A Flower For Dan

A flower for Dan today.

via Oh Joy

SXSW

One of the best festivals that Austin has to offer is of course, the city-wide continuous party that is South By Southwest.  I missed it last year and this time around I was hoping to do it up right-friends and family coming into town and I was going to take time off of work to devote myself fully to the craziness that SXSW.  However, now I have a new job and was too shy to ask off work right after I started a couple weeks ago, so I'll just be going after work cramming as much in around my 8-to-5 as possible. 

Side note: Did anyone hear about the SXSW mini-riot last year?  I totally missed this until a couple days ago when KUT was talking about the "heightened security measures" on account of this at a Death From Above show.

 Photo via the NuNomad Blog (17 places to not miss in Austin), by Visualist Images

Morning Hours

Oh dear, I'm having a devil of a time getting into the swing of this new job-or rather the hours of the new job.  It's brilliant that I go in at 8am and am done by 5pm, while it's still early enough to go for a run before dinner's ready.  But man oh man, by Wednesday I'm starting to have to drag myself out of bed and by Thursday it's even worse.  I like the new gig but geez, I've never been a morning person and I'm going through some aches and pains getting used to the hours.

Luckily tonight I've got cocktail hour with the ladies to look forward to after work.

Cocktail Hour by Eli Adams

Golden Arrow Shop on Pintrest

My new job went really well!!! I think I'm going to totally like it-people seem way more laid back at this new place and I think it's going to be right up my alley.  The first day at a new job is always like the first day of class-kind of nerve wracking but also pretty chill considering that you just have to smile and nod your way through, 

So, on a more design related note: like most design-oriented people my age, I've gotten sucked into Pintrest.  It's like the best thing ever, like a virtual idea board!  And no matter where you "pin" a picture from, it always preserves the original web address so you can always go back.  This is awesome because I inevitably neglect to note where I found things I like.  Here's a little sample of Golden Arrow on Pintrest and of course, there's always more where that came from...

New Jobs and Pretty Pillows

I start my new job today!!!  I'm excited about this one!  Again, it's as an optician but this time I'll have insurance.  Haha, it's like my first really "bonafide grown-up" job.  With that, I'm off to begin this new employment and I'll leave you with a pillow I recently got that still makes me chuckle every time I see it.

Boxing Deer Bucks pillow by Utilitarian Franchise.

The Glow: artsy mom's at home

Maybe it's my age-yep, let's just go ahead and understand that it's my age- but I'm starting to completely reconsider my "no kids" policy.  I always thought I'd be the cool aunt that took friend's kids on fabulous adventures for the summer and then promptly returned then before school started; I would be able to be an integral part in the child's life, give their parents a break, and fulfill any of my own desires to have children.  It seem to be a fact of life, that the absolute best birth control is hanging out with other people's kids; you realize that bag of tricks is way less glamorous than it appears to be on the surface.

But something's changing...

And then I see this blog, The Glow, of totally cool artsy women with fabulous careers who are also totally awesome moms...and it makes me think "maybe, just maybe that bag of tricks is indeed for me."

Lauren Moffatt, designer, with daughter Stella

Sailing Possibilities

Conner and I just met with a lovely gentleman about the possibility of helping him sail his boat back to Texas from Panama, where it is now.  Holy Cow.  We just got back from our very long road trip and have just recently gotten back on our feet, and now we might be taking off for a month to go sailing.

 Bateaux quittant le port du Havre by Gustave Le Gray via The Year in Pictures

Now that I'm almost 30, I entertain the idea of putting down roots, buying a house, and pursuing a proper career; and I try, but then an opportunity will come along and I will immediately drop every root planting effort to travel.  I love to travel.  In fact, if I could get hired on as a travel writer for some publication (and actually be good at the art of travel writing) then I would probably think I'd died and gone to heaven. 

Conner and I are a very balanced couple-at least I think so.  I am willing to take large leaps of faith in the name of adventure and hope that it all works out in the end; a modus operandi that has not done me wrong yet (well, that's more or less true).  Conner is adventurous as well, but he will weigh all the options before taking the plunge.  So now, I'm championing the sailing route and Conner's figuring out where we'll put of belongings while we're gone, if we can afford it, and it's generally a smart thing to go sailing, or to continue on with our Austin, Texas root-building.
~
Some adventurous reading material:

1. The World Tour Stories with Taru & Alex
2. Terra D'Agua
3. Passion For The Sea by Jimmy Cornell

Dinner Parties

When Conner and I first moved back to Austin last year, we had a back yard where we began throwing dinner parties.  It seems like our friends in town have hunkered down over the last year and don't often go out to some of our old haunts; The Longbranch, SideBar, or Rio Rita.  So dinner parties were the best of both worlds; a way to socialize with friends, save money, and keep it low key.  Unfortunately we moved away from our fabulous backyard and are currently in a cramped apartment however, soon we'll move again and when we do, we'll have to start doing dinner parties once again.  And we'll continue staging photographs to put on our dinner invites.  The photo below is so far, my favorite one we've done.

