models are done, SC opens the door to theocracy

Have I mentioned how fucking hot it is here? Walk outside and it's like walking into an oven. Walk outside with a wind and it's like walking into a blast furnace. And dry. Still so very dry but at least it's not humid. Well, I'm sure you are just as sick of reading about it as I am writing about it.

Even so some things are blooming like these red crinum lilies.

I am done with the models. Done. Not totally happy with the texture on the box but it'll do, pig, it'll do. It is supposed to be subtle after all, just a device to improve the surface from flat. I mitered the corners of the coral setups to accommodate the 4” cardboard tube that will be used in the mold making.

Today I touched up any model that needed it and glued them all down to the glass squares we use for mold making and then cut the 3” and 4” diameter cardboard tubes to the proper heights with the chop saw. Everything is now ready for the next step...making the molds.

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I haven't written anything about the SC overturning R v W and sending it to the states to decide and even though we knew it was coming because of the leaked opinion, I still feel gut punched and my stress level is high. As Ms Moon said in reply to a post that we need to get radical and not despair, I was radical 50 years ago, now I'm just tired.

It could have been worse I guess, they could have just outlawed it instead of sending it to the states and there are plenty of states that don't already have laws on the books waiting to become valid, yet, some of which have already defended a woman's right to bodily autonomy. And some businesses are stepping up in support of their female employees, providing funds to travel to other states for the care they need or want. And now, at least, abortion pills are available via the mail and there's an underground developing that will assist women but, fuck all, none of that shit should even be necessary. Would these same people who are cheering the demise of R v W be in favor of mandatory kidney donation or blood donation if you're a match? I mean, after all, a life is at stake. Doesn't their pro-life stance include all living breathing humans or just fetuses? Or is it just pregnant women who can't have bodily autonomy? Of course we know the answer to that. They are perfectly fine with children getting murdered in their classrooms since their 'right' to own whatever firearms and ammo they want supersedes anyone's right to life. Such hypocrites.

Our maternal death rate is already one of the highest in North American, European, and Eastern European countries. Out of 34 modern nations only 4 have a higher maternal death rate than we do, the so called 'greatest nation on earth', and now we're poised for it to go even higher.

Speaking of hypocrites, Justice Thomas in his opinion thinks the SC should go after contraception, same sex marriage, gay rights, and sexual behavior among consenting adults all based on their religious beliefs using the same justification for overturning R v W. Notice he excluded interracial marriage which had been against the law for far longer than it is lawful. Bastard. If this latest in a line of horrible decisions by this court doesn't galvanize the population to get out and vote in an undeniable democrat/independent majority in both houses of congress so that we can pass needed voting rights and personal autonomy rights and expand the fucking SC (which has been changed about 9 times in our history) to return some balance, republicans will turn this country into a white patriarchal nationalist theocracy. They're already well on their way to it.

zinnias, wax work, J6 hearings

Zinnias!

Not much to say today. Still brutally hot and dry and I am weary of watering every morning and most evenings.

Tuesday I set the corals and crab on the top and finished texturing the top around them.

Tried out a wavy texture on a wax sheet for the body of the box Tuesday and Wednesday I tried it on the back of the box but I like it better on the test piece. I kind of overdid it on the box so I'll use some sandpaper to smooth it out and try again.

Also Wednesday I set the corals and the crab up for mold making and started setting up the feet as well. The blue wax 'wires' are to provide vents through the mold to allow air to escape as the melting glass oozes down into the mold.

You might remember, after I got the call last March from the gallery about their anniversary show in October, giving me plenty of notice because she would really like to have one of my boxes for the show, that I was not excited about it because I had no ideas waiting in line and was basically through with the series but I wanted to please Barbara so I agreed. It took awhile for me to come up with and develop an idea but I still wasn't excited about the whole thing until probably this week. Now that I have all the models for all the parts more or less finished I think it's going to be pretty damn good. I have about three months to get the pieces cast, cold worked, and assembled and it may take me every day of that. It doesn't help that it has to be done during the hottest part of the year.

Thursday, today, is the first day I haven't put in my two hours a day in several weeks mainly because half my day goes to SHARE, which was very busy today and in fact I was already behind before I even got there a few minutes after 9 this morning as baskets were already waiting for me to fill. The Elders and a couple of the guys who work food back there with me try to keep me stocked as Jan's told them all repeatedly not to let me carry the heavy boxes from the storeroom (though I am perfectly capable of doing so and do when I can get away with it), so they'll ask me what I need and they go fetch it. They usually ask me when I'm busy, trying to keep track of what list I'm on and where I am on it so it's distracting. I finally told the Elders a week or two ago to just look at the shelves and they can see for themselves what I need and to just go get it and restock for me. That's actually working out great.

