Memories Madness and Marvelous flavors

Where to start!

Lets start with memories. 

I have been reading about the artist Remedios Varo (wiki link here), a wonderful Spanish surrealist woman who lived in Mexico. Reading about the artist today reminded me that I would someday like to write a book about my own artist mother. I wanted to gather stories about her from other people, so I have put a call out to people who remember her to share their stories and memories - These stories can be recorded on a form I created on google docs.
If you have any memories you'd like to share about Catherine Burris, please feel free to do so!
{INSERT MEMORIES HERE} Refunds are not given on lost memories.

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FOOD...ISH.



Its here its here!! I found a company that sells Dutch candies in the USA. I ordered some Tyrkisk Peber in the hopes of making my own Salmiakki Koskenkorva (salty black licorice vodka) - According to my own authentic bottle of Koskenkorva, one can "Experience the Spirit of Finland and taste the Finnish Folklore"



(....Now, 2 bags plus shipping = about $25. Plus the vodka I need to buy. I still think I'm probably saving money seeing as how it would be quite pricy buying the alcohol from Finland, if its even POSSIBLE to send it officially. ) ...

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ALSO, we were recently given some awesome pickle seasoning by my friend Taylor, the Indy Magic Monthly producer. He makes great pickes. :)

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ARTI...ISH

Here are some recent things from my sketchbook.



FUN
I MADE a FUN video involving DOOM and a MAZE and SILLY.
{CLICK HERE for Doom and Maze and Silly}

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INSPIRATION

ITS HERE ITS HERE!!!
The DEVIL'S CARNIVAL Ringmaster Edition DVD!! 

Apparently the picture I painted is shown when they feature the fan arts.
I'm about to go find out!

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LO PAN STYLE
If you are a fan of LO PAN... you must watch this video. Love Love Love!!!
{See the awsome...}

Worked on some buttons today.
Let me share some photos.


Buttons from the finished button making session tonight


a view of what my painted button template sheets look like before I cut them out and write silly things on them.
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Also, Last night I did some giggling and composed a video from something I made this weekend.
On Saturday I was at an event that was a bit under attended. Granted, I still enjoyed myself and made a bit of profit.
But during a particularly slow stretch, I decided to create a maze on the floor.
Complete with monsters and a torture chamber. I was transported to my childhood again - only everything this time is on a larger scale: the maze, me, my madness.... etc.

here is the video:


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While I'm on the subject of videos, I am super GIDDY about this one.
Awesomely done Gangnam Style parody(James Hong even shows up!)

LO PAN STYLE

Not So CD covers and OCD photoshopping

(EDIT) - I wrote this a WHILE ago, and never published it....

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I finished a new piece tonight. (EDIT: NOT!)

Usually when I finish something, I like to play with it digitally.
With this picture, I got fed up with being serious and started slapping random images on top and going through the super cool photoshop layering effects. (checking all the layer effects becomes like a compulsion after a while. OCD photoshopping! Normal, Dissolve, Darken, multiply, color burn (yeah!), linear burn, lighten, screen, dodge, overlay, soft light, hard light (yeah!), vivid light, linear light, pin light, hard mix, difference (OOOH!), exclusion (OOooOH?), subtract, divide, hue, saturation, color, luminosity, AND BACK up through the list!! 
yeah. Who else has the photoshop layer OCD? *grin*

Anyway...
Occasionally, or rather quite often... I end up making a compilation that (at the time) screams 'CD COVER!) And then I lament that it isn't a cd cover.

Here is the latest one.

Now, if anyone would like to use this as a cd cover, that can be arranged, I'm sure!

Magnets, a portrait and it is WELL past the Witching Hour

Tonight, as usual, I procrastinated working on anything until way too late. After getting home from teaching a class (from 5:30-9) I got sucked into more True Blood episodes with D while eating a very tasty Egg Fu Yung dinner. Between episodes, I looked at this blog, some back posts, and realized I actually WAS more productive when I felt compelled to report my progress. (mostly) So... here goes!

In preparation for the next event (Paranormal Fest Returns on Saturday, Newcastle IN) (this is the link for more info) , I was working on magnets. But of course, After teaching art appreciation tonight, and watching stimulating shows, I was inspired to do ART, not production work. BUT, I am sorely in need of new magnets if I want to keep offering them, so magnets it is! (I'm already plenty RESTOCKED on my buttons thanks to the new button maker!)

