Monday, September 19, 2011

Was just looking back over the last few months and suddenly wondered to myself: what has become of my dream world?! I think partly it's suffering the real world. I'm no longer so totally on my own anymore which is in some ways a relief but in many ways it's not. I feel too grounded. Too realistic and earthly. What the hell!?! Perhaps I should try to take my astrologers advice more seriously and get into the habit of meditating every day.
On the positive side (because I must) my creative urges have left the house and are out in the world now, this is good. I am slowly, but surely, expanding. Maybe this shift has something to do with Neptune's return (because I'm hell bent on figuring that one out). Maybe this is just the natural progression, maybe I was living in my head more than I realized. Whatever it is I hope that it evens out to something a little dreamier soon because this real world is just a touch dull... (cue dreamy pictures!).




Saturday, September 17, 2011

It's fun to play dress up in your own clothes sometimes. As I'm not much for neutrals and when in doubt pair everything with my tiger shirt, spending some time playing dress up helps me cut down on chaos and lost time on school days mornings. Today I visited good old St. Vincent's again -it's gotten chilly here and I never seem to have enough sweaters (blame it on my disinterest in neutrals). It did seem a little busier than usual when I arrived but it was a Saturday morning so I figured, why not? When I finally got to the rooms of clothing there was some of that ferocious not-if-I-find-it-first energy and I wasn't really up for it so I diverted myself to other racks where I usually don't expect to find things. This time, however, I found a ton of good stuff. I think the last time I came away from a thrift store with a haul like this was at least fifteen years ago. Sweaters, skirts, tops -I even found a poncho I kind of like (we'll see about that one, might be reselling it to Buffalo Exchange or somewheres). Anyway, I whittled it down to only what I truly believed I would wear and justified it with the ever more popular: in this line of work my creative image is really important, these are work clothes. I mean come on, what do they say? Dress for the job you want to have. So with my armload and my birdcage (yes, I got a nice birdcage for only $10, how could I not? Ofcourse I came home and researched lovebirds and found that they actually probably wouldn't be compatible with my household right now but whatever, critters are always turning up in need of a holding area.) I made my way out to the registers where I found absolutely mobs. Seriously, I'd never seen it like this before. Usually I don't wait in lines like that but I figured it was probably worse than it looked and where else was I going to find sweaters, etc. for just a few dollars apiece? When I got to the register the guy and I chatted about the great deal I was getting on the birdcage (he paid $35 for something similar at the pet store) and he explained that they were having a sale today on clothes, everything half off. How awesome is that? I usually don't even manage to get anywhere before noon and there I was bright and early and without the crazy hunting stress so many around me seemed to be feeling because I was totally clueless. What awesome luck!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Ed Ruscha

So I've finally started a new blog focusing on astrology. It's here and I hope that it goes well. I'm not sure how much I'll still be posting on this one now. With no solid theme I've been kind of confused as to what I want it to be or if I want it to be anything at all so I think I may just give it a rest until I get inspired again or just come back out of nostalgia for it.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Neptune Retro in Aquarius



Remember back in the spring I was all excited about Neptune leaving Aquarius? And then after that how I mentioned that I wasn't even sure what the difference was yet? Well Neptune retrograded back into Aquarius recently (until February 2012) and I think I know the difference now. I haven't been able to get quite all the way back to my natural center a lot lately. It's really obnoxious. It sort of like not being ably to quite remember something and trying and trying and feeling it hovering just at the edge of your brain but still never quite getting there. And this one little thing that I can't quite remember is keeping me from feeling entirely "me" and many of the things I "know" I suddenly feel I'm iffy on.
I believe I recall that the purpose (if you can call it that) that this retrograde serves for Aquarians is to let us use all of what we learned over the many years Neptune was in our sign and all of what became clear once it left in this last period. It's almost like now it's delivering the goods that all the work was for except it's also going backward and so is somewhat confusing, and feels like it's triggering things that (for me at least) are outdated. So even though this is the period of delivery it feels kind of like work...



Addendum: I found info that what I'm experiencing is actually an illustration of Sun square Hylonome and Pholus and some interaction with some asteroids, as well. As usual, I'm on the astro weather!

Sunday, September 4, 2011





At the new moon last weekend I participated in a small group... thing. I'm not sure how to explain it. Anyway. The group was given "homework" and the homework was to create a collage on a particular theme, I honestly can't remember what it was. When it comes to art I don't really like being assigned themes or given any guidelines whatsoever, actually. But I do love collage and working on my style book for school (in the make up industry I guess they call style books 'morgue's so from here on I'll refer to mine this way, too, it's so clever) has me in the mood for paper and cutting and pasting and all that (I'll post some of my more recent pages soon, now that I've thought of it).
It took me a few days and I started out with a couple very simple collages, just pairing images together or  imposing one on the other, similar to what I've done in my morgue. I knew I wanted to start getting into more interesting compositions and the above is what I've come up with so far.
What I wanted to say most about them is that even though they are so obvious and the transition from one to the next is fully connected, when I started to choose images and work on these I really didn't have a clear idea of the theme I was working on I just saw images that I could do something with. The obvious outcome are illustrations of confinement, crystallization, awkwardness, fragementation and restriction. Struggling to emerge. Followed by synthesis, emergence, freedom, and wholeness. In the second one, I wove together an image of clouds taken from a plane and an image of the ground also taken from a plane. Coincidentally, the caption under the dancer was something to the effect of "I asked her to take something from the air and place it on the ground". My favorite thing about these pieces, again, is that I made them without thinking. Much as they are connected I didn't see anything until they were both completed. I like the idea that my subconscious is so sharp that I can go on autopilot and become more coherent than in I were making an actual effort.