The other reason I didn't go over to the studio today is because the 5^th J6 Committee hearing started at 2 PM and wasn't over til 4:30. We're watching it all. I don't think I've learned anything really new as most of it so far had already trickled out, not in depth of course. Most my twitter feed is following political watchers and reporters and politicians. What I am learning during the hearings is the details (and the receipts) of just how complete and deep and constant the pressure, the threats of violence and ruined lives, on everyone from individual election workers to state election officials to the Department of Justice every day to change the results of the election that Trump knew he lost fairly, knew their 'theories in search of evidence' were bogus, knew what he was asking people to do was illegal but he didn't care. “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen”, Trump told the acting AG Jeff Rosen. Days before J6 he wanted to replace the acting AG at the DOJ with a completely unqualified new acting AG because he finally found a guy who would do it. The only thing that stopped him was the entire senior leadership in the DOJ threatened to quit en masse followed by hundreds of others in the department following suit. This hearing ended with the names of 5 congressmen; Scott Perry, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, and Jim Jorden who asked about pardons but didn't specifically request one; who asked for blanket pardons so they obviously knew what they were doing was illegal.

Well, the DOJ is finally starting to act with subpoenas and warrants and raids starting with Jeff Clark, the guy Trump wanted to make acting AG, and other senior Trump administration officials.

I saw a tweet this morning that said Trump was hate binging the hearings, livid that no one was defending him. Sweet.

model making and the queen of the night

We're finally getting our blue sky back but it's still hot and dry with temps in the high 90˚s. One thing about this dry weather is we have had no mosquitos to speak of so that's something at least.

My days are still basically the same...watering in the mornings and evenings, working in the studio, hiding from the heat streaming, fixing dinner my two nights, volunteering on Thursdays, sometimes yoga.

Here's the two new little corals.

Now I'm ready to compose them all in some sort of cohesive little reef. Either that or work on the feet and I still need to trim down the wax slab for the top so that it fits the bottom. Right now it's a little longer and wider which I did on purpose as it's easier to trim down than build up but I might keep it that way.

So today I arranged 6 compositions with the coral and crab. Turns out I don't have enough room for all 7 corals and the crab. I can use 5 corals and the crab or 6 corals. I put aside the one from the reproduction mold and these are the arrangements (feedback welcome)...

I'll probably play around with them a little more before I decide, before I permanently attach them to a base (and each other) for making the mold. I have to visualize what the steamed out mold is going to look like, make sure I have easy access to all the forms when I'm ready to fill the mold with glass frit.

Also today I worked out my concept for the feet. It's still very rough, still tweaking it, but I think this is it.

Three or four more days and maybe I'll be done with all the pieces and ready to set them up for the mold making process.

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Last week I noticed that the night blooming cereus had 20 buds developing, a few days later 4 had turned yellow and fallen off. Tuesday night two of the remaining 16 bloomed and I missed them. Wednesday night I set a timer for 10 PM and went out to look and they were just opening. I locked up and went to bed. I woke up at 2:30, cause that's just what I do, and laid there for half an hour trying to convince myself that I wanted to get up, throw on a shift, and go out and look. At 3 AM I had to get up to pee so since I was already up and out of bed, that's what I did. I didn't get the flashlight, just aimed my phone camera in the dark and depended on the flash. The flash tends to wash out the flowers but I did get a few tolerable pictures. Fourteen flowers open at once the air smelled provocative, sweet and lemony.

I have other flower pictures but they'll have to wait.

Saharan dust and more progress on the coral reef waxes

Tuesday the sky was white again (and today) and not from clouds though there are some clouds up there.

Looking across my neighbor's yard and the cotton field, it is hazy.

I think I made a decent start on the coral sculpture for the top of the box on Monday and Tuesday, mostly just working on individual corals using the small rocks as a base to build them up on though there won't be any consistency as relates to where in the world any particular coral grows or as it relates to relative size of one coral to another. Today I finished the one in progress from yesterday and then worked on smoothing out and cleaning up the four I already have constructed.

These are small, about 1 1/2” longest dimension. Top left is from a reproduction mold I made years ago of a piece of coral. I think I'll make at least two more, giving me 7 corals and the little crab,

before I start trying to composes all the elements into some sort of cohesive arrangement.

I didn't go to yoga class in El Campo at all last week and it's canceled for this week. Abby was out of pocket last week and recovering from being sick this week. I have been making an effort at my home practice, even managed 5 days in a row last week but only 2 so far this week though I have been pretty consistent putting in two hours a day in the studio as I need to get all the wax models done and move on to the next step.

