Oh, boy

I have been trying to get myself to sit down and write a little for.... well I guess it's been weeks.

Moving is taking it out of me. We still aren't settled in even though we're comfortable enough. We've already had a visit from the in-laws. and I have been painting and Fran's a spackling expert. This week the chimney is suppose to get restored and the roof is being redone. There has also been a little extra glitch... more money flowing out, the lines to the sewer are nearly or maybe they are collapsed so that is another big expense. I guess this must be the week for spending.

I have been feeling the need to get into the studio, but that doesn't really exist yet. I had a little bit of a freak out this morning when I realized that it's been one year since I dismantled the Hudson studio, and the machines still aren't set up.

It seems that business and money and moving are always there and the time for my own work isn't. To start getting back into it I've begun some small knitting. I started a sock, and a hat and some drawings for projects.

I think that for the past year I have been in a sort of depression. Life has revolved around money and trying to have enough to live on while still making art. and the art is losing out. evidence of that is this blog. It's suppose to be documenting what's happening in the studio and there hasn't been much of that, right?

We still have a few months of money and time juggling coming up. (the one store is closing and we won't have a new location until December (hopefully) but probably January) and the other shop is slowing down now that the season is over. The NYC shows seems very iffy, but we'll be doing 2 in November. Fran will have a regular booth set up and I am going to try a booth of "outsider" and anonymous art more of a gallery thing. Who know's what'll happen.

There are good things. I love the house and neighborhood in Philadelphia. We're in the Mt. Airy section and it is famously diverse and has worked at being that way since the 1950's. While I was thinking about diversity and the area and looking for interesting Mt. Airy things to link to I ran across this. The artist isn't from here, but somehow the work reminds me of Mt. Airy, and it's fun, too.

Yes, I am still here

What can I say, Moving takes a lot of time. We are in Philly, the house is great. It just needs some work, and a major cleaning.

Right now every room is just filled with boxes. and we're painting and cleaning around stuff. It all seems so boringly time consuming that I haven't posted about it.

No knitting, no photos.

To that certain someone who has asked in the comments twice about her room. - Back of the house third floor on the right is the guest suite.

I couldn't resist

You are Betty Grable

The ulitmate girl next door You're the perfect girl for most guys Pretty yet approachable. Beautiful yet real.

What Famous Pinup Are You?

I have no idea where I got this from. Sorry.


Anyway I thought I would be more of a Garbo,


How about you?

What have I been doing?

It's been busy around here with all of the house stuff. Packing packing packing and a quick trip to NYC to the Gift show to visit with Carole, who was exhibiting.

So the closing here is on Monday the 20th......

And we have an offer in on a place in Philadelphia......
With a few days of homelessness and then (fingers crossed everyone please) a move to this.

An actual single family house in the City of Philadelphia. Needs some work and updating, but it doesn't appear to be a money pit. I'm already seeing an English style cottage garden in the front.
So who knows how much I'll be writing here. There with be sporatic postings and then I hope back to the full Blog in mid September..... right before the trip to Mexico. This is what turning 50 did to me.

Things are moving along on the house front

No real news to report, but, we'll be in Philadelphia soon.

Maybe then I'll have the time to knit and blog about it. unti then
I thank Rabbitch for this non-thinking time waster.

I'm off to do some more packing (closing here August 20th).

Your Life Path Number is 7

Your purpose in life is to find truth and meaning You are very spiritual, and you are interested in the mysteries of life. You are quite analytical and a great thinker. You have many theories and insights. A life of solitude is perfect for you. You need time to think and do things your way. In love, you are quite charming. You attract many with your confidence and wit. While you enjoy being alone, sometimes you take it to an extreme. You can become too isolated, shutting out loved ones and friends. Express yourself a little bit more, and you'll be surprised where it takes you!

What Is Your Life Path Number?

What do you think?

This is the back of the house I like in Philly.

Another day another trip to Philadelphia

We're off to look at more houses. Last week we looked at ten and liked none. This week we have 13 scheduled, but first we're making a trip to the Hampton's shop to add some more inventory oh, and just to add another 3 1/2 hours to the driving.

So.... wish us luck, the closing on this house is August 15th, and we don't have a place to live, we haven't even started to pack. Is this what a breakdown feels like? or was the breakdown 2 days ago when I just layed down and before I knew it it was 6 hours later, or is the breakdown my calve muscle tearing and my leg swelling up to double the size and turning a nasty looking bluish yellow? If I was a certain Canadian Blogger ... you know who I mean , the one who sent you here, who I'm too lazy to link to ... I'd have a photo of the bruise up and I'd be swearing it was the exact shape of the former Soviet Union or Switzerland. But I've lost my creativity.........

