bedeblog

Ants in the Plants

2011-05-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

The leaf cutters came out yesterday, after near two weeks hiding underground. I guess the sugar buzz finally wore off; here's a video of them harvesting fallen Palo Verde blooms last month.

Desert Millinery

2011-05-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

Jean Power: Milliner: making hats of paper in plastic in Sabino Canyon. Not rubbish!

Jean Power is packing up her beads and heading home tomorrow to London. She's amazing, her work is undervalued, and she "taught" me how to bead a triangle, which I turned into a ring, then turned into illustrations.

Rebeaderation

2011-05-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Seed Bead Summit Weekend was a great success, judging by the comments and also simply by my own feelings. I feel recharged, wanting to bead again, which is great since Kate and I are making The Bead Book You Need (pre-orders keep us going: Geometrics at bigcartel). I'd like to go on about how wonderful the interactions have been but others have done it better with pictures and videos (Marcia, Kate, Beadmobile ... ) and I've got work to do. Like gnomes in pointy fez hats:

Spring Brush-n-Bastard Cleaning

2011-03-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

This week is Brush & Bulky pick up, meaning the neighborhood driveways are piled high with yard waste. An atypical freeze this winter resulted in a lot of damage; our own contribution contains two citrus trees, a twenty-year old cactus bush, rotten slimy aloe spears, and more leaves than you can shake a stick at (which I am still doing). It'll be interesting to see how it all is hauled away; I expect to see a lot of sweaty biceps with chainaws and feeding the chippers.

Brush piles were immediatley turned into brush bowers by opportunistic Pimp Daddy quail (partridge?).

Also hauled away this weekend was Jizz Master Jones. This feral bastard has tormented Kate and her cats for some time now, and it took me several attempts to vanquish.

I watched him for a couple weeks, learning his habits. He enters the house via cat doors at either end, usually at 3 or 5 o'clock in the morning. One day, I observed him in the kitchen minutes after Kate drove away on some errands; he was out my end of the house before I could get through the central dining room. Rule #1: a cat always has an exit strategy. Rule #2: cats don't care what time it is.

Our first lazy attempt was to secure Miss Fish and Simon up in the house one evening, placing a trap-cage loaded with Jeannete's funchovies near the cat door . Around 3 AM, Fish and Simon alerted Kate to the disturbance. She was then able to observe Jizz Master's sneer of the cage while he turned his backside to the door and sprayed (he is named Jizz Master for all the spraying he does in the house, including doorways, liquor cabinets, and ironing boards).
Rule #1 prevents a cat from walking into a wire a cage no matter how tasty the bait.

Pre-Round: We decided to trap him using the house: with Fish and Simon secure in Kate's bedroom, I flicked my cat door to one-way and closed off the bathroom so that he would be trapped in the laundry. It worked! Around 3 AM I heard him banging against the door to get out. He was persistant. Fearing that he would escape, I got up to trap him in the air-lock of my bathroom (two doors) so that I could close the catdoor both ways. I stepped into the bathroom and closed one door behind me, not knowing what to expect. I then opened the second door into the laundry; it was like I captured an eight-foot furry anocanda. My gin-adled mind could not comprehend the blurry speed of this creature seeking escape! (Imagine a feathered boa, whipped round and round). Anyway, I managed to close the second bathroom door, with him a tornado around the toilet behind me, so that I could shut off his escape through the cat door (doors have four settings). Catching my breathe, standing there in my boxers, bare feet miracalulouly blood-free on the tiled floor, I opened the door unto the hellion within. My fear of damge was moot because in an instant, the bastard made a single leap, right through the locked cat door, and to freedom. Inconceivable! It was with hate and disbelief that my retinas burned with the firweworks of his escape. I was distraught, I had had him, and knew instantly that it would be some time before he dared return.

