Work on Two Grapes has moved on quite a bit in the last day or so.  I happened to bump into the beautiful tiny man today, and whilst he is very beautiful he is not particularly tiny.

How fascinating, this is the second time I have perceptually shrunk someone because I could not cope with being interested in them. The first time I remember doing this was the first time I made a series of pieces inspired by someone, twenty or so years ago.

Why do I do this?  Since I hang around with a psychologist, we talked about it earlier.  We think it may be something to do with being frightened of reacting to anything, probably because of the persistent abuse from my siblings.

There is nothing you can do about them, they are unlikely to change their pattern of behaviour, which is why they are no longer on contact terms. Having discussed the matter with a variety of professional bodies, there is no alternative option for dealing with people who have colluded in their own delusion for more than two decades.  In the event they were introduced to the effects of their behaviour, they would probably require another couple of decades of treatment.

So much for them.

I am more shocked by my self-conning than anything else.  I am quite in touch emotionally, but to be spatially scaling things so that I can safely react to them is very interesting.

Perhaps I should take up the manufacture of miniatures.  They do say that people who create doll’s houses are seeking control, a safe place to reimagine the world.  If this is the case, perhaps I am seeking a safety that does not really exist by mentally shrinking my muses.

I did not shrink Haram Bawbag, which I think is indicative of the fact I never felt safe at all around him.  Not that I thought he was going to do anything particularly heinous, but he was not a consistent person, and so you never knew what to expect.

Two Grapes is going unbelievably well, I am hoping to have it complete relatively soon as a result.

Little Shiva is on the closing layers now, and is becoming a royal pain to work with.  Bumped into Frank fae the bank again, and he was terrified.  Very serious Indian man also terrified, so things are going well.  After the carpet layer is done, sometime this week or so, I will be backing it and then assembling on a free day.

Starting to get people at the car more often now, which I find amazingly tiring but it is very nice that they are so excited about Little Shiva.

Two Grapes is actually going really well, but I am slightly frightened of it because it is very important to me.  This is no good, you don’t flow well when scared, so I need to talk my game up a bit. I have certainly learned a lot about myself from this one. I am looking forward to gifting it and then moving on to dealing with my unruly kitchen floor.

Haram Bawbag is looking rather stunning, but I am doing a few experimental things with it.  I have combined the idea of the carousel with a zoetrope, so I think it will be very nice, and a little insane, which is entirely appropriate.  The Helter Skelter went very well.

Feeling very sad for people that cannot move on with their lives.  It is very sad to spend your time trying to steal other people’s money.  Why not find something constructive to do? I was given this job for a reason, the reason being that everyone always knew what you’re like.

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Haram Bawbag has moved on significantly,  and I think will now be called Joy is not Haram, as I felt the message was more important than the catchy name for a variety of reasons.  It is looking good, but there is a way to go.

Two Grapes has made it past stage 1 and I am in possession of all of the required objects now, so I just have to pluck up courage to find the tiny beautiful man, who appears to be very busy with a project right now as I have not seen him for weeks. I am unusually serious about the tiny beautiful man, so I am a little edgy about this one.

A variety of entirely unfamiliar thoughts have broken through a work cycle I have had for years.  I usually make things on the basis of not getting involved with the person, for whatever reason.  Working on Two Grapes has been very different.  I am worrying about him a lot more than the piece, it is not clinical at all.

I may go into more detail about this at a later date, but it feels a bit  personal at the moment.

Little Shiva is on the home run for the central portion, which means it will be moving to the girder for hanging shortly.  Once I have the other two pieces finished, Little Shiva will be getting a variety of fairly complex additions and will take a couple more months.

Very busy with other things, and life is about to get very expensive, so will be upping the income shortly.

Ina

Successful public sewing experiment in the coffee shop of my dreams, so I think the final assembly of Little Shiva may be done there, but I will give myself some extra time to get it to the point of assembly and put the backing on first I think.

Last of the stuff for Two Grapes arrived, it is going very well and looking exactly as envisaged so far.

Glass arrived for Haram Bawbag, which is going to be the first to finish I suspect.  It is a complicated bit of kit and involves a lot of curing time, so working hard on that just now.

Twisty asked to go to the aforementioned coffee shop this morning and I said no on the grounds that I am quite sure they will be sick of the sight of me over the weekend.

Working slightly too hard at the moment, but seem to be sleeping a lot in the moments between tasks.

I hope this update will be worthwhile in terms of both confidence and attention, but I am a lot happier than I was with my first resin experiments.  Basically by the time you are happy with resin, you are allergic to it, which is a rather annoying paradox.

Will be dropping Two Grapes off in Bearsden for His Glorious Tininess I suspect, as there is more room for storage there in case he hates it. There is a long way to go on it but I think it might be my best piece so far if it pans out.

Ina

I haven’t updated for a week or so, and I see Little Shiva is needing an update, so here it is.

I have got Little Shiva to Layer four quite early, and it is now becoming very exhausting to work, as it is a bit bigger than a person, and it is now getting to the stiff stage.  I may need to add some more bells and whistles, but the Sanskrit lower layer is in place and I am increasing the tension on the structure.  I should be ready to add the carpet layer next week or so, which is quite exciting.

The audience seems to be sufficiently entranced to be circulating videos of me working on it in the car, and several people have been delighted as I have added signs to the car so that they can look up what I am doing if they want to.  I will probably do some of the finishing work on the shell in public, possibly in my favourite coffee shop during the week if things are looking good enough.

Two Grapes is going better than expected so far.

