Deb Mackie, IGMA Artisan
The other of two dolls in the mad scramble to finish for FaerieCon! If I can get these two done in addition to finishing my Pyle Horse diorama, I'll be in good shape. I still have that cool green bottle I want to use for an Absinthe Fairy, but I have to get these ladies finished first.
One of two works in progress that I'm scrambling to get done for FaerieCon. Also my first attempt at an african figure. Haven't decided yet what color her tail and fin will be.
I have got to stop going back to bed in the morning after Jim leaves for work. An extra couple of hours of sleep is nice, but for the past couple of weeks, all it gets me is weird dreams.
Can't always remember them, but they involve me searching for things I can't find, realizing I forgot to wear any pants to work, trying to get someone to listen to me who can't even tell I'm there…stuff like that. But the last one really freaked me out. I was at Mom & Dad's house, as if I lived there now, and all the cats were outside baiting a huge rattlesnake. I couldn't get them to leave it alone. Then Ratt got bit on the paw and limped away, just as Jim came out to shoot the thing. He kept telling me he didn't see a snake anywhere, while I screamed "it's right by your feet, you idiot!" Then I woke up, all weirded out.
Sometimes I wonder if it's my conscience telling me I should get my lazy ass out of bed and be doing something productive like practicing harp or working in the studio.
I did get up this morning, and saw one of the most incredible sunrises we've had since we've been here.
No more sleeping in.
UPDATE: On Friday the 23rd I got a call from A-I saying they would refund my money. WOO HOO!!!!
This is the email I just sent to A-1 sanitation:
To whom it may concern,
I would like to say that in the past, we have always had good service from Boulden/A-1 sanitation when renting the portable toilet for our annual bonfire party. In the past, the unit was delivered on the Friday before the party, and picked up the following Monday with no problem.
However this year, I’m sorry to say, we had problems.
First, I asked that the unit be delivered on Friday the 16th of October, since I would be home from work that day to pay the driver. Instead, I got a call just as I pulled into work on Thursday the 15th from the driver informing me that he was on his way to my home with the unit and would be there in about 5 minutes. That morning, I had been considering cancelling the order when I got to work, because the weather forecast looked bad. I should have told him to take it back when he called. But instead, I had to leave work, drove home and wrote a check for a unit I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be using. Later that day, I called and inquired about having the unit picked back up and as to whether we might get a partial refund since it was delivered on the wrong day, and we hadn’t and wouldn’t be using it. I was told there would be no refund since it had already been delivered, but that we could keep it for the following weekend at no charge if we wanted to re-schedule our event, which was a nice gesture. Unfortunately, we couldn’t reschedule, so I asked that the unit be picked up at the company’s earliest convenience and simply wished I’d had the good sense to tell him not to deliver it in the first place when he called.
The unit was picked up on Monday, as planned. However, when I came home from work, I found the area where the unit had been placed completely torn up with tire tracks and deep ruts where the driver had apparently gotten the truck stuck. In the past, drivers have parked the truck in the gravel driveway and then wheeled the unit on a dolly the 50 feet or so to where we place it for the event. I would think anyone driving a truck that size would know better than to attempt to turn it around on a visibly wet piece of soft ground, especially after three days of non-stop rain. Normally, I would not complain, but after literally flushing $120 down the toilet on a rental that was delivered on the wrong day before I had a chance to cancel the order, and then coming home to this muddy mess just put me over the top. Our place may not have a nice manicured lawn, but the fact remains that I still have to go out there with a shovel and fill in the ruts where the driver spun his wheels to get unstuck.
I don’t suppose anything will be done about this, but I felt the need to let someone at the company know. I’ve attached a photo of the ruts left in the grass.
I did get a response from whoever monitors their "info" email saying she'd forwarded it to the bosses. We'll see if anything comes of it.
This law states that after you spend an entire day archiving, organizing, and house-cleaning the main server so that your computer illiterate colleague won't have the excuse of "I can't find anything in there" for always making YOU get them stuff from it, they will then send you snotty emails insisting that you must have removed the very thing they needed after you left for the day because THEY couldn't find it.
The law also states that the aforementioned colleague will get huffy when you show them that the item they needed is indeed there, and even easier to find than before. They will also continue to try and hide the fact that the very reason they can't find anything on the server is because they don't understand that the MY DOCUMENTS folder on their hard drive is NOT THE SERVER, and they have no idea how to get to it no matter how many times you show them.
