Tuesdays with Elders - Legal Eagles

My great uncle Manny carved the Eagle statue
 now outside of Boston College.

With temporary guardianship/conservatorship in hand, I was bothered by the fact that Ma never had a chance to have her say about what was happening to her. It didn't seem fair.I knew it wouldn't change the outcome, and personally, I didn't agree, but as her guardian, even a temporary guardian, it was my obligation to protect her rights.  I asked the State attorney if the Court could appoint an attorney for Ma.

My wish was granted at the August hearing and the temporary guardianship/conservatorship was extended. The Court would revisit the case in November. At the November hearing, I got to meet Ma's attorney though I had spoken to him several times on the phone. At the November hearing, Ma's attorney asked for a continuance as wrench got thrown into the works. (That's a story for another time.)

Ma's attorney explained to her the Court would appoint a guardian/conservator and since that was going to happen, it might as well be me. At the January hearing, I was finally granted permanent guardian/conservatorship. The entire process took nine months.

While I could have done without the added stress and the trips back and forth to the courthouse, I'm glad Ma had  legal representation. It was the right thing to do.

Crazy Shoes

The past couple of Friday mornings my friend, A. and I have Skyped an art session. While working on small projects, we chat.

My project was creating a pair of crazy shoes. I picked up a pair of inexpensive canvas sneakers and took the Sharpie Stained markers to them for fun, wearable art.

The fabric markers are so much neater to use and more convenient than fabric paints. An appeal to my anal side. 

Want To Play?

Would you like to be an Artist in Residence du Jour at the Worcester Art Museum? You can find all the details and contact information here. All visitors are encouraged to give it a go, not just professional artists. Give it a go. You know you want to.

What? You don't live close by? No worries. Part of the collection has been digitized and put online. Visit the Online Galleries to find your inspiration and then follow the details and contact information above.

Have fun!

Spring Cleaning

Spring is here, finally, and that means the cleaning hormones are starting to ramp up. Time to give the home environment a facelift. That goes for the virtual home, too.

I have a new webpage and domain name. My old webpage was hosted by Yahoo. In the beginning they were great. Easy to edit templates, webmail with the domain name, and all the marketing goodies you want. Here comes the but...a few months ago, the webpage editor started giving me headaches. A simple change of description and fonts sizes changed all over the place, or font color. The editor would only work with Internet Explorer which I hate and Firefox which I'm not overly fond of. I like Chrome. Since Google and Yahoo are competitors, they don't play nicely with each other.

May is the month my subscription ran out so it was the perfect time to look for a new home and a new domain name. As much as I love ponyexpressgraphics.com, it was a lot to type. And it should have been ponyexpressstudio, but for some reason, my fingers typed graphics and hit enter, before I could correct the mistake). Marketing articles and tips I read screamed "brand your name". Do you know how many Kennedys there are in Massachusetts? Someone had the nerve to take cjkennedy.com. Now what to do? Something has to be appended. Don't use numbers. Use something that defines your business. Calligraphy, Lettering, Lettering Art. All too long. Pen. Maybe. Ink. Ta-da! My new domain name is cjkennedyink.com

Researching top webhosts brought me to ipage.com. The day I went to check them out, they were running a special so the price for two yeas was über cheap. They offered unlimited bandwidth, disk space, and email addresses, free domain registration, drag and drop templates, and an anytime money back guarantee.

I do have to say that customer service with Yahoo was great. No pressure or a million questions as to why I wanted to end service with them. I just had to verify some information and a couple of clicks and ponyexpressgraphics.com was gone.

The new website was up and running in minutes. A nice, new, clean layout. Thought I would give the old blog a facelift, too. Comments about the new look (like it? hate it?) would be welcome.

The Friday Five

Jeff Dunham's buddy, Walter

Five things that chapped me this week.

1. Himself and I get our respective hair cut at the same salon. My hair is just a tad longer than his hair. We both get a wet cut. That is, head washed and hair cut. No mousse, goop, spray, set, styled or blown dry. His hair cut $18. My haircut $30. The salon raised the prices this week. His hair cut $22 and my haircut $35.

2. I went to by a pair of new jeans. If I stand up straight, I'm 5 feet 1 1/2 inches tall (though I lie on my driver's license and list myself as 5 feet 2 inches tall. Shhhhh, don't tell.) In either case, I need to buy trousers that are sized for petites, under 5 feet 3 inches tall. So clothing manufacturers, since when is a 30 inch inseam the right length for petite? A 30 inch inseam is for Amazon women, not Hobbits.

3. Target (or any store for that matter) when you have two registers open and 12 people in line at each one, open another damn register or two. Your clerks shouldn't be stocking shelves while people are waiting days to check out.

4. Michael's how about offering 40% off the entire order instead of one stupid item?

5. AMC you're supposed to show movie classics, but all you show are more commercials.

Want to add to my list?

In The Studio

And you thought all I would need would
be a pen and ink?

The afternoon session of my Artist in Residence du Jour was spent in the studio. The book had been prepared ahead of time for its use as a canvas. The last line of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne had been selected as the text. "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules" This is the blazon (the written description) of Hester Prynne's coat of arms. I had hoped to scribe the text on the last page of the story, but the book didn't naturally stay open on this page. The pages were painted with gesso with a touch of Titanium Buff to keep the look of the original aged pages. The edges of the book were painted with gold acrylic to simulate the gilded edges of old books.

The text was scribed using a 2 mm. Brause nib and Ziller Glossy Black ink.  In the book, the text was printed in uppercase Times New Roman. I'm working on my Romans and wasn't confident enough to use them in this piece so Uncial was chosen as the hand  or script I would use. (When talking about calligraphic writing the term "font" is never used. Font is for type, typography. Hand or script is the correct term for calligraphy. But you already knew that, right?) Uncial is a majuscule hand. There is no "lower-case" so this would approximate the uppercase text used in the book. The text was scribed on the verso page and then a large, modern illuminated A, in the style of Sherrie Kiesel, was drawn on the recto page and would be upside-down to the viewer.

A paper doll base was prepared ahead of time. The dress was a page from an old Worcester Museum Class catalog. It was painted Payne's Grey and folded with modification into an origami dress. An articulated arm was made, and a collar and cuff was glued from a scrap of eyelet trim.

While waiting for the ink to dry, I painted another tiny, illuminated A in a traditional style on a 1/2" square of black Canson Mi Tientes. When dry, the scarlet letter was pasted to the doll's dress. Baby Mary and Elizabeth's head were cut from the cover of the book and the doll was assembled. A wire stand is glued to the back. "Hester" will be positioned at the top of the recto page. The paper doll is roughly in the shape of a capital A and casts an illuminated, scarlet A shadow which is also Hester's coat of arms.

The day ended with the project 3/4 complete. The rest was finished at home. The illuminated "A" was colored with various red shades of watercolor pencil to simulate stained glass. The black field was painted with ivory black acrylic. 24 gauge, gold wire was bent and glued with PVA to form the flourishes of the illuminated initial and represent the mantling of a coat of arms. A small pearl bead was glued to represent Hester's daughter, Pearl.

Measurements: 8 1/2 in. x 7 in.x 5 3/4 in.

Wordless Wednesday

Saw this on Facebook