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Monday, January 31, 2022

Happy Lunar New Year

Year of the Tiger starts February 1.
Time to burnish some treasures for strength, protection, healing, and CHEER.

This is a rescue tiny toy tiger, missing an eye, and my mother gave me the chicken kitchen timer--it still works, twenty-plus years later, but I'd treasure it even if it didn't.

Tiger is bedraggled but chuffed that it's HIS year.

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Toy Portrait III: Little Brother

Little Brother didn't want to say anything for his portrait.
His head is dandelion colored, so he wanted a leaf instead of a quote.


Sunday, January 16, 2022

Toy Portrait 2: Little Lion

 

Toy Portrait No. 2:
"I SAVED A DOLL.
I'm pretty brave."

(This tiny stuffed lion was saved from a Dumpster*. For a long time afterward, he was very timid––until a couple summers ago he saved a doll from falling off a cliff to her certain death.)

Painted in gouache.

Toy Portrait No. 1

*photo of lion in Dumpster at end of post, here

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Expansive Jupiter

So many unexpected nice things (well, a couple big ones, anyway) have come my way recently, I checked to see what's going on in the stars.

Here's what:
The jovial planet of Jupiter is traveling through Pisces, my sign, for most of 2022, bringing lucky possibilities to all, but especially Pisces,
"
a mystical, magical, lucky transit that astrologers have been eagerly awaiting" [via].

Okay, then!

First up:
Today I did my first shift at a bookstore downtown that sells rare and antique books--mostly online these days. Its temporary: I'm helping out  packing books while one of the owners recovers from a knee replacement. The owner is a friend of a friend, who alerted me that the store needed help.

Someone came along with me: the dispenser of gummed packing tape was too heavy for her, so she browsed the books instead.

This is a genius machine, from the 1950s, I think:The plastic bottle on the right irrigates a moat, through which the paper tape runs.

The lever the doll is trying to operate dispenses the tape--you can see how many inches on the silver guide on the left–and when you release the lever, it slices the tape.

"Jupiter on my shoulder"--actually the morning sun.



Lots of great books, and I can take double my pay in trade, but they're spendy, and I'm no collector.
I'll just enjoy browsing.

I had never seen Orlando the marmalade cat before!

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Willing to be a dweeb for democracy

I told Marz I was thinking of posting a quote from FDR in defense of democracy on my Instagram––because at the anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol by some of my fellow citizens, I was thinking how precious and precarious democracy is.

"I'm an old person", I said. "I can honestly say these sincere, old-fashioned things."

"You'll sound like a Karen," she said, but not unapprovingly. "Jimmy Carter said something like that about the attack on the Capitol."*

LOL. Yeah, okay. Though I'd say a dweeb, "a person socially inept or foolish, often on account of being overly studious."
But also, just taking it seriously.

I made this from FDR's "Rendezvous with Destiny" speech--his acceptance of the Democratic Party’s renomination for the 1936 presidential (re)election:


Full speech here.

I added:

Doesn't FDR sound like Gandalf here? Just replace "democracy" with "the shire".
It's like the exchange between Gandalf & Frodo:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times.
But that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

On the 1-year anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol by Americans, FDR's 1936 "rendezvous with destiny" speech reminds me this sort of threat keeps arising.

       ❧       ❧       ❧
The reason I love George Floyd Square is that the occupation is democratic:
the people who hold the square do so peacefully and representatives seek to negotiate with the city government to meet a list of demands they created with the neighborhood and concerned parties.

photo via


*Jimmy Carter on the anniversary of the insurrection:
"Our great nation now teeters on the brink of a widening abyss. Without immediate action, we are at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy. Americans must set aside differences and work together before it is too late."

Saturday, January 8, 2022

January Sunrise

Cold weather makes for clear skies and beautiful sun rises & sets.

Topper put on a bear's sweater to go sit in the cherry tree early this morning...


Friday, January 7, 2022

2021: Bear at the Square

 Brokenheart Bear at George Floyd Memorial Square, 38th & Chicago, Minneapolis, MN

I put Bear at the square in mid-July, 2021. Poster on ground: "NO JUSTICE, NO STREETS"

When I went back, someone had given Bear candy suckers to hold:


And the next time, Bear was reading the psalms:

Two days before Christmas, a jury found Kim Potter found guilty of manslaughter for shooting Daunte Wright.
Bear sat with a red rose under a blanket of snow:

And by Christmastime, Bear was snug in a snow cave:


2021: The Best Series

Behind the Scenes: Frankcolumbo tags along on the "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose" photo shoot (w/ SweePo & Satisfied)


Sunday, January 2, 2022

TOY PORTRAIT I: "I'm worried about the scones burning."

 


Portrait of Tiny Brother in gouache

(No one is baking scones here this morning...)

Saturday, January 1, 2022

Stepping Out...

 ...into the New Year.
It's 2 below (–18ÂșC)
here though; they quickly came back in.