I had to beg and plead with her to sit for this picture. "I don't have any make up on." I told her "You're so much more beautiful than I am and the hat goes with your hair cut." One shot photo. Whew.

This next item is a pair of fingerless gloves. Here is my post to Strange-CITY about how the fingerless gloves were made.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4583315_stitch-crochet-shell.html

For full size gloves the finger holes are simply single crochet from back to 
front of the glove and then go around with single crochets until you build up a 
finger hole. I had to fudge getting from one finger to the other by doing single 
crochet over rows of stuff on an angle to get to the base of the next finger. I 
could have cut the thread and started out with a new bit of string, but I was 
trying to avoid that as an experiment. 

Ecru Cotton string fingerless gloves. Single, double, treble crochet with shells on shells. The cuff was knitted 3 perl and 2 knit alternating to get the stretchy cuff edge.

Black cotton and gold metallic thread went into this collar and cuff set. Single, double, treble crochet with shells on shells to make the ruffles.

I had close to a thousand words written when my connection to my web host went wonky today. After much back and forth I have access to 2 out of 3 of my domains. The one that I don’t have access to is the one that I need to totally redo.

NoraJean-Designs.com has to be razed to the ground and rebuilt from scratch because the new browsers do not like FrontPage 2003 Themes. I don’t blame them that much actually. I mean the software is 7 years old and in computer terms that’s like retirement age.

There are a bunch of web sections of mine that have that theme and that use the slide show function. All those are cock eyed in the new browsers. They are hunky dorie in Internet Explorer because FrontPage is a MicroSoft product.

What is being offered post FrontPage is not an upgrade, it’s not a replacement, it’s  not even compatible really. It’s a Cascading Style Sheet thingie and I will lose the ability to control the navigation chart behind the scenes. Something I actually do use with FrontPage. So I may jump ship and leave MicroSoft since they left us FrontPage users high and dry.

Dreamweaver is compatible with FrontPage so I wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole website. I have other things I’d rather be doing: making new art, getting some sewing done. The picture above is my new sewing area. I did this monster rubic’s cube dance with boxes to carve out some sewing space in my one room.

Being a small business hopeful means you have to do everything: make the inventory, do the tech – set up the website, pick an electronic shopping cart, do the marketing, keep track of the income/outgo for the money. I mean really, all I wanted to do was to make pretty things and sell them. Now all the other parts of the process take up more time, resource, and energy, than making the pretty things.

Watch out. As soon as I get some money in I’m delegating some of this work that isn’t part of making pretty things. Or I’ll hire a house keeper, laundress, and cook so I don’t have to do those things and I can put energy into doing the small business dance.

No matter which way I look at it I do not have enough hours in the day, arms on my body, or resources needed to pull off this “I’m going to make money as an artist.” gig. Not without something suffering.

One positive side of getting a divorce is that freed up a whole lot of time and effort for me. I’ll have to thank him for it one of these days. I have more motivation to share what I know with the ClayMates, StarGazers, and Computer CITYzens, than I do taking care of some man who is old enough to take care of himself. I’m in the “I’m an elder of the tribe and I need to down load my data.” phase of my life.  I can’t even picture myself getting hooked up with someone. Just retelling my life story would make me want to rest for a couple of days.

Now a real working partner, someone who knew business inside and out and liked that part of the process. Oh that would be delicious. I’d make chicken katsu for him, no problem. Someone who had a bit of the tech geek in him too. That would be worth doing his laundry and ironing shirts. Ok I’ll send that wish out into the cosmos. A Boomer dude, biz wise and tech savy, looking for a gal who knows how to cook biscuits from scratch and who can fix zippers without complaining. Hah! Now that cheered me up mightily.

I best post this before something goes wonky with me and my web host again. It was weird, others could see my site but I couldn’t. I couldn’t access it through FrontPage. Slowly it’s being sorted out and fixed but I tell ya I had to make a concerted effort to enhance my calm.

Impressionism at Twilight

De Young Museum - Impressionism at Twilight

“From June 17 through September 2, the de Young presents Impressionism at Twilight every Thursday evening, featuring reduced admission fees and extended viewing hours for Birth of Impressionism until 8:45 pm (last ticket at 7:30 pm)”

I’ve been pestering Milly to take me. I could go alone but I always go to the museum with Milly. It’s much more fun that way.

She said we might be able to go on June 24th. I’ll have to see since she has tons of family and friends at her and Molly’s place right now.

Venus is going into Leo and I can feel the call to the Museums roiling about in my blood. It’s time to get out and see beautiful things, be sociable, hang out with my girlfriends and stop being a mope in the apartment because of this divorce.

I’m over moping. I’m heading out to go places, do things and hang out with fun and interesting people.

