Monthly Archives: November 2011

I can stop anytime I want. It’s just that I don’t want to. Ever. Please, don’t make me!

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I want to make a confession, because I feel like it’s going to be cathartic. So here it goes: I have a slight addiction. To shopping.

It’s not what you’re thinking. I don’t have a thing for shoes or a complete inability to resist a bargain in general. It’s mostly just… well… art supplies. I am completely psychologically incapable of going into a store full of art supplies and coming out with the same amount of cash in my wallet that I had going in.

You might think that’s not a bad thing for an artist, considering we do tend to burn through art supplies rather rapidly. I’ve made three runs for additional supplies (the actual necessary kind, not the “I must have that because it is there” kind) just this week. The trouble with art supplies as a consumer product is that when you’re wandering through the art store you’re not just looking at products on a shelf, you’re looking at the potential for genius. Or at very least the potential for a good time. You can be looking at a tube of paint or a block of clay or a pair of round-nosed pliers, but what you’re actually seeing is the finished product.

This is the problem with artists. We have vivid and sometimes detailed imaginations. We can see that finished piece in our mind’s eye, and we simply must have those components that are necessary for the creation of whatever it is we think we’re going to create. And if we haven’t worked in that medium before and really don’t have the first idea how we might turn that collection of raw materials and tools into the thing we see in our heads, well… in my case, at least, reality rarely gets in my way.

Which is why, as you might imagine, my work space consists of a desk, a lamp, and a bunch of bins and containers full of things that I haven’t figured out how to use yet. When I was a kid things came very easily to me and I’m still in the process of training myself to embrace the learning curve… to understand that when I try a new medium for the first time, what I produce probably isn’t going to be a great work of art or the vision I see in my head or even necessarily something that’s going to make decent kindling. So while I’m always excited by all the possibilities of a new art form — and perhaps too excited over all the associated equipment you can buy in shiny, promise-filled packages from the art supply store — I often find myself incredibly intimidated by the same things once I get them home. Sometimes I give them a try and give up for awhile in frustration. Sometimes I don’t even get around to the trying part and they just sit, still neatly packaged, waiting for me to work through my neuroses.

Recently I decided that I was going to start working my way through those supplies. I decided to start with the box I’d labeled “WIRE,” which was filled with little spools of wire in different gauges and pliers (mostly of the wrong sort). I checked out a few books on wire-wrapped jewelry from the library so I could figure out the essential skills, determined that I’d need to make one last fortifying trip to the craft store to get a couple more pairs of pliers that every book seemed to agree I would need, and then I sat myself down at the table and decided that I would create something. I would create something that would probably just go straight into the garbage, but what the hell, the wire hadn’t been that expensive (at some point I’d extended my shopaholicness to the hardware store, where they had wire galore). And it’d just mean that I had less art supplies sitting around, making me feel guilty for my non-use of them and for my shopping addiction problem. So I cut a few lengths of wire and attempted to make a few basic shapes and loops and mostly ended up with mangled chunks of wire that couldn’t even be called “abstract.” (One of them did sort of look like a sea urchin, though.)

Normally at that point I’d be experiencing a strong urge to browse for something more cooperative at the art supply store. But what the hell, I was comfortable, I had some Doctor Who on the telly (you have to say “on the telly” when you’re watching British television, it’s required) and bending wire is actually kind of fun as random activities go. Plus I had that image in my head. The finished product. And by all that was good and holy, I was going to create that thing I’d envisioned. So I took my pliers and that copper wire and I bent and twisted and turned and cursed and pricked myself so hard with the end of a wire that I bled kind of profusely and then… then I had this.

It was a little rough. And it was also awesome. It was just what I wanted. It was kind of better than I’d originally planned for. It was a first effort but I figured somebody out there might want it, so I put it up on my Etsy shop and pointed to it from Facebook and asked my friends whether I had created something they would enjoy. I haven’t sold that original quite yet (you can remedy this by buying it, lolz!), but I have sold quite a few others, both one at a time and in large orders. I suddenly seem to be spending a lot of my time making little wire horses. And finally, finally, I have an excuse to go shopping for art supplies. It’s not a compulsion, it’s just that I genuinely need more colors of wire! It’s not my fault!

