SANE Meeting 8 May 2007

SANEsters!

Sorry to have taken my bloody time in writing about the next meeting!
I'm a lazy slugabed, wastrel and ne'er-do-well, and shall never grow
up to account for anything. Well, I'll simply never grow up, and I'll
leave it there.

We did have a good meeting at Richard's (he said, lapsing into third
person), with four of us eight in attendance... not even a quorum.
Those who were unable to attend should remember that you're much more
likely to be gossiped about when you don't attend! At least when you
attend a meeting and are gossiped about, you can often try to deny
the rumors as they fly (tho, frankly, that rarely ends up helping).

A notice that the Somerville Open Studios will be held on May 5-6.
Bring your friends and wander the streets of Somerville, looking for
that elusive prey, the Artist. Bring binoculars and cameras, you
should be able to spot a few feeding or nesting.

The next SANE meeting/gossip opportunity is:

Tuesday, 8 May 2007, 7ish at Pam A's abode ?? * ??
* (Pam A had indicated that her house would be available on any May
Tuesday, so I'll make this leap of faith that she can host, and will
send another message confirming location closer to the 8th. Another
factor that might weigh in on location is whether this process causes
too much of a mess - so close to Open Studios, Ms. Molly's studio may
not be an option.)
Project: Ink-Jet Print Transfers

We ran through another list of possible projects for meetings, and
for the sake of possible inspiration, they were:

1) Polymer sculpter (Sculpey, FIMO, etc.). Would need a place with
good ventilation, so warmer weather would be adviseable. Tho today
hit 86, fer crissakes. But May could still be arctic.
2) Bingo - everybody bring a prize
3) Scrabble (everybody bring a tile?)
4) Another writing project
5) A round-robin poem.
6) Polaroid transfers

And the winner is... (drum roll, please).....

7) Ink-Jet Print Transfers. Ms. Betsey has some mystical equipment
that will convert ink-jet printer output (color or b&w?) onto wet
watercolorish paper (I think). The object for us is to
find/shoot/create something and print it out on an ink-jet printer on
non-archival paper (glossy works well, if you got it). The point is
to get a high-def image onto a textured paper surface that is
generally not compatible with printers.

I'm guessing all of this, really. Betsey may (again) wade in with
some instructions that are more definitive. Help me, Betsey-wan!

I also imagine you can only get one transfer out of a print (that the
act of transfer trashes the original). So if you feel the need to
make more transfers, bring more prints.

If you don't have access to an ink-jet printer, Betsey will bring one
that can read a variety of camera memory cards, so if you have a
digital photo and can bring the memory card on which it resides, the
printer will likely be able to print from the memory card. Note that
this doesn't restrict you to photos! If you create a work of art on
the computer, or can scan a hand-created masterpiece, you can save
them as .jpg files and copy them to a memory card... OR e-mail them
to Betsey ahead of time, and she'll print 'em out for you, or e-mail
them to me and I'll copy 'em to a memory card and bring it, etc.

As a confirmed Luddite, I will likely bring a cave drawing -- a slab
of sandstone upon which I have scraped charcoal images of a hunt,
with stick-figure humans in sweatsuits, waving slide rules, chasing a
pod of gas-powered vehicles off a cliff to their certain (but
off-rock) doom. I hope to be able to transfer this image to a leather
pelt.

More later. Or, as it is already late, more earlier.

Maurg the Cave Painter

SANE Meetin' Tues 10 April @ rlb's

SANEsters,

April has come in like an ice cube tray, and is slated to go out like
freezer pops left on top of the fridge by mistake. In the meanwhilst,
we'll have our meeting on Tuesday, and for a change, we'll be meeting
away from Pam A's humble abode:

SANE Meeting
Tuesday, 10 April 2007, at Richard's, howsabout 7-ish?

Pam will be undergoing a procedure Tuesday morning, so think kind
thunks about her, and we'll see her next month, all bright and shiny.
I'm not sure, exactly, but I think it has something to do with
gaskets or ring flanges. Ask to see the old parts, Pam, that always
helps avoid a scam.

The project for the meeting, as previously advertised, will be the
speedy oil change: bring your own oil and pan, and we'll be seeing
who can drain and refill their oil the fastest, with the least amount
of spillage on the living room rug. No, wait a minute, I have my SANE
calendar mixed up with my SAM calendar - that's my Sumvul Auto
Mechanics study group, that meets on alternate Thursdays on days
without R's in them. Sorry.

