Kitten Therapy

In the last week I've made an effort to keep up with my various commitments and yet give myself a little room to rest and recuperate, thus forestalling an extreme event; say, falling face first into my flame due to exhaustion, or perhaps needing to be coaxed down from some downtown building as I fight maniacally with a cleaning mop. I am happy to say I feel more rested and refreshed, and no rescue agency has been bothered with any need for a swat team. Some of this is due to a happy event around my girlfriend's house.

Lyn Brown is, besides being artist/owner of Paper Wasp Design, a caretaker of a feral cat colony in her backyard in Somerville, MA. Besides food, she provides winter shelters, shots and in some cases euthanasia when necessary. She participates in a TNR (trap, neuter, and release) program with Charles River Alleycats which also provide rabies shots. I am very impressed and amazed that she manages this all while being a self-employed artist like myself. Last week there was a feral cat momma found in Medford, MA I believe, with five young kittens. A good person who was familiar with what Lyn does for these kinds of cats brought mommy and her brood to Lyn's house while adoptions can be arranged.

Who can stay stressed when you get to spend time with these little faces?

The note I wish to leave this post on (just so you don't think I've gone too super mushy):

This photo is of the kitten temporarily nicknamed Biscuit sinking his sharp little fangs into my toe.

Where Glass comes to life

My blogging brain has been swamped. Here it is June 20 (as the clock has just gone 12:15 am) and I look back and see I last posted on May 31. In truth there is great deal I would have loved to blog about at the time but I just never made it past doing some packing, or catching up on Flying Pigs and Green Frogs or, or or....and so on. Open Studio was the next big push after my Providence Show I DID post about. Perhaps a little less restful sleep happened than was required in that week, as I was preparing my piece for the Dirty, Smelly Noisy II show as well.

For my peeps and family in more West Coast environs, (WA, OR and even New Mexico... ((I know you are out there Vanessa and Cuevea!))) and my brethren still on the rock (Bermuda) Dirty, Smelly, Noisy needs a little set-up.

Dirty, Smelly, Noisy was a show hosted last June in the studio complex I rent out of, known as Western Avenue Studios. (Henceforth to be referred to as WAS.) (Don't want to lose my East Coast tribe with tooooo long a take on all this.) In a desire to improve an already vibrant and growing revitalization in Lowell; BPV Lowell, LLC gave the opportunity to intrepid entrepreneurs/Artists interested in working out of inexpensive studio space in an old mill building. Some three years into the project, the powers that be began looking to expand into live/work spaces in portions of the mill that would be good to accommodate such a thing. Well,small town politics are '

bout the same no matter the country nor region , so I think I can suffice to say some of the more entrenched attitudes threw a lot of hurdles to prevent this expansion. Their argument was encapsulated more or less by a phrase used early in the opposition. "Oh that area is just too Dirty, Smell, and Noisy to have anyone LIVE there.

I will let you imagine the rest of the tape tangled in our way.

June of 2008 WAS hosted an open invitation,

specifying:

The exhibit is open to any artist who wishes to make a statement about the inspiration to be found in industrial areas, about where artists are happy living and working or about the difficulties that we face in finding affordable, suitable places to live and work.

The show was lots of fun, we had art coming in from from many places from around the USA and we kept hacking through the weeds until, finally, we received the proper permit to begin building our live/work spaces. Fast forward a year and there has been enough interest (and Artists don't need much of an excuse for a party) to revisit the theme and concept. Part II is up for all of June. (I will post some about Dirty, Smelly, Noisy II again soon as I have photos and some sleep deprived stories to share... but for now... I get to the reason this post is named "Where Glass comes to Life")

It is best to shoot back to my last post. After sleeping incoherently for some of Sunday morning after Saturday's Providence Open Market, I was back in the studio Sunday afternoon beginning the process of putting the studio back together for Open Studio the coming Saturday and preparing for what I was to do Monday. Monday I met with the owner of Blue Cloud Gallery in Somerville and am now selling items from her store! That was a bit of a good boost of morale, creating another income stream with future orders, but as Open Studio's at WAS is a monthly event I wanted to improve and update my display and catch up on stock that I know I was going to need for that day so it was a muted celebration in my head as I powered through a mostly reallllly long rest of the week.

The best part of Open Studio on that Saturday happened very early, just before our 12 pm to 5pm scheduled festivities. Two of the friends I have enjoyed in the Lowell area is named Dean and his daughter Melissa. They have both kept me company on more than a few Open Studios and Melissa spends time between Heather's studio and mine while I get to talk with Dean. It must have been 11:30 am on this particular Open Studio Saturday and Dean arrived with something from Melissa for me. Melissa could not come to Open Studio that month as she was elsewhere, doing something different, but she made it very clear her Dad was to deliver her work to me. I will start with the photos.

Melissa had taken my postcard photos and added a large tag line for me above them, "Where Glass Comes To Life", followed then by my name. As you can see the bottom left says Unique Glass then bottom right she signed her name for me.

I WILL say this only once, but... Aw! Thank you Melissa. After you leave the third grade maybe you can start working on your portfolio and I will hire you to do some more graphic design. Couldn't be better.

Open Studio ended well and I repeated the way my last weekend went by sleeping incoherently for some of Sunday morning after June's WAS Open Studio 1st Saturday of the Month, then I was back in the studio beginning the process of putting the studio back together and preparing for what I was to do Monday.

Monday I traveled to Newburyport, MA and met with the owners of Sisters We Three and am now selling my work of this store! PHew.

Bringing it all back home, for this is a looooong post (gotta post more often, more efficient), I worked the rest of this week as I am doing Providence Open Market again. I leave for the show at 6:30 am. As of this posting, it is 1:55 am.

bye for now. Hope to be sleeping incoherently some of Sunday morning, I then have a shift to do at the Sign of the Dove store in Porter Square, Cambridge (an Artist CO-OP I am in ) . MAYBE I will get into that in a post someday.

Good night.