SANE Winter Solstice Potluck, Conversation and Nothing Else

SANEsters,

Yes, the Winter Solstice Party is on schedule, on Tuesday, Dec 13,
from 7:00 to whenever (remember, it's a school night).

So far, on the menu we have ( [_] indicates a food item awaiting a
bringer, so sign up soon!):

Yummy shrimp and cocktail sauce
Convivial wine & beer
[_] Savory Salad
Tasty Lasagna
[_] Wholesome bread
[_] Delightful fruit or veg
Sweet, sweet cake
Delightful other dessert

The other big news is that we'll have to come up with our own sparkle-
like entertainment and smallish talk, as due to an underwhelming
response, the gift swap, Yankee or udderwise, is on hiatus. I suspect
we'll be able to keep ourselves entertained. The nervous should
consider writing up and rehearsing anecdotes. If you've already
invested in some tasty/tastless objects, consider putting them in
your SignifOth's stocking and/or non-Claus gift receptacle (just a
thought).

But do plan to be festive and jovial, and most of all, plan to be
there! Break out the Cosby sweaters, leave the arts & crafts
materials at home, and we'll see you soon!

Sandy Claws

P.S. Someone who shall rename maneless made this suggestion for a
January project. Be thinking of January dates, Tuesdays are: 3, 7,
17, 24, 31 and 38 (I never tire of that one, golly wally). I'm
thinking 1/10/2012, or 1/17 if we've recovered sufficiently from MLK
Day (1/16 obsvd).

SANE Winter Solstice Celebration

You'd better watch out;

better conserve your natural eye water;

better maintain a positive mental attitude;

I'm telling you why:

Mother Earth is bringing the Winter Solstice to town. Etc.

This year we're going to celebrate all that SANE means to us in the coming cyclical planetary revolution by doing what we have proven we can do very well: prepare and consume food. The evening will be hosted by St. Mary and Father Phil of the Alphabet Streets, and the date/time is:

Tuesday, December 13, 7:00ish to wheneverish (noting that it is a school night)

Please write back to me to tell me what you wanna bring to the event, foodwise. And how many will attend. If we have too many similar items, I might push back with "Hey, we needa"s.

A question of gifting & entertainment has come up: have we run the gamut of Yankee (etc.) Swappage? Are we merely circulating the old same unwantables? If we dare opt to NOT swap this year, do we need some organized entertainment to otherwise amuse ourselves with, and if we do, what form might that take? I leave these questions open, and do not offer my usual list of semi-related drivel, for fear it will be mistaken for real suggestions!

Please feel free to wade in on this issue, and soon, so we can alert the troops should any preparations be required. I don't want to spark a flood of "Reply All" emails, either - if folks want to email me with your thoughts (be sure to fuzz out the naughty bits), and I could condense them (say, by Wednesday) and send out a short-form for final reviewment.

Redactio ad absurdam

Yes, Virginia, there is a Meeting Claus!
The where: for a radical change in venue, Pam A's dining room. We've met there more this year than they've had family dinners, I suspect!
The when: 7:00-ish
The why: Because we wuv you!
The project: Redactio ad absurdam - No, it's not a Harry Potter curse, it's taking a page from some guy artist "someguy" who takes a page from a book and redacts (crosses out, X's out, obliterates, hashmarks through) the text, leaving words, phrases, etc., creating his own subtext. Below is a lot of theft from this blog: AnimalNY

San Francisco artist someguy remixes books, crossing out all text in the King James Holy Bible except for “love” and “evil” and all of The Catcher in the Rye, save the “goddam.” How cute. Most recently, he highlighted nine pages of the Bible mentioning “unicorns.” Most notoriously, he reverse-censored Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn down to 212 instances of the word “*i**e*.”

The controversial piece is entitled 212 Slaves, in reference to a new version of the novel where the inflammatory slur is changed to “**a*e,” because statistically less-educated and louder Bible-thumping Americans would rather whitewash our abominable history than address racism or freshen up that archaic classics curriculum.
Some 'nother examples.

