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sending love and gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving! I've just finished my first thanksgiving celebration and I'm now waiting on the second round of potatoes to cook so that I can be off to celebration number two! But before I scooted off, I wanted to take the time to say thank you... there's so much that I'm grateful for, and my friends and family and everyone who has been kind enough to support SpoonFed Art top the list! I try to count my blessings each day, and I'm particularly grateful to have a whole day just to take it all in... all the wonderful things that fill my life - and all the potatoes! I'm sending thoughts of love your way and hope you're having a happy day celebrating...

another take

A friend of mine saw Annie Leibovitz at Benaroya Hall in Seattle the other night and after my last post, she sent me a link to this Alice shoot she did for Vogue. She was there to talk about her new book, Annie Leibovitz at Work... my friend said she told a lot of stories about her times with the Rolling Stones and shooting them on the road in the mid-70s... she said the whole place was full, upstairs balcony included. Makes me wish I would have gone to see her when she was here in LA earlier this month...

A. Leibovitz
(One of my favorites)

She also talked about shooting the inauguration, but from a distance... since it's such an historical occasion, she anticipates everyone shuffling around, vying for close-ups and wants to capture the whole scene as it unfolds. Should be some amazing shots... she's so good...

So here are some of the other shots from the Alice shoot - the one of Marc Jacobs ties in my last post nicely!

a couple of wishes

Just a couple of my current favorite things, in case there's anyone out there who's curious... and the holidays are just around the corner, right?! Maggie Taylor's illustrated Alice in Wonderland and butterfly shoes by Marc Jacobs...

inspiration

Hello! I love this drawing by Catherine Campbell, an Australian Artist/Illustrator who has a shop called My Folk Lover... so pretty...

Also, there are a couple of new holiday pendant designs ready for the gallery but my goodness, they'll have to wait... more printer/scanner troubles. I just sold my brand new Epson rx595, which was my 3rd printer/scanner since my rx500 died back in October... *sigh*... I think the problem is Epson's new Claria inks... I'm not sure the blacks are 100% dye-based... they just aren't very black. If you have any printer/scanner/ink suggestions, please let me know! I hope to have the new pieces up by next week... stay tuned!

a very nice story... and an auction

About a year ago, I received an email that was truly inspiring... it was one of those that just makes you cry, and I certainly did! So grab your kleenex box... here's an excerpt from her email...
"... as a women in recovery for 2 years now from a 10 year battle with anorexia/bulimia, your art work is an inspiration. Through recovery, my mom was afraid to talk to me in fear that I would break, or not having anything helpful to say. Our mother/daughter relationship was ripping at the seams and I felt that I ruined everything. One day, for no reason at all, she gave me one of your necklaces with the bio. She said its the only way she know how to support me. It was the best gift that she could've given me. It showed me that she was making an effort to understand and attempting to pull me off the ground and help me through my difficult time. Thank you for being the catalyst to a now amazing relationship..."

I wanted to share it because it was such a lovely story of a relationship being healed - and such a great example of the power in even a small act of love and support. I really hadn't planned on SpoonFed Art being a part of a story like this but wow - it's humbling. You just never know how your life touches others. I recently received another email from her and although her eating disorder is still a part of her life, it no longer dictates the way she lives. She's now pursuing a masters degree in Nutrition and she's working with an organization that promotes eating disorders awareness in her area. The organization, The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness, goes into elementary schools and high schools to promote positive body image awareness and to educate teens and pre-teens about healthy eating and weight issues. They also offer support groups and participate in public awareness through fundraisers and "Real Body" fashion shows. The alliance will hold its 8th annual Silent Auction tomorrow night, so if you're in South Florida and want to help, stop by and place a bid. SpoonFed Art donated a pendant to the auction and there's lots of other goodies too. All proceeds will go to support the alliance and its programs, and you never know what a small act of love and support can do!

a whole new mind

I just starting reading Daniel Pink's book, "A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future", and I have to say, it's pretty fascinating. I haven't read enough to legitimately talk about it yet, but I'm really enthused so I thought I'd share what I know so far. Its premise is that we're entering into a more conceptual age, one where more traditional careers like Accounting and Lawyering and such are going away - some even literally away to India and China. According to Pink, the future in the West belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind. His central idea is that the era of left-brain dominance and the information age that it engendered are now giving way to a new world in which right-brain qualities like inventiveness, empathy, and meaning are predominate. And it makes sense... anything that can be automated or programed or outsourced to Asia is systematically disappearing from the landscape, which leaves space for something new... and more and more, people are wanting their work to have meaning.

