This is Art, Yea! Riiiiiiiiiiight! Suuuuuuuure!

Story and image from Gothamist

Why is that when one is caught out being offensive they make the claim that it is art?
Selling a cookie called the drunken negro face cookie is NOT ART!

Even if it was , err, is that supposed to make it okay?
The Art of stereotyping through art/posters/merchandise

Ha Ha

I made a pop up page for the sketchbook with Talitha the Tongue and I at one of our fave local eateries, ha ha pizza. She is one of few friends that loves pepperoni and anchovies on her pizza, so she is my pizza pal as well as my jafagal pal.

I finished it
YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sending it off today.

It has been quite a challenge, but one I thoroughly enjoyed
even if it did drive me a little bonkers.
Here is where I got help with doing my pop up page.
For this page I used a mixture of photographs, drawing/paint wash and collage
My book has a dog eared quality to it,
some pages being crinkled from the paint, or a little messy.
That is sort of how life is AND how I look.

Wordless Wednesday: Bad Boffo

"Bad Boffo stole the cream pies"

Artwork and photography by Corrine Bayraktaroglu

The business of being an artist and just being one

Business of Being an Artist involves working at it, you know like planning, promoting, selling marketing, being seen in galleries and exhibits, etc, etc etc. Some of it comes naturally, such as marketing in the sense that I have a joy of talking about art and sharing it however I am finding the rest of it so darned distracting and exhausting.

Being an artist.
I have had such joy doing things that just evolved, like the knit knot tree, free art fridays, knit graffiti, "your documents please", and currently the sketchbook project even though it has sort of driven me slightly bonkers ( I am looking forward to doing a couple of small embroidery pieces for a show at the Eclipse Gallery).
There isn't the baggage of the business side of art involved with these projects for me. I didn't LOOK for them as a means to promote the business of being an artist. It is just purely the process of doing it and for me that is really the driving force. What comes after is icing on the cake.

SO
this year I have decided to leave the icing up to fate
this year I am just going to BE AN ARTIST

Latest Sketchbook PageI found this how to make a pig pop up card on wikiHow, although I haven't used it in the way they may have intended, eek!

It pretty much sums it up
He was NOT a nice man
It was decided years later to stop calling him that because it was an insult to pigs.

Jan's got a Big Mouth

NOT

Photo of "keep your big mouth shut" by Jan Jackson
Sketchbook Project Page

This is Jan, one of the original JafaGirls (now in Albuquerque running her gallery Dreamscapes) and a photo I took of a piece of art she created for the "is it art" event Nancy, Deb and myself ran a few years back. The writing says "I never wanted Jan to keep her mouth shut-she rocks!"

I did a pencil drawing on the top half, a photo collaged on the bottom half, then I painted with black gesso around the drawing and photo then covered with crystal glaze (I use the brush on type, not the spray).

Knit Graffiti Tagger caught on video

"Taipei Baby"
Photograph by JafaSon
Knit Graffiti and camo Barbie by Jafabrit
Located Near Taipei 101
Map

Global Guerilla Knit Up Challenge

Grrl+dog , has put out a call and the Jafagirls are in, how about YOU?


You don't have to knit, you can weave something out of ribbon, recycled plastic bags
Check out her page for ideas or visit yarnbombing

News Article From the Telegraph: Knitters turn to graffiti artists with 'yarnbombing'


Meanwhile back at the Ranch

Still working on the sketchbook and I struggled with this.
Apart from having to work on a small scale and the pencil having a softer look on moleskine, working from a photo with an odd angle isn't easy. It was one of my favourite photographs of my husband and son when they took a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon.
I am pretty pleased with the drawing of my husband on the right, but the drawing of my son on the left has a few probs (specifically the right side of his face).
Some of the other challenges I am facing is that the pages are so thin that every bump and lump from other pages in which I have attached things means the paper isn't flat.

the language of trees

"tree"

Little did I know when I was doing a page in the sketchbook of my dear friend and fellow Jafapal, Nancy, that growing up her families nickname for her was "tree".
Guess what my nickname was growing up, spuggy (as in sparrow, you know those little dickie birds that sit and nest in trees). Hum I just had visions of me sitting on Nancy, not sure she would like that LOL!
No wonder we had such an affinity for the knit knot tree

So I wrote her name (well tried) in the Ogham Tree alphabet.
Sacred Trees
Language of Trees

What Tree did YOU fall from?
Hum not sure if I agree with the assessment of being a Walnut Tree except the passion part

Wordless Wedneday

"Annapolis Moon"
photo by c.bayrak

Queen Gob

sketchbook project page
The Queen and The Drawing Teacher

"According to medieval beliefs gnomes were deformed,
usually with a hunchback and were led by a King called Gob."
Ha! More like Queen Gob
disguised as a chocolate box girl
sweet on the outside
poison on the inside
The gnome was her servant of intrigue
together they weaved mischief
and fed off its anguish
like parasites

Hurt Box Bitch

Sketchbook Project Page
I used a photo of my found art piece titled "hurt box"
because this woman was like a walking hurt box.
She just couldn't be friends with other women even though she craved it.
Before long the jealously would set it, the attempts to manipulate, the spite.
Inevitably she would lose her friend
and
the wooing of new one's would set in

WOO HOO!!!!!!!!

