I forgot to say ...

I knew I was bringing in the tray this morning, so I dressed for the photo shoot (HAHAHAHAHAHA!) But no, really -- I took my cue from Miss Ciera Beara, and made sure to wear at least ONE thing with 'cheetah' (the scarf). This dress? Mom bought it for me in 2002 for our trip to Paris. The boots, too. She Dreams of Paris, all right!!!! It seemed only appropriate to sport my Paris Outfit for a photo shoot with my incredible tray! This outfit walked the boulevards of the City of Lights! And Rick's gift has made my heart feel like a universe of lights!

Creations by Rick, Part 2 - Toni with TRAY!!!!

Thanks, Jeff, for playing photographer.

We did a shot with flash, then another without, just in case.

Creations by Rick

This is a gift to me from Veronica's husband, "Big Daddy" (AKA Rick) - could anything be more completely, more absolutely tailored to my favorite things? Colors, embellishments, even the rubber stamps he chose. Geez, and he and Veronica were trying to convince me in advance that it sucked, that he's color blind. V was even sending me separate e-mails telling me how 'bad' it was (at Rick's nudging), but 'could I please be nice when I emailed him about it'. I tell ya, I smelled a BIG RAT, cuz he was doing things over so many times, & cuz I know he's a perfectionist. So I never quite bought into that tale. This is INCREDIBLE!!! From what I understand, Veronica and Rick were in a Lowe's or Home Depot, where they happened upon this process being demonstrated. Rick watched, then looked at Miss V and said, 'Wouldn't Toni just die if I did one of those for her?' Well, YEA! He's never done anything like this before -- what a natural! This is perfection -- I mean the surface of the resin is completely even, clean, not a single mar. All the layers are so perfectly aligned, such a sense of the dimensions. And the little watch is still running (on Virginia time, which I just love!!). All of these photos are by Veronica - she shot them when Rick finished, but held off posting them until I'd received the package. I LOVE SURPRISES, so she didn't want to spoil it for me! Below: some of the details. My favorite quote (since the age of 14) is by Anais Nin: "We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." Rick included that on this tray. Can you see the ballerina that Rick altered? And the grid where the young lady in lingerie is lounging? I LOVE that part! The flowers in the upper right-hand corner are atop the resin, nestled against the wood. My name is in there, too, in black and gold, and the word 'dream' (which is one of my favorites because I have such vivid dreams all the time). I keep looking & looking at this and finding more nuances which are making me just grin & grin!

Winter Girl

My buddy Greg just asked me how I enjoyed our blustery weekend! I LOVED IT! I LOVED IT!!! So I did a page about it. Yesterday morning, in fact, I could actually see my breath when I exhaled, as I sat on the patio, so I spent quite a while pretending to be a fire-breathing dragoness.

Sunday journal pages go on ...

"Spanish Flower" - this is my favorite model in the Boston Proper catalogs (also my favorite clothes on the planet). I think she's stunning - but I don't know her actual nationality.
"Threadbare" - I've had this image for ... wow ... 2 years? It reminds me of the kind of thing Anthropologie does for window displays, and it makes my fingers itch to touch it (texture ho' that I am!) I added the strips of masking tape so I'd have a clearer surface for journaling.
"French Friends" - the Bella stamp is from Veronica; the receipt pages from my job (they don't use them anymore and were going to pitch several tablets of them!), the rest is hand-painted papers. Kevin actually did the paper with all the dots on it.
"Latte Girl" - handpainted papers again, and a small coffee filter in the lower right for tucking in my journaling. Also used some of my faux postage.
"Love Her Face" - I adore this woman's face, I want to drink it with a straw! Look at how joyous she is! Look how lovely her wrinkles are! Look at the richness in her eyes! The little Hawaiian vignette is self explanatory.
San Gimignano - from a photo I took in Italy, in my favorite little hilltop fortress town, printed on labels, fooling around. Also did a photoshop torture on a photo of poppies then printed it on labels as well. At first I was going to make this a card for my bro', Cam, but I liked it too much! It opens so I have plenty of journaling room. The other part is a leftover from spray-painting attempts.
Censor - just an idea, liked the colors, wanted to try adding rings with lids dipped in acrylic paint, also wanted to use some more of the business envelope windows.

Sunday Pages

I spent the ENTIRE DAY (7:45 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) doing nothing but journal pages. No driving anyone anywhere, no chores except as a break while things dried (I hate drying time) ... bliss! "Six Page" - I'm really just trying to use stuff I have in my files ... and those envelope windows are my current obsession! The 'small packet' tag is one I made a LOOOONG time ago and has been riding around in my junk drawer waiting for a home.
"T" - Veronica sent me this foam 'T' monogram stamp, I love this paper, wanted to fool around with some blue ink I had, too.
"Quiet Eye" - The sheet under the eye was the blotter when I first tried using my Pearl Ex powders, so it's very glittery & magical (didn't scan very well). The mannequin image is one I cut out every time I see it; I keep going back to it. The black border and frill on the photo corner are just rub-ons. Those things are fun!
"Hardware" - this was the only image in my file labeled "Hardware" (ha!). Handpainted paper towels and paper. Business envelope windows.
"Wow Mart" - So entitled because that little Wow Mart tag sticks out like a sore thumb! I was just fooling around with another color of that wonderful Tim Holtz crackle paint here. ANd some favorite Paper Artsy stamp images.
"Fanny" - ya think? Handpainted and stamped paper towel background, my handprint in white over it, a favorite paint chip removed from my inspiration board. I also have a sheet of vellum musical paper OVER this, attached by brads at the top of the page, so I'd actually have some place to journal which was NOT on this lovely lady's bippy.

