missives from the birdcage

Bon Voyage

nobody@vox.com(Jenn F.) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:52:33 -0400

I went up to NYC weekend before last to see my friends Julee and Claude. Julee and I have been friends forever, and we moved to the city a couple months apart, nineteen years ago. I left the city for grad school upstate in 1997; she has been there since 1989. Her husband, Claude, was born and raised in Hell's Kitchen. Last week they packed up their Brooklyn apartment, gave away what they couldn't fit, and moved to San Francisco. I went up to see them before they left since my trips to see west coast friends have been sadly few and far between.. the last time I went to SF was more than three years ago.

While I was there I made an attempt at a portrait of Julee and Claude that I've been thinking about since they got married.... In their apartment in Carroll Garden they had a large framed print of this photo on the living room wall:

Elvis-priscilla

I've always wanted to rework it with them.....

Scan-080629-0047_outputweb

And then rework it again.....

adoration of the maitre-d'

I like the way the setup came out, but I wish there had been better light.... maybe I'll get a chance to try again in SF. In the meantime, enjoy the left coast, guys! Hope to see you out there soon!!

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Summer!

nobody@vox.com(Jenn F.) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:04:19 -0400

For about five months I was only in Richmond during the week and stayed with a roommate in the Bellevue section of town. It's such a great neighborhood (sadly out of our price range), and down the street from my old roommate lives a neat couple who host summer and winter solstice parties, inviting the entire neighborhood to come celebrate.

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We went to the winter solstice last December, and came back last Friday for the start of summer. The high point of each solstice is when the hostess passes out branches from her rosemary bush and everyone gets into a circle and leans in one direction or the other in the hopes of influencing the weather ever so slightly. (We leaned for snow in December).

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Then everyone tosses their rosemary branch on the fire. It smells delicious. This time around, there was also a pair of musicians playing wonderful bluegrass music.

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The building behind them is Jane's studio-- she's a great artist, and teaches neighborhood kids there as well as her own work.

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Happy Summer!

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wez crafty

nobody@vox.com(Jenn F.) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:31:16 -0400

Too bad I don't have more time for craftiness.... or sleeping. Or anything, really. But in a spare minute or two, I did get my craft on and made a gardening apron:

Garden Apron

I figured it was time to bust out the rick rack (because how often do you get to bust out the rick rack?)

Rick Rack

That's about all the craftiness I've been able to get to lately. But P got his crafty on in response to the garden attacks being deployed by the neighborhood menagerie. I tried putting bird netting over the garden, only to end up with a bird under the netting, flapping in the garden. So P came up with this:

Garden Protection

It's working out really well thus far-- far fewer animal attacks. Now it's just the bugs, but they aren't yet too too bad. The stuff inside is definitely growing. It's fascinating to see how things grow-- the cucumber plants, which I set up cages and twine and things for them to climb, are very interested in climbing the bird netting....

Cucumber Vine

It's amazing-- I will head to work in the morning, taking a peek before I leave, and when I come back, a vine that wasn't there ten hours before is now there and wrapped around something. The plants now have blossoms on them... so if we get some bees we might have cucumbers.

In the meantime, I was able to harvest the first bits of edibles this morning-- radishes!

Radishes!

We'll be having them with a salad for dinner this evening. Can't wait...

UPDATE: Holy moly-- we had one at dinner and these are the HOTTEST RADISHES EVER. Mouth on FIRE. Maybe I can make wasabi.....

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tragedy and concert photography, gladly separate

nobody@vox.com(Jenn F.) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:42:57 -0400

Oh, and an annoyance. In the form of Verizon. Because, yet again, we had no internets for four days. Not just the regular hour or two hour drops in service (for which I can not get Verizon to compensate us, or fix), but four straight days, no service. At all. *sigh*

Okay, so when I complained about the bunnies who live in the neighbor's trees and eat all of my herbs, one of the solutions I'd imagined for it was not that I should walk out onto the back deck to inspect the herbivore damage to my herbs at 5:30 in the am just in time to see a pair of feral dogs rip bunny apart. They chased him round and round neighbor's house, he slammed himself into the chain link fence in an effort to escape three times, and was caught by the larger of the feral dogs, who looks to be half lab half pit bull and wears a collar. Poor, poor bunny. I yelled at the dogs and threw things at them, but they paid me no mind at all. Soon, they'd hauled bunny off, and a few minutes later I heard what sounded like the two dogs fighting each other (one would imagine over who got to eat bunny) on the other side of neighbor's house. Not a good start to the day. Actually, I'm still pretty traumatized... poor, poor bunny. P pointed out that if we were in Arizona, it would have been a coyote, that it's the natural way of things. But if it were a coyote I think I'd feel less bad about it, because it would be the natural way of things. But feral dogs (and P's spotted the same dogs running wild around the 'hood numerous times, and they were out there yesterday morning chasing squirrels that got away for having climbing abilities) aren't the natural way-- they are the result of human irresponsibility. When I called animal control about them and mentioned the collar on one of them she asked if I'd looked at the collar to see who owned them... uhm... let me think about this.... did I approach a pit bull I don't know other than as the beast I saw savage a rabbit ten feet from my back door to see what his collar says? That would be a no.

