The Bee

In ancient cultures, The Bee was a sacred creature that bridged the natural world and the underworld. A messenger that travels between the outside world and the hive, The Bee is at home in both sunlight and darkness. The Bee also symbolizes fertility. The Bee’s honeycomb is a hexagon, which is a symbol of community, interconnectedness and strength. The Bee has also been associated with hidden wisdom and mysteries, but also with industry and hard work. As a totem, The Bee might teach us to create art in our everyday lives and to trust in our communities. Like The Bee, our lives are interconnected.

The Bee on etsy.

Cute of the Week

Etsy :: KaysK9s :: VEGAN Commission a Realistic Needle Felted Likeness of your Dog or Cat Custom Order - Great for those allergic to wool

This etsy seller makes some fantastic stuff. If I win the lottery (or get a well paying job!) I'll order past pets for all of my family for presents. A Pussen for Katie, a Tiger for Kellie, a Roma for Mom, a Turtle for me. Ashley for Scott. Sam for Patrick/Dad, even. That's how much I'd love to support this etsy business, I'd even order one for Patrick/Dad. :)

Ride Free

It's official. My brain has morphed itself. I'm a downtowner now.

Today, I had a job interview in my old hood, Ballard. (Irony, hello!) I was walking up the hill to the library to meet Scott, and a bus pulled up right next to me as I passed a bus stop. My first thought was, hey! I can jump on that bus and be on the top of the hill in no time!

Then, I remembered. I wasn't in the Ride Free Area anymore. I'd have to pay $1.50 to ride three blocks. Ug.

Downtown, you can get pretty much anywhere else downtown, on the bus, for FREE. I have to pay bus fare to get to my favorite grocery stores, but I can get to several unfavorite grocery stores (plus the Pike Place Market!), the central library, several drug stores, department stores, even a yarn store. All in the Ride Free area, so all for free. I can get to the International District for free, and I can get to Belltown for free. I used to be able to get to work for free... if I got off the bus one stop early. I can ride the bus up the hill for free, just because I don't feel like walking.

I've only been living downtown for about 6 months. But I'm spoiled by the awesome buses and the closeness of so many things already.

At the same time, though, I'm walking more. I walk to the bus stop, yeah, but also to the little, slightly scary grocery store a few blocks away. I walk to the post office without even thinking about the fact that it's almost a mile away, because downtown such distances seem so close. Downtown distances are deceiving. Three blocks uphill can seem like three miles. Ten blocks can seem like just a block or two.

Do I miss living in Ballard? Hell, yes. I do. I miss my favorite coffee shop, Nervous Nellie's and my favorite bar, People's Pub. I miss the lack of crack dealers. I miss the jumbled cacophony of birds in the morning. I miss living closer to my mom and the parks where you can just sit and the outdoors seating that doesn't come with a free dose of soot from the traffic.

But a lot of that is made up for the coolness of being able to take the bus uphill three blocks. For FREE.

I so want one of these

haiku - lifestyle accessories for women

I especially love all of the brown ones. In case anyone wants to know.

Rubber Duckies, an ADD Ramble

Today we saw the cutest little dog and his person racing across the street. Scott and I gave each other one of those looks that says a million things, one of those looks that couples are famous for. A visual shorthand, a smile, and Scott said, “The dog is winning.”

I started to babble, as I do when I have had caffeine and there are tigers* around me and my ADD is acting up. I wondered out loud what kind of dog those are, are those Yorkies, or is that something else? Did you see the flashing and floating rubber duckies on the counter of Bartell’s? I wonder exactly what’s underneath those duck suits, and do they only flash in the bathtub? Perverts. There was water bamboo there, too, a planty impulse buy. And how does water bamboo survive in just water, when I’m trying to start a plant clipping in water and if I leave it in there too long, the poor plant just gets all freaked out and dies? Can you only put water bamboo in water, or are there other plants that it’ll work with too? I like not having to buy potting soil, I never remember and even when I do, I don’t feel like carrying it home on the bus. Could you carry potting soil on the bus for me, if I bought it?

At this point, Scott has probably already tuned out, in fact I can guarantee that if he reads this, he’ll only remember half of what I said. We’re a good team that way. In fact, I can’t remember half of what I said either! Did I actually say that out loud, or did I only think it?

