THROW SOME ON MOI!

[Related Posts: BLUE BLEU BLU and JAPAN TALES, both by Alice Brody]


Love those fabric artists!  New York-based quilter Alice Brody -- who's already contributed two books for SitWithMoi's "Books on Chairs" project (click on above two links for her books) -- has created fabric throws for the chairs!  To keep books warm!  Well, why not!  Here's the bounty:

Alice designed some of the throws for specific chairs.  I love how this silk throw picks up on the fabulous fabric of Mary Scheller's chaise lounge -- and lucky book by Ed Baker to be kept warm!

And I love how this throw's fabric picks up on the metal of this iron rocking chair:

And, yes, suddenly the authentic Mexican chairs have some throws to brighten up their untouched surfaces and to keep warm moi NOVEL CHATELAINE and jim mccrary's THE LAST WORD:

Last but not least, we've got another silk throw that picks up on the narra wood of this couch:

I am keeping the other throws folded on another chair until I decide which book they shall cuddle around.  But, thank you Alice!  For not just sending these over but having fun with the project too!

And let's remember what keeps books cold.  The chill comes from being unread.  Have you warmed up a book today?

THE ARTIST'S STUDIO

One of the side-benefits of Moi Fondness for this "Books on Chairs" project is how it allows me to pretend I'm also a visual artist.  This is no small thing.  The problem with being a poet is that your raw material, visually and physically, is boring.  It's words.  It's the invisible stuff within your mind (and soul, if you wanna go there).  But if you did a movie on a poet's life, you'd see that poet mostly writing on a desk or laptop, gazing into space, or doing research in books, or more common nowadays, just widening said poet's ass by spending hours in front of a computer screen.  Boring.  Sure, the stuff of life which can be exciting -- your judo practice, your nature hikes, your marches to and occupation of Washington, etc. -- are also part of the raw material of poetry.  But you still can't get away from how a poet's life includes much writing on a desk or laptop, gazing into space....do let me not continue: I'm boring moiself.  See?

But, as a sudden mini-book artist(!), I can have an artist's studio!  See, this is why I envy visual artists.  They could be doing nothing but gazing into the innards of their mind -- and thus look like they're just gazing into space -- but if they're in their studio, their lives still look exciting!  Because look around their studio!  They're surrounded by art-works, finished and/or in-progress.  They're surrounded by paint- (or plaster- or whatever-)splattered floors and walls. The only thing that gets splattered on my poet's desk is the oatmeal heaved up at some horrid poetic line. (Well, not really, but you get my drift.)  Even a visual artist's failure looks more exciting than a poet's failure -- that scrunched up or torn up piece of paper is a snooze compared to, say, a broken canvas flung at the walls by a frustrated artist (though the artist I have in mind but whose name I can't recall later would take a second look at her broken canvases, like what she sees, and then actually get an exhibit of her ... broken canvases suddenly become art). 

The detritus from a visual artist's process?  Way more exciting than a poet's.  I recall another artist whose name I can't remember (crap: moi mind is going ...) who kept tossing in a studio corner the masses of used up blue tapings that he used to help grid out straight lines on his canvases.  He then had the (successful) idea of also exhibiting what had become a large, blue ball of tape in the center of a gallery, surrounded by his paintings on the walls.  What a hoot.  What would a poet use with printed drafts of a poem (if they're even printed anymore and what evaporates obviously is even more boring visually than a crumpled up piece of paper)?  Well, perhaps 1% or .0000001% of poets can archive those drafts in some university library collection.  More often than not, they're recycled. 

Anyway, all this is why I digress from our usual programming to show you my artist's studio!  I ask my visual artist friends not to laugh or snort at Moi.  And of course it's a mini-studio because the subject at hand here is the mini-book!  So, first, this was my "studio" when I first began tinkering with mini-books:

If the above looks like a dining table to you, yes, it is my dining table.  It's cleaned up (haha) at the moment with just a smallish pile at foreground of image (ignore the geometry books on the background; they're my son's).  Before I got my studio, the whole table was taken over with various materials from my attempts to make my mini-books, which inconvenienced the rest of the family and especially Artemis the cat who likes to sun herself on the blue tablecloth.  Fortunately, I got an inheritance from Mom ... which became my artist's studio -- ta-dah:

Shall we take a tour?  Of course we must!  The first drawer below, then, shows finished mini-books I've made or received from e-readers (thank you and pls keep sending them!).  These are mini-books about which I've yet to write a blog post and, thus, are waiting to be shelved on mini-chairs:

The next drawer shows material more readied to be of use, like potential mini-book covers:

The next drawer contains mostly stuff from moi daily life -- and mostly snailmail -- that can be recycled into mini-book materials such as covers and illustrations. These include this past Holiday's greeting cards.  But as you can see, it's almost impossible now for me to throw away an art exhibition announcement as the illustrated art and card stock are so perfect for mini-book covers:

The next drawer is for miscellaneous stuff that are or may be useful:

And the last drawer contains fabric scraps I discovered while cleaning Mom's room.  I suspect they will be of use sooner or later.  I've already made a chaise lounge pad from the black fabric imprinted with roses.  I've also used a scrap from the same fabric for another mini book I edited for Susan Yount, MESSAGE MASSAGE, which will be the subject of a future post.

