Monday Bunday ; Strange Places

Have been rather busy getting my room ready for the start of school this Tuesday. They have given me my own room, finally I don't have share space with the woodworking, copper smithing or stone carving, messy stuff all of it. Or worse have to be in one of the academic classrooms and have to tote all the supplies to the room. Though there is a certain charm to loading up my cart and call out "Art cart, art cart, make way for the art cart" as I tried to wedge through a dense knot of teens. I lazured the walls (5 coats, pics later). The desks were a mess from last year, bare wood doesn't wear well, so I had to do something about them. I had gotten some sort of water based sealer for walls to protect the area around the sink (I am so happy to have running water) and after using just a bit I was afraid of it. What if the drier was shriveling my brain? I simply couldn't use it on the desks, so I went up to Greenspace and got some lovely non-toxic, no VOC products to clean, stain and seal the desks. A small ways up the street I saw this signage. 

 From a  moving car Rio Theater, Santa Cruz California, USA, Saturday August 30, 2008

This photo was taken the next day as I drove by without looking through the view finder, modern cameras, got to love 'em. The Residents are a very strange band, I thought they had disbanded long ago. You can read more about them here, or here,  if you like. While back Rabbit's Guy was fishing around for a group Rabbit Blogosphere activity, he took us all on a virtual vacation on the 7-Bunny-7. Jolly time was had by all, through sadly we lost the dear Tidbit en route. My suggestion was more in the realm of public art. Basically make a big sticker (I used a removable sort, just in case there was any question about defacing property) of your rabbit(s) and take a photo of it. RG thought at the time he would manage the Blog and all. He is pretty good at that sort of thing. Today I did a test drive. First it was hard to part with my stickers, but I figure the world will be better place with images of rabbits for all to see. Tyler adorns a fire hydrant. 

Is this art or defacement of public property? who owns this hydrant? 

If something is enhanced by an addition does that constitute defacement? 

Or is it simple vandalism? 

Sydney found exhibition space on a dumpster. 

Once again this begs the question of enhancement or defacement? 

Art or naughty rabbit person? What will the neighbors think?

Both rabbits took in Obama's acceptance speech, well, they mostly took in their dinner. They pose the question "Which candidate is the most likely have a rabbit?"  (That would be as a pet, I mean equal, not to eat).......

Have a good Bunday and Beyond..............

Monday Bunday

Good Bunday to you. Tyler and Sydney, in addition to their many other prodigious talents, are artists. They use placement of themselves and ordinary objects to create living compositions. Working in isolation as they do their works exist outside of the mainstream art and may not, in fact, even be recognized as art. However they insist that close inspection and an open mind will reveal a fair view into the art which they call "Bun Shui"; the Art of Rabbit Placement.

Left to right: Sydney and Tyler Spot

Artist's Statement-

Tyler: Bun Shui is a constantly changing and moving art form. It is our response to the Qi of the moment. A rabbit always improves the Qi of a room.

Sydney: It could be thought of as a performance art. Unfortunately some our best works have gone un-recorded, indeed unseen.

T: Bun Shui a green art, using only such non-toxic items that are at paw.

Rabbits, Sticks and Bowls

T: This composition plays with numbers as only a rabbit can. It shows two bowls, two rabbits, and two sticks.

S: I'm supposed to covering the third stick, but I let a little peek out just to be edgy. I like the way the photo shows my two back feet to good advantage.

T: I like the hay cube in my red bowl

Spots, Towels and the Red Bowl

S: This one is meant to be sort of disorienting, it should make you question your sense of reality.

T: Compositionally our spots, or "Bunnigraphic Marks" add to the general atmosphere of the piece.

Rabbit with Towels and Bowl

T: This is one of my solo pieces. It is a simple arrangement using a rabbit shape, me, Tyler, as a diagonal element and plays with the two reds of the towel and Red Bowl, and the two patterns of the towel and me, Tyler.

S: Yeah, it is a pretty simple piece, was I having a snack while this was happening?

Two Rabbits

S: This next one really speaks for itself, the viewer will find himself or herself stunned by the beauty of our spots.

T: Yes, we look like living, furry, ink paintings.

S: Your nose spot is so charmingly crooked.

T: Your nose is so satisfyingly black and so are your ears.

S: Time for dinner.

T: It sure is.