Check out the different ways to redact: black tape, crosshatching, black marker, white-out, plaid or madras markers (okay, they don't make those but they would be cool), paint, gouache, guacamole, gouachemole, overtyping, sliced out with an X-Acto knife, sliced out with a matte knife, sliced out with a butter knife, etc.) The slicing out might be difficult if we're removing most of the text, unless you had something to attach the lacy leftovers to (and even then...).
The supplies: Bring some way(s) to redact, and a source for verbiage to use and/or share. It's gonna get destroyed, so don't bring a family Bible or your current mortgage contract -- always copy, copy, copy. "And remember please to be calling it research," notes Nickolai Ivanovitch Lobachevsky. Ai!
The alternate: Redacting not your cup of ink? Remember that great 3D cutout site: http://www.goscoutcreative.com/calendarofthemonth/ - you could print out one of their exciting calendar entries and cut-and-paste it together - but only November will be current, so you might want to find another printout of some future month - or maybe all of 2012, and make replaceable months for a more permanent display.
The future: we're holding out the possibility of making inkblots (a tad messful), and creating our own thermonuclear can openers (keep a window open in the kitchen to counteract the pressure increase!). And there's also the up-and-coming SANE Winter Solstice Dinner & Gift Slam (13 Dec), for which we must plan. Stay tuned!

There's Always Room for Jellied Trotters

Pam A is honored to host the first meeting of SANE's Season 19 home opener, pitting SANE against a tough, new opponent, the Gelatin Tinsters. I hope everyone has kept up their summer training regimen, 'cause it'll take a coordinated effort and a lot of conditioning to beat these guys. Betsey has sent out the poop sheet, and I hope we've all reviewed the films from their last three pre-season appearances. Don't get the impression that they're just going to lie there and let us paint 'em around, willy-nilly, I've got a feeling there'll be several surprises in store. We gotta give it our A game if we're going to tough it out for an entire season.

Things to bring and/or add to jellied trotters:

acrylic paints

paint brushes

pig's feet, cleaned and split in half

a brayer

a brayer rug

2 carrots, 1 onion

paintbrushes, makeup foam spears, smudgers, squeegees, bludgers, and other assorted shapes and props (shells, buttons, leaves, etc.) to redistribute the ink on the gelatin before brayering

packets of red Jell-O

paper - thick and/or thin,

plastic and/or marble surface to get ink onto the brayer

peppercorns, salt, sweet Hungarian paprika

Wear play clothes, or a smock. Think about where to put your masterpieces while they are drying.

Serve with pumpernickel, cold beer, salted cucumber slices and Cool Whip ambrosia. Serves 4-6.

SANE,

Slightly out of whack since 1993

Oh yeah, that's Tuesday, 11 October 7-ish at Pam A's place.

There's always room for jell-o prints

Thanks for your infinite patience with li'l ol' me, and thanks to Betsey for her insousance (which, by the way, makes a tasty soup), persistence, and enthusiastic but inscrutable description of the upcoming project, with its jell-o and paper and paint and aliens and ?donkeys (isn't there a smaller creature that makes a braying noise?). My garrs and starters, but if we each brought our own donkey, it would get awfully crowded, not to say a tad messy. But I'm ahead of myself, aren't I? Yes. Yes, I am.

So Betsie and Lesley will each bring several pans of jell-o. (Be sure and let them know your flavorite favors! Mine is Green, love that Green flavor.) This is for to put the ink on, then put some nice paper on the ink-laden jell-o, and remove the paper, let it dry (perhaps the donkeys could breathe on it, which might cut down on their braying), and you have a nice piece of artwork that smells vaguely like a barn.

"How does one put the ink on the jell-o?" I hear you ask. Good question! You could squirt it on, right out of the tube, or you could get a roller thingie (I don't remember what these are called, I think it starts with a 'p' or a 'd' -- platen? distributor?) and a slab of something like stone or plastic that doesn't absorb ink, and roller the ink flat, then roller it onto the jell-o, for example. "Okay, I figured that out, but that just makes a solid color, how do you make designs in the ink?" you continue to interrupt. I'm typing my little heart out here, so just hold your donkeys! Sheesh!