So until who knows when.....

need a distraction?

You Are The Star

You represent the ultimate in truth and purity. Insightful and illuminating, you provide guidance for others. You also demonstrate unselfish, unconditional love. You posses many spiritual gifts, including the ability to heal. Your fortune: Your future is looking brighter by the day. The near future will be a time of both hope and healing. Luck is about to come your way, perhaps the best luck you have ever seen. Life is about to get a lot easier and much better!

What Tarot Card Are You?

Gay Boyfriend

O.K. I know this has been floating around the internets for a while, but I thought, well, a perfect summertime song.

I should be posting something

Stolen from the It Girl.

The rules: You go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday (day and month only). Then post three events, two births and one holiday that occurred on your birthday.

May 16

Three Events

1770 - 14-year old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year-old Louis-Auguste who later becomes king of France.
1929 - In Hollywood, California, the first Academy Awards are handed out.
1965 - Campbell Soup Company introduces SpaghettiOs under its Franco-American brand.

Two Births

1919 - Liberace, American pianist (d. 1987)
1973 - Tori Spelling, American actress

One Holiday

Middlesex Day.

We're off to Philly once again. This time we have a more serious sense of purpose..... the house is in the contract phase. So we need to find a place to live. Yikes!!
As a way of coping I'm imaging that I'm in Mexico, or moving there.

Oh, yes I'm also winding a giant yarn ball.

So far it's bigger than Chet,

Happy Pride

an image from Philadelphia's recent Pride ParadeSee we'll make lots of new friends

so so much

Be warned this is a link heavy, photo heavy post.

To refresh everyone's memory I was on my way to a Cranbrook Academy of Art reunion, and celebration of Gerhardt Knodel, and Jane Lackey as they leave the academy, with the opening of HotHouse : Expanding the Field of Fiber at Cranbrook.

Some of the folks who were also there. (links are to the websites, not the HotHouse exhibit pages)

Geary Jones, David Johnson, Hiroshi Jashiki, Arturo Sandoval, Lucille Tenazas, Lian Verhoeven, and I think I see Emiko Nagano,
Sonya Clark, Nick Cave,
Sandra Brownlee
Katarina Westlien, who just happened to be walking past as I photographed some graffiti
and Joan Livingstone - elusive.
There were so many others, Laura Foster Nicholson, Lucy Slivinski, Lisa Lockhart, Libby Kowalski just to name a few who I know from my time at Cranbrook.

My work didn't make it into the Museum but it was lurking around the academy.

Check out the link to the exhibit, and if you want to ... that is if anyone is still reading this crazy post..... here's the link to my page of the exhibit. I'm not awarding prizes for your stamina, but I'm happy to have been read.

I'm No Angel

Things seem to be moving quickly here. Any ideas on where to live in Philadelphia? I think we'll rent something first and get a feel for neighborhoods before deciding on a buy.

Off to Philly

We're off today for the initial hunt for a new place to live. Not much to post so I'll leave you with these pretty pictures.

some reasons for my absence

I have been trying to get photos of my stuff together. They've got to be good enough for publication (can't talk about the whys and where's of that yet but it's good). So far that part has felt a little bit unsuccessful.

We are also in a major life move type of mode. Fran and I have decided to put our house on the market and move to Philadelphia. The last few weeks have been filled with the craziness of getting all of our stuff organized and getting the house to look good, all while driving around to the shops and keeping the inventory up. In other words, we have been very very busy, there hasn't been a lot of private time.

Some really great stuff has been going on though, people from my past have been getting in touch. hi Anne, hi Addison, hi Stephanie. All of the reconnecting has been fun and a little bit exhausting. (playing catch-up).

I've also decided that I'm going to the Reunion thing even though I am not in the alumni show. Yesterday in a phone conversation Addison reminded me that I was never a part of that group, or even understood by them. Her suggestion, keep doing what you do. "you're the Grandpa of graffiti knitting".

I like that title, the grandpa thing doesn't even bother me, even though I rather just be the inspiration or the father, but somehow Grandpa fits my current mood.

Ho ho ho and it reminds me of the fiber bombs and little events that I began staging in the 70's. So now I'm ready for the reunion and I'll be sure to have some of my materials with me. (the pink rubber knitting hasn't been in vain)

posting may be sparse and I owe tons of emails.... later....

