holden dog portrait by teylor smith

a couple months ago i invited any budding artists to send pictures for our handmade/kids art gallery in the dog's room.

i heard rumblings via kid D that her daughter teylor was working on a painting, and what color was holden's old collar?

last week the anticipation grew via this mysterious instagram:

"We must have looked at one thousand images before she found one she felt like she could draw. She then practiced, and practiced and practiced. Tonight she finished Holden. This is your sneak peek."

look! it's little holdie feet! keep in mind that teylor is 6 years old. 6. Six. not even 7 yet.

and then it arrived! straight from oklahoma - behold!  the finished portrait of holden as a puppy!

how freakin adorable is this? she really captured his eager to please personality.

 

eli wants to get a closer sniff. 


 

all the dogs are very impressed and only slightly jealous. i am going to get a frame this week and hang it in a most honored and highly visible spot in the gallery.

thank you teylor! bravo! keep up the good work - you have real talent & your painting brings us so much joy!

kids art 3d printing spring pretzel

last week 2 nephews, my brother & sister in law stopped here amidst a 2 day road trip for a total of 14 hours and during the entirety those 14 hours it rained steadily and was under 50 degrees. it was great to see them nonetheless and they will have to come back and enjoy the outdoors soon. 

here is our ever-expanding gallery of kids' art and vintage cross stitch. if any of your kids want to be featured, please send away!

my friend who works for makerbot sent me a sweet box full of 3-D printed with "a corn based eco-safe bio plastic." 

we have labrador stoppers of many shapes, stretchy fun bangle bracelets, a hot pink unicorn cat, a dunny, and fantastic dog butt hooks in green and  -

nacho! already hung nacho butt for keys. phuckyeah!

 spring has really sprung around here. everything is changing like crazy. it's neon.

he sees cows

on thursday i found this heathered gray vintage 80's sweatshirt with an airbrushed picture of "Pretzel" the beautiful long haired long tongued dachshund dog. 

Supermama of Supermama vintage alerted me to the "mamie ringer t-shirt" on ebay. they're asking $5000 for it. i would be happy with 1/100th that.  "Pretzel" will be posted this week. 

 blisstexas bought this fun fiesta san antonio shirt from shv and posted a few pictures from the actual festival this weekend. it is awesome to see a shirt get a great new life! 

we have plants in the garden, and in pots on the deck. ferociously friendly nachos on steroids still. todos buenos!

catcher's butt

this is something my brother drew as a present for my mother in about the 4th grade, age 8-10.

my thoughts on the instagram uproar

haha get it? 

"my" thoughts?

my thoughts are jeff tweedy's thoughts. 

 i agree with them.

i relate to them.

i enjoy them.

i appreciate that he shared them.

it sucks to have intellectual property taken, without credit, without permission.

but it's kind of flattering that anybody is even interested at all. 

favorite colors

it's a landslide of blue!

this is from 4th grade - 1986. 

why does everybody hate yellow?

pouncey scribbles

not one to be outdone by his budding artist cousins, pouncey took a pen and made his own drawing on his dog bed! i see similar theme and execution - definite family resemblance.

the ancient and modern olympics

i made this poster in the 4th grade - 1986.

the basement flooded and the index card from the ancient olympics is missing.

the index card from the modern olympics contains some dated phrases:

  it was so important i used white-out to correct a lowercase "o" in olympics.

$10 bottles of wine!

homegrown restaurant on merrimon in asheville is great. the food is great. the folk art for sale on the wall is great. 

the greatest thing is monday is $10 bottle of wine day.

a glass of wine costs you $6, but on monday for $10 you can get the whole bottle. what a steal! 

you can walk away stuffed with 2 delicious dinners and a bottle of wine for under $30.

if you want the uptown girl painting, however, that will run you $25.

no more living in her white bread world.

breakdance teddy bear 1982

i found some treasures in the basement this weekend which my mom was kind enough to box up and send down here. 

 this is what i was thinking about in second grade. breakdancing teddy bears.

i was issued some art

i'd climb a tree for a date with you

i love dates. 

this is no secret. 

i try to eat one a day at least. i eat them plain. i stuff them with peanut butter. or cashews. or goat cheese. 

i bring them with me to almost every potluck i attend. medjool dates are so sweet and smooth. if you don't like them, i bet you've never tried them.

my friend betsy is trying to use all the extra food in her pantry, and had a half bag of dates and featured my 'recipe' on her awesome betsylife blog last week. 

if you close your eyes and chew long enough, these things taste just like the old hostess funny bones. 

stylized

reminds me of pacific northwest native indian art.

the dog lover - flying henry

an artist named l.a. shepard from ontario canada paints these dog portraits. i think they're spectacular. and her story is particularly moving:

I have been a full time artist, specializing in animal portraiture, since my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer in July 2006. Since he could no longer work, we had to close our wholesale business. At 54 , I needed to find a way to support our family and take care of him 24/7. Luckily, I had my art ability to fall back on, and I have been painting diligently ever since.

this one is especially funny because my furry brother henry looks just like this but refuses to go outside in the snow. my dad shovels him a path in the backyard to do his business.

the dog lover's paintings on etsy: here

rondettes

one of the most random things about asheville is the colony of rondette houses up on the mountain close to downtown.

this is from the april 1969 issue of popular mechanics, where they showed you how to build your own rondette.

these things are still standing. they're not in the best shape. not sure a flat roof is a great idea for a temperate rain forest, many of them have makeshift tarps on the roof.

rondettes are not to be confused with weaver chicken rondelets, which i used to eat out of the toaster oven growing up. i seem to recall a layer of cheese under the breading.

5 year birthday

 

i've been posting this crap for 5 years as of today.

thanks for being here! and for being there! and all for the support in the form of clicks and comments! you know it's true, everything i do, i do it for you.

this picture was the first post ever.

nose ear guitar and slipper socks

arts

"There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth."
- Richard Avedon

link roundup

here are some things i'm loving on the internet recently:

• kid D is seriously psychic: dream about girl with cancer; girl really has cancer

• lydia see's lost & found boot

• tyler blue's journey as a writer

• the bugg blog cries in the lunchroom, remembers grandma

• jay archibald's latest project, kaleidoscopic fine art set to music - "scope aesthetic":

taters & unions

saw this handmade wooden potato and onion bin at the asheville goodwill today.

i can only assume some nice man (?) made it and engraved it in his woodworking shop about 50 years ago. when he brought it inside, did anybody notice the spelling mistake? did they tell him? it is phonetically correct, i'll give him that.

when parents email: movie recommendations

DAD:

"I know you only documentaries but still. Maybe these qualify. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure these aren’t the best things you’ve ever seen but a little entertainment isn’t the end of the world right? You’ve probably seen Songcatcher. See it again. You’ve probably never had any interest in Cool Runnings. See it. So there. You have my suggestions of the day. Ciao"

i had not seen either of these movies. thanks to netflix, now i have.

cool runnings was visually stunning. based on a true story. i remember the true story from the mid 80s. the costumes were so 80s and so vibrant. every scene was like a rainbow doing a ballroom dance. the main character's name in the credits is just "Leon." awesome movie.

songcatcher is fascinating! it was filmed 15 miles north of asheville. when i go on hikes, the scenery looks like that. amazing singing. amazing singing. aidan quinn. DEFINITELY rent this movie if you get a chance.

also, if you like this movie, you will love the book "Hands in Harmony" full of striking black and white photos and stories of hard scrabble craftspeople of Appalachia by Tim Barnwell. I rented a house from Tim in 2008 and he is an outstanding photographer and really nice person.