The crepe myrtles are blooming. These are two of the three across the front of the house. I don't think they have ever bloomed this well since we've been here. Apparently they like the hot dry weather. 

model making, watermelons, foxes, and other miscellania

Too hot to be outside. I go out in the morning and in the evening to water and check on things and admire and enjoy, take pictures. I walk the dog end of day 6:30ish, both of us satisfied with the short walk which includes a visit with her doggie friends if they are out. If I go out in between it's because I'm going somewhere. I've been going over to the studio after breakfast and working on the box til lunch.

The inlay in place on the front of the box. The side edges will get adjusted after it's cast in glass.

I think I'm done with the inlay now and ready to move on to the top sculpture and the feet of which an image is starting to form in my head.

To that end I made a cursory search in the big unairconditioned shop Saturday for a few specific reproduction molds. I found the one of the coral but not the little crab so I'll have to look again. I do have a wax of the little crab but it has a smushed claw arm that I can reconstruct if need be. I was in that part of the shop for about 10 minutes and it had me dripping sweat. Edit:  I found the mold for the little crab and poured waxes of those and some small rock molds to start building up on.

This is how my days go...lazy morning, work in the studio for a couple of hours, lunch, streaming Stranger Things in the afternoon though we caught up on Season 4 yesterday and must wait til July for the next chapter.

The Sahara dust storm arrived Saturday making the sky look whitely overcast but it was really just dust. It's still here yesterday but hasn't quite whited out the sky. I could still see some very very pale blue around the clouds, same today.

Thursday was a food delivery day at SHARE from the food bank in Victoria. Jan places an order once a month from a list they provide and sometimes we get everything ordered, sometimes not, and sometimes they just send something like a gigantic carton of watermelons which we received. We were busy but it just wasn't possible to give them all away. This is what we had left at the end.

I told them I would take four...one for us, one for my sister, and two for my neighbor. When I got home, I saw that they had sneaked in a fifth which I gave to another neighbor.

I had a little excitement yesterday around 6 PM. Went out to the big backyard with the dog, rounded the corner of the garage and looked up to see a fox and a kit crossing the far back end, were about halfway across when they saw me and turned and ran back into the wild space. I walked to the edge of our property and another fox came dashing out from behind the container on the Wicked Bitch Of The West's property. It ran across the field and paused at the edge of the wild space on the other side and we stared at each other until it walked into the tangle. I posted on the local chat group and lots of people responded that they too have seen foxes. I had no idea we had foxes here! These aren't my pictures but ones a local posted on my thread, definitely what I saw, grey foxes.

More miscellaneous pictures. A better picture of my haircut.

Minnie crashed out for the day snuggled next to me and her bunny.

A little calico cat wearing a collar that has been hanging out around here for about a week and a half. She won't let me get closer than about 5' before she runs off and she drives Minnie nuts. Apparently the dog doesn't concern her that much even though Minnie has chased her up a tree at least twice as she is still here, always somewhere on the property. I put some water out for her though she seems healthy as near as I can tell. I wonder if she was abandoned.

A toad hanging out on the edge of container of the sword leaf I grow in water for turtle food.

The plumerias are blooming.

yard work, wax work, watercolor

daylilies

For the third day in a row Sunday I picked up a garden cart full of sticks brought down by the three storms and the continued high winds and I still haven't canvassed the entire yard. And more branches have fallen in the areas I've already done.

Then I sat down and worked on the watercolor. I finally got to the point where it needed to dry to see how it was coming along. The colors are always lighter after they dry. This is one of the things I'm having to learn...how much pigment to put on the paper so it will be what I want when it's dry. Here's my progress so far.

Then we watched the rest of season 1 of Stranger Things.

Monday I worked on the box for a couple of hours. I poured the blank for the top, redid the upper section on the front of the box getting rid of all those tight little curves, and then worked on getting the first layer of inlay to fit. The first picture shows the permanently attached top part on the front of the box and the removable bottom inlay piece in place that will be cast separately. The second picture shows the inlay piece.

Now I'm ready to start cutting out and building up the layers of the coral design on the inlay. 