I put in quite a number of failsafes as I was not sure if I was quite competent enough to do what I wanted to do with it, as a result it is going too well for some of the effects I wanted to add.  This is a good thing, however, and I have also managed to procure several more items than expected to add to it.  It is intended as children’s art as I have noticed that smaller children get quite bored watching the adults drinking coffee.  It is reasonably classy however, so we will see if I can keep up this level of focus throughout.

Haram Bawbag‘s glass is coming early next week, which means another lot of work.  I have started the resin process on the external structure now but this will take at least a week as I am textile sculpting a helter skelter and a carousel.  I am also considering what to call it, as I think Haram Bawbag doesn’t cover the message entirely.

Pretty happy with things at the moment.  I will be searching out the webbing for the backing on Little Shiva, after this I will be constructing windows, waterproofing the work I have done, adapting the lengha and figuring out what beadwork I then need to do to make it flow correctly.  I also need to make a final decision on the trishul.

Iain Duncan Smith has fallen by the wayside until I free up some space and time to work.  I am working on a psycholinguistics project at the moment, so things are pretty busy.

I hope everyone is OK and reasonably happy, and I will update once I have a spare minute to think. Wolfe is invading my head a bit at the moment, so I think it is time to up the game a bit other than the art.

Lots of affection,

Ina

I am pondering a change in inspiration of late.  Things started to change with Little Shiva, I think.  I was very aware of favouring the object over any potential romantic activity, for his sake as much, if not more than mine.  In any case, I think the form it is taking indicates that Little Shiva is a representation of helpless chemistry.  It is a particularly raunchy piece I suspect, but it is also devotional.  I liked him a lot.

Haram Bawbag sort of started by accident, as Bawbag needed to move on from his ex, and I thought I was providing a means by which he could shift a little from a very self destructive course of action.  I shouldn’t have bothered.  It wasn’t my responsibility and he didn’t really understand friendship anyway, but it has raised a lot of interesting issues in terms of a thought process.  It is going to be a nice representation of his state of mind anyway, and the work done so far was storytelling in nature, which is a new development.

Both of these pieces are a bit more advanced in terms of the complexity of thought than previously. It used to be that I would wait until no relationship was possible, and then turn lemons into lemonade by creating something without thinking about it at all.  Twisty would tell you that he has witnessed me working until my hands bleed, such is the motivational angst behind it.

I did not get very far with the Boris collection, mainly due to money, but also because the work queue was interrupted by Twisty’s fear of the project and illness.  I have a few pieces to finish when the urge strikes, but I really need to write up a few things before I make them. I would also like to gift him one of the items, but I don’t think it can be arranged at the moment and after he gets PM it will be too late.

The new piece, Two Grapes is a complete departure from the norm, as it is a riposte and given half a chance, it is likely to be a beginning rather than an end.  I am very uptight about it so far, although gathering the materials has been fun.  I am looking forward to seeing how it works as a commercial image. As the interiors of coffee dude’s places are fabulous, I am shooting for outdoors, so I have selected a resin which will, like a photograph, become sepia with time, which I am hoping he will like.  It is very slow due to work issues and my hyper -carefulness.

When I am at work, I work on Little Shiva in the car, which has attracted a lot of attention as it is a pretty flash piece of embroidery sculpture so far.  The wild abandon with which I work on it is remarkable in comparison with the oodles of thought going into Two Grapes.  I wonder what this indicates?  Is it a respect issue perhaps? I will figure it out.

Anyway that is my pondering for the night as I am very tired and have another very long day tomorrow.

Toodle pip

Ina

Oh and for the person looking up politics, no I am not a Tory LOL

Almost at the halfway point for veneering the new piece, which I have provisionally entitled “Two Grapes.” It is morphing a little, but not too much and is a nice mash up.

Halfway down layer 3 of Little Shiva.  A fairly well known art dude stopped by and invited me out for coffee, which is very exciting.

Haram Bawbag is awaiting the glass, and I will update later in the week as to whether it is yet possible to get on and finish it.

Reopening an online store which I allowed to lapse.  Another store which I had not checked for a while had an invitation to participate in 100% Design in London in September, which I am still considering as it is expensive.

Apart from that, exploring some work opportunities whilst trying to get the labels done for Supermix.

Feeling very happy and certainly looking a lot better, but something is being fixed so no huge changes yet apart from my face. Updating the wardrobe and jettisoning some stuff shortly.

Should Bawbag stop by, your ex is at it again. Behave.

Trying to make sure that I sleep now and again.

Ina

Well, I am feeling much better, but am still looking a little flushed, almost like a permanent blush, so I am now investing in super strength sun block.  (I do not think I have ever spent as much time outdoors as I do now)

Still hammering down the nutrition, working ridiculous hours on these artworks and have made many a strange purchase for the coffee shop pieces.  I am nothing if not thorough. If that fabulous chap doesn’t cry there is no justice.

The first veneer portions went on last night, I think the first piece will take around a week to get beyond this stage, then there is a second piece to do which will take about the same time.  This may seem like a long winded process, but mixed media is a task of knowing what to prioritise and how to go about achieving the results you want.  Because I have combined veneer, paper, fabric, resin, embossing and found objects, the order of business is pretty strict to get it right.

Haram Bawbag is also mixed media, so it has similar issues.  I still haven’t ordered the organza for the slide for the supernatural feel I want to give it eventually, so it has rather a long way to go.  The base is moving on nicely though so I guess I should get on with that.

Little Shiva is becoming too big to manage in the car but is also looking rather fabulous.  I may do a public assembly if I think it will be relatively time friendly to do.

Apart from that, trying very hard to relax whilst achieving unreasonable amounts per day and doing a bit of a clear out.  Toying with the idea of replacing a couple of items.

Little Shiva, please stop worrying, you have potential if you stop fretting so much, poppet. I recommend you invest a little time working with the public.

See you soon,

Ina