Society of Stampaholics

Spouse's Landscape, Part MDCXI

Some of you may remember that Spouse ended a ten-year sabbatical from painting in November of 2009. He started painting this piece of plywood (about 4' x 6') that he hung on the wall in the laundry room. I started taking pictures of it and posting them here as I thought it would be interesting to watch the thing progress. The last post I made concerning this endeavor was in January of this year. I quit making posts because it looked like the thing would never be completed.

I don't mean that he quit working on it. I mean that he wouldn't quit working on it. He fiddled with it so much I quit taking pictures of it and just told him to tell me when it was completed. Of course, he's "completed" it many times now, but I know Spouse, so I waited.

And waited.

And... waited.

(So far this thing has crossed the finish line more times than Mario Andretti but I've yet to see a checkered flag.)

But I know the signs of true completion, and I do believe they're all present because Spouse has:

• Quit staring at the painting for 15-minute stretches;
• Finally stopped applying paint to it; and
• Bugged me non-stop to take its picture for the last week.

(That last one is actually so he can stare at it on paper and decide whether it needs any cropping or other adjustments - when you paint on wood, you can "crop" your painting. [I'm against this, though, as I think it will end up badly.] So one could argue that it's not really finished, but I'm pulling the plug. He's been working on smaller paintings - making his first forays with oil paint, so he needs to let go of this one.)

So here's the last photo y'all saw (you'll need to click on it to see it bigger):

This painting has changed so many times since then it's not even funny. But here is the FINAL version (he will just have to accept that he can't fix some of the compositional/spatial issues).

All in all, pretty darned good for somebody who's not picked up a brush in a decade!

And now we are faced with the real problem.

What on earth are we going to do with this thing?

There's not a single stretch of wall (other than this one) this is even remotely wide enough to accommodate it (doors and windows manage to cut up every single wall in this entire house). And who would want to buy it and pay for the shipping costs? Anybody got any ideas as to how we can unload this thing? Know of any hunting lodges that have a large (and I do mean LARGE) blank wall?

You know where to find me....

Happy Valentine's Day

I don't think I've shared this story before - at least I hope not. But even if I did, it's worth repeating.

I met Spouse when I started grad school. His best friend, Rick, had a wife named Jenny, and she shared this story with me - it's one of the things that made me fall in love with Spouse and may be my all-time favorite story about him.

Rick was also in grad school, and he had to leave for a semester to do an internship. At one point, Rick asked Bill to go visit Jenny and take her out because she was feeling lonely. Being a design student, Spouse had little time and even less money, but Spouse is a very creative person.

If any of you have ever been on the University of Florida's campus, you know it's ALL over town. I mean, really, the school is IT, and the town fills in the blanks. So the place is huge. Spouse, having no car, lead Jenny all over that campus on foot one night. He told her he had a surprise for her, but first he wanted to show her one of his favorite spots on campus. Well, one spot lead to another - spots that included places he and Rick had committed Stupid Student Tricks, (as in they were inebriated and fell in the Duck Pond, etc).

Jenny said he ended up walking her around Gainesville for hours, and he had her in stitches the whole time - all while alluding to the last destination, the "surprise."

Finally, they ended up at the ATM. Bill inserted his card and requested an account balance. He handed the receipt to Jenny, so she could see his sum net worth: $8.47. Then he explained that this was the surprise and why he couldn't take her anywhere.

Jenny told me it was the most fun she'd had in ages - so much better than just going to dinner and a movie.    

I, personally, find that to be one of the most romantic stories I've ever heard, even thought the participants were just friends. And it definitely was one of the things that lead me to fall in love with Spouse - I mean, what a cool, imaginative, wonderful guy!

I LOVE YOU, DEAREST!!!

Project 365 - Bill & Gigi Watching a Movie

I found them in the bedroom watching Big Fat Liar for the 168th time....

That man is a saint.

Here's the original photo:

And here's a crop:

I don't know which one is "better."