'nuff said

johnk -- [noun]: A person of questionable sanity who starts their own cult 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

I'm not sure where I got this.

I'm back and 50

Provincetown, what can I say about Provincetown. It's magic and always makes me feel better.

We got to town at about 3 pm on Tuesday afternoon. On the drive out we decided that we would grab a little to eat (at Clem and Ursie's) and then go right to Race Point Beach. The reason we wanted to get to Race Point was that we had heard that there were an amazing number (140) of right whales off of the point and we were hoping that maybe a one of them would be close enough to shore for us to see. Why is seeing the right whale so exciting? O.K. it's estimated that there are about 400 of the northern right whale. They are so rare The idea that about one third of the entire population was off of the Cape is mind boogling.

We get to the beach... we're looking and looking and hoping, fingers crossed, but we aren't seeing anything. Then we see a spout!!, and the whales back. There is one and we think it's probably a right whale, then we see more and MORE!!!! by the time we're done counting we guess that there were about 12-15 Right Whales just off shore. I can't tell you how excited I was, and how lucky and privileged I feel that I got to see that.

In the excitement I took no photos, To give you an idea of how close they were, look over my shoulder in this photo that Fran took about ten minutes before we started seeing the whales. Can you see the white wave looking thing very close to the horizon? Yep I do, I think that's the whale going under, we must have just missed seeing it. It's a 1/4 mile out, believe me, that is sooo close.

That was a great start to a great couple of days. More info on the Right Whales off of P'town at the Center for Coastal Studies site.

After all of that excitement we went back into town and checked into the hotel. It felt a little bit strange being in town and not seeing Thom and Mark. but, they're happy living in Mexico. We did miss them.

Any way, we check in and decide to take a walk on commercial street to go for coffee, and to see what's changed since January. So 1st to Joe's Coffee (I would link to the site, but they don't have one, [ahem ...hint to Scott]). From Joe's we walked to the length of Commercial St. and ended in the East End at PAAM. We wanted to go to the museum since we hadn't been in since the new renovations. Waa waa, it was closed and would also be closed on Wed. my birthday.

Now I'm going to have to jump ahead in the story. On Wednesday I really wanted to go to the museum in the evening so we walked up and I was planning on looking in the windows. But.... more magic was happening and there was an event at the museum and it was open. So we got to go in and see he show, and I guess I almost expected that would happen.

Ok. I'm sure you all are getting tired, and I'm feeling a little out of breathe, so I'll stop the tales here. It was all fun, I'm back and relaxed.

Not much knitting around here

We have been on the run. Flea markets, the shops, and just trying to maintain.

I've only knitting this pathetic little foam sample thing on the past 15 days, yikes.

Now I'm taking a few days off to go to Provincetown, it's the birthday celebration...... Next time you hear from me I'll be 50.

2 weeks later

We've been to Chicago and are back. The trip out there was long and the driving was difficult. We had snow to start out. It took 5 hours to drive what would normally be 2 1/2. That was it for the snow though, then the trip was rain. Fran drove and by the end he was wiped out.
Oddly, we got to Chicago earlier than we expected. That turned out to be a good thing and we unloaded the van the day before show set-up. Lucky for us, since the next day was chaotic , everyone trying to move in garden items and not much room to park. It was a mess....
The show was so so, it feels like it's been months, I've sort of forgotten about it......

The best thing about being in Chicago was getting to see my friend Lucy and visiting her studio (at midnight on a long show day but I'm not whining). Check out her work. I love it. Here is an example of another person who was overlooked for the Radical Lace... blah blah blah show.


Fast forward to us driving home... no problems and the weather was great. Remember that snow from the day we left?, well when we got home it was in the high 80's and everything was in bloomI've been back for a week, and we have been spending a lot of time running to the shops and getting the booths looking good. We really need to be making some money.

I've managed to work a little bit. I tried doing these woven things on a little frame loom. Good for the road trips. The idea is to add some growing plant material to this. I don't know, we'll see what happens. It's very in the percolating not articulated stage right now. So as a distraction I've been
Straightening up the studio. Chet's been there helping. (here he is pointing out a knitting machine and hinting that maybe 5 are just a little too many. I , of course, assure him that I need the extras for parts)
Chet is getting better. The thyroid supplements help with his appetite and attitude. He's still a Terrier - loves to growl.

And that concludes this little update..... I have a feeling that I've lost many readers and say thanks to everyone who has stuck around.