For every fish out, let’s have a fish in. May your ladders be sturdy. See clearly. See stars. Grow flowers. Spin the wheel. All in.
This is a collage made from Dresden trim, layered over a recent sunset here in Pacifica. I know the blessing is silly, but it is heartfelt. Welcome to 2018, friends.
Last night — Good Solstice, all! — I set to work installing the ceiling lights in the Sea Rise Pavilion kitchen.
Because I’m such a lighting electrics n00b, I used five 3-volt chip LEDs, set in mini eyelets. They are tragically insufficient to light the kitchen. But hey! I learn by doing. So I went to bed.
This morning, I ordered some larger (3mm) LEDs, then pulled the chip LEDs and eyelets from the ceiling installation. (Those are the holes you see.) Under-shelf lighting seemed like a good use of the sadly pale chips, so I plotted a layout in Illustrator to use as a template, and drilled new holes in the upper shelf. (Um, not an ideal construction protocol, the drilling of already-installed things.) I methodically undid all the twisty magnet wire connections from the ceiling — thankfully I had not set the heat shrinks — and reset the eyelets under the shelf. With my teensiest drill bit I made exit holes for the wires in the back wall, in line with each eyelet.
It is a good setup, but two of the chip LEDs did not fully survive. (Though they do work intermittently, argh, whygodwhy?)
Then I walked out to see this sunset over the ocean. One can aspire.
Some backstory: A long time ago, there was the Sea House Pavilion build. Good times.
It surprise-won the Grand Prize in that year’s HBS contest. Then more stuff happened, and once again, we packed up and moved house. This time, up the coast to Pacifica. Time passed, and we got a new kitten. Whereas the older two boy cats had always ignored my work, Scarlett’s relentless depredations of all miniature endeavors, um, challenged my work flow. All the builds had to go live on top of tall bookcases.
Here is the above-mentioned cat, now slightly less naughty, and a partial view of our north fence line, in the process of being demolished and rebuilt.
Late this afternoon, I sat outside on the retaining wall, looking at the back of our little blu house. We’ve had some very high temperatures in the San Francisco Bay Area — like, tacky wax melting; all the miniature pictures and signs fell off walls in all the builds. Triple digits F° hot. Today was the first day it was cooler than the face of the sun possible, pleasant even, to be outside.
Perhaps it was the temporary expansiveness of a fence-less suburban back yard… but an idea — a solution to something else entirely — occurred to me.
The idea began when I unearthed this lovely corroded Master lock, as I was weeding and tidying up some of the excavations before the fence guys return tomorrow. Kris Compas’s post about how she dilapidates upholstery, read earlier in the day, and the steady stream of Abandoned Miniatures in my FB feed no doubt contributed to my thinkings.
( 2+2=5 was playing as I wrote :)
So the idea to reimagine the Sea House Pavilion as “a post-sea level rise coastal squat” may be the solution — a transformation — to the problem of housing all these builds. Just keep remodeling them! And I get to do research and problem solving and learn by doing new techniques! My favorite things! There’s still Scarlett to reckon with, of course, but she may turn out to be my assistant disheveler.
After trying several different 1/16-inch materials — illustration board, mat board, chipboard — I finally found a cardboard I can get the Cricut machine to cut all the way through (on the 2mm thick leather setting, five passes with a deep cut blade). Unfortunately, it’s from my cardboard stash pile, and I’ve no idea what it is :\ These circles will make an easier base to work with on the soon-to-be released round basket kit.
Here’s a peek at a new rectangular woven paper basket. Too bad the light is so poor; the two colors of this prototype are “Spice” accented with “Burnt Orange” and are very appealing. Still very early stages. Now that I can command shapes… ideas may expand.
Keeping things real, here in Northern California (in Pacifica, at least) we’re enjoying some drying out time, after a series of very wet, damaging storms. This is the remains of the already sketchy trail that leads to the sometimes-beach below the bluffs at the bottom of the hill. It’s the last super-low King tide, and a beautiful view stretching to the Marin headlands. Gratitude, thankfulness, appreciation.
Supplies and materials flowing in at a steady rate. Got the next two kits prototyped and spec’d, therefore only needing specimens, photography models, and instructions. Easy-peezey. Mighty progress!
The Argo Wool Works build-in-progress has been moved back up onto the high shelf, to free the work table for kitting, photography and the rest. I’m also putting away the needlepoint frame, and about half a dozen other would-be, want-to-be, once-were projects. Deargod I may even dust.
So sad.
I’m surprised I get as much done as I do.
In other news, Brian and I headed out this morning for a beach walk and cleanup. Esplanade had no beach at all because of high surf, so we went to Sharp Park. So very many small bits of styrofoam, plastic bottle caps, straws, and miscellaneous plastic packaging, all washed down to the ocean with the recent rains :(
Still, the waves were booming, and there were many dogs and walkers out. I love the coast in winter.
