more mache

Ask/receive:

My life became even more papier-mache-y than expected.  Planets this time, along with inked up fingers and paste covered tights.

Busy all the time, but making good things.

Maman

I'm putting together a lesson plan (very loosely) based on Louise Bourgeois' Maman.  Did a quick trial run this weekend while I was babysitting, and we came up with these tiny guys:

(In case it's unclear, we've got a spider, a bunny and bear there).  I love them and I don't know why I don't spend more weekends papier mache-ing.

roger Ranger

I won this wirephoto of the moon on eBay.  Did you even know they've been sending pictures over phone lines for practically forever?

dear

Correspondence between Melissa and Michael Ian Black, regarding Amanda (really).  Truth.

Dear Michael,I wanted to ask for some help for a friend of mine. She is attending a speed-dating event at the public library. What should I do? Just kidding. She is supposed to bring her favorite or least favorite book to this event in order to make a first impression on her speed-dating partners. What book should she bring?

I understand that this is a set-up for me to promote my terrific new memoir, You’re Not Doing It Right, and that would certainly be a good choice, but I am too humble to do such a thing. Instead, I would suggest she pick something that she has actually read in the last six months that isn’t US Weekly. If the last thing she read is The Hunger Games, she should bring that. If it was Wuthering Heights, she should bring that. But if she’s worried about being judged for what she reads, then she’s an idiot. Basically what I’m saying is, your friend is an idiot.

fun-a-day pt. 3

Here's a round up of some good and some bad pictures of some generally good projects we saw this weekend:

pics of things AMcK likes:

hair in jars (Amber):

block-prints:

wheat-pasted papercut doilies (favorite):

golden animals:

tiny animals:

sticks in a room:

That's probably enough for now, yeah?  Anyway:  it was good, and there was also a boy covering 90s songs on acoustic guitar and some medium okay jokes.   Ultimately, a good motivation (for me and 100 other people), and it got us all to cross the river.

(A couple of mine are over on Flickr.)

brick

Yesterday I noticed this "LOVE" brick in my bathroom.

Maybe hard to tell in this picture, but IRL it looks...not recent.  

Questions:

Who wrote it?  

Did they live there?  

Maybe the bricklayer?  

Who was it for?*  

Or maybe someone just loves bricks?  

Is it from the 90's?  The 1890's?  

WHO CAN KNOW!

Maybe 100 years ago, this part was covered in plaster, and it was secret for a really long time?*

More questions:

Why haven't I noticed it before now?  

Why hasn't anyone noticed this before now?

(And, most important/probable) do I have a house-ghost trying to send me a ghost valentine?*

*waxing romantic

fun-a-day pt. 2

a sneak peek:

A lot of little critters I made will be in this show Saturday.  I kind of wish I had done "all creatures all month", but ce n'est Janvier, as they say.

fun-a-day

So some of us did some art projects that will be in this (poorly named) show that opens this weekend.  8th annual "Fun-a-Day Philly" is run by the Artclash Collective and is going to showcase a bunch of month-long projects people took on.

There's gallery openings on both Friday (10th) and Saturday (11th) , but I think the one you want to go to is probably Saturday.  Look forward to hair-in-jars (AR), instant photographs of favorite things (AM), postcards to strangers (me), and probably lots of other weird, or normal, but hopefully interesting projects by people you know and don't know.

Deets
  Studio 34
  4522 Baltimore Ave. (yes, that's WEST Philly!)
  Philadelphia, PA 19143

To encourage maximum hangout/see each other at this potentially weird thing, we're thinking Saturday, 8:30, with a go-out after.  Come?  I'll remind you.

v prints

Went to a printmaking sesh at Fleisher today, and made 100 valentines. Silkscreen, lithography, letterpress, blockprinting.  Check, check, check and check.

Rest of the day was spent researching a potential tax refund present to myself, and watching the footballs.