Stretch goals

I recently decided to do my first Triathlon as a stetch goal, to improve my health, and to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS.  Today I squeezed in one last workout for 2009.  In the past two months, I've worked with a personal trainer, a physical therapist and an old school Chinese acupuncturist.   My hip (which sustained some pretty serious damage in my double-marathon month in July 2007) is much stronger and I was 25 minutes into my run today before remembering that I had an injury.  And then the thought passed and I kept running.


So, the triathlon.  I'm doing the AVIA Wildflower Triathlon on 5/2 and am really excited.  Last night I booked three nights at a spa near the race so I could luxuriate after the race.  I'm definitely going to need a massage and a soak.


How far am I going to go?  I have both race and fundraising goals.


For my race goal, I am registered for the Olympic Distance Triathlon.

Olympic Distance Course

  


Wow.  I have to swim a mile.  And in a lake.  The bicycling has a lot of hills too.  I'm a little worried about those but at least I live in a city with hills to train in.  


So, what have I done to get started?  In the past 8 weeks, here's what I remembered to log...I'm missing a few workouts (both figuratively and literally).

Bike	Run	Swim	Sports	Strength
61.79 Mi - 5h 57m 04s	19.56 Mi - 5h 03m 13s	6020.00 Yd - 4h 26m 33s	3h 00m	4h 57m
Pace: 10.38 Mi/hr	Pace: 14m 29s Mi	Pace: 04m 28s /100 Yd

Being the data geek I am, you can only imagine how much fun I'm having tracking my training progress.


My second goal is to raise at least $3K and awareness about HIV/AIDS.  

• > 20% of people infected with HIV/AIDS don't know it
• > 160K people in California are currently living with HIV/AIDS.  
• In the US, African-Americans are disproportionately infected, being 12% of the population and 49% of diagnoses.
• Unfortunately, there's more to tell and the news isn't good.  Stay tuned.  We need your help.  

I'm really excited about the great people I'm going to meet at >1 and plan to break the $20K mark in my fundraising for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.


As I close out the year I am thankful for the many wonderful friends and experiences.  Wishing you all the best of life.  Happy New Year! 


/L 

I'm tragically behind in my storytelling

Opening night was awesome! Just super fun!! Thanks to those who made it out, for those who didn't we can plan a field trip.

Stories and photos of the show to come.

To hold you over, here is a poem the Dissident Chef's resident poet wrote for us and for Barbie.

Night ... missleigh

It’s not like the Papparizzi are following me

The opening party was, of course, opening night and as so happened I was booked for a business trip to Seattle. Okay, this can be remedied. I called our corporate travel agent and $150 later was booked on an earlier flight so I could be home in time to slide into the party “casually late.” Or, what would have been more appropriately termed, “arrogantly tardy, thinking everyone should be paying attention to me and only me in the last hour of the party”. But really, it was just the earliest flight I could get back and not totally ditch my new boss and leave him asking why they’d paid for my August trip.

The flight landed and I had one goal: get to my show. It’s opening night. It’s all-the-all-the. This is my first art show. And hey, it’s all about me.

As the day progressed, all my friends who’d planned to join me for opening night had life stuff come up, Murphy interfered, and they couldn’t come. I cannot tell you how thankful I am that I was channeling my calm and sweet spirit. I keep her in a box at my bedside next to my little box of crazy. I’m a girl. We all have both. So, friends had wacky stuff come up, couldn’t come, and while I was thinking I was being all sorts of narcissistic with “my first art show”, with each call I felt more for them than I was bummed that they wouldn’t be at my show.

So after a $150 flight change fee, friends cancelling, and narrowly escaping Seattle, the taxi dropped me at the corner of Shotwell and 14th. Nice neighborhood. I walked up to the gallery, turned the doorknob and opened the door to “my first art show”.

And there were three people in the room. Three. Only Three. Hum. Not exactly my vision of my first art show.

My lamp was prominently placed and did catch my eye as soon as I entered the space. I was also caught up in my lamp when I realized two of the three people there were bent over closely examining my lamp.

Gallery Owner (GA): “I’m sorry. We’re closed.”

Leigh: “I thought the party went until 8…”

GA: “No, the Artist’s Reception is NEXT week. Would you like a flyer?”

L: “No thank you. We met on Tuesday. I’m one of the artists. When is the party?”

GA: “Which one is yours?”

L: “It’s the lamp they were bent over when I came in.”

GA: “Oh! The Lamp! We LOVE the lamp.”