Housing Musings

LOL to keep from crying, on the front page of today's New York Times there are two stories about housing. One is from China where two ladies in their late 70's are going to have to undergo re-education through labor. They made the mistake of requesting a fully legal license to protest the fact that six years after having their homes were leveled to make way for a high-rise, they are still living in  ramshackle shacks.  At the time of their removal they had been promised they would compensated. Also on the front page, and this is really news, is the moving of Candy Spelling, widow of Aaron Spelling the TV producer into a smaller but most luxurious condo. The fact that she currently inhabits a 56,500 Square foot French Style Chateau "home" that has a special room for gift wrapping, means that almost anything would be  downsize, if you know what I mean....The price tag on her downsize abode is 47 million dollars. Now if those sweet old ladies from China and the Candy Woman could get together......But what about rabbits? Rabbits are very creative with housing, we have all seen cleverly gnawed boxes and redesigned pens. Here are some good looking earthworks by Scottish rabbits, thanks to Rima from The Hermitage, check her out if  you are not already acquainted.Tyler and Sydney have several places around the house they consider theirs (we don't fit very well anyway); under the bed, behind the couch, under that chair and under this chair, the snoozy pad under the table..... They seem very paritcular about their space. Since Sydney came to live here both rabbits had taken to peeing right next to their litter boxes. No amount of cleaning with vinegar, replacing the towels or covering the areas with lavender or hay seemed to work for longer than a day. On Saturday I extended their pen long a wall, an area where they could go freely, but since then there has been no peeing outside the box (OK to think there, not pee). How was I to know that was what the message was? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the pee truce lasts............

Tyler has his very own box filled with hay, 

Sydney NEVER goes in this box.

Have a good weekend bunn and all.

Monday Bunday

What 

is

 it 

like

 to

 be

 a

 rabbit

?

Tyler and Sydney have their people working 24/7 on that one. On another topic, look to the right and find the credit card sort of thing, we have been given this award by Carlton Jamal, a charming and funny rabbit who lives in England. We pass this on to Zinger so he can come out of his hidey hole and go shopping; to Sue from Studio Window, who is a dog person but braves this rabbit blog for artistic reasons; to Bunnygirl and the newly acquired and wonderfully spotted Cadbury as a slightly belated welcome token. And a delightful Bunday to all.

Of This and That

I am helping some friends put on a large dinner, 40 plus diners, I am doing the fermentation and slow cooking part. Last month I made some cabbage, carrot and fennel sauerkraut that has been fermenting in a large crock for a month. Three days ago I made a huge amount of Five Flavor Abodo ( a peasant stew with beef, onions, mushrooms, soy sauce, balsamic, white pepper, and porter), it is best after it has been in the fridge for two or three days, then reheated, hmmmm like ambrosia. Two days ago I started this Kefir Rose Hip Hibisicus Soda. 

Here's my little work desk, it is on one wall of the bedroom. Luckily, I don't need much space to do Moku Hanga, which is one of it's many charms. The guy on the wall is a large print I found in my parent's broom closet when I was cleaning their apartment for selling purposes, it was rubber banded around a broom handle. My mother had Alzheimers and I imagine it made sense a the time. I had the print framed and for a time it adorned my acupuncture office wall, but circumstances and locations changed and it has been roosting at home for a couple years. On the desk is the contents of a lovely package I received from M.Kate at La Vie Est Belle, if you are not familiar with her blog, check it out. She has lots of great photos and stories from her part of the world, Malaysia, and she is a rabbit person, 7 bunnies at the last count. She sent me a little fan with pressed orchids. I like orchids a lot, though I don't go to orchids blogs, I have four plants. Two were rescued from abusive environments and two were bought cheap from the distressed area at the garden store. Now I have a sort of portable orchid in the form of the fan. Also enclosed was a bookmark with my name in Chinese, so cool. And a handkercheif with Double Happiness characters on it, who can't use extra happiness I ask? And some very nice picture postcords. It will be a pleasure to respond in kind to this kindness! Double thanks to M.Kate.

Here's a close-up of the the wood of my desk, it is Tiger Stripe Maple, looks wrinkled, but it's not. The edges of the desk are wiggly, it is designed to have natural (not straight) lines. A friend made the desk as part of an acupuncture trade. It is the only piece of furniture I own (Boyfriend has plenty for both of us). 

Got to run, visitors this weekend, they will be sleeping the living room which is rabbit domain, Tyler and Sydney may not like this too very much. I have clean the house NOW.

Monday Bunday

Just a word from your sponsors

Eat your greens.

Mind Your P's

Painting and Pigs seem to be at the forefront this week. Yesterday I went the the house deep in the woods and painted out the angel, see the post titled Call of the Wall for background on that. She didn't really want to go and at one point I was thinking of ways to tell the mother of the girl who wanted a sunset not an angel that the wall would have to taken back to white

This is taken in the natural light the shadow is from 

the window sill, but it works OK with the composition

and started all over again. And that would be at my expense. However I did not give in to that temptation, for it is a temptation to give up. With walls there seems to always be a point where doubt and fear creep in and a voice whispers in my ear "You can't do this." With plain walls that have no imagery I expect it somewhere between the second and fourth coats, and I usually hold an internal dialog that questions the difference between Lazure and a bad paint job. To my credit I have only had to paint a job out once and that was because I had other people helping. 

