Shark Smashing Extravaganza!

So, here is the baby shark and I the day of the smashing. I had been working on the embroidered mask pinata for about 20 hours by this point...

The night of the Smashing, I gave the baby shark a final farewell...

The original attempt to smash was given to the wonderful Stacey, whose paintings you can see sporadically in the background.  She is such a lovely lady, and such a ham.

Then came Lydia, who I don't have images of because my camera was still lost at this point.  Then  Mandy,

Then Molly Yergens

And, Finally, Casey!

That is the magnificent Steph doing the boxing.  She's my latest hero.  Here she is, sitting in the confetti.

Besides Sarah, who did all this fabulous filming on her iphone, since my camera was awol. But then when she (Sarah) asked whether my camera had been returned it magically appeared! So all was right with the world!

(Replacement Bat)

And then, Serendipitously, Molly Yergens needed a hair cut.

Many hairs cut.

 It turned out alright, and less performative than one might have thought.  If you want people to know that you are done smashing a pinata, I suggest giving someone a haircut. Apropo of nothing!

On the way to Boston...

Further documentation of how moon-like the area I live in can be. As I was driving it felt like I was often in a black and white movie, heading towards some sort of certain film noir conclusion. I was very grateful for the ipsos-christmas cardboard truck and pandora.  Baby, it aint over till it's over.

There it was another 175 miles, 2 plane trips, and a taxi ride to Kenmore square.  I think it's actually faster to travel to the moon nowadays. 

Hardworkin'

You can't tell, but I'm wearing polkadot tights with garters.  However, it's the sash I've been playing around with for the last couple of days off and on- It's my Art Scout Sash, utilizing found patches, hand made art buttons, very tiny rubber sharks, those little fold-over dealies they give you to wear around museums and a small but impressive pompom. 

The real news of the day is that Michael set up a very classy looking slide show for me- http://missmollymacmacmac.org/suits/ which furthers the calendar piece yet even more.  Hooray for more modes of documentation. 

Baby Shark

So, I've been blogging a little out of order.  Here is the baby shark that I posted to Boston (still a tad wet around the ears) on Christmas eve.  Obviously the big shark is still chillin' out at the house at that point, full of candy and LOVE!  

Anyway, it, and some other work I haven't had time to blog about, are on their way.  Hope they arrive in one piece, and I hope to see them soon!

Smashy Smashy Christmas

At last, I have started smashing the Pinatas!  Or, more accurately, having the pinatas smashed for me by willing relatives on Christmas night. 

 Pictured here are a few- Alice, Abby, Owen and Gwen (and my step-mom's parrot)

I took the larger shark down to a gazebo in one of the parks I used to work in on a very snowy Christmas afternoon.  You can almost see the Columbia River off in the background on the left. After dinner I brought down cousins and fathers and kids of cousins so that we could get our smash on.

I thoroughly enjoyed (as you can hear) the smashing of my art work. I was perfectly happy that it didn't take longer than 3 minutes and 5 people to do the dirty work. I was gratified by Owen's squeals, and that later he asked me if next year we could have an even bigger pinata (he's 7). My cousin is taking the shark head back to his classroom (in rural Omack) to mount on the wall. All went exactly as planned.

I stopped by this public dumpster the next day.  So exciting to be able to watch my work go into the trash with purpose and carpet.

Maryhill and Blue Skies...

So, I shot this video a couple months ago on the way home from Portland. The small (by comparison to the windmills) pillared building in the foreground is Maryhill Museum of Art, which, as you may notice, is in the middle of nowhere... http://www.maryhillmuseum.org/  I actually didn't make it there this year, despite my best intentions. However, I did recently visit Seattle Art Museum's stolen Centre Pompidou show "Elles"-

Glad to see we've come so far. I mean, let's face it, they are still selling sex with this exhibit card, despite their over-representation of the Guerilla Girls. Maybe you don't have to be naked to get into the SAM, but they'll exploit awkward girls in bikinis as fast as the next museum. My favorite pieces have not made it to the Google Images as of yet, but here are 2 I would have thought about putting on the postcard instead- 

I thought the Dora Maar photographs were AMAZING.  She may have gone down in history as Pablo Picasso's muse, but she certainly earned the title. 

And what is not to love about a big, hunky piece of Bourgeois?  I actually really loved the nice, gnarly piece of wood that was underneath the marble- what a pedestal! The mark of a craftsperson, that I"m obsessed with what's underneath the skirt of the art work...

But, as I said, the pieces I will remember most clearly were not to be found on the internets. Sigh.  One was this lovely, intricate geometric abstraction that had clearly had another wet painting laid on top of it, and had been collected by the pompidou in lieu of taxes posthumously. Another was right above the Bourgeois and was all blue stripes and intricate curves and s  k  i  n    ... So fortelling of the aesthetics of male genius' like Tim Burton. Someday there will be an affordable catalog, I'm sure. On second glance... 

Little Nevelson in the background...

Calendar Girls

I had to look some of these up for the write up on the calendar-  thought I'd share, since some are in the holiday spirit. These are all Alberto Vargas or Gil Elvgren.  The trick to telling them appart is that Elvgren liked more props.  Merry Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight!