Around our house we've heard the question, "How's it going with Arms and Legs Girl?"
She's been growing around her white funny-shaped dress. The dress is the school district boundary, which she was conscripted to personify as a cheerful school girl.
Perhaps she is now flouncing by on the school bulletin board somewhere...
That's what Mom used to say.
It fits the way the wind blows inside our house. Those who parent teens know what I mean.
The first baby crocus came up.
With the crocus came other blossoms -- discoveries on my camera, taken by a stormy Z on a day when she was channeling her energies artistically.
She took the photos above and below the crocuses.
Yahoo, it's January! The longest possible time until next Christmas, which means if I start now, I won't feel so crazy as I did this year. I can even get to work on presents I meant to make but didn't get around to, and give them out late if I feel like it.
We say this every year. But some years we succeed. It could happen.
For Z, right now is not so fun. Not only will she need minor surgery on her aching big toe, but she has two weeks of exams to prepare for. And the PE teacher says it's Polar Bear week, which means they go outside even if it's 20 degrees out there, which it is (what happened to our extended autumn?).
So to make herself feel better, she made this delightful video of happier times. It includes several neighborhood children and her stuffed kitties, to the tune of a happy friendship song.
Don't feel bad if you aren't in it; she got a Flip camera a couple years ago and much of what is on this is leftovers from that time. She hopes to make more fun videos soon.
These strange objects are for drawing. This is the Visual Arts Center of Montgomery County, located at Albert Einstein high school. It's a studio for dedicated art students.
We don't know how Einstein got associated with the school that is known for it's visual and performing arts programs, but there you have it. Maybe he could dance or act and we didn't know it.
The Visual Arts Center is a small school within a school. It's entry by application, holding about 85 students from the entire county, grades 9-12.
It's rigorous and time consuming. Its students frequently go on to art and design colleges. They get a solid foundation, and then they are launched into their own personal pursuits.
There's a nifty video about it here. It's a little long; start at the 45 second mark and quit when you get the idea. It's got much better pictures than these.
We visited the Visual Art Center in November. Z got very excited. She talked to a student and to the teachers, she saw everyone's work in progress. The funky space felt to her like it should be her space too.
So in December she brought in her portfolio and was interviewed.
It was one of those times when several years of seemingly unconnected activities all came together. It was good that she had illustrated for Stone Soup, that she had been a summer art camp counselor, that she spent so much of her free time cartooning and studying cartoons -- turns out they display excellent composition sense.
It was especially good that her art teacher had emphasized "observational art" -- drawing real life, objects in space, with value, depth and perspective. That was a huge requirement.
Thanks to her good grades, good writing skills, and a glowing recommendation from her art teacher (again, thank you to the art teacher!), she was accepted on the spot! Woo!
So how do we do this dance? How does she go to two high schools at the same time, or does she transfer to Einstein? She has a lot to think about. I'm glad to not be working, because I may be the taxi that takes her to art school in the morning.
We will start the new year in the counseling office, trying to create a schedule that will work.
Last night we got to see some of what Z has been working on in art class.
Her teacher is amazing. Every project has a process, a set of steps to help develop skills that will be needed for the larger project.
For the portrait project, each child made a first attempt at drawing themselves. This was the "before" picture.
Then they performed some exercises in understanding proportion. They had to replicate certain shapes and forms.
After that they worked with value, creating darks and lights with pencil.
They practiced drawing some still lifes, completing the other half of a face from a photo, and improving their sense of value.
Then finally, with the help of a grid, a portrait. It was always a stunning improvement from the first attempt.
What at first seems impossible to the kids becomes achievable.
This portrait of Z is better than any photo that could be taken, I feel. It's not just that it looks like her, it also looks like how she sees herself. It makes me very happy!
And here is her block print, which is a delightful exercise in depth of field, contrast, and a challenge to the fingers that must guide the cutting tools.
Z says that clay is not her favorite. She called this Outhouse on Mars. Perhaps it is what you'd get if Audrey II sprouted up out of an outhouse. It's fun.
I don't know which class did all these clay faces, but we enjoyed looking at them as well.
Sometimes Z will sit down with her Bamboo tablet and pen and doodle on the computer.
This image no longer exists in this form; I took the picture while she was doodling, and when I came back, it had changed considerably.
Not so innapropriate for a self-portrait of someone her age. You blink and you miss it!
Speaking of fleeting things, if you have three minutes to spare, watch her video of us putting up The Tree. It's our first and only home movie, and a happy one.
Z and I did a little craft sale this weekend in the little community center in Arlington, VA. We had constant traffic, a fun crowd, and lots of tasties.
