"don't we want to live in a world made of art, not just decorated by it?"
happy halloween, banksy. thanks for stopping by.
Showing posts with label halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label halloween. Show all posts
10.31.13
"don't we want to live in a world made of art, not just decorated by it?"
happy halloween, banksy. thanks for stopping by.
10.3.11: texts
1 {5:58pm 9/30/11):
2 {7:16pm 9/30/11}: uh
2 {5:40pm 10/2/11}: you and the halloween tchotchke type paraphernalia, there's unexplored issues here
1 {5:58pm 9/30/11):
2 {7:16pm 9/30/11}: uh
2 {5:40pm 10/2/11}: you and the halloween tchotchke type paraphernalia, there's unexplored issues here
11.02.09
when i was a wee lass, we didn't mess around on halloween: my mother has an art degree from stanford, and she put it to good use in service of the holiday and our whims. each of our costumes was completely handmade,* and many of them were so well received that they were re-used by friends and neighbors over the next few trick-or-treating seasons (artichoke costume of the late '80s, i salute you). she still has a hand-feathered bird costume she made when my sister was a toddler, and it still drops jaws. said sister has her own art degree now (and is plugging away at costume design in grad school); the family tradition of bringing it each october has survived and gotten ever more feisty over the years.**
...which worried me when i decided to be the log lady. last year's bowie costume didn't involve a lot of sewing, but it called for enthusiastic face-painting; i got my effort in, after a fashion. i did some fancy ebaying to find a proper sweater coat and wig, but the former ended up being too big (the log lady is frumpy, but she isn't portly) and the latter arrived from hong kong...today, actually; getting a sweater from old navy and turning another wig into a bob (lauren: "hey, would you wear this while i chop it up?" joe: "no!") hardly seemed like a proper tribute to the fam. so (in the convenient absence of ponderosa pine) i made my log.
like most of the soft pieces i've built, it's primarily felt; this time i sprang for decent wool felt rather than the crappy stuff from the local art store, as i knew i'd be detailing the hell out of the bark (it will be a long time before i applique again) and i wanted it to retain its shape (and be washable, which turned out to be important, as i carried it around all night at a bar).
inspired by an extremely timely copy of jenny hart's embroidered effects,*** i tried my hand at some simple rings for the cut edges of the log and branches; given that it's the first time i've ever embroidered, i'm pretty happy with how it came out.
(that's stuffing sneaking out around the stitches; i sort of forgot to do the detailing before i constructed and stuffed the log.)
i also had a go at one of lovely amanda's favorite pastimes and spent a lunch break in central park gathering acorns and caps. i hot-glued a pair back together (you know it's craft if you melt glue), convinced them to stick to a pair of leaves i cut from log-scraps, and glued all of that to a safety pin. boom! brooch.
(you can see a bit of glue behind the caps, but that's a little cobweb rather than glue in the front. sometimes it's important to wear cobwebs.)
my log and i had a lovely time on saturday; a few people thought i was a tree-hugger and a few more thought i was carrying a giant cigarette (?), but the occasional twin peaks fan's happy shrieking was more than enough. log on, internets.
when i was a wee lass, we didn't mess around on halloween: my mother has an art degree from stanford, and she put it to good use in service of the holiday and our whims. each of our costumes was completely handmade,* and many of them were so well received that they were re-used by friends and neighbors over the next few trick-or-treating seasons (artichoke costume of the late '80s, i salute you). she still has a hand-feathered bird costume she made when my sister was a toddler, and it still drops jaws. said sister has her own art degree now (and is plugging away at costume design in grad school); the family tradition of bringing it each october has survived and gotten ever more feisty over the years.**
...which worried me when i decided to be the log lady. last year's bowie costume didn't involve a lot of sewing, but it called for enthusiastic face-painting; i got my effort in, after a fashion. i did some fancy ebaying to find a proper sweater coat and wig, but the former ended up being too big (the log lady is frumpy, but she isn't portly) and the latter arrived from hong kong...today, actually; getting a sweater from old navy and turning another wig into a bob (lauren: "hey, would you wear this while i chop it up?" joe: "no!") hardly seemed like a proper tribute to the fam. so (in the convenient absence of ponderosa pine) i made my log.
like most of the soft pieces i've built, it's primarily felt; this time i sprang for decent wool felt rather than the crappy stuff from the local art store, as i knew i'd be detailing the hell out of the bark (it will be a long time before i applique again) and i wanted it to retain its shape (and be washable, which turned out to be important, as i carried it around all night at a bar).
inspired by an extremely timely copy of jenny hart's embroidered effects,*** i tried my hand at some simple rings for the cut edges of the log and branches; given that it's the first time i've ever embroidered, i'm pretty happy with how it came out.
(that's stuffing sneaking out around the stitches; i sort of forgot to do the detailing before i constructed and stuffed the log.)
i also had a go at one of lovely amanda's favorite pastimes and spent a lunch break in central park gathering acorns and caps. i hot-glued a pair back together (you know it's craft if you melt glue), convinced them to stick to a pair of leaves i cut from log-scraps, and glued all of that to a safety pin. boom! brooch.
(you can see a bit of glue behind the caps, but that's a little cobweb rather than glue in the front. sometimes it's important to wear cobwebs.)
my log and i had a lovely time on saturday; a few people thought i was a tree-hugger and a few more thought i was carrying a giant cigarette (?), but the occasional twin peaks fan's happy shrieking was more than enough. log on, internets.