There’s light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not the light of an on coming train.

I updated my “About” page to reflect my status of being happily divorced.

I’m still wrestling with paperwork golems with my new status of being a free woman: name changes and all that. When the dust settles I’ll be able to start posting to this blog.  There are a lot of wonderful and interesting things that artists are doing around the world and I really want to share with all of you what I find in my web searches.

Well this is just a short note letting y’all know I’m alive. I survived and I aim to thrive.

Why there are no new polymer clay tutorials and what’s going on with the NoraJean-Designs e-commerce section. This link will take you to the Nora-Jean.com blog. This is the last blog post… for now.

In the end, Makers feels like a personal, cultural, and literary milestone: an employment of the full literary toolbox of SF, in the service of a portrait of how the world actually works. If only every genre author set out with the same high ambitions, there would be no talk of SF’s failures, only triumphs.

Paul Di Filippo, Barnes and Noble

http://craphound.com/

If you’ve never read any of Cory Doctorow’s books then you’ve missed out on something faboo. Check out his site. Buy his books. Change the way you see the world.

Short Bio: Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger — the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of the bestselling Tor Teens/HarperCollins UK novel LITTLE BROTHER. He is the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in London. http://craphound.com/bio.php

The first Tuesday of the month is free admission for a handful of museums in San Francisco. I usually go to SFMOMA and I did today.

In January it was their 75th anniversary and I had to laugh to myself because, as Bushyaib says, after 75 years is it still modern art?

There were works there of artists I discovered in Art21 : Doris Salcedo and Kara Walker. Seeing their work in person was very exciting.

Gerhard Richter’s painting: Lesende (reading) was wonderful to see in person. His painting is almost photographic. I’ve only seen this picture in books on on the web. In person you can see the brush strokes, you can see that the newspaper is just suggested but not exact. As I was marveling at it a man came by and I mentioned to him that it was a painting. “You mean it’s not a photograph?” he says. “Look at the brush strokes on her neck.” I pointed out. He then was amazed at how it looked like a photograph.

To see a painting that looks like a photograph only in print or on the web does not do it justice. So that was a special moment for me.

Diego Revera: Flower Carrier

I saw a bunch of old favorites like, Diego Revera’s “Flower Carrier”. It is delicious to look closely at his paintings. I could get lost in the basket weave.

There were special exhibits of when the Museum was first opened; how it had to be moved so the United Nations could meet and draft their mission statement.

Four Men With Frames

SFMOMA has tables with books chained to the table, looped through a hole drilled through the whole book, you can see but you can’t walk off with them, a good practice actually. There was a book on Tintype photos that went from 1864 to 1931. That was fascinating because since Tintype was immediate and cheap, ordinary people could get their pictures taken. The formality of Victorian society could be turned up on its head as regular folks realized they could have fun while having their pictures taken.

“Four Men With Frames” was so playful and reminded me of the Beatles, especially the fellow in the lower right. Doesn’t he remind you of John Lennon?  It was my favorite tintype photo in the whole book.

I talked with a lady named Barbara who teaches art and I gave her my card, told her that there are Word docs and PDF files she can print out to use as tutorials for polymer clay on my website. I chatted with a lady who was having her 60th birthday, “So you survived your second Saturn Return?” and after a few minutes of chatting she asked for my card. I got two compliments on the lace blouse I wore, which I found in recycling. I got to play with the cutest 5 month old baby who laughed at my silly noises and leaned forward and reached out for me. In another three months my silly noises will make her cry for her mother. I got to chat with a couple of young ladies sharing with them some of the information I knew about various artists. I spent more money than I had planned because I couldn’t resist buying a book and some food and drink. All and all it was good day and I’m bushed. I wanted to post a mention of just some of the things I saw today before I fell out.

I finally got some new content up on my website. The NJ cane effort.  I also finished archiving December 2009. Plus I archived all of 2009 Highlights.

As I was in the middle of doing that and rearranging my astrology books I was introduced to a friend of my son. The gentleman is named John Van Dinther, who came over to learn Kung Fu. When new people come over I ask “What do you do?” and he said he helps small businesses.

I thought “Whoa”. Then I asked him if he’d like to barter some of his expertise in exchange for my doing something for him. I won’t go into what that something is, but it’s legal, and private. Suffice it to say he agreed to the barter.

His blog is http://2hats.blogspot.com/ and he has some good advice. What is really wonderful is he offers advice that is also metaphysical, like advising small business owners to meditate.  The “two hats” refer to the two roles small business people often find themselves juggling: one of producer of the product or providing the service, and the other is of the business manager of their small business.

Lord knows I have a difficult time getting a handle on the business side of the equation.