I am not one of those people that win's much, so to win this beautiful Ceramic Bowl from Painter Girl from her blog giveaway was a wonderful surprise. Actually seeing it and touching it I was even more delighted (check out the bottom of the bowl). If you haven't seen her work already, please check it out, it is original and beautifully done.
Thank You
Painter Girl
You Rock

Knit Knot Box

Photography by c.bayrak

Actually it is a story box that Nancy and I made for the Storybox Project being sponsored by the Yellow Springs Tale Spinners. We had so much fun putting this together. We decoupaged the yellow springs guide on the inside and I stitched a knitted pocket (a left over from the knit knot tree) inside to hold a cd.

How we made the box is by sewing a black felt casing that was then glued to a heavy cardboard box after we had sewn on patches of knitting and felt. We then made the lid in the same way and used heavy felt for the hinges that we stitched through the cardboard for extra support. Hopefully it will survive the national and international journey.

she's corned beef hinnie

"aunt jessie"

She had come to Nana's hoose for tea on Sunday. She never took her hat off. I was about eight years old at the time and I was trying to talk to her, but she wasn't listening, so I talked more, which produced no results. My nana motions to her ear and tells me "she canna hear pet." Then aunt jessie screams at the top of her lungs, "aye hinnie, am corned beef." I nearly hit the other side of the room with the volume. I ask"corned beef?" "aya" nana says, "deef".
Corned Beef Deef

Listen to a bit Geordie
History of Corned Beef

A typical Sunday Tea at Nanas would be
sandwhiches (whatever meat was left over from Sunday dinner)
check out the British Sandwhich Association for some fabu sarni ideas

Cheese on Toast
scratch cake of some kind
maybe pie (either gooseberry or rhubarb)
Or
Fruit cocktail with evaporated milk
Or
Sasparilla float
AND
LOTS OF CUPS OF TEA

New Sale Site

Art4Sale

This is now for sale on my new Jafabrit Art4 Sale blog

She walks in beauty

Claire's Eye by Jafabrit
Sketchbook Project Page

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Lord Byron

Favourite 2008 Christmas Card

I so enjoyed this card, so whimsical and even though you can't see it it had sparkles.
I LOVE sparkles.
Which explains why I have some sprinkled some inside the box that my fellow jafapal Nancy and I are making for the storybox project. More on that another day though.

Karma

Karma
Sticker Art by Jafabrit

Do you ever come across people who just don't seem to understand why their lives are fraught with problems, nastiness, etc. People who just don't get the concept of "what goes around, comes around", that "what you put out is what you get back", that "for every action there is a reaction"? It isn't always instant but it comes back to bite a person one way or another.
I watched Danny DeVito in the movie Tin Men and his character was like that. It seemed so obvious yet he seemed unable to make a connection between his actions and the consequences it had on his life.

Your Documents Please Exhibit in Berlin

Is now exhibiting at the Galerie Kurt im Hirsch, Berlin, Germany

January 9 - February 1, 2009

"ID therefore I AM"

Mr. Shit Pants

Sketchbook project page

I had a boyfriend once who asked me to marry him. His looks and his intellectual curiosity could not compensate for the creeping insults disguised

as wit or the ever increasing bouts of inebriation.

By the time “the incident” occurred I was ready to be done.

He became known as

Mr.Shit Pants

We’d been dating a year when he showed up at my flat at 1 am in the morning palatik drunk. He stumbled into my bedroom and I told him “if you think I’m going to sleep with you you MUST be bloody well joking”. What a waste of breath, he was passed out already, so I went and slept on the couch in the front room.5am, he pokes his head around the door and asks me for a bucket. “a bucket?” “yes, a bucket “ he says. “what the hell do you need a bucket for”, I ask. “are you going to be sick?” “no” he says. “I, err, well I kind of had an accident?” I am thinking what the hell kind of an accident and then he tells me he sneezed and he well, err shit himself. OH MY GOD! I didn’t have a bathroom. I rented two rooms on the bottom floor of an old Victorian house and we shared a communal bathroom upstairs. I was going to have to get dressed and go find a bloody bucket and fill it with warm water. And to make matters worse he asks me if I could wash his clothes and meanwhile he will put the bedding in the bucket to soak. I guess he was thinking I could wash the sheets later.

That did it. I was out of there. I gave him the bucket and left.

Finito.

The End

Pussy Pic

Yea Right! I know you were thinking something else
If you were this isn't the place for you

Catis Felis
Adobe experiment

"What about this fog! My pussy's been gasping all night."
Mrs. Slocombe as she removes her Gas mask
from
"Are You Being Served?"
Mrs. Slocombe's Pussy Quotes

Have you ever wondered though where the word pussy comes from and how it became such a joy for those indulging in double entendre, a staple of British Comedy
The Answer is here
Wikipedia
and the various definitions here
Dictionary

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to shave or not

she never felt the need to
Despite having hair on her legs it never seemed to be an issue.
She always dressed beautifully
the hair was the least thing you noticed
I loved my Nana
I even loved her hairy legs

This is another page in the sketchbook for the sketchbook project
The theme is "everyone we know"
The thread is stitched into the page and covered with an old stocking

Girls with Hairy Legs
"a website to showcase the beauty inherent in the female leg in its natural form"

What a wonderful shock

I woke up New Years Day and I was back to my old self.
Whhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa! It was just a dream!
My mum always warned me you get to a certain age
and you look in the mirror and go
"shite! who the hell is that".
Oh well, I do have a new look when it comes to wheels.
I am now officially a PT Gal.