Art

Backstory: there’s a virtual gallery opening today that I’d wanted to attend, at a specific time. I have artwork in this show, I’m proud of the work, and I love the gallery. I also am lucky enough in the midst of a pandemic to *have a FT job with benefits*. It’s nearing the end of…

Read More Artists explaining themselves

If anyone is coming here as a result of the Art Quilts show, the Fire Mountain seed bead contest, or TusCon 2020 (or anyone but trolls and bots, really), please bear with me. An update caused a few problems, which I hope to fix in a few days. To paraphrase the late great Douglas Adams,…

Read More Wonky site, bear with me

I wrote this post about beads a few months back. I’ve since been quietly processing the news that Kalmbach Publishing shuttered both Bead & Button Magazine and its annual flagship exhibition the Bead & Button Show. Covid19 may have killed the 2020 show, but it revealed larger market flaws and fragility in that part of…

Read More Beads, Diversity, and Green Cities

I’ll have work showing up in two anthologies this year. The first is the remarkable Mirrormaze, a dreampunk anthology of mind-melting SFF from editor Cliff Jones Jr. and Fractured Mirror Publishing, to be released on December 8, 2020. I’ve read the galley. It was stunningly well-put together. You should pre-order this book! My story is…

Read More New Anthologies

Spoilers! I’ll be honest: the main reason I got a new phone was its swanky camera, better rates from T-Mobile, and a reduced subscription to Netflix. The main reason I wanted Netflix was The Jim Henson Company’s ‘The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance’. This ambitious prequel to the Dark Crystal movie promised intriguing characters, plus…

Read More Dark Crystal Cancelled

Three years ago I bought a display form from a local boutique that was going out of business. I named it ‘Adelaide‘ after the boutique. Adelaide-the-mannequin had a cracked support post and base, and was permanently pitched backward (she frequently fell over). She also needed various bits of padding to mimic my ridiculously variable girth.…

Read More Say hi again to Adelaide

I’m publishing a new version of my sword-and-planet fantasy novel BLOODSHADOW on July 10, 2020, through Draft2Digital. At 40,482 words, this is a revised version of the first part of the monster 135K book that was on Wattpad some years ago. Amazon US buy link Amazon global buy link Universal buy link (for platforms other…

Read More Relaunching Bloodshadow!

Two good things have come out of our Plague Year nightmare: I’ve forcibly learned tips and tricks for a masked/veiled population in at least two of my books, so I have no excuse for any lack of verisimilitude later when working on NEEDLE AND SWORD or RED AMBER. As a rather standoffish person, I hate…

Read More Mask Selfie #1

We’re moving into the white-hot, flat-blue-sky phase of Arizona summer. There may be storms later in June or July, but for now they are a memory, a daydream, or a nightmare (our storms can be all three at once.) Anyone who has ever been through a desert thunderstorm knows the electric feel of the air,…

Read More ‘Rain Season’ beaded panels

Because I can’t stay away from fiber arts. These fabric masks have an outer shell of embroidered and beaded cloth, surgical cloth filters, and inner linings of copper-infused bamboo and cotton cloth. They can be washed and sterilized. They fit very well. Are they the equivalent of N95 masks? Hell, no. But they help with…

Read More Three Covid Masks

I’m psyching myself up to finishing some major pieces of fiber, bead, & book art this year, including some pieces in the design phase for years! To start, I wanted a pair or two of gloriously beaded sandals. (To work on, enter in art shows, wear to art & book events, etc.) I can’t justify…

Read More Beaded Panels for Shoes

I’m looking back on old art pieces that stalled out, got trunked, went into limbo…whatever we call it, most artists have some. Why they stalled? All reasons are valid: ‘I made it for someone, we lost touch, I’m embarrassed by them now, they’re embarrassed by me, I’m not finishing this!’ ‘I bit off way more…

Read More Making, Unmaking, Remaking

Neal Peart is dead. On January 7, of glioblastoma. He’d been ill for three-and-a-half years. He and the close-knit Rush band family kept it quiet. When I found out, I cried. I’ve been a Rush fan since my brothers introduced me to the band’s unique music forty-five years ago. Every record…nearly every song…was a marker…

Read More Wallflowers and Warrior Poets