MA2006.04: Américas Altered Datebook

May 20th, 2006

Updated: 2006-08-04

This is a deco or a traveling journal form of Land Mail Art Object (LMAO), also announced at Nervousness. You don’t have to participate at nervousness to take a turn on this altered object, but Nervousness is always encouraged!

I have a datebook from the Organization of American States, published on glossy/coated, magazine-weight paper and wire bound. I have reinforced the covers with thin clear plastic and added an oversized cardboard insert to protect the edges.

I would like to pass it around to people who live in the Américas to collage over the calendar pages with images (created by the artist or from travel information, maps, and other ephemera) about where they live, to complement the photos already present.

The final object I will pass to a elementary school teacher to share with students. I’m not sure at the moment what the documentation of the object would be beyond scans and posts, but i’ll be thinking about it.

I’d like to not repeat states/provinces within different countries on the two continents. Once i get an initial group of five, I’ll send it off.

Participants

1. Genevieve: Québec, Canada [sent to, 2006-05-30; arrived at, 2006-06-09; sent on, 2006-06-30]
2. Etayne: Tennessee, USA [arrived: 2006-07-60]
3. thirty: West Virginia, USA
4. rubberbum: Oregon
5. Judielaine: California, USA

Interested
6. seashell: North Carolina
7. thursday: Arizona
8. sibyl: Montana

Technical Notes & Instructions

Please choose a calendar page close to the month and day in which you alter the book. If you live in the USA, please only choose one week. Elsewhere, feel welcome to choose a two week spread.

Pages are 9 inches by 6.5 inches with 3/8ths of an inch for binding.

Single week pages: 19
Spreads (two weeks): 17

If you would like to add an insert, you may, by using the hole punch template and then cutting a slit from the edge to the hole. This can then be carefully slipped over the wire bindings. Do keep in mind that other artists will be adding materials!

Feel free to use images that are clipped from chamber of commerce or travel information or maps, but use of your own images is preferred! Feel free to use the calendar slots and simply journal about your area. You’re welcome to write in whatever language is comfortable for you.

If you need postage help to send this to the next person in the list, please let me know, and i’ll help.

Planned inclusions

I’ll be printing maps of North, South, and Central America to include with the map section.

I’ll also include a table of contents in the front, listing artists and locations.

Search terms: Americas Altered Datebook, Americas Altered Agenda
LMAO,nervousness,altered book,call for contributions

Posted in Calls For Works | 8 Comments »

Fun Ideas for Photography Site

May 19th, 2006

http://www.photojojo.com/content/

I like the ideas of using CD cases as photo frames — and what seems like it might be a cool idea is using CD cases to make a mural.

That site links to two which offer the service of turning a photo into a sketch:
http://sketch-it.blogspot.com/
http://www.mydavinci.com/j/home.jsp

Oddly, there’s also a link to this tutorial which shows “pop art” portraits in a style that is also offered by the My da Vinci bunch.

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My Rollercoaster Ride

May 14th, 2006

On 3 May, i got some distracting news at work. it’s really where my mind is. Meanwhile, Grey-Cat.Net crashed. It’s where i host my images, and the image data is OK — i just need to rebuild some things from backup.

I sprained my wrist on Thursday doing a stretch with my cat, not at all inspired by purr-fect yoga. I’m assuming it’s mild and that my crocheting off and on this weekend isn’t too stupid.

I’ve a good deal of photos from last Saturday’s visit to Yosemite to process. Christine has her seven minute video of the visit to Mariposa Grove pretty cleaned up, already.

The last weekend in April i experimented with painting on the inside of a cereal liner with acrylics. The paint, unmixed with water, adhered fairly well to the plastic. I wanted to see if i could paint, fold the plastic in half and have the paint laminate the two sides together (with the colors of the paint visible through the plastic). The laminating process did not work because there was no way for the paint to dry. This may indicate an interesting use for palette protection. The HDPE does seem to provide an interesting surface for applying the acrylic. After a reasonable drying time, the acrylic seemed well adhered to HDPE. I’m not sure what to do with it. If the lamination had worked, i’d find the ability to sandwich the painting within the plastic compelling. I suppose i am still curious how the plastic sews up.

I did a little crocheting at Meeting for Business today on the blanket. (I also worked on the blanket just downstream of Yosemite Falls, thinking of weaving in experiences as i crochet….) On Saturday, i experimented with cutting up knit jersey material and crocheting that. I made a ball for a friend’s dog. It does seem one can cut the fabric into a narrow strip in a spiraling manner (with corners) and have it be “interesting” and not too raggy looking. The 90° and 180° turns left “tags” of fabric that would occasionally stick out. It does seem that for toys the strips will have to be pretty narrow. For a rag rug (or a dog ball), inch wide strips are OK.