According to Pink, the keys to success are in developing and cultivating six senses - design, story, symphony (seeing the big picture), empathy, play, and meaning. All of this feels very affirming to me, being a former left-brainer myself, and having spent the last few years creating and developing a very right-brained business in SpoonFed Art. I do value my left-brain abilities... I think they're essential. It's just nice to know that there's a larger trend toward businesses that have meaning, that are creative, that engage business interaction on a more personal level - and that people are becoming more interested in the story behind the business and in where their goods come from and how they're made. It feels like a trend toward people being more personally connected to each another, and that's pretty darn great. It also seems that this shift toward a more right-brained workplace is a balance that's essential to our overall development, and it certainly seems to be part of the larger change that's taking place in the US and the world. It's pretty exciting... can't wait to read more!

pumpkin macarons

My goodness... all I can say is yum!

am i dreaming - in O magazine!

It's live and ready to roll! My friend and massage therapist extraordinaire Dr. Sharon's new aromatherapy scent, Am I Dreaming, is finally available online on her new website, DrSharonInc.com... and the cool thing is, it's going to be featured in the in the holiday gift guide section of the December issue of O Magazine - way to go Dr. Sharon! Everyone needs a little stress relief from time to time, and Am I Dreaming smells sooo good - stop by and check out her new site!

bidding for good

The National Eating Disorders Association's 2008 Every BODY Is Beautiful Online Auction is now open for bidding! SpoonFed Art has donated 2 spoon pendants to this year's auction, and there are lots of great items up for bid just in time for holiday shopping - fun and unique items like a 1960s Beatles thermos, a lovely dinner for 2 at the Space Needle in Seattle, a 2-day/3-night spa getaway, a kids baseball clinic at Yankee Stadium and much more - it's a great way to cross things off your holiday shopping list while making a difference! Proceeds will go to support programs like NEDA's national toll-free helpline, insurance advocacy programs, their Parent, Family & Friends Network (PFN), educational toolkits, research grants, and more. New items will be posted each week, so check back often for updates. The success of the auction depends on spreading the word so please refer a friend... there's something for everyone!

the cutest nerd in the world... and oh, please vote!

Isn't she the cutest nerd you've ever seen?! Halloween week was so much fun this year - lots of time spent with friends, lots of candy and costumes - and a whole week full of visits to the Magic Castle in Hollywood. My favorite moments include performances by Rob Zabrecky in the Close-Up Gallery...

...and The MuMs in The Palace of Mystery - amazing. We actually won the "Funniest Costume" prize on Saturday for our "battered nerds" (see Tommi's nerd above... cute even with a black eye!). We all agreed our costumes were good because the nerd part wasn't too much of a stretch - haha! It was really great to just have fun and not care about how goofy and uncool we were...

Hope you all had a good time over the weekend... so sad it's over.... but happy to be back to reality and voting today! It was my first time voting in California, and I have to say it was truly a magical experience. My polling place is within walking distance, and the walk there just felt special... the air was so clear after the rain and all my neighbors were out - some I knew and some I didn't, but there was a unique sense of unity and freedom in the air that I just haven't experienced before. I'm so happy to be able to vote... especially at this crucial point in the history of our country. Please don't forget to vote today!

photographs

My friend Ginny just finished her new website, GinnyBanks.com, so I thought I'd share it with you, along with some of my favorite images from the gallery. Ginny's one of the sweetest people I know, and I love her shots that explore absence/presence. She's just started a new workshop of one-on-one digital photography lessons designed to help participants explore and express their personal life stories. For details, please visit her site... I really wish I could take the workshop myself but alas, it's a little too far for me to make the commute! I think the website is really beautiful, and I'm so happy it's up at last... congratulations Ginny!

halloween ice cream... and a treasured gift from a friend

Fall is truly my favorite time of year, and my love for all things pumpkin is most definitely in full swing! A couple of weeks ago, my friend Tommi, who loves both ice cream and Halloween as much as I do, introduced me to pumpkin ice cream... and oh my gosh, it's so good! It's full of yummy pumpkin flavor, with cinnamon and nutmeg... and since it's not feeling much like autumn here in LA just yet, it's the perfect October treat...
I also want to share this painting a friend gave me a couple of years ago... I still love it like I just saw it for the first time today! It was painted by my friend Marisa of Creative Thursday, and I have to say that each time I look at it, I silently check in with myself to see if I'm feeling "...at ease"... wise words indeed! Drop by her website and blog when you have a chance... her work is so sweet and uplifting and fun... just like Marisa herself!

arielle

Sometimes the smallest kindness really lifts your spirits. That's the case with an email I received first thing yesterday morning from Arielle, a fellow artist who is now recovered from her eating disorder too... isn't she a cutie pie! Her husband had given her the "Leap" pendant as a birthday gift, and she wanted to let me know how much she loved it and the meaning behind it. She told me that he had chosen that design because now that she's recovered, he sees her as leaping through life. Wow. It was so great to get a little peek inside Arielle's life, and opening that email first thing in the morning really made my day! It also reminded me how much happiness there is in simply sharing your appreciation... thank you Arielle!
arielleleebecker.blogspot.com
tearstowords.blogspot.com
artifactsbyarielle.ecrater.com

...have a wonderful day!

kirtsy!

