My thistle drawing from last week wasn’t doing what I needed it to do, so I looked through this book I just got for inspiration. It’s called Fancy Design 1920.
I looked through and came up with a new design that is more in the direction that I want to be heading.
I’ll keep you appraised of the development.
I haven’t blogged at all this week because absolutely nothing of interest has happened this week. You want to hear about the RFP I designed this week? It had a lot of charts. No? Okay. I also started working on a frame design that I want to execute in polymer clay, a frame with thistles on it. I have learned that thistles are a colossal pain in the butt to design. Stupid thistles. Here’s what I have so far.
It’s a start. There aren’t any leaves yet, so I have to work on that. And I have to decide if I want insects on it as well. We’ll see how it develops.
While living in New York can be awful, weather-wise, the benefit of that is that when the weather is beautiful, you really appreciate it. Can’t imagine it’s the same for people who live in the Carribean. Now spring has sprung in Manhattan, and the park right in front of my job is full of flowers. I tell you, it makes everything better.
It also means that the Macy’s Flower Show was this past week. Since is it:
- across the street, and
- free,
I couldn’t not go. Here’s my blog entry from two years ago on it. And, as usual, it was visually stunning. The theme this year was oldie-tymie hot-air balloons.
The gardens were lovely. As usual, my favorite was the bromeliad and orchid garden.
And the entrance area’s ceiling was covered with paper butterflies.
The best part: a cage with three neat colored finches in one of the aisles.
The sad moment for me was when I realized that all the little placards were written in Papyrus font. (Sad face emoticon here.) However, I did have a “tee hee” graphic designer moment.
See? The plant is called Papyrus, and it’s in the Papyrus font! Ha ha ha! Graphic designer humor! Never gets old.
It’s Halloween again, as it seems to be every year, and this year due to a truly psychotic work week (I enjoy working 36 hours in three days, no, really, I do) I did not have an opportunity to make or even care about a costume. So I did not. I did, however, get a great idea for next year’s costume (the tooth fairy, but not how you’re thinking, a more creepy-like tooth fairy). But back to the story: my friend Neenernator had her annual Halloween party a week early this year because she wasn’t going to be around this weekend, so Cricket and I went. And it was lovely. Out of the many vaguely steampunk slash gothic sluts at the party, Neenernator was by far the best one.
She actually took some time to decorate her house for Halloween, which really doesn’t take a ton of effort for her because Neenernator’s house is already pretty macabre to begin with. There’s deep maroon and mustard-colored walls, and that slate wall with the antique wood stove you see there in the picture (also the red velvet curtains, please notice those as well) and Bob the Real Human Skull sitting on the mantle keeping company with the small shark in formaldehyde, and the light that resembles an alien brain, all that stuff is permanent house fixtures all year round. So for Halloween she could pretty much hang that creepy bat thing from the chandelier and call it a day. But no, she really made it unpleasant (she had a gross fake decomposing severed head as a knife block and red Jell-o with eyeballs in the blender) and I spent a lot of time not in the kitchen with those things. Honestly, I spent very little time socializing and most of my time with the fishtank. I have an unhealthy obsession with Neenernator’s fishtank. I’ve mentioned it before. Sadly, one member of her giant blue fish couple died, so now only one is left. But she got new different fish, so I ended staring at them for three hours. I also learned an important life lesson, which is that it is incredibly difficult to take pictures of fish in a fishtank. The tank blasts the flash right back at you, and the fish are constantly moving around, and the camera doesn’t know what to focus on, it’s an opportunity rife with failure. Here are my best attempts.
First, the gigantor tank.
Shy iridescent gray fish.
Albino pleco (suckerfish).
One of them cool new fishies. It’s a golden striped iridescent something-or-other, with catfish whiskers. I heart them big time.
And here are two pictures Neenernator during the daytime that are far better. You can see the lonely blue fella. You see the vertical version? You see those diamond-shaped ones with the stripes and the little orange ones underneath them? I bought her those. I’m very attached to those ones.
This past weekend I went to local street fair in Pittsfield, Mass. and the raptor people who I see every year at the Blessing of the Animals at St. Francis of Assisi were there. These people (photo taken at the Blessing of the Animals):
See that big orange-eyed Eurasian Eagle Owl? My cousin took a picture with him/her. The raptor people have a thing where you get a photo taken with the rodent-killing bird of your choice, you pay $10, and you get a photo. You support them and you get a keepsake in return. Everybody wins. You know how I love the Eastern Screech Owl? This guy? (photo also taken at the Blessing of the Animals)
Well, he was in Pittsfield! His name is Solomon and he is mega-adorable. I made my father pose for a picture with him. I don’t know who’s cuter in this picture.