So you could cut/tear pieces of paper, or leaves, or pretty much anything flat-ish and put them on the jell-o before you rollerize/platenate the ink onto it. then peel them off, which would leave uninked holes on the jell-o. So when you took a full-sized sheet of paper and plunked it down on the inked jell-o, you'd get the ink left over to make a pattern. Or you could ink the jell-o, and use a brush, comb, fork, stick or finger (perhaps an alien's finger, since he's just overing there with nothing to do), or perhaps a donkey's ear or tail, to move ink around on the jell-o, making a pattern where the ink isn't any more. But for Crom's sake, don't let the donkey flap its ears or tail, or there'll be paint all over Pam's dining room. Lawsy mercy!

You could selectively ink, like with a rubber stamp stamped in the ink, then onto the jell-o, which would make a positive (or at least a double negative) image of the stamp. Or use a donkey-tail brush to paint ink onto the jell-o. Or put a piece of fabric or embossed paper on it, to absorb selectively, accordion to its texture. Or you could combine all those techniques, plus others I and the aliens have not really fingered out yet.

Once you're ready to print your monoprint (so named by Angelo Mono, the inventor of jell-o), you carefully align a sheet of artsy paper atop the jell-o and press it down. You could use your fingers and fingernails for a lighter touch. A flat hard board would apply even pressure all around, but you might get some holidays (days off). You might use a wooden spoon or bone folder, only you wouldn't press as hard on the paper as you might with a wood block or linoleum block, unless the jell-o is really old and hard. Not that you'd want to eat it anyway, what with all the paint and donkeys. Then peel the paper back carefully, talking to it sweetly and soothingly, because it's probably a little perturbed at all that poking and pushing with the sticks and things. Put the paper where the donkeys can breathe on it, or give it to the aliens to wave about in the air to dry, and then clean off your jell-o (with a wet paper towel, or wipe it on your pant-leg) in preparation for the next print. Rinse and repeat.

So bring acrylic paint, roller thingies (appliers?), stone or plastic flat surfaces to rollerize paint on/with, various cut papers or papers to cut and sharp things to cut with, fabric and/or textures, a wooden spoon or bone folder, your hands and fingers, a paintbrush or two,  a donkey, an alien (if you still have one), some paper to print the prints on, and some whipped cream and a spoon for all that left-over jell-o!? Perhaps some carrots for the donkey, and maybe some batteries for the alien, I don't really know what they eat, they're so... nonhuman.

Well, I hope that clears up all those pesky questions, and we're now all ready to print those princely prints! Someday my prints will... now, when did that turn nasty all of a sudden? That Walt Disney, I swan, when he up and died the whole TV went crazy, I tell you, crazy.

The slightly less busy but still somewhat busy,
Richard

P.S. So it's looking like the meeting is on the 11th of October, or as the Romans would say, the XIth of October. Or as Columbus would say, "Heya, that'sa the day after my birth-a day (observed)!"

SANE Meeting

Poor Richard is busy being busy so I offered to send out a notice about a meeting. We have Tuesday, September 27 or Tuesday, October 4 for a starting point. Can anyone/everyone makes those dates or do we need an alternative?

There is a bit of interest in gelatin printing (acrylic paint brayered onto a gelatin molded surface that becomes a printing plate, then objects placed on top or surface altered with textured objects or fingerpainted to achieve a monoprint). It is easy and fun and not very messy. Leslie and I both already have some gelatin type of plates made of some kind of alien product and I will make plates for anyone who will promise to show up. What you will need to bring is a brayer, acrylic paint, paper towels to clean off your "plate", objects, paint brushes (think in terms of making paste papers and how you might create textures). And paper. Don't think it matters what you use just not tissue paper. I will let you know the size of the "plate" once we have a date.

Richard said that he will send a translation of this email when he stops being busy being busy.

That's all for now.
Toodles,
BatZ

Poor Richard is busy being busy so I offered to send out a notice about a meeting. We have Tuesday, September 27 or Tuesday, October 4 for a starting point. Can anyone/everyone makes those dates or do we need an alternative?

