GAZE ------- black wood cube magnet

I posted a new item to my Etsy shop. Another addition to the Art Cubed set. One change in detail now though, I have added magnets to the cubes so they can be used in a few different ways.

Wow, you have beautiful teeth

In the back of my mind I knew that the story about Washington's wood teeth was only a legend. But I believe the truth about George's chompers is much more interesting.

George evidently (according to a documentary I just watched) owned several sets of false teeth in his lifetime, but none of them were made of wood. Nope. They were only ever made of ivory, animal teeth, or get this....other people's teeth. Now that doesn't sound so strange to us, a culture full of organ transplantees and transplanters, but usually we get that organ after the donor is through with it.

Not our first president...he wants your teeth...NOW. He's seen them in action and he's decided that you can do with out them.

Now George didn't ask just anybody, and he didn't expect you to donate them for the good of the cause. He purchased them from his slaves. (and I'm guessing by the number of slaves he apparently had he had a pretty great selection to choose from...at least for a while)

I love how truth is much more miserable and horrific than fiction. Thanks George.

Steampunk

Through an Etsy forum yesterday I was introduced to the term steampunk, and for me, it was love at first sight.

I love learning new terms or going new places that seem to finish a sentence I've not been able to. Steampunk and dystopia really sum up a fascination I've had for as long as I can remember. And while I'm not a big comic book reader or a science fiction junkie, I tend to gravitate to nonfictional horror between seemingly normal human beings. I feel like this sort of horror was especially omnipresent in the industrial period, (whether it was or not) during the time of the steam engine and the beginnings of photography.

Here are some clarifications that helped me.

Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of "the path not taken" of such technology as dirigibles or analog computers; these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or a presumption of functionality.

Steampunk is often associated with cyberpunk and shares a similar fanbase and theme of rebellion, but developed as a separate movement (though both have considerable influence on each other). Apart from time period and level of technological development, the main difference between cyberpunk and steampunk is that steampunk settings usually tend to be less obviously dystopian than cyberpunk, or lack dystopian elements entirely.

Various modern utilitarian objects have been modded by individual craftpersons into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical "steampunk" style, and a number of visual and musical artists have been described as steampunk.

A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia,^[1] kakotopia, cackotopia, or anti-utopia) is the vision of a society that is the opposite of utopia. A dystopian society is one in which the conditions of life are miserable, characterized by human misery, poverty, oppression, violence, disease, and/or pollution.

Some academic circles distinguish between anti-utopia and dystopia. As in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopia does not pretend to be utopian, while an anti-utopia appears to be utopian or was intended to be so, but a fatal flaw or other factor has destroyed or twisted the intended utopian world or concept.

Now that's the ticket.

Not so Hot

Okay, as of 5pm of experiment day...I'm feeling pretty low down. No sales and only a total of 13 views on all my items. I think tomorrow might need a little more promoting. But when? I think I'll try evening promoting when others are home at work. Does anybody who sells in Etsy have a day job?

Experiment in Etsy

So the past week I've spent at least 10 hours a day glued to my laptop, promoting, listing and chatting with other Etsy sellers, trying to get my work out there. And I've made lots of sales that way.

The Mother magnets have been around for a couple years, and in that time I probably sold maybe 12. But in the past 2 weeks on Etsy I've sold 35. I am very happy with this turn of events, but I'm exhausting myself and all my other duties and projects (like making art) get pushed aside when I focus entirely on promoting.

So today I'm challenging myself to avoid the forums of Etsy. I love them, and they have worked well for me. But I just want to see what happens on a day when I'm missing from them. If I get no views or sales today, I figure I'll start inching my way back in. That way, I'll spend the least amount of time necessary promoting to make the sales I feel are appropriate.

So if I have zero activity today, tomorrow I'll inch my way back in with one hour in the forums promoting. If that generates nothing, the next day will be 2. So on and so forth.

Hope I can stick to this plan.

My husband sure will be happy if I do. I think he misses me.

Mr. Fix-it Plans to Operate on His Own Hernia

So my dad is going to have surgery...long overdue surgery.

He is a super inventive guy and after I heard the news I imagined him shirking his appointment, locking the door to his mechanic shop, and operating on himself.

Hidden Mother

My sister and I became Hidden Mother fanatics (well, mostly her) after a professor of mine introduced me to them. A simple trip to the antique shop in Platte City, MO revealed that there of plenty of antique Hidden Mothers out there, waiting to be purchased. And to add to the intrigue of these images, it is not a dead phenomena! When moms and dads take their newborns to get a portrait, photographers still use the trick of hiding mom behind a drape, etc.

HIDDEN MOTHERS ARE A COMMON PHENOMENA YOU WILL FIND IN VINTAGE AND PRESENT DAY PHOTOS. LOOK FOR A SMALL CHILD THAT CANNOT KEEP STILL OR IS TOO YOUNG TO HOLD ITS OWN HEAD UP. MOTHERS ARE DISGUISED BUT NOT ACTUALLY HIDDEN FROM THE CAMERA.

And so, in honor of this awesome phenomena, I created a drawing from a tin type I purchased and have just listed it on Etsy.

Art Cubes Must Be Square

Ho hum....
when I first joined Etsy I thought "Hey, you've got the magnets, but not much else that is small and purchasable." So I went to my vault of drawings and started making lots of objects that use drawings I created a while back.

I'm just not being patient with these art objects. I want them to be as important to somebody else as they are to me.

The Mother Magnets

The Mother, a character created by my sister and I shortly after her daughter was born, speaks in a snarky, honest and witty way, giving voice to the dichotomies of Motherhood.

I have these two phrases for sale in my shop on Etsy
"I don't do arts and crafts. I figure after knitting a human the rest is pretty amateur."
and
"I'm so tired I can't keep the eyes in the back of my head open."

Art Cubed

New to my Etsy shop is a series called Art Cubed. 1.25" wood blocks with a print are great little additions to your art collection. See my Etsy shop to purchase and see more images.