Locally made and resourced bags for: Tarot, Runes or Stones.

1. Black Velour with Tibetian Prayer Flag inside and detail 

2. Maroon Tarot Bags and up close detail. These seem to be a favorite.

 

3. Red Velvet and Black Velour Tarot bags and detail.

4. Pink and teal tarot bag detal.

5. Pink Satin and Blue Cotton (star fabric and reversable) Bags and Detail.

6. The Compilation of the different bags for tarot, runes and stones. Or whatever bags are needed for.

Update on the Magickal Scrappery

The last month has held alot of changes for me, changes in places, mind sets, people, direction. Or maybe not, maybe it has all been a clearing of my mind- the clouds lifting and leaving me relearning to play.

Out of this lifting fog has emerged new boundaries for myself.

1. I need more alone time than any other Gemini on the planet.

2. I need to be allowed to play- especially by myself.

3. Just create- stop worrying about the end result- and start sewing, glueing, cutting, twisting, tying off, locating, and laughing. The results seem to find themselves.

The results: Two different shops willing to consign my tarot bags, my traveling book alters, my clay poppets (sympathetic magicks), and one of the shops wanted my handmade Books of Mirrors. *shrugs*

So, you can find my items in Portland, OR at either of these two shops:

1. Fantasma: An Alter Space- The owner, Jess, is fabulous and has a very interesting selection of bones and Day of the Dead style items.  On NE Alberta St. and about 24th.

2. Queen of Cups. Located at Mississippi and NE Killingsworth. Jodi. the owner, now possesses the widest array of my magickal pieces: tarot bags, a traveling book alter, poppets and books of mirrors. Check her out. She also does tea readings for $20 bucks.

Other shops I’m looking into this week: New Renissance, Essential Elements, and Spirit Feathers.

Other plans:

1. To open an Etsy account, after I make another 25 items, and list them on there. Details will be posted when that happens.

2. To begin giving tarot readings at Saturday Market, near the concrete pier, on the sidewalk, from 8- 12ish. The readings will be sliding scale, so if you’re interested, come track me down. I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone I am uncomfortable reading for. $1-5 for a 3-5 card spread, and $5-10 for a full spread.

3. Friday nights from 6-9, starting this Friday, June 11th, 2010, I will be giving tarot readings at SouthEast Grind, on SE Powell and 14th ish.  I will be doing this for a month trial period. Come over, have some kawfee made by the best barista’s in town, and get a tarot reading. First card’s on the house. *grins*

Well loves, that’s it for me. *grins*

Looking forward to seeing you around.

cutting, painting, posting, glue-ing, etc.

 feel like making a zine today.

I feel like cutting up glue, pasting pictures over words, words over pictures, stealing other people’s artwork and making my own. Did you know if you change someone’s art work by a little over 10% it counts as yours? What a number. Art is not protected. Though I have made the decision to not protect my own art, both on deviantart.com, on my blogs, and in life.

I have such a problem selling my pieces, not for lack of interest, people are always interested in fucked up shit, but for lack of a willingness to give pieces of me away like that. Right now, on my wall in the apartment, I have all my favorites up. The living room wall is full of color, of body panting pieces, of drawings, sketches, little pictures I doodles of waitresses in Lucca, Italy. Bit by bit, moments of me.

I added on my art major this year, which adds up to three majors and Nora graduated from WSU in May 2009. I’ll still be here, doing things, learning. I added on the last major b/c I couldn’t go any further by myself. I have these pictures in my head, these paintings, which I can’t replicate because my painting skills aren’t as good as the paintings I have in my mind.

Heidi is going to teach me, this semester or next, how to build my own canvases. I have these large scale painting in my head, my size or bigger. I need all this room to get things on the canvas, and there’s no room on the small ones.

Still, I’ll be drawing after I shave my legs today, one more uncommon than the other. I’ll be cutting. I’ll be pulling out all the poetry and fiting it onto to page. Or i won’t. because my poetry falls flat. falls down and feels hopeless. Not everyday, just now.

September Update

What an experience, updating everything today, catching myself up on 3 or 4 years of not paying attention to the internet sites I set up. It feels like I’ve managed to spread myself out everywhere in the last while, so I don’t even know where I start and end.

