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

franklin family folk festival

last night we celebrated the first ever franklin family food folk festival. the sky cleared for us right before dinner and we shared the company of our many st. charles friends, but a whole slew of those from st. louis. more and more people arrived throughout the night and enjoyed our backyard, with poetry, music and fire. we hosted David Rovics for the night , while he is on a short mid-west tour and he closed the evening with his furious guitar pickin' and sweetly piercing songs. it was his 41st b-day and michael suprised him with a homemade cake. michael's nifty like that... he used so much red food coloring that everyone's mouths were turning red. it was a really great night and i didn't pick up a single dish! i'm really against disposable plates, even at huge potlucks. we went through four sets of dishes, over forty people ate and we ended the night with two full recycling bins (one went missing at the end of the night...) and less than half a bag of trash. i always get upset when i see three huge full trash cans whenever i go to other potlucks or events. i hope more people start mucking through the dishes and give up the convenience of throw away plates and the like. i had many volunteer washers... sean, james and the other mystery washers get many points. thank you! and thanks to all who came and shared an amazing evening and to those who gave their support to david. all of the boys ( michael, david, jason and sean) left this afternoon to drive david to KY and then on to Tennessee. I'm sure they will have many adventures, make lots of good music and hopefully remain out from behind bars (the orange jump suit kind).


david rovics and his revolutionary b-day cake


fairs, tigers and whitmans, oh my

a sliver of jen with james and sean

i think lady bug is enjoying the poetry.

michael, my hubby and of the garage

sean arnold, casino town poet

ian fisher

david rovics

the fire

the beautiful glow...
of not only my lovely cousin carrey and her belly-floating baby boy ( please name him Ettienne), but of the fire.

off to play with the kiddos!

thanks! angela

chicago and the sickness

i had a fabulous time in chicago last weekend (henry darger, pale blue dot and a skinny-ass bar called the matchbox...just to give you a taste) and i'm dedicating a whole future post on the trip... sadly i came back and by the end of the next day i was laid out with a flu bug and have been moving at a snail's pace for the last four days. whitman caught it as well and we were in the ER wed. night to get him re hydrated. things are calming down now but i still have the rumblies in my tummblie. i was feeling a bit better on thurs., but i didn't want to chance getting sick during classes, so i spent the day at home sewing these:

and whitman's conquering dino... on the Vera linen bag. This is actually the first bag that i ever made, using a tea towel. it just took me until a few days ago to figure out an interior fabric that would work to go with it and not take away from it's vintage feel.

more to come...