weekend!

what are you up to this weekend? i have the meet the babies party, and i am excited to bake a cake! it will be wonderful to see old friends and have an excuse to get the final boxes out of the house and the art on the walls--and then take some real pictures to share with you next week (i think next will be picture week). i am also hoping, as always, to get some art made.
i hope your weekend is sunny and wonderful, summer really is here and i want to soak up every second! have a wonderful weekend!

momentum.

it has been rainy and gray in minneapolis the last few days. i have been enjoying it, honestly (i prefer it to ninety-five degrees and 100% humidity). the sea of chairs sitting on nicollet mall outside the local are gorgeous, and i enjoy passing them each day on my way home from the gym. today they were totally empty.
i have barely been keeping up these days, there is a lot going on here! the house really is magical (i took some pictures tonight and will post them as soon as i can gather the energy), with enough space in my second-floor bedroom to work and sleep. i am sleeping better, i am working more productively (already! it's only been a week!), and in the midst of my low-grade exhaustion, i am energized. i have a lot on my plate, and that's exactly how i like it.
there are some really exciting things in the works, and hopefully i will be able to share some news in the next week or so.
also, i would just like to say that i have really been enjoying decor8 lately. sometimes the layout is a little too busy for me, and i get overwhelmed by all the visual doo-dahs going on. but the content? the writing? delightful! the images? gorgeous! i'm a fan, especially after reading her post on bedside table options.

how i ended up liking mornings, or: my favorite part of my house.

shhhh!! i am playing hooky from work today! mostly because i have about a million things to do, and no time to do them. today i just want to talk about coffee (!) and about the sun in the mornings, especially in the summertime--if there is anything that makes up for the forty below in minnesota, it's these looooong summer days. i wake up in the morning and, for a few seconds, think i have been transported somewhere exotic, with all-night sunshine. anyway, about the coffee:
my programmable coffeemaker has changed my life. seriously. every weekday since i received it, i have programmed it to brew my coffee at six a.m. and you know what? it has made all the difference in the world. admittedly, sometimes the coffee sits in the coffeemaker until six-thirty, but for the most part, the gurgling sound and coffee smell are a great alarm clock (i still need my normal one, don't get me wrong). and in the warm months? ah, i love to sit on my back porch and just be in the sun. or write my morning pages, now that i do that.
the mug is one of my favorite possessions, the first piece of pottery i bought in college, and carried all over the world with me (or, at least to norway). and when i say 'possession', i mean, i'm weirdly possessive about it. i can't really handle seeing anyone else drink out of it. i'm not like that about anything else i own.
i will really miss this back porch. but somehow, i think my new back porch, with the private backyard and garden, will not be too difficult to get used to.
i hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful weekend!

welcome, summer.

it could not have been a more beautiful weekend for a move. and by that, i mean: it didn't rain. nor was the weather too hot. we had so many people graciously help us move all of our earthly possessions from one house to the other. now we just have to wait for the painter to finish up at the new house (which is looking great!) and should be able to start settling in next weekend. i am tired, but relieved that everything went so well.

rewind a week: i finally had a chance to upload my photos from art-a-whirl last weekend and realized this was the only one i actually took, from the fifth floor of the california building (full of beautiful studio spaces with gorgeous light). to be honest, i was a little bummed out by art-a-whirl (i was thinking of maybe blogging about it, but i just didn't see much work that i really liked, and really don't want to bring negativity into this spot, especially about art and other artists). however, it was a lovely, lovely day for biking around northeast and being a part of my little neighborhood. i really do love my city in the summertime.

summery, letterpressy goodness.

i have been thoroughly enjoying my letterpress class. i learn something new every week, something i am able to take right back to my studio and try out. for example, i ordered this roller gauge from boxcar because they said i needed it (!), so i did--even though i could not for the life of me understand what they were saying in the directions. but then! next week in letterpress class, we learned how to use a roller gauge!
last night was particularly interesting because we spontaneously worked on one of the little tabletop platen presses and i learned some really great registration techniques, which i will definitely start employing right away--it will make my printing so much easier and better.


we created a group broadside to practice setting type, and they turned out so beautifully.


i also really love my rides home. each week the sky is lighter and lighter, and it's always cool enough to enjoy the ride, which takes me past this new park by the river road. the black hulking power line holder-upper-thing and the smokestack-steamstack-pipey things are my favorite part of the photo (and possibly the city? hmmm). i really do love minneapolis in the summer.