Still have to figure out what I'm going to do about the feet as I think the box needs some lift, some height.

nile lilies (agapanthus)

fucking cowards and progress on my projects

The details are coming out about the Uvalde murders and they aren't pretty. The shooter entered through an unlocked door after engaging in gunfire outside for about 12 minutes. Initial reports said that he was confronted by a security officer outside but that turned out to be false. The Uvalde police department arrived the same time he entered the school but did not enter themselves until 4 minutes later when 7 officers went in and were driven out by gunfire. And then they sat on their thumbs for over an hour waiting for a Border Patrol tactical team to arrive even though the Uvalde police department has its own SWAT unit. Instead they accosted parents who were either trying to get in to get their kids or yelling at the police to do something. A mother was handcuffed, a father thrown to the ground and pepper sprayed. The mother was released by officers she personally knew and then she jumped the fence, ran into the school, and came out with her two children. Rumor is that some police officers, while refusing to let parents get their kids out, went in and got their own kids out. Why did the Uvalde police, whose job it is to serve and protect, to bring down criminals, wait for over an hour for another team to arrive? According to a Texas DPS official interviewed on TV last night, they did not engage the shooter because “they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed” so instead they let a gunman kill 19 kids and the two adults trying to protect them and wound 22 others. I guess our police are only brave when they can shoot an unarmed person.

So how have our political leaders reacted? Texas governor Greg Abbott said tougher gun laws are not a solution* and it could have been worse. What is worse than parents having to give DNA samples in order to identify the mangled bodies of their children? At a press conference yesterday Beto O'Rourke, who is running against Abbott for governor confronted him, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Texas senator Ted Cruz (who thinks limiting the number of doors in schools is a solution), and the Uvalde mayor blaming Abbott (who last year signed 7 new laws making it easier for people to buy a gun) for this mess, “this is on you and until you do something it will continue to happen”. They called Beto an SOB and escorted him out.

*Which is bullshit because country after country that instituted strict gun laws after a similar mass shooting, stopped having mass shootings!

Democratic leaders in the House passed the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act after the Buffalo shootings. Yesterday the Republicans in the Senate filibustered it because they see nothing wrong with allowing an 18 year old teenager whose brain won't be fully matured until his late twenties to buy assault style rifles when he won't be able to buy a handgun til he's 21.

This nation, so filled with hate and violent rhetoric and guns, doesn't even have the moral conviction to protect its children. We love our guns more than we love our children and the very people who prevent any restrictions on acquiring guns and gun ownership will stand up and claim that this is the best country in the world. The best country in the world asked parents for DNA samples in order to identify their dead children.

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Well, I didn't mean to go off on another screed this post. If you missed the previous one you can read it here.

I have progress on two art projects to share. I've made progress on the box but I determined that making and fitting the coral inlay for the front is going to be too difficult and way to time consuming to get the finished cast piece to fit because of all the small tight curves. I could probably do it but the hours involved would put the price way too high so now I'm mulling over a simpler profile for the inlay. I think what I have in mind will work. So, constructing the box:

pouring the slabs

trimming them down

three sides

three sides and a bottom

four sides and a bottom

And I've made some progress on the watercolor. I've got the unopened flower and the leaf done. I'm going to need at least a two hour block of time for the big flower.

done with the artwork, now yard work

Well, the fourth temporary crown broke apart during dinner Thursday night. I was trying to avoid chewing on that side but in a moment of distraction...and it broke into pieces. I probably swallowed the smaller bits but managed to spit out the big piece. And of course the dentist's office is closed on Fridays so it's a good thing it isn't bothering me. But I'm wondering, since the temporary crown is so problematic if the permanent crown is going to stay on.

I took out the blue wax rope pieces from the last progress picture and replaced them with the smallest size I had which is two sizes smaller. I guess I was thinking bigger would be more likely to fill but then I changed my mind. I think the smaller will be more likely since there's less depth to have to go into. Anyway, I like it visually better with the smaller size.

The weather is just gorgeous, clear blue sky, low humidity, cool temps. I should be out working in the yard but I want to finish this model.

Which I did

and then I raked leaves filling a twin size sheet three times and hauling them to the back edge of the property and dumping them there and then I raked a big pile into the low spot between the magnolia and the maple which I do every year hoping they'll mulch down and raise the level but eventually Marc drives the mower through there and grinds them up. I also picked up sticks at the back and threw them into the wild space. The truck is overflowing with branches big and small from the last couple of storms and this front came in with high wind for three days and a whole lot more dropped. I guess I'll empty the truck tomorrow onto the burn pile which is already pretty big.

A cardinal just flew at the window and hovered to give me the stink eye. The bird feeder was empty so I filled that. I haven't seen the little wren in the garage since the cold front came in three days ago. It's been in there more often than not when I close the garage door for the night and I think what it's been doing is clearing the garage of daddy long legs since I finally noticed they were all gone. Or maybe it's just the time of year, at any rate, no spiders.

Some pictures from the yard...

This Chinese fringe flower tree in full bloom,

and the yellow trumpet flower,

and the yellow bells (tecoma stans, esperanza).