Curse of the magpie

I steal things.

A turn of phrase, a scarf knot, a haircut, a color combination for a knitted project.

I put them together in my own way, but I'm simply a thieving, stealing, collecting magpie.

I used to feel bad about it and then a designer I worked for told me this...

"Good artists borrow, but great artists steal."

I learned the strength of visual cues and came to love the stories they could tell.

Switch gears to art-making. When it comes to art, I have very little profundity to share. I have ideas and concepts - I like to find elaborate metaphors for situations - but as for earth-shattering artistic concepts...
nothing.
Zilch.
Nada.

So when I make something, it's often variation on theme - or an outright copy.
And this troubles me.
And it troubles me that it troubles me.

In music, the variation on a theme is it's own legitimate work:
Vaughn William's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; or
Brahm's Variation on a Theme by Paganini.

Even in art, there are variations on canonical images.
The Spinario, The Annunciation or the Three Graces (second link is NSFW).

But for some reason, I have difficulty gracefully accepting compliments when I make something that is based on something else. There's this deeply seeded feeling that a copy can be made by anyone and it's only the original that has any worth.

Of course, in the process of creating this post, I see how silly that is - new ideas come from revisiting old ones. One artist posed the Graces based on something he read in a story, and that pose became the anchor of all other works that reference them.
What if a different pose was chosen?

You stand on the shoulders of those who went before - keep the strengths and find opportunities to change the elements where you can: color, medium, size.

It's a struggle for me to accept that even unoriginal is original - but in the meantime, this magpie will keep gathering beautiful, meaningful bits that together create a totally original nest.

P the C

Parade the Circle was this weekend -
Here are some pix, click to enlarge...

Last minute building...



Bee Guy...



Recycled Fairy Princesses...



As always - kids on Steggie...



The Ghostly Freighter....



check out bakaitis.com for a more comprehensive display of images...

Here's a bit of video of the Finale...



To bed! I'm exhausted and sun-burned and a little drunk...

Enjoy!

Oh and I got a new camera!

Friday I picked up the best investment I've made in a long time.
I've been looking at digital cameras, but my budget was rather limited.

I found a number of good deals at a big box office store, and researched the 4 that were in my prince range. The Canon Powershot A570 IS had the best reviews and was the best price - so I went back the next day.

I got the last one (floor model) so I negotiated an additional 15% off the clearance price.

After just a couple of days of playing, I'm VERY happy with my choice - although I'm still hoping to get a SLR at some point in the next couple of years.

Love the color, focus, handling, etc - overall, best purchase ever.

Enjoy a photo of fresh cut lilacs in my kitchen -

Circus Peanut - be afeared no longer

In college I worked in the costume shop for a designer who was wonderfully eccentric - right down to having a Circus Peanut Phobia.

Now... how one cultivates a Circus Peanut Phobia, I have no idea.
They're not exactly around every corner - you don't run into them on endcaps at the grocery or trip on them at the Quickie Mart.

They usually have to be to sought out, requested, ordered online.

So I have fondness for the Circus Peanut, because I thought if I ever needed to bend her to my will, I was fairly certain I could do so with the humble orange marshmellowie peanut.

Imagine my glee when I found Bent Objects blog - he seems to have a fondness for orange foods and wonderful series of Circus Peanuts doing what they must do in the wild.