For now, these stacked drawers will do. But I suspect I might have to expand my studio -- one of the interesting results of looking at the world as a visual artist using found material for her mini-books is that, suddenly, you don't leap to trash or recyle many things.  You are always looking at stuff wondering if you can use them, somehow, for a future mini-book.  I like that effect, to wit, if image is of profound interest, suddenly so many things that I might have deemed before as mere trash become a source of possibility.  I believe that goes along with refusing to look at the world on only a utilitarian basis.  That's a perspective, of course, that is like Poetry: it can apply to ... everything.

I hope you have enjoyed this tour of my mini-mind, um, mini-studio.

THE SECRET by E.R. TABIOS (AN UNREADABLE BOOK)

Because of the Richard Odom Stool (click on link and scroll down for a second, updated stool version), the hubby decided to give me an early Valentine's Day Gift:

Haha.  Anyway, just as I was about to recyle them, the Muse paused my hand and made me take a second look.  After said second (then third) look, I did this:

Why did I do that?  Because I suddenly remembered a review of a book I published in Galatea Resurrects, an online poetry review journal that I edit.  Unfortunately, I can't remember the title of the book (though if you want to obsessively read every article in Galatea Resurrects' past 19 issues you no doubt will come across it).  The book was unique in that you couldn't open it.  That's right: an unopenable, thus unreadable, book.  When you peer at it on its side, you will see pages of text.  But it was designed like my crude drawing below so that it could not be opened:

Okay, of course I know better.  So I did start going through the Archives of Galatea Resurrects and, whew, finally found the review I was thinking of in the 11th issue!  The review is by Eric Gelsinger and is of Tawrin Baker's book, So That Even (House Press, Bloomington / Buffalo / Philadelphia / New York City, 2008).  You can click HERE to read the review but, meanwhile, here's an image of Tawrin Baker's book that would come to inspire me nearly five years after I heard of it:

Memory is interesting, isn't it?  If you compare the drawing to the actual image above, you'll see how much my mind "edited" the actual...

Anyway, so I decided to use a slice of that ex-toilet paper roll to become the book cover of a similar such book.  Naturally, I would have to use a title with the word "secret," and after much thought (at least a couple of seconds worth), I decided to title my newest book:

     THE SECRET TO HAPPINESS

Then, I had to write it.  I cut out a strip of paper that could later be folded within the cardboard roll.  I chose a yellow-gold paper because color is a narrative (it is!) and I wanted to symbolize the Buddhist color of enlightenment.  I also felt yellow and brown to be a pleasing visual combination.  I also wanted to blather more on all this ... anyway:

Then, yes, I did write out the text as regards the secret to happiness:

Well, oops: did the scissors inadvertently hide the secret?  Sorry...but to go on... I then inserted one end of the paper into the cardboard roll.  Then I stapled one end for binding:

I stapled the other end of the cover, too, so as to prevent a reader's finger from slipping into the roll to coax out the paper bearing the secret of happiness (hah).  After writing the title, the book's "front" cover looks like this:

If you look at its side profile, you will see the interior text which cannot be read because the book cannot be opened.

Now, where shall we "shelve" this mischievous book?  But of course!  On one of the Mab Graves stools!

As for the secret to happiness?  Well, it's in more than one of my books, actually.  So since you can't read this one, you could always check moi others ...

  

INTRODUCING "THE RICHARD ODOM STOOL"!

Poet and Lacan-Aficionado John Bloomberg-Rissman is thoughtful and always thinking of Moi.  To wit, he recently sent me this blog post by Lisa N. Guenther, "Reading Plato on Death Row."  The article discusses a discussion group at Nashville's Riverbend Maximum Security Prison involving prisoners on death row and philosophy graduate students. At one point, Guenther cites Foucault considering "the possibility of shaping one's existence through aesthetic practice."  Foucault is quoted from a 1982 interview as saying

This transformation of one’s self by one’s own knowledge is, I think, something rather close to the aesthetic experience. Why should a painter work if he is not transformed by his own painting?

