sewing day

despite michael being sick and sleeping the day away, i was able to make two new bags. thanks largely to the christmas gifts from my dad that arrived today, keeping the kids occupied. i'm also posting a picture of the new coffee sack market bag. i had a few request for some non-messenger bags and decided to give one a try and it worked out nicely.
we watched "lars and the real girl" tonight and it was great! heart-wrenching and hilarious, a combo you can rarely go wrong with. and ryan gosling...(insert sound of my heart fluttering here)

i really wanted to keep this one...

oranginess

coffee sack market bag

i love using michael's painting as a back drop. everything is more dramatic...

last night...

last night we had a franklin house event with two amazing bands and a few special guests that popped in. a paper cup band is from minneapolis, mn. their drummer kyle (a.k.a rupert angeleyes, a.k.a. elsworth toohey) played our forth of a lie event earlier this summer. dirty fist! returned for their second show this year. fair was especially anxious for the chelseas (yes...both of them are named chelsea) to arrive. they are one of the reasons for why we gave fair her violin a bit early. and she snuck out with it to join a paper cup band. cute. johnny, from tin tree factory, and ryne watts showed up (visiting family for the holidays) and played as well. we had a full house and despite a heater that stopped working on one of the coldest days so far... it was one of the most lively and enjoyable shows of the year. i got to work on my accordion sqeezin' and it lit a flame under my rear to start practicing with the band again, now that school is out for the next month. here's to more nights of love...

fair's debut with a paper cup band.

tin tree factory





dirty fist!





xoxo
angela

Christmas Coffeesack Tree Skirts are here!

made from repurposed burlap coffeesacks and home decor fabric!

limited supply in my etsy shop

Bags are Here

www.fairophelia.etsy.com

catching up

michael latest metamorphasis

at the park

momma and whitman

fair

michael? ... nope.

his twin arrived on our doorstep last week, Bryce Midas is his name.

slowing down, speeding up

sorry I have been missing in action, but things are starting to slow down here... only to speed up for the holidays. i'm almost half way through my fall semester and the Franklin House is sparse, due to the coming cold. fair ophelia designs is getting really busy and will stay that way through the new year. i will be making my first trip back to Portland on wednesday. i am excited beyond words for this vacation.
michael and i have started to play music together. oh yeah, i have taken up the accordion and it has been quite the venture. it must be one of the most complicated instruments to play and on top of the playing, i'm singing as well! we may just become a gillian welch cover band with the amount of amazing songs she has. "miss ohio" was the first one we conquered.
i'll write more soon!
much love
angela

in my back yard

tuesday night we had a house show, of barbara arriaga's solo cello work. looping peddles and a delay can create a one woman orchestra. the franklin house is doing well and school is starting next week. we'll see how i survive. here's a photo from barbara's performance. by virginia. it pretty much captures the night.

fruits of our labor

this zucchini was hiding from me... and its a big one. (roughly 5 in in diameter!!!)

our garden is pushing out lots of cucumbers and now the zucchini are popping up. the tomatoes are a deep orange... a few more days...

my love

michael (photo by virginia harold)

come home!!!!!

holy!holy!holy! sunday aug. 3rd

the nifty flyer i made for michael's coming home show, for holy!holy!holy!, here at the franklin house.

sunday aug. 3rd
6 pm - ???

i love bansky.

unloading

i've finally downloaded all of the pictures from the last month..

garden time

the kids love the garden. whitman and fair are always eager to help water and weed. we let a few of our cucumbers get enormous and fair fell asleep with her new "baby." a few of our tomatoes are turning orange and the corn are growin' some nice ears.

skirt crazy

fair has been begging me to sew her some clothes and my first non-costume sew was this cute green skirt. her favorite color is red, so i added a nice polka dot patch to appease her. i must say her outfit came together quite well! mommy's necklace tied it all in...

bangs

the day after the boys left, i decided to take a jump and cut me some bangs. i was scared that it would come off as soccor-momish,. but i think it's a nice change.

camera obscura part deux

more photography by fair and whitman.

i love this one.

home alone again

it has been one week since michael left with his band, holy!holy!holy!, for tour. usually when he goes out of town i overhaul our home... organize, rearrange, clean, clean, clean but i haven't found the motivation. i'm missing him. one more week and i'll have him back. until then i'm going to try my hardest to be productive... i do have a reputation to uphold!

camera obscura

fair and whitman have been practicing their photography...