Look at Solomon, doing his best impression of a rotting bit of tree. And ANGRY and APPALLED rotting bit of tree. My dad said he weighed three ounces. Three ounces of KILLING MACHINE. Three ounces, for those among us who suck at visualizing amounts, is equal to a Three Musketeers bar. Think of that the next time you’re holding one in your hand. The candy bar, not an owl. Don’t hold owls.
First, some pictures Cricket took of some incredibly cute bebbeh vervet monkeys:
Then, so pictures sent to Cricket from the morning walk where they saw the rhino and conveniently didn’t die:
And another thing I didn’t mention is that a big thing in Africa is vibrantly printed cloth.
It is common to print political leaders on them.
I saw these fabulous cloths with Obama on them while I was in Africa. The best part of them was the artist had put a star on his lip, as if he was wearing lip gloss. So fabu. And, lest you thought I was kidding, I found a shot of it.
I finished the dung beetle and affixed it to the baobab surface, and voila! An ode to my trip to Africa. Now, I realize the dung beetle looks like he’s balancing on a meatball, but I figured I would leave a majority of the grassy bits and twiggy bits and seedy bits out of ball o’ dung. I figured most of my audience could figure it out.
I think it turned out pretty good. I especially like the beetle. I love drawing insects, I really do. Remember B.’s moth?
And my various other insect pieces in my portfolio… yeah, I definitely love the exoskeleton-ed.
I had to hike up a mountain. Let me rephrase that. My mom made me hike up a mountain. I do not like going out into nature. The walking surfaces tend to be uneven, with unstable rocks and slippery bits and grasses obscuring ankle-breaking holes. I am clumsy. This is a bad combination. But Mom was keen on seeing these San people rock paintings, and I tried to get out of it, I really did, but she wasn’t having any of it. So I climbed the damn stupid mountain, bitching and moaning the whole way. Let’s look at pictures.
This is the view from the about a quarter-way up the mountain.
This is the view from the top of the mountain.
And this is me at the top of the mountain, where I was all sweaty and miserable. Take in the unhappiness, people.
And here’s a rock painting painted by a San medicine man. The paintings are between 3000 and 200 years old, and the reason that the dates are so far apart is because the San would paint over old paintings, so anthropologists can’t date the older stuff without scraping off the newer stuff, which they’re not going to do.
It was extremely interesting, and I probably would have found it fascinating if there was a cable car, but there was not, so I spent the whole time looking at the paintings while grumbling with a thundercloud drawn over my head, like a Charlie Brown character.
Eventually we trekked back to the surface of earth, where the foliage is amazing. If I was doing another Lord of the Rings, I would do it there. It’s very cinematic.
Two other things that were interesting KwaZulu Natal:
Outside our cottage there was a tree. I learned in Africa that lichen only grows on the north side of a tree (I forgot the reason, though), so if you’re lost, you can look at the trees and figure which way north is. On this particular tree the delineation is very apparent.
Since he was doing all the driving, Cricket HATED signs like this. There are all over KZN. This might have been his favorite.
Here are some random pics from Africa that didn’t fit into any other categories. The first bunch is a random collection of bug pictures. The insects there can be enormous. Like, if they fly around and land on you, they are heavy and you go “uh” from the surprise of the weight. It’s astonishing. This is cricket in Kruger on a ranger’s fingers.
This is a millipede on my arm. I like the way their tiny feetsies feel, little hooklike toes moving like synchronized swimmers.
A praying mantis I saw in a restroom. I tried to pick it up and move it outside to take a picture of it, but it started chewing on me, so I dropped it and screamed. Apparently, a man came running out of the men’s room all concerned and asked one of our traveling companions what was wrong. Our companion said, “She’s American,” and the man said, “Oh, it figures,” like all Americans go into the bathroom and shriek. No mention of the mammoth bug chowing down on my finger. No, no, us Americans, we’re all fat and stupid and scream when we pee. It’s just how we are.
This is a female golden orb spider. She’s a big lady, about three inches. See that small brown thing? That’s her husband. She’ll eat him eventually. I walked face-first into one of those webs (about two feet across), and then flailed around like an alien was trying to emerge from my chest while clawing at my hair for giant freaky spiders. Me and nature, we don’t get along so well.
And here’s one eating a big grasshopper. They have no mouth to speak of, so they fill their food with an acid that turns it into soup, then they drink their kill. Mmmm. Slurpy pre-digested grasshopper.
Three other miscellaneous monster insects.
