Spring!!

My neighbor cut my front yard and so I stocked the beer fence.

Dual-purposing for Dollars

 On my way to the studio, I stumbled upon this amazing trash clean-up scene, just a few houses away from my own. It's a small house and yard, and I don't know how the tenants managed to collect so many tires without being noticed/cited earlier. The truck was busy collecting from this pile, as the scooper made trips back and forth from the house. Someone was cutting some corners with their cash-only tire place.

 Dewclaw has entered the Studio Turf Wars for a couple of weeks.

 This is on my trip home. Disregard the Mitch sitcker, if you can.

Nest Tree

I received the dreaded notice from the health dept, to remove my brush pile. It's been 5+ years since my last notice, and this is the largest it's ever been (this sort of maintenance never seems to happen without prodding).

 I managed to break everything down in two days, into 3 wood stacks, a light crunchy scattering over the yard, an extensive and attractive garden border of twisted large branches, and this "nest tree" on the right.

 Mid-way through the pile, I found this old yard offering. The tree was still green from an artificial dye. It also had around 100 bendy branches that could not be snapped off, had to be clipped. I have a dead cypress in the yard, I've not yet removed. How funny to wedge this green dyed dead Christmas tree into the cypress' branches, making it look alive (and saving me a lot of tedious branch cutting).

 Before long I had an entire pile of bendy brush that would be hard to break down. Yep, I wove everything into the nest tree. Here's a detail. It has way more brush in there than it appears in these photos....way more.

I should mention that I almost hoard rotting wood. I really enjoy having it around, and even messing with the pile, digging through and finding the various stages of decomposition. Finding various fungus growth. The urge to build with it is strong too. I had to restrain myself from leaning the larger limbs onto other trees and building things. I would love to be able to engage in strenuous puttering like this all the time.

Trojan Warrior - Day 4

I'm calling it. I'll top coat tomorrow and install on Tuesday, and paint more flying debris on the actual wall. Today was difficult. I did not gear up mentally, because painting the debris seemed pretty straightforward, with little problem solving. So I tried to do it on auto-pilot, and became impatient. Also, I noticed neighbors across the street moving, and I had to keep looking out the window, spying. That house is problematic to the neighborhood, and has been for years. It keeps getting rented to new versions of the previous people, which is an interesting idea for a movie, but sucks when it's real. Then someone gets arrested, and the house sits empty for a while, which is actually good. This last incarnation of "1659 Dwellers" were tolerable. Yep, hard to stay focused today.

I may document the installation, in "how to" steps.

October News Brief

I'm preparing for a large series of paintings, where I plan on working within certain parameters. I plan on keeping a fairly consistent palette and work within a theme, and I'll be working with a surface that I don't plan on mucking up a lot, maybe just gentle scraping back. I'm going to treat it as a challenge to not rebel, but to find innovation and adventure from within this predetermined working structure. I may need to have a second group going, where anything can happen, just for sanity's sake.

I talked to two different people outside, while wearing this cicada shell on my lapel. Neither person mentioned it, and I continued to wear it for several hours inside the house. Then caught a glimpse in the mirror and it startled me.

I'm once again starting up the touchup service. I moved my sample making setup outside because of the fumes. Then I spent several hours online researching other, less toxic materials. The mosquitos are almost gone now and it will be nice to spend time outside again. This was an amazingly long satisfying summer, and now I feel like winter will be just a blip. It's usually the reverse.

I finally harvested my fancy carrots. They ended up being shaded by the tomato plants and were a tad dwarfed. I did go ahead and eat a few. They were excellent.

Myrna's continuing to be an absolute delight.


Felix and Sheila inherited a sleeping blanket. It crinkles, they like it.

Alan on the drop cloth pile. I better move those.

I will be leasing studio space starting in November at the Circle City Industrial Complex, home of Wug Laku and friends. I'm getting excited about some exhibition ideas I have for the space. More to come....

Kildare Puppies

My neighbor's dog had 8 puppies. Momma is a very sweet and beautiful hound mix. The puppies are 3 1/2 weeks. They will be available to adopt in 3 weeks. E-mail me if interested.

Merit Pro, Indeed

I've lost her again.

visual clue:

Myrna's a trip.

The other cats don't even know there is a fourth floor.

The Bowels of My Studio

So I managed to lose my found kitten overnight. The studio door was breached by one of my other cats, and I could not find the kitten anywhere in the house. After a few hours, I decided she must have found an opening into the walls or under the floor. Luckily my floors have been sliced and diced already, so I just had to unscrew this plywood patch in my studio floor.

Yep, no real crawspace, just a half foot of a subterranean world.

I like to believe it's an unoccupied world.

There's no room for my head, so I place a light down there and angle my camera around.

No kitten here.

No kitten here........what the?

