slightly more this was me:

Not terrible or anything, but starting to grow out of what would be recognizable as a "style" that was deliberate. So I went to "my guy" who has been the person I saw for the last 2 cuts and who I have had good results with going in and saying, "yo I don't like this and this, can you help me?" and then he asks a few more questions and I put myself in his hands.

Well..I went back for that deal this time and I swear it was like opposite day. We chatted about what wasn't working, I said I wanted him to add layers and keep the length, he asked a couple clarifying questions that gave me the sense he knew what I meant, and then..... he took the length and kept the general flatness. This was the cut. Mind you, not terrible in principle or anything but SO NOT ME.

Every time I looked in a mirror this sober responsible adult in her 40s looked back at me, this woman who wanted nothing more than for the wind to stop mussing up her hair, so she would look good for the other moms at the kid's soccer performance or professional at the board meeting. AND at the same time the cut gave me mental flashback to my 1st grade bob- a style so reprehensible the very first fashion decision I made aside from first demanding, then rejecting pink clothes was that I be allowed to grow out my hair. It would be many more years before I learned to brush my hair, and stopped wearing oversized t-shirts with stonewashed cut-offs and a lovely sandal sock combination, but I'm comforted by the knowledge that between the long obscuring hair and huge glasses, no one can really see the facial features in those old pictures anyway. Since then I've had definite opinions when it comes to my hair- and I tend to get a new style every 6-8 months.

So after a week and a half of trying to suck it up, when I came home last night and saw my hair was a perfect triangular mass framing the deadened expression of a death row inmate, I decided it was time to go for it.

I went to another salon and the tiniest woman with the BIGGEST hair I've ever seen- sort of like this glorious zeppelin had landed on her head, a kind of curled in mohawk, took me in wing. She was rocking the most unique hair, in that way that only truly awesome people do, where the style is just this part of their soul and it looks completely comfortable on her, even though NO ONE ELSE IN THE WORLD WEARS THEIR HAIR LIKE THAT you wouldn't look twice at it because it was weird, you'd look twice because it was so beautiful.

I brought in a carefully selected photo gallery of every star's hair I could find that looked cool the way I wanted, with my handwritten thoughts at the bottom, reading, "messy, nerdy, cool, fun, don't like triangle hair! Don't like NEAT!" I said it I felt the cut made me look old and she asked how old I was and gasped when I said 25 (She also found my white hairs..the ones I call my "[oldboss name] hairs" because the half a year I worked for her was when they all showed up- right in the exact spot at the top of my head that used to throb in pain when she was evil). My stylist agreed the cut wasn't giving me any youth, and because she had this glorious hair I knew she'd get it when I said that having a grown up job was bad enough for my irresponsible personality, so everytime I saw this cut over my button down shirts on a monday morning I just died a little more.

She left my pseudo-bangs for last and then she checked with me, and said, "so what about these side bangs? Can I give you more across the face bangs? " I tell you right now guys, my number one mantra has been "NO BANGS" like for years. Its like my version of the "Pretty Woman" no kissing deal. I'll do ANYTHING, but bangs. Bangs are not cool with me. I'm a bang vegan. Heh, now that word is making me laugh. But in her hands, in the hands of this woman with the hair that would have made the aristocrats in the french court swoon, how could I be so timid as to say no?

And so this is me now!!!! (Drumroll)





I am super happy. I stopped trying to talk about my secret dream hair (you know that style you think would be good but is so out there that you fear someone would laugh?) several years ago. That is because that I nourished this secret desire to have "floofy" short hair, like a baby chicken would have but I realized that no one else got the same impression of what I meant when I said that. BUT SHE KNEW. She looked at my face, heard my words and instinctively understood the secret floofy chick look my soul wanted. I couldn't articulate it, but her scissors just knew. I am happy. My hair is nuts, unstructured and totally cool.

Rock on my friends, rock on!


This part doesn't fit anywhere but it's tangentally related. My bad haircut guy who was first a good haircut guy was an upgrade from my bossy K-town lady, with whom I had sliiiiight communication difficulties resulting primarily from my lack of knowing Korean. This allowed her to pretend she didn't really understand my tentative English attempts to have any control over the process. So I would go in and say, "blah blah this is what I like, is that a good thing to do? " and she would say, "okay, yes, I make shorter. Sit now? Good." It never turned out super badly, but it was clear, I was never going to call the shots, and the style was going to be the house special. Korean ladies "of a certain age" seriously intimidate the crap out of me. Its hard to explain but they project some kind of special demigod aura; like a cross between a hard core Catholic School Nun who will take you down with a ruler if necessary, and this hardworking provider, this essence of absolute authority you don't want to let down. Its this feeling that your opinions are irrelevant and take time away from the serious business of making sure you are properly taken care of, because that's what they do. Its hard to explain, but my friends who have dealings with middle-age and older Korean ladies have nodded knowingly when I try to articulate it. Actually I'm pretty sure it's why this neighborhood is so safe because packs of these ladies briskly roam the streets in the morning and evening, wearing sun visors and sensible sneakers, and carrying water bottles, which I imagine they bring just in case they need to discourage teens making-out or nourish a lost and thirsty child. But I digress.

Ponder Ponder

Q. What nutty things do you instead of going to bed on time?

A. Well....here's a sneak peak into my life of nonstop impulse time mismanagement:








I used photoshop to make a set of images of what my newly framed art (by this awesome photographer! She is so neato.) would look like on my wall in different arrangements. These are very very hastily done...but you get the idea.

