The Pie Hole

So one fun thing that has happened recently is La Fiamma owner, Ken Bothman, asked the Circus Guild if they'd like to perform 3 nights a week in front of their new attraction, The Pie Hole. It's a late night pizza-by-the-slice business for the Thurs-Sat downtown crowd  looking for "after-hours" delicious eats. Wren and I decided to be one of the evenings' entertainers.

Wren (who also has a blog post about this) was a fire-juggling slice of pizza! "Get you're wood-fire, flaming hot pizza!" we would bellow.

I was in the warmest costume I could find... it was such a chilly night!

Wren was great at getting people involved. We taught juggling and rope tricks to the late-night revelers who were passing by... this guy with the anchor shirt and his lady friend hung out for almost an hour with us! Almost more impressive than their tenacity for learning, was their resilience or even disregard for the freezing temperature! All in all it was a great experience. So if you get a chance, check out the Pie hole at La Fiamma Thursdays-Saturdays from 11:30pm-2:00am! http://www.facebook.com/PieHoleBham

Adventures with Mylee

So recently I have been fortunate enough to hang out with one of my favorite people, Mylee.  She recently moved to Chico CA to pursue her dreams of opening a dance studio called Duende Dance Studio. I love the name.  Here's what Duende means... "It comes from inside as a physical/emotional response to music.  It is what gives you chills, makes you smile or cry as a bodily reaciton to an artistic performance that is particularly expressive".  What a great name for a dance studio, right?  Ok, and now here are a few snippets of our adventures.

This is us with our friend Zeek the trucker, receiving our gluten-free, smiley-faced, heart-shaped, snickers n' bananas pancake. Delicious!

A gorgeous view from our chilly California camping expedition.

Thrift store browsing makes for great photo shoots.  And this place called Funky Trunk was Awesome!  The owner, Sharon, makes and re-makes many of the super fun items there. Check it out if you're ever in Chico!

We went on a "find-free-fruit" adventure one day, as there is an abundance of fruit trees in Chico.  This fruit shown above is a persimmon. It was my first time trying one and it was delicious, kinda like a mango.  The boot tree was a bonus, we met the owner (donning a wicked-awesome x-mas sweater) who when asked who we were by her neighbor joked, "I caught these people trying to steal stuff!" When we inquired about the tree she plainly stated her husband was crazy. She was a hoot!

We drove to the Chico Community Observatory where we watched nature and ate burritos from her and Andy's favorite truck.  We saw ducks swimming, dogs running and chasing one another, and teenagers taking photos of each other throwing bigger and bigger rocks in the water while slowly undressing to their boxers.  Thank goodness for Mylees binocs! So big thanks to Mylee and Andy for hosting me and sharing in your adventures!

Christmas in the new year!

So this Christmas I had 3 celebrations. My family in Port Townsend, which includes the mom-prompted, annual family road trip to Wallmart (against my protest and local photo suggestions) for family photos (see below).  The rest of us gently protest and groan, playing our parts, but always have a fun time.  Our holiday is never short of heaps of food and fun-poking, and for gifts... enough socks to warm a swarm of millipedes.

One tradition we have is to take a photo of  "the kids", meaning my brother (Duane), sister (Darcy) and I in a sort of totem-pole pose.  It's been pretty fun to see the same pose over the years.  Here's this years.

After my family Christmas, Wren and I went to Hoodsport to be with his family in a cabin on the Hood Canal with snow and everything!  We did 2 puzzles, and various crafty fun things.  One of the fun craftys was making cards for people with their name and its meaning.  Here's an example.

I also was super excited to know that Wren still had his xmas card from a few years back that I gave him, and since I have been making comics and posting them here, I thought I should share this one!

All in all it was a pretty great Christmas. =)

Giving Thanks to the Humane

Thanksgiving, being the annual day of thanks, I can't help but think of all the lives that go un-thanked... like the turkeys and other animals who didn't make it, and many times, the un-thankful way of raising them.  As a way to thank those people and companies that care to treat their animals humanely, I'd like to link to a few sites that might be of interest for those hoping to make a change or just see some of what's out there.

Humane Treatment of Farmed Animals

The Animal Welfare Approved seal, from the Animal Welfare Institute, is used on meat, poultry, dairy and eggs that the nonprofit group has determined met their high standards for the humane treatment of farm animals. http://awionline.org/

The Certified Humane Raised & Handled label certifies that producers and processors have met certain standards set by Humane Farm Animal Care, an independent, non-profit organization. http://www.certifiedhumane.org/

Free Farmed Certified means that the farm from which the product comes has been inspected by the American Humane Association. http://www.americanhumane.org/

This website suggests the best way to support products from animals raised humanely is to know more about the supplier. Talk with your grocer about the products being sold. Buy from small family farmers who have proven that they have met specific guidelines. Check labels and look for Animal Welfare Approved, Certified Humane, or Free-Farm Certified products. Finally, make your preferences known to your local, state and federal representatives.

www.ncga.coop/newsroom/animal-treatment

Happy Humane Holidays!