If you’d like to get a little wire pony to decorate your Christmas tree (or rearview mirror, or whatever other things you like to hang decorative items from, I do not even want to know) please feel free to drop by my Etsy store and order one! I also do custom work that’s made to order, and am working on some designs for cats, dogs and other adorableness. (Perhaps an echidna! Or a capybara with a little wire monocle!) Honestly, the more I can move this wire out of here the sooner I can move on to some other stack of art supplies that I’ve been neglecting… maybe I’ll try the scratchboard next. Or the linocuts. Or the watercolors. Or the acrylics.

Help.

Featured Creature Friday: Crafty Crows, Agricultural Ants, and Pyro Bonobos

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When I was a kid, I remember reading dated books about natural human history that showed early human ancestors (typically clad in Flintstones-style approximations of what I can only assume were sabertoothed tiger skins), and they explained the process of our evolution, and what forces had contributed to our eventual rise to true civilization (which at the time meant listening to Phil Collins and wearing stirrup pants and jellies.)

Our large brains separated us from the animals, we were told. We learned to create and use tools. To farm and keep livestock. To harness fire. We were convinced that all of this made us better than the beasts.

Of course, in the time since then, we’ve learned that there are animals that do all of those things too. They just haven’t taken it that one step further by building monster trucks, synthesizing bovine growth hormone, or inventing nuclear weapons, all of which truly makes us superior to the dumb beasts of the world.

Still, you have to give the animals credit for being just ridiculously clever, so let’s take a look at a few of them and boggle together at how much smarter they appear to be than we are. They’re at least out there making their way in the world, pulling themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps, instead of sitting around at home and watching Jersey Shore.

Art by John Gerrard Keulemans, in the public domain

The Toolsmiths: New Caledonian Crows

We all know that many birds are kind of ridiculously intelligent. They’ve been observed doing things like dropping turtles from great heights to break their shells, or using the tires of passing cars to crack open nutshells. Birds have been shown to show some ability for counting, problem-solving, deception, pre-planning, operating  and incredible skills of dancing. And although many birds have a demonstrated ability to use tools, the current master toolsmith of the bird world is the New Caledonian Crow of New Zealand. These birds have been shown to not only use tools but also to create them, and to use one tool to acquire another tool to acquire another tool to get to a food source. Here’s a TED talk from a fellow who built a crow vending machine, where they could exchange coins for peanuts. (I can only assume that this gentleman is now both very rich and also a regular at his bank’s coin-counting machine.)

The Farmers: The Herding Ants

There are actually a surprising number of animals that actively engage in farming. Termite mounds are essentially giant terrariums designed to create optimum conditions for the fungus they like to eat. You might think Leaf-Cutter Ants cut leaves so they can eat them, but actually they’re creating compost for growing their own fungus farms. Ambrosia Beetles grow their fungus farms in trees, while Marsh Snails use their tongues to slice into cordgrass, creating a perfect environment for the fungi they prefer to feast on. Even the oceanic creatures get in on the action: spotted jellyfish are their own living greenhouses, and make use of photosynthesis and their own transparent skins to help them create a rich fungal crop inside their own bodies. (I’m beginning to sense that animals love fungi.) Damselfish, meanwhile, grow algae and are as aggressively protective as a farmer with a shotgun… plus, the algae they prefer are a bit wimpy, and probably wouldn’t really survive without cultivation. If you’ve ever read Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, that may sound like a familiar story.

But I was going to talk about ants. Ants are particularly interesting because they don’t raise mere crops like the rest of their fungus-loving friends. They actually farm livestock. Several species of ants keep herds of aphids, which they “milk” for their excrement, “honeydew,” which is extremely sugary. (Before you start judging the ants, remember that humans make a common practice of not only eating all sorts of animal meat but also their mammary secretions and in the case of birds, the byproducts of their menstrual cycle.) The relationship between ants and aphids directly mirrors that between humans and our own livestock animals. The ants get to enjoy good nutrition and delicious treats, plus an extremely reliable food source. They relocate their herds to better grazing when necessary, defend them from predators, clean up their waste (which would otherwise attract unwanted visitors), keep them out of the weather, and even help them reproduce by sheltering, protecting and nurturing their larvae.

New research also suggests that humans aren’t the only ones to use pharmaceuticals on our livestock, or to physically modify them the same way we might castrate calves or dock a lamb’s tail. The ants sometimes nip off the adult aphids’ wings so they can’t fly about on their own. A new study suggests that chemicals the ants track around on their feet may serve as some sort of signal or actual tranquilizer for the aphids.