There is a bit of interest in gelatin printing (acrylic paint brayered onto a gelatin molded surface that becomes a printing plate, then objects placed on top or surface altered with textured objects or fingerpainted to achieve a monoprint). It is easy and fun and not very messy. Leslie and I both already have some gelatin type of plates made of some kind of alien product and I will make plates for anyone who will promise to show up. What you will need to bring is a brayer, acrylic paint, paper towels to clean off your "plate", objects, paint brushes (think in terms of making paste papers and how you might create textures). And paper. Don't think it matters what you use just not tissue paper. I will let you know the size of the "plate" once we have a date.

Richard said that he will send a translation of this email when he stops being busy being busy.

That's all for now.
Toodles,
Batsy

Comics Contest / LobstahClamstaFeastah Remindah

SANEsters,

The Harvard Book Store near Harvard (the university, not the town), where they sell quaint paper-and-ink "books" is offering a comics contest for all those illustrators out there who fancy themselves serial (the sequential, not the grain or breakfast staple) storytellers. Anybody can enter twice, 1-4 pages apiece (electronically, in a very specific format), and winners are printed (again, paper-and-ink) in an on-demand booket. More info here.

But that's just art/publishing. The real substance of this email is on the topic of Lobstahs and Clamstahs, and a Feastus thereof, in nearby Glosstah. Betsey & Mike are the hardworking hostess and hostler (hostage?), and the date is Saturday, 30 July 2011. Betsey counted noses at the last meeting, although since not everybody was in attendance, your nose may still be considered uncounted.

Consider what you'll be bringing as a food item. If you want to carve out new territory, cuisine-wise, do it fast and stake your claim to that new dessert or salad or appetizer you've been dying to try out. Or bring the same old boring (yet tasty) option as before. Just lemme know. Again, this is the info we're looking for:

1) How many in your party will be coming?

2) How many lobsters will your party be eating?

3) How many adult-sized servings of clamsters will your party want to eat?

4) What other food item would you like to bring?

5) Describe in fewer than three sentences a) the role of state government in mineral rights reassignment, b) your favorite Smurf, or c) something odd you've seen lately.

Richahd

Avian Residences

Birds of a feather may flock together, but when they crash for the night, their tastes are as different as night and oranges. Witness these three Avian Residences recently put on the market by SANEsters - Leslie escaped with her property before we could get it captured digitally, but here are the ones Betsey caught in her iPhone net:

The next SANE event is the famed LobsterClamsterFeaster (LCF), on Saturday 30 July 2011. More info to come. August is a free month, feel free to roam the country without fear of SANE reprisals for missing a meeting. The next actual meeting will be September - golly, that seems a long ways away. Busy Leslie has proposed two different projects to do: Inkblots (perhaps she will bring the book she had to the LCF), and also laser image transfer onto foil tape (http://inkstainswithroni.blogspot.com/2011/06/inkssentials-foil-tape-image-transfer.html). Ponder these things in your heart of hearts (if you actually have one - mine was run over by a truck in '77), or with whatever equipment you still have functioning that can ponder. I may still have a Ponderosa hanging around the south forty, if it is not too ponderous to ponder with, I'll try to ponder upon(der) it.

But you knew all that. Soon we will count heads/stomachs for the LCF, and perhaps people will volunteer to bring not-the-same things, or not. 'Twill be a mystery, i' faith. Corduroy, prince of wales, is hardly mysterious, but makes funny sounds as you walk. But you knew all that, too.

I am typing and I will now shut up.

SANE Meeting locale

Tuesday's meeting place will be (drum roll), Pam's Place!

In the continued absence of Pam P, there has been some discussion of whether Pam A can drop the A and be Just Pam. Which leaves an assortment of appellations for the Other Pam: Unjust Pam, Fall River Pam, the Pam Who Shall Not Be Named, and Violet. Okay, I kid. With luck, we'll see both Pams, with all the concomitant confusion that engenders, at the LobsterClamsterFeast on Pamsterday, July 30. Mark your calendars!