While I am whittling the budget, I am also very carefully evaluating what shows I do for the remainder of this and next year. FaerieCon may be loads of fun, but it's gotten outrageously expensive and I didn't sell a thing last year. If that's the case again this year, I'll be attending as a punter next year instead.
I didn't sell anything of my own at the DAM show last year, but the table is only $25 and it's good exposure. I did manage to sell Stewart's exhibition display for him, so maybe this year I'll sell mine. Who knows. This year I plan to have some more Santas and Angels, and maybe some cheaper ornament type things and jewelry too.
I've decided not to do the FSMC club show this year–$120 is cheap for a table, but the big spenders don't go to the small local shows and I've come up a big fat zero on it for the past two years in a row. Well, except for that one that Marnie bought the first year, but she's a friend so that doesn't count. Gonna let that one go.
So the next show coming up is the Chicago International in mid-April. I actually sold two dolls there last year, and had two students in my workshop. I'm not doing the workshop thing this year–it was WAY too much work. I'd rather have more dolls for sale, a nice full table of quality work. And now that I've seen the show program, I will most definitely cough up the cash to put an ad in it. I just paid for my group ad for Miniature Collector for that show, which was required.
After that, is IGMA in September. Last year, no sales. But attendance was not good, and my lighting sucked. Nobody wants to come to NYC in February–the weather SUCKS. And I have nice bright halogens now. Hopefully September will be better.
I'm going to try again to make my way into Phila. Miniaturia again for next year. Kim says they have "enough doll people" and she doesn't want any more, but I'm going to apply again anyway. Maybe Mary Van can plead my case for me.
The big three–Chicago, IGMA, & Miniaturia. If I can do those, that's good enough. The rest of the time, I need to promote sales on my website, which haven't been bad in the past.
Got to be realistic, and careful with what little cash I have for these things.
Livning within one's means can be mean sometimes. Especially when your income gets slashed to less than a third of what you were previously living on. It's easy to slide down the slippery slope of credit cards, and dipping into the savings, both of which I have been guilty.
Then Old Blue started acting up, and we ended up taking on a new car payment. That was enough to send the wannabe budget over the edge. I went into panic mode a while ago when I realized that I'd dipped into the savings every month for the past 6 or so to pay the mortgage. GAH.
So I started whittling.
Cancelled the WW online: $16.95/mo.
Cancelled the YMCA membership. $35.00/mo
Cancelled the internet service: $47/mo
Cancelled the yahoo.com account $4.95/mo
Total saved: $103.90/mo.
Not massive, but every little bit helps.
Yesterday I opted out of a credit card rate hike, which closed the account. They were even nice enough to enroll me in an incentive plan where they match 20% of anything I pay above the minimum amount for the next 4 months. Which unfortunately, won't be much, but hey, it's a nice gesture from a not-so-nice bank.
I decided to keep the 9.95/mo Dave Ramsey budget program, because it's minimal, and will help keep me on track financially which is what this is all about.
I was thinking I should give up my Blackberry, but it was the reason I was able to cancel the internet account. I discovered that I can use it as a modem, just like an air card to access the net at home, and it falls under my $30 unlimited access which I was paying for anyway. Bye Comcast. I would have ditched the TV cable too, but Jim would have had a fit.
Tightened the belt another notch or two.
I had to make a print of the original illustration from the book to keep my reference clean. The one on the book's cover has been bastardized by someone at Dover Book company to make a "pretty" book, and I don't want their idea of color being an influence. So here is Howard Pyle's original black and white painting:
Fast Flew the Black Winged Horse, from The Garden Behind the Moon (written and illustrated by Howard Pyle)
Maybe it's a good thing the party got rained out. I kicked some serious ASS on my Pyle diorama.
Here's where I was with it at the start of the weekend.
I'd already spent way too much time puttering around building a real display box this time. The last few I did were just foamcore and fell apart. This is something I might actually put a price tag on and sell, so it needs a real display case. Aside from that, I built the styroafoam landscaping and filled in with lightweight spackle paste. As usual the nasty spackle crap took over a week to dry. I rough sanded and primed the foam shape dark grey.
