Omg the last 30 days… to say a lot has happened is an understatement - and that’s personally in addition to everything else in the wide world at large. To address the personal items without the external chaos feels cheap and disingenuous, so…
To say I’m unhappy with the outcome of the election would be to put too mildly what has become an ever present booming of foreboding in my ears - flowery language for “I don’t feel good about this at all” - and at the same time I remain completely unsurprised. That a populace with decreasing media literacy has taken that same unwillingness to read between the lines into the voting booth was honestly to be expected. That fear-mongering dominated over hope is unsurprising. I feel there’s been a long tradition of voting against something else rather than for something - and by and large that pretty much played out last week exactly.
I am still processing it all, unsurprised and still stunned and forming all of my usual backup and contingency plans. To voice too loudly the concerns I have about future policies seems hasty, and also I’m too preoccupied with that effing Cabinet nominations. Mostly I think I plan to read a lot, and think about what I’ve read.
And make a 2025 bingo card, for my sanity.
In a more personal mode - I finished some things. Two things. The beetle impasto painting, & the tattoo design. I haven’t finished any of the books I start reading, but I have purchased 9 more volumes of varying subjects.
We (husband and I) also went to the Nelson to see the Hokusai exhibit - which I may have to write about later because this is enough of a disjointed mess of a post without dragging another artist into it.
And then there’s Annatar…
That’s actually coming along really well.
Morgoth’s crown - constructed of wire, paper maché, hot glue, more hot glue, heavy gel medium, paint and silver gilding is finished. There was a moment when my husband - coming home from a long library day to find me on the couch covered in paint and things, made mention of the fact that I could probably find a 3D print pattern of it in a minute and use either of our college’s labs to print it out in a fraction of the time I was spending on it. And yes, I could - in fact I did. One etsy vendor selling the pattern for 6 dollars, and another selling the print for less than 40. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to make it - and it turned out pretty well.
The belt - pattern changed for reasons is also pretty much complete - it just needs grommets which will take all of 5 minutes. I learned a whole heap about crafting with EVA foam - how to carve and cut and paste it. Priming, and the 7 layers of paint it took for full coverage.
The robe/dress is coming along - I did a muslin mockup for the first time in my life. Ordered fabric swatches from Mood and a company in Portugal to find the right fabric - which I then silkscreened to get that gorgeous pattern onto. That pattern itself was about 8 hours of obsessively studying various screen shots to find most of the angles of, and it’s close. Not perfect, but 75% accurate. Fortunately I work at a company that does silkscreening, and was able to have the screen burned there, and then do the actual printing myself after hours on the partially sewn robe. I may yet go into the seams and create joining lines so that the seams all “match”, but I also may not as they are largely not too noticeable and the paint strokes I’d inevitably make may stick out more than the gaps do. There’s some possible refitting to do, embroidery to add, the trim to finish which is a beautiful gold print fabric I’m going to foil stamp over as the very last thing as the foil itself probably won’t stand up to excess handling.
Additionally the shirt is 50% complete. And after all of that, or next thing to start at least is that leather wing collar. And buy a wig. And then it’s done?
And once it’s finished I expect to collapse for a bit in a fit of “what now?”
Probably some coding.