This is to prove that I have been doing SOME work. Not a ton, but some.
I’ve cleaned and tidied though… and made another apple cake. Mainly cause I had a friend come over for the first time today and another is coming over for breakfast tomorrow and I’ve run out of Christmas sweets. I either gave them away or ate them…. Plus I needed to clear the table of projects so I put things away. Not entirely organised as I’d like, but thats a project I’ll have to get onto soon..
The recipe for the apple cake is here in a very old post. I no longer put the apples in the middle of the cake, I cut them up smaller and mix them in through and I like it much better. It might look complicated cause the list seems long, but its really easy.
Meanwhile there’s a lot of colour around my place at the moment. Mainly from these three plants:
My bougainvillea which obviously thinks its spring and has begun flowering for the first time. The little chrysanthemum to the right of it has the right idea: its winter so die.The hibiscus I’m babysitting for a neighbour, also a little confused I think. Its been flowering since November.This was a gift for Christmas and is the only one which is flowering at the right time.
That’s about it for now. Things to do, people to talk to on the phone since I can’t go out.
We’re still in lockdown, though some things have opened again. With restrictions of course. Some stores you can’t go into at all, you have to order online and collect only. Others, smaller ones, you just go to the door and ask for what you want. Still others may allow you in after sneaking a quick look around. I think this is in response to people needing to buy things other than food and medicine, but also to keep the economy ticking over even at a snail’s pace.
Meanwhile I tried to get photos of the latest finished dog sculpture. These are the photos I got:
Eventually they lost interest in the new object and moved on so I got these. Not the best background for this particular dog I’m afraid.
This little fellow is made the usual way with toilet paper rolls, cardboard, wire, newspaper, masking tape, air dry clay, DIY paper pulp. Then he was finished with decoupage using lovely scrap booking papers a friend gave me. Oh, and a little newsprint, cause, why not.
The photos don’t do him justice.
I’m loving my doggie shelf meanwhile…
Not nearly enough for an exhibition of course. Not yet. Loads more work to do. Never enough time.
Well, not when I spend lazy days napping in the afternoon.
Sheesh. I need more structure in my life again. A schedule. A timetable. Deadlines. I work well with deadlines.
I’ve had a total break for the last 3 days. Not one skerrick of work done. Creative work I mean. This evening I’ve done the tiniest bit on the latest sculptures, but besides that I’ve been socializing (as much as lockdown allows), emailing, Netflixing and napping. With my two best friends: Lainee and Eric.
Its been a glorious few days of rest.
Nice.
But its time to get back to work.
Tomorrow.
Till then I’m enjoying mom’s kolyvozoumi… Here is a recipe I found. I made it a couple of times in Australia – I love it. Its sort of like a porridge made from wheat. Hard to describe. You just gotta try it. Perfect winter food.
So there you have it. I’m off to eat some more kolyvozoumi and maybe read a while.
Eric is a very demanding kitten. Especially when I’m eating breakfast. I should never have let him sit on my lap when he was tiny, then never given him a taste of panettone. Now when I sit down to breakfast and coffee at the computer in the morning one hand is busy lifting him off my lap and plopping him on the ground constantly. Even when he has his own breakfast with a dab of butter on it. Even when I’m not having panettone. And the squire bottle doesn’t work any more. He takes it in the face and barely blinks. sigh.
I’ve created a monster.
Yesterday I tried the new WordPress feature of ‘Stories’. I was uploading the pics of the girls with their Christmas bandanas and thought “why not give it a try?” Turns out it didn’t let me add any text and you have to actually click on the one pic it shows to view the rest.
Not exactly what I thought it would be… Won’t be using that feature again.
So, Christmas has come and gone. New Years Eve has never been a big thing for me, and with lockdown, there won’t be much in the way of New Years Eve celebrations.
The greek tradition is families get together and play cards, dance, eat, etc, till midnight. Then they cut the Vasilopita which is a cake with a coin in it. Mom always made a walnut cake for NYE and it was delicious. Most cakes are plainer and often made like the Easter tsoureki (which I find to be a sort of boring version of Panettone. I’m sure Eric wouldn’t like it.)
At midnight dad would do the sign of the cross on the cake (to be honest until I read that bit on Wikipedia I thought he was dividing the cake into quarters in order to more easily slice it up!) and then cut a slice for Jesus, for our home, for our family in order of age, then for the rest of the visitors. There was a coin in the cake and whoever found it was meant to have good luck for the rest of the year. I got the coin for the first time ever in 2019 at a friend’s house. I took it to mean my move to Greece was the right one.
This year I anticipate some people will risk curfew and go to friends or family and have the celebration while most will stick at home in their own little family unit. Unless they lift curfew for that one night.
I’d say doubtful, but this is Greece so who knows.
Personally I’ll be home watching Netflix till I get sleepy. At least thats the plan.