From that question, Guenther discusses how many of the prisoners are or had become artists:

Everyone in prison is an artist, it seems.  They paint, they draw, they write poetry, they tattoo themselves and others.  When they don’t have access to standard art supplies, they become even more creative, using toilet paper or white bread to create papier-mache sculptures, or scraping the pigment from M&Ms or Skittles to use as paint.  Richard Odom, a participant in our discussion group, makes doll furniture out of discarded toilet paper rolls.  He says, “Society has flushed us down the toilet, but we can still make something beautiful with the leftovers.”

It is through this discussion that I was introduced to Richard Odom's work; here's a photo of colored chairs and footstools he created from toilet paper rolls:

Odom's chairs are also featured in an exhibition entitled "Prison Galleries: Imagining Justice from the Inside Out" at Vanderbilt University's Sarratt Gallery. Here's another image:

I don't know anything about Richard Odom, but am inspired by how he turned to the objects within his environment and, from such, created art.  I was discussing this all with The Poet With Chairs the other day while she visited my studio, uh, dining room

and we decided we'd try to replicate his chairs since there are toilet paper rolls in the house. However, after considering the images and a toilet paper roll, I realized that a "chair" would be smaller than my desired 1:6-ish scale.  So I decided, instead, to make a stool.  First, I did this:

In looking at the result, I decided to shape a small back to the stool mirroring the circular curve of the toilet paper roll.

What was now needed was the seating pad.  Well, La Poeta y Yo looked around to see what we could use and we decided to create an upholstered seat from cotton balls!

So here you have it, Ladies and Gentlemen and Trans, the global introduction of THE RICHARD ODOM STOOL!  (Technically, Richard Odom-Inspired but let's get poetically minimal and make that moniker more punchy, eh!)

Once another toilet paper roll in the house empties itself into cardboard, I might take said cardboard roll and create a small, curved, braided back (which would be more in fitting with Mr. Odom's design).  Meanwhile, here's another shot at it (since it is, after all, such a photogenic thingie):

Now, I didn't need to hear the hubby's art criticism of moi stool ("anti-Platonic") to know I'm no Gerard Dago Jové.  Mr. Jové brilliantly makes miniature chairs (see his blog (en Espanol) HERE and the section on him at Tom Giannini's MiniatureChairman (in English) HERE).  But since La Poeta Con Silla is happy, Moi am too!

"The Richard Odom stool," proclaims La Poeta (with some of her To-Read-Books ever in tow--ever like Moi!), "is ergonomically correct for my back!"

Thanks to John Bloomberg-Rissman for writing to us about these fascinating topics and introducing me as well to Richard Odom as Artist.  Y'all should go buy John's VERY SMART BOOK!  And don't forget Volume 2 to said SMART BOOK!  Too bad I can't miniaturize them for "Books on Chairs"!
 

[Scale:  3.5" Height, 3" seat circumference, 3" from seat to floor.]

1/30/2013 UPDATE!!!!

Well, I kept being bothered by the back of the stool I made.  I just felt the back should be "braided" to really be in keeping with Richard Odom's design.  So, once a toilet paper roll emptied itself in the house (hah), I proceeded on such:

I next lined the inner side of it with yellow Post-it paper because I like the color combination of brown and yellow, to offer a more finished look (insofar as one can "finish" this toilet paper roll stool),  and to offer a more "comfortable" side to the person who'd sit on the chair.

Then The Poet With Chairs tried it on for size.  It fit!

La Poeta is pleased, and she placed her own books on the stool for the moment ...

I hope you've enjoyed this update since Moi lives to please Toi.

A CHAIR FOR A HEART

Yes, I have the token Playdoh project by my son.  He built me -- okay, he built it for a class project but gave it to Moi! -- what I consider to be a Chair For A Heart:

The cradle is Playdoh, the cushion is from cotton balls and the heart is papier-mache.  Here are the individual components:

Art Criticism Alert: The "chair" appropriately is a cradle rather than the conventional chair because of the subject matter's requirement of care, intimacy and love.  Equally appropriate, the cradle must come with an attached hand (brown Playdoh) to hold on to the heart.  The heart, interestingly, is not out of Playdoh but from the more fragile papier-mache material because the heart is, uh, fragile.  And that is your art criticism du jour; I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed blathering it.

Nota Bene: for some real art criticism albeit still in non-conventional ways (because Moi is non-conventional), feel free to check out my books MY ROMANCE or, in short story form, BEHIND THE BLUE CANVAS (the latter if you're feeling frisky). 

Synchronistically, my son was eating a pear the other day and he carved this out:

My son, my one and only son: he is my undisputed Heart...