So instead of scrambling around getting a party ready, I did this on Saturday:
Brushed on some white glue and dusted spots with sifted peat moss and landscaping foam, started placing some rocks and a couple of dead bonsai trees (unfortunately I have a lot of those). You can still see some bare primer areas because I ran out of rocks and didn't feel like going out in the pouring rain to get more. The white stuff is Elmer's glue that hasn't dried yet.
Sunday I continued:
People who see the pictures keep asking me what the rocks are "made of," or where I "bought" them. I actually did buy them. From the Quarry. 22 TONS of them. Yes folks, it's FREAKIN' DRIVEWAY GRAVEL, also known as "crusher-run." I've still got about 10 tons of it sitting in front of the barn waiting to be spread in the stalls and on the driveway. I think I'm going to bag some of it up and sell it at miniature shows as "landscaping stone" since some people can't get their heads around the idea that if they didn't purchase it from a crafts/hobby/miniature supplier, they couldn't possibly use it in their diorama.
I decided to take out the one tree since the horse will be in front of it and it won't be seen anyway. It will spend eternity in some other future scene. The rest of the landscaping stuff was either left over from the Delaware Art Museum architectural model, or stuff I "inherited" from Dad's workbench stuff. The green foam and dyed lichen peeking out from the rocks are from Woodland Scenics (model railroading supplier) and the little bushes are dried floral accents from Michael's crafts store, sprayed green.
And to keep myself from twiddling with things and messing them up while waiting for the glue to dry, I painted the front cover of the display case. I still have to tack down the cord from the light and run it out the back, so for now it just hangs through the frame.
Here's a closeup of the pool:
My latest adventure in casting resin. I've had more disasters with the stuff than I care to admit over the years. Either the stuff was so toxic the fumes alone could kill you (or at least make your studio stink for months) or it only cured to a gel-like stage which attracted all sorts of dust and eventually got cloudy. Then it would shrink as it cured and pulled away from the sides or cracked up the center…bad nasty schitt. I'd bought some EasyCast last year for a different project, and never used it. Since what was left of the stinky Castin' Craft resin had hardened in the can, and I was horribly disillusioned by the "Liquid Illusion" gel crap, I decided to give it a try. No odor, no cracking, no shrinking, and this morning it was hard as glass. WOO HOO!!! EasyCast ROCKS.
Here's a magic trick for ya: The little waterfall is made with a few twisted up strips of plastic wrap, crinkled slightly and glued to the rocks. Then I poured the resin over them just as it was thickening.
Here's where I was at the end of the day on Sunday:
Pulled the backdrop out after I realized I forgot to add the sun/moon. According to the story, it's supposed to be sunrise, but it's mighty high in the sky for that. I might just decide to make it the moon. Either way it gets lit from behind with another 8-inch flourescent bulb. The one in the front is a little bright, might have to tape off some of it. I always paint my backdrops on heavy duty wallpaper liner that I prep with three coats of gesso. It's nice and solid, opaque and flexible enough that it doesn't wrinkle.
I haven't glued down the landscaping yet–the whole thing still slides out. I still have to paint the Iron Man coming over the hill, and I forgot I need to paint the inside top of the box. I might add a bit more "drama" to the sky–haven't decided yet. I have this great photo of the sunrise over the trailer (the studio!) for reference:
It ain't gonna happen. There's some massive storm coming–hell it's already here—and it's supposed to rain like hell and be 40 degrees all weekend. Unfortunately, the jerks at the porta-john company delivered the unit this morning instead of tomorrow like they were supposed to, so I've already paid the $120 for the damn thing and it isn't even going to get used. I just called them, and they say they can't give me a refund, but we're welcome to keep it til next weekend at no extra charge if we want to reschedule. Which we can't.
Jim was right, we should have just let last year's be the last one. But this would have been the 10th, and that's supposed to be special, or something, right? I guess not. It would have just been another year where less people show up than the year before, and a lot of work for nothing.
I'm not going to waste time running around in tomorrow's forecasted downpour setting up shit for a party that no one will come to anyway because of the weather. And I personally don't feel like sitting around in the tractor shed freezing my ass off watching it rain with the couple of die-hards that will come anyway.
I'm going to officially cancel it tomorrow.
So much for 10 years.