SANE Meeting 21 June 2011

Another great meeting was had and largely unreported on, due to the unforgivably lax correspondence by ours truly. We (well, most of we) dabbled in the dark inky arts of marbledy paper, and left with mixed results. The ink for this process on normal ol' H2O comes out less vibrant than the previous marbledy paper, but we got some pretty interesting results.

The meeting ended with a new meeting date (Tuesday 21 June 2011), but without a project selected. We considered Flip's suggestion to turn do whatever he came up with (rumored to involve some type of human sacrifice), but the rest of us were understandably nervous at the offer (somebody, who shall remain faceless, actually fainted), and another project was ultimately selected. Sorry Flip, keep those scimitars polished and someday maybe we'll take you up on it!

Inspired by the online magazine Cloth, Paper and Scissors, "Soul Houses" has been proposed (can't post this on the blog, as it's copyrighted, and probably can't legally sent it via email either, so please don't report me):

[copyrighted image deleted!]

If this is too high-brow for you, think of it as decorating a birdhouse, either ultimately for bird use or for your own nefarious porpoises. Betsey has ventured out to A.C. Moore's and collected a clutch of birdhouses (note water bottle for scale... oh, and a ruler), for a very reasonable price ($1.50 plus tax apiece):

The ruler would be a separate purchase. Note the chimneys -- apparently, these are year-round birdhouses, with a fireplace or furnace. Any way, we won't have to construct our houses as if from a kit, since they're all assembled: we can spend our time collaging, decoupaging, attaching steampunk metalwork and/or religious artifacts, pieces of the true A-bomb shelter, daguerrotypes, old jewelry, etc. And the first people at the meeting will have their pick from Betsey's stash. I dunno, should I opt for a one-holer, or two-? Is that a perch on your face, or are you happy to see me? Decisions, decisions.

What to bring? Well, shiny objects, fast-drying paint/glue/varnish, metal, decorative papers, teeny little shingles, small-bore automatic weapons (no, wait, that's for next month's "fast-moving targets practice" project), scissors/knives, hockey pucks (go Bruins!), pipe cleaners (to make chimney smoke), corrugated sheet metal and brads, rusty nails, screwdrivers, harvey wallbangers, etc. The theme needn't be dark and soully, make it your own, have fun with it, keep it simple (maybe a tribute to the Stanley Cup), stop tracking mud on my kitchen floor, neither a borrower nor a lender be, wah de doo dah!

P.S. Stay tuned for a place to have this meeting, I'll keep you posted as I find out more!

SANE meeting WED 25 May

I failed to report on the previous meeting, which was quite productive, and nearly everybody padded out of the meeting on March's duct-tape slippers carrying a spice-box wire thingus, or similar. Did we take photos and document them in tableaus? No, we didn't. It was left to each SANEster to tablize and photog their creations and send same to me, and the lack of illustrations below represents the dearth of offerings I received. Even I didn't tab&phot my own li'l skiing Advair diskus, because I am such a lazy slug.

Flip brang a DVD of Hank the Cave Peanut, an animated movie made in caveman days, about Hank's coming of age and leading the hunt for a wild fork (of course), which was very entertaining, but we ultimately decided that we didn't have time during the next meeting to create a sequel. They we went webwards to watch Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Sample dialog: "Guess what I wear as a hat. A lentil." "Guess what I use to tie my skis to my car. A hair. Guess what my skis are. Toenals from a man." "My one regret in life is that I'll never have a dog. But sometimes I tie a hair to a piece of lint and I drag it around." Okay, it's better when you hear the lines spoken by Marcel.

But we did decide the date of the next SANE meeting and it is NOT TODAY (and in fact is not even on a Tuesday), but is on Wednesday, 25 May, 2011. We don't yet know where we'll meet or what we're doing, but that never held us back before...

Wait a minute, we may have decided to make marbledy paper... Does someone with a functioning brain actually remember? And if so, is there a list of ingreediments for us to brang? And we may have decided upon a host for the event, tho I suspect it ain't me. Please someone give me a big eSlap and fill me in on what I failed to write down.

Can a doldrum be singular? Kudos is apparently singular as well as plural, in case you ever wanted to give someone a single kudos. If you just didn't say single, you could mean one kudos but let them believe you were giving them several. Kind of a win-win, really.