Z sold a lot of collage cards. She also sold some packs of cards from previous years. The earrings were not the hit we'd hoped, but she'll have them for Christmas gifts.
It's a funny thing that happens: She thought that artsy-grown-ups would like the earrings that looked like pies and cupcakes, but it was the kids that wanted them. And, as with my mitts, parents won't buy nice things for kids who might lose them.
Z did some drawing during the sale. At once point she looked up and saw that the woman across the way was drawing us.
Z has been producing jewelry of extreme cuteness. Little colorful tasties that I hope will sell like hotcakes at our craft sale table in November. The presentation is just as charming as the sculptures.
Hurricane Irene was a little tired by the time she got to us. She didn't do nearly as much damage in our neighborhood as we were expecting. Lots of rain, wind, and the debris that normally follows.
But since we were expecting a big storm, we spent the day indoors. Z got busy with some clay earrings. She'll probably have more to say about them on her blog. They are extremely cute.
And I did some knitting. We've decided to give another holiday bazaar a try this year. We sent in some photos for the jury; we'll see if we get a chance to have a table and sell our wares.
It's educational, I figure. Recently I took Aunt B's great advice and listened to this Freakonomics Podcast on Parenting, and felt quite reassured about the lack of spendy activities Z gets enrolled in.
The price of a table at the bazaar is cheap compared to a weekly art class... and Z is already keeping track of her expenses, working up her business cards and calculating her prices. She's learning about wire working, glazing, molding... Seems to me there's a lot to be learned from such ventures, for not a lot out money.
My time at the county fair was brief this year.
I peeked at the arts and crafts, to get the scoop on Z's artwork (she did very well!) and then I joined the knitting ladies.
If you have a "demonstration" of a craft, you get free admission to the fair. So we were on display.
I don't know whether anyone saw and learned, or just plopped down and joined us. The group kept growing. And then the thunderstorms came, so more folks piled in.
I never get tired of seeing what people bring to the fair.
You can bring anything at all. This angora rabbit was getting plucked and freed of its hot fur.
I missed seeing the baby calf and the baby camels. Too rainy to get out. But I enjoy the 4-H stuff a great deal. As far as 4-H is concerned, if you made it, there's a place for it. If you learned something new, you can proclaim it.
Even something as orinary as packing a good lunch is worthy of display space.
Here are a few more pictures of recent events.
It was necessary to stop at South of the Border, with its immense tacky displays. But once was enough.
As usual, we did our share of eating, including Paula Deen's restaurant in Savannah.
Z loved the Rolls Royce at the Dali museum, with the mermaid in the back seat. We peeked at the home of Flannery O'Connor in Savannah, and her church, St. John the Baptist.
The Dali Museum really needs to be seen from both inside and out.
Our nature hike wasn't all horrible huge bugs; we did see this magic purple mushroom, and some interesting signage.
Z got some tutorials from Me-Mom; how to crochet a worm...
and how to bake a pie. I finished a pair of socks.
We ate some gelato and Z photographed interesting bicycles.
When we got home, we had a little bit of birthday. Sweet Z made me a cheesy berry pie-thing, and she painted my toes. Later we'll have an indoor picnic with friends (the outdoors being too stinking hot).
My gift to myself was the completion of a secret goal: I'm 41, and I can run.* Five miles!
Thank you, Z for this fun card!
*On the treadmill. On the ground it's less. But it's progress!
Recently Z brought home some "unfinished" school art. She was supposed to paint a picture of her heritage.
For many of the kids at her diversely populated school, defining one's traditions and land of origin is easy. Everyone is from somewhere, or has grandparents from the motherland living with them.
So instead of painting broadly, she had to come up with an image of what she is holding on to right now.
With memories of the Pacific Northwest, and recent visions of places like West Virginia and western Maryland, she came up with this conglomerate painting.
If who we are and where we come from can be a tea kettle, a fir tree, and a Scrabble board, then it can also be a knitting needle, a rubber raft, a thumbprint cookie, or a mountain.
The dress, the shrug, the shoes!
This was the photo I meant to take a couple weeks ago. I got my second chance this weekend when Z had some partying to do.
Happy Mother's Day to me!
This is the picture she drew on my card. It is me as a kid... with a look on my face that she is apparently familiar with.
We dyed eggs today.
I copied H and ordered the tools from the Ukrainian Gift Shop.
We learned a lot this first time around. We need more tools. We need to read the instructions a little more carefully. But we did get it figured out. I think I could use these same tools on hard boiled eggs with food-friendly dyes. The colors wouldn't layer as well, but it would work. We'd crack fewer shells.
They start out looking all globby, but when the wax is removed, they look very nice. This one sort of looked like a fried egg.
Here are some more, some made by N, who came over to make messes with us.