Pre-Round Dos: Oh, but he was cocky. It wasn't two nights (Kate was off to England now), before he strutted back into the house. I was watching disc 27 of Monty Python when I heard the skirmish from the the west end of the house. Damn! I was unprepared, yet I marched briskly down the hallway. When I reached the end, the tumbleweed of fur split in two: one half shooting back down the way I came, and the other ducking into the next room. My hand found a door knob and used it. I stood there and caught my breath (it's amazing what being on safari does to one's adrenaline, and I din't even know that room had a door). Surely Jizz Bastard ran down the hallway and not into a closed room (Rule #1). Yet, after awhile, I found Miss Fish resting under a table in the living room (all three cats look alike, Jizz having white socks). Hu-rah! Still, I couldn't contemplate till next morning...
Round 1: I brought the trap into the bedroom and hid it behind the bathroom door, which is next to the entry door. Using a coat hanger, I was bale to chase him out from under the bed. He flew up, and thus tore down, the curtained door up to the top of a bookshelf. I swatted at him and he came back down, spun under the bed, and then shot for the bathroom. Snap! He was in the cage. I approached cautiously, not willing to believe that he was really inside the trap. I saw that he was, and as I reached down toward the handle, he shot back out of it, between my legs, and into the safe uderbelly of the bed. Yes, he launched out of the spring-loaded door designed to catch skunks and possum. Inconceivable! He must have the strength of a kangaroo; I gave it a rest.
Round 2: Hours later (or minutes, hard to tell adrenaline-time), I re-entered, foolishly unprepared. I thought I might by chance get him into that cage again (but remember rule #1). Using the fallen curtain rod as a switch, I managed to coax him out from under the bed. And up the bookshelf. And over to the second bookshelf. Standing there, with this useless piece of brass tubing, I realized my head was the only next logical jump from the 7-foot shelf and was regretting my lack of welders' mits and fireman helmet. Jabbing him in the right flank, he decided instead to take the 6-foot plunge into the mirror of the opposite wall, hoping I guess to travel through the looking glass (he was sneering, not grinning). He knocked the glass out of the frame and rolled under the bed and up into the boxspring. Huffing for breath myself, we called it a night.
Round 3: The next morning I wasted a few Tabs of cat downers in some juicy food that he did not eat despite an hour of temptation. (Rule #3: Cats can go for days when they are chowing on hate.) I half-heartedly thought that a drugged kitty would be more docile, but I really didn't have much faith in that theory. Instead, I placed the trap at the enterance of my room, draped with yet another curtain, and closed off the real exit through the laundry just in case. I locked Fish and Simon in their room, blocked all hallway passages, and proceeded to rock the bed that Jizz was hiding in. He thought he could just hang out there for ever? I had to shake it like Hercules before he was dislodged, and then, when it finally happened, I heard the snap of the cage from the other end of the house before I even set the bed down. Knowing he coud break it, I sprinted down and put my foot on that door. Bastard. And then, with a couple little wire trash-ties, bound his fate.
Termination: The Pima County Animal Shelter is busy; no wonder they can't help ditraught citizens capture feral beasts. I arrived among a crowd. Sitting opposite me were a couple old-timers with a feral cat of their own. They had a certain Brokeback quality to them, which I surmised to be more father-and-son than rancher-and-farmer, still, they were very nice and obviously familiar with the task. Also in front of me in line was a woman next to a minivan, which housed her husband and aged dog. I learned that they adopted this yellow lab after finding him, and then claiming him after the original owners decided that they "didn't want him anymore." Next came a youg woman in a Carolla with Chihuahua and Wolf Pup, which she found wandering thorugh her yard on their way to the busy street; she was like a bright-eyed mulatto Disney fairy to the animals ("yo quiero rolled tacos!" and "I want some seal pup"). Next to arrive was a student with beautiful feet in flip-flops and a boxer/ridgeback sort of dog that acted like he was on spring break. The young man brought him in to see if he was micro-tagged; if not, he planned to take him home. ThePima Man in Charge was in his late twenties, bearded and sharp-eyed with hairy forearms (his scrub pants likely covered goat legs); when he came out to retrieve the dog in the van, he placed his hand on the obviously distraught older man and said "I'm sorry for your loss" then helped to load the poor dog into a cage. What a shitty job. To compound this aspect was a train of women from the Arizona Judical System at some point; I made quilts for my community service, but these women were obviously terminating unwanted, dangerous, and feral pets for their service. Ugh.

