Card-carrying...

Yes, we did the deed, and got these nifty cards to boot! There's personal info on the back.

We did it for legal reasons, among other reasons obviously.

Marriage is a complicated institution. Personal relationships aside, marriage itself in contemporary American society is a unique melding of church and state, in which a functionary of a church is allowed to perform the duties of a public official. This is exactly why we contemporary Americans are having such a problem with it: because the Church doesn't want to, so we don't want It to, and here the Church is the State, so the State can't do it either, even though many people think it should. Get it?

Yeah, it's complicated. We just need to realize that Contemporary Marriage is actually two things: 1) a Church-sanctioned merging of families, and 2) a State-sanctioned merging of fortunes (good or bad). Once upon a time, these could pass for the same thing, but no longer.

I probably sound cold and analytical about it, but I'm happy to have done it, and to have it done. We didn't make a big deal of it, but we celebrated, and will again when our 'official' anniversary comes around again next month. We're sentimental, but not particularly showy about it. (If you'd like to send gifts, we love all kinds of art and homemade things :D ).

Spirit Lake

I'm getting a little anxious for summer. That's Spirit Lake in the background there- this is from the Windy Ridge trail through the blast zone on Mt. St Helens. I'll be honest: it's a gruelling hike. It's a roughly 13-mile round-trip, as I recall, with difficult scrambling, and no shade at all. Worth it? I'm undecided, but Phil seems to really dig it for some reason, so I'm sure I'll get another chance to decide. I will say that I'm sure it'll be easier, now that we have a water filter we can carry. Now we can carry only half the total water we'll need, then refill at the spring which is at about the halfway point. It'll make a difference, trust me.

Worked all day yesterday on the site, and will again today. Going to try to get more pictures this weekend.

Crack that whip!

Spent all day yesterday shooting, processing, editing and reprocessing photos for the web site. Got some nice work done, but damn- all day! Today, I need to be two people: one to work on the web site, and the other to do some actual worky-work. (I actually have two fairly urgent projects waiting in the shop.... What's a shoemaker have to do these days to get a few helpful elves? Sheesh!)

Focus

This little bugger's about 1" tall in person, on the front of an auxilliary pocket for the front of a new bag.

Lasting

I said it four years ago, and I'm still saying it: Demand a paper ballot! Nothing else really counts.

Gulf of Tonkin II: the Straits of Hormuz. This one's not over yet, I'm afraid. Note the dramatic difference in the American vs Iranian versions of the story, and the accompanying rise in oil prices.

Sibel Edmonds speaks

Preview 1

Busy day today. We were out shooting for my website yesterday, here's a preview of one of my sweet new bags. Aiming to publish this week at the latest. Ugh, finally!

Deco goes *Pop*

Sorry about the slightly-fuzzy quality of this photo. It's the last silkscreen project I tried before resigning myself to the idea that I Don't Know How to Silkscreen Well Enough Yet, to get the results I would find acceptable. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that I've even posted this picture, because I don't see it as a finished work (more of a sketch, I guess, if one can sketch in silkscreening), but I'd really like to hear some reactions to it (Phil won't say so outright, but I don't think he likes it).

Technical issues aside (and there are many), I like the composition. It was the impetus for the whole project, really. I took it directly from a photo I had taken of Phil on the trail, which I liked so much that I wanted to do more with it. I had in mind those old WPA-created National Parks posters from back in the day, which Paul Lanquist is doing such a good job of re-creating these days. My color choices were deliberate- partly the result of limited options (silk screen ink is available in six glorious colors: "red," "blue," "yellow," "green," "brown," "white" and "black", and is roughly the consistency of pudding, which makes it exceedingly difficult to get predictable results from mixing), and partly because of my Pop-Artist tendencies, which we've discussed before.

The technical issues I'm talking about are the edges, mostly. I had trouble getting each screen to register completely on the paper, so all of the prints of this are somewhat flawed. Each one is a little different because each time I printed, I would get ink flowing (er, not-flowing) to different parts of the screen. In this case, for example, you can see how the blue didn't get to the lower right corner, and the yellow didn't get to the upper right corner. You can also see (in the middle) how excess red ink made the screen stick to the paper, leaving a roundish spot of more-intense violet among the purple. Note: the blue and green border is the matte.

In the end, honestly, I love it. Flaws and all. Which leaves me in a position from which I am eager and willing to hear criticism (if I didn't like it, I wouldn't need or want to hear anyone else not-liking it). So, if you're so inclined, Fire Away with those comments and criticisms. I'm curious.