Here's hoping the Easter Bunny is still exciting...
Z was thrilled about the ice that canceled her exams today. I am amazed that E made it off to work (20 minutes to scrape the ice off the car). She skittered off to the town center with a friend.
If you haven't recently been to She Came From Planet Z, you need to take a look.
Z has been drawing and coloring various fashions. One is a character from a book she's reading.
The wire sculpture fabric-wrapping fun continues.
This time Z got involved. She wasn't keen on the stitching -- I did that part -- but her wrapping was excellent and her color choices are delightful. She has a fat blue bird with a somewhat aquatic form.
Meanwhile, I felt like adding arms. And beads.
The fun thing about this type of sculpture is that mistakes are built into the process. There will be stray threads, lumps, irregularities. It's freeing to just let the critter develop into whatever it is going to be.
The sculpture presents puzzles. For the spine, I wrapped wire around a pencil and flattened the spring it made, then wound it onto the tail with more wire. Later fabric was glued to both sides of the loops on the spine.
Z's not allowed to put this one on her blog, even though it's her doing and she was with me when we laughed so hard about it.
Well, it's not entirely her doing. I'm the one with the straying imagination.
Z made a lovely pet food bowl at a pottery shop some time ago, with the cats' names on them. She dabbed at the writing a bit, making it swirled and globbed in an artsy way.
Last night while Pete happily ate out of the R-rated bowl (click link to see), I interpreted Fuzzy's written name completely differently. Poor Pete--the indignity of it! What do the folks at the pottery shop think of us? What kind of family would name their cat this awful word? For the evening, we substituted the first letter with a B and called him Bucky.
Z received finished copies of the November/ December issue of Stone Soup. She illustrated a story, and one of the illustrations appears on the cover as well.
Stone Soup only takes submissions from kids age 8-13, so in a year Z will have to find a new publishing outlet...
Z photographed this art class assignment. In it we see a nice girl eating. When Z gets the assignment returned to her I need to get a photo of the entire picture, because what she's eating is little people. She has more on her blog.
There were some mishaps in setting up Z's new blog, and somehow the comment feature disappeared for a time.
But she really does want comments. So after some tweaking, we've got them back on again. And based on what she looks like in her most recent post, comments are due...
You'll still have to prove you aren't a robot, and Z will still have to look at them first before they are posted. That's because unlike this blog, which is mainly accessible to Ravelry and Facebook folks, hers is published to search engines, and who knows what lunacy lurks in the digital beyond.
Something to add to your Favorites and Bookmarks--
Z has a new blog:
She Came from Planet Z.
She'll be putting photos, drawings, thoughts, collages, and whatever else she feels like on there. Maybe later she'll even have video. Who knows!
Of course, that means that I might be putting less of her stuff here, and directing you to her site. There's a link to her new blog on the left of this page, along with links to other good bloggers I know.
This cartoon by Z would surely be of interest to the discussion group I'm co-leading on Sundays at church (this happens when you listen to NPR podcasts and talk to priests too much).
The class is based on a Speaking of Faith broadcast, The Spirituality of Parenting. We discuss how to encourage kids' innate sense of wonder, how to foster empathy, and how to supply the tools for kids to find their own path. There are no answers, just sharing. Nor is there any dogma or scripture, because I could never honestly teach that.
(My spiritual tradition is my karmic inheritance. It's imperfect but also rich with stories and themes that appeal to my inner English major, so I try to make the best of it. Plus I really like old ladies and church is a great place to meet them.)
So, in the group, we discussed whether a child's moral sense is innate or learned. Sometimes the natural spiritual order of a child is a little on the dark side (at least in "the younger years").
We've had some really tough decisions to make around here. We discovered Z's middle school is offering an elective to 7th graders: Fundamentals of Computer Art. To take this elective, she must give up another: band.
We thought long and hard.
But when we see stuff like this on our computer screen, we know what we must do. We did look into area musical ensembles and other afterschool opportunities for music, but in the end, we are putting our money where Z's mouse is. She's going to take a full year of Computer Art this year, and some art classes on the side (as soon as we decide which ones).
Z finished her two illustrations for the November/December issue of Stone Soup and sent them on their way. Here are some tidbits of the collages she made.
It's time for the Agricultural Fair. And you know what that means: Toilet Bowl Decoration! Fried Dough!
So we aren't very close to nature out here. But we did find some farm life, some furry things.
Angora rabbit, ready for spinning (says I).
Hardworking chickie.
Weird looking chickie, and a blue ribbon for Z's collages.
We watched the pigs, goats, and ducks race for cheese puffs. Not sure whether that counts as animal cruelty (the cheese puffs, I mean).
