Awesome Quote

Someday, I'd like to do something so horrible that it warrants my following up by saying something like this:

"It blew my new career out of the water and turned my pubic hair white overnight." -- Rupert Everett

I think i need to read his book. Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins.

Feeding the New Baby

Feeding the New Baby
Originally uploaded by amyfaerie

I love this photo. It's not very good quality, but that makes it somehow better. It seems dreamlike. The back of the photo has no names, but it does say that it's the first photo of the baby, the day after they came home from the hospital. This is from my own collection--feel free to use the image if you like.

Poem.

My good friend sarah keeps a dream blog, and her most recent entry is titled "in the crawlspace." i am focusing on making that a poem's title . . . i love it. :)

Facebook has me crazy.

So, I joined Facebook in early 2007 and hated it. HATED it. just never went back . . . then i decided to see if i could remember my login yesterday, and it's amazing! so many people from my undergraduate, from my hometown . . . and some people i'd completely lost track of over a decade ago.  And, so many art friends and authors!  So, i'm giving it another chance. :)  like i need another distraction!

Choosing a Book to Alter

I'm in the process of making a little tutorial on altering books. the first steps--choosing the book, pulling pages, doubling up pages--are walked through at my flickr account. The photos are in order, and numbered, and have directions attached. So . . . Alter a Book, Dammit!

New Vintage Photos.

It's been a while since I've uploaded any vintage photos to share--this morning I added about two dozen new ones to my flickr account. As usual, they're free to use in collage and other artwork. Have a fabulous holiday!

two more poetry submissions.

I'm sending a chapbook manuscript to Finishing Line Press . . . their New Women's Voices contest is open until February, but I figured I'd get something--one thing, at least--out early to a contest.  I also am sending a book-length manuscript to Fence Books, for their Motherwell Prize, which is for a first or second book by a woman. They only take submissions for four weeks--the month of November--so that, plus having to be a newer woman writer has to give me a bit more of a chance to be short-listed. I hope.  Cross your fingers!

5 x 7 journal pages

so, my art friend roc is hosting a swap for 5 x 7 journal pages, on which the art must feature numbers, at least three colors, and some sort of texture. i made the six required for the swap, plus an extra for roc and an extra for myself. the background is collaged from scrapbook papers, vintage pages from a fortune-telling book, and some vintage tape measure & foreign stamps. there is some other assorted ephemera in there, too. the green numbers are from old flash cards, and i've added acrylic paint, watercolor crayon, rubber stamping and some marker and colored pencil to them. each page has an image on it that i picked at random from my drawer of images [yes, i really have one]. because i had to add numbers, i decided to make up silly rules--each page features one that i made up. rule 15 is that dutch girls hide their cloven hooves with wooden shoes, and rule 8 is that if you're a tourist, people will excuse your posing with statues, but they won't excuse those shoes. anyhow, these are finished front and back, and i'm sending them out tomorrow to get them on their way before thanksgiving.  it's the first swap i've done for a while . . . but it made me want to work on more journaling.

Poetry Contest

So, I've been trying to find time to revise my manuscript and push it out to a few book contests--and this weekend, I finally have that project done, except for a table of contents and printing it all out.

Calyx Press has a book contest--this is the inaugural year--for Oregon women poets. Their deadline was extended, so I'm hoping that means they are just waiting for my manuscript to arrive. LOL. Their deadline is November 20, so I'm going to try to get this out in the mail on Monday or Tuesday.

I have been trying to decide on a title . . . should the manuscript be Girl Most Likely to Drown, or The Scar Swallower? I'm going with Girl Most Likely to Drown . . . mainly because I'm too lazy to change the name of my blog. LOL.

as mysterious as a cat.

Poe PAT
Originally uploaded by amyfaerie

I made this card for my art friend kristin. She collects ATCs of cats, and ATCs of Edgar Allan Poe--so I decided to combine them. :)

The black cat's body is from an antique halloween postcard, and I just cut Poe's head from one of his portraits. The saying, "I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat" is a quote attributed to Poe.

This is a collage of ledger paper, tax stamps and scrapbooking paper. Then, rubberstamping was added, as was the rubberstamped jar with a raven in it. The pencil is also stamped.

Over top, the card is edged in watercolor crayon and black marker, then layered with melted tulle and transparency with alcohol ink. It's all held together with a few purple staples. I really, really would like to keep this, now that he's finished . . . i just think it's so cute.

Mary Gaitskill on an ATC

mary gaitskill
Originally uploaded by amyfaerie

An art friend of mine requested a card that featured any writer--we're in a swap together in which we pick our themes.

I've chosen to make a Mary Gaitskill card for her--a great quote from her book Bad Behavior, and my favorite picture of her. If you've not heard of Gaitskill, you may be familiar with the film "Secretary," which was based on one of her short stories.

Gosh, this card & quote makes me want to reread the book.

I saw her read in Pittsburgh about three years ago in the dank basement of an art gallery, and she was amazing. She read from Veronica, but she also talked at some length in a Q & A session about her own involvement with JT LeRoy, the child author/literary scam that was the basis for Armistead Maupin's book "The Night Listener."

I have my copy of Bad Behavior signed by her--from that reading. She was shocked to see a first-edition hardback of the book, which was cool, and gave us a reason to talk for a second or two.

two milk caps

two milk caps
Originally uploaded by amyfaerie

here is a little shot of two milk caps from my vintage ephemera drawer--you're welcome to use the image in your collage work if you like. it's been a long time since i've posted anything!

An Excellent Thing.

So, my friend Katxena has blogged a few times about items in her life that make her short list of "Excellent Things." I haven't been blogging much lately, so I thought I'd give this a try, in an attempt to get back into the swing of things over here--to get myself writing regularly again.

My first Excellent Thing is the hair powder made by
LuLu Organics.

First of all, I'd heard tales of dry shampoo from my mom, who was a beautician in the mid to late 1960s, when women wore wash-and-sets and didn't wash their hair every day. I had thought it was such a great concept, but no one sold it four or five years ago. Then, about two years ago, I came across LuLu Organics' hair powder. I bought this online after reading a little review of it in Bust magazine a while back . . . and it's a little pricey at 40 bux for 4 ounces, but I gave it a whirl when I had a little extra dough.

It is awesome. I have the "lavender and clary sage" scent, and it smells SOO nice! I usually skip a day between hair washings, because a.) I'm lazy, and b.) my haircolor lasts longer and my hair stays shinier.

A little hair powder in the palm of my hands then raked through the hair at my temples and through my bangs is all I do . . . and it adds great texture.

There are more hair powders/dry shampoos on the market right now, but I wouldn't want to try one and be disappointed. :)