back in the day

my husband's old poetry group, brokenPOETspoken, during a protest about five years ago. Michael is the first on the left. i love these pictures, it makes me miss the boys and their rowdy poetriness.

CAMP

Last Thursday, we participated in C.A.M.P.'s (Community Arts and Media Project) soon-to-be-monthly fundraiser. Local artists donated art for a silent auction and michael and i were asked to contribute. my best friendola Na-Do provided music with her latest project, NaDo's Delight. The lighting was perfect and I captured some amazing silhouette shots. (notice her little admirer? whitman was fascinated but kept putting his hand in the tip jar.)

Michael and the kids making use of CAMP's art area.

"The Community Arts and Media Project (CAMP) is a local independent effort to bring free and sustainable resources to its neighborhood and to the city of St. Louis. Through the means of art, media, open forums, open doors, event space and collaborative projects, CAMP will provide a new center for creative interaction, welcoming people of all ways of life. Thriving inside of the historic Randall Building at the corner of Cherokee Street and Minnesota Avenue, CAMP considers its location in crucial juxtaposition with its mission. The crossroads of CAMP span out into an extremely diverse range of incomes, races, cultures and ideas. We want to be agents to foster cultural fusion and positive ideas. We believe that art and open spaces provide that agency.

The Community Arts and Media Project takes form not only as a space for the public but also as an umbrella for several groups who rent affordable office space inside the building and contribute to the vision of CAMP. These groups include the Confluence newspaper, Gateway Green Alliance , St. Louis Independent Media. CAMP has also given birth to new educational projects such as the South Side Workshop Exploring Appropriate Technologies (SWEAT), which not only focuses on human-powered technologies, but also provides a bicycle workshop for the neighborhood youth and broader St. Louis bike riders; South Side University, a local “free school” that offers classes which are taught and attended by anyone who wants to share, learn, and participate; the Bread and Roses Library, which features hundreds of handmade books, also known as “zines” a public access computer lab which is set up with wireless internet and useful software; and an ongoing indoor murals project."

CAMP is basically what michael and i have always dreamt of doing...and probaly will end up doing later on in our life. so it's exciting to see how these guys are doing it and learn as much as we can.

i found a bird-lovely beautiful tea towel at a local antique store and turned it into this:

spring break 2008!!

phase two

tonight i sat for almost four hours getting the second installment of my tattoo. the tattoo artist, lauren b., and i agreed to have a third session on down the road to do the whites and finishing touches. i'll post a better picture once it's healed. i'm really happy with it so far. i almost broke during the last half an hour, but held strong. why do we put ourselves through this?...oh yeah...because it's awesome.
tomorrow is another breakfast at black bear bakery, the worker-owned collective that michael is part of now. all you can eat buckwheat pancakes and buttermilk corncakes!!! so for those of you that live in the st. louis area, come down 9am-1pm.

first sew

after waiting through many cold days and nights, i finally starting sewing in the new studio. i pulled the space heater out of michael's studio, in the garage, and finished a few bags that are quite tardy. thank you everyone for your patience. i love how the studio is all windows, but the cold air leaks into the room so easily, due to the 100+ year old house. ( notice my adorable black apple postcard in the back ground? emily gives extra goodies with all her orders.)

my little sewing mascot.

and voila, the large pleated canvas bag. a lady requested that i remake this bag for her and i happened to have just enough fabric left to accomplish the feat.

my cutie #2 ( not in rank, just in years...) we went down to the railroad tracks again. the train cabooses on display are now james and persy... because one is green and one red and whitman is obsessed with trains. the scarf is another chirstmas present from lovely amy. it's actually daddy's, but i stole it for whitman.

fair had a nice stroll along the water with her friend shade. shade is only a few weeks younger than fair and the only boy friend she has that isn't years older. they are so cute. everything is brown here and the wind is chilling, but the leafless tree skyline is still amazing. i'm really hoping the weather gets warmer soon so our outings can be extended.
it's been a great couple of days. i got an A on my folklore and fables midterm and my first few prints of my linoleum block weren't completely horrible. i'll post some of my prints that i've made soon.

studio rebirth and sunday mornings

I finally moved the sewing studio back into our mud room. here is the half that is organized... the half behind the camera is a four foot high pile of stuff that will be dealt with later on. i put up a shelf to make my bag-making fabrics more accessible and added a card table for cutting and drawing out patterns. this set up is definatly more functional than before.

here's a bag i just finished for a friend of mine. she didn't want anything floral or paisley, so this was our compromise. not too paisley, but more of a classy indian feeling.


for the last month or two we have been having brunch at picasso's on sundays. two omelets for michael and i and a huge belgian waffle for the kids to share. going out to breakfast is something we always did in portland and it is good to have a cozy place to hang out at that we feel some what comfortable with the kids.




the weather has been eratic lately( 80 degrees last weekend only to snow 8 inches the following day), but today is the second sunday of taking the short walk down to main st and we walked along the railroad tracks at the waterfront... the kids insist on stumbling over the rickety tressels the whole length of the park (don't worry the tracks have been out of commissions for over a decade).



our good friends, scott and kelly, came over later in the day with their little ones faron and miranda. the girls dressed up as princesses. miranda loves the pillowcase dress i made and fair had to wear the frida crown.from her halloween costume. the girls danced around and the boys banged their trucks into any and everything... god, how gendered our kids are, but we really didn't push them either way. whitman took to trains and cars, while fair insisted on being a princess. but at least they both love making art and fair did ask to be frida this last halloween... so her priorities are somewhat straight.




the hubbies just swept them all off to chuckie cheese's to give momma some sewing time. so i best be getting off this thing and get some work done.