Ars Gratia Artis

I’d like to make this. My patterning skills make it outside my reach right now, though, although the stitches are easy. I love it exactly the way it is:

The most perfect hoodie for me would be, of course, something pink, with a ribbon-wearing skull and crossbones pattern. Yay! I saw exactly the one I want [...]

I have several in the works but none ready to share. Let me give you, then, a bit of art from others:

Little Boys of Three
Look tenderly on little boys of three,
Their softness is as fleeting as a flower.
The cheeks like petals such a little hour,
The deepest dimple theirs so transiently;
Even tomorrow softness may be hard.
The [...]

Although this bit, I’m quite likely to recollect. We had our little time up in Door County at the by-invitation scifi con last weekend, and, as usual, I had a lot of fun. Most years, I tend to keep to myself, even though I like all these people, a situation directly related to living in [...]

A place where I sometimes write.

There in an article on the potential dying of American Poetry, here, an attempt to present both sides of the argument in very brief snips.
I love poetry, but I love poetry in much the same way I love representational art–something that has at least a minor connection to traditional [...]

Veterans graves: American Civil War vets — The War Between the States
Most of these men–this is the biggest block of them, but they are scattered through the cemetery, as well–served with Wisconsin regiments, but there are men here from all over the Northern states. There is one grave in this stand, no date of birth, [...]

we are in hell these past few weeks. this looks, i know, like I am about to drift into the usual “my lief sux” emo rant one often finds in blogs, but that’s not where this is at.
But we have found a turning point, a place where we are again challenged to deviate from [...]

I have Pandora.com playing (Current: Severina by The Mission UK) and have amused myself briefly by: looking for a Pandora app on Facebook (subsequently found and added to my profile, high honor indeed, because I don’t put many apps on my profile); looking for submission guidelines for some of my favorite imprints so I can [...]

Man decorates basement with $10 worth of Sharpie.
Michael’s comment? “If you used an opaque projector, you could knock that out pretty quick.”
Hm.
I drew on the walls well into adulthood. Then I decided I wanted to be able to take my pictures with me, and I started using paper, instead. However, I’ve been feeling the itch [...]

I participated in Wisconsin’s early vote, so my ballot was cast 28 October:

Today, in the United States, is your last chance. Go Vote. Do it now.

Home today, telecommuting in. Ill like sorrow, like a river, like a lassitude. Whatevah.
I did finally get a new camera. Here are some pictures:

And the exciting movies made upon the camera:

K and I on a windy walk.

When you are too ill to eat but not too ill to be out, it’s always a good idea [...]

I’d like to say it’s been a hell of a week, but it’s actually been a hell of a fortnight. Fortnight is way better. There is not much opportunity to use such a fabulous word these days. So, actually, I suppose that I would not be happy to say it’s been a hell of a [...]

Elizabeth LaPrelle is an Appalachian angel. Oh. My. God.
I have always loved folk music, and have especial preferences for Creole and mountain music. So much of the folk music that’s popular right now is kind of a commercialized “Celtic” sound, but Elizabeth sounds like she descended straight from the the Blue Ridge circa 1920. [...]

for Price
All is dross without thy gold
And deep in silent grave
Rest you now in darkened cold
No longer sorrow’s slave.
Once you wore proud armor
Now you wear plain shroud
And, we, behind, in lost dolor
Keen mournful and cry foul.
For we are lost without thy voice
To call us forward fair
And what are we without thy love
But creatures of [...]

So, since Angelique has moved to Seattle, we have been watching the boys 1-2 days every weekend. This is nice, in that their father gets some help in caring for them and we get the opportunity to play with them at least once a week. Baby Ry has, for as long as we have known [...]

After so many years, I touched my mother’s oil paints. I believe I last did that when I was 5.
Starting with something simple. I want to make a painted cloth for an archery kit–I need a quiver. I’ve got a heraldic bow, heraldic arrows, and a little paint will give me a heraldic finger [...]