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cARTalog

May 3rd, 2006

I received a mailing from the University of Iowa libraries in the past week or so, documenting their show of altered cards. It’s a reminder that provokes a little embarrassment and regret on my part. I asked for a bunch of cards to share with my colleagues to alter as we used to produce catalog cards and are engaged with the process of cataloging bibliographic data. But between art supplies that were taken within an hour of me putting them out (and not returned), several colleagues’ departures, and my inability to encourage a risk-free creative zone — perhaps even my difficulty in communicating the idea — well, turn out was minimal. I still have the few (beautiful) cards on hand (somewhere!) and will send them off very belatedly.

Posted in LMAO submissions, Other Projects | Comments Off

After Paulina

April 30th, 2006

Since Paulina was made for an adult, her paper stuffing seemed perfectly reasonable. But what to use for other toys?

It seems that plastic is recycled into polyester stuffing, but i can’t seem to find a supplier that would label the stuffing as from 100% recycled sources.

I’ve run across NearSea Naturals (again) in my hunt. They offer organic cotton batting at $8.25/lb. and organic wool batting at $28.20/lb.

I suppose i could use old wool sweaters from a thrift store as stuffing.

I’m posting to crochet me & nervousness to see what others use.

Posted in Crochet and Knitting, Tools and techniques | Comments Off

More about shoes

April 29th, 2006

So, i was wandering around the internet in a post finished object daze, and ran across this post by a crochet and jewelry artist in Austin TX. She’s celebrating her new girly shoes, which are Mohops, an absolutely fascinating concept: “rubber soling made from recycled tires, a Finnish birch plywood core, and topped with various select veneers.” The footbed becomes a screen printed work of art, and one can then lace up the shoes with an infinite variety of ribbons and laces — a DIY thing that makes me think of even crocheting uppers….

I know Christine just bought me a pair of Unswooshers (NOT girly shoes), and i have lots of slides for summer wear at the moment. But, this is far more appealing than the process of making shoes from tires i was looking at a month ago.

I have to say, Jen’s claim that “my feet did not hurt. I did not trip,” is the best sales pitch i’ve ever heard. When i look at those shoes i think, “Hurt! Trip! Break knees!”

Hopefully, Mohops will eb a wild success and by the time i’m thinking about new shoes, i can try them on locally.

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Pauline looks out the window

April 29th, 2006

Pauline looks out the window

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

Pauline, named after a character in a Charles Williams novel, was created yesterday and today. She’s from the Crochet Me Amigurumi “Dude” pattern with a slight variation in the neck. The arms are four sc in a ring, then slip stitched to length. The thumb is a sc, slip-stich back; the hand chain 3 and sc back.

She’s worked in Y3, a Red Heart medium weight acrylic, and I/9-5.50mm hook. Her (squashed?) head is about 5″ in diameter, and she’s 6″ tall.

Embellishments: Moda-dea Eden hair in earth. Eyes are recycled glass beads with black seed bead pupils, lips and heart are miscellaneous glass beads, and a bouquet for V.

She’s stuffed with shredded paper, which seems to do quite nicely.

One of my first finished objects in crochet! CR2006.07

Posted in Crochet and Knitting, Today's Log | 2 Comments »

Crochet Me Mid-Issue Newsletter and other surfing

April 25th, 2006

The Book Reviews are tempting. One Skein seems interesting now that i’ve got a little stash — but i’m thinking of doing the amigurumi (or Swatchies or the Shroom or finger puppets). The geometric accessory bags are cute — and enough of an idea right there without buying a book. (Must talk self out of acquisition of books before completion of projects.) Another review is for Yarn Cocktails, which fortunately doesn’t seem to have any purchase temptations but does seem to have some interesting (likely one skein) project inspirations (Copperhead). And project horrors: Toasted Almond does answer my question of what the hell Pelosi was wearing around her neck during some joint presentation of Senate & House Dems on a new fiscal plan. I can’t remember much but my horror at her necklace and how it was So Much Worse than a bad tie and was this some sort of sexist expression on my part or what.

Ahem. Somehow i got to this link about hyperbolic crochet.

The Crochet Answer Book and Crochet Bags! might both be useful.

Continuing in the recycled plastic bag trend

Whipup.net has an entry with links to more bags: i hadn’t seen this one. And woven rug! Crocheted sandals!

Now that i’m collecting plastic bags for crochet, two things seem even more apparent:

(1) So much stuff is wrapped in plastic!
(2) Boy, crochet goes through yardage!

I continued the really rough square i started last week (CR2006.06) with the plastic bag some onion and cheese sandwich rolls came in. (Edit: Tuesday evening i added the bag Christine’s needlework stretcher came in and a Trader Joes dried soybean bag.) I’ve also started three other balls of plastic bag yarn, currently listed at the bottom of the Palettes page. It’s startling how pervasive the little bags are, not just the shopping bags, but everything inside the shopping bags.