And, that said, over the last two days something still ate what remained of my cilantro. All of it.

Shortly after the sad passing of bunny I headed north to Arlington, first for breakfast pho with friends Mean Louise, Fish Innards, and Tracy Lee. There should just be more breakfast pho.

Breakfast Pho was followed by some hanging out and then I went to a event shoot for a client. An outdoor event. On a day when it was 100 degrees. Oh well. Event went well, and the main thing was a concert by Everclear. They put on a good show, heat be damned.

Everclear

And ended with singer Art Alexakis riding around on the Arlington County promo guy's segway:

Art of Everclear on a Segway

In other news, this is the last week of Artomatic, so if you haven't gone... or even if you have, get on down there and check it out before it's gone for another year. Sunday, June 15th is the last day.

And if you're in Richmond, come down to the glavekocen gallery for the show that's up now, including a couple of pieces by yours truly :)

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new work

nobody@vox.com(Jenn F.) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:00:23 -0400

I have a couple of pieces in a show that opens tomorrow, June 6th, at the GlaveKocen Gallery here in Richmond. So if you're in the area, come on down and check it out! It's work specific to the show, and very different from the stuff I usually do... but it's been interesting working on it, and I may do more in that vein.

My parents came to visit for about thirty seconds last weekend, bringing some long lost stuff, including a dining room table that I've owned for more than a decade but hasn't made it out of the box, despite having moved to at least three states. It's still in the box, but in my dining room instead of my parents' basement, which I know delights them to no end. There was a whole lot of other stuff as well, none of which has made it out of its respective carrier.

Meanwhile, I went out to water the garden this morning before leaving for work and discovered a cornucopia, nay, a veritable menagerie of animals attempting to feast on my garden. Squirrels. Rabbits. Birds. At the suggestion of a farmer friend I'd recently covered much of my container garden with bird netting (though something still chomped down on the last of the thyme, resulting in the death of the last of the stuff I'd tried to grow. Three packs of thyme seeds and zero yield, though some animal has a belly full of herbs). P covered the main garden with the same netting last week after seeing one of the family of bunnies poking around. (I see those damned rabbits every day. EVERY DAY. They are ravenous little bastards). When I made it out to the garden this morning I found that one of the black birds wasn't flying away. Why? Because the nasty little bugger had gotten UNDER the bird netting and was trapped inside the garden, flapping violently at all my cucumbers, including the fragile little transplants. DANG. It took some doing, but I got him out. That said, sheesh, how many animals could be attacking my garden all at once?? I may never get the chance to eat anything out of it. I live in a city that is in the top 100 largest cities in America.... I know it isn't like I'm back in Brooklyn, but jeeeeez, I hadn't thought that wildlife would be quite this much of a problem. But we've got squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits (lots of rabbits), all manner of birds.... and they will not be deterred....

We went to a farm party at the lovely home of friends and providers of our produce-- the Collins clan at Victory Farms-- last weekend. (We're CSA members). It was great to see them, and great to see the field where the zucchini I'm putting in tomorrow's lasagna came from. Of course, we were wildly jealous of the spread...

maxin' and relaxin'

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grassy toes

nobody@vox.com(Jenn F.) — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:18:03 -0400

Worked my double shift over the weekend at Artomatic-- exhausting, but fun. The event made the TV news in D.C. a bit ago--- you can watch the clip here.

Sadly, I'm having a sad and crappy time of it at the moment, despite the AOM fun. So I spent my weekend trying to bring other, not so crappy things, into my weekend. P has been helping me work on a project for a show that is coming up kind of right now. What would I do without him?

Not the final piece.... step one, though... hope it works out....

ribbon toes

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Traffic sucks, but friends are good

nobody@vox.com(Jenn F.) — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:04:32 -0400

P and I drove madly to get up to D.C. for artists' night at Artomatic.

corner office

I was hoping to get there by 7:30. We got there at 9. SIGH. I saw a good number of people that I wanted to see, at least briefly, which I think made it worth the trip. And I spent a little time wandering around the site, which looks awesome-- coming from the metro, the floors all lit up, it was just great.