This is a license plate that I liked. It has a baobab tree on it. I heart baobabs. And British-Empire-looking crests. Also, note that this is a BMW. South Africa makes all the wrong-side-of-the-car BMWs for the rest of the world. All the heads of state in Africa drive around in them. They’re all over the place.
Okay, a holdover from the British is a deep love of all things chutney. They have chutney-flavored chips and meat products and everything. They also make a chutney powder for your popcorn. I do not know what Aromat is. I’m guessing it’s like Mrs. Dash, a festive mixture of random herbs and spices.
Has anyone been following the news? Did anyone hear how the Dalai Lama was not allowed to come to South Africa for a peace conference because South Africa has a big love affair going on with China? Really smooth, South Africa. Excellent PR on your part. Anyway, shortly after that news broke, I saw this worker in the airport.
Yeah, whatever. If you were so enlightened you would have let the freakin’ Dalai Lama in. BTW, does anyone know what “enlightened security” even means? Do they prevent terrorist attacks by flying off the walls and treading on the tops of bamboo like in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? I’m curious about this.
And finally, South Africa is gearing up for the FIFA world soccor/footbal thingie. It’s a great big hairy deal, like the Olympics. They’re building stadiums in a bunch of cities. There are billboards all over. And these clocks scattered here and there:
Cricket found these fabulous. Every time we had some downtime, he would say, “Hey, we could go watch the FIFA countdown clocks. They might have changed since the last time we saw them.” Me thinks perhaps he pokes fun at the FIFA people.
Alright, there’s my whole Africa trip. Hope you enjoyed it.
Next destination was the KwaZulu-Natal Province. Here is a helpful map of South Africa to tell you where KZN is.
It is an extremely beautiful area, all farmlands and photogenic countryside. My mom called it “England in Africa”, and she was right. It was settled by the English (no Africaans spoken there) and it looks like something out of Pride and Prejudice. The particular artist colony my mother came to study was a place called Ardmore. They make fine-art pottery that gets auctioned off at Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Every farm in the area has a cottage or two that they rent out to guests for extra money. This is Ardmore’s cottage.
This is Ardmore’s gallery where art dealers come to look at the art and meet the artists and make purchases.
And this is the house of the owner of Ardmore, Fée (pronounced “Fay”) Halsted-Berning. Note the English rose garden.
Mom, Cricket and I stayed at a small farm nearby at a place called Caversham Mill. We stayed in an adorable cottage made of corrugated metal.
It looks not-so-great from the outside, but the inside was all plastered and so it was nice and white with high ceilings and turn-of-the-century furniture. So airy and delightful. In the back was a porch with a stunning view. Now remember, this is a working farm, so there are animals all over. All the animals are kept in pens at night, but during the day they’re let out to stroll around and snuffle for food. It’s so very laid-back. Every sunny morning the two resident peacocks would hop up on our back porch and groom themselves. It’s a nice way to start the day.
And then the two small black ponies would saunter around.
In front of the cottage was a chicken pen and a pig pen. Here’s Mrs. Peacock hanging out with them.
And this was the gate in front of our cottage/farm area. I became well-acquainted with this gate, since I had to get out of the car many times to open it. Me and the gate, we’re pals.
That whole area is called the Midlands Meander. Each farm does something (Caversham has a printing press and a fine restaurant, Ardmore makes high-end ceramics, another makes all kinds of cheese products, another does musuem-quality beaded wall hangings, etc.) so you drive from farm to farm and you check out what they do. It’s a very lovely experience. At one farm I saw some truly stellar, truly free-range chickens. No pen at all. Laying eggs any which place.
This was the same farm that I saw the great shabby-chic bathroom with the chandelier.
One one of our travels to the other farms, we saw a sign that said “Gunther’s – German/Swiss Food”, and that intrigued us, so we went to Gunther’s farm. Definitely not a disappointment.
Let’s take stock here – we got the blue-and-white checked tablecloths, the giant cowbells, the two Saint Bernards, the flag decorations… and the Grand Central fiberglass cow. Don’t really know what that’s doing there, but I’m not one to judge. What you can’t appreciate from this picture is the dark wood decorations, the beer signs, and the real oom-pa-pa beer hall music playing. This was AUTHENTIC. They lady of the house (Gunther’s wife) let us try four samples of homemade wurst, which were excellent. We ended up buying the weisswurst. And gawking at the view. The view thing never got old.
Now, not everything in KZN is peachy keen. This is the place with the highest AIDS per capita of anywhere on earth – 3 in 5 people have it. The schools (which are sponsored by private companies, so many of the school signs say things like “Drink Clover Milk!” on them) look like maximum security prisons.