Also decided was the date of the 2011LobstahClamstahFeast, and that date is Saturday 30 July (with a scheduled but hopefully never needed rain date of Sunnyday 31 July). Please, nobody warn the Lobstahs or the Clamstahs. Betsey, however, has been warned.

If you have another project suggestion, please float it publicly, and we'll all jump down your throat for being brave enough for suggesting something. We could always play poker or go out collecting for Unicef. Or drink heavily. Perhaps all three (in reverse order)!

SANE Meeting MONDAY 25 April 2011

Everybody had a good time with the cardboard and the duck/duct tapes of many colors, and nearly all came away from the event with a nearly functional pair of shoes, or a teeny wallet, or two large ducky surfboards. And an extra bonus - all duckty products are guaranteed to stay wart-free!

Next month's meeting will also be at Pam A's, at a special day and date (same old time): Monday, 25 April 2011 (7ish). Thanks to Mary's "wireless" efforts (see photo), the next project will involve wire, metal gew-gaws, beads, etc., and we will create all manner of wire creatures.

Mary got little Turmy (above, with photoshopped hand/claw since his real ones fell off in the photo) for, I'm gonna say Christmas, and fell in love with him, and didn't want him to be lonely and/or bored, so we should make him friends and companions. She found inspiration in a set of photos e-mailed to all (but not included here due to copyright infringement issues), and thought they might inspire all of us, too. So there. So be thinking of wire, don't throw away any small objects with holes already in them, or who are just begging for a hole, and bring 'em along on 4/25. We should bring cameras and make tableaus (French for "table water").

SANE Location

Okay, all the puzzles of the piece are together. The Where for tomorrow's meeting is:
[drum roll, or spring roll]

Pamela A's place, like nearly always!

It won't be hard to find, unless there is another blizzard like this afternoon. I mean, it will still be in the same place, it just might be harder to see through all the cruft.

So SANE Meeting, Tues, 22 March 2011, 7ish, at Pam A's

Be there and go duck yourself!

Scrooge McDuckTape

SANE Details

The where of the meeting is still in flux, but the what of the meeting is duck/ductape slippers.

Duckmaster Betsey sends the following cryptic comments:

To bring:
Scissors
embellishments
A tracing of both feet (onto card stock then cut out. you can also add thin foam cut out to your foot shape if you want cushy slippers)
A sock stuff with something to imitate foot shape so that you can
build height of slipper with the duct tape
If you have interesting duct tape.
Otherwise I will bring some.

Google duct tape slippers to see the various methods.
Duckily,
Betsey

For those who may not be able to folllow the above, I'll translate:

Bring Sharp Objects, especially those encrusted with jewels. Or extra toes or buckles.
Bring your feet, or some cardboard cut the same shape as their bottoms. One at a time. If your feet are the same size, just make one and turn it over when required. Unless this will be the sole of the shoes, in which case two would be better in order to, like, walk.
To walk on clouds (if you don't want to stand on your hands and stretch way up), cut pieces of foam (or carpet, or Dr. Scholl's Gels, or lambs' wool, or pillows, or actual clouds) the same shape as your foot bottoms, or slightly smaller.
Make turkey stuffing and fill a sock with same, and mold it into the shape of your foot. No onions, that would be stinky. [If you had old shoes, you could mold them inside your shoes, then cut away the shoe part to remove the stuffed sock without distorting its shape - I added that part].
If the duck/duct tape you have in your closet, basement, wine cellar, duck pond or jewelry drawers is of sufficiently high quality (argyle, bejeweled, silken, yak-hair covered, etc.), bring it along to tantalize us and make us jealous.
Betsey will bring normal run-of-the-mill ducks and tapes.
Somebody called Google Duck made a tape of slippers, in an effort to visualize different types of same. If only we could find Google Duck and get his tape, we could get a better idea of what we're doing. Oh well.
Ductily,
Rebetsey of DuckyBrook Farm

SANE Tuesday

Plans are firming up for Tomorrow's meeting, where we will assemble
shoes (et. al.) out of duck (or duct) tape, Cher willing. More as owls arrive.
Feel free to wear one-way shoes to the meeting, as you'll no doubt have footwear for the trek home. I mean that. Sad to say, I really mean that.