So now I'm already 30 minutes behind my going to bed schedule, AND I have deep important thoughts to think, like left oriented column style looks better than I expected it would, and gallery style is obviously an easy choice, but would it make me sad over time by being not very subtle?

Crit time!

While I was home it came to pass that I learned my brothers didn't know I had a dual major in college. This came as quite a shock to me as I thought that I managed to wearily throw out a mention of my art school background in a pretentious way in EVERY conversation, as a way of establishing my boho street cred and my obvious superiority in every way to those of you who fail to live only to serve m'lady AHHHHT. Whoops. Won't let yalls down ever again- promise. So...I'm talking about this because while I was vacationing I was filled with an aggressive longing for paints. Also my brothers and I had a rather deep conversation about how following your passion is something you have to learn to take for yourself- because there's a thousand reasons out there to NOT to get up and write or practice guitar or paint for 5 hours.

Anyway, in school you learn to take crit. Although my school was just a dinky liberal arts school so we weren't encouraged to rend people's work like hyenas on a wildebeast the way that kids who go to something like SCAD or RISD would, so generally everyone had to start with something nice. But don't worry! I'm starting out the art portions of my blog with a piece I feel only slightly proud of for this reason, because I know it might be super bad and I might need someone to really rip me. Go annoymous if you need to to tell it like it is.



Blah blah. This is getting long. Okay so, coming home I saw some seriously incredible mountains from the plane window. I love the views when you are flying, its like immersing yourself in the biggest most gorgeous orthos you've ever seen, like leaning over the most elaborate diorama. I find it reassuring when I get that high up and suddenly pollution and wars and all that stuff vanishes and people get put in their place by how big the world is.

So i took some inadequate photos of some clouds chilling with a mountain. Here's the one I liked the most, but it still didn't satisfy my longing to capture it.




So...tonight I painted. And I don't really paint. It was never my medium of choice back when I was a practicioner of the arts. I tend to like flat colors (paper cuts) or black and white (ink and charcoal) or sculpture. I always recalled this deep feeling of rage against paints- they can be so ornery, and unpredictable. If you make a mistake there's no erasing, its a matter of coping or waiting and painting over. But this was oddly satisfying. I felt the whole time like I was really effin up and not getting things right, but it felt so theraputic at the same time.


So as usual, I can't see it anymore. You get deep enough into your work and you stop seeing what it looks like. I realized when I was done that the window frame of the plane may totally suck. The painting itself probably looks like something you'll find in a garage sale next to 13 ashtrays, 27 mismatched golf clubs and a broken stroller, but I'd appreciate any crit anyone has to say on it. Should I eliminate the window curve and make the whole thing landscape alone or spend on the details to make it more recognizable? Should I make the sky a brighter blue or does the subdued thing work?

Bedroom!

So...painting the bedroom. This is what I've been doing for the last month. The reason it took that long is that as usual I wanted something elaborate and detail oriented. BUT. I finished, and I am SO proud of how it looks that I could gag. Tonight I'm touching up the last little details where the stencils pulled up paint edges, and moving my bookshelves in. Or alternately sitting in the completely empty room and grinning.

Obligatory before shot

The smallest wall by the window I did in all flowers.

Bunny and birch trees along my longest wall

This will be where the bookshelves go so I didn't do a lot of detail.

Little details I spent lots of time obsessing over.

Notes:

The room is five sided- like a square with a corner chopped off next to where the windows are. The diagonal wall is the short wall with the flower details.

Interestingly enough the blue (which is a little more turquoisey than these shots) makes the room seem both bigger and brighter, which I always thought was what white was supposed to do, but the white room maybe just makes things blander and therefore fades to a middle ground. I was worried it might be dark after I painted, but I think it reflects more light. If that's possible?

Moral: Anything I didn't do last month that I should have...this is why.

Since I moved.

Here are all my worldly possessions about 2 weeks ago now, getting ready to leave their home and set out a great distance of 4 blocks to the northeast.

I moved into the new place. And we're working out the kinks slowly (for instance shower head is shorter than I am. Or the fireplace worked mysteriously for 72 hours and then quit. Etc.). But! The fridgeless, sterile white kitchen that you see the fuzzbucket testing boundaries by trying to scope out whether or not she should jump on the counter and risk my wrath (answer: yes, but wrath does ensue.) has been transformed and now is officially pretty awesome and can be cooked in. I will be slowly painting and furnishing all the rooms of the house and the kitchen isn't actually done yet- I just wanted to show off.

Before + Cat

After Painting: Food items, fridge and flowers.

Eventually that back wall is going to be full of spice racking, dishtowel, pan hanging goodness. I'm not there yet, but I did make a delicious stirfry last night to commemorate my first night with a fridge to store leftovers in, a dishwasher to throw prep dishes in and COUNTER SPACE which is easy to wipe down. Hallelulah. I also bought produce at the farmer's market for to cook more awesomeness with tomorrow.

Movin on up.

For Jez

Jez here's some pictures of fabric projects. If you want, let me know and I'll add pictures of this skirt and dress I made from old sheets.


This is a puffy quilt I made for an art project. The embroidery panels were pre-done fabric, and it's puffy because each panel has stuffing instead of batting- just wanted to show you I can make square quilts.


This guy is a an queen sized afghan. if you are getting a sense of my style I tend to like geometric and solid colors

Quick Idea sketch here. I like the thought of going crazy quilt on the top with images incorporated, and putting in the border of words on a simple background- either sprinkled liberally all over or put in just as a border. The text line is me playing around with how the border might go.