Having a new old house means that we have a painting frenzy. We have amazing family and friends who asked if they could help and plenty of gallons of the good stuff. I'm pretty excited about washable paint and it's Ok that I'll be breathing fumes for a few days because today the paint smelled like chocolate.

Basically, I used to be a painter (see old studio view below) and now I'm a painter. Or rather today I was a taper (one who tapes).

And then, with all of this excitement of having our first house, we also have a new moving process. A process we've had about 10 times in the past 10 years. Each time we weed a bit more and this time I decided to toss out some old mail art correspondance, to re-use and re-imagine some old communication with people who've moved in different directions. I used to publish a zine, <a href="http://www.mindspring.com/~rachaelbuff/earlgrey.html">Trustworthy </a>, which I traded and sent out into the world to folks like the Street Librarian and Emily and Pete and I reviewed zines for a while for Zine World. To make a long story short, I lived for the moment I opened my po box and found packages in there. I spent all my money on paper and took jobs based solely on the amount of access I would have to the copier. I used little photocopied magazines as a way to meet people around the world, tell and read stories, drawn and written and collaged and often very very honest. I wasn't able to get rid of the whole box and I may still do the final issue of Trustworthy (on my deathbed maybe?) and solve the burning question of what Janet did, but I think mostly, I got what I needed from zines: new perspectives, new friends forged through the mail, new reasons to break through the mundane and monotonous and make art.
Another break in the monotony happened when I stumbled into a room full of bored college kids' drawings of endless marks, and women with big boobs, and all sorts of doodles.
The Doodle Show is quietly tucked away in a small gallery at the University of Rochester's art library. I wanted to hand those kids a couple of zines and tell them to drop out of school and draw. Draw. Draw.
But I had to go home and paint, paint, and paint.
Priorities...
goodnight troublemakers and take care,
Rachael

oh it is so good to have a permanent address and some postage and some time between painting to hopefully send some real mail again and hear some of those stories again.

My first teapot has some issues. The spout is a little low (below the water level) and when it's all outta the kilns and filled with hot water I've been told to expect a weapon. A hot water fountain. An earl grey pistol. It's a process of learning so I'm on to teapot number 2 and then more more and more better I hope.

So then, more about teapots is here:

teapots dot net

teapots teapots teapots by Andy Titcomb

the teapot book

non-dripping teapots and more about that

And then I'm staring at and falling in love with other people's pottery:

graceful forms and drawings on Julie Johnson's work

and Ruchika Madan

more more more soon but I'm sleepy after work and house and clay play.

take care,
Rachael

We bought our house today. Actually, the bank bought our house and we agreed to pay the bank for thirty years. But the bank won't live in this sweet old house painted first in 1917, with a big backyard, and an attic made to be a studio and a stunning dining room (see below because I simply need to brag today). We get to live there. Just a few short weeks of painting and packing and we'll be in before the snow we hope.



It's funny but all of these years of working at non-profits not making a profit and spending all my extra money on paper and paint and living in metro Atlanta where we couldn't even afford a falling down crack shack, had me thinking we couldn't own a home. We can. We do. Well, again, the bank does. But our mortage payment is going to be 17 dollars more than the rent we've paid for about 5 years in several different places.

I have a whole attic with heat and light and plenty of outlets to be my studio and I intend to use it like mad.
All of this makes me want to draw my house.

Thanks everyone for your support and kind words and wishes and the truth be told, some of the dolls are for free and trade so e-mail me an address and between packing and painting and moving and whatnot, I'll get one out to you.

take care,
Rachael

Mr. Simple.

Joe (but he's naked!)

And the Sad Sack.

 

These are just a small sample of my paper dolls. They're coming with me to the new house. Tomorrow we sign on the dotted lines and buy our first (maybe only?) house. It's swell and I'm happy.

Have a good one,

Rachael

Me and my paper dolls have been busy with the constantinterruptions of a day job, some school, and a head cold. The next week is promising, though. We'll buy our first house this week. It's big, comfortable, hardwood floors and leded glass, a room of windows off the bedroom, good space to garden in, room to grow and a nice neighborhood. I'm going to paint in the attic, my husband wants to brew beer in the basement. It's perfect and in a couple of days we sign a bunch of papers, sell our souls to the bank and they give us some keys. We're excited.

Amid my cold this week, I got obsessed again by clay. I'd blow my nose a billion times and then pick up a copy of Ceramics Monthly. I dragged my sniffly self in to work on Tuesday mostly so I could stick around for my clay class where my only goal was to throw a closed form and then cut it open so I could have a vessel and lid. Folks who teach ceramics effortlessly throw perfect forms. I throw lumpy messes that center one minute and falter the next. In the same sort of way that I couldn't breathe right all week, couldn't formthoughts too well, made plenty of tactical errors...I couldn't (or simply didn't) get the clay to behave. I opened too early and I moved my elbow away from my body too much.

But no, I don't think I'll be putting a wheel in my basement, I'm just excited to have a basement. And yep, we're hoping it's a fireproof house.

See ya.
take care,
Rachael