*which was especially impressive when i chose to be, say a telephone receiver, or autumn. you were patient, ma.
**my dad's side has its own techie subspecies of enthusiasts: for their semiannual halloween party this year, my godparents made a dvd invitation complete with easter eggs.
***jenny hart is my crafting idol; i've seen her at events in the city for years now, and i'm still too starstruck to roll up and say hello.
10.31.09
I carry a log--yes. Is it funny to you? It is not to me. Behind all things are reasons. Reasons can even explain the absurd. Do we have the time to learn the reasons behind the human being's varied behavior? I think not. Some take the time. Are they called detectives?
10.28.09: "it is not to me."
1: ...and besides, spending days and days making a really lovely detailed cloth version of a log instead of carrying a real log is kind of lynchian,* wouldn't you say?
2: [silent]
1: what if i told you it was stuffed with severed ears?
in other Lauren's Log Lady Halloween Costume news, i got a note from the ebay seller from whom i purchased a brown wig two weeks ago: alas, the wig is still without a tracking number somewhere in guangzhou province (notes to self: read fine print in item listings. do not buy fake hair from china.). it will, however, be here by 11/14! (do not buy fake hair from china.) happily, my friend sarah has an extra brown wig that she dug out of her closet on my behalf last night; judd (her husband; yep, same judd) brought it to work today and will be messengering it up here. is messengering fake hair lynchian?
1: ...and besides, spending days and days making a really lovely detailed cloth version of a log instead of carrying a real log is kind of lynchian,* wouldn't you say?
2: [silent]
1: what if i told you it was stuffed with severed ears?
in other Lauren's Log Lady Halloween Costume news, i got a note from the ebay seller from whom i purchased a brown wig two weeks ago: alas, the wig is still without a tracking number somewhere in guangzhou province (notes to self: read fine print in item listings. do not buy fake hair from china.). it will, however, be here by 11/14! (do not buy fake hair from china.) happily, my friend sarah has an extra brown wig that she dug out of her closet on my behalf last night; judd (her husband; yep, same judd) brought it to work today and will be messengering it up here. is messengering fake hair lynchian?
*from "david lynch keeps his head," one of my all-time favorite david foster wallace essays:
A Rotary luncheon where everybody's got a comb-over and a polyester sport coat and is eating bland Rotarian chicken and exchanging Republican platitudes with heartfelt sincerity and yet all are either amputees or neurologically damaged or both would be more Lynchian than not. A hideously bloody street fight over an insult would be a Lynchian street fight if and only if the insultee punctuates every kick and blow with an injunction not to say fucking anything if you can't say something fucking nice.
10.27.06
our halloween-related program activities have been pretty pathetic this year. the word on the street is that there's a pumpkin shortage (there's a fungus among us), and the ones i've seen on eighth avenue are going for $25 apiece; i can't go for that.* our rubber bats, jenna and barbara, are buried somewhere in my mammoth pile of craft supplies, and i'm too lazy to dig them out. and joe? joe doesn't do halloween. like i said, pathetic.
in the absence of inhabitant-generated holiday flava, the apartment itself has stepped up: it smells like death. the stank began a few days ago as the occasional rancid zephyr, and we thought someone had thrown garbage into the alley next to our building. on wednesday, it had become an assy wave that crested at the bedroom door, so i yanked everything out from under the bed in search of cat...i don't know. it wasn't the cats' fault, or under the bed. by last night, when it had ripened into an open-handed slap to the soul, we realized that it actually was death. something expired in the ceiling and, reheated by the radiator pipe that runs along my side of the bed, has been calling to us through loose plaster around the top edge of the pipe.
people, it isn't good. our building is 125 years old, and ripping out the ceiling to extract whatever the hell is up there (aside from being totally hypothetical, since our super would never materialize to do it) would take forever and probably flatten us all. the corpse isn't coming out, and it's going to kill us softly instead, odor receptor by odor receptor. happy halloween to you, too, apartment.
our halloween-related program activities have been pretty pathetic this year. the word on the street is that there's a pumpkin shortage (there's a fungus among us), and the ones i've seen on eighth avenue are going for $25 apiece; i can't go for that.* our rubber bats, jenna and barbara, are buried somewhere in my mammoth pile of craft supplies, and i'm too lazy to dig them out. and joe? joe doesn't do halloween. like i said, pathetic.
in the absence of inhabitant-generated holiday flava, the apartment itself has stepped up: it smells like death. the stank began a few days ago as the occasional rancid zephyr, and we thought someone had thrown garbage into the alley next to our building. on wednesday, it had become an assy wave that crested at the bedroom door, so i yanked everything out from under the bed in search of cat...i don't know. it wasn't the cats' fault, or under the bed. by last night, when it had ripened into an open-handed slap to the soul, we realized that it actually was death. something expired in the ceiling and, reheated by the radiator pipe that runs along my side of the bed, has been calling to us through loose plaster around the top edge of the pipe.
people, it isn't good. our building is 125 years old, and ripping out the ceiling to extract whatever the hell is up there (aside from being totally hypothetical, since our super would never materialize to do it) would take forever and probably flatten us all. the corpse isn't coming out, and it's going to kill us softly instead, odor receptor by odor receptor. happy halloween to you, too, apartment.
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