SANE will be making holy artifacts starting with tin boxes, or just
boxes, containers, cans, juiceboxes, or maybe rocks with big holes
drilled in 'em. Be sure to bring decorative and/or sacred elements,
like: pieces of the true Easter Egg, St. John's Wart (set off by
fronds of delicate St. John's Wort), price tags from Filene's
Basement on a bed of shredded receipts, etc. I have one of Oprah
Winfrey's toes, which I plan to display in a can of Dr. Steadman's
Toe Jam, nestled in a spray of toenail clippings (mostly Angelina
Jolie's - it was pretty easy to separate out Billy Bob's - his had
the clear polish, I suspect), so I know I have my work cut out for
me. Thank god for eBay!

Don't forget tiny-hole-cutting tools. I'll have teeny drills, but I'm
told that may leave a sharp lip around the edges. Or perhaps "a fat
lip along the ledges" - the cell phone reception was pretty dodgy.
I've pretty much ruled out "a short nap behind the hedges."

Consider days for the next meeting, too. Tuesdays in May are the 1th,
8st, 15rd, 22st and the 29nd, more or less.

Go Sox!

-R

Betsey offers further advice

Just a few additions to the list of things to bring:
Tin snips, if you got 'em and scissors
Super glue, if you are working with metal
PVA if you are working with a paper box or cigarette pack

I will bring jewels, tissue for edges (crumpled along the inside edges if needed), paper flowers and embroidery thread.

Basically, to put into english what Richard so kindly is trying to say, just bring a box, something to cover the back parts of the insides of the box and anything you might want to dangle from or add on to the outside of said box and the above list.

Richard responds: English is sooooo 20th-century.

SANE Meetin' 10 April

SANEsters,

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Boy Future from Report:

Back to the present:

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, 10 April (at a site TBD). 7ish, for a change.

We will be creating tin altars. Bring a decorated tin container, such as: a mints tin (Altoid/Velamint, etc.), a printed tin can, Band-Aids tin , a current license plate, a metal eyeglasses case, a metal 3x5 card box, an otherwise valuable antique tin toy, tons of thin twin tintypes, two terrified terrapins teetering toward ten ticklish tyrannosaurs, etc. Or, in lieu of tin, any container (such as, say, a cigarette box, small gift box, or a shoe box for very tiny shoes).

Then, bring small (tiny) fetish* objects with which to decorate your tin, and any wire and/or loops that could be handy to affix to the walls of the box.

Them what have tools for making holes in thin metal (Dr. Hoobie's Thin-Metal Hole-Maker, for example) should bring them. ... should bring the tools with them... you know what we mean.

Decorative gew-gaws and frou-frou are always useful, and consider bringing heat guns and/or glue sticks or glue-like substances. (Funny, you don't look gluish!) Rick-rack. Doo-dahs. Doo-dads. Doo-moms. Yo-moms. Betsey's example had teeny crepe-paper roses, which are probably fairly easy to make, but probably easier still to buy.

Things to ponder: What subject is worthy of your adoration and/or attention? A person? A politician? A cleric? Nuns in general? Generals in nuns? (eeuw!*) Childrens? Pets? The state of Massatwospits? Road Eyeland? Vermint? Do you want to create a salute to... flags? ... to Mother Nature? ... to Father Time? (or their progeny, Dust Bunnies and Old Dirt). Celebrate an old '60s Mustang, claw-footed bathtubs, three-toed sloths, tapirs, pangolins, pogo sticks, hula hoops (don't forget the "shoop" stuff), favorite body parts*, or a combination of the above: tapir body parts with hula hoops tooling down Vermint highways in a '60s Mustang with nuns on top.

The subject is the hard part: once you have that figured out, then collecting the decorative elements* will be a piece of pie... cake... cheesecake...  Hmm... a nod to desserts.

Richard - aka Present Dude

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* Keep in mind that we're all watching what you're doing, and will discuss it mercilessly (especially if/when you're not there), so keep that in mind when assembling your "fetish" objects. I mean, do you really want to be making an homage to, let's say, Pulp Fiction or Sister Rosa Restraints? No, I didn't think so.

P.S. A few sharp eyes (and tongues) have noticed that the winning entry in last week's Boston Globe Cartoon Caption Contest was mine truly (changes at the end of this week, look at bottom cartoon & captions -- see link at right). I get a free book! Huzzah!