Afterward, I met Laurel at the Starr MAriott so that I could give her the Rocky Mountain Bead Society laptop that I didn't get to return before I left. Free shots at 5 there. Gosh.

Shedding, to Shine

2011-03-06T09:54:00.000-08:00

It's difficult giving up the past, but Nature does it all the time. Lit by the sun at the top of the Robert Plant Thinking Spot, this golden cicada shell is a reminder that it is okay to get rid of the past, to shine anew.

Skarkly

2011-03-03T12:59:00.000-08:00

Isn't it fun to make up new words? What do you get when you add sparkly sequins to Andrew's skanky threadbare hot pants? I'm not sure, but it would sure be skarkly!
As a point of reference, here's my Go-Go Boy Jockstrap (the one and only piece of bead knitting I've so far accomplished:

Apparently Seattle is where it's at for tons of sequins

Atomic Tuesday II

2011-03-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

So far, so good, with the once-a-week posting, now named Atomic Tuesdays in honor of Kate's (and mine too i suppose) Atomic Ranch where a house full of people may stay connected through the power of Blog, whether on the grounds or without.
This week, Kate's Krafty Kompound saw the start of my wire-welding skills. After tearing off my shirt for an afternoon of banging, I managed to create these two dangles. A ways to go before I have a necklace for the Glitterganza, but really just happy that I didn't bang a finger on the anvil (the slight sunburn was to be expected).

Today I finished reading The Annotated Dracula (kinda slow towards the climatic ending); the same day that Kate posted Wyatt's toothy grin and Lair of the White Worm (also writen by Stoker).

A post about helmut hair led to a discussion on acceptance. What jumped out at me was the remarks remembered that were made by mothers. Nothing lifts us up like a mother's love, and so nothing can tear us down like her scorn. It is easy (eventually) to ignore stranger's/peer's comments, but when your own mother cuts you down it feels you have nowhere to go. In their defence, I must say that mothers are people too, with just as much weakness of humanity, however difficult to understand or accept. I'm posting this old photo for Andrew hoping it will make him laugh cause I love to see his smile; also to thank him for reminding me to mind what I say: just because I've gotten through some shit (more to go!), I can't assume that everyone else is there.

Boundless Droppings

2011-02-25T10:45:00.000-08:00

This week's image for "Boundless" is my footprint, from Sunday's rain, after stepping on the wet outdoor rug:
I like the outdoor rug, since I like to drop-spindle pool-side and the rug is softer than stone when actually dropping the spindle; taken in the same sp0t is some yarn I dropped this morning:

When making my way to Tucson last week, I stopped in Jackson, California, at The Hole Affair. Charming beadshop in a charming town filled with charming ladies that have charmed me to return and teach classes, including drop-spindle (as per requested by the yarn enthuiasts)! Sorry I don't have pictures of the place, but trust me: tear-eyed charming of a drive from Napa.
Nearby was Kookie and Bill's place, as shown here from their porch.
I look forward to the return visit and secretly hope that Star left her crochet book there for me to steal.

Ruckus in the Kitchen

2011-02-23T06:24:00.000-08:00

Both Miss Fish and Mister Simon greeted me in my room this morning, seemingly still sketchy from last night's intruder. (Really, they just wanted the bowl of food cleaned up, having strewn kibbles all over the floor.) Nothing like the sounds of a cat fight in the middle of the night to snap one out of slumber! The two house cats come and go as they please, via the tiny door within a door, which is accessed through my bedroom. I haven't seen this third cat, but I can see the little door from my bed at night, and he should consider this a warning. Assuming he reads blogs.

boundless

2011-02-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, Feb 22. Week One at the Ranch.
Bruises should cover my body with all the pinchings of disbelief. Yet here I am, walking on periwinkle carpet and sleeping behind a flagstone wall festooned with framed matador and pictures of satelites. Further proof that the southwest is closer to space. Or to Spain.