That school has two fences, one electrical and one with razor wire. And the “no guns, no knives, no drugs” sign is not a joke. It’s a big problem out there. So is the poverty. Many houses (if you can call them that) don’t have running water or electricity.
But people make the best of it. I liked the Pepto-Bismol painted shanties.
And we saw real cow herders walking their cows (called Nguni cows) from field to field.
They also have a bit of a problem with potholes.
Now you’re probably thinking of potholes that you’re familiar with. Don’t. These were axle-breaking horrors. They looked like there had been a dinosaur-style meteor shower, with three-foot wide flaming rocks screaming into the surface of the earth. And they were everywhere. You couldn’t avoid them. This is just a sample of the most photogenic of the potholes.
But other than that, it’s a pretty gorgeous place to visit with stunning vistas, charming farms and art, delicious food and a very relaxed and creative aura. Tomorrow, cave paintings.
Finishing up Kruger: The last night there Cricket got jiggy with the big braai-ing grill and cooked up a great big slab of meat (all this occurred during Owl Appreciation Hour and OMG did you SEE my OWL?!??) but it was very very dark out there, so he wore his headlamp the whole time. I’m telling you, that man can make a headlamp sexy.
Speaking of very very dark, the stars were AMAZING. Imagine being in a place the size of Rhode Island with less than fifteen thousand people. Seriously, you could see The Milky Way. It was phenomenal. Cricket tried desperately to take a picture of the stars (30 second exposure time, using a tripod, making everyone in the nearby housing turn their lights off, etc.) but while the picture is good, it really doesn’t capture the sheer mammothness of the night sky. But you can see The Milky Way! Those are the smudgy cloudy-looking bits. Soooo breathtaking.
I really hadn’t seen very many monkeys my entire trip, so I was delighted when on our last day, a troupe of vervets showed up at our house. I was the only one who was excited. They are very, very naughty beasties. They spend all their time plotting how to get into your personal space and steal your foods and valuables.
Plotting…
Plotting…
A brief stop with the plotting for foraging…
Then the continuation of the plotting…
And finally success. I heard a scream, and then a flash of gray out the door. This particular monkey got into the kitchen and stole some hot cross buns. Look at how he sat in the tree juuuuust out of reach and ate it, all cocky-like. “Yeah, I got your hot cross buns, heh heh heh.” Snotty little humanoid.
On our drive out of Kruger we drove past a large watering hole with buffalo on one side and marabou storks on the other. One marabou stork bravely ventured over to the buffalo side, but was politely but firmly forced off by a buffalo bouncer who got closer and closer with those big horns of his. Wise marabou, he got the hint.
Watering hole, buffalo side.
Watering hole, marabou side.
And that was the end of my four days in Kruger Park. Every time I go there, it’s as magical and awe-inspiring as the first time I went (when I was five.)
Cricket and I then headed to Durban, which is a major city in South Africa. There’s not much for me to say about Durban, we were only there for two or three days, and most of that time was spent chillaxing with a lot of good food, but there are a few key points I’d like to touch on. Durban still has a great deal of the nifty colonial architecture of the previous century. Say what you want about the European oppressors, they build a nice building. With lovely tin roofs and stained glass windows and intricate railings.
Don’t you just want some tea and crumpets when you look at those? And you see those gorgeous tropical trees everywhere? Mom pointed out a particular one that was so cool. It looked like an acacia, but it had these softly fuzzy orange-to-yellow berries or flower pods on them. So incredibly beautiful. This is the tree:
And these are the berries/pods:
Another thing we noticed in Durban is that since Africa is going back to its roots, it’s getting rid of the European-named streets. However, everyone is accustomed to those street names, so they’re doing it slowly and in an interesting way.
I assume eventually after everyone has gotten used to the new names, they’ll get rid of the yellow signs, but for now it looks like this.
The final thing I wanted to mention in Durban is the beadwork. Beadwork is a big, BIG artform all over South Africa and the continent, but there was this one shop in Durban that just blew my mind. They had plants and monkeys and chandeliers and wall mirrors and things that looked like Chinese shrines, all beaded, and some with lights. I bought a small beaded baobab from them (I’m having it shipped, it was too big for my luggage, I’ll take pictures when it gets to my apartment), but I really wanted the human-sized, lightbulb-filled baobab. This is a poor picture, but trust me, if it was in a restaurant in New York, you would spend the whole meal there staring at the tree and ignoring your dinner companions. It’s an engrossing tree.
Next up: The KwaZulu-Natal province.