So Much Is Up, I Need To Sit Down.

So my life has been a whirlwind in so many wonderful ways... Let me see if I can list some bullet points to catch myself up:

-The boys got their drivers licenses & have been driving around EVERYWHERE. I just try not to think about it - if I dwell on it, it stresses me out, so I just make sure they have their cell phones and I tell them to act like every other driver on the road is an idiot. Knock on wood, they've done awesome so far...

-My sister came to visit me again and it was awesome. She gets completely tickled pink when I make her a sandwich and make dinner while she has to do NOTHING - She's used to taking care of 4 kids, and she totally appreciates having someone take care of her... I pride myself on being an excellent hostess to my houseguests :) We pretty much laid in the sun by our pool and we watched a marathon of Girls on HBO which I had already watched but my sister hadn't and of course she loved it.

-I set up my Facebook art page - wander on over to it and hit the 'Like' button if you want to stay updated on a lot of my craziness over there...

-I won (well, I was a runner-up) a little contest that Brandt Peters had to find a sidekick for his Stingy Jack character - My prize was an original drawing from Mr. Peters of my character. OF COURSE I made a dodo -

I LOVE MY BRANDT PETERS DODO!!

(It's already framed & it sits right next to my work desk now...)

-The BEST NEWS OF ALL is all about Stranger Factory... I have loved everything about them since they moved to Albuquerque last year, and it was my dream to someday work with Brandt and his wife Kathie Olivas... Well kids, dreams do come true!! I now have 22 pieces of VALENCY ART hanging up at Stranger factory...

SERIOUSLY!! I could just cry. I also get to go to Strager Factory two days a week to intern with Kathie and Brandt and attempt to absorb some of their genius... I my have just finished my BFA in art studio, but I still have SO MUCH to learn! Also, if you happen to look at the "Upcoming Exhibitions" section of the Stranger Factory website, you might just see my name there...

HOORAY!! Not only will I have work in October's Bewitching II show, but I also have a show in November with the amazing Carisa Swenson of Goblinfruit Studio and Shing Yin Khor (aka Sawdust Bear), then in June my work will be hanging alongside the work of the one and only Bob Dob!! I'm floating on cloud nine, I tell you... I have a ton of work to do, so I will hopefully be able to update again soon, but if not... You better believe that some killer art is being made!

BigAss Cadillac

We had a couple of big milestones today... Shane and I are celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary (yeay) AND we bought our kids their first car!!

You know we couldn't go with something boring...


We got them a 1966 Cadillac DeVille!!







The boys are over the moon :) So excited!!

Bragging Rights

Indulge me with 10 seconds to brag about my brilliant sons...



SERIOUSLY!! I don't know how I ended up with such well-rounded, content, well-behaved boys... I do know that both Shane and I struggled in high school - I got relatively good grades, but my home life was so miserable, I would end up not turning in assignments or studying for tests because I had zero motivation (read: hopelessly depressed). Shane had some difficulty with a learning disability and the fact that girls, beer & chewing tobacco were just more fun than school.

Plus Stone & Tully get along really well... They spend about 2% of their time not getting along (usually because someone is hungry or tired) and 98% as pretty much best friends.

I won't look a gift horse in the mouth, but... thank you, Mr. Gift Horse.

Picture Picture

I'm ALMOST FINISHED with the series that I started mid-February... There are 12 pieces, and they are fabulous.

They start out like this:


And then they get a lick of paint. The above bird is part of a totem, and I don't have a picture of it painted yet. But here are some others...


Fish head!








These are all WIPs, and have their first coat of paint. Second coat is currently finished, just not photographed.


They also get a fabulous wood plaque backing - as evidenced with the piece for my gorgeous Russian mouse Julia - before:


After!


It's already hanging in her studio, and I'm pleased to report that she loves it! :)

I did take a break last weekend to go to Taos, NM with Shane to attend the New Mexico Taxdermy Convention. It was a gorgeous day, and it was a lot of fun...

I mean, how amazing is this??


Shane got up close and personal with some animals...


We stopped off at Chimayo on the way home, and Shane got to experience the Catholic healing powers...


No, we didn't bring home any magical dirt...

Nothing Makes Me Happier...

...Than seeing a picture of MY artwork on somebody's wall! Below is the phenomenal Carina Perez, who is a graduate student in Modern Art History at the University of New Mexico. What makes Carina even MORE amazing is that her thesis is on Taxidermy in Contemporary Art! Needless to say, we clicked instantly, and I was beyond honored when she purchased not one but TWO of my faux taxidermy beauties :)


Her thesis advisor is Dr. Ray Hernández-Durán, who is one of my all-time favorite Art History professors... I cannot wait to read her final dissertation!


I've got some WIP that I've been really enjoying... here is a wee peek:




The pictures are terrible, I know... But they are just progress pictures, and these guys have got a long way to go!! I'm being a little self-indulgent with my current work, but that's allowed sometimes, you know??

Happy V-Day from everybody's favorite Valency-Valentine! :)

Lucky's Shopping Recommendation...

Like many cats, Lucky loves plants. And cut flowers. And anything he can chomp on.

It drives me nuts when he eats greens, as I have no clue if he's chewing on something poisonous or not! Lucky is truly a nutjob, though, because he also likes to eat pepperoni pizza, maple bars, any form of barbecued meat, and cheese popcorn.