Heywood Hotel

On Tuesday I went to the opening of the new boutique hotel, Heywood Hotel with my friend, Camille.  Conner did some of his fabulous carpentry work on the hotel, but was busy that night working on another project, so Camille and I went in his place.  It's so pretty!  Rather like a new version of another beautiful Austin crashpad, Hotel San Jose.

 Camille

Cupid's Corner Pop-up Shop

Two talented and lovely ladies, Carissa Leos and Glade Hensel, have organized a Valentine's pop-up shop featuring emerging designers from across the country, called Cupid's Corner.  I feel honored that they've invited me to participate.  Please do come by their shop if your in the Austin area!

A few other designers being featured are jewelry designer Hey Murphy, stationary from Quill & Fox, and scarves from The Spotted Fawn.

East Austin Art Tour

The East Austin Art Tour, or referred to as the EAST tour by locals, has been going on for six years now however, this past weekend was the first time I have ever attend myself. In the past I've had to work every weekend and missed it entirely but not this year. Along with SXSW, the EAST has got to be one of my favorite events in town--oh, and along with the city-wide Christmas caroling/tree lighting event at the Capitol and hosted by the public radio DJ John Ailey-a man who you either love or hate here in Austin.

So at the EAST tour I met two very cool ladies that I hope to meet up with again soon.

Lady #1-Denise Prince. Right after I worked on the multi-media project, Don't Bring Me Down: A Hypothetical Band, I found her work and loved it. On account of her theatrical and staged quality of her work, and how similar it was to DBMD, I had grand dreams of working with her in the future. And now what do you know, she and I talked at her gallery and she asked me to send her the link to DBMD, which I promptly delivered. (Smile!)
Lady #2-Sarah Wilson. Another photographer who takes rather staged-looking photos for magazines. I sure would like to be friends with her too. She created a photo, that I can't seem to find online, that was in Texas Monthly several years ago which was part of the HAMM Foundation's naked musicians calendar: Kinky Friedman sitting above an old-fashioned dunking booth with the bullseye right in front of his crotch, a cigar hanging from his lips, under a circus tent. Sarah said that she got the news that she had been assigned Kinky for the naked calendar and was distraught about having to shooting him naked. So she devised this dunking booth scenario so he wouldn't actually have to be naked and had to have the whole scene built...I thought that was pretty funny. She has done a series of photos on the annual prom thrown by Austin's School Of The Deaf. The one below is from that collection.
EAST will also be going on next weekend and you should totally go if you're in central Austin-it's great!

Current Living Situation

For the better part of the past year, this rig has been our home. See the old car and camper duo in the bottom corner? Yeah, that has been our home. Our adventures have been chronicled in bits and pieces on this blog. The next set of photos is the inside of our trailer on a good day.
However, this morning Conner and I signed a 6 month lease to stay in our very own temporary crappy apartment and now that it's getting cold again and I couldn't be happier. I am so ready to settle down for a while and become a boring couple who stays in on Friday nights; I'm planting myself some roots. Sigh...but those roots are going to stay in that temporary apartment for too long because come January we are going to hopefully be moving into a workshop space that we will convert into a work/live space. That part I'm super excited about, especially after I saw this photo today and I began having dreams of setting up something similar in our future workshop.

It would be fabulous to use the workshop, which is huge at 2000 sq ft, as a cool fashion showcase one day, or a concert venue, or a sweet dinner party space...one can dream.

Image via Honey Kennedy

Girlie Magazines

I signed up for Design For Mankind's email blast a while ago and I absolutely love almost every single thing that she posts. Writer Erin Loechner has superb taste.

Anyhow, I was reading her blog and she talked about getting rid of all her magazine subscriptions and how good that felt. Since Conner and I have been in North Carolina and I began working at Barnes & Noble, I've used my employee discount quite a bit in order to stock up on all the girlie magazines that I've missed out on while we've been on the road with Imperchorstra. I have to say that I've become overly occupied with my wardrobe since flipping through all these gorgeous fashion spreads. I've spent way more than I care to disclose on beautiful clothes in the last several months. I've even made a "wardrobe map"--little sketches of each piece of clothing I own so I know exactly what matches, to help plan what to wear that day, and to make sure what new piece of luxurious cotton I buy is not something I already own.

I justify this by saying that when we leave to go back to Austin in one week, I just won't be able to get any new clothes on account of the fact that I won't be able to afford it. There will be the matter of rent, happy hour expenses, and school tuition. So yeah, I should stop reading girlie magazines too...they're just too tempting.