This week's readings include The Annotated Dracula by Leonard Wolf (Bram Stoker's story with Leo's notes filling the sidebars; makes me long for Whitby, England);
Sacred Machine: a sexy gothic corporeal gallery in Tucson, for which we have commited to make Calder jewelry for the beautiful propriators (sp);
and these three cards: Knight of Swords, Three of Pentacles (rev), and Strength. Not sure of the knight (maybe some bastard or myself in my past), but the three paints me as a lazy craftsman, and (no doubt ?) Kate is Strength "a bountiful garden resplendent with the possibilities of positive force in both the spiritual and physical worlds." Also, makes me miss my Aunt Kelly.
(note the spring blossoms AND pumpkins in Napa: I am temporally challenged and seasonally confused!)

"Boundless" is Andrew's word of this week and is causing me some distress. An artist's soul supposedly works best unfettered, yet I have bound my own with so much drugs and alcohol that I know not where it is wont to go. And I have severed so many binds before finding myself here at the Atomic Ranch I wonder what I will find. I think it was the-road-less-traveled-guy that also wrote "good walls/fences make good neighboors". It is not my roommates' boundries that frighten me ...

Calder-Dash

2011-02-18T12:51:00.000-08:00

So, the race is on to make some Glitterganza Jewelry . Kate and Andrew got a good headstart last night, as I was sent out with the grocery list ...

This book describes the wire jewelry that influences the pieces we are set out to create by April 16th:

These are mesquite seedpods from my new office floor:

Here's my new office:

Return of the Bead Sith

2010-03-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

Did you know, Return of the Jedi was originally titled Revenge of the Jedi? Yeah, a fan pointed out to Stephen that "a jedi does not seek revenge." And after he printed posters and everything! Well, he got his revenge eventually, even if it took going to the dark side.

And I finally strung-up my Sith, acquired two years ago by Bruce St. John Maher!
He's got glow in the dark eyes (which I love) and is strung on monofiliment as part of the Magnetik clasp. What I love about that is that I was able to terminate the second strand by simply melting the end of the filament, securing the vintage glass hexagon with a blob of plastic.

Beading For a Cure

2009-03-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

I've got a piece in a fundraising auction up on eBay: take advantage of this rare opportunity to purchase one of my beadwork challenge creations while helping a good cause!

Beading for a Cure is a fun group to be a part of and there are many fabulous pieces to bid on.

Thanks!

Dustin

Tucson Spirit

2009-02-04T20:58:00.000-08:00

You can't throw a geode in Tucson this week without hitting a jeweler/rockhound/beader/editor attending the gargantuan bead shows/tents/parties/port-a-potties. One would hope so anyway, considering the economic state of things, cause you won't even be able to spill a drink on Bead Boy down there this year. I've got plenty of beads to keep me busy at home (very very bead-busy), but I do miss the energy, and all those friends enjoying well-deserved dinners at fancy-pants Poca Cosa. Will it be chile/chocolate/chicken chimichangas? Mango/mint/marijuana meat-wraps? Tarragon/chipotle/tilapia fish tacos? Mmm, I hope the Best Bead Show has those fruit cups again for Nikia and Star!