My indoor voice: “What was I thinking when I put this in my calendar????” “Uh, Feeling goofy…really glad no one tripped over themselves while dying of the flu to make the show.” PSHEW

So, it’s THIS Thursday. Really. Thurs 9/17 @ 5pm….we’re meeting at 50 Shotwell (between 14th & 15) to see the Altered Barbie Show. Really. It’s the place to be. And then, we’re going out for margaritas and tasty yummy stuff. Join us. You know where to find us :)

The Finishing Touches and Off She Goes

This morning I’m packing up Light My Day Barbie as she’s heading over to 50 Shotwell Galleries for the Altered Barbie Show opening on Thursday @ 7pm. I hope you’ll come out Thursday and see all the crazy Barbie pieces – homage and mockery all wrapped up in pretty pink like spun sugar.

I spent another 4+ hours yesterday finalizing the lamp, adding porcelain black heels and gloves to it, painting the top base white, affixing a special porcelain piece to the light switch.

I’m really going to miss my Barbie. I’m 36 so I haven’t exactly outgrown her and I’d love to keep her but (metaphorical) mom says I have to had her over today. Time to move on, to grow up. Put my big girl shoes on and head out into the cold harsh world. (It’s 59 this morning. Not exactly cold and harsh, but go with it.) Speaking of shoes, I have a special Barbie Perfect pair I’ll be wearing for the opening on Thursday night. Hope to see you there.

And here are the finishing touches:



Sugar Plum Fairy Barbie

Fabulous 40s Barbie

A Bottle of Wine & 4 Hours Later

As Stephie would say, “It sounded like a good idea at the time.” Sure. I can grout my lamp on Sunday evening with a glass (read: a bottle) of wine. I’ll be done in plenty of time to get my beauty (read: brainiac) rest. As you now know, it took much longer than I’d planned to grout my Barbie Lamp. One hour turned into four. It’s Boat Dollars and Mosaic Minutes.

When I first began my current gig I worked with a super smart and rather quippy guy who raced sailboats. He taught me about “Boat Dollars”. Whatever you think you’re spending on your hobby, if it involves a boat, multiply it by at least 100. Well, I now think mosaic minutes operate in the same realm: make it a factor of 10, or hey, be adventurous, make it exponential.

This “trite” little Barbie project has proved to be more time consuming and tactile than I could have imagined. Yippee. Much better than I had dreamed…

There are a few Barbies left to affix to the lamp, there is some slight detailing work to do, I love it. I love it. It’s been the most fun. Come see her, “Light My Day Barbie”, on Sept 10th @ 50 Shotwell Studios (uh, 50 Shotwell, SF). She’s waiting for you.

Final touches to come…post will follow. Nighty Night.

Mr. Hunky Hunky - My Ken?

A few years ago I took up yoga and discovered the freedom and beauty of being completely present and in the moment. Granted the sensation is often short-lived and I need to check-in with myself regularly to return to my breath. Even in meditation and practice, I have to remind myself that I’m just supposed to be right where I am and not thinking about everything else my brain conjures up. For those who know me, they can understand how sometimes this takes a great deal of effort.

Last Sunday while grouting my lamp I decided to practice active presence. I was moderately successful and during those periods I felt one with my craft. This focus was frequently interrupted by a vision, a dream I’d had the night before.



Saturday night I’d had this wild dream about meeting “my perfect guy”. The quotes exist for two reasons: (1) perfection is an illusion and (2) he was blond. My concentration on the texture of the grout, on cleanly edging the china, was regularly interrupted by images of Mr. Hunky Hunky in his pickup truck whispering sweet nothings of Sabermetrics to me as I gazed at his blond locks and thick, muscular arms. The Sabermetrics part is totally me but otherwise I’d describe My Guy quite differently. In the past I’d dream that he was tall, tightly muscular rather than thick like Mr. Hunky Hunky, and he had dark hair and eyes. Don Draper, really, but without the cigarettes and affairs.

The irony of this interrupting dream is not lost on me. I’m deconstructing and reconstructing beauty and focusing on the female ideal: in china, in house wares and with Barbies – more than three decades of Barbie imagery designed to illustrate the perfect woman broken and reassembled. The lamp is a tribute to and alteration of women’s ideal beauty. This collective “ideal beauty” is marketed to us and we strive for as schoolgirls and then fight against as adolescents – our hormones and bodies running amuck. Few of us enter adulthood at 5’6” with a slammin’ 39-21-33 figure and feet only half the size of the normal women. According to the NY Times that’s only 1 in 100,000 women, or .001%. That’s a really small number. That would be about 3 women in the entire city of San Francisco (and that’s if you count the city as 50% women).

