I owe you an explaination . . . and it's free!

So even I have to admit that the last Demo was a little weak - amusing, but weak . . . . and in fact, the blog has been suffering from a bad case of overall neglect. I've had a couple of great ideas for demos, but haven't had time to photograph them and write them up.

I looked at last January's New Year's Blogolutions again recently, and had to laugh. About all I've had energy for recently is the low-attention span short sound-bite type of posting that Twitter requires. Blogging every day every other month? eek.

So I haven't been blogging, what have I been spending my extra time doing?

What have I been up to?

Well, I started a new part-time job . . . I've let go of the work that I was doing to exercise the other half of my brain, and I'm now working for the Small Business Development Center . . . they wanted somebody with experience teaching, someone with experience running a creative small business or two, and someone who could help them integrate creative thinking skills into their entrepreneurial curriculum. Check, check, and check. The Oregon Small Business Development Centers are all affiliated with Community Colleges (mine is affiliated with PCC, but our office is in Lloyd Center) and because they get funding from the Small Business Administration and Oregon Economic Development, the advising is free.

Yes, that's right. Free. If you've got a small business (50 or fewer employees) or are thinking of starting one, you can register at www.bizcenter.org, let us know what you need, and the administrators will get you hooked up with an advisor who fits your needs. I'm also doing free one-hour advising sessions at Souk in downtown Portland - you can call Julie at Souk at 503-517-6900 and she can get you hooked up.

I'm also going to be speaking at the BizArt Conference in Everett, WA, this coming weekend - giving a couple of workshops on how to apply your creativity to your business. I love making art, and I love helping other people do what they love and make a living at it, and I just wanted to let you all know what I've been up to.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled craftiness.

DEMO! How to Slice an Apple

I had a few friends over about a week ago for an evening of playing with Salt Dough - inspired by Sister Diane's clay podcast. We were having a good time, needing a snack, and I started to cut up some apple slices.


Simple, right?


That's what I thought. I cut it in half, sliced out the stem on the top and the stubby bit on the bottom. And then my friends started looking at me funny.


Because I pulled out the melon baller. This is the way my mom always did it. I knew not everybody did it this way, but I didn't think it was as weird as my gasping, staring, stunned-into-silence* friends seemed to think.


I use the melon baller - like my mother before me - to scoop out the seeds. It leaves perfectly concave centers and sets the stage for lovely little slices of apple-ness.


Served with peanut butter (the kind that made it through the recall unscathed) it's super yummy and looks so good.

Yup, I can't even eat apples anymore without slicing them up like this. Sad isn't it?



*(I exaggerate for effect.)

Wasting Time in the Kitchen

Ok, maybe I'm being a little hard on myself with all of this wasting time stuff. Everyone needs to eat, and everyone needs a little down time. The last three weeks have been crazy busy, albeit in a really good way, and taking a little time to do something other than work (like bake, poke around on Facebook, or watch Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist with the Sweetie) is actually time well-spent.

So there.

Last night, I whipped up a batch of gluten-free brownies, and used the new Baker's Edge pan the Sweetie got me for Christmas (he had more under the tree than just flesh-eating beetles! what a guy!). I really love the chewy, crunchy edges of brownies, and there's always a bit of a battle in the house to get the corner pieces, then the edges, and then, determine who's desperate enough for a chocolate carbo-crack fix to eat the interior pieces.



No more. Now every piece has at least two chewy edges. The brownie mix itself was a bit cakey, but the brownie edges? Still chewy. YUM.

Wasting Time Online

I made some candy hearts.



I obamaconned myself. Poorly.


Then I tried another candy heart generator. Needless to say, not much art got made.

And I have yet to actually update my web site. It'll happen soon.

Just probably not tonight.

It's Been Like a Really Long Monday . . .

Earlier this month, Bitter Betty talked on her blog about how January can be a lot like a really long Monday . . . and boy, this one's been a doozy! You know, one of those Mondays where you start a new job and wind blows shingles off your roof and you're getting ready for Bargain Hunting 101 and you decide to reorganize your office . . . It's been exhilarating, overwhelming, and exhausting . . . and there just hasn't been much time for blogging.

In the midst of all of this madness, it's been wonderful to be teaching the Artmaking as Playful Prayer class - I've got a great group of women in the class this winter, and it's really rejuvenating for me to spend time making with them. The first night, we did intuitive collages:

We each pulled a bunch of images from old National Geographic magazines, just ripping out the ones that appealed to us in some way, and then sorted them into four groups . . . just to see what kinds of patterns emerged in the images. I encouraged people to make four distinct collages, one collage from each grouping of images. My groupings ended up focusing mostly around color - though there were certainly other patterns that emerged.

This one is brown and blue, and I like the repetition of the striding people and the curving shapes. It's fascinating to me how my mind will work and work to make a story out of it . . . to make meaning, not just connections. Yet, if I let the story get in the way, the piece becomes forced and it loses that spontaneity and spark. There doesn't have to be a story for the artmaking to be meaningful . . . the real meaning in the work comes from being mindful, from being fully in the moment and open to the intuitive impulses.

And that is something that is all too easy to forget on a 31-day Monday spent chasing down a to-do list.