While I am bummed for missing some new adventure that would surely ge

t stoked this year, I am thankful that I can imagine. Besides, I got a fair share of beads as a roadie last week up in Rollinsville, which of course means Beyond Beadery! Such a beautiful setting for getting out of the house:

For fear of getting stuck in the snow (again), I left my truck near the highway and got a ride up with Mom (Ellen), not knowing that I'd be shanghaied into nearly two extra days of stringing/tubing/labeling. It is impressive to see all those bead vendors down in Tucson. More so when you know what goes on behind the scenes. I was sorry to leave Betcey and Mark before all the packing was in the truck, but we ran out of mint for the mojitos so I had to head back down the mountain. It is good to go to the source when working for beads: I stocked up on some sparkly cut hanks that don't usually make it to the shows AND I got the first tote bag of 2009!

Good fortune in Tucson my friends!

old + new = now

2008-12-31T11:30:00.000-08:00

My new cousin, Neveyah.

My hike with Uncle Don, near the Bale Grist Mill in Napa.

My Tadpole greetings, from Frog Eye Ring series...

Cheers,

Lovedustin

he's a bedesman too

2008-12-19T18:16:00.000-08:00

I really love this kick-ass necklace I am wearing today; the best days in the office happened when we reserved the conference room and filled it with beadwork--crates of entries, proposals, or some other mass of creation awaiting editorial admiration and admonition. Andrew's pieces always drew and captivated me. Like they swarmed with a visible energy, like I am happy to be feeling now.

Fond of Andrew, and even fonder of eBay, I couldn't resist his Studio Sale (cd's, signets, and shades, all mine). What really caught me about the fancy-pants sunglasses wasn't so much the leather frames, gold mirroring, or rock-star attitude (though, I really hope it works), comme ci curieux, quelle bizarre, mystere et boule de gomme, zut alors, those Histoire de Voir shades appeared to be very similar to my almost-favorite pair from The Dollar Store! Luckily, they aren't that similar. Still, I had to do a side-by-side photo comparison:

Bead Boy for President

2008-11-23T08:02:00.000-08:00

What better way to get out of the house and break a two-year social reclusion than to partake in a little community organizing: say hello to the new President of the Rocky Mountain Bead Society. Crazy! you might say. Ha! you may shout. Fantastic I tell you!

I look forward to the beady opportunities to come (awaiting my bead-briefing of the details...) and am grateful for the support of the bead-icated members that have kept this group going. While I'm not entirely sure how I came to assume this unopposed position (suspect Another Planet), I'm even less sure of what all it entails. Que sera sera. (And I am very much relying on the supreme competence and kindness and quirkiness of fellow board members past and present. Duh!)

For the record, I DO have some intent of support to the RMBS community:
1: Grow membership (Colorado is suited to beading; Mecca, I daresay.)
2: Education (not as a demanding left-brained technical-editor, but as a beader for the people; two years of working bead shows, lecturing, and teaching gave me notice of the many bewildered new beaders out there. And I am told that I am a patient person.)
3: Sharing (I be somewhat reclusive really, but I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Beads, that is).

All of the above can be attained through bead classes, which are wonderfully usually affordable to members. I learned lots about beads in my seven years editing Beadwork magazine (thank you contributors!), yet I've never made any of the projects. As evidence of my interest and continued support of the RMBS, here are 3 recently completed pieces that will always remind me of how great it is to have a bead society:

Skull Flower. Herringbone fans/fins/frills weekend of classes with Rev. Wendy Ellsworth (another Cabin Beader! watch out for tics); she helped me do color freeform! The adorable tiny skulls were obtained that Friday night, at Nomad's holiday art reception. Hot.)

Mastering the Curl with Jeannette Cook. One of my first contacts in the beading world, and I finally get a class with her; ships beading in the night... Using her kit (some say "Mardi Gras" colors, I say "Show Me Your Tits" colors, as available in my own beading kits) to learn her classic peyote-increase spiral (detail inset). For the necklace I added a double-ended spiral, super-clever beaded-beads, and magnetik clasp. Oh snap! Are those Rockies colors, to wear to the game?!