Wow. Its been a busy day, but I got it all done and even had time to watch a Christmas movie before posting and going to my uncle’s place for dinner.
It was touch and go there for a while. My mother made plans (for me) without checking with me first, so I had to pick her up and take her to town, pick up her script and her medication (turned out the script was wrong so I had to go to the health center and wait to get a new script setting my whole day behind by about 45 minutes) so I had to skip going to the supermarket for chocolates before going to my uncle’s to wash and tidy Rosie, Spitha and Lainee. Then I had to rush down to pick up mom who was in a hurry (its always ‘now’ things have to be done), leaving Lainee unfinished so I had to finish her when I got home. I also had to stop at the supermarket at the busiest time and wait in line to enter and in line at the checkout. groan.
But I managed to finish mom’s little bag, make bandanas for the three dogs, wrap presents including little bags of shortbread cookies, and I’m all set for tomorrow.
I even took Lainee for a walk on the beach cause it was such a glorious day.
Though I have a real bad backache now. Hope its better by tomorrow.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas Eve and a great Christmas Day tomorrow.
I was going to bake shortbread cookies, work on my sculptures and make a little bag for my mom to carry her phone and flashlight in for her Christmas present. But somewhere along the line I got sidetracked and now its panic time.
This morning I cleaned the house and baked cookies and ate lunch then watched a Christmas movie and fell asleep on the couch and worked on my fish sculpture and started a new dog and cooked Lainee’s food and tomorrow I have errands to run for mom in town and Lainee and Rosie and Spitha to wash and dinner to eat with the family and now its 9pm and I haven’t even started the bag!!!!
And I don’t even remember if this is yesterday’s post or today’s… Is it day 45 or day 46 today? I think its day 46 and yesterday was day 45… I think I’m one day behind cause most days I leave it too late to post so I post the next morning and sometimes morning turns into afternoon and right now its night…
So… in the spirit of posting about every day during lockdown, yesterday I pretty much did the same thing, except I worked on the fish and dogs and made chicken and corn chowder and invited my cousin over for dinner. And I didn’t clean the house. I’m not crazy enough to do that every day. So maybe not exactly the same…
Lainee is not impressed with this ‘ignore Lainee streak cause I’m too busy’ streak I’m going through.
Eric is way more pushy. He’ll jump onto my lap as often as he likes and will sit in my chair if I get off it for a second.
Here is a preview of the newest dog…
Anyway….
I got stuff to do. I can’t sit here blogging all night!
I’m still creating, between doing things like seeing mom and family, cooking and preparing for Christmas. On Paros this year with the family instead of in Athens.
To be honest I prefer being here.
I bet Eric prefers me being here too. Next year if I have to go to Athens for Christmas I’m sure he’ll be ok with my neighbours caring for him, but this year he’s too young to leave outside even with a warm kennel to sleep in with his best friend Selina.
I took Selina to the vet again yesterday. Her respiratory infection is better but hasn’t cleared up so we gave her another round of antibiotics. If this doesn’t clear it up its basically become chronic and she will have to live with it her entire life. I’m hoping this will do the trick and I can get her vaccinated and spayed.
Meanwhile I’ve been working on my dog sculptures. Here are some previews. None of these are finished yet as I work on each one a little at a time then let it dry. I’ll start another before I finish any of these so I can keep working on things. Plus I’m still working on that fish…
You can see where I’ve gone over the first coat of rough DIY papier mache pulp with air dry clay to mould features and details and smooth the surface in preparation for whatever finish I decide to give each dog.
I should have something finished to share in the next few days although with Christmas and family obligations, who knows…
As we continue in our lockdown with very little light at the end of the tunnel, I find myself reading the odd article online and this particular article sort of played right into my ‘big questions’ posts of the last few weeks.
And now for my thoughts, cause I know you’re just dying to read them!
“Could behaving horrendously make the art better?“
One of the things we grow up believing (well, I did) is that artists must suffer for their art… that they are troubled people, live difficult lives and often die poor. At least that’s how it seemed to be in the past. Read My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok if you don’t believe me.
Artists are supposed to be moody and troubled in some way. Its the ‘creative’ spirit. You can more easily forgive someone for being a temperamental git if they’re gifted in a creative way. ‘Never mind him, he’s an artist/musician/opera singer’ will excuse a multitude of sins.
I always felt my being prone to depression was part of being an artist.
“Some link the unhinged mind to creativity, as if chaotic living might be evidence of a gift. But chaos doesn’t make for great art. Rather, it sells the artist as great.The wildman is what we devour in artist bios, much as we admire mafiosi on-screen. We who submit to the rules of society, repressing natural selfishness, view outlaws with a shiver of admiration. They enact our fantasies, scoffing at rules, earning respect nonetheless. Nobody relishes a well-behaved artist.”
