The Rut

"zeal, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl." ~ Ambrose Bierce

     I'm stuck. In a rut. Every time I bead something, it sucks. Really sucks. I take it apart. I try something else. That sucks worse. I take that apart. I enter into a staring contest with a pile of beads. The beads win. Out of spite I try to string them one more time. It still sucks. I unstring the beads and hide them so they can't stare at me. Evil evil beads. They're always sitting there, daring me to do something with them because they know I can't. Jerks.

     So yeah. I have no new jewelry. A few new clay pieces, because the clay bends to my will (hah hah) better than the beads do at the moment. But since I'm not succeeding in beading (hey, that rhymes!), the clay pieces are just clay pieces, sitting there uselessly next to the ever defiant beads.

     Anyway, even though I have no new jewelry, I have added more of my pieces to the website. There's now a miscellaneous category for the pieces that don't belong to any particular collection. They don't have buttons for the shopping cart yet, but they will soon enough.

     In other news, the ball I went to on Saturday was enjoyable. Cue horrible photo that my mother took without her glasses on.

     I'm rather fond of that dress. Took forever to find royal blue shoes to match it though. Seems like everyone is intent on wearing 5" heels. Cue slightly less horrible photos that I took on my webcam.

     There you have it, folks. Kaitlin Brown, all gussied up. You may never see it again in this lifetime. Savor the moment.

Broadening My Horizons

"If Botticelli were alive today he'd be working for Vogue." ~ Peter Ustinov

     So I'm trying something new today. With Halloween (the most amazing day of the year) around the corner, I've been looking all over for a good, safe party to go to. If I could, I'd be going to the Atlanta Halloween Ball at the Fox Theatre, but unfortunately, there's no way in hell anyone I know would accompany me at $125 a ticket. But even though I can't go to a fancy masquerade, I've decided to try and make some masks for those who can. I seem to enjoy combining fashion and art. I guess art just seems so much more relevant when you can get some actual use out of it. So today I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a blank mask along with some wire mesh for molding, and now I'm working on my first polyclay mask. It's a definite work in progress/experiment but so far it's working out relatively well. Here's a sneak preview:

     I don't know how this is going to turn out, but here's what I've done so far:

1. I took my mesh wire and pressed it over the blank mask I bought to create a base to model the clay on. 

2. I covered the wire mesh with a thin layer of a base color of clay (in this case, a mixture of pearl, translucent, and white clays) in the approximate shape of a half mask. 

3. I cut slices from an old cane (a multicolored and white lace cane) and began placing and pressing them into the base clay. I cut smaller shapes from the slices to fill in the gaps between the circles. 

     So that's what I have so far. I plan to use another color of clay for the sides, and maybe another color for a border around the edges. That's it for now. Now it's time for TV. All my shows are coming back from their summer break. Happiness. If only my father would let mom and I watch Grey's Anatomy tonight. I'm craving drama.

Trying to Come Back

     So, I'm alive and well, just so you all know. Got back from Hawaii on Thursday morning, and I've been trying to get back into the swing of things ever since. I had an absolutely awesome time at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Not many people there my age, but spent a lot of time hanging out with all of the birds there. For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit of an animal nut, and for some reason, they seem to like me in return. So basically I spent a large part of my vacation petting black-footed penguins, staring down flamingos, laughing at a bunch of little birds that landed on the table behind me to eat someone's leftover sandwich, talking to a white-crested laughing thrush, and trying to get the attention of a rather arrogant black-necked swan. Got to play with a couple of turtles too. But aside from the animals, I had a bunch of tasty tropical drinks at the various bars on the resort, went shopping with my mother and bought two lovely dresses, floated in the Pacific in an inner tube, walked on the empty beach under the moonlight, and attended several NATCA parties. I also managed to pick up some strands of freshwater pearls and shells to use in my jewelry. You can expect to see those in my upcoming pieces.

     While the vacation itself was fantastic, the process of traveling to and from Hawaii is NOT fun. AT ALL. I hate hate hate hate hate those stupid planes. Haaaaate. They try to cram as many people as they possibly can in there. An eight or nine hour flight jammed into a space so small you can barely move just sucks. Majorly sucks. I mean, flying coach is nothing new for me, but I've never been so packed into a plane before. I couldn't lean back or to the sides to sleep; I had to put my tray down and sleep on that instead. And on the way home, that didn't even work because the old jerk in front of me kept moving in his seat and putting it back, which caused it to slam down on my head multiple times. So, to the jerk in row 29, next time you're on a flight, try to remember you're not the only person on the plane. And tell that to your wife too. She was just as bad as you were. Jeez.

