I’ve got three book reviews for your Summer reading list over at Magpie Suggests: Maximum Ride for ‘tween sci-fi fans, Angel and Apostle, for lovers of classic lit, and The Devil in the White City for a suspense ful beach read. Flit on over there and tell me what you think….

The girls spent the bulk of their Saturday at the PDX Zineposium dodging the numerous line drawings of phalluses and severed heads in order to find all that is kid friendly in Zine culture. They gathered plenty of swags–tiny buttons, handmade stickers, and this Volume 4, Issue 5 of a zine consisting entirely of identical bunnies. On the 20 minuted drive back across the Oregon/Washington border (the girls rolled down the windows to kiss the Washington air) Cate wrote a story to accompany the pictoral zine.  It basically went “Bunnies, bunnies bunnies. More bunnies and …. Bunnies!!”  After a while it did acquire a semblance of a plot. Here’s how she retold the story later in the hotel room, illustrated with the entire zine. Read the rest of this entry »

wind and wave made beach sculpture at twin rocks. for more pics from rockaway beach click here.

We are off to our rented hideaway on Rockaway Beach, Oregon. I’ve set up some posts to go up automatically while I’m away, including this retroactive post from my stay here last summer while I was on writing retreat with Jen. Reading this helps me to breathe easier. May it bring a peaceful sigh to you as well.

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8.16.06

My body is still warm from the bed, which is so soft and heavy with quilts that it holds me like a cupped hand. I have taken in as much sleep as I can absorb. It is nearly nine and the quiet of a solitary house surrounds me – there’s only just the hum of the refrigerator for company.

Today there will be blackberry muffins and a walk on the beach and discoveries all unto myself. A cottage day on Rockaway Beach.

Holy Xeroxed pamphlet Batman! It’s Paul’s favorite people-watching moment…the dude from the Denver Zine Library in a homemade Robin suit.

We just got back from a whole day at the PDX Zine Symposium. Let me tell ya, some of the best people watching in the country is right there my friends. I saw some of the best tattoo work I’ve ever seen, which is saying something considering I come from Seattle, which this very weekend is hosting this. One young woman had a intricate and well-executed arm tatt of a giant squid sucking down a pirate ship. Another had a delicate, picturesque scene of a tree with a single swing hung in its branches. There were any number of pierced punks, dreadlocked girls and boys, a whole contingent of vintage-gone-camp babes who quite frankly, could knock your socks off with their yowza factor. But I think my favorite eye-candy was one particularly hilarious dude in an orange plaid jacket, pink crocodile clogs, and a – wait for it – tight red polyester short-shorts. He was wearing a huge button that said “my hipster button is bigger than your hipster button.” He made me laugh everytime he bustled by.

When I walked into the room I said to Paul, “I don’t think I should be here. None of my kids are named ‘Loki’ and I’m not even vegan!” Thankfully the person sharing my table was Kate, a lovely 40 something mom who’s been publishing Miranda for nearly a decade. We chatted the day away while I knit this sweater and she worked on her son’s abandoned scarf project. Most of the zines were of the “comics-of-severed heads-that-I-copied-after-hours-on-the-Xerox-at-my-temp-job” variety, but there were a few well written and/or well designed marvels that caught my eye. I picked up several Rad Dad editions for my punk-rock new-dad bro, and collection of Isabelle Eberhardt’s writings from Eberhardt Press. (Both of these zine makers either letterpress or screen print their covers – very nice.) There’s a very big DIY vibe in the zine making world, which I can totally appreciate, but I still I thought this zine’s suggestions took the DIY ethic a bit too far. Yikes!

I was able to steal a little time with Artnoose to hear about her upcoming move to Pennsylvania. (I wonder if it’s in the town this young blood of a hipster mayor is trying to turn into an artists’ haven? I’ll have to do a follow-up to ask her….) She also gave me the low down on letterpress, keeping a zine going for a decade, and mixing up the writing/artist life. Watch for an interview here in the upcoming weeks.

After selling a few zines, a bracelet or two, and my entire collection of shrinky dink robins, I was ready to leave the shower-free patcholi-rich air of Portland State student union. On our way out Paul took one last look at the workshop offerings for the weekend and said, “You’ve got to love a community who knows they need to hold work shops on how to handle people with undiagnosed mental illness…”

Ah the many wondered world of zines!

It’s official, Saturdays are now for Small is Beautiful bloggers. Eventually, we’ll have a lovely little tag set up for you wear loud and proud, along with a collection of articles and dowloadable inspirations for small bloggers. But until we get it all set up let’s start, well, small, shall we?

Today I’d like to introduce a Small is Beautiful featured blogger, Jen M. Jen blogs about faith, life, and acting — including stories from her sometimes-stint on reality tv show Little People Big World. Jen is also launching a small scale design business and did my BlogHer 07 business card, which distributed with ridiculous profeciency.

It’s
Need wedding invitations? Baby announcements? Some nice personalized postcards? You can find Jen M here.

Want to be featured as a Small is Beautiful blogger? Email me and I’ll put your name in the hat: moi at magpie dash girl dot com.

