...zzz...

...feeling the burn...

it's the season again where i am working around the clock and my hands and eyes get all cranky. i already have a series of hand stretches that keep me from cramping up. tonight i prowled the interweb for eye exercises as drawing line after line after line all day long makes them all crazy-go-nuts. i think i found a good series that i want to try out...namely, i was sold on exercise #23, the most inspiring line being halfway into the paragraph:

THE HOT DOG This exercise is done to improve the flexibility of the inside muscles of your eyes (called the ciliary muscles). It is important to keep those muscles flexible. Remember to breathe. Take two deep breaths. Either stand or sit with your feet, shoulder width apart. If you are standing, make sure your knees are slightly bent. Aim your eyes on any target in the distance. While looking at your distant target, bring your index fingers, tips touching about eight inches in front of your eyes and into your line of sight. Still aiming your eyes at the distant target calmly notice a mini hot dog has appeared between the tips of your fingers. Remember to continue to breathe easily and deeply. Do not let the awesome beauty of the mini hot dog to distract you and to cause you to aim your eyes directly at it. Continue to aim your eyes toward the distant target. Pull the tips of your fingers apart slightly and observe the hot dog floating in the air. Now keep the hot dog for two breaths, then look directly at your fingers and the hot dog will disappear. Do not retrieve the hot dog for two breaths; then look again in the distance and find it once again. Switch back and forth for two minutes.

...he's so craazaay...

who? my friend alec, that's who.

i snuck on over to his site only to find a piece i hadn't seen before, this one:


and i thought, "DANG!"

for all of the talking i do about wanting to make wallpaper he just goes and does it. dang.
then i noticed this piece:


double dang!

...look what someone did...

it's from this site: mayna's fotolog.
i think it's portuguese.

...peep show...

so, what HAVE i been doing lately? that is a good question.

this year has been a much slower year compared to the gauntlet of shows and work of 2006. it's been a purposeful putting on of the breaks. after maybe seven shows over an eight month period i felt like i was teetering on the edge of burning out. not in a permanent sort of way, but in a way that my work that i love to do and the people that i love having in my life was falling out of balance.

it's also really hard producing new work for each show (they were pretty much all back to back so i couldn't just take one show and move it along elsewhere, a lot of work sold {many thanks, much appreciation}{and not to just the folks who purchased, but to anyone who made it to the show, stopped by on the internet, dropped me a line...}). i reached a point before my final show in november at motel gallery in portland where i realized that because i had no time to sit and stew, take new things in, i worried that the quality of the work would go downhill.

so while i haven't been as visible this past year i have been up to plenty of shenanigans. i've turned more of a focus on children's books. i finished one in june and am wrapping up another one at the end of september. i've taken on smaller illustration projects that are here and there. and most importantly i've taken a good deal of time to sit and stare and think and meet up with friends and on and on and on.

in november i have two shows....well, a group show and a solo show.

the group show is at subtext gallery in san diego maybe on november 3rd? the show runs in conjunction with/celebration of Bunka-no-hi, and will showcase artist designed Kokeshi dolls. I am looking forward to doing something a little different...and by 'something a little different' i mean doing what i usually do only on a three dimensional object.

the solo show will be november 17th at giant robot in new york. it's my first solo show in a year. it's true. i will post more info about it, you know, when i have more than lists and ideas scrawled over random pages of several sketchbooks.

and just so you know i'm not faking it, i leave behind some evidence of my noodling.

...here a pea, there a pea...

so far 'little pea' has been translated into french, japanese, korean, maybe german? that's terrible that i can't remember off the top of my head. anyhow, here's pea in italian:


and in hebrew...which is pretty spectacular as the construction of the book works from right to left, spine on the right and opening on the left:


and what i love about this publishing house is its sweet character logo:

...1, 16, 17, 32...

i have a new mouth. well, a renovated mouth.

over the past three weeks i have been getting my wisdom teeth removed...two the first week, two the following week, and removal of sutures on the third. the extractions were performed over a series of weeks because they were done by dental students at the university of washington. it's true. i had my wisdom teeth taken out by students. it's a decision that seems suspect at best, but it wasn't a decision i made lightly and in the end it was a really amazing experience.

the real kicker of this whole escapade is that i didn't necessarily need to get the wisdom teeth taken out in the first place. they were fully present like their second molar cousins, they weren't impacted, there was no infection, just a little decay. recently, however, my brother jason had a wisdom tooth of his removed that caused problems for the adjacent molar. and after his extraction he boldly claimed that wisdom teeth were the mouth's sleeper cells...and eventually they would wreak havoc on the rest of the mouth.

this rang true for me. i could see where he was coming from...especially from my vantage point of being an uninsured individual. and as an uninsured individual i like to be pro-actively preventive. i came to the conclusion that eventually my wisdom teeth would most likely cause me trouble in the future. in the long run it would be better to take care of myself now instead of something more complicated (secret fears of root canals) later on. and when i really thought about it i couldn't really see what my 'thirds' (as they call them in the dental world) were doing for me. they seemed like lazy, layabout teeth, not necessarily improving my food chewing. so out, out damn' tooths.

long story short, i ended up at the dental school after much research and many calls to other clinics and dental offices, folks on the other end of the phone asking me if i understood that i would have to pay for services if i was uninsured, me reassuring that i did, rolling my eyes. anyhow, the student dentists were the best...and that's the thing...i had two different teams of two over the first two weeks and then a fifth student removing the sutures...and there is nothing i like more than variety. i liked experiencing the different mannerisms, comparing and contrasting, creating rating systems...

the first duo consisted of dr. bling and shaky mc gee. unfortunately, mc gee was the extractor that day and lacked the oomph it takes to yank teeth from bone. but dr. bling was very conscientious and attentive to my suction and checking in on me needs. the second team was collectively called 'team handsome'. not necessarily my type of handsome, but there was something ken-doll seeming about them. anyhow, handsome one and handsome two were a tight team. handsome two supported my jaw as he was working on extracting the lower tooth, pulling way ahead in points and stars ahead of shakey mc gee who didn't have this technique in his bag of tricks.

did i tell you that i wasn't put under? that's how i know all of this. i have a long history of surgeries so me and anesthesia parted ways a long time ago...i opted out of it. it was just me and novocaine. anyhow, it was great being awake...i learned a lot, i got to see my teeth...but not keep them, it was like i was giving them up for adoption; they were out and whisked away out of my reach, never to be seen again...and being awake made me feel like a part of the team...maybe the most important part...cooperation.

so dental students rule in my book.