I’m thinking about turning CR2006.06 into a bike pannier, using sections of oval-shaped plastic bottles to make the hooks to hold the bag to the bike rack. My current pannier wasn’t cheap, and i dare not leave it on the bike when i go in places. I suppose the time put into a recycled bag pannier isn’t “cheap” either….

I’ve also been using cereal bag liners to carry my lunch ever since reading this post about reusing the unrecyclable HDPE (High Density Polyethylene). Wow, is that a sturdy (but noisy) material. And now that i *see* it, i’m aware how much of it we go through in our household. It seems that it might just make a really good lining material, sewn into other projects.

Other Surfing

Interesting ideas for altered books from Maine College of Art.

Tips on using wacom tablet with Photoshop — none address my doodling desire (which ought to be done in Illustrator, i figure).

crochet, crochet me,recycle, plastic bags,links,HDPE

Posted in Crochet and Knitting, Today's Log, Tools and techniques | 1 Comment »

Weekend efforts

April 25th, 2006

iMovie

I’ve imported all the creek and deck photos from 2006 into iPhoto on the iMac in preparation for using iMovie. (In general, i haven’t been impressed with iPhoto.) It seems the brief video bits that the Minola will capture can be imported into iPhoto, as well, making it a very useful cache for iMovie. I’m hoping that the audio notes can be imported as well. I can imagine making a Stevens Creek slide show at some point.

I had a fairly interesting time experimenting. It does seem that if i’m going to apply some sort of video effect (like the watercolor filter) it should be done before adding in transitions. I had a well timed transition that became “off” after adding the video effect. I’m not sure i have the timing specification down.

I do wish there was an option where one could have a still photo and and create drop zones — essentially making an iMovie theme. We have tiny videos i shot with the Minolta camera, 320×240, that would be OK as an inset, but not so impressive as full screen. The watercolor effect does help there.

Garden

Side note from going through the photos: I bought some sort of flower bulb, as yet unplanted, on Jan 22 — the same day i got the first birdfeeders. (Only the hummingbird feeder remains from that purchase: squirrels 3 – Judith 2)

I also did a bit of refreshing of the garden. I went through the worm bin, add that soil on top of the sweat peas soil (just seemed it might help) and under the cat garden. It wasn’t exactly a repotting but it should have loosened up any compaction and aerated the soil. I pruned back the daisy-like shrub, tied up the nasturtiums, and seeded a bit with saved marigold and sunflower seeds from last year. I’ve got a few floral volunteers coming up as well as the almost weedy parsley.

Digital Art

I did fiddle around a bit with the wacom tablet and photoshop, wanting to make doodles the same way i do pen to paper.

doodlesdoodlesdoodles
Click for very large images

The results were a bit rough. The pressure sensitivity is not in the range i use with real pens; i have to press much harder. And, since i was wanting to work on something with a narrow dimension of 2550 pixels (300 pix/inch * 8.5 inches) there was just some difficulty working on 6 pixel by 2000 pixel strokes.

Shopping

After work on Monday we zipped to Michael’s to get Christine a proper stretcher for her needlework, and a few items for myself. When i go, i tend to collect a sale yarn or two to add to a stash, hoping that the little balls will be enough for a trim — at least for toys. This time there was a fun yarn in a blonde brown color and from the remaindered craft section weird plastic “sparkle yarn” that may or may not have been a complete mistake.

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A little under the weather

April 19th, 2006

And still irked about photo galleries on the new server but definitely NOT up to doing anything about them. I *did* find the scarf project last weekend, but i haven’t done anything with it.

No, just a post to say i received interesting mail from Russell Manning (previously: 2004-01-27 note and gallery images). Four colorful collages along with the decorated enclosure stating that the new collage works are “vaguely based on ‘Meet Me In St. Louis’.” And will have to wait for galleries, etc…

Dry cleaning bag swatch from JanuaryWith the plastic bag crochet in mind, and two plastic wrappers for those large bundles of TP found under the bathroom sink, i started a round with lots of sc in a spiral, increasing where i felt like it. In a few more rows it should be a square. I’ll then use hdc where appropriate to make it more of a rectangle than a square. I’ve a thumb diameter hole in the bottom. For the type shopping i imagine, that should not be a problem. I think once the base is done, i’ll do hdc instead of sc so it’s a little less stiff. I’m using a H/8 5 mm hook and sliced the bags up into roughly 1/2 wide strips.

I think i’ll be attentive to what sort of plastic bag goes into what project — these were mostly clear bags with green or purple markings. This will be CR2006.06.

Now that i know the trick of chaining loops of plastic, though, i know how i’ll work with dry cleaning bags.

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