Fall is Coming

Boy, I hope that shows up- quite the awe-inspring spider web on a Japanese Maple in the garden! I'm not sure if the blog allows you to zoom in, but the detail was spectacular and it was one of those oh-so-elaborate and incredibly delicate works of perfection that only spiders can do. I can feel fall coming to the garden.
Things are getting squishy and damp and rotting and imploding. I'm not ready for that yet! I've been spending less time gardening and more time just enjoying the end of season mess. I actively like the garden when it starts to implode. I can't do anything to stop it and I might as well enjoy it.
That is, despite the fact that I feel like I just planted the containers and didn't I only finalize planting out those zinnias I started from seed like yesterday?!? While I appreciate the asters blooming, they too signal the approach of fall.
I am looking forward to planting bulbs (more white daffodils for the Lilac area) but I am NOT anticipating cold weather with anything even vaguely resembling glee. The summer never feels long enough.
On the other hand, the fall gets me double time back into my studio and that's a good thing. I'm hard at work on several new pieces and erupting into mass production of my WTF line of work. The annual "open studios" event happens a month from now, but I was offered the opportunity to present my "merch" at a pop-up marketplace. This means I need to do what I thought I had a month to do in a week and a half. Hahahaha! But I'll do it! I'll get it done. I guess it is fortuitous that the weather cooling and I'm in the mood to sew not dig.

A Successful Big Mess*

Hoo boy! You can tell we've been busy because the house is a mess and look at the deplorable state of my (home) studio! I was working so hard to get ready for City Wide Open Studios that I wasn't putting things away and was simply tossing fabric and stuffings and trimmings in heaps and piles.
The happy ending to the above disaster is that I sold a bunch of those "WTF" sculptures (yeah, yeah, they're pillows...) and tee shirts and patches. I was... SUCCESSFUL!!
And people came looking for me, which was no easy feat as the building that Open Studios was in this year was a vacant labyrinthian corporate office building with three floors of rabbit run cubicles. I assure you that absolutely no one saw all the artists... over 230 of them. I sprinted away from my space a few times to quickly scope out a few friends and recommended artists, but I missed 85% of what was on display. That's the one downfall to showing and not being a visitor.
But when people found me, they exclaimed, "Oh! You're the WTF woman!" Word traveled. It was gratifying, after poking holes in digits and wearing my poor fingers to the bone, to have so many people enjoying my work. All who came and spent time commiserated with me about the sorry state of affairs... and they spread the word of WTF by buying (and wearing in some cases) my work. I even got special orders- one for an Xmas gift. How thoughtful!

I am exhausted today, as I know everyone else is, too. We were there for three days and had to take our work down and clean up the space the last night. Bob had also showed two sculptures so by the time everything was loaded and transported back home, we were seriously tired. And that's in addition to all the energy expended after three days of talking to visitors and explaining the work and the process. We're hoarse!
At work today, I was less than my usual energetic self, but I carried on and photographed a million statutes of Little Red Riding Hood (don't ask!) and a few Hermes scarves and some bad art and a couple of weird modern lamps. And I made it home. But now I'm going to bed. This is how tired I am: Bob and I were watching last night's Last Night with John Oliver on the computer and I admitted to Bob that while staring at John Oliver discussing Attorneys General, I thought, "After this, we'll have to watch John Oliver". So I confess that my brain has shut down and I'm going to bed.

* And I had a funny title for this posting (while at work) but promptly forgot it once I sat down to right** this. That how tired I am!

**Yes, I actually spelled "write" as "right". Now I know I was tired!!!

Merch

Here's the shot I was trying for the other day... an update on my attempt at a "WTF Emporium". I'm thrilled to be offering these sculptures... which, as stated, can be used as pillows.

You will find they are:
                     1.) Great for cushioning the blows of outrageous fortune.

                               2.) Terrific for crying into after your health care has been taken away.

                               3.) Perfect for punching when a right-wing co-worker starts denies
                        climate change.

                  4.) Amazing at muffling your screams when The Orange Menace lies yet
                        again.

                  5.) The best for smothering obnoxious rethuglicans.
          
       And they make great gifts! Also available will be:

     Handsome all cotton tee shirts with our copyrighted (not really) WTF logo sown on by me, my one and only, underpaid and exploited sweat shop worker. (I barely let me take bathroom breaks and I've yet to be paid! I'm thinking of unionizing me.) Also available will be WTF patches so you can sew them on almost anything to show support for the appropriate amount of outrage.

So I'm hoping to "break even" at least! I already have a pre-order on a patch and a tee shirt so maybe I'll at long last break the Curse of the Childhood Entrepreneur!