More info coming. Hold that date. Now hold it over there.

SANE Meeting Tues 22 March 2011

Five of our intrepid cold-resistant members drove out through the ice-islands to park on the glaciers in B-mont in the sub-freezing chill of last Tuesday (one lived there), and half busily chopped and sliced and got their grunge caught in the wringer of Pam's glorious and durable Sizzix machine, whilst the other half chatted amiably and munched excellent cookies and nibbled bon-bons whilst recovering from frostbite. A good time was. By everybody, even. All hail Pam the hostess, who was then taking on a passel of Gurl Sprouts on Wednesday. Oy!

Next month, due to overwhelming demand, we will be creating Duck/Duct
Tape objects. The lead candidate is Duck/Duct Tape Shoes (and there is rumor of embossed grunge paper soles - oh, rapture!). Betsey will be in charge of getting all our Ducks/Ducts in a row (before taping them). Bring your own favorite color of Duck/Duct Tape (quack black, mallard mauve, mandarin mahogany, etc.) I'm going for teal teal, myself, as it matches my duck's eyes (or ducts). More info will be forthcoming, if there is any info to be had. I suppose we should bring scissors, tape, ducks. If you don't have ducks, bring shotguns, hunting rifles and hound dogs and we'll rustle some up at the start of the meeting. And if you're going to make shoes, bring your feet!

P.S. Don't forget Flip's show, or Mary's which I know next-to-nada about. Golly, with eye-catching plugs like this, I should go into PR (I mean Puerto Rico).

SANE Meeting Tues 15 Feb

Thanks to the hard and late-breaking efforts of SANEsters other than my own lazy self, we've got an interesting meeting coming up, this very Tuesday, 15 Feb 2011!

Pam A has graciously offered to host, bless her pointy little cranium, and the action will revolve around the Sizzix die-cut machine and punches and chipboard (perhaps for underneath a punch?) and Tim Holtz fadez/texturez and grunge paper and thicker paper and metal tape. Betsey will preview Tim Holtz demos on her magical tablet which talks to the starz. Beyond this I don't know what.

So bring your punches and Sizzix dies and thick paper and grungy music and holey moley and we'll all have a bonfire or a picnic or a hoe-down. You can't keep a good hoedown! There's a better "punch"-line in there somewhere.

If someone else would like to be more clear than I, pls fire away. Elsewise, see youse in B-town at 7-ish on Tues-day.

Rabbit Punch

P.S. If you missed the opening of Flip's (well, others are involved, too) "Astatic" exhibit at MassArts, it'll still be there and operating thru March 5, and the Bakalar gallery on the first floor of the South Building, a few little blocks from the MFA, and the hours are Mon-Sat 12n-6p, and on Wed. it's open 'til 8p. It comes highly recommended, and tall people (like adults) are advised to bring a stool or kneepads to view Flip's lowest works yet. Music by Duncan, an up-and-comer in the music biz, or whatever that will turn into by the time he's outa college.

Stick Figures Die! Die! Die!

Four intrepid SANEsters got a glimpse off the turmoil behind each others' eyeballs with the Stick Figure Cartoon Jam, which saw character after simplified character cut down, torn apart, leaping off ledges, stuck with knives, etc., only to come back again, bloody and bandaged, for more. All the time, apparently, that Pres. O was trimming the budget and cutting Congress down to size, only to have them rise up again. I dunno about that last bit, I'm still a tad weary from all the cartoon carnage. We did have fun, and were remarkably quiet whilst working, before we then began the gossip about all the missing SANE members who'd declined to attend. Just a word to the wise - it's a lot easier to defend your honor if you're actually at the meeting.

The next SANE meeting will be Feb 15, one day after Valentine's Day, so by gum, you're on your own as far as making creative VD gew-gaws for your significant others. Don't know what we'll be doing yet, though, so suggestions will be welcome. It's possible we decided, but I didn't have it wrotten down in my notes, and it's been entirely too long for me to remember unassisted.