Back to grouting. And probably dreaming a little of Mr. Hunky Hunky.

What began with a shopping list

My notes for tonight’s entry began with a shopping list crafted early last Sunday: super glue & white wine. It was a week ago tonight and considerably earlier in the evening when I set out to “finish” the Barbie Lamp. Just typing those words make me snicker now, as it took longer that I’d expected and came with a few kinks in the plan.



Gravity & Grout
The lamp is a cylinder and to be sure, I’ve forgotten a good deal of my geometry and calculus., which would have been quite helpful in planning how much grout to mix. My first batch began with 3 tablespoons of grout and enough water to make is smooth like pancake batter, the kind you whip up for a tall, thick stack. While I generally begin applying grout with a Popsicle stick, I like to mix it up with a fork. I likely have just horrified my previous dinner guests and scared away any future ones, but the fork is better than a whisk, which whips in too much air, or the popsicle stick, which doesn’t blend well, for breaking down the powdery chunks into a smooth, fine grain.

My first batch may have begun with three heaping tablespoons of grout and just more than equal parts water (yes, I have dedicated measuring and mixing utensils for my art projects) but required a re-up at least 7 times. Along the way I stopped measuring, stopped, keeping track and just kept scooping (the wine likely contributed to lax data gathering).

Much like it took more china than I’d expected, I used WAY more grout than I had expected to. Lucky for me, I buy my grout in bulk (at least bulk for my projects even though it may be the smallest box I found at Home Depot) leaving me plenty to work with. Good thing since it took more than a cup of dry grout to polish this lovely lamp.


So how to grout the lamp? Why, lie it down on its side and gently spread the smooth, wet grout, just like have done with my previous pieces. But here’s the rub: the lamp isn’t flat. And I didn’t want to apply the grout in more than one session. Wouldn’t it just be my luck that rotating the lamp to apply grout around it while it’s on its side would send otherwise cured snippets of adhered china flying into the living room or crumbling on the counter under my – what I thought was gentle – roll of the lamp. So, the lamp had to stand tall and receive its grout.

Applying grout to a vertical object requires a bit of skill. While this is a skill tillers are well versed in, all my past projects have been flat objects lying down. The key here: thick pancake batter. Thick because gravity and thin grout are messy.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Well, or so they say. I have a great story for you tomorrow. I finished grouting the lamp today and affixed three Barbies. I also have a serious Krazy Glue problem on my fingers that I have to find a remedy for. All I can say is, "Wow! It's so pretty". Stay tuned.

The Calm after the Carnage

It’s a quiet night in BarbieLand following the carnage--as Miss Stephanie so aptly put it--post Barbie Fight. I was left with the unfortunate situation of trying to figure out what to do when you’ve run out of china. When I assessed the surface of the base of my lamp I was certain that I had plenty of china to cover it, in pretty Pepto-Bismol pink. Unfortunately, as I assessed the situation following the Barbie Fight I realized that I had grossly underestimated the total surface area. Not to worry, I certainly have lots of other china that I have painstakingly spent these past months procuring and smashing into appropriately sizable bits for some as yet undefined mosaic project.

The real challenge came in trying to figure out what to do with this piece given that everything about it was so pretty, Pepto-Bismol pink and the only other pink china that I have is a much more demure, soft, approachable pink. Not quite the pink of the severe, in-your-face, girlie pink of the Barbie lamp. So, I spent a good amount of time wrapping the wrest of it in a kinda demure, soft pink floral patter that I realize will offset the Barbie bits quite well. They won’t have to compete with the glamour of the pretty pink of the ostentatious china used in the rest of the piece.

At this point the Barbie lamp needs to cure. This is the post-Barbie Fight cooling off period. This is the time for the adhesive to cure, to ensure the china will stick.

Several people have asked me recently what kind of adhesive I’m using. I’m using regular tile adhesive that I bought at Home Depot, found in the tile-your-kitchen-counter section. This works remarkably well with porcelain, particularly well with china from dainty, pretty tea sets. The china is adhering much better than I’d expected it to the plastic lamp base that I vigorously roughed up with the coarsest sandpaper Ace Hardware had to offer. (Inner voice: I’ll make this stick!) Much to my amazement, it’s working very well.