I wrote a business plan with the help of the Women’s Initiative so I know I don’t need an infusion of any one else’s money. I just need to get my ducks in a row with regards to running a legit business.

I also find myself at a fork in the road with regards to what business I am going to persue. You all know me as a polymer clay artist. Some of you know me as an astrologer. I’ve been studying astrology since 1966 and working with polymer clay since 1999. Recently, during our financial crisis in December, I picked up a couple of astrology readings and I found that I really missed doing readings.

StarGazers: Pluto is conjunct my ascendant so a change in my persona seems to be what is going on with me.

I don’t think I need to abandon my art production in exchange for doing astrology readings. I think I can do both. I am doing both at this time. So it’s nice to know that John is open to the type of small business person such as myself, the metaphysician who is making effort not only to make money but also to do some good in the community.

It feels good to add new content to my website, which, thank God, I am going to be able to renew. Whew and double Whew. It feels good to get back to blogging. It was not prudent to put energy into my blogs when I was in a struggle to save my apartment. Now I feel very positive having met John, because I feel I am back on the path of setting up my business. So a good start for 2010, all in all.

Back in April Debbie, Kathy and I came up with the idea of opening a Yahoo Group called “The Trading Post” where creative people could trade supplies.

“The Trading Post” was closed down today.  The time and energy needed to start up a new group just wasn’t there.

Art:21

artists & episodes – To date, 86 featured artists in the series demonstrate the breadth of artistic practice in the United States today. Each one-hour program is loosely organized around a theme helps audiences analyze, compare and juxtapose the artists profiled.

I watched all 16 one hour episodes of Art:21, an examination of art in the 21st Century.

I feel like that kid in the Gary Larson cartoon, holding up his hand in class: “Teacher may I be excused? My brain is full.”

I don’t know how I feel about contemporary art. Some of it speaks to me and some of it is right strange and hurts my brain. When some of the artists speak about their “process” I feel like I’ve been beamed in from another planet, with a working knowledge of English and no idea of what some of these artists are talking about.

It’s the artists that “went to school” that confound me the most. The “self taught” artists I can relate to. They are just disturbed individuals who “had to” create, just like me. There is no high brow goal to express some juxtaposition between this obscure abstract concept and a pork chop.

Hells bells, I went to college, got a BA in English Literature, and I don’t talk about writing or reading literature with obtuse references like some of these artists.

This is not to say that the Art:21 series is not brain food, it is, it’s just sometimes some things one ingests gives one indigestion, a bit of under cooked potato, or some over cooked baloney.

On the whole I do recommend artists to go check out the free streaming videos of this series. Bushyaib walked by while I’m working on beads and watching these videos on my computer and he said it looked like I was inspired. I said it was like two mirrors facing each other making the endless hallway of reflection. An artists watching a program about artists talking about their art, doing their art, arty farty poo poo give me a break.

All that art talk made me have to take a break, for a couple of days, doing house hold chores, to settle my brain a bit. I wondered if I was supposed to have some high brow abstract notion about what I do or is the sensual appeal of polymer clay and the delight the colors give to my eyes enough?

Enough for whom? Who am I trying to impress? Am I not the 900 lb gorilla at my own work table? Am I not the only one I need to please when it is all said and done at the end of the day? By golly by gum I realized that I had confused myself for no good reason.

If these other artists have their own philosophy and high minded concepts about why they do what they do, then fine, bless their hearts.

I don’t. There’s no blue book on how to be an artist. I feel more grounded in the physical world. Does it feel good to the touch? Does it make me feel good looking at the designs? Did it turn out as I had hoped? If not, then why not? What did I learn while I was making a thing.

More important than what I am getting out of the process is can I share what I’ve experienced with others? Can I take what I just did and make it into a tutorial? Am I keeping my promise to the ClayMates who visit my website to have new content for them to look at on a regular basis?

Then it dawned on me that I’m not an artists just for my own self alone. My being an artist is not an end, but a means to an end, and that is to be able to teach. Most specifically to teach for free online. That’s more important than any of the ideas or concepts I’ve been rolling about in my brain pan while watching Art:21.

Some people say, “Those who can’t DO teach.” and that’s bullshit.

I say, “Those who can’t TEACH can only do for themselves.”

Desiree once told me that she admires how I can slow down a process to steps, take the pictures, put them up on web pages, add captions and then finish a thing. This was a long time ago and she’s gone on to create some glorious tutorials on her website. But why I mention this is because it is a different sort of process to be creating something and to be thinking of the ClayMates who might also want to make something like this.

So, watch Art:21 and come to your own conclusions. I was going to grab a picture online of a brain and do some PhotoShop fancy dance to it for this post but I think I’ll hold off for now. Maybe I’ll add one later. But for now… this is my story and I’m sticking to it.