But best of all were the flying swings. Z unfortunately flew herself right into a whopper of a sunshine headache, but for a while, she was soaring.
Z drew this comic based on recent household events.
It costs less than the first one, and I like it better. I promise, promise, promise not to drop it. I dropped it in the shipping box, before I even opened it. Oh help me. Soon the case will arrive, to protect it.
It has an extra wide screen, and with the wide format, what I see is what I get. I can crop the ends and my 4x6 prints will look a little better I think.
By the way, Z wants to sell bottlecaps for kids' lockers at school. She's in production mode.
With limited help from the dying camera, these lovely outfits were captured.
Z has names for them. Some are for mermaids, some for fairies, some for elves.
The camera works once in a while, if I whack it, remove the battery, shake it. Then sometimes the display works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it will let me copy the pictures to the computer and sometimes it won't... clearly its electrical innards are expiring. The new camera should be here Tuesday.
Z purchased a fairy fashion Klutz kit (Stone Soup fun money, not The Plan).
The busted camera was merciful; it functioned long enough to capture some of the finery.
E and I were out having some sort of a time when Z got the phone call from the editor of Stone Soup. She's got another commission. So off to work she goes!
Meanwhile, our main computer is dead. Perhaps it is the hard drive. E is doing various things to it. We dream of just getting a Mac, and all the lovely illustration software that Z would so enjoy using on it...
Dead computer means I snag the laptop here and there, agonizing over the lousy monitor and trying to type with the finger I accidentally chopped with my wonderful new knife. I was dicing a nice hot chili pepper at the time so I figure it was instantly sanitized. It sure felt like a disinfectant... my knife skills could use a little work.
And while we try to work, the power comes and goes. The lightning strikes, the wind blows! We do have power right now. And thankfully cooler weather.
Z found a wonderful idea on the web. She wanted to make a beaded curtain, but then stumbled upon this. She decided to make her own version, tying the stings to a long wooden dowel instead of many popscicle sticks, as the link shows.
I didn't get a photo of the finished item -- we wrapped it up for her friend's birthday, winding it around an empty giftwrap roll. But you can imagine how ten of these hanging might look. It was pretty neat.
Z piled up some beautiful collages for me on top of the mysery gifts that E got for my...
Whee! It's a milestone.
He also got me a sharpener, hee hee.
So now Z's done the compass in elvin lands. East, West, South and North. Again, since I'm not sure what she plans to do with the drawing, here is just a tidbit of it.
Z designs garments with an organic theme. Behold the...
Recently Z and I have been learning how to tie friendship bracelets. We have lots of colorful strings to play with.
There's a nice website here to get you started, if you wish to join us.
Z did some spontaneous baking last night. She whipped up some peanut butter balls.
Sugary goodness!
Z has some events to record. There was the Past Date Muffin:
And there was the time when
Me-Mom tried to get Pumpkin kitty to come out to say Hello.
We never did get to see Pumpkin come out and say hello willingly. We saw her eyes glow in the dark.
When Z discovered she could make transparent imgaes in Word, and that the lines she drew were smooth and not pixelated, she started drawing these fairies. Oh the joy of color gradations and transitions! Oh the fun of stacking multiple layers!
The challenge for me was getting them into a form that wouldn't corrupt the image so I could import it here.
I haven't found a perfect method yet, but I'm working on it. Does this girl need illustration software? Yes she does! Do we know anyone who can get us a discount? Comment if we do!
It's down to the last 24 entries in the Little Mismatched Sock Contest! Voter's choice gets $1,000! And Z's designs are in the top 24!
I'll post a link on April 29 for voting. Vote vote vote and she may win! Plus she'll get 10 pairs of socks in her design to share!
Z is thinking happy thoughts.
It's time to reveal some of Z's hard work. She has created two special regions of Elvin Land. Click the images to enlarge.
And now for the upper grades. The first thing they find at the top of the stairs is the restroom, very handy. Grades two and three are up there on the right, there's a split grade class center front, more classes up to grade five, lab/art room, teacher's lounge and restrooms, a small library in the center. Lots of light all around.
Side note: I considered flipping this picture so it would architecturally match the first one. Z drew the upper level on the backside of the drawing of the first level. But you get the idea.
Just another in the series of Z's comics about missing objects. Click the image to enlarge.
Here are friend J and Z, having just participated in the regional solo ensemble on Saturday. They got to play individually in front of judges with a hired piano accompanist.
It's been an interesting process, working with the accompanist and learning the piece for judging. J did well enough to compete in further competitions. Z did as well as possible without getting to that level, which pleased her.
Z has filled an entire page with a map of a secret world.
She's sending it to a friend, so we can't show all of it (yet), but here are some teasers.