The Imperchorstra Project

So we're almost five months into this music documentary project and we've made it all the way to upstate New York by way of Colorado and you know what, we have done absolutely jack-shit with this whole thing. It's so disappointing. We've lost Dan too; he moved in with his girlfriend and it's probably a good thing for everyone. He and I weren't exactly getting along very well...the enormity of the project mixed with the difficulty of living with a couple in a very small space would make anyone crazy, at least that's what I like to tell myself to feel better--for goodness sake, we got in a large argument over a spice rack. I mean, who the hell argues about a spice rack?! He also had some medical bills to pay and needed a steady job. So now it's Conner and I and we've run out of money. We're quickly making our way down to Chapel Hill, NC to stay with my folks, get jobs through the holidays, and figure out how we're going to pull this off. We're hanging out with a lot of art students in Alfred, NY and they keep telling me that projects never go the way you want; if it's easy then it's not really worth it in the end; projects only seem to really come together at the very end, otherwise it's a whole lotta mess during the interim. So I'm trying to keep that in mind and realize that's it's not over yet and the fat lady hasn't sung, etc, etc.
The plus is that we did get the one and only grant that I applied for! First one I ever wrote! Now we totally have to follow through with this for sure.

Austin, TX

Christina took this at the Waterloo Killed The Video Store party...Waterloo Records and Video decided to close the video rental store where I worked the first year I lived in Austin. Aww, it's totally how I remember Austin now, all these people. Love, pure love.

Neglected Blogs

I've neglected this blog for ever and a day. Reasons being:

1. Went on 2 month cycling trip with a fellow friend, Kat, through Western Europe. Finished trip by meeting up with my boyfriend in Greece. Wrote about it here: Two Chicks On Bikes.
2. Working three jobs to pay off debt from bike trip. We ended up splurging in Holland and Greece...went way over budget.
3. Trying to get our act together to embark on a year-long road trip with Conner and Dan to make a documentary about American Music, entitled Imperchorstra.
4. Started to learn photography to start a street-style blog in conjunction with our road trip. Asphalt Runway.

But hopefully now I'm back on the Poplandia bandwagon.

Just so damn cute!

We went to the 90's One-Hit Wonders sing-a-long at the Alamo last night with Dan and his lady. When we first started dating we went to the Christmas edition of one of these things. I realized that night that there are very, very few rocking Christmas songs, most of them are slow and reflective. Anyhow, at the 1-Hit show I realized that damn, sometimes we as a Billboard list nation we have completely shitty taste in music. I call forth MMMBop and Breakfast At Tiffany's as evidence.

We brought props to add a certain Je ne sais quoi to the whole affair.

Collecting of "Marketable Skills"

I'm 26 and I'm starting to think in terms of my "marketable skills", which are frankly rather minimal. It's time I start collecting some skills because right now my largest skill set is sewing. However, I don't want that to be the way I make a living: by sewing clothing or wedding dresses (way too tedious). On the flip side making curtains wouldn't be so bad, which is why I will be taking an upholstery class in the fall. I'm actually quite excited about this because Conner and I have been talking about making some furniture in the future.

I also want to learn web design, graphic design, and photography. After getting all of those marketable skills down pat I will then be a bonafide art director and designer...one who will be able to take the Austin job market by storm!

I've been scoping out other talented people in these fields and have come across some really interesting and awesome artists.

Josh Goleman

Margaret Singer

Amelia Lyon

I used to be so much more interesting...

I found an old blog that I used to have back in 2005 and was reading it over. I used to be sooo much more interesting! I read so many more books and articles and listen to the radio. I was way more in touch with what was going on in the world back then. I wasn't a bad writer either. I had much more interesting and complex opinion. And I had more interesting journals that had lots of drawings and collages.

I have one journal that I think showcases the "Best" of me. I was funny and creative. That was back in 2003.

But when I think about those times, I wasn't happy. I was lonely, insecure, and constantly dreaming about what my life would be like once I would "come into my own". I had tons of time to spend at home reading, watching movies, drawing, sewing, and writing. But what I wanted to be doing was going out with friends and being girlie and just generally having fun--which is what I'm doing now. I'm infinitly happier now and wouldn't change anything...but I also don't have very much down time. I've been going at full force for a while now and I think I'm just now slowing down and enjoying being boring on a Friday night (I'm always convinced that I'm going to miss something amazing if I don't go out...but I guess that's changing). Maybe that's because I've become lost in boyfriendland or my age or I just need to replenish my mojo for the next round...I'm going to go with boyfriend and mojo depletion--age is a lame excuse.

Horoscopes

My favorite horoscope writing man is Rob Brezney. I must confess that I am a big fan of horoscopes and when I'm anxious I turn to them more often than not. Even if the horoscope is dismal for that week they tend to leave off with a sunnier "stick it out till next week and all your hard work will pay off"-or something like that. What I like about Brezney is that he gives you some random story at the beginning and then will explain how it relates back to you only in the last sentence.; like the one from this week for Sagittarians:

"Some Japanese employees receive three days of "heartache leave" per year from the companies they work for. During those times they can recover from sad experiences or romantic reversals. If it were up to me, every company in every country in the world would annually provide workers with the opposite kind of holiday: ten days of "heart-soaring leave." These would be times devoted to cultivating blessed breakthroughs or celebrating great happiness. If there were such a system in place already, Sagittarius, I bet you'd use some of those heart-soaring days in the coming weeks."

How can one not be optimistic after reading this?