On Convenience | Paper 25

("Gas stations, robbing the world of mystery")

On convenience and the problems it presents to us in the end; on convenience and what it robs us of. Following a discussion of how we can never truly be "lost" these days.

From the collection of Original Little Pieces of Paper. 

Context: Picture the gas station for all of your road-traveling needs. From a fancy piece of cheese, to the modern ATM. From water with air, to the exact directions you need when you're lost from point A to B to D and back on track again, recounted to you by the gas station attendant who's using the iMap on their cell phone (since yours is charging in their wall), and not using their local prowess. Everything you need conveniently put there for you.

(This is true story.)

This is a true little piece of paper.

Note* This is also the description of a modern convenience store that also happens to sell petrol, not a dusty, broken-down, picturesque gas station. 

Convenience stores: robbing the world of mystery. 

When we rely only on what is convenient, we may be lead down a path of suffering so great that we don’t realize it is happening.

Custom Guitar Straps

Hook, Rack, & Holder

I installed my sister's easy gift: the sanded branch with a painted popular aesthetic. Now she can hang her skivvies and earbuds from it. I went with the less dramatic hardware, due to the shells and turquoise hunks wired through the centers, with a few feathers on the end. 

Next was a solution for bracelets. I like a lot of the DIY "movement's" solutions for all things that get tangled and are tiny, and are almost always in a woman's room. This one is pretty obvious. Glued wood (Forrest abandoned our mailbox sign), with knobs on sale from Anthropologie. They can be knobs from the dumpster, it doesn't matter. Let them hang out far if you have a lot of thick bracelets. My cousin Deanna made me the dreamcatcher in 1994, a great artifact. 

Another part of this non-tutorial: The Necklace Frame. There are so many gorgeous frames circulating in the world, but even an ordinarily plain one you can paint or metal leaf. Attach chicken wire or a mesh metal, like window screen. If you don't have chicken wire because it's expensive to buy a bolt when you need only a foot, you can attempt making it (see below).

Side note: I found it much easier to lean than to hang, so I attached a small foam pad to the back upper side.

 And here's an extra Indian print bag in green! I've noticed for some reason this is a popular previous post...

Avocado Tree (and Coney Island)

Previously I began germinating an avocado pit, and for the first time received actual results:

Several weeks in, the pit was ready for dirt. COMPLETELY UNRELATED- I sprinkled the dirt and my pit's new home with beach glass gathered from Coney Island. Featured on the glass is the Wonder Wheel, Tower Swing (to the right), and the creepy-wonderful 'Steeplechase Funny Place' face, each in black ink and then clear coated.

Gorgeous days make for new healthy leaves.

Glass Palette

A glass-front dresser in the woods behind my house = a new glass palette! At 16"x28",  I'm oil-ready once again.

Multiband

So this is really great. AND in real life, it is also very, very pretty.

Saint Croix

I spent a small amount of time in Frederiksted, St. Croix several weeks ago. They have in town The Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts; didn't quite know what to expect and it was certainly better than expected. In fact it really was awesome. Here are just a few from a show several months prior.

- Edgar Endress, Janet Cook-Rutnik & Lori Lee

AND the treasure map that our wonderful host Bruce made, for us to find the site of some windmill ruins near Mount Victory Camp.

Snork swim sail survive. So much sea life. So much for life at sea... Till soon

(Barracuda, above.)

Giotto

My mom actually found this 4"x6" photo of a painting when cleaning out some of the treasures of my great aunt's small estate:
Italian painter/architect Giotto's rendition of Italian poet Dante. It seems to be a painting, or excerpt of a painting (?) from the very famous Bargello Palace in Florence, Italy.

So in reality, I hold a photo of a print, OR a blurry photo of the original (just printed poorly). That's the actual print quality, (look at the frame compared to the figure). If you keep reading, this train of thought gets better.

Now: it's kind of cool I guess, but maybe only for a few seconds. Really I have no recollection of this piece from any of my art history classes, probably because I was paying attention to better looking things. But the best part is on the back: Rome, 1928.
"Rome 1928", in the cutest most delicate pencil ever. I think the writing looks familiar, but who would really know. At least it tripled my interest level. In modern day, anyone can stick anything in a frame, and most anyone can print from the internet or purchase a shiny tiny print at a museum. But now we are forced to think about the art-print business of the 1920s (that I don't know anything about) or who in my family may have gone to Rome, or who cared enough to buy this little print in Rome- or even in the States (in Baltimore most likely) and so on. Did they sneak a photo in the Bargello Palace? That means they had a camera. That means they took a big trip. Now I have a good mystery, courtesy of this weird little Dante. Coming soon, some awesome-creepy photos of saint statues looking like real people, found in my aunt's boat house.

So just for the sake of sharing, here is a master copy I did three years back to date. Both of the Lucas Cranachs (younger and elder) worked in the mid 1500s, Giotto was 2 centuries before.

8"x10" Oil on Gesso Board. Copy of Lucas Cranach's "Madonna and Child with Piece of Bread".
HOWEVER: I am having terrible trouble finding out if this is the real title, or if this is even a copy of a Cranach at all, and if so is it the Elder or Younger? All I had to go by was the collection of Renaissance images that my professor had provided. He's [obviously] very credible, but if anyone has any helpful facts, send them my way! Thanks.