My friends say I'm very koi

I'm turning another vintage pair of Docs into wearable art.

This is super fun, and I'm hatching a business plan for sure.  Name suggestions, anyone?  "Art and Sole" is already taken, not surprisingly.  I'm toying with some other puns (Sole Proprietor, for example, is my current top choice), and also making a list of just cool words (Citrine, Peradventure).

with a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather

This is the anthem for all Seasonal Affect Disorder sufferers in the world (including yours truly).  Why is Natalie Merchant so perky while she sings this? 

I see the signs of spring starting, and the snow is gone except for in the shadows, and we've had a few warmish sunny days so I know it's going somewhere...but these last few weeks have been very, very challenging for my mental and emotional energy.  The sky in Ithaca is often a coal grey that sits about 3 feet over your head in a dark smooth blanket.  I am literally working from my bed today, with computer and sketchbook and pot of tea and two cats. 

You want a pair too, don't you?

Always on the lookout for different canvases.  Leather paints (not pants) on thrift store Doc Martens, painted last night after years of wanting to do this.  Thai-style spirals and cherry blossoms.  It was very very fun, and I want to do more...think there's a business opportunity in this?

Sulpher and onions

I have a lasting curiosity and love of tropical fruits, the weirder the better.  Some of this comes from all the time I've spent at ECHO in Florida, where I learned that the apple of Adam-and-Eve fame was more likely to have been a rose apple. And even though I draw the line at larvae (see this post), I love trying new foods and am fairly adventurous that way.  And tropical fruit, WELL, what more delightful way to explore new flavors?

Imagine a giant spiny fruit that stinks, like sulpher and onions gone wrong.  Stinks so badly that it's banned from some hotels and buses in Indonesia.  This same fruit tastes like a custardy piece of sweet heaven.  A fruit that polarizes the population into two camps, those who passionately love and whose who completely abhor.  I had heard about durians for years, and had wanted to get my greedy little hands on one so I could see for myself this dichotomy.  My friend Becky (super healthy lovely raw-foods-only) confessed once that she loves durians, and also told me that you can find them in the freezer section at the local Asian grocery store.  The first durian I bought became the centerpiece of a potluck soon thereafter.  Yes, half of us loved it, half hated it. 

Being recently back from the tropics and yearning for any sign of spring and any break from the blandness of Ithaca in early March, I took a durian over the Becky's house a few days ago.  Her small daughter also loves them.  We cracked it open and gleefully devoured the ice-cream-like deliciousness inside.  There are five pods inside, each with a few large seeds.  It was frozen, so the smell was minimized.  I can imagine it's a whole different thing on a hot day in the sunshine.

Look at this thing.  Who was the first person to say "hmmm, this big spiny thing that fell out of the tree and smells weird...let's EAT it!"

Monochrome

I woke up this morning to an unexpected 2 feet of snow.  Yesterday started off at about 45 degrees and raining, and it all went slowly downhill from there.  But I had to laugh when I went outside this morning and really just couldn't see my car under the drifting.  Just in case I was mourning the absence of snow and winter while in Thailand, I've had a good dose in the last week.

Yes, I've been back about a week and a half, no blogging though because I was basically sick and grumpy and jetlagged, which doesn't make for interesting and worthwhile blog topics.  Re-entry is always a little rough, coming back from adventures and sunshine makes my life in Ithaca very pale and insipid.  I'm doing my best to brighten life up here with the colorful tropical things that came out of my suitcases.  Here are my Thai banners on the snowy porch this morning.

I have some interesting work right now for the Montezuma Wetlands Complex and Sunbeam Candles.  Good clients, good people.  I'm also getting ready to get excited about the start of the farmers' market again.  I have a few ideas for new paintings too, based on the colors and shapes of Thailand.

So I have a snow day on my hands.  Going to organize my studio, get my tax paperwork together, work on some sketches for a client, hang out with the cats, and figure out how to make sticky rice and mango for dinner.