 Today updated:  livejournal, deviantart, wordpress, blogspot, myspace, yahoo, and a few of my links on each of the sites. It makes me feel like I’ve stopped being an artist, b/c I can’t keep up with myself. I know this isn’t true, I’ve just been very very busy. My next goal is to figure out how to manage all the sites I want to work with, to the best of my interests, without getting overwhelmed. A lot of stuff is being tossed in the crapper. Congrats to the stuff which survives and good riddance to my lovely fall house cleaning. Goodbye most of my deviant art journals. *laughs* What awkwardness to find an entry talking about getting married when I am most defiantly boycotting marriage, especially the heterosexual type.  Guess what self, people change. Even me.

celebrate women artists?

Kitty B. found this in a modern art book from the Guerrilla Girls. Then, she posted it on facebook. I stole it. Enjoy

1. Working without the pressure of success.
2. Not having to be in shows with men.
3. Having an escape from the art world in your four free-lance jobs.
4. Knowing your career might pick up after you’re eighty.
5. Being reassured that whatever kind of art you make will be labeled feminine.
6. Not being stuck in a tenured teaching position.
7. Seeing your ideas live on in the work of others.
8. Having the opportunity to choose between your career and motherhood.
9. Not having to choke on those big cigars or paint in Italian suits.
10. Having more time to work when your mate dumps you for someone younger.
11. Being included in revised versions of art history.
12. Not having to undergo the embarrassment of being called a genius.

rape culture leaking out of the collective subconciousness

In our class discussion today, on the reading, “Fraternities and Collegiate Rape Culture,” on how atmospheres in fraternities can be conducive to the rape culture, and instead of being able to get past the fact that it’s the atmosphere’s that create rape culture along with patriarchy, under capitalism by forcing men into these “man boxes,” we as a class had to keep explaining, “it’s not the fraternity, it’s the atmosphere,” It’s not just men, it’s a system, we’re not blaming all male persons for rape,” to classmates. *sighs*

 

I don’t want to be down on them, yet I feel like(at least the last couple of days) that they aren’t doing the readings, or even made it out of any of the prerequisites required for the class, with anything other than a grade. When they do the readings, it seems as if they’re personally offended at having to reconsider societal notions of  rape. One of them said(and seemed to firmly believe) “Well, we shouldn’t blame the men for raping, when oftentimes women lie about being raped.”  .   .   .   .   .  

 

Thousands of things spring to mind to retort. A retort isn’t what’s needed though, a mindset change is what’s needed in this situation. *makes a face* Even women piss me off, especially when women buy into oppression for themselves and others and defend the oppression as “no one’s fault.” (Statically, lying about rape happens the same amount as people like about any crime, such as selling a computer then reporting it stolen, 2-4% of the time.) Yet, the societal consciousness is that women lie about being raped when they’re ashamed to have slept with the man, or regret it the next morning. Also, rape is only reported about 1/3 of the time that it happens, so rape is more prevalent than we even know and highly stigmatized in society, often blaming the victim.

 

Its such a frustration when it seems like those in the learning environment aren’t learning and we have to stop and keep explaining things to them, instead of moving past the basic vocabulary. It’s not that they can’t learn, it seems they’re deciding not to learn in favor of hanging onto their deeply set stereotypes and opinions. One of the girls, fuck if I know her name, said the research in the article wasn’t adequate from a biological standpoint. Well, seeing as the method of research was laid out in the paper, (not often done in articles) and assumptions were left to the reader, it seemed like well done research on this particular college(unnamed university) even if I don’t think the idea of fraternities being small rape cultures are generalizable to all fraternities, I think what the author pointed out about atmosphere lending to the attitude of “to rape, or not to rape” is generalizable. When the music is turned up, the lights turned down, and settings for conversation are removed, the purpose of the party is dramatically different than in a comparable situation where the lights are on, the music is background and people are encouraged to conversationally mingle.  

 

Then, in the second reading, “The Anti-Rape Rules” the author considered himself an ally of women who’ve been sexually assaulted, or raped. The article pointed out some really good points about what to do if someone you know has been raped such as:

1)      Believe her

2)      Trust her choices

3)      Take the hard road when necessary

 

It explained rather well how it feels to be man loving women who’ve been sexually assaulted or raped, yet still was problematic in the language he used about “letting them make dumb or hurtful choices,” because of his judgment on their decisions as well as his idea of “letting” women make their own choice. It’s a very parental, protective view and I understand the tendency to be over-protective when someone loved has been hurt, yet still, they own themselves and they need to be allowed to control not only who knows about the rape or assault, but they need to be trusted. Also, women don’t need to be viewed as asking for it, and often in an attempt to regain control and autonomy they re-label themselves as survivors instead of victims.