home alone

the boys took off this morning to trek on up to PAPA Festival. Holy!Holy!Holy! is the opening band for the festival and the boys are excited and nervous. It's their first big show and the kids and i are staying home, due to me being sick for the past few days. I'm looking forward to see all of the pictures and hear the stories.
on a sadder note, michael's dad went into the hospital on Father's Day, for more heart problems. michael headed up there on Monday and is getting picked up by the band on their way to the festival. his dad is feeling a lot better and will be going home tomorrow. we are most likely going to help him move down, from ohio, to be closer to us to help out. it will be hard, but everything works out in the end...
our friend virginia harold is an amazing photographer and has been capturing some beautiful shots of the kids and of the franklin housers. so i'll leave you all with one of her captured moments.

butterfly bag

here is the latest coffee sack design that i found earlier this week. i have a few finishing touches and then i will take a few better pictures, once the sun is up, and post it on my etsy shop. my daughter, fair, will love the butterfly.

burlap goodness

i would say that this is one of the neatest coffee sacks that i have found so far... and i have one more sack like it to turn into some burlap goodness. a new design came out from the "cafe do brasil" folks and it is sweet...plus i snagged at least fifteen of them. i'm finishing one up tonight and should be posting it soon...

until then.

james honzik

my portland friend, james honzik, has been working with some experimental photography portraits and they are amazing. he layers photos of organic objects (like rust, alegae, stream beds) with portraits. here is a video montage of some of his work. you can see more of his art at his blog: jamzik.blogspot.com

the franklin house

so it is official, we are now the "franklin house" and so far it's been amazing. to get an overview of what we are building visit our blog: thefranklinhouse.blogspot.com . i will be posting the metamorphasis of our back yard, with the creation of our community garden and the result of having a group of briming artists living together with lots of paint lying around. we are having our third house show this thursday. CJ Boyd Sexxxtet will be here, following a vegetarian potluck. those of you that may not be able or ready for the music and such, should at least stop by and enjoy the food.




the first salad from our garden, with some extra goodness

sean and virginia spruced up the kids play set

the end and the begining

fair ophelia

whitman

i'm finally back... after finishing school and a crazy slew of franklin family events. we are going to start a franklin house blog and when it's up i will link you to all the pictures. so far, we had the haymarket affair remembrance, another franklin house show with a reggae band, the jah kings, and planted our community garden. we have welcomed two new house mates, sean and james. they are co-existing among the spiders and dust of our basement, but they are young and resilient. things have slowed in the last few days and it's nice to start focusing on sewing and fair ophelia designs... something i have been slacking on a lot lately. so i will be more attentive from now on and more productive!

spring has sprung

The back yard has become our sanctuary. The weather isn't hot enough for mosquitoes yet and the kids are loving the freedom. despite a few ant and spider scares the kids are pretty nature-loving. our whole yard is covered in little purple flowers (fair's photographic genius above)... i know they are weeds, but they're beautiful. fair refused to let me cut the yard because of them, but whitman has been instigating sibling fights by stomping on them. it amazing how the young ones know what buttons to push...

We found some abandoned tree stumps and claimed them for our firepit seating. The kids then continued to transform them into an outside dining area. gourmet veggie corndogs a la ketchup.

whitman has found a new love. this is one of the few real solid foods he approves of.

momma, shy whitman and pirate fair.

i'm so glad that the warmth is here and we have big plan for our back yard. we are starting a community garden, which involves transplanting the play set to the other side of the yard. we are having our garden kick-off party in a few weeks.

this saturday is our remembrance of the Haymarket Affair and the grand opening of sticks and stones books, our portable bookstore, with music from them, him, him, and michael's new band Holy, Holy, Holy!!! at picasso's coffeehouse. starts at noon and goes all day. ending with the showing of the film "Sacco and Vanzetti."(synopsis: In 1920, the anarchist Italian immigrants Niccola Sacco (Riccardo Cucciolla) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (Gian Maria Volonté) are sentenced to death, falsely accused of a robbery and murder. Indeed they are condemned due to their political beliefs, in one of the most shameful and hypocrite judgments of the human history. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ) Here's the flyer for the whole day:

Empire or Humanity?

zinn takes complicated issues and states them so simply. What the Classroom Didn't Teach Me about the American Empire by Howard Zinn Narrated by Viggo Mortensen Art by Mike Konopacki Video editing by Eric Wold

here are some of my recent art pieces from my fibers/printmaking class and a few others...

my first attempt at monoprints (additive)
**from a photo from my friend sarah**

monoprint (additive)

caligraph

"july and her ghost" dyptic, monoprint and ghost print (subtractive)

batik in progress

"the crowd" conte drawing in progress 36x28

"serenade" acrylic and charcoal on cardboard