#190

Hello there, friends and family.
Well, Jo decided this week that it was going to be all shades of white…one of the hardest colors for me to photograph. Thanks, Jo! Maybe next week I’ll decide to sew everything out of chain mail. How ya like them apples?


I’ve been looking forward to writing this newsletter for some time now. My video is done!!! Well, the first installment of my three song video is done, anyway. It’s posted on youtube and ready for you to see it. Just click on the skeletal audience below to take a seat and watch the show. There’s one bad word in the song, so you may want to check it out yourself before inviting the kids to the puppet show. And be sure to watch it in HD…


Back already? Did you like it? Did you catch the animation after the credits, or did I lose you before that? Now, I’m not asking any of you to send out annoying spam mail on my behalf, but if you do know anyone that you think would enjoy the video, please pass it along to them. I need a grass roots effort behind this little project of mine, so any word of mouth buzz you can stir up would be appreciated.

Getting the video ready this past week was really trying. The computer program I was editing in kept crashing as I was trying to finish it. I felt like all my work was going down the drain, but I pulled some nerdly tricks and saved the video and myself from destruction. I’m actually quite sick of the video now. That’s the way it goes with these things. I remember watching an interview with John Lennon once where he said he can’t enjoy Beatles songs like the rest of the world, because all he can think about is sitting there for 12 hours straight with George trying to get the guitars just right. Not that I’m comparing myself to John…or George. I’d settle for Pete Best at this point.

-Dylan (Paperhand) Curry

#189

Hi there, art fans.
Here's what Jo and I worked on this week…


Apart from that, I spent some time this week toiling away at my silly music video. I'm editing it and shooting it at the same time, which has some real advantages. If I feel like something is missing, I can just go back out to the set and create whatever it is that I think it needs. This week I felt like a skeleton cameraman and a giant film camera should be caught in some of the shots trying unsuccessfully to get out of the way. The camera is made of a broken cd player, a work light, and a license plate. It's attached to a set of wheels that I cannibalized from an office chair, so it can roll around and pivot just like those old studio cameras.


The skeleton is made of paper clay, cloth, and wood. He also has a pair of headphones made of paint bottle lids.


I've had a rule ever since I was a kid that I try to be true to whenever possible..."If you have to buy something, it's cheating." This rule usually leads me to disassemble many of our possessions and repurpose them, leading to Jo's question that she's had since we got married..."Can't we have nice things?"

-Dylan

#188

Hello again.
Yes, our week’s work is finally all listed!
And here ‘tis…


Besides being behind in our work this week, the most memorable thing about the last seven days would have to be climbing “the hill” twice. Walking up steep hills is one of my favorite forms of exercise, and this week I got to show several friends of the family my favorite hill on the friendly side of a “No Trespassing” sign. Once you’ve conquered the climb, the view is your reward. You have the deadly beautiful Pacific Ocean on one side…

…and Devil’s Lake on the other.


And between those two views you have a scale model of the town you thought you knew so well.


And all around you on this grassy hilltop are empty spots in the tall grass where the elk sleep at night. They’re up there now looking down on my lonely little reading lamp in my miniature window.

-Dylan

#187.5

Hello, friends. We’ve got one original piece listed now (along with some print ornaments and patterns), but there will be more original art listed on Tuesday for a five day auction.


Like I mentioned last week, we had a house guest for the week that we were helping set up a website, blog, and etsy shop for his art. He was the type of house guest that was washing our dishes every time we turned around, and had to be talked out of vacuuming a perfectly clean room before departing. So if you’d like to check out his art, you can start here.
Hopefully some of you may even end up hanging some of his art on your wall or on the wall of someone you love.

Our art, however, is running late for the party, but will be here on Tuesday. We’ve got a lot of interesting pieces on the way, including a conjoined twins mermaid, and a donkey bird. The donkey bird was inspired by this drawing our son did.


He has already mentioned royalties, but backed down when we presented receipts for fourteen years worth of food.
See you on Tuesday when the rest of the art gets listed…

-Dylan

#187

Hello, campers.
Here’s the art!

This week’s newsletter is going out a couple of days late because I completely lost track of what day it was. I do have a good excuse, though. Jo and I are running a one camper summer camp this week for a friend of ours that is an up and coming artist. Matt is a friend of ours from Florida that now lives here in Oregon and is going to try to make a living with his art. So Jo and I thought we’d set him up for the week here with us since we had an open room. Our daughter has gone off to some strange camp to study American government or something. So while she’s there having flag ceremonies in white gloves (whose kid is she anyway???) we’re here helping Matt learn how to take good pictures of his art, create logos, write a blog, etc. His art is made from used skateboard decks that he has shaped and sanded into something very original. We’ll let you know where you can see his art near the end of the week, if I can manage to keep track of when that is.

-Dylan