to expand on schoolbus with balloons

apparently one is supposed to keep posting on a blog. and apparently one cannot use the enter key when posting... the last picture was "schoolbus with balloons" which is part of a series i started working on this past winter when the rain nearly drenched my whole being. It- and all the parts of this series- come from pictures maia has drawn at some point in his existence- they were about the only things i wanted to look at and that could make me smile this winter. (again- he is way ahead of me). I transferred the drawing onto fabric -either by tracing his originals, or by using my left hand to create a rendition- and then batik'ed away. Maia came into the studio often to check on the progress and often dictated the color scheme. he was very pleasant to work with and we had very few creative differences. He'll be in the studio many more times. So, due to some interest from a few who had seen the pieces, i decided to take them out into the world starting at the Bellevue Art Museum Show (what a first show for maia! his resume is going to be killer!). I made prints, all are named his original names (things like "chicken monster who runs from the city" etc), and i put a little blurp out about how they are a collaboration of mother and son blah blah blah and how all proceeds go to the feeding, educating and general maintenance of maia. Needless to say, they have been a hit! Can't tell you how many i've sold, and even had one couple who joked about saving money so that they can have him paint a mural on their wall! I've got people in Seattle patiently waiting for the next part of the series. What a dream! sometimes i do pinch myself and look at this amazing life we live. Most all of my work at this point is stemming from maia and stella's drawings- its all i have up in my studio- i don't come close to touching the magic they create, but its fun and ispiring to try. And i find it amazing and refreshing to come across people whose lives also need to be touched by that magic, and who consciously search it out and support those of us who are working at putting it out there for them. goal in the next few years is to turn them into a book for children and adults....thought i'd say that one out loud. off my mamabox for now. love you all

maia series

schoolbus with balloons

so, for those of you that haven't yet experienced it, here's our house, our new house, our nouse. cute lil thing. what you can't see, what we couldn't see, is the ridiculous structural damage going on underneath.

so, scott, the remodeling gem, has been hard at work, replacing beams and floor joists and whole bathrooms. We recently got word that we should jack the whole house up about a foot and pour footers and put in a permanent foundation and take down the chimney. Maybe this is the advice of someone in need of work, or maybe he is right. It's a hard call. Really i just want to be where i can see whales, and am having a hard time making this thing work.

Meanwhile, we have a chicken. she digs up my garden and i threaten her with the soup pot. Maia is very smart and tells me that i just need a fence around my garden. where did he get this logic? Surely not from my ranting. I'm grateful he's around.

And did we mention that he started 1st grade? we got a phone call today from his P.E. teacher saying that Maia really impressed him just by being a really great kid, and that he stuck out in this teachers mind this week and that he just wanted to call and commend us on this great kid. Of course i played the message over about 5 times and cried. OF COURSE HE'S A GREAT KID!!!! It's nice to know that others out there see it too.

alright, i blog off. hee hee. love to you all from the PNW

and now stella-
this is the tree directly in the back of the house. its very bumpy but the kids still love to climb it. Stelly is wearing a shirt that i used to put on one very particular stuffed bear when i was a child, and a bandana that was my hanky, and was kept in my top dresser drawer along with my fallen out baby teeth until i moved out and maia turned the dresser into his rock star sticker lair. She wears many of the baby clothes that my mom made for me to use for my dolls and stuffed animals. she insists that they fit her, and i agree and scoop her up and smell her and try to blend the memory of my days of pretending and hoping for a real baby with these days of the actualization amd reality of it, insanity and all. I tend to think she does this on purpose, to keep me from losing my childhood.

shall we try this dance again?
yes yes,this is maia ( i call it holy patootie because he's smiling one of those amazing smiles you only get if you are on top of every situation- this is an incredibly vulnerable state of smiling for him) in a bathtub- the one we took out of the falling apart bathroom and replaced with a real live working bathroom, complete with running water and lights that turn off. the bathtub i want, so badly, to turn into a loveseat ala Breakfast at Tiffany's. as of now its a pirate ship.

i'm trying to put pictures up here....really. this is supposed to be maia, these days.

pictures

Well- dishes piled up, laundry to do, floor is sticky, all those domestic things need be done...a good time to create a blog, eh? The internet is a procrastinators dream. Guess I'll start with some pictures of the lovies. Here you go! Here we go, lets all hold hands and sing aaaaaiiiiiiaaahh!!!!