High Touch

The High Tech Area, including computer etc is in my bedroom. 

The photos BELOW are of what I call the High Touch Area which is where I read, work on projects, spend time on creative endeavors. Once a collector, always I guess! The photos include these views: panorama, full area, left side of table, center of table, right side of table.

PANORAMA

FULL

LEFT SIDE

RIGHT SIDE 

MIDDLE 

Michael's Flea Circus

A new old time, greatest small idea has been itching in my head ... 

Michael's Flea Circus! 

I have been enthused with the idea of Flea Circuses for over thirty years and finally have begun producing one of my own.

The circus will have singing, dancing, and performing fleas; as well as slight of hand (magic,) and audience participation to entertain, enchant, and entice you!

Madam Midge and Madam Madge will walk the high wire carrying a carefully balanced, balance beam, Monsieur Marvin will jump off the high, high dive into a small pool of water. Monsieur Mervin will fly on the flying trapeze. 

The Flea Circus will also feature Strong Man Sam who will be shot from a cannon and Strong Woman Samantha who will carry a boulder across the center ring on her shoulder. 

Since this One Ring Circus is a small operation, the fleas will also double as grounds keepers, ticket takers, refreshment booth operators, and gift shop cashiers.

The price of admission will be one thin dime or a contribution of your choice to The Lieberman Center Memory Care Facility in Skokie, Illinois. 

Come one, come all! Ladies and Gentlement: Be Amazed, Be Amused, Be Astounded. Feel the Magic. Experience the Joy. Michael's Flea Circus, coming soon to a town near you!

Envy

Based on my friend Jan's recent BLOG, "Truth Difficulty by The Roving Typist," I wrote this comment: 

Why do these kind of stories always move me to tears. When I hear about (or see) someone who takes the usual and makes it into the unusual, or takes the old and makes it new and different, I find myself being envious. 

Often I have said that I am "envious" or "jealous" of someone and have been chastised for the use of those words. I am told that it is a negative comment that means I resent the other person for having something that I do not. But that is not true, so I need to specify what I mean by “envious.” 

Read the following from Wikipedia and know that I mean “Benign Envy!” 

Envy (from Latin invidia) is an emotion which “occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it” Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness. Not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by his envy, but they also wish to inflict misfortune on others. Although envy is generally seen as something negative, Russell also believed that envy was a driving force behind the movement towards democracy and must be endured to achieve a more just social system. However, psychologists have recently suggested that there may be two types of envy: malicious envy and benign envy—benign envy being proposed as a type of positive motivational force.

Now if you want to know of what I am most recently envious, click through to Jan's BLOG:
http://connectere.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/truth-difficulty-by-the-roving-typist/

Busy. Back soon.

Working on taxes and new creative adventure:

1627 Sherman Avenue

Evanston, Illinois

featuring among 30+ artists

OPENING PARTY 

Friday April 12 5:00-8:00

I am pleased to announce that I have a space (MICHAEL BEADS) showing/selling my crocheted, beaded, rope necklaces and more at The Galleria in Evanston. The gallery features some 30 artist booths with handmade jewelry, apparel and local fashion, hats & scarves, handbags, bath and body, home accessories, candles, ornaments, gourmet treats, fine art prints, paintings, photography, fair trade, and much more!

Here's to Isaac Bloom

I am reposting this because I feel the same way about Isaac. This post was originally posted about his mother who is a "Life Artist." Like mother like son? And his father is an amazing photographer among other arts. Like father like son? This is one talented family: The Yourist/Blooms. Check out Isaac's new web site from Japan. The piece his called "Japan on Foot." Link is at bottom of this post:

I am ALWAYS in awe of someone who can look at life, through their art, in a way that no one else has until that moment. To create new ways of seeing. It was there all along, s/he saw it, and now I can see it too.

I am always in awe of someone who can follow their vision, their passion and who dedicates their life to those beliefs.

Experiencing an artist's ability to cause me to see life differently makes me feel like my creativity is only a rehash of what is, not a view of what might be, could be, or should be. I yearn to live my life artistically and by doing so to bring joy and understanding to others. I'll keep trying. Why do I feel like I will never be that "Best Little Boy?"

My friend Jan causes these same emotions in me. I love her and am an avid fan of hers because: 1) She is good. 2) She is inventive. 3) She is one of a kind. 4) She is intense. 5) She doesn’t know how to settle for the ordinary. 6) I love her.

• • • • •

You can visit her blog at: Jan's Blog

The specific blog I am referring to here is at: Liu Bolin

More art by Liu Bolin can be seen here: Eli Klein Fine Art

CLICK HERE TO VISIT ISAAC'S PIECE ON JAPAN BY FOOT: Isaac's Website

Thoughts of Elaine and Buttons

Elaine, my creative accomplished friend. Ears burning? I have been thinking about you with an intense focus as I sit here at the counter that divides the kitchen from the main room of our condo, mending a shirt which has miraculously lost all eight of its buttons at the same time.


I am not complaining. At least I found all the buttons. One hour later, the shirt has all if its white, four holed buttons firmly reattached, at least for the time being. I guess it would have been worse to witness the buttons undo themselves one at a time, over time.


Next to me sits the completed shirt and an open basket with my scant sewing tools: a red tomato of a pin cushion with its green calix and attached red bud that I seem to remember is for sharpening needles, a yellow handled scissors which is probably too large for the job, a zip top bag full of miscellaneous buttons that somehow seem to collect me when I am not looking, and a wooden darning egg.


There is another zip top bag with assorted spools of various colored threads (mostly useless and matching some long forgotten piece of clothing) each end of which is wound and slotted where it belongs. There is a small box of various sized safety pins one of which is HUGE and a souvenir of one of my Lyric Opera costume temporary mends.


There are other assorted items like a tape measure, thimble, crochet needle, wooden box filled with extra needles, pencil, cardboard of straight pins, and a "thing-a-majig" that is used to take out seams and other erroneously left over bits of thread.


As I was sewing on the multitude of buttons I was trying to remember how I learned how these basic techniques of sewing, who taught me the skills? It may have been my mother but I do not remember any tender moments with me sitting by her side as she taught me. In elementary school, seventh or eighth grade I believe, I did take a class which in those days was called Home Economics and probably made an apron or some simple item. 


Gregory's mother, Helen, taught me how to thread a needle by licking it, pinching it between my fingers, and pushing the eye of the needle into the pinch as the thread like magic seemed to know what to do without my help. She also taught me to roll the end of the thread around a spit moistened finger as a way of tying an end knot in the thread.


Gregory taught me how to sew a coat button around a wooden match stick and then to wind the thread around the button a number of times, so there would be enough give in the button to get through the woolen thickness of the coat. 


So Elaine, my dear friend, to you who can run a sewing machine (and several other machines the names of which I am sure I do not know) I say, "Amazing." To you who can buy the right amount of material to make a blouse or a skirt or a jacket and have the blouse, skirt, or jacket actually look like a blouse, skirt, or jacket ... I salute you. 


To someone who can create unique looking items, be they clothes, quilts, or whatever; that have unique buttons in unexpected places and exciting unexpected lines and folds, I say "Hurrah!" To you who attends workshops and seminars to learn more and to share the creativity of other masters, I say, "KUDOS!"


With fond memories of your wonderful, huge sewing studio (organized, waiting to be organized, or just messy) with your private space to contemplate the nature and activity of creativity (I so yearn for a "Room of My Own") I say, "Here's to you!"


As for me, I have to go put some antiseptic on the many holes I have poked in my fingers. Maybe next time I will attempt to hem a cuff!