There are so many things I want to know. It can be distracting sometimes, even though I’ve mostly learned to work around my ADD. I was never even officially diagnosed with ADD when I was a kid. Some classes that I got great grades in are just a blur to me, as I tuned out and let other thoughts stumble through my brain. Someone I managed to detach and yet absorb just enough to get my A. If teachers noticed at all, they worried that I daydreamed too much, or that I had a problem with my hearing, or that I was just having problems at home. Which might have all been true as well, but it’s really good for me to have realized that I’m not just being stupid, or lacking the ability to concentrate, or listen. I learned hot to purposefully focus, which I think is why they never caught my ADD when I was young.

My mom still gets really annoyed with me when I bring up ADD to her. I feel like she goes from thinking that I’ve just hit on another pop psychology disorder that I can blame her for, to just blowing me off totally. She shouldn’t be surprised, though, that I’ve discovered another pop psychology disorder to blame her for. It’s one of the things my family does best—we blame each other for things. It’s right up there with more than a touch of hypochondria, as we compare brain tumors and toe cancer and bubonic plague symptoms. We’re all pretty paranoid, it’s true.

By the way, Scott has ADD too. So when I was talking to him about water bamboo, he was using my own classroom tactics on me and tuning me out. We do have to sometimes really focus on focusing, but at the same time we can really understand when focusing is impossible. (Unless, of course, we don’t understand, but that’s another story…)

One of the reasons that I think that Scott’s cool is that maybe in a week or a month or in ten minutes, he’ll come back to me with some more of our couple shorthand. I imagine some time in the future, we’ll be somewhere and he’ll gesture to a rubber duckie with his head, in that almost imperceptible way he has of pointing something out, and mutter, “look: perverts.”




Rubber Duckie image "borrowed" from rubberducks.org.uk.

The Salmon (The Struggle) Totem Art Print by Kerrie CarbaryI

I was teasing you a while back about a new collage I was working on, The Salmon. Well, would you like to see?

There are actually two salmon collages. This one is The Salmon (The Struggle). I'll save the other one for later. :)



The Salmon is big for me, sizewise. I've been working small lately, but have been reminded that I love to work larger as well. So, there's no medium right now! Only miniature and XL. XL is 22 x 30 inches for me, I know that's tiny for some artists, but I'm still recovering from having a tiny space to create tiny art in.

For me, The Salmon relates to the tarot card, The Chariot. The Salmon will be one of the cards in The Totem Tarot. This is a good card for my life right now. I'm in the middle of a ton of transitions and changes and decisions. The Salmon is a fighter, creative, a creature of the cycle. What goes around comes around. The Salmon is also a symbol of creation and birth, death and rebirth. The Salmon finds home upstream to spawn, then dies giving life so the cycle may continue.

While you're (surely!) anxiously awaiting The Totem Tarot, I'm offering prints of The Salmon: Etsy :: kerrie :: The Salmon (The Struggle) Totem Art Print by Kerrie Carbary

First Thursday

As an artist, First Thursday is the best party around. Mainly in Pioneer Square, but also in many, many other locations, galleries and studios stay open late to bring some art to Thursday nights. First Thursday has been part of my life since I was in college, but I've taken long breaks from going out on First Thursday to view art.

But now I have a studio in Pioneer Square, so on Thursday, I had my studio open. For the first time since we moved in, I felt pretty good about the art I was showing. I had a few new things, some older pieces that I'd revised and reframed, and copies of some of my editions that I hadn't offered at First Thursday before, like The Grandma Deck.

I always say that artists are artists because we didn't get enough show and tell time in kindergarten, and for sure First Thursday makes me feel all exposed and show-and-telly. There were some good comments, actually quite a few attendees I felt really "got it," and there were a couple ambiguous comments (um, "nice birds?"). I did make a little bit of $ too, which was VERY helpful given our current state of economics here at the Taylor-Carbary household.

The First Thursday star of the Tashiro-Kaplan Building had to be our neighbor David Weed. He was showing his MFA thesis in his studio. His showing was amazing. He filled the space with his installation, "18 Signs," which were all pieces made up of light bulbs mounted on wood. They flashed at different rates, which made for a very effective emotional and physical response. The entire studio felt warm from the signs, actually! The glow could be seen coming out his door from down the hall. The titles made the pieces, though. One was titled, Made in USA, and was a checkmark created out of red, white, and blue bulbs. Very cool. My favorite piece was the series about terror alert levels. I tried to find some images to link to online, but haven't been able to find any. I'll keep looking and update if I find an article or review of David's show.