I had purchase a little pet grass plant at Petsmart in November - it was great and it lasted about 2 months, but it was kind of pricey (about $6) and small.

Searching around Amazon for an alternative, I found the
Catit Design Senses Grass Garden Kit - I paid about $11 for it, got it in the mail and I put it together a little over a week ago.

Here is how it looks today:


So LUSH! And I think somebody is in love with it.


Tallulah likes to nibble on it too, so I'm getting really great use out of it.


That is, when I can get it away from Lucky...


Well worth the money, and you can get refills super cheap... Although it's just grass seeds and vermiculite - I should be able to purchase it even cheaper in bulk.


Even Shane loves it - I think he'd like pots of this scattered all over the house... It's what happens when you live in the mostly-grass-free-high-altitude desert. You NEED some beautiful green grass!

I have another show coming up very very soon - more about that tomorrow :)

For The Love of Pepperoni

So maybe Shane isn't the only one who feeds Tallulah people food... But in my defense, I do this A LOT less than he does, and I make that little chihuahua work for it...

Gratuitous Animal Time

So Shane and I spent our Saturday night playing Def Jam RapStar on the Xbox 360... I really think I missed my calling in life - Let's just say that I got a hellofa lot of "Off The Chain" ratings while Shane managed mostly just "Dope." Oh yes.

Here is the current state of my bed:


I'm basically blocked from my bed during the day - only at night do we chase them all out of the room. Well, Tallulah stays, but that's Shane's deal... ;)

The best cat in the universe?


Yep, it's Lucky, if you were wondering...

Today started with Shane attempting to remove a section of burnt toast from our toaster with a metal knife, and as I turned around and saw what he was doing and I yelped, he got pissy at me and said that I scared him and he would not admit that sticking a metal knife in a PLUGGED-IN toaster was a bad idea.

>:(

Whatever. Today will also include football and barbecued chicken, and maybe a little more Def Jam RapStar...

This is IT!

I received a wonderful surprise in the mail yesterday...


YEAY!

I'm going to get a frame for this bad-boy today, so I can hang it up and smile at it every day! Notice the two 'summas' on there - those were the first thing I looked for when I opened the envelope!!

We're off to Tully's big math competition at UNM today - Shane is making him pancakes for breakfast, and we're going to the Army Surplus store afterwards... It's a boy's day today :)

A Little Bit of This and That

More on December happenings...

The boys after they got their driving permits:


They are quite grumpy-faced, but we did wake them up early to go to the DMV when it opened - We still had to wait over an hour but it wasn't too bad because my friend Nancy and her son Josh met us there.

Tully took his written test first and got 4 incorrect answers - surprising, since he is my little smarty-pants. Josh took his test next and only missed 3 - Go Josh! Then Stone took the test, and my Stoney only missed 2!! Go Stoney! There is something to be said for common sense, which Tully sometimes seems to lack and Stone has in spades.

Tully kept insisting on the drive home that he got harder questions on his test...

Winter walks in the bosque with Shane and Tallulah...


Tallulah has put on a bit of weight over the holidays... I'm not blaming anyone, but someone in our house just cannot stop feeding her bites of his people food. That someone is trying to walk her more to remedy the situation, since even he now admits that my little chihuahua is looking a lot like a mini-pig these days!!

I went on a girl-date with my sweet (and gorgeous!) Ariane:


We had so much fun - we really needed to catch up. We went to Desert Fish and I treated her to a rockin' meal - we even had dessert (Orange Creme Brulee - delish!)

Tully's birthday was a great success... We woke him up and made him open his presents from the fam:


The kid literally sleeps in a nest, I swear. And yes, those 2 cats are permanent fixtures in his bed...

It's so hard when your birthday is the day after Christmas, but I do my darndest to make it an awesome day. It helps whe he has such awesome friends:


We went to It'z in Albuquerque - it always works out well to go on his birthday as December 26 is not a busy day there.

Brothers handing off tickets:


Stone, acting like Stone (he's absolutely my son):


And lots and lots and lots of games...





They were enjoying winning the tickets... They won so many on the "Deal or No Deal" game that they could stretch the tickets directly from the game to the ticket-counting machine:


Then more games:


And more tickets:



Good stuff. We were there for a few hours, then it was back to the house for CAKE!


I ordered him an airbrushed-camouflage cake, and added the set of green army men that I found at Walgreen's... Tully loved it.


After the cake, the boys went outside and played some sort of made-up game that involved random sports equipment -


They basically play Calvinball -


If you don't know what Calvinball is, you need to read more Calvin and Hobbes.



After they tired themselves out, they all joined Shane on the couch, who was watching "Alaska State Troopers", which was suitable manly enough to watch as a group:


I love that six dudes can easily and comfortably flop on our Big Brown Couch (also known as the comfiest couch in the universe). His party lasted about 10 hours, and a good time was had by all :)

I'm going out with some of the squadron wives tonight - Chinese food and paint-your-own ceramics! Tomorrow is Tully's big math challenge finals at UNM... I tried to get him to do some studying/prep work with me, but he wasn't interested. Sigh... But I still refuse to pressure my kids to do anything, so he'll do fine, I'm sure.

Off to finish some work before the boys all get home...