The thicknesses of the pieces of china vary across the lamp. I didn’t have china of all the same thickness as I used a large serving platter as the bulk of the china that covers the lower third of the lamp. The upper third is covered in bits broken from demitasse teacups, the sugar bowl and creamer cup. These pieces are much thinner than the serving platter, which was actually injurious to me. It bit me during a heated breaking session causing a gash in my arm.

People often comment that they imagine me throwing plates on the floor or against the wall to break the china. I’m actually much more deliberate in my breakage patterns. I want the breaks precisely where I plan them and so I take time to work with the china and find just the right angle or tool to ensure a clean break. This was not the case with the platter. It was so thick, and at some point I became so frustrated as blisters were forming under the moleskin I’d wrapped my fingers in before putting on my work gloves, that I covered it with a towel and struck it with my heaviest tile nippers to break it. A large shard shot out and ninja stylie sliced my forearm. Wacky. I felt like a little kid again wearing a band-aid on my forearm to work. I was super bummed that I was out of Hello Kitty band-aids for the occasion.

So, I put the thick pieces on the bottom and the thin pieces on the top and I found something with pretty pink flowers that was soft and unimposing to fill the center of the lamp base and now I really need to let the adhesive cure.

I have a new Barbie figurine that came at the last minute and it is a Barbie that looks unlike any Barbie I’ve ever seen. This whole process has introduced me to many Barbies that are considered classic Barbies that are not part of my “classic Barbie lexicon”.

All the Barbies in this piece came with a certificate of authenticity. Still trying to figure out how to work those papers into the piece. I’ve been very regimented about making this authentic. No Skippers allowed. No faux-Barbies. The funny thing is, none of these look like the Barbies I remember growing up. Maybe that’s a big part of the appeal. I think it’s a testament to the age, our age and also that of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, which I’ve focused on. The Barbies that I recognized as part of my age are generally blond haired and buxom and their feet were shaped for heels even far higher than even I can pull off. The Barbies that I’ve collected are often much softer looking. While they are predominantly blond there are many brunettes and in sum they’re much softer looking then the Barbies I remember from growing up.

So, I’ve reached a point where the Barbie Lamp is completely covered and I’ve figured out what to do when you run out of china: you find more china. And you create something new and different than what you’d planned initially. This is really what the whole point of the work I’m doing is anyway: taking a piece that exists in one form and deconstructing it and creating something new out of it that’s entirely different than it was ever conceived of at its birth.

So for now, I have set the beach ball and the drawing pad in the lamp, I have the base china set, I have the broken Barbie melee, and I have some very pretty extra porcelain shoes and black gloves and torch light Barbie that all need to find their way into the piece. But for now, it’s just going to need to cure for a day or two while I figure out the grout color, which I suspect will be white since it will be the least distracting. And then comes the appliqué of the Barbies. So, I’m going to have to take a day off and let this finish curing and then come back with a strategy for adhering Barbies to the lamp.



Thanks for reading :)

And finally, back to my guilty pleasure – So You Think You Can Dance. (I miss Katie and Josh and … Mr. Midas Touch – You were so hot!)

The ugly side of this Toy Story: Barbie Fight

Yesterday seemed to be going swimmingly, until that one phone call that rubbed me the wrong way. And the three like calls that followed it. What’s up Murphy?

When I got home I started working on my lamp again but nothing felt right. It all seemed to be rubbing me the wrong way.

Multitasking: the root of many evils. While on the phone with a good friend, a not-rub-you-the-wrong-way friend, I thought I’d try pulling the base off of Swimsuit Barbie. And me-oh-my, I broke her feet off. Oops. And so cathartic!

After my conniption subsided, I continued to chat and attempt to separate Busy Gal Barbie from her porcelain base. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but somehow she ended up cut off at the knees. Good thing she was wearing such a cute knee-length skirt.

Laughter begets laughter and before I knew it, Fabulous 40s Barbie was severed at the waist. Her top half fell over and would have rolled off had it not been attached to her bottom half by her faux mink stoll. Hanging by her fur coat. What a sight.

With three broken Barbies on the counter my mood was restored. My colleague thinks this is proof woman are inherently more violent then men. I think we women revel a little in the imperfections of those who seem perfect. This draws us a little closer to perfection ourselves and the idea of perfect is taken down a notch or two. Maybe I’m just returning to my roots of breaking Barbie down.

SWF, Mid-30s, Collecting Barbies, Breaking China

There’s something exhilarating about buying Barbie dolls at this point in my life. I think I had the ubiquitous Barbie with a butch hair cut and permanent marker colored blue hair, but I scorned pink and pretty during those years. Maybe that’s why I’ve embraced them so now.

