Painty Painting Times

Done! 

Flying Fish - my collaboration with shaper Paul Jensen

Details. 

Took the board to Paul's house, where Mike Cummins expertly applied the fiberglass and epoxy. I'm trying to look super casual, but am internally freaking out that the epoxy might make some of the blue acrylic run. It didn't! Hooray.

Phase one of 'glassing'. More epoxy and sanding to come.

We're all heading down to San Francisco for the big show on June 9th. Meet me at the Driftwood Salon! Now: time to tend to the very neglected vegetable garden. Next up: Slim's hyena tattoo.

Slowly Slowly

Making progress on the Utter/Jensen collaboration for the Board Aid Benefit! Slow progress:

This is the tedious part, which involves my own special (see: painstakingly laborious) technique of something akin to 'Medieval Silkscreening'. The fun part comes later, in the decorating, or actual painting.. loose brushy good times. 

I am so behind on the garden. If I have a second today I will plant onions. But most likely I'll be back in the studio, hunched over a surfboard with masking tape stuck all over my body. Two days left to finish.

Hello There

Last evening turned out to be one of the most magical and weird nights I've had in a long time.. the kind of specialness that only happens when you combine things like: a casino out in the boonies, Cheap Trick, an incredible funk cover band (seriously! the horn section!!), the mason county freak scene, absolute minimal concert security, finding a drummer you thought you lost ten years ago, and a posse of friends you've known for almost 20 years that let you (I mean, me) be a total ecstatic jump-up-and-down-screaming-fangirl without judgement. With encouragement!

My piece of flair. Too bad Ringo peed on my Cheap Trick shirt years ago.. AND my Ace Frehely shirt! Bad cat. 

I'm not sure how to describe the 'locals' in Mason County. Lets just say they keep it extremely real, country-style. Things such as 'Hipness' and 'Looking Cool' are not on the radar. Its very refreshing!

Homemade inkjet iron-on transfers? Check!

So I lasted sitting in my assigned cheap bleacher seat for the first three songs.. song number three was He's A Whore, and that's when my inability to contain my complete enthusiasm broke new levels of ridiculousness. After observing that the staff security didn't seem to care where anyone sat, I just boogied right on down the middle aisle of the floor, right up to the front section, while they played an amazing rendition of Need Your Love. It was all very cinematic and surreal, with half of the audience sitting down! Right there in the front! So I jumped up and down and waved my hands in the air to make up for them.

Yes, Robin Zander is wearing a really weird Dream Police-meets-Sgt. Peppers sparkly leather outfit. It was a little alarming. But his voice is still SO GOOD he is allowed to wear whatever crazy ensemble he wants! He apparently also has two children named Robin, odd.

My pal and neighbor Curtis met RZ in the parking lot later (the band was most likely on their way to an after-show pizza party) and got the palm-autograph pictured below. He has a lot of tattoos, including some Doc Dart homages, and is getting this inked today. Wow! Bold.

Thank you Kamilche! Thank you Cheap Trick! Fell apart, broke my heart, need your lah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ahve. Man, Rick Nielsen wrote some jams. Some of the best and strangest power pop! 

Diving In

....And I'm back!

That's right, I BEAT THE TOOTH! Advantage: Utter. I played the waiting game, and it worked (for now). No more exploding jaw/sinus/eyeball pain! All it took was a steady supply of ibuprofen and my own steely, grim determination. SO. Back to work. Painting this guy:

Its hard to tell by this picture, but that is a hollow, wooden surfboard built by hand by this legendary man, and its really quite beautiful all on its own. But I've been asked to deface it with paint (for an excellent cause), so here I go..

Step one: mask off the rails and dive in with an orangey-red. 

Step two: draw some vague waves. Surfers love waves! I actually have no plan for this board. I'm just starting with waves and going from there. That's how I roll when I paint.. very little preliminary planning. Although this uncouth method has backfired on me many times, I still gravitate towards spontaneity.

Day one, waves nearly complete. Next step? Hmmm. Need to walk in the woods and think for a bit. Stay tuned! And meet me in San Francisco on June 9th if you wanna hang!

ed. note: the only thing that is freaking me out is that this board is REALLY expensive. usually i paint on $5 paper! paul's boards are in museums. crazzzzzzzy.

Oral History

I was lucky to be born a healthy kid: good ticker, straight legs (well, one knee a little knocked-in), excellent vision, but in a certain department I was lacking in quality genetics, and am still lacking: The Teeth. My own little scourge. As a child, they grew in all crooked, or conversely didn't want to fall out (double sets on the bottom front row, yanked before I could terrify my classmates with my shark-ness). I got braces, and had them for SIX YEARS to straighten out the graveyard. I actually love crooked teeth on others, always have. But my own were not so...  pleasing to the eye. 

Can you see what's starting to happen here? Yikes.

A friend of mine once had the theory that the youngest child (I was the baby out of 4 tots) gets all the 'leftover' genes, with mixed results. I got: bad teeth (everyone else = perfecto), hazel eyes (weird), TOWERING HEIGHT (I'm 5'5", an Amazon in this family's land of 5'0" women!), and a penchant for loud guitars. I can't complain too much. This week has been a challenge, however. The Olde Wisdom Tooth is poking its cranky little head out again, ripping through my gum tissue, and it shouldn't be a big deal, but it is. Today, I came to the bottom of a 500-count bottle of ibuprofen. Holy crap. Where did it all go? Can't really concentrate, no painting, blah blah blah. Just a painful little hot poker, crabbing at my face all day long, causing a feeling that my lower jaw might explode. Never got the wisdom teeth taken out, didn't have the money, and they didn't appear until my mid-20's. But I'm starting to go here again:

No. No sad cat.

What to do? Give in, get it yanked? I'm sure if I wait a couple of weeks it will get better! Ha. Ha ha. Take it away, Ian + company. In the meantime, I'll just stay doped up on the ibuprofen, and eat Soft Foods. Tonight's Soft Food: Pasta and Cashew 'Cheese', with cherry tomatoes, green olives and albacore. Recipe to follow!

Here's the recipe for the Cashew Cheese, everything else is up to you. If you are a weirdo like me and actually LIKE rice pasta, go for this one or the TJ's fusilli (not the penne.. mushy/gross).

1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water for an hour or two

8 oz silken or soft tofu

2-3 cloves garlic 

1/3 cup nutritional yeast, or more to taste

salt or Bragg's aminos

splash of cider vinegar

Drain the cashews and throw all the ingredients together into an old yogurt tub or some other vessel. Use an immersion blender to pulverize until smooth, add some more water until you achieve your preferred consistency. Add to cooked/drained pasta, stir in 'fixins', bake in casserole dish at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Douse liberally with Tabasco and enjoy!