Close-up.

I know that sounds awful and antisocial. For me, Lazuring is series of adjustments to a constantly changing situation,  it's just too hard with other people to keep track of them as well. Anyway it all more or less fell together in the last half hour. It's not like any sunset I've ever seen, yet, but I think with the girl's stereo speakers in place (lower right are the mounts) and her ballet bar installed it will seem OK. The mother  and the sister liked it, though the girl herself was not available for comment, being off at Dance Camp.

I'm hungry, are you my mom? Who cares! 

The milk bar is open for business.

The other P this week was Pigs at Farmer Bob and Farmer Jean's place, see somewhere below . There are 34 piglets at this point from 4 different litters, there are still 4 more sows waiting to birth. I chatted amiably to Farmer Bob for a while and the piglets and slept in the shade of  the Plum tree. Then just as Farmer Bob left to go do some sort of task it was as if the dinner bell 

I think his name is Spot.

had rung. What a grunting and oinking and jostling for udders went on. Piglets running about looking for an open place at the snack bar. Sows flopping down and rolling over, ready for the gang to descend. In order to get and keep milk flowing the piglets butt their heads and snouts repeatedly on the udder of choice, this makes the whole nursing thing a very active sport. I wonder how many piglets there will be next week, it is such a porcine scene!

Close-up.

Monday Bunday

 Sydney sports a broader build than her brother and is larger, though Tyler eats a lot more, Sydney loves to dash around. Here she is about to dive into the Bun Run. 

"You have to run in quick as a bunny, follow meeeee....."

And here she is demonstrating the correct way to exit the Bun Run. 

"Come out with more composure, as if transformed by the experience."

Tyler is very quick as well, English Spots are known as runners, but his area of speciality is the "Bunny Up" pose. This one he held for almost a minute. Perhaps he is trying to compensate for being a little short.

"Did someone say 'Blueberry Treat?'"

Sometimes my camera takes strange pictures (this is not Photoshopped). Is this showing Tyler's alter ego? his guardian angel? Is it a Shamanic Bunny projection? The committee is still working IDing this filmy entity.

"You are getting sleepy, 

the bunny is growing larger and larger, 

you cannot resist his commands,

you will give him treats fit for a King."

The Call of the Wall

Every summer I get a call from someone who wants a room lazured, it is very much a seasonal activity. When I have gotten requests for lazuring in other seasons the jobs have always fallen through. I find this fascinating. I have special pants that I wear for such jobs ( I like to be able to wipe my brush or hands on something convenient), they have served me for all large scale painting projects for the last six years; from classrooms, to stage props for "As You Like It", to various offices. Last week I wore them to paint a room in a home deep in the woods. The room was for a girl who finally got her own room and she wanted it to be pinky orange in the back ground with a sort of Japanese motif, like some paper she had in a patterned paper book. I said OK, I'll see what I can do.
The light is failing a bit here and the pinkness doesn't show very well. This is the wall in action, if you will, with the girl's music stand and a part of her funny little cello chair. Below is a closer shot of the part above her bed, the Japanesy botanical motif is outlined in gold so it flashes  with the light and floats away from wall in a sort of exciting way that seemed appropriate for a cello playing girl who also loves Hannah Montana. She was happy with the end result, phew!
Two years ago I painted a room for the girl who just got her own room and her sister, at the time the girl who just got her own room wanted an angel on her wall. And I said OK, I'll see what I can do, I usually paint rabbits. I did paint an angel that doesn't even look like a rabbit, not much at any rate.  Now the girl who remains in the room doesn't want her sister's angel to be overlooking her and wants a sunset instead; Project Angel Disguise will commence next week or so. Here is the angel before the sun sets on her.
Without getting too much in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophical theories (for it was Rudy who developed lazuring, he did it with two brooms!) on lazuring, the general idea is to create a soft color environment that minimizes the sharp corners and flat surfaces of most architecture. This helps the body and and the mind relax into a natural and more expansive state. Lazuring is done with many coats of very thin paint that is buffed into the wall with a large brush. Some folks use watercolors, some acrylic and some very expensive organic glazes. The desired effect is one of breathing clouds. Below is a portion of the dining room wall I did in the house that is deep in the woods, the pictures of the whole wall really didn't show the cloudiness very well. In this case I used a few different colors and went in with smaller brushes to bring out the clouds. You can see more examples of lazuring here and here.
I am pleased to report in the recently completed job I did not spill any paint on the carpet or smudge furniture. The only casualty was a blop of pink paint on my shoe. It goes rather well with the blue laces.