This is where I’ll be this weekend, playing in the field of zines. I stumbled upon this collection of misfit self-publishers while surfing just days ago, and my loyal hubby immediately agreed to stop for two days on our way to the Oregon coast. I’ll be shilling my ode-to-summer zine, Tweet, and Jen’s get-inspiried Beginnings, along with a handful of other handmades. I’m also excited to to be interviewing zine mama Artnoose of KerBloom. (”Ain’t no press like letterpress!”) Anyone else in town who wants to have lunch at the symposium?

Here’s some of what I did today…and this doesn’t include the exercise, and the meals, and the reading of Harry Potter aloud, and the email…and, and, and…

Yes, that would be the basement play space…clean!

In The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris quotes a friend of hers as saying that she wants this carved on her gravestone: “Finally Her Laundry is Done.”

Weeds gone, lettuce thinned.

Finds for Magpie Girl Vintage (isn’t that shirt great?)

Sammy’s version of the ‘b’ word.

Usually when I see a list like this, I think “for this I got a master’s degree.” Today it all felt very good and purposeful. And at least I didn’t have to deal with this…!

Today’s review over in Magpie Suggests is of Karen Michel’s very useful book The Complete Guide to Altered Imagery. This is a great how-to for magpie artists like me. I’ll also be using this book in September to launch Magpie Girl’s First Friday Creative Challenge. Mark you calendars for the roll out of this every-one-can-play project starting September7th!

Photo by MadGiddy.

My housemates are some of the bravest people I know. Both of them have carved brave and interesting lives - often by leaving something that had the facade of security in order to go by themselves and be Brave on the Rocks. This week our housemate Rebecca struck out on her own. She found the cutest apartment in the whole city — complete with the original ice box (now converted to cupboards); a fire escape which is longing for candles, pillows, and potted plants; and the sounds of local tunesmiths wafting up from the tavern below.

It’s been sort of an etheral idea for me the last couple of months - Rebecca’s moving out. After living together for a year and a half, I knew she’d eventually grow tired of waking up early on Saturday mornings to stampede of children’s feet, and it can’t have been fun to hike up the basement stairs everytime you need the bathroom or want a glass of water. When the inevitable day came and she came home with a new key, I was sorry to know that she wouldn’t be here for after work chats about men and politics, or available for our early morning walks-and-conversation. But it wasn’t until today, when I went with her to drop off one more load of books and I actually got to see her apartment — the adorable Jetson’s dinnette set delivered from the anitque mall across the street, the “divine paprika” paint on the bedroom walls — it wasn’t until then that I realized really what Rebecca was doing. She wasn’t just moving out from our house, she was creating her own home.

So today I say to Rebecca, thank you from the bottom of my heart for being such a beloved roomate, lo these many months, and deep-rooted congratulations on your new home! May it be the launching ground for many new dreams and adventures!

All my love,

Rachelle

This week’s theme at Mama Says Om is “decision.” We happen to be standing on the edge of a pretty big decision. We are looking at some employment opportunities overseas. This comes up every six months or so, and up until now there’s not been a very good fit. But something new is on the horizon and we’re wondering if it might be for us.

There’s a kind of artwork that I do which I tend to think of as “art as spiritual journey.” These pieces are more craft and meditation than they are actual “art.” (Whatever that means.) I often find that they solidify a concept I’m trying to get my head around, or point me in a direction that I didn’t know I was longing for. Working on this piece for Mama Says Om helped me feel like the possibility of relocating was real, was firm. The collage embodied a concept in a way that my mental imagination alone could not. Now I feel like if we pursue this as an option it’s less ethereal — there’s something solid to stand on, and that is making me feel less afraid of the exploration.

To make this collage I used a piece of stationary with a travel theme as a background and applied a map from a European tour book. The birds are a stamp I carved out of a wine cork. The big red “you are here” arrow was cut out of electrical tape and the letters are stickers that I cut up so they didn’t look quite as scrapbook-y. Small pricing tags from an office supply store detail out the verb “to decide.” More stickers on the bottom spell out what I’d have to do if I moved out of familiar surrounds. The sentence in handwriting says “I have a fork” in Danish — the only thing I remember from the round of language lessons I took a year ago. (Actually, that’s not true. I also remember the word for apron and the word for living room … I’m sure those three things will take me a L-O-N-G way!)

Mama Says Om is a great experiment to help creative mom’s hold on to their art-and-soul. You can play too! Just check the weekly theme, and write, photograph, paint, collage, or whatever your way to a post on the topic. Then link to Mama Says Om to inspire and be inspired. Mama Says Om is brought to you by the wondergals at Elaine and Krystyn.

Ps. Here’s some links to other art-as-meditation projects that I’ve done in the past. A little note for context…I am an ordained minister and work with artists who are trying to find a new way to practice old faiths, as well as with interfaith communities, and with women who are trying to access the feminine divine. I teach workshops on art-based meditative practices. Contact me if your interested in booking me for a conference or retreat. moi at magpie dash girl dot com.

Other Stuff
spring equinox
dia de los meurtos: derrida (by Lindell Alderman), altar for darfur
feminine divine,
ignatian examen high point,
ignatian examen, low point
thank you
perched
tsunami intercession
justice (by Rebecca Dallin),

The Ramadan Collection
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