Sweet Ciera

This was actually my virgin attempt at a scrapbook page, but I just couldn't quite do it. Mom printed off the image for me of Ciera and Snowflake ... I really had to leave journaling room, because looking at those two little women makes my heart melt and I want to write about it. I really like the blue lacy image on the right and bottom of the picture (rubber stamp painted with acrylic), and the stamped whirlygigs. (I think the official word is fluorish, but whirlygigs is more fun to say!)

Mandela

I wanted to share one of my mandelas. This is definitely a-typical, because it's not actually a circle. For me it's circular with branches reaching off ... I had to scan it in two parts.

This is why I Love Anais Nin

from Volume 2 of The Diaries of Anais Nin: "Wholeness for the artist is a different thing from the wholeness of the simple man. We may have a core, an absolute which is an equilibrium in space and motion, whereas the unity of a simple life consists of static choice. No further growth. The artist refuses to die. Fulfillment is the completion of a circle. All aspects of the self have to be lived out, like the twelve houses of the Zodiac. A personality is one who has unrolled the ribbon, unfolded the petals, exposed all the layers. It does not matter where one begins: with instinct or wisdom, with nature or spirit. The fulfillment means the experience of all parts of the self, all the elements, all the planes. It means each cell of the body comes alive, awakened. It is a process of nature, and not the ideal. One dies when the cells are exhausted, one reaches plenitude when they all function, the dream, desire, instinct, appetite. One awakens the other. It is like contagion. The order does not matter. All the errors are necessary, the stutterings, the blunders, the blindnesses. The end is to cover all the terrain, all the routes. No spaces to skip. Any skipping of a phase only retards the branchlike unfolding. Completion means the symphony. Sublimation means to condemn to immobility certain members of the body for the sake of the monstrous development of others. Psychologically, a great personality is a circle touching something at every point. A circle with a core."

Whew. Talk about making me want to go make a mandela.

Another quote (she's really got my brain moving right now) - this is from Volume IV: "The secret of a full life is to live and relate to others as if they might not be there tomorrow, as if you might not be there tomorrow. It eliminates the vice of procrastination, the sin of postponement, failed communications, failed communions. This thought has made me more and more attentive to all encounters, meetings, introductions, which might contain the seed of depth that might be carelessly overlooked. This feeling has become a rarity, and rarer every day now that we have reached a hastier and more superficial rhythm, now that we believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people, more people, more countries. This is the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing next to us. The dangerous time when mechanical voices, radios, telephones, take the place of human intimacies, and the concept of being in touch with millions brings a greater and greater poverty in intimacy and human vision."

She wrote that some time between 1944 & 1947 -- amplify that by twelve bajillion, and factor in all the technological advances speeding the human pace since then? Wow.

We Interrupt this Program ...

We interrupt this program, not to mention my sleep last night, to let you know: Katie Holmes has a new hairdo. Did you know? This was front page news yesterday (& again this morning) on MSN and Yahoo home pages, complete with photo. And this is news (& front-page-worthy at that) ... why? Given, I dunno, such trivialities as global warming, American GI's suffering in Iraq, genocide in Africa, an increase of HIV in US youth, missing children, domestic violence, breast cancer statistics, and women still disappearing and dying in Juarez?
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Ok. Let me give this a shot. Let me start over.
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Hey! Katie Holmes got a new hairdo, didya know? I'm so glad this made it to the news, because, well ...

1. It really does provide comic relief between reading articles of train collisions, hostage situations and Evel Knievel's death.

And, I have to say, I like it. I do.

2. It's kind of Goth Glam, or even Sophisticated Severe, which really fits her as a woman married to such a fiercely good actor who unfortunately also has (forgive me) the face of a rodent and an overly active yap.

And ultimately, it's a refreshing feature because ... because ... that is, uh ...

um ... well, it's a refreshing feature because, for a change,

3. It isn't Britney Spears.
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I can't do this anymore. I went there, I just don't want to stay. Or go back.

Katie Holmes! I mean, here's a girl who jaunted to Paris and spent $5,000 (or some such) in 30 minutes on 6 pair (or some such) of shoes, one in every color. This incident was also front page reportage, some time ago, but I still haven't gotten over it. I can't get my mental warm-&-fuzzies around such excessive frivolity.

Then again, Kimora Lee Simmons makes Katie's haircut and shoe-shopping sprees take on quite the girl-next-door quality.
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Is any of it even REAL? I'll certainly never be sure.

Here is what I AM sure of: I don't know either of these women, except as presented in various media genres. Some big loopy part of me continues to cling to the hope that it's all a media creation: "celebrity caricatures to entertain certain of the masses".

Because if I can't have faith in the belief that there is actually genuine substance in these women, underneath hairdos and foot parades and 'The Fab Life', then I could seriously go wrestle a hungry grizzly bear RIGHT NOW and whoop its furry heinie.
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When women are going to be front and center in global media coverage, give me Mariane Pearl and Christine Amanpour and Lydia Cacho ANY DAY!!!