Is that true? It is true that people see artists as being different – they’re expected to dress a bit different, not conform, be eccentric. If you’re not, then you’re just like everyone else, so how can you be more creative/talented/a genius?
When I was working as a graphic designer for years in office environments, I didn’t have to conform to the same business attire rules as everyone else. I was ‘a creative’… and as such people didn’t just accept me going to work with 102 ear rings in my ears and nose, wearing leggings with striped long socks, mini skirts and ripped Tshirts… they actually expected it.
So, right now I’m too normal to be an artist. There is nothing different about my look. Everyone has extra ear rings. Everyone has tattoos. So many people have nose rings, so dress funner than me. (Its a word if I say it is!)
I may have to dye my hair pink again in order to stand out!
“The industries of culture have a stake in perpetuating artistic myths because an idol is invaluable for marketing. It’s diabolically hard to sell a cultural product on its merits alone. Look around: Nearly all arts publicity is backstory. About the maker. About a work’s origin. About anything except that which was intended to speak for itself.”
And this quote puts into a nutshell what I was saying before about the ‘story’ attached to the work that makes it valuable. Its all about the story, not the work itself any more.
So its a natural extension to my ‘am I an artist’ questions.
I’ve had a busy few days and its not over yet. This week I begin painting some furniture for my cousin so that means I’ll spend mornings over at her house working. That will cut into my ‘at home’ productive time, but thats ok. I’ll still be doing something creative.
Plus it’ll give me a chance to see what I’ve left up at my uncle’s house in terms of wood scraps and see what I can make of them…
I’m still trying to sort out some kind of work space somewhere…
Meanwhile Lainee had a playdate with Morty yesterday and Eric discovered the washing machine…
I read an article yesterday which has got me thinking the big questions again, so beware… another big question post is coming soon.
I’ve got two more dog sculptures on the way and one almost finished. I made myself a new batch of paper pulp clay that didn’t turn out as good as the first but I think I fixed it.
I also received the new clay I bought so I can get on with things again.
There is talk that lockdown will be lifted on January 7 for a week, then back to lockdown. To be honest I’m not really sure and not even sure I see the point of it.
However, I’ve been trying to evict my aunt 1’s tenant for months now and can’t do it due to lockdown. I want it over with. The guy has been living in that house for 30 years and paying the same rent the entire time. When my aunt increased it for a few months years ago, the economic crisis struck and he talked her back down to the original rent. He also got my poor aunt to sign a new contract for 10 years at the same rent!!!!
My aunt always had to chase him for the rent and his share of fuel costs, which he apparently always paid eventually, but never on time. He made demands of her and mom but never let anyone in to fix the flat when there was a leak or something so the house has not been maintained since he moved in. He never opens a window, only one window of the 4 gets opened at all, and even then, only a crack. How do people live like that?
The law is on my side. We have a court order to evict him but of course with lockdown no one is enforcing it. Soon as lockdown is over he is out on his ear. He’s had plenty of warning but uses COVID as the excuse for why he can’t move out. At this point he again owes us 6 months rent and is using fuel to heat the place that mom paid for and isn’t paying for it. So he’s costing us every day he’s in there.
I have half a mind to shut off the fuel to his flat.
I want the place for mom. She needs it. She’s 89 next month and with her dizzy spells and mini strokes I do not want her going up and down flights of stairs to her house. I want her on the ground floor. So the tenant from hell MUST GO.
Sigh. I’m not the kind of person who puts people on the street, but he looks like he’s making no effort at all to move out and it will force me to do it. I was always prepared to fight this with him in court, but the court has decided in our favour. Now I just have to enforce it. As it is, mom wont be able to move in for ages since the house is probably a mould-fest right now and everything will need knocking down and rebuilding and replacing. Sheesh.
It will be a huge and expensive job to fix that place…
Anyone have any friends with violin cases who can make him an offer he can’t refuse?
This morning Eric joined Lainee and I on our morning walk: the short walk up the hill Lately Eric has been going out on the porch the minute I open the door (he loves it out there) and hangs around with the other cats till we get back. This morning he followed us all the way up and back. At least he knows the way home from there now I guess.
When we got back Cheeky was sitting on the window sill looking pretty.
Today I started a new dog and, as you can see, I have myself a new assistant.
I wonder what will happen when he’s twice the size and wants to sit in my lap or on my chest while I work…
I’ve decided to go a different way with Lainee’s issues for now by putting her on medication for her heart for 2 weeks to start with and see how that goes, then putting her on meds for her growths as well. Vet 2 said that a medication meant for drying milk has been shown to reduce the size of mammary lumps so we’ll try that. We’ll treat her and monitor the situation and hopefully her heart will be better and her lumps will be smaller and easier to remove when the time comes.
Other than that, not much to post about today. And I’m tired…. Its still early but I’ve had it. I’m going to bed!
junk4joy 