The disaster that is moving:

Well I never thought I could get that place empty, and I had to enlist a LOT of help because a 1444 square foot house is not easy.  In 100 degree weather.  Without a fun, new place to bring things.  (For the time being, I’m staying at the BF’s)  But really, everything went swimmingly and it did seem like the stars had been aligning for little old me.  I just need to keep positive and figure out how to be grounded in an utterly ungrounded situation.  That is where kid’s classes come in.  Kids, with all their mini melodramas and the funny things that they say, and their undeniable creativity, seem to bring a lightness and a quirkiness to the situation, especially when you only have them on loan for a few hours, and get to return to a quiet place afterwards.

These are some glimpses of the “Exquisite Corpse” project with the Huntington Beach Art Center’s Art Camp kids, which turned out amazingly awesome and I just had to take pictures.  I sure can’t wait til the day I can actually make art again!  Only the universe knows that answer.

Today, me and the BF are going to hit the OC Fair to see our friend’s band play, Hell and Half of Georgia, and also mosey on over to the Children’s Art Exhibition section where many of my students will have work on display from my “Drawing for Little Tots” drawing class.  Can’t wait to see and take pictures!!

I have been so busy with packing and moving and all that goes along with that stuff, that I thought I should pop in and announce a show I will be in in the Czech Republic!  I just sent a big box of eight smallish paintings overseas for a show titled “Inland Empires” at Galerie Califia which is organized by Barbara Benish (who incidentally showed at the Huntington Beach Art Center when I worked the front desk).  My former UC Riverside professor Jill Giegerich will be the Artist-in-Residence there for the summer.

Besides that, I’ve been packing and packing, when I’m not teaching at Art Camp, which is the one thing keeping me sane right now!  Kids are funny!  And so is my cat…

For a good week, this paper was a HUGE hit.  Constant entertainment.  Seriously the best cat toys are the unexpected ones.

Gonna miss this place.

Packing is so hard.  And it’s so hard because I don’t know when I’m going to be able to open these boxes again…some are sadly going to storage until we can find the right place.

And students, and everyone else in SoCal or the Riverside area, there are low-income programs to assist you.  I have been applying for all these programs recently (and used to be on them in Long Beach) as being an artist and a student sometimes just doesn’t translate to economically sustainable.  I was always a little perturbed that because I don’t have dependents, I don’t qualify for health care and other assistance as easily as people with children, but there are still things out there to help you childless citizens.  I have rounded them all up for you, one easy stop:

California Lifeline offers low-income assistance telephones.  I had to cancel my telephone service with Charter because they couldn’t get an application out to me, and kept giving me the corporate run-around, so I went with AT&T.

Riverside Public Utilities assists qualified low-income residential electric and water customers with their utility bills and deposits with their SHARE program.

Southern California Gas Company has the CARE program which offers income-qualified customers a discount of 20% or more off their monthly gas bill. Plus they have a one-time assistance of $100 starting in February 2010.

Also, I just found out that Bank of America, who has been steadily beefing up my Cash Advance balance every month with their sneaky 19.99% APR, is changing their policy the end of February, where now any amount you pay over your minimum balance will go directly to paying down the Cash Advance balance.  Before, it only payed your Purchases balance, which for me has a much more respectable APR.  So come March, pay those suckers down and get out of debt for reals!

No matter where you live, seek out assistance as it is there for income-qualified residents.  And if you’re an artist or a student, surviving on student loans and or credit cards, that is YOU!

I’ve been meaning to share my Garage Phenomenon photo which hopefully will be a fun little side-project series just because I run into these things and think they’re weird and funny. Are men born yearning for the garage, that promised land where men can drink cold beers, watch sports, and unabashedly hang posters of voluptuous women in bikinis above a well-stocked mini fridge? Is this space, banished from the comforts of the home, today’s man’s last and only frontier? Well, apart from divorce.

Well for the time being, it looks like my landlord is trying to work something out with the bank (the story first broke here) so I am hanging on until the next time something happens.  I only have 6 months until school is over and then I can really mooooove anywhere in the world that I want to.  Well in SoCal anyway.

In other news, my shop is featured in a sweet and colorful treasury by NightJar.

Oh and I darn nearly forgot!  But I opened up a new shop too! 

HiVintage is now open and selling off all the things that Brian doesn’t want to live with come graduation day.  Well, the things I’m willing to part with, that is.   My mom also opened up a shop, focusing on vintage and collectibles.