I have no idea. It looked like a bone with a dried rat face on the left.

It just looks like a rock now.

The kitten was just very well hidden in the upper world.

All is well.

Feb-Funk 2011

I'll use this as my official fightin-the-February-funk photo. It's from a mid-summer line clearing a few years ago, but it captures the brutal/futile pretty well. Enjoy.

"Autumn Joy" Sedum

Even the Spiders are Badasses Around Here

I love how cocky (and nihilistic) the spiders become this time of year. They've spent all Summer bulking up, and they're just not gonna take any more shit. They weave webs right across my regular walking routes. I got in my truck yesterday, and a huge angular spider had claimed my mirror to door area. I tried to knock it to the ground, but it bunkered down in my side mirror. "It's your funeral, dude". I drive to the post office, and the spider immediately comes out, as I'm driving, to finish killing and eating the prey it had just webbed. "Dude, it's your funeral". I drive and watch as it gobbles. Finally the wind blows it down the side. I park and it's managed to hole up in the groove between my cab and truck bed. It immediately comes out and continues munching away on its meal. I drive home and it's still hanging in there.

Then this web is built overnight near my door. Just how ambitious is this spider???

Bird Bath B-day Gift

Rules

"Rules are for amateurs", declared my garden guru, Mary Yeager. This was years ago, and as is often the case upon hearing a vocalized Yeagerism, I found myself laughing without fully knowing why. It's so true, in the garden and in life.

I have always cut my herbaceous hydrangeas back, like we're supposed to. Last year, after my second burglary, and while the ruffians at 1659 Kildare were creating daily havoc, I just gave up and let it go. I did not cut back my hydrangeas. I noticed other neighbors were staying inside too. Anyhoo, the freakin hydrandea is the best it's ever been! Makes me wonder what more I could/should be neglecting in my life. Or at the very least, chilling out on a bit more.

Garden?

Hot Spring=fast growth=leggy floppy plants=obliterated path, all coupled with plants finally reaching mature size, in too small of space...

I kinda love it. That oak leaf hydrangea in the back has really peaked this year. The blooms are huge and very fragrant.

Speaking of Rocks...

With help from a rigged gravel sled, and my truck, I moved and spread 2 tons of gravel by noon today. Because of tree limbs, they had to dump most of it in one spot. I saved $30 by changing my order from 3 to 2 tons. I now have exactly 2/3 of what I need to keep my drive from being a mud pit. Doh!

Kudos to Indianapolis' City Services

...for clearing this mess within 24 hours of my call.

I shot this while the pile was still neatly stacked and condensed. Within a day it was blocking half the street and blowing into my yard. These neighbors sandwiched their move-in and their move-out with identical piles. The move-in pile festered in their yard for three months, blowing trash over the entire block...for three months. It was so depressing. So I got on this one fast. I called three different agencies on Monday, and by Tuesday this was entirely gone. Not a scrap of anything. Frankly, I'm stunned. All of my calls, one each to road hazards, mayor's action center, and health department were met by courteous, professional people, and I spent very little time being routed to them.

It's enough to make a person care.

Is This Blog On?

Chilling at my parents' in my new x-mas Snuggie, this one is called a Cuddlie though.


I found some excellent gifts this year. I should have photographed them. They were that good.

(small piece, in progress/process)

Back to abstraction. Back to the exciting world of making stupid, inelegant decisions, and then reacting to them. MW Capacity just linked via another link to this Time Out New York interview with Steve DiBendetto. His thoughts seem very in sync with how I approach these paintings.

My really bad neighbors rammed into their own house (right of door).........twice (wide area left of door, near shrub, )down low. This did not delight me to a senseless state of delirium. Nope, not me.

Later, gators.

Yard Offerings From Below

These are fairly early finds at 1650 Kildare, from a few years ago when I still enjoyed hanging out in my yard. I spent several years hand digging my garden. I've had people tell me I'm full of shit for thinking these are anything other than rocks...

I've thrown back the iffy ones and kept these two, because they are obviously human-made tools. It doesn't show, but the larger one has a very refined axe-end to it, with a very bulky front area. It appears the lower part of the axe-end broke and they tossed it aside. I would not have expected these to be made this way, refining an area before shaping the entire thing.

The cat tail in the last photo is from current times.

Yard Offerings 1

I have been yard- gifted many items since moving here about ten years ago. Wish I had photographed them all. I spied this latest one a few days ago, but kept driving past. They have mostly sucked lately, and I wasn't in a hurry to investigate.
Score!!

When pretend crazy becomes real crazy

I may have crossed a line today. I staged mock booby-traps on all my windows. It seemed a clever deterrent, letting burglars think I'm may be nuts enough to have rigged the place up(I feel confident no potential burglars are reading this blog), but it seems a bit nuts now.