Knot exactly

2 x 3' acrylic on canvas. True Lover's Knot

Yesterday Mabel and I settled into the studio, both armed with paint and brushes, and got to work. She was creating decorations for a party she was planning (I'm still fuzzy on the particulars) while I worked on the knot painting. After a 2 hour stint, I thought I'd reached a reasonable conclusion. Mabel disagreed, "Too much green. Sometimes I like green, sometimes I don't." She made it clear that in the case of this painting, it was a time of dislike.

Since the painting is a gift to Charlie I asked his thoughts. He suggested I dull the green down, and since he asked nicely, I guess I'll do that.

It's a good excuse to hang out with the kid sans-TV, and she likes to ask me about different paints, why they're different textures (thick and sticky, runny, etc.), the different colors and variations in the same colors, and why I paint the way I do. Seems pretty insightful for a 3 year old, but I'm biased. I wonder how many more afternoons I'll have the ability to keep her interested in paint? I'll take what I can get, and cherish the moment the other day when she sat on my lap and told me how much she likes watching me paint.

Back in the Goop

I can't remember the last time I sat down and worked on a painting. I've painted textures for scanning and using in drawings, I've painted with Mabel, and I've definitely been painting walls, but I think the last time I worked on an image as a painting was before M was born.

A week or so ago I decided to do a painting  of a True Lover's Knot for Charlie for Valentine's day.  The next day I went out and invested in some good gesso to cover an old canvas. I've considered quality gesso (that offers good coverage) to be an indulgence, and the last time I actually bought the good stuff  was in 1997, when I took Painting 101. As a poor art kid, I quickly found sufficient, cheaper alternatives to a $30 tub of goop. Back to the gesso: it was intimidating.

Two nights ago I sat down for about 45 minutes and got started, then another 45 minutes last night...and here's where I am. They may be short sessions, but it's been nice getting back in the goop.

Upstairs bathroom update

After a week on lock down from a cold, I'm back up and at 'em, though everything is exhausting. If it weren't, I would've hunted down the camera to take a picture of our kitchen counter covered in cold remedies for Charlie (medicated) and Mabel (homeopathic). Being pregnant, I didn't partake in the syrup swallowing marathon.

Before the cold took us down, I got a few swipes of leftover paint (from the downstairs bathroom) on the walls of the upstairs bathroom. The trim needs a good deal of touching up now, too. I also took down a ledge shelf that was a clearance purchase at Target 6 or 7 years ago and had C put up 2 of his firewood shelves. (Normally I'd do that part, too, but the wall zips we use for heavy duty hanging are self-drilling and for whatever reason don't cooperate with me.) We plan on having the sink and tub resurfaced in the near-ish future. Then...it'll be onto something else!

Rambling post on the well-worn aesthetic

How many of you subscribe to Anthology? I had a subscription, didn't realize it lapsed, and recently renewed. My first issue back was the winter "Americana" issue, which I received last week sometime. I sat down with it, turned on My Little Pony so I could read it cover to cover, uninterrupted, ripped open the plastic sleeve, deeply inhaled the beautiful smell of fresh ink on paper, and started reading.

This issue, described by the editor as a "cross section of Americana", felt odd and alienating. I do a lot of over-thinking, so it wasn't surprising when I sat down to read it again, trying to pinpoint the lingering uneasiness**. Then it hit me: our quirky yard (and the experience of having it judged), the cracks in our house, the problems with living in an old structure; it's not all sunshine and perfect imperfection.

Peeling paint in an older home, to a home appraiser, means lead tests must follow. Cracks in original plaster mean the foundation must be checked. Peeling aged wallpaper and rusty old pipes means the resale value of the home goes down. How do I know? We've been trying to buy the house we're in, built in 1943, and it's not so easy for a first time home owner currently living in the structure .

From what I understand, banks these days aren't really on the side of  first time home buyers unless they have a sizable down payment or are purchasing a new-ish  home. They want the security of knowing upfront that if we stop paying they'll be able to get their money back. That makes sense.