“I’m a three pad man!”

A bit of a playful article from Gloria Steinem on “If Men Could Menstruate”  reminded me in my gut of some of the truthful aspects of male privilege in a lighthearted manner. Personally, I appreciate the laughter from the article, the poking fun at masculine domination and how women’s bodies, through menstruation are viewed as “unclean” and how if men menstruated, menstruation would be viewed as another way men are superior to women.  It’s a satire example of how it is not menstruation that proves a problem, instead it is women’s bodies.

http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/steinem.menstruate.html

I wonder if men could menstruate, would they also reproduce children?  The article doesn’t address reproduction, just the blood flow and how it would pertain to hegemonic masculinity.  

from the side of the oppressor

The last two days have been filled with triggers triggering the pieces blowing off of me. Yesterday, everyone seems ready to kill kids, queer kids, my kids, and all of us. I find it so hard to articulate my thoughts, when I can’t slow them down enough to catch. I’m chasing and chasing these thoughts, knowing if I just hold still, these thoughts will come to me. Come and curl up next to me. Purring as they reassure me, of how I can be, or what I could be. But aint.I aint good enough, aint strong enough, aint smart enough to give up. No matter what these people are saying and even when what I’m saying aint flowing I aint stopping. Because I can’t. I can’t stop or pause, or press resume on the DVD of my memory, I just keep going.

I lost the remote, she lost the remote, maybe the goddamn thing didn’t even come with a remote, I sure don’t remember directions.

Directions to turn on, plug in, blue parts, red parts, yellow parts, all connected by black chords reminiscent of the chords I see on the honors graduates and in the history of my country. Chords to tie back scalps, taken from our “Indians,” chord to tie off air from the blacks- for daring to look up, look back, or just open their eyes towards a white woman.

And in this white woman body of mine, I look down and see… I see skin, flesh, amongst my anatomy of scars and strips left when my lovers haven’t been good enough for me. In my body, I see colorblind racism, as I’m loving her olive skin, I see colorblind racism as I’m recognizing what it took for me to get in—

To a place where all I see around me is me, and I don’t have to think about who my forefathers were, it’s the dominant history. I am not anti-racist, I am not colorblind. I don’t know what it’s like to reconseptualize everything about my ancestry, when nothing I see represents me.

Because everything I see represents me. My history is learned into the palms of my hands, the deep red I burn when I stare at the sun too long, my ivory legs under thick brown hair, represent not only a part of me, but an accurate representation of America. America, the land that we love, the land of opportunity- for people like me.

And if I feel the need to change myself, there are so many ways I can distract my views and redirect my energy into who I want to be. My makeup come in flesh colored, and my nylons in skin, to cover up the hair I feel like drowning in.

I can’t say the same for you, even if I want it to. This is America. And we are not all born equal. Isn’t that as fucked up as it’s gonna be? No? then why are we protesting, rejecting and twisting the stereotypes of the different people we see? To change something? To reassure ourselves of diversity? Diversity means other, and other I can be.

Other in my ivory skin of lesbian and queer identity. Other in my views and distaste for monogamy. Other in who I choose to love, to fuck as I’m resisting these normative notions of sexuality. Yet, me being diverse is not what anyone would choose to be. Me being ahead and behind because of white, white, white, pale skin is not who I choose to be, or what I settle for in my fight for reparations for ones not me. Me falling behind because of who I love and who loves me, is something I’ll fight to fuck up in this fucked up, heteronormative, capitalist society. I’ll rip off the pieces I can reach of my internalized position as an oppressor and say look… I’m ragged and not perfect, fuck off, here’s me.

 

[gender game]

 

“Yes, we are Deconstruction Workers.
We are exposing unfounded bedrocks
That bed us to one sex, that wed us to one gender.
We are overturning those stones,
We are throwing them back.
We are making revolution
A gender evolution.
We are invoking strategy, we are revoking shame.
And we are calling it. We are calling it
Refusal to be Named.”

-Alix Olson