Barbie collectors are a little nutty. Porcelain dolls from the late 80s run as high as $799 on eBay. Honestly, I’m a little concerned about the Barbie collector with this kind of money to burn. I envision a Barbie room, lovingly showcasing their coveted dolls. Creepy. And a little pricey for my kind of Barbie Bash. I did however find a rather nice collection of vintage Barbie replica figurines who will be lovingly showcased in pieces on my lamp.

Here are BarbieFight ladies who aspire to be in the Altered Barbie show:



We have Busy Gal Barbie with her fashion art tablet. So cute!














And Sugarplum Barbie, with ballet slippers:

The Original Swimsuite Barbie is dressed in a black and white knit maillot which was the attire of the late 1959 Barbie doll.

Barbie as Nightclub Singer. Solo in the Spotlight Barbie truly receats the glamorous 1960-1964 fashion.

And finally Barbie as Fabulous Forties Lady. Fabulous Forties Barbie is ready for an evening of dancing to the sounds of the Big Bands.





Add to this two identical Barbie's "Here Comes the Bride" 1966 Porcelain Plates and I thought I was ready to shop for a lamp base. My hunt for a lamp led me to Bed, Bath & Beyond, Marshalls, and finally Target (after a little online shopping of course). Target had a lamp that was just the right shape and, lucky for me, a little damaged so I scored a discount at checkout. I also picked up a frilly pink lampshade and some chicken wire. Since the lamp base was faux wicker I thought I'd need something to get the tile adhesive to stick to it so I picked up some chicken wire and coarse sandpaper to rough it up.



The chicken wire turned out to be a bigger nightmare than I could have imagined. I didn't need it and probably should have tested the adhesive on the plastic before spending 2 hours wrapping my lamp base in the wire and drilling holes in the base to tuck in the wire's edges. But then I did get to use my drill and any time spent with power tools is fun. So it all worked out fine.




After applying the pieces you see above I decided I didn't want to work with the wire. And so the fun began.

I picked off the bits of china, getting tile adhesive all over myself, pulled off the wire, more adhesive all over the place, and tossed the wire. Ick. I washed the china pieces in Mrs. Meyers because they should smell as pretty as they look, and then baked them in the oven to dry them completely. The learning process is always such an adventure.

While the china was drying, I worked on breaking up a large serving platter and suffered my first real mosaic injury: a short but rather deep cut from a flying shard of plate -- bad plate! I'm sure you'll be pleased to know I’m healing nicely. The plate didn't do as well healing wise and you'll find bits of it around the lamp base in my next installment.

I am presently challenged by how I will affix these vintage Barbie figurines to the lamp base. Suggestions are welcome.

To see last year's pieces or details on the show, go to www.alteredbarbie.com

Oh Barbie...

The Birth of the Barbie Lamp

I began working on mosaics several years ago and work almost exclusively with hand-painted Japanese china. Last year I went to the Altered Barbie show in SF and when I received their call for entries email a couple of weeks ago, I decided to broaden my mosaic medium and make a Barbie mosaic.

BarbieFight is a chronicle of the creation of my Barbie Lamp that I plan to submit for the show. It may also become a space for talking about other girlie projects I work on so the name Barbie Fight works on many levels (Thanks Paul -- I'm loving the name).

When I begin work on a mosaic it often starts with china I have bought from an unknowing soul who is elated to pass on a gorgeous tea set (sometimes even with dessert service) to someone they think will use it for tea and cakes. I silently snicker when I read their kind words, understanding their very valid misconception and imagining where I’ll make my first break in that saucer or where I’ll sever the spout from the teapot.

For me, these pieces, the china-mosaic is all about deconstruction-reconstruction. It’s about taking something beautiful and breaking it down into its component parts, parts not imagined by its previous owner. I think this is also why I like covering everyday objects: terracotta pots, picture frames, tiny table tops.

So know you know a little about what I do, here is the story of my Barbie Lamp:

I began this project with an idea: find Barbie tea sets and make a lamp mosaic. This was much harder than I imagined. For one, I could only find 2 patters of porcelain Barbie tea sets. The rest were plastic. And the two I found were honest quite uninspiring. I bought one and suspect I won’t use any of it for this project. It’s just too boring.



What to do with this? Clearly I need to find some porcelain Barbies and break them up. The tea sets are not going work.