bits & bobs (or: maybe i really belong in england)

i spent the weekend watching green wing on hulu and printing up a storm (photos to come). if you don't know about green wing, you should. it's a hilarious british comedy set in a hospital (think scrubs on speed), and is at the same time outrageously inappropriate (consider yourself warned) and laugh-out-loud funny. it doesn't hurt that it is a good dose of eye candy as well. it makes me want to start calling my underwear 'pants', my pants 'trousers', and using 'oy!' as my new exclamation of disgust, alarm, or surprise.
also, amy and i signed a lease on a really great new place. what a relief it is to have the house-hunting over with. i am excited about 1200 square feet (!) of victorian charm, with a backyard and garden to go with. so only two more weeks in this little tiny place that has been, come to think of it, my longest single home as an adult (just shy of two years). which is a strange thought, but okay at the same time. it is time for an upgrade, and a place where i can stay for several years, if i decide to stay in minneapolis. i'm sure i will share pictures at some point, but a few highlights include: a real oven (no more wedging the cookie sheets in), a dishwasher and full-sized fridge, a giant bedroom on the second floor with plenty of room for work tables, sewing machine, etc. tons of natural light, hardwood floors, a big bathroom with drawers and drawers and drawers for storage. . . . oh, and the backyard/garden. i am looking forward to a lot of socializing. oh! and it is literally only five blocks from my studio. really. it doesn't get any better than that. i think that will make a lot of difference in my getting there.
amy h. is coming for a visit this weekend, and i am excited about art-a-whirl (to be a visitor, not a host--yet), and general springiness.
oh, and i've really been enjoying my hair lately. it looks good and is easy to care for. too bad my stylist moved to texas.

monday morning pretty.

how was your may day weekend? mine was lovely (a bit more low-key than the weekend before). the weather is finally warming up, and the grass is green, the magnolias are in bloom, and there are bright green leaves on the trees. oh, minnesota, how you trick me into forgetting all about the longest, coldest, grayest winter of my life with your beautiful spring and summer.

here are some nice things from my weekend:
some girls have trouble not shopping.
not me. i can hardly handle prying $20 out of my wallet for a little blue top, but today it was totally necessary. i have next to nothing appropriate for summer wear. the shoes, on the other hand, simply irresistible (and totally affordable at $28). i'm pretty sure they will come in handy.

a friend is getting some practice letterpress, as a thank you for the loan of a comprehensive allen wrench set:

a very special new baby is getting a little present in the mail (thanks to this shop, found at craftstravaganza):

hear hear, keith ellison!

julia just read to me an article from the star tribune about some politicians who were arrested the other day for protesting the removal of aid workers from darfur. our representative, keith ellison, was one of them. here are some highlights:

Ellison said he and the other members of Congress who were arrested succeeded in bringing national attention to the Darfur crisis that they wouldn't have received otherwise. "I could have sent out a press release, but it would be, 'Yeah, so what?'"

With Ellison representing a Minneapolis-based congressional district that many analysts consider one of the safest Democratic seats in the nation, his arrest is unlikely to affect his standing at home.

"I think that the people of the Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota believe passionately in human rights," Ellison said. "They want me to lead from the front. They want me to set a moral tone."

"How many news outlets had Darfur in any of their story lines this morning?" he said. "There are 1.3 million lives that hang in the balance here, and nobody was doing a story on that until this happened."

a short post on monday=a great weekend.

one morning i look out my window and BAM! the tree across the alley is all decked out in gorgeous white blossoms. happy sigh.

oops, this is not from the weekend, but the type i set in my first letterpress class:

at the last minute, i snagged a ticket to voltage, which was pretty great (although anthony and i agreed that it was not quite as stunningly life-changing as last year's). hands down favorite: lucy michelle and the velvet lapelles, fittingly dressed up like gypsies. i wasn't able to get many great pictures, but here are a couple. i was particularly glad to see some models that looked like fairly normal girls.


also loved: m. ward (always a fabulous show), the farmers' market, a beautiful rainy sunday lounging, cleaning, cooking, and eventually having all kinds of friends over for a lovely dinner. a full, happy weekend makes the prospect of going back to work a little more bearable.
welcome, spring!

i am a letterpress acolyte.

tonight begins a class that i have been looking forward to for a long time. i enrolled in the winter, and at the time april seemed soooo faaar awaaay. but now april is here, almost over even! and for the next six weeks i will be busy learning as much as i possibly can from the experts.
i am so excited!

artists i like: josie lewis

in an effort to bring stability to your lives (or, at least in your expectations of me and my blog), and in an effort to get me to look at more art--arty art, fine art, whatever you want to call it--i bring you the first installment of my appropriately named series, artist i like. here you go.
i really like josie's painting/collages (created out of scraps of found paper and resin layered together) for many reasons. they are colorful and mesmerizing, and they push the boundaries between 2- and 3-dimensional work. i really like boundaries and boundary-pushers. they fascinate me. where is the line between joking and seriousness? good and evil? early and late? faith and foolishness?
ah, i digress. because in her work, ms. lewis (should i write about people like the ny times does? that could be fun) does not discuss boundaries directly, although she does talk about how they are painting, collage, possibly sculpture, and related to photography (since the bits of paper are taken from photographs in magazines.
she also talks about how animals digest their food--comparing to her own consumption of the materials she uses and the resulting pieces that are created.

these images have been in my mind for weeks--months, even. i can't get over their simultaneous flatness and depth, as well as their intense color. the process appeals to me as well--breaking down images into colors, textures, and shapes, then assembling them into a larger whole. it has got to be time consuming, but there is something about it that is really appealing to me. i really have a thing for process. it's one of those things that draws me in and makes me think, "man, i wish i had thought of that." her website is full of images, i encourage you to check it out. oh! and she's from minneapolis. so, you know. we have that going for us. okay, i'll stop drooling now and let you enjoy them.

(all images found on the artist's website.)