The editors of kirtsy.com have invited Spoonfed Art to be featured in their forthcoming book, which will be released in Spring 2009 by Bright Sky Press (http://brightskypress.com) a part of Independent Publishers Group (http://www.ipgbook.com/). Their vision for the book is that it will be a snapshot of what kirtsy is on its very best day, so it's going to be great - and I'm thrilled to be invited to participate in such a fun project! I had to submit a photo of myself, so we did a little photo shoot today... this silly shot was part of the shenanigans....

man on wire

©2008 Jean-Louis Blondeau / Polaris Images

I love this film. Man On Wire is about Philippe Petit, the French juggler and performance artist who in 1974, spent 45 minutes walking, dancing, and lying down on a tightrope illegally rigged between the two newly-constructed WTC towers. It's simply an astonishing feat, and still difficult to believe that he and his motley crew of cohorts actually pulled it off...and this, British filmmaker James Marsh's documentary film about the escapade, is so inspiring and poetic that even an art-house curmudgeon couldn't find fault. It was thrilling and sweet, and I was totally pulled into the adventure and beauty of "the coup"... it's definitely one of the best films I've seen in a while...

makin' a record

A friend of mine is making a record. It's a top secret project, very hush-hush, and I've been asked to keep it on the down low, whatever that means. Anyway, I was visiting him the other night, checking out a few new tracks... that's when I took this picture. I'm very excited to be playing guitar on at least one track... it's a really interesting project and I can't wait to see how the whole thing comes together...

In addition to visiting friends and taking pictures of my feet, I've also been working on some new minis... they're so cute! Stay tuned for images... I'll post some pics here as soon as I get them finished-up...

take care and have a nice night!

me-ouch!

I'm a big fan of The Black Apple, aka Emily Martin, who just moved from Athens, GA to Portland, OR--and who, upon arriving in Portland, has just been through a kitty crisis! Her beloved Miette had to have emergency surgery (which was probably pretty pricey, especially after a cross-country move), hence the 'Miette Benefit Sale' going on today and tomorrow (13th &14th). So if you can, please visit her shop and perhaps purchase some of her wonderful prints & goodies... you'll be treating yourself and helping to pay for kitty wellness too - it's happiness all 'round!

two things...

All I can say is... yay! I was watching tv last week and caught a snippet of a commercial for the new season of Pushing Daisies... I'm so tickled! The first season was interrupted during the writer's strike last year, but alas! It got the magic touch, as it were, and season 2 starts on Oct 1. This makes me very happy!


I'm also very happy about Mother's Iced Lemonade cookies... oh my gosh, did you know about these? I'm not much of a store-bought cookie girl (except for Paulette's macarons of course!) so I don't ever buy cookies in the grocery store... but I saw these the other day and decided to give them a whirl... and they are outrageously good! The cookie part is like lemony shortbread and the icing is super tart... it really makes your mouth pucker! They're like little cookie lemon bars... yummm...

enjoy your day!

waffle, shake & giggle

My goodness it's been an odd week. And not just because of the earthquake... though it was quite out of the ordinary! I'm never really in tall buildings but as it happens, that's where I was Tuesday morning when it hit. We were at The Waffle, a fancy-pants "LA" version of Waffle House, which is in the bottom of the House of Blues tower on Sunset. What's funny is that there were some guys on a crane just outside the front of the building pruning a tree and at first, I thought the crane had malfunctioned... but wait... nope, that's an earthquake! It only lasted a few minutes, but really freaked everybody out. Honestly, we couldn't decide if we should have gotten up and done something... ya know, like get the heck out of there. You can't really run outside screaming like a banshi cause you'd get hit by all the falling glass and debris... so what then? Turns out that if you're in a tall building such as this and a building-shaking earthquake hits, what would happen is that the building would literally snap in half... so the people in the top half of the building would be most in danger. Who knew. Of course if you're in an earthquake, you do need to position yourself either in a doorway or under a table... I just made the mistake of assuming that being on the ground floor meant doom... ya learn something new every day, don't ya?! Just thought I'd share that in case you're ever in a similar situation... which, of course, I hope you're not!

I also wanted to share some of these photo booth photos from my friend Whitney's birthday party... they make me giggle! (...especially "the belly!")

...have a nice weekend!

the fringe benefits of failure, and the importance of imagination

Hi there! I was going to post J.K. Rowling's commencement address, "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination" last month, but thought it was too long... I've now changed my mind... it's just too good not to share...

"President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is 'thank you.' Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I've experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world's best-educated Harry Potter convention.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called 'real life', I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives.

Thank you very much."