I’ve been taking a wood skills class through adult education at Westmoor High School. My neighbor Lynn got me interested. She’s been taking it for untold semesters. Basically what it gets you is access to a full wood shop, with all the giant, scary full-size machines, an accomplished instructor, and classmates of varying skills and experience.
It is awesome.
For us newbies (and others) our instructor had secured a very good price on a lot of rough lumber called Afzelia. I’d never heard of it before. Turns out it’s a very well-behaving (his words) and interesting wood. We’re all, I mean, we newbies (there are many serial takers of this class) are doing some variation of a table with four legs mortised-and tenoned into rails, and a top as yet to be determined…
Above you can see two of my 1.75-inch square table legs, after being rough cut, jointed, planed, re-sawn, and then planed to dimension. My professional woodworking friends, I beg your forbearance. Observe the color and grain diversity! My sneaking suspicion is that there is a reason this wood is not more widely know, but so far, for me it has been a revelation.
At my level, woods class involves a lot of waiting, for machine time or instructor instructing. Fortunately, there is an awesome library in the classroom.
These tips, from a book I’ll reference next time (Wednesday 6–9pm) are insight and solutions I thought directly helpful for us small-scale builders.
I approached this class with trepidation, but with a hopeful sense of cross-pollination? Miniature wood-working skills absolutely do not apply. Maybe other than artistry, attention to detail, tidiness, respect for sharp blades, and willingness to let glue dry. Anyway, I’m loving it.
+++++++++
After serious depredation wrought between new kitten and granddaughter, I had to relocate the Argo Wool Works build from my worktable to a higher shelf. This made working on it difficult, and me sad.
Frustrated, I’ve moved it back to the worktable, and hope to protect it from marauders by covering with a dropcloth when I’m not present to defend it.
I made small progress with the lights.
And spent considerable time thinking anew about the interior.
In other news, the plastic litter collage is complete, and made its debut in the Pacifica Beach Coalition booth at the 31st annual Fogfest celebration. I noticed it suffered some depredation of its own, as it came back with some pieces missing. Seriously, who steals trash art?!
Scarlett is three months old, and thriving. Our older boy cats have resigned themselves to her presence, tolerating, and even initiating play.
Here she is complaining about a recent heat wave, from her in perch in another relocated (and depredated) build, my first-ever Loft (1)961.
Wish me luck!
This is the whole image from which September’s splash screen is taken. It’s along one of my favorite and most spectacular walks, Devil’s Slide Coastal Trail.
Work is underway on a new mixed media piece, large (for me) at 24 by 36 inches (61 x 91 cm). These letters are about 2.5 inches tall (64 mm) and being cut from foamcore.
Poppy the Fairy is being kept busy with her correspondence. These are two accordion books, meant for Ava and Aria to embellish, made from watercolor paper and simple punched shapes. That’s Poppy’s new sigil.
… As well as Ava’s name rendered in triangles, and another tiny sketchbook for Lynnie (at proper 1:12 scale). Her’s from last week was, um, appropriated by her associates :)
This week, Poppy made a two-inch square book to answer some of the girls’ questions: Can you do ballet, like me? Do you eat snacks? Tucked into the reply scroll are California poppy seed pods, because one of the things fairies do is gather seeds.
Inside the book are quick ink and watercolor illustrations with text. Here are a few of the pages, listing some of the things fairies do:
I can perhaps see a series, as my understanding of the fay way grows :)
Maddie Lou spent the weekend with us as her parents enjoyed a night in the City to celebrate their anniversary. Here’s Maddie working on a surprising and spontaneous new deployment of her beloved magnetic blocks in the sun room.
The final arrangement. Can you tell her favorite color is blue?
So awesome on so many levels :)
We had house guests for the weekend. Here you see a SW Ep.VII Stormtrooper encounter a San Francisco summer, much to the delight of her more acclimated traveling companion. The reflection in the giant TV is our foggy Pacifica sunset, with powerlines.
Poppy the Fairy was welcomed back from her nine-sleep vacay with drawings and correspondence from Ava and Aria (and Lynnie). In this drawing we see Ava and Aria and her parents, as well as the Fairy Mail box, with Poppy peeking out. I believe the green squiggles represent the recent landscaping, and a purple heart encircles them all.
Poppy is collecting her/his thoughts for response. (Ava is convinced Poppy is a boy.)
I signed the back of the plastics collage with these, um, economical but not un-fabulous “unfinished wood letters & numbers” from Creatology™, which I think is a brand from the Michael’s crapstores.
Some of the drillings and and nail insertions into the quarter-inch frame for the Plastic Litter Collage were regrettably less than expert, so I am embracing the concept of fuckedup recycled materials, and will further intentionally distress — but not too much! — the frame, as I sand and paint, sand and paint, sand and paint.
nancyland.com 