ANYWAY.
After I finished, I was still inspired to do art. I got distracted with the mirror, pleased with where my hair is at the moment, and decided to do yet another portrait. (what can I say, its easier to use the mirror for a quick basic reference for a face, in any expression I want.)

SO HERE is a quick self portrait.

"I'll be back later, the COSMOS is calling..."
5" x 9" - bristol paper, prismacolor marker, sharpie, copic marker, colored pencil, acrylic

Done after getting distracted looking at my current hair style. I'm still amused by having short hair.

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And just for fun, here are pictures of the magnets.

A few stacks of my art on magnets. I still need to crop the edges (when its not 5:30 am)

A side view of the STACK-O-MAGNETS.

 What do I do with the extra strips of magnets? Sometimes I throw them away. sometimes I make art with them. Strips of scrap art and silk cut up and assembled on the leftover sticky magnet strips.

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TID-BITS

Interesting thing I learned while teaching today about
- The Witching Hour (in the context of Christianity):
While my class was looking at a painting of the Crucifixion by Lucas Cranach the Elder,

 the sky in the painting was dark and was light at the bottom - one of the students was trying to debate whether it was the sun setting or the sun rising - another student mentioned that it might be when 'the sky went dark'- and that Jesus was crucified at 3:00 pm. (I looked it up - the internet tells me it was 9:00 am, but that he died at 3:00.) - Anyway. 3:00 AM is supposed to be the Witching Hour, as it is the opposite time to 3:00 pm.

I also looked that up and here is what wikipedia says. (read the full article)

"According to the American horror film The Exorcism of Emily Rose, the term can also refer to the period from midnight to 3am, when a character notes at "3am [is] the devil's hour, as opposed to 3pm, when Jesus was said to have been crucified".[6]"

 Also - SEE THE MUSEUM page on the piece of art if you wish. It says nothing about the darkening sky.

....
well, it looks like I missed my date with the devil, as it is way past 3 am.
....

Speaking of devil, I can't wait for my ringmaster edition dvd of "THE DEVIL's CARNIVAL" to arrive!
Apparently there is a picture of my painting in the special features, when they feature fan stuff!
See my painting of the Devil, Broken Doll, and The Gatekeeper: HERE - where they shared it on their facebook page. 

Red Face - progress pictures

Greetings.
Thought I'd share all the progress pictures of my latest piece for fun.

Trying to stretch my painting and observations muscles, mixed with a bit of fantasy,
and a bit of inspiration perhaps from reading about Remedios Varo, and watching too much True Blood.

 

Now I just need to think of a title for this little study/experiment.

6" x 9"
acrylic on bristol

Picking up momentum, building my wings

Tonight.
Am I talkative again?
Do I want to write?
Do I want to post this online?
I don't know and I shouldn't think about whether or not I want to share my thoughts until after I have written them. These are the things that block me.

Today was a day of rest. (And playing games with friends)
My commission (due for  Horrorhound) is done and despite the fact that I have another commission overdue (with friendly deadlines) I am free to create whatever I want for the upcoming convention. I can't believe my stock of works on paper actually thinned a bit.

Not that I don't believe in myself, but its nice to start seeing wheels going in the direction I've been trying to push them the last 5 years.
Another thing I can't believe. I moved to Indy in June/July 2007. I've been in this apartment for 5 years. The waitressing gig (and other odd jobs) I got in the beginning was meant to be temporary until I found teaching work, and it lasted 2 years. I did find teaching work briefly, and occasionally still do, but not exactly what I was originally going for either. I teach university/college art appreciation but I'd rather be teaching people how to draw and paint. I am so GLAD I found the appreciation jobs however, as now I have a lovely chuck of art history burned into my brain. This has increased my love of the art world and all of it's history 10 fold +++.
But my true WANT, was not to teach (I love teaching, just not as a career), but to live off my art. So, I sprang for it. I jumped off the cliff. I have truly lived by the philosophy that I should JUMP first and build my wings on the way down. It has been hard and at times I could not have done it without the support of my boyfriend David. (and many others) I am still building my wings but it seemed just before I hit rock bottom, I was able to swoop up. I feel like I am gliding now... low to the ground, there are plenty of risks and obstacles and sharp rocks, but I am still building. If I can make it this far, I can eventually learn to fly. I look around me and see that I am not alone. So many other people building wings for themselves... and so many of them are gliding like I am - ready for bigger and better things... all excited... grinning at eachother in anticipation for whats to come next.

 "The Flying Visitor"

5" x  7" mixed media on paper

one of the new pieces.

Messages from Beyond, oh wait, nevermind

Messages from Beyond... 
Oh wait...
What the.....?