Dagger Wrist tubular herringbone with Carol Perrenoud. It was very exciting for me to meet the woman (Cabin Beader) with the size-22s-and-smaller seed-bead-amulet-hen that I wet myself upon seeing so many years ago. Not so exciting, however, was making this bracelet using that creepy thread--but SO worth learning about straw needles! And concrete!

Proud to bead an American. Indian, that is.
peace.

Fauna and Flora

2008-10-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I leave the wonderful land of Napa, just as fall sets in: today one can see the leaves of the white grape varietals turning orange, soon to be followed by the red grapes' leaves, and then no leaves at all, which I saw last year. We went to a pumpkin patch; here is my cousin Kasey with a pumpkin larger than her own belly.

It was her baby shower that brought me out here (having a girl, due December 1st). We built a Castle Cake adorned with fairies and unicorns with foil horns. Speaking of green fairies, it was probably the only baby shower ever that ended with sharing a bottle absinthe!

I brought with me my freshly finished fauna necklace, worn at the shower by Anita. I was honored to have such a lovely model!

This necklace features a fauna (that's a girl faun, duh) pendant by Margaret Braet that I was lucky to get in Tucson this past February. All of her work is amazing, and her glass-sculpting technique is fascinating (check it at neomythica.com).

Skeletor de Lux

2008-08-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

Opening today at the Lux Center for the Arts in Lincoln, Nebraska: Bedazzled, the bead art invitational curated by Marcia Laging Cummings. I was happy to be asked and extra happy to have two pieces accepted before they were even finished!
I'll Get You Next Time, He-Man is a slice of the eternal struggle between good and evil, He-Man and Skeletor. The disgruntled villain shouts his threat in frustration, for He-Man has once again thwarted capture, if only by the skin of his loin cloth. No worries: He-Man draws his power from his sword, not his pants. Curious thing about the Masters of the Universe ca.1980 action figures: they all have THE SAME belt, no matter which team they play for. Mattel churned out characters using the same body mold in assorted colors for each individual head. Must be something in the water, cause all inhabitants of Eternia (minus the three females) are so juiced they're bowlegged.
Up next: I Have the Power!! with a sans-belt sword-thrusting burly blond barbarian.

Rocky Sampler

2008-07-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

"Pass backward through the bead below, then forward through the bead you just strung." The mantra of square stitch, which I calmly intoned who knows how many hundreds of times yesterday. Four 2-hour classes with 10-15 students each, and nearly all of them managed to square-stitch a circle (those that didn't get it may need peyote-deprogramming). Perhaps I could bring a radio-controlled toy plane to demonstrate what a loop-the-loop flight/thread path looks like? It was a fun day. The students were great (even when I was 30 minutes late); I imagine that TAKING four 2-hour classes would be pretty intense and they kept their cool (next time I will bring THEM the cherry m&m's).
Since my handout didn't show the finished project because it was too crammed with silly stitch explanations and diagrams, here's a pic of the bracelet in two of the color ways. But really, there is no requirement to make a bracelet...
Thanks to all that made the RMBS Sampler a success (as far as I know)!!

The Snake Goddess is BIG in Ohio

2008-07-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

Bead International 2008 happened this spring at the Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Ohio (where it is on display through September, then will travel through 2010). It is an honor to be a part of this show; the fact that Ungud was rewarded Best of Show is still sinking in for me. But he is pretty hot.

The name Ungud comes from an Australian aboriginal rainbow deity with trans-gender powers. The dress (not shown here) is brought forth from Minoan snake goddesses, themselves cloaked in mystery.

Saints Daze

2008-02-15T15:40:00.000-08:00

Just finished a batch of magnets, having carried them with me through Kansas City, Albuquerque, and Tucson, just to put them together back at home. Made with fragments of an early Bead Boy relic (Bead Something Edible: Beadwork, A/M 2001) and showing the one and only time that they were worn.

Somewhere between Saint Valentine and Saint Patrick there might be found Saint Twizzler. (Imagine a smelly cellar fresco depicting this holy trinity of hearts, snakes, and edible hot pants...)