Copyright JK Rowling, June 2008

spoonfed art minis!

I'm so excited about these new little mini pendants! They're perfect for summer... so light and airy and sweet! They're available in the gallery for a limited time only so if you like them as much as I do, scoot on over and pick one up before they go! And just so you'll have an idea of how "mini" the mini is, here are the 3 sizes of pendants, all in a bunch!

...have a nice night!

happy bastille day!

double apple happiness

Hi - hope you're having a nice weekend! I've been experimenting with new designs and came up with this double apple... look for it in a spoon very soon!

the first visit

Hope you had a happy 4th! Yesterday, before we fired up the grill and before our sidewalk viewing of a neighbor's (secret) fireworks show in the alley, we celebrated our country through the eyes of The Beatles seeing it for the first time. Yep, we were fortunate enough to see a screening of the Maysles Brothers (Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter) documentary, The Beatles: The First US Visit. I'd seen bits and pieces of it before - I think probably everyone has - but I'd never seen the whole film, which documents their arrival at JFK, followed by oodles of backstage antics and their live onstage performances in New York, DC and Miami Beach for the Ed Sullivan Show. It was very silly, and was just a lot of fun to see in a theater, that theater being The Steve Allen Theater at the Center for Inquiry, West. And I have to say that the whole time I was thinking wow, it's so interesting that they went from all that silliness and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" to Sgt. Peppers...

(photo: Curt Gunther)

freedom

Our founding fathers embraced a challenging situation and turned it into a true victory for a higher ideal. I don't think freedom is necessarily about being free of life’s difficulties... I think it means being able to be flexible and use those difficulties to grow and move forward. I don't always succeed, but I really try my best to use each situation that comes up to learn... and even though it's not always fun, I'm thankful for all the small opportunities I'm given each day to grow. So I guess that's my idea of freedom... knowing that you have the choice to use whatever comes up for your own good...

(photo: Eric Lindbloom)

two phillips and a coronet

Hello! We went to two shows at the new Largo at the Coronet Theater in West Hollywood over the "weekend", Sam Phillips on Thursday and my friend Grant-Lee Phillips (no relation to Sam) on Saturday night. It was my first visit to Largo at the Coronet, which is larger than the old place on Fairfax and a lot more fancy... gone are the intimate tables w/ candlelight - and food and drink - but it's really beautiful in an old Hollywood-type of way and sort of reminds me of The Silent Movie Theater. Sam Phillips was great - I enjoyed The Section Quartet who opened, as well as the songs from her new CD - and Grant was charming, funny, and wonderful as always....

I've been painting the studio so stay tuned for photos ...and some new pendant designs! Have yourself a lovely evening!

(photos: samphillipsmusic.com and grantleephillips.com)

In Bruges

We saw a pretty cool little film last night called In Bruges, which is the story of 2 Dublin hitmen who are ordered to Bruges, Belgium to hide out for a couple of weeks after a hit they made in London went awry. The town itself is a character in the film and is so beautiful with its fairytale gothic architecture, canals, and cobbled streets...

I liked this film in part because it was well written and really well made but also because I've been to Belgium and have fallen in love with it. It truly is like being in a fairytale... especially Gent and a wonderful little mustard shop there! Interestingly enough, my Belgian friend Cedric was in town last week... (see silly-ish photo of him at Malibu Seafood below, high five-ing giant lobster) ...it was great to see him and as is the tradition with Cedric, we had a delicious sushi dinner at Matsuhisa Thursday (!) then did some serious hanging out at the very unique Moonshadows lounge in Malibu on Friday night. Anyway, In Bruges came out on video this week and is definitely worth checking out....


...have a nice weekend!

fun in 3-D

It's a little difficult to see from the pictures on the website, but the spoon pendants are very 3-dimensional... it's a big part of what makes them fun. Lately, I've been experimenting outside the spoons with slightly larger pieces like this one. (I'm also working on a pendant version of this piece so if you like it, stay tuned... as soon as I get it put together, I'll post photos here then put it up in the gallery.) I'm also working on a larger piece similar to this except that it's round, with more depth.... it's very exciting! More on that later...

I'm off to cast one more round of pendants before I call it quits... have a nice night!

strawberry fields

I love strawberries and really, there were so many things pressing on my psyche that led me to this design. First of all, of course, the Beatles. No mystery there. "Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about" has been running through my brain lately. Second, the jam. Not 'The Jam' as in Paul Weller's Jam, but actual jam... though I am quite partial to the former. The jam I'm referring to is the honest to goodness real thing... every year 'round this time, my mom make this outrageously delicious homemade strawberry jam... it's soooo good and thankfully, I get some every year for my birthday. I've been eating it every day since it arrived, so it's no wonder I'm making strawberry pendants! And last but not least, I wanted to make a necklace just like Astrid's...


Pretty hard to resist, right?!