Have you ever experienced a happening that was so temporarily bizarre you had no choice
but to blame the supernatural? And moments later, are able to discover the real  answer?
I was reminded of this type of experience this morning when I got on the desktop to check
messages. Then it happened. I was startled but not perplexed, as this isn't the first  time.

Let me first explain the first instance of this, before I knew what it was.

I was sitting on the computer in silence, minding my own business.
I heard a strange crackly noise. No, not a noise, it was a voice. A faraway deep male voice,
mumbling incoherently in a southern accent. Muffled, but still very audible. I was curious
but not freaked out. I looked around the room, and after turning off the speakers, found
out that the source was my computer. I figured that on one of the many websites I had up
in tabs, a video had begun to play without warning or something. Systematically I checked
all my tabs, nothing. I closed facebook. I still heard the sound. I shut down the internet all
together... I thought that took care of it, but after bout 25 seconds, it started up again. I
strangely thought perhaps it was possible someone had hacked my computer, so I closed all connections. Still, I heard it. The ramlbing thoughts, spoken the
way I would imagine a lonely trucker with a lot on his mind would talk - broadcasting to
anyone who would listen. I think I heard speach along the lines of  'Let mother nature
take care of it'  (or at least thats something I heard today.)
ANYWAY, my point is, I was extremely confused and started even pondering the
possibility of messages from beyond. I am a fairly skeptical person - and I also thought about
the possibility that radio signals could maaaybe get picked up with my speakers, but I
didn't know for sure if that could happen, so my brain was thinking of any explanation
possible and impossible.

There are 2 other instances, and then you can tell me yours.


*Ring Transfers Through Solid Matter*
This happened ages ago, when I was in college, and engaged to my ex (still friends tho!).
We shall call him Mr. R.
I had a beautiful little engagement ring with a sapphire and 2 tiny diamonds. We were
standing in the bedroom, and I was in the process of putting my ring back on from
washing hands (or some such) and I dropped it. I did not see it ANYWHERE.
Mr. R and I spent the next 20 minutes searching the floor for said lost ring. There was
carpet on the floor. We checked to see if it rolled under the bed, furniture, etc. NOWHERE.
 I was getting quite worried. I remember that when it fell, there was no distinct 'plop' of
something falling on carpet. There was almost an absence of sound. More of a 'flooo'
sound. We suspiciously started checking the bumps in the carpet. Had the ring somehow
TRANSFERRED through solid matter and was now sitting somewhere UNDER the carpet?
Being in College and highly open minded to strange physics and metaphysics, we were
seriously contemplating that we had just had an encounter with loose molecules.
Just when we were about to admit that the universe is not what we think it is, I found the
ring in the rolled up cuff of my pants.

*Phone in the Ether*
The last one was when my friend Miss G was staying at our place.
There was a fantastic storm that night with terrifyingly wonderful thunder, and heavy rain,
excellent flashes of lightning.
In the morning, when she was preparing to head back home, she could not find her phone.
After searching the living room, we decided to check the car. Perhaps she had left it in
there.
D, G and I get to the car, and and we call her phone. We can hear it. Success!! We begin to
search the car but cannot find it!! Did it slip in the seats? No. Did it fall under the seats?
No. In the door pockets? No. Wedged in the weird places that only smaller things get
wedged in? No. WHERE IS IT!! We hear it, the muffled ring tone mocking us in our failure.
We check all the areas in the car at least 3 more times before (again) contemplating the
supernatural or weird physics. And yes, there was the thought that perhaps the phone
had slipped into another dimension, and was calling out to us from the Ethereal world.
We stood outside the car and called it one last time. It was on TOP of the car. ¬¬
We hadn't thought to look there because of the storm. What phone in its right
construction would still be working after THAT downpour?? Water damage eh? Well,
apparently strange physics were still involved, it just didn't involve side stepping into the
space between worlds.

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Tell me your strange stories!

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PS: 
-In other news, I'm enjoying being more talkative. 
-Gonna play with photography tonight. Hurrah for getting my own photo references for people!
-Organized the studio for the ONE FLIGHT UP show tomorrow, wow! this place is
wackily disorganized.
- Welcome to the new title for my blog. Its the same title as my OLD blog. 
"Paradoxical Sacrosanctity". Sacred Paradox. At least, paradox is sacred to me. So is silly. I could almost have named it Sillilical Sacrosanctity.   Ok, I made up Sillilical, but doesn't it roll of the tongue nicely?