Wired Beauty

I was chatting on twitter with a few friends today about buzzwords we hate: paradigms, synergy, gamification and so on. Afterward, I somehow got stuck in my brain the beginning of a lovely poem, Pied Beauty, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which begins, "Glory be to God for dappled things" and celebrates the beauty in imperfection. With apologies to Hopkins, I update the poem for 2012.

Wired Beauty

 

GLORY be to God for disruptive tech— 

  For apps of couple-colour as a branded cow;    

    For data gleaned from chips upon trout that swim;     

For viral video of finches’ wings;              

Paradigms plotted and pieced—push, pivot and plug;            

    And all trades, their transactions well tracked.               

All things counter, original, spare, strange;          

  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)              

    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;    

All those things whose beauty is past change:           

                  Upgrade them.              

You should really read the original. 

Petri Dishes Today, Holiday Market Tomorrow

I just listed my last dozen petri dish ornaments online, and now I'm getting ready to sell my work for 5 days at DC's Downtown Holiday Market. It's right in front of The National Portrait Gallery and is definitely worth a visit, particularly between December 7-11, when I'll be there! (The market continues until December 23 - vendors rotate)

I'll have lots of new work, both science-y and not, but if you're looking for a particular item, please let me know so I'll be sure to bring it along. Can't bring my whole inventory - too much stuff for one 10 x 10 tent. One thing I will have is a few one-of-a-kind scarves that are not on my website.

Hope to see lots of you DC folks there. I usually ask people to bring me coffee because it's so cold standing outside from 12-8 in December, but this year I think I'll be just fine, with temperatures predicted in the 50s and even 60s. But I certainly won't turn down a coffee if you bring me one!

Holiday Hints

December is creeping up on us, and holiday shopping season is in full swing. I hope that some of you will be wanting to buy some of my work as gifts - to yourself or others. So, just a couple of words about my schedule.

Apart from the scarves, I'm making everything by hand, and I've been struggling a bit to keep up with demand for petri dish ornaments. I will continue to make them this week and next, but from December 7th to the 11th I will be at the Downtown Holiday Market all day, and thus unable to make any more. And since they take at least three days start to finish, we're really talking about December 15th, at which point it may be a bit late. So - to avoid disappointment, please order ornaments by December 5!

If you're in the DC area, please do come visit me at the Downtown Holiday Market from Friday the 7th to Tuesday the 11th. (The market continues most of the month, but those are the only days that I will be there - the vendors rotate.) And please, if you are planning to come and you want something specific, please ask in advance (via email, twitter or etsy) because I can't bring all my stuff with me every day. I would hate for you to come out and be disappointed.

Anyway, I hope this doesn't sound bossy or pushy - I love you all and I thank you soooo much for your business. But alas, I can't send Teapot the kitty to the Post Office for me. And we already know how helpful he is with the resin.

The Fat Cat Sat...in the Resin

Yesterday, my petri dish ornaments were featured on BoingBoing and Neatorama, so I suddenly had lots of sales – yay! So I had to hustle and get everything I had into my etsy shop. I also decided to make a small batch of new ornaments with the last of my resin.

The resin I’m using takes a full 24 hours to dry, so I poured it yesterday afternoon and left it overnight to dry on my work table.

In the night my cat, Teapot, started acting strangely, racing around frantically from room to room. I ignored him and tried to get back to sleep. About 5 am, I gave up and got up. I discovered a petri dish full of resin quite far from where I had left it the night before. Its surface, still sticky, was covered with odd marks. Then, when I fed teapot, I noticed that the fur on his butt was standing up in stiff tufts as if he had used hair gel. I put two and two together. The fat cat had sat in the resin.

He spent much of the next hour trying to lick it off.  I’m still not sure whether I’ll have to give him a haircut. Tune in next week for more adventures of crafty cat.

Previously.... Teapot helps with painting.

Ornaments Have Arrived!

The first bunch of petri dish ornaments are in the shop now. Each one is individually hand-painted, resin-coated and gift-boxed.  I wish I could make them a little cheaper, but the resin really added to the cost. To ease the pain, I've fixed the shipping so that, no matter how many ornaments you buy, they all ship for the price of one. 

More are in progress, but I made sure the first lot included kitty microbes, swine and bird flu viruses and lots of other microbial goodness. 

Sneak Peek

New Christmas ornaments for 2012 in progress. This year each one will be hand-painted and coated in resin.

Look for them in the etsy shop next week.

Last-Quarter Plans

Wow, we’re already most of the way through 2012. Astonishingly, I only have two more shows this year. But, like Tim Tebow, I've saved some of my best stuff for the final quarter. So if you want to see my work IRL, try to make it to one of these:

October 14        MPAArtfest – this is a new one for me, a really nice fine art show put on by the McLean Project for the Arts. I decided to go with just abstract and science art for this one. Coffee cups and cats can wait for another day.

December 7-11         Downtown Holiday Market – I’ll be spending five days in front of the National Portrait Gallery as part of this wonderful downtown DC shopping experience. You should really come, and go to the museum at the same time, and bring me a coffee. I’ll remind you.

In the meantime, I’ll be hard at work creating new stuff for my etsy shop, including paintings, Christmas ornaments and (if all goes well, fingers crossed) some new scarf designs in time for the holidays. Stay tuned.

BTW, I painted this yesterday: Nice, huh? I’ll be bringing it with me to McLean, unless someone buys it before Sunday....