     Ok. Rant over. Anyway, now that I'm back, I have plenty to work on and get ready for. This Saturday I'll be attending a formal "ball" which really probably won't be all that formal and ballish since it's in redneck central. Apparently they even have a "gentlemen's parlor" where men can watch the football game. At the ball. Seriously? Bleh. So I bought a nice dress in Hawaii, only it's blue, green, and brown, so finding shoes to match is proving difficult. Mom and I are going out shopping tomorrow. Wish me luck. As I recently tried to explain to my friend, shopping with my mom is like climbing Everest. Of course, he had to go and tear that comparison to shreds because he's all logical and too well-informed for the good of everyone he talks to, but essentially, shopping with my mom can be exhausting, frustrating, uncomfortable, and sometimes life-threatening. She's like... a marathon shopper. She could stay out for twelve hours straight just shopping. Now I, on the other hand, can survive about two stores before I get physically and mentally exhausted. So tomorrow will be interesting.

     Aside from the ball, I'll be getting ready for Hatch Market, which (as I've said before) will take place on October 23. Then I'll be selling my wares at the Berry College Arts and Crafts Festival on November 6. Throw in a couple of family birthdays in October, and my life might get a little busy here. I also still have to get prints made and get the rest of my stuff up and running on the site. I hope you guys are helping me advertise, because I definitely need the business. I have absolutely no money coming in at the moment, and my bank account is starting to sink.

     So, to sum up, Hawaii was good, plane was bad, I'm busy getting ready for stuff, and I need business. Ta da. Now you're all caught up. I know you're thrilled. Maybe next time I'll have pretty pictures for you to look at.

Tired Nonsense Post

"Life is one long process of getting tired." ~ Samuel Butler

     So... after getting a little over four hours of sleep I got up and took my dog to the vet... and of course she had to go all psychotic on me... shaking and jumping and crying and trying to drag me out the door with her leash... I'm tired. I don't really know why I'm posting right now. But I thought I'd at least attempt to be productive. Anyway... here's a preview of posts I plan to do sometime in the near future:

* A lovely comic about the evils of the jewelry supply aisle
* An explanation of caning and pictures of the process
* A rant about my senior project from college
* An exploration of different ideas for my claywork
* A look at what inspires me and how I create
* A few paragraphs about artists I admire

     Maybe by putting this in writing I'll actually accomplish some of those things. We'll see. At any rate, I'm leaving for a vacation on Friday morning, so I doubt I'll be able to do more than two of these posts within the next week. But maybe I'll come back from Hawaii with more energy, a fresh perspective, and plenty of inspiration. Unlikely, but I like to try and be optimistic every now and then. Now, off to nap.

Oh, Technology, How I Love Thee!

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." ~ Arthur C. Clarke

     So today I realized that the computer does math better than I do. Who knew? But yeah, one of my friends told me about Open Office, and now I have a wonderful spreadsheet program for my inventory and expenses, which is oh-so-surprisingly much more effective than using TextEdit. Go figure. Anyway, I've discovered that I currently have 76 pieces in stock. Thought I had more than that, but I suppose it's not bad. I've already sold 28 pieces, which means that I've made 104 pieces (yay, addition!) so far this year. Considering the fact that I was dealing with my last semester of college for four of those seven months, I guess that's not too shabby. Still a long way to go before I can feel confident in my ability to use my art as a full-time career. Now that I have my shopping cart online, I need to photograph my artwork, get prints made, put all of my artwork on my site, photograph the rest of my jewelry, and get all of that up online as well. And don't forget Hatch Market in October. Need to make sure I have plenty in stock as well as displays to set up. So much to do, so little time. Ah well. That's life. Anyway, that's all I have to report today. Nothing new. So sorry.

Victory!

"Success is a great healer." ~ Grace Atherton

     The shopping cart is online! Woohoo! Been having a very rough time in my personal life, so this makes me feel ten times better. I don't know how it's going to work out on my end, but I've tested it from a customer's viewpoint and everything seems to be going smoothly. Let's just hope that this all works out. Crossing my fingers.

     Aside from the success on the site, everything else I touch falls to pieces lately. Spent an hour making a cheap steampunkish bracelet, but once I had it finished and tried it on, it didn't lay right at all on my wrist. Failure. So I took it apart. Oh well. I also tried to make some polyclay beads using this wonderful tutorial over at Desiree's Desired Creations. The beads on that site are gorgeous... and mine turned out horrible. Failure. Still trying to figure out how to salvage that one after several hours following all those steps. I'm kind of surprised since I've followed several other tutorials there without any problems. I think I just screwed it up. Bah humbug.

     But... I have a shopping cart! Woohoo! Yeah, ok. I'm done now. Check in again soon.