When is a print not a print