(I want these Project 365 pictures to be posted on the date I took them, if you're wondering why they didn't show up on the actual date of the 12th.)

Spouse's Landscape, Part IV

If you've been following Spouse's painting, you can see the earlier progression here.

This is where we left it.

 

A little more detailing:

Inviting some guests (laying down the foundations):

Here are close-ups of the guests:

 

These bears will be undergoing some changes (as well as the rest of the landscape). Stay tuned!

Spouse's Landscape, Part II

Spouse has been painting away. I keep trying to capture pictures before he starts each new session, but he's very sneaky about going off and painting behind my back.

So we'll all just have to be content with big leaps, I guess.

Here's what it looked like when we last saw it - the Badlands of South Dakota.

And here's Part II in the progression - we're getting some greenery.

Thanks for looking!

(If you missed the first post and would like to read it, go here.)

Artist in the House

Yo, YO, yo!

We got an Artist in da house!

Spouse has an interesting bunch of skill sets. Did you know that he holds a BFA and an MFA in Scene Design for the Theatre? Did you further know that until he came up to be with me in Indianapolis he had a business painting the walls and halls of the Nearly Rich and Famous? (He also designed scenery for theatres and massive fundraising events for Deaconess Hospital for several years.)

Yes, and I even helped sometimes - namely on miles and miles of the Brown-Forman Building's foyer in Louisville, Kentucky. (We listened to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on tape - much more witty to the adult mind, so go read it again.) There are faux finishes and murals in St. Louis and Louisville and Evansville painted by Spouse. He was so good that he even fooled carpenters into believing the fireplace in one house was made of granite blocks (it wasn't - it was made of wood.)

When he came up here to be with me during my years in law school, he really didn't want to start all over again because his knees were feeling shot. And it's a lonely existence. So he put away his paint and brushes and started working in Corporate America, where he was doing pretty good until this last year. Now he hasn't worked since January, and I think he's had just about enough of THAT.

For his birthday, Gigi and I bought him paints and brushes and other sundries, and he designed a very large landscape and is now happily painting it. Just for funsies. I've been trying to take pictures of it as it progresses, but the stinker keeps going in there and doing more to it without telling me first!

So I thought I'd share the process with you. Are you ready?

First the sketch. What you're seeing below is a sketch that has a grid drawn on top of it. If you've ever wondered how artists do really large paintings (large canvas and the sides of a building) this is their trick. You do your sketch and then you place a grid over it. Once that's done you draw a grid of the same proportions on your blank canvas - in the case of a very large area, you often have to use a chalk line. Then you copy your sketch onto the canvas/area using the grid as a guide. Pretty cool, huh?

Sometimes you do this a little at a time. In the case of Spouse's drawing, he's got multiple "layers" or depths, so he's laying down paint and images from the bottom up.

Now here's the first picture I was able to capture (like I said, he sneaked in there and painted stuff without letting me get a picture of the first layer). The first layer was just the sky and the horizon line.

And here's the artist, hard at it.

And here's the artist's daughter, hard at it.

Check back regularly to watch a painting evolve!

Mavis Frickin' Beacon

I am now convinced that I am living in the Booby-Hatch.

Spouse came in today and tried to discreetly unwrap some software so I wouldn't see it.

(See, this is your first sign that the inmates are not playing with a full deck. My desk is about four feet away from his. You can't even smuggle the last Tootsie Roll in these close quarters. I know because I've tried. So how he thinks I'm not going to hear the deafening crackle of cellophane as he peels a CD is beyond me.)

"What is that?" I ask.

And then I see a familiar face. Oh, no. It's her.

Again.

Mavis Beacon - Typing Guru. The Keyboard Cutie. Or, as I privately refer to her, That Software Slut.

I hate Mavis Beacon.

You wanna know why I hate Mavis Beacon?

Because every few years Spouse gets a bee in his bonnet about learning how to type. And he goes out and stalks Mavis. No matter what store we're in, he's got an eye out for Miss B. Once he can no longer stand lusting from afar, he breaks down and buys the latest version of ol' Mavis.

