From February 13th

On Friday, I spent most of the afternoon constructing a legal themed crossword puzzle for a newsletter. (The law library association has a state branch that produces quarterly newsletters. One of my co-workers writes this newsletter and was looking for ideas on things we could add. I volunteered to help.) It was so much fun, and was the perfect Friday activity for my wandering, distracted brain.
That night Jeremy and I stopped by the new location of Smitten Kitten, a feminist sex toy store near our house. The owner was very nice and answered some questions I had about silicone. Then Jeremy and I drove around downtown, through Kenwood (this posh neighborhood near the Walker) and somehow ended up by Lake Harriet, not far from our house. I love driving, and there are huge sections of this city that remain a mystery to me in terms of how they all fit together.
Saturday morning we ordered our wedding announcements (Finally!), did a huge grocery shopping trip (no matter how we try, we can barely spend $50 at Cub or Rainbow. We don’t eat many processed foods, and end up just buying produce and a few frozen items. I suppose that’s a good thing, considering how easy it is to spend money at the Wedge for the other things we buy.), and then saw some art.
We began at the Colorful Quilts and Textiles in St. Paul for their closeout sale. A doll maker, who I’d seen before at another show, was there and she’d considerably slashed her prices. I ended up buying four things from her (two gifts)—things I normally couldn’t have purchased because I couldn’t afford them. But the price was a quarter of the original price! Then we drove to a gallery in NE. The photography wasn’t spectacular, but the building was great. (We stopped at Blackie’s, a bakery in NE for a Sarah Bernhardt—a coconut macaroon covered in chocolate mousse covered in dark chocolate. YOWZA!) Then we went to a gallery near the Hiawatha light rail. The show, entitled “Bad Bambi,” confused me. I thought it would be about animals or something. Instead, it contained photographs of mangled Barbies—chopped up with glass, burned, dismembered, hung from trees, beat up in the bathroom. There was no artist statement, so I didn’t know what the point was---were they trying to be offensive? Were they making commentary on the abuse of women? Was I suppose to enjoy the violence toward Barbie, the epitome of perfection and stereotypes? We will never know.
The last place we stopped at was the Susan Hensel gallery. Desire, a show about sexuality, had some special events for the weekend, namely a spread of food and an erotic poetry reading. We had plans that night, and luckily snuck in when the poetry readers were stopping by to chat with the owner/artist. (Normally you need an appointment.) The art was really nice—lots of anatomy and flowers –and the owner seemed incredibly friendly.
Then Jeremy and I worked out, made brownies and had dinner at Vicki and Dave’s (and we played dominoes. I lost miserably.)
Sunday continued the manic schedule. Stopped by the Franklin St. Bakery for ½ off bread. Drove to Angie’s to hand paint over 525 dots (the size of a pencil eraser) on a piece of fabric for the Wiz, a middle school production. Her daughter is in it, and she is doing the entire costume designing for the play. There are 55 kids in the play, and some of them have 3 costume changes. She’s been incredibly busy, and needed help with a do-wop costume for a large kid. The sad part was the together we made over 1200 dots…and we didn’t even finish a third of the fabric needed for the dress.
I picked up Jeremy to rush to the Battle of the Jug Bands at the Cabooze. Cedar Avenue gets all screwy over by Franklin, and it took us forever to find the place, then another forever to find parking. By then I was a bitch queen, and in tern made Jeremy grumpy. We could only stay a half hour before rushing to Jeremy’s mom’s house for dinner with the posse.
That night I tried to catch up on my art journal, I potted some seedlings, tidied the dining room and crashed into bed. Whew!
Tonight is my first art critique. I’m so happy I finished the project. It was a beast—next time I need to choose something a little easier to manage. I have way too much stuff to do to be living in the studio every day!