Have a wonderful snow storm, drink plenty of hot chocolate, and I'll send out more info once we decide what the heck we're doing on 15 Feb.

Look out for that octopus!

Meet on 25th !!

SANEsters,

Sorry I've been a tad distant, had a nephew's wedding Satday in DC, and by the time the Pats were cementing their loss on Sunday, our flight back home was cancelled and we were getting vouchers to what claimed to be the best Crowne Plaza hotel in N&S America. Got home this a.m. early and have been spacier (okay, spacier than usual) since.

The feedback I've gotten says the same people who can't make the 25th also can't make the 18th, and since it's so close to the 18th and our hostess needs to prep*, I'm making an executive (as in pointy-haired boss) decision (as in coin toss) that the next meeting is on the 25th, not 20.3 hours from now.

* Not to mention the influence of the weather, since we're due to get another flop of flakes with a dollop of dew tomorrow, which would put the kibosh on parking, if not driving.

So sorry to be such a delinquent, but that's what happens to JDs when they grow up.

Pam has graciously offered to host, so on Tues 25 Jan 2011 at 7ish, we'll meet at Pam's spacious DR and... what'll we do? Still liking the Stick Figure Storybook Jam idea, myself. Since we have a little more time, if you have another idea (Leslie's sketchbookchallenge can be optional, or do-it-yerself, but will be around a year and seems a shame to do if Leslie can't make it.

For them what forgot already, here are brief descripts (from previous email) of the two project options on the table:

Stick-figure storyboard jam: start with paper with boxes, like a comic strip. Everybody starts with one, and draws in one of the boxes, using stick figures so the artistically challenged won't feel pressure to perform. They we pass the pages, and draw in another box, etc., until the boxes are filled and the stories are told. Do we fill in the boxes from left to right? Do we add dialog in the boxes? Do the sticks have to look like real sticks? What flavor jam do sticks make? All these are good questions, except for some of them.

sketchbookchallenge.com: upload a sketch, you can win one of the monthly prizes (the winner is chosen at random).

Re: Hey, let's get the gang together and put on a meeting!

Another meeting orption would be this coming Tues 1/18, which is kinda short notice because I procrastorated so badly.

We'd need a volunteer for the hostin', on either day.
R

On Jan 13, 2011, at 8:26 PM, Leslie wrote:

Hi everyone,

I no can make the meeting on the 25th!  That is midterm week @ the high school and I am doing some tutoring. I like the idea of the stick figure story board.
If you all do it, have fun.  If you don't do it, you can still have fun w/o me.

I usually cannot make the last tuesday of the month.

See you in Feb I hope!

Hey, let's get the gang together and put on a meeting!

Well, we never decided upon a new meeting time... I propose we meet Tuesday 25 Jan 2011, in hopes that some of the snow will melt off the sides of the streets by then... I had a brief planning discussion with Batsey, who shall remain nameless, and one idea we came up with was a stick-figure storyboard jam (where we make jam out of stick figures, and use our fingers in the jam to make stories on boards?) No, we have pieces of paper with boxes, like a comic strip. Everybody starts with one, and draws in one of the boxes, using stick figures so the artistically challenged won't feel pressure to perform. They we pass the pages, and draw in another box, etc., until the boxes are filled and the stories are told. Do we fill in the boxes from left to right? Do we add dialog in the boxes? Do the sticks have to look like real sticks? What flavor jam do sticks make? All these are good questions, except for some of them.

Leslie (who shall also remain nameless) has just sent out an email, which says:

Hi everyone,
Happy New Year! Check out sketchbookchallenge.com - if you upload a sketch, you can win one of the monthly prizes (the winner is chosen at random).
I met Sue Bleweiss who is running the challenge. Looks like fun. Lots of tutorials, too.

So check it out - that's a possible meeting idea, too also. Lemme know what you think about the date (1/25) and project (stick figure storyboard jam, sketch book challenge, some other idea from the past, or another idea sprung Athena-like from yore brane.

Stop shoveling and get some sleep!