The Firestarters: Bonobo Apes

Okay, this one’s a little bit of a cheat, but you’re going to love it anyway. This TED talk shows video of bonobos starting a fire, driving a golf cart, playing musical instruments, inventing new uses for tools, and playing Pac-Man. Yeah, you heard me. They weren’t taught these things as tricks, but basically the behaviors were modeled for them, and they picked them right up and started experimenting for themselves.

So I guess we’re just not as special as we thought we were, nor are animals quite the dumb beasts that they’ve been made out to be… and we’d better be careful, because we’ve taught them how to start fires. I’m just saying.

Four Songs That Are Restoring My Faith in Humanity

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Admittedly, it doesn’t take much to make me lose my faith in humanity. I’m a bit of an Eeyore, if I’m honest. Popular culture seems to be a particular source of vexation. All I have to do is turn on the television (where things seem to have devolved into a 24-hour completely-fabricated-”reality”-show marathon) to start wondering where we went wrong as a species, and all these top-40 radio stations in my fair city don’t help, either. I feel like I find half my time station-surfing to find a song that isn’t an anthem on how awesome cheating is, taking revenge on a cheater, or telling a cheater that you’re better than all of this anyway. Well, that or a narcissistic wank-fest. Or irritating club songs whose lyrics can’t be made out anyway but seem to consist of a single line repeated, with synthesizers. (I’m sure it’s great to dance to, but sometimes I enjoy lyrics. Also, I would appreciate it if you kids would turn down your music and get off my lawn.)

Occasionally, however, I hear a song that makes me proud to be a part of the same human race that could produce that kind of music. Occasionally I hear a song that makes me weep uncontrollably for no good reason (like this blog’s first selection did) or that makes me feel like something larger than myself or that simply, in the immortal words of Jack Black, has the power to move me. I thought I’d share a few in case you haven’t heard them yet, and I hope that they touch you, too.

Adele – “Someone Like You”

Never mind, I’ll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you
Don’t forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
“Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead.”

Everybody likes Adele. I feel safe saying that, and if it isn’t entirely the truth, I can at least qualify it by saying that everybody who has a soul likes her music. She has a remarkable voice, a beautiful presence and a serious knack for reaching into your chest cavity and squeezing things until you sob. While some of her songs definitely fall into the breakup-bitterness category that I’m not usually a fan of (though since this is Adele we’re talking about, and I’m definitely a fan of them from her), far and away my favorite tune of hers is “Someone Like You.” It’s a gorgeous, poetic song, but the thing about it that helps to restore my faith in humanity is that it’s just so very adult. There’s a gut-twisting sense of sadness to it, and it’s about a relationship that didn’t work, but while some people might cope with the loss by causing incredible damage to personal property (Carrie Underwood! *shakes fist*) or taking all of their partner’s money, selling his positions and destroying his credit (Blu Cantrell! *shakes fist*), this song handles a break-up in the way that I like to imagine these things can actually happen between people who are emotionally balanced and actually love each other. Even when the relationship fails, for whatever reason, they can think of each other fondly, wish each other well, want to be remembered and want what they had back, but bear in mind that although sometimes it lasts in love, sometimes it hurts instead. And that’s okay, even if it’s not easy. That’s how life works.

Hey Rosetta! – “Welcome”

Sorry, this is it
It’s cold and hard and badly lit
And there’s no backing out of it
So forget where you’ve been
It’ll never be that good again
And we must only look ahead

Hey Rosetta! frontman Tim Baker wrote this song for some friends of his who’d recently had a baby… or rather, he wrote it for that baby. I’ve heard all sorts of soppy country songs about how children are the best thing ever (and frankly, I’m not buying it), but this is the first song I’ve ever heard that really sums up how I feel as a young person whose friends are starting to have kids that eventually will be facing — as all children do, I suppose — an uncertain and trying future. I love this song not only because it’s Hey Rosetta! (and I kind of think everything they’ve ever done is absolutely stellar), but because it manages to be simultaneously frank, bleak, hopeful, and more than anything else, emotional. In one verse, Baker’s warning the kid that our generation is handing off our troubles, and that these new generations will have to do better than we did, and that sometimes we get lost in life and struggle; in another, he’s reassuring: “You will do alright / You’ve got your mother’s eyes / You’ve got your daddy’s head / Everything you need.”