There's heaps and heaps of stuff going on, beyond the thousand artists whose work was hanging-- a film room with movies playing constantly, a poetry lounge where I could hear people reading their work, bands playing non-stop, an education room with lectures and workshops.... even a tattoo parlor across the floor from my space:

Among those I got to see, briefly, while we were up there was my dear friend Mas, whom I miss terribly. I had spoken to her on the phone a little while ago, and was lamenting the loss of my herb garden to heavy rains, saying that in a few weeks I should drive around the neighborhood looking for where my basil and oregano landed. So she came to see the exhibition-- with a bag full of seeds so that I could replant:

seeds of friendship

How great is it to have people in your life who are this thoughtful? Just fabulous. :) Thanks, Mas, you so totally rock!

In other news, P is getting very close to completing the darkroom. He's so handy!

in the dark

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Of rain and no time

nobody@vox.com(Jenn F.) — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:35:04 -0400

So busy, as usual, and being washed out... as usual. All it does is rain and rain and rain. After several years of drought, we're waaaay above average for rainfall. Every time I put a seed in dirt, the deluge comes. Herb garden, gone, washed downhill. Many of the containers were flooded over the rims. So I planted herb garden 2.0 yesterday... which, of course, means that it's raining today. Le sigh. P put up the laundry line and I managed to wash and dry exactly two loads of laundry before the rain came back. On the upside, the cucumbers did sprout.

wee garden

Though, sadly, some birds have taken a shine to the watermelon sprouts and have eaten all but a couple of them :(

cuke sprouts

The cukes don't look too bad.... so far.

When not dealing with the rain, we have the neighbor beasts to contend with. They haven't jumped the fence or anything, but they bark and bark and bark. At everything. That moves. Squirrels. Rabbits. Birds. Us. It is soooooo annoying. Worst of all, whenever a fire truck goes by (and we live not too far, and certainly within hearing distance of, a major thoroughfare, so this is a regular, every night, sort of occurrence), they hooooowl and howl and howl.

neighbor beasts

And they are NEVER brought inside. Rain or shine, cold or heat. You can't really see it here, but they are both dreadlocked.

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Artomatic 2008

nobody@vox.com(Jenn F.) — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:42:47 -0400

Busy? Yes, ridiculously busy. So busy I haven't been blogging or, you know, anything really very fun. Although I've been able to do a liiiiiitle gardening. Only to watch my efforts wash away. Again. For the fourth time. Fifth, this morning, when I jumped out of bed at 4 am to try to save my plants for the latest deluge. SIGH. The few bits that sprouted in the herb garden after the big wash have sprouted and.... nothing. They're the same little sprouts they were when the sprouted two weeks ago. In the meantime, it's been pretty much non-stop fighting with my new computer... it was supposed to make things faster, and the processor is definitely faster, but it has vista on it and vista plays with NOTHING.... so many many many hours have been dedicated to trying to find work arounds that will make the computer more than a place to set down my coffee.

In the middle of that I went and hung my stuff at Artomatic!. It opens tonight, so come on down! I'll be there next Friday, May 16th, for Artists' Night.

Road-trip

So, the 411 on AOM 2008 is:

Opening night is Friday, May 9 and the show closes on Sunday, June 15, 2008

Capitol Plaza I
1200 First Street, NE
Washington, DC

	Wednesday	5 pm – 10 pm
	Thursday	5 pm – 10 pm
	Friday	noon – 2 am
	Saturday	noon – 2 am
	Sunday	noon – 10 pm
	Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays

My space is on the 12th Floor, SE Quadrant, Space C7. I will be there on Friday, May 16th from 7:30 on for Artists' Night. So come say hey, take a look at the pieces I have up, and come for the view:

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new hood

nobody@vox.com(Jenn F.) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:04:23 -0400

And not so sure about it. I mean, where I grew up, things like this did not happen. (Not one at a time, not in groups of seven.) And just 25 miles away. There was a tornado warning in the county where our house is yesterday (it didn't get to the county, but hung a right further south and headed for the water). Still, we've been dealing with the deluge for the last few weeks, and I'm now up to multiple washing away everything I planted incidents, including yesterday when there was such heavy rain it flooded out all of my pots and washed the seeds away.

SIGH.

Meanwhile, we have tax assessments that defy logic to look forward to here in lovely Virginia. Though there are, occasionally, things that one might find endearing about this place. Maybe not enough to counterbalance the illogical tax assessments, but enough to making hanging on for a few possible....

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