Post-Halloween

Halloween evening was perfect here in our midwest city. Cool but not cold, no rain, light breeze.
BDE (Best Daughter Ever), our 9-year old, had a great time trick-or-treating up and
down two long streets with her best friend, and best friend's little sister, who also happens to
adore BDE. A fine, congenial and energetic group. The only ones who were tired at the end
of the evening were the grownups!
I'm getting ready for a show this coming Saturday, and have been burning serious midnight
oil. If I push past sheer exhaustion I usually come out the other end with enough energy to
keep going until 2-3 a.m. Of course I have to be up around 7 a.m. so there's no sleeping in.
What I do love about the wee hours is that the house is very quiet and one idea just leads
to another. A long time ago I read a great book on the creative process, and the author
described the process of "receiving" ideas and inspiration this way: (I'm paraphrasing)
A small person sits below (in the artist's subconscious) and hands scraps of ideas up through a trap door into the conscious mind.
I sure can visualize that...I picture my little person as a gnome-like man, kinda crabby and
very insistent, reaching an arm up through the trap door and waving one little piece of paper after another like a flag until I snatch it---here, take this take this...it's a GOOD idea. Here's another one, take it!
When I'm in sync with my subconscious I feel as though I'm just channeling ideas. Not all
of them work, but that's ok. The whole process is the point, and often times really good
stuff comes out of the process, "mistakes" and all.

Why I love '50's robots

I'm not a huge science fiction buff, but I did go through a phase in 6th grade where I read lots
of sci-fi books featuring robots. I never collected robots as a kid, as toy horses pretty much
had my heart. Fast forward to my early adulthood, and I became entranced by those crummy
Japanese horror movies that were so badly dubbed. I was crazy about the monsters in them...
the more rubbery and clumsy the better. Some of the movies also had robots in them, and
I think that's when my love was rekindled. I started collecting robot toys (mostly knockoffs) and was so taken by the fearsome way in which they were always portrayed on the box art.
The paradox is: here's a primitive looking thing with dots for eyes, a grill mouth, an antenna
on top of its head. Frequently it's painted a primary color. Robots like that are supposed
to be scary enough to intimidate everyone. To me they just look charming and vulnerable
in the same way a 3-yr. old kid in a Batman costume looks charming (and not scary.)
It also amazes me how much character can be expressed by dot eyes, a triangle nose, a
rectangle mouth. I wanted to see if I could capture the same feel when I made my faces
jewelry. Even if I set out to make identical faces, they're always a little different. And when
I get a bunch of them together it just cracks me up...I feel like the alien in the room!