Mostly, what moves me about this song (and makes me hope that maybe these kids — the ones that Baker’s friends have, the ones that my friends have — really will do alright) is the intense, driving, powerful love that radiates through every word. Love for the child he’s writing to, love for that child’s parents, love dare I say it for the human race and all of its foibles. That child — the one being welcomed to the world with this tune — is lucky indeed to be born into a bigger family that already knows it will make mistakes, forgives it, reaches out to give it a hand up, and is delighting in its entrance. I get a little choked up every time Baker sings, “I can feel you and what you’re gonna be / You’ll be stronger, you’ll be smarter than me / Oh baby, I’ll say it again / You’re the most incredible thing.”

P!nk – “Fuckin’ Perfect”

You’re so mean when you talk
About yourself. You were wrong.
Change the voices in your head
Make them like you instead.

Usually I’d be the last person to agree with a sentiment that places self-esteem over self-respect (there is an important distinction between the two, after all), so when I first heard the chorus to this tune I was prepared to hate it. A lot. Who is Pink, after all, to tell teenagers that they’re perfect when they’re probably really little bastards? Let’s not inflate their egos here, Pink. Come on.

By the time this tune came on the radio again and I actually heard the whole thing, however, I’d worked through my moment of being all judge-y judge and was prepared to listen. What I heard was an anthem that spoke to my inner insecure, self-loathing teenaged self. I hope that it’s speaking to the actual teenagers of the world too, and it’s obviously a timely piece of music with the rising awareness of how much bullying and other pressures from peers can ruin a kid’s life. The verse I quoted above was a particularly poignant one for me: being kind to myself has always been a struggle for me, and I wrestle daily with the problems that come from having a truly and profoundly awful self-image; I can’t imagine how difficult the same issues are for kids who are still trying to figure out who they are, riding the tide of hormonal puberty, and dealing with the sometimes practically-sociopathic behavior of others who are just as screwed up. And this song has an important message for them: that it does get better. That somebody loves you, or somebody will. That you aren’t alone. That you shouldn’t let anyone make you feel like you’re less than you are. That your life is your own to live, and you shouldn’t let other people dictate for you what sort of life it’s going to be. And it doesn’t hurt that Pink sings it with a sincerity that borders on painful. This song isn’t so much my usual thing, but I’d never call it less than perfect.

The Swell Season – “High Hope” (featuring Moji)

Cause I’ve been living in a half life
Not sure which way to turn
why must a man lose everything to find out what he wants?

I knew this list would have to include a Glen Hansard tune because, in the space between his two bands (The Frames and The Swell Season) lies a musical lexicon which, frankly, has made my life and my emotional landscape a richer thing. When I’m talking about music that moves me, I could feature practically every song the man has ever sung, but I chose to restrict myself to one, and in particular to one performance that lifts me up every time I hear it.

Seeing a Swell Season performance live is really the closest I come to a religious experience. Every time I hear Glen Hansard talk on any subject I feel as if my spiritual horizons have been expanded, and in saying that I don’t mean to imply that the guy tries to be a motivational speaker, has all the answers or is even particularly profound (on purpose, at least). He seems to look at the world in this sort of intense, soul-searching, thoughtful way that ends up offering all sorts of ideas and insights about life and relationships that just… if I might go so far as to say it, it helps you understand yourself. It’s an active and difficult search for emotional fitness and a recognition that the search itself is the important part.

With this particular song (and quite a few others in the band’s repertoire), Hansard often asks the audience to sing along. At this particular show, he heard a voice in the crowd that he really liked. So he invited the person attached to that voice to get up on stage and help the band make a bit of art. I love this song because it invites you to take a risk, to make a decision, to focus on the future instead of dwelling on the past, to wish others well in their journey and hope that you come together again sometime, even if your paths are diverging. I love this particular performance because Moji, that audience member pulled up on stage, is clearly having the time of her life, seizing the moment, and contributing her own talents to making something beautiful. She gives a piece of herself to the crowd and lets that energy be amplified and returned. It’s joy for the sake of joy, and another moment that can help us all remember how to live: with love, without fear, and in a state of wonder.