Because THIS time is going to be different. This time he's going to emerge from her clutches a lean, mean typing machine!

And I, of course, have to listen to the entire affair because, like I pointed out earlier, his desk is about four feet away from mine.

The courtship begins in a very polite way. Spouse is calm, serious. A man on a mission. He is ready. No more of this shilly-shallying around. He is here to gain speed and precision on the keyboard, and he is UP TO THE TASK!

He starts the evaluation test, and he's always on Mavis' side when she tells him how dreadful he has done. Of course, it was dreadful! I've been a Slacker, a typing bum! But I'm ready. Ready, I say! No more of this shilly-shallying around! I will gain speed AND preci-

Are you starting to understand why I hate Mavis? I've heard this speech before. Many, many, MANY times.

So, unable to withstand the wiles of Miss B, he attacks the first exercise with gusto and passion... which turns into grumpy resentment practically before you can get to the "Sincerely yours" at the end of the letter. It starts with short snorts of disgust which tranistion into spurts of expletives, which then segue into disparaging remarks about the keyboard itself. Clearly, the "e' key is sticking - and what a time for it to start acting up - just when he is trying to improve his typing skills! Great.That's just great. Did I spill something on his keyboard?

I take this as my cue to make soothing and supportive statements: "Honey, don't be so hard on yourself - 27 words a minute is a very good start. But it takes time. If I were you, I'd just try to work on my accuracy first, and then start increasing your speed."

He looks at me like I'm a total idiot and says, "Well, of course. How else do you think it's done?!"

I'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole.

Luckily, it's time for dinner, and we are having Chinese. (Chinese does wonders for cranky husbands, I find.) So we eat our dinner, and all is soon well in Our Little World.

Until after dinner, that is.

Like some sort of meth addict, he is immediately back at his desk, determined to conquer Mavis! (I really don't know what happens to his brain. I mean, does he truly think he's going to sit down and end up typing 65 words per minute with a 98% accuracy rating in a single evening?! I suspect that Mavis is blowing crack fumes out of the disk drive because, otherwise, I cannot account for such a complete leaving of one's senses.)

Spouse starts ol' Mavis up, and he's immediately cheerful and optimistic.

"Oh, look! I'm up to 34 words per minute!"

and

"'Good job!' it says! 'Your work has improved vastly since your earlier efforts!'"

Riiiiiiight.

So now he's all cheerful and cocky. But that won't last long. Do you think he's going to quit while he's ahead? Walk away with a victory tonight to return well-rested and stronger on the morrow?

Oh, nooooo. The man is like a teenager with a bootleg copy of Grand Theft Auto. He can no more walk away from that computer than I can walk away from half-price ink. It takes less than five minutes for this sane, intelligent, reasonable man to turn into a split-personality right before my very eyes.

One minute he is cursing under his breath, getting more and more ticked off at that stupid typing program with its deliberately twisted sentences! - NOBODY would ever write such a combination - some jackass in a bad mood obviously got his jollies by writing this garbage....

And then there's prolonged silence.

Wait for it....

Snickering. The man is snickering. (Actually, it's giggling, but "snickering" is more manly.) Now he's deeply amused at the sentence his typos have concocted.  

But it's only a matter of time before it gets ugly again. He's been patient, by jingo! The demands being made by this program are absurd! No reasonable person would ever type such a sentence!

Well, I can't argue with that, given the wild-eyed maniac pounding the keyboard like there's no tomorrow. Nope. No reasonable people typing in this household.

The irony is too much, and I muffle a tiny, little giggle of my own at his remark - and then laugh outright when I hear him say to the computer, "You just want to see me fail, don't you?"

Only, apparently, he was not talking to the computer. He was talking to me.

Because he heard that muffled little slip of a giggle.

This is what happens when your desks are four feet apart.

Now you know why I hate Mavis.

And now you also know why I'm fairly certain this is the Booby-Hatch: my husband is having a sado-masochistic affair with a piece of software, and I'm blogging about it.