Inspirational Comic Relief

So I've been inspired.  Wren Schutz has been creating comics on his blog for some years now, and I just happen to have made two for his collection (which I will share below).  They have been hand-drawn, then had a bit of sprucing or coloring (via computer) from Wren.  His comics are all computer drawn (though others have submitted to his collection as well using various forms of creation), so I decided to give that method a try.

Being my first time, this took me about two and a half hours.  I brainstormed this morning about puns, and liked the idea of heart beat as my theme.  I did some research on Wikipedia for inspiration and had a handful of ideas.  This is the idea that stuck.  To help with the overly-cleverness of this, here is some wiki info on the heart... the heart is self-exciting (it works by it's own cells making it happen, vs. muscles in your leg that need conscious or reflex-driven stimuli to work)... action potential is what is created from nodes and contractions that create and regulate ones heartbeat... therefore, this cartoon heart has to get moving, or "beat feet" (beat being what a heart does) to make itself work... Morgan has the word Organ in it, and Chambers because of the 4 chambers of the heart.  One caption was "Morgan decided to take up jogging after his mom said he wasn't reaching his action potential" and we all want to reach our potential, right?! So anyway, I've been having a great time using an learning Photoshop, so this was another creative opportunity for that.  And now, here are my two previous comics...

Wren added the background and color to this... on his blog he rates it like this... which I think is hilarious!

CAUTION! This week's comic is pretty tasteless. Or sacrilegious. Or in poor humor. Or all of the above. If you are the type of person who doesn't like hearing jokes that fit into any or all of the categories, you shouldn't read this week's comic.

The second comic I created was this one which I thought was definitely not in need of a warning, but simply  pretty darn cute.  Again, Wren added the color and background awesomeness.

So there you have it.  Maybe not enough for a book yet (which Wren has... do I sound like I'm in competition or what!?), or great enough to be begged into art school, but enough fun to continue at my leisure. So three cheers for comic relief, inspiration, team-work, and fun! Hip hip hooray!

Proud Employee of the Colophon Cafe

So working at the Colophon is awesome... Great boss (Dave), awesome staff, flexibility of schedule, and extraordinary guests. I've been serving there on and off for the past 6+ years! Recently Dave has asked me to create some advertising material and graphics for the Colophon... so here's a few of them.

 Our Dessert and Ice Cream menu... it goes on the table with other small ads about us and our neighbors (Village Books).  No one was interested in being the model, so it ended up being me (just in case you can't tell with my notorious disguise)!

This ad was running every other week in the Weekly for a few months.

Here's one of my favorites of the table tent inserts!  I just love the little graphic buddies (can't remember where I found them)! Did some color adding/changing and touching up on their sharpness to make it work.

This one was for the 2012 Fall edition of the Chuckanut Reader!  And I must say, for all of it's spiciness, African peanut soup is really quite relaxing..

This was a special occasion gift certificate that two lucky contestants won in a raffle at the Banunky Fun Force Show last year!  This is evidence of an awesome and good-humored boss.

And finally, this is a draft of what the Colophon Cafe's new website will look like!  I designed it (with Dave's input and main vision) and Wren will build it!  It's quite whimsical, with wiggling moustaches and all!  It was super fun, I drew the spoon (inspired by the artist who made the graphic buddies above), and the moustache in photoshop and Wren made them come alive!  I definitely love working in photoshop, and thanks to Dave, I've done it as a paying job!  Hooray for that, and hooray for the Colophon!

Sewing Quarters... and costumes!

Sew, I'm not really sewing quarters, but I have been living out at the Quarry for about two months now, and sewing projects are on my hit-list.  Since my previous living space was my van, the sewing machine set up is a bit challenging. Sew, here's the set up in the clown pod, it's under the bed!

If you look at the bottom left of the photo, you can see the zebra chaps I made (and posted about recently) in my costume pile.  Sew the next project was a request from my friend Vanessa, who is a hula hooper and lasso performer.  She wanted a red dress with fringe with a splash of pink (to match her pink lasso). Sew we found a dress of mine she liked that I would pattern one after for her... plus the frills of course.

FInding the right fabric and making a pattern are two of the hardest things for me, but thankfully I found this great four-way stretchy dance fabric and the pattern came out just great. Sew, after the pattern was made I stiched some front and backs together and then wanted it to be just right, so I went to a professional... my friend Amanda (Under Current Clothing/Tailor and Design).

She helped me with the surging and the perfecting... and the funning! And now, here is the final product!

Fringy, shimmery, ruffley and bouncy all in one dress! We may add more "western" looks to it if she wants more, but for now, it's a dress I can say I'm quite proud of to send off to my friend Vanessa Vortex, sew-eet!