Something totally awesome about 2010 is that not only has Modern Family become one of the best comedies on TV, but the show also has some of my art on its set!  Here are some stills below.  It is such a trip watching the show, laughing my head off, and then all of a sudden seeing one of my paintings in the background.  At first I was like, “That looks so familiar…I’ve seen that somewhere….and then “Oh I did that!”.

I haven’t written on here for so long, I feel like I forgot how!  I’ll try.  So I have a new place, and I have just been thrust into the role of making it suitable and functional, and seriously have spent almost every waking second that I’m not teaching at the HBAC and not working for MovieWeb, and not enjoying dinners with my beau, I have been here building sh*t.  So here is a little rundown.

Here is the new studio!  It is of course still a mess, and there is a long way to go, but so far it’s working out.  The one thing I’m at a loss for is storage in this place, so that has been what I have been focusing on.

I had to build another storage for paintings, and since I filled this one up in about five minutes, it looks like I’m heading back to Home Depot for more wood to make another one.  Definitely cheaper than IKEA to make one yourself, gets you more shelves for less money, and all I used tool wise was a jigsaw, a small nail gun, and a drill. Oh the drill.

The GORM at IKEA was my inspiration, but I sort of wanted it more tailored for my needs, so I designed one taller to utilize the fact that I have 9 foot ceilings and use the whole 8 foot 2 x 2’s.  Also wanted something not super deep as I wanted more floor space.  So I came up with this:

As you can see, it’s stuffed!  Please take the paint brush out of my hand and tell me that I can’t paint anymore until I sell some of these.  It’s seriously ridiculous.  The shop is getting an update soon!

Before I even started this I had to take care of normal everyday parts of the place, like the kitchen.  Here is a still from a video I took when I first looked at the place.  I have been so caught up in making this place functional, I really didn’t take good “Before” photos.  Thankfully Brian caught this video with his phone.

I just had to make this place more me, and also, because of the cramped space, I had to get creative with ways to store things.  Let’s just say I have pretty much moved in to Home Depot.

I made this table after measuring the right dimensions for that little space, and tried to give myself more room.  Especially for food.  It’s not so much that this place is small, as much as it is that the place has not ONE single closet.  Imagine your life with no closet space….I mean NO closet space.  My clothes you ask?  Oh that is another post…

Well now that I kind of have a leg up on this place, and am starting to feel unpacked, expect to hear more from me.  Meanwhile, Merry Christmas!

After 39 dollars and six long years, my black, double-breasted coat and I decided to go our own ways.  After such a long relationship, I needed a rebound.  I think I deserved not only a new coat, but one that is wild and exciting, but still cute as a button.  I wanted a coat that screamed “Me”.  Enter this coat.  I never really share my purchases, probably because paper towels and art supplies don’t really warrant a post, but this coat took me by surprise.  It raises my blood sugar.   It makes me want to run outside, fall to the ground under changing color leaves and roll around while the crisp apple air blushes my cheeks.  I’ve fallen for my Fall Coat.

We went to Target for simple, everyday human being items and got totally caught up in the necessity for some new pumpkin lights, purple and orange Halloween lights, spiderweb dishes…Wait!  What did we come for again?  Holidays are clever in that they keep happening. Around the corner is another one.  And each one has its assortment of goods and foods and stuffs. 

But really, how can you not indulge in the magic and fantasies that transforms an ordinary, routine-filled day into a day of flying witches, glowing pumpkins, and never-ending streams of candy? A day where it’s encouraged to don a mask, to masquerade your identity with a garish glimpse into your alter ego. A day where cartoon characters and demons and pregnant nuns unexpectedly mingle and socialize. A day where you let your children knock on stranger’s doors and ask for candy. A day that is an excuse to do something wild and crazy, as if a get out of jail free card for you to be who you really want to be, or at lease as absurd as you want to be. How do you explain Halloween to an alien? Kinda like that!

This Saturday I’ll be at the Family Fun Day event in Upland with Tomoko and Corina from Bosatsu Art Factory having a little art booth and passing out fliers and such.  Hopefully it’s not too hot….I have nearly forgotten how hot the Inland Empire gets…where I’m staying now, by the beach, it actually gets dewey by 7 p.m.  And my poor dresser that I’m refinishing keeps peeling up its finish because it’s too humid and cool to leave anything outside overnight…so I’ve learned.  I was going for a vintage look sure, but now it looks like it was recovered from the Titanic.