Cape Cod Vacation

"If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air, quaint little villages here and there...." I took a break from mosaics this summer to spend a week on Cape Cod. I have family there so I didn't have to pay for accommodations. It's a good thing because the Cape is pricey! I love it there though - that humid, heavy, salty air and soft, beautiful light are like nowhere else. I stayed in Monument Beach, a very small town near the beginning of the Cape. The house is within walking distance of the cute and beautiful town beach - open to anyone who knows about it. Luckily, it isn't well known so we didn't have to share with too many other beachgoers! After a few days there we moved on to spend time in Chatham with friends. We immediately headed for another beach - South Beach. This is a much larger and more populated one on Nantucket Sound - which was made colder than usual this year by Hurricane Bertha. We stayed to watch the sun set and the full moon rise and to totally enjoy that famous Cape light. The next day we hit Sandy Neck beach over in Barnstable. This is a beautiful, wide open, pebbly beach with smooth, clear water on Cape Cod Bay. For me, no visit to Cape Cod is complete without visiting Provincetown - or PTown as my new jacket says! It is a hustling, bustling little city with old buildings housing everything from world-class restaurants, galleries and souvenir shops. And the people-watching is the best I've ever found anywhere! If you stay long-term or are a local, you leave your car behind and rent a bike to navigate the narrow streets or to get to the two huge beaches - Herring Cove and Race Point. The old-time fishing industry is evident as you look out over the piers and wharfs toward the open ocean.If you ever visit Cape Cod, you will notice the amazing color of the hydrangeas there - a gorgeous, shocking bright blue caused by the specific ph balance in the soil.
Cape Cod is a special, if crowded, place. But if you come, try to stay far from the larger cities like Hyannis so you can discover the old-time Cape where the real natives live.

Gyotaku - Fish Rubbing

If you are like me, when you are on vacation you like to do a little souvenir shopping - or at least some strolling and window shopping. Once you've spent a little time on the Cape, however, you start to see the same old tourist souvenirs everywhere - same stuff, different town! But I came upon a pretty cool place in Chatham. On the surface it is just a clothing store. But when you check out the art on the clothing you know you are seeing something unique. The name of the store is Blue Water Fish Rubbings and the artist, Jenny Bovey, uses actual fish, octopus, seahorses, lobsters, sharks, etc to make prints on the garments. She uses real fish (she has fishermen friends who bring them to her) which she allows to dry. Then she coats them with screen printers ink and stamps the cloth with them! She has had some of her fish for 25 years. This is an old Japanese technique called Gyotaku which literally means Fish Rubbing. Check out more info here.

Gecko

Gecko
glass and mirror mosaic
27" x 20"
2008

A Plague of Frogs in Jingletown!

What's happening?Frogs are everywhere!It appears that Jingletown - that den of iniquity - has called a plague of frogs down upon itself! Here are some actual photos of the little critters.

They're everywhere! And you know how frogs are - where there's one, more are bound to follow!
Here was an innocent blank space, just sitting there minding it's own business and look what happened:
Take a walk around the 'hood and see if you can find all of them. Keep your eyes open - soon there will be more.

This work is dedicated to all the good people in Jingletown - Russ, Stacy, Saundra, Cynthia, Fernando, Susan, Heather, etc - who have welcomed me onto their "team"!

Hummingbirds and Frogs

More new work.
Nature is calling me lately and these two creatures are very popular styles.

Hummingbird Mosaic

21" x 13"
Mirror and Stained Glass
2008
Hummingbird Mosaic
22" x 13"
Mirror and Stained Glass
2008
Bill's Frog
15" x 28.5"
Mirror and Stained Glass
2008
C's Frog
15" x 28.5"
Mirror and Stained Glass
2008

Last of My Batman Memorabilia

This is one of my Batman treasures.
I have no idea how many boxes of cereal I had to eat to get this.
This is an 8" x 10" (approximately) photo from the 1960's Batman tv series with Adam West and Burt Ward.
I think it was 1966 and my mother did the legwork (and postal work) to get this to magically appear in the mail one day signed , as it was, to ME personally!
I was deliriously happy.
Be sure to check out my three previous posts showing my Batman trading cards from the 1960s.

Jingletown Open Studios - 420 Gallery

Well 2008's East Bay Open Studios have come and gone and the crew at 420 Gallery - 420 Peterson in Jingletown, Oakland - had a great time. We were "the place to be" these past two weekends. Hanging out in the sun with beer, bar-be-que and friends is a perfect way to spend two weekends. It didnt hurt that so many of my friends came to support me and I even sold 5 pieces - mostly frogs! Thanks to all of you! You can see my frog mosaics in a few previous posts - they're turning out to be very popular.

Here is the cast of characters at the gallery: Jill Gibson, Nicole Lanzotti, Brian Mason, Selamawit Mekonen (pictured at our table), Bill Silveira, the lovely Heather "my eyes are falling out" Whitehead, Kyle "x-rated" Siler, "Blue-Tape" Susan Parish and me. This is Cynthia - the unofficial and beloved Mayor of Jingletown.
As she says: "If you think I did it, I did!"
Watch for a tee shirt with that slogan on it coming soon!During the beer-drenched festivities, one idea bandied about was that Jingletown secede from the country to become it's own principality. To that end, it's own currency - JBucks - were minted and handed out. The denomination is 100 JBucks and everything in Jingletown will cost 100 JBucks. Simple! And of course, guess who's picture is on them?This is the Viking Death Machine owned by junk artist and car nut, Bill Silveira.
It drew the people in and was a real conversation piece with folks checking out every nook and cranny and even hopping into the driver's seat for photo ops.Heat stroke gave Susan, Cynthia and I a great idea:
let's run over tee shirts and sell them.Here we are testing out our brilliant idea. It's simple: Lay the tee on the street, paint the tire, and then run the car over the tee. VOILA!! Bill has a new tee shirt! He wore it proudly the rest of the weekend. He will need to wash it soon though - two days of sweating in the hot sun is enough for any tee to endure.Watch for the blossoming of this idea as the summer progresses.
There are major plans in the works for Jingletown Skidmark tees.
Some possible slogans:
"I Got Hit By a Car in Jingletown and All I Got Was This Lousy Tee Shirt!"
"Jingletown Speed Bump"
"Jingletown - Life In The Fast Lane"Our friend and fellow artist, Delaine Hackney, enjoyed a good laugh about the tees with the rest of us. We're assured she was laughing with us and not at us! ha ha.As Cynthia, our Mayor, rides away to take care of Jingletown another day,
we bid you a fond adieu and invite you back for more art during our Holiday Art Walk,
sometime before Christmas 2008.
See you then! In the meantime check out the Jingletown website for
more information about this zany cast of characters!