Fresh Faced Canvas

Last weekend, I was in Union to face paint at the Festival on the Green event.  When I say face paint, I mean SIX hours straight of not just squabbling siblings, or "don't touch that"s and "get that out of your mouth"s, but also seis horas of funny snippets of conversations, improved brush strokes and fresh faced canvas.


I recall being impressed with parents' creativity to convince their kid(s) that the taffy and cupcake display of bath products at the Lily and Eve booth right next to the line, was not for eating.  If ever they want to indulge their kids with a candy bath, however, then they should have picked up a pack or two.  I'm not sure how long the line was, but I got an idea from comments about waiting for an hour to get their turn.  But I wasn't worried, and continued to give each kid my focused attention.  I can also still visualize those priceless expressions from those kids when they saw their finished face. 

The entire day was such a blur, I liken it to running marathons.  Complete with bodiless arms handing over snacks and drinks as well as holding your pee for longer than you should. 

I cannot recall the last time I allowed myself the luxury of painting for that many hours.  Releasing the tension due to the lack of an artistic outlet, multiplied by the eagerness in children.  It's no wonder I was still energized at the after "party" dinner at Van Gogh's Ear, despite having only four hours of sleep the night before.  I'm sure it was the reason I felt a smile creep on my face as I went to bed that evening.  Possibly also the reason I was able to focus an entire day on writing papers and studying for exams the following day.  But, definitely the reason I put myself out there to provide face painting as a service  Wish me luck!

Help Wanted: Soda Drinker

Museo Pambata display

When diy projects are successful, we show off and take photos in all sorts of angles with varied backgrounds.  However, when a bowl made of magazine scraps result in what looks like a giant wad of chewed up gum, we toss the whole thing and forget it even happen.  And that's why you don't see any photos of that thing in this post.  Instead, here are photos of my new hanging "pot" made out of a soda bottle.  I got this idea visiting the Museo Pambata, (at right) a children's interactive museum in Manila, PI.  Since we don't drink soda, it took a while to acquire the one bottle.  I still have a few smaller plants outside enduring the temperature changes waiting for someone to come by and finish another bottle of soda.  In the meantime, the one strawberry plant is saved.


Materials:

• empty and rinsed soda bottle
• marker
• box cutter
• string
• drill

Procedure:

1. drill a hole through the center of the bottom of the bottle large enough to thread the string through
2. drill another hole through the bottle cap.   
3. thread the string through the holes.  cut the string to 2 pieces, and knot off each end to keep string from getting through the holes.
4. draw 2 large squares and cut out using the box cutter
5. fill the rounded end with soil and insert plant.
6. hang bottle up-side-down with bottle cap pointing down..

 I cut the string I'm holding and knotted it off to keep the string from falling through the holes.

bottom string allows the water to filter on to the next bottle (coming soon) or a planter.

Future Shock Absorbers

I went to Barnes and Noble the other day.  Walking in, I noticed a slew of Zombie books... an entire display of zombie books.  I'm not the one to shirk at zombie themed media, but has anyone else noticed an emergence of apocalyptic themes?  NOT post apocalyptic as they did with the Mad Max movies in the 80s, but in the process of....a present day realization that the ish hit the fan.  Even the Planet of the Apes took it back to present day to explain how primates took over the future with Rise of the Planet Apes released this year.

In a way Hollywood has given us an outlet to our current economic environmental problems.  Can't make your mortgage payment today?  Not to worry, bankers won't hound you anymore because they've been replaced by zombies.  The price of gas went up another couple of dollars due to limited oil resources?  Who cares! We are going to somehow figure out how to jump through a wormhole to live in another planet like in Fox's new show Nova Terra about a fugitive crossing planetary borders only to be hired as a sheriff - not much promise for this future society..

Of course zombies aren't walking around taking over our cities, but cannibalism has been a constant trend in wallstreet where executives are eating up people's livelihood.   And with our brainless, insatiable consumer habits, who's to say we aren't zombies ourselves already.

Scientific discoveries have also fueled our hope that things will be solved and the human race will prevail.  With the discovery of so many planets in the Goldilocks zone (not too hot and not too cold) eventually they'll find a planet we can designate as our new home.   Along with the discovery of a sub-atomic particle faster than the speed of light, it won't be long until we're booking our vacation to Risa (the pleasure planet in Star Trek).

I would say if art imitates life, this is one of those cases.  Except these stories resolve in a way that's comforting to allow us to continue on our destructive and wasteful ways.