But it also means a fixer-upper, an estate with the patina and visual interest of age, and drafty, energy inefficient windows are no longer affordable, available, and attainable, but the eye candy of the rich. Yes, that bothers me. Not because poor people should live in bad conditions, but because we're romanticizing what could otherwise be difficult living; hardening ourselves against housing inadequacies.


According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Census Bureau, in 2011"the official poverty rate essentially held at 15 percent, meaning that 46.2 million people live below the poverty line."

Which leads us back to the content of the magazine: homes of executives filled with peeling paint, textures from residents' past, old, seemingly rickety windows, starkly contrasting shelves packed with valuable antiques and art bought on trips around the world. Look how simple we are! Look at the imperfection we embrace! We are charming and we are real! There's a common aesthetic throughout, which makes the magazine feel beautifully cohesive, implausibly homogeneous, and entirely dishonest.

While income figures were not part of the content, with 2 Anthropologie executives featured in a single issue. I know I pick on Anthro a lot, but as Forbes describes the Anthro market, I'm clearly not part of their market,

"Anthropologie’s ideal demographic is affluent, settled-down career women in their 30s and 40s, with an average family income of $200,000 a year. The brand sells its products at premium prices points, for example, $250 sundresses, $400 shoes, $700 end tables." 

As executives for a retail store aimed above my means, I'm pretty sure that translates to an income far greater than my own. One of the executives is featured because he owns a hobby train store in Ohio, while living in Pennsylvania. The other has made a quaint home near Philly filled with just peeling paint and old-house-character galore. Other homes include a vacation home for a Bay Area couple, and that of designer John Derian.

This annotated version "Americana" lightly brushes over disrepair and glorifies it as the "substance and style" of America today without recognizing 15% of America. Couldn't it be at least as interesting to see the apartment of a local barista who slings coffee daily to support her art-making? How about a college kid, neck deep in student loan who has styled his space to suit his tastes, despite the authentic and gritty decay of off-campus slum housing?

Is Americana a bland cross-section of a by-gone, nostalgic America? By the end of the issue, the second time around even, I realized exactly why I felt alienated: we're not rich enough to have peeling wallpaper in our home. 



** Before I get into things further, 2 of the articles seemed authentic and honest: the couple who buy pieces they love as they go, relied on a friend for a beautiful kitchen cabinet and sleep in a sparsely decorated room that is clearly loved; the man who lives in a rented cabin with little room for customization plainly explains his home is more about being close to nature than it is the "luxuries" of an interior.

Cooking with Mabel

While I don't think a bored child is necessarily a bad thing (it usually sparks the play times that I find most amusing to watch), there are times where boredom makes for a super-cranky kid. In our house, a super-cranky kid makes for an even crankier mama.

When C has a night out, M misses him. That missing makes time go even slower and boredom comes to the party earlier than usual. Those are the evenings I try to think of something creative and fun to do in the kitchen.  

I know I've mentioned a few times in the past that M and I do a bit of cooking together, and it's never some elaborate recipe. This most recent time was a flashback to my own childhood: pita pizzas! It doesn't take but about 10 minutes to actually make them, but M liked "painting" the sauce on, trying different toppings, and piling on the mozzarella. All in all, M and I hung out in the kitchen and cheesed it up for maybe 20 minutes, but for the next 2 days she told everyone about how she made her own dinner.

Another fun recipe we do together is Baked Oatmeal (from Super Natural Every Day by 101 Cookbooks' blogger Heidi Swanson as featured on Lottie and Doof).  M cuts the bananas (easy enough to do with a dull dinner knife) and stir and stir to her heart's content. The result is a moist, somewhat cakey, slightly sweet oatmeal concoction that I think is just as good straight out of the fridge as it is still warm from the oven.

 I'd call them both major successes: bonding time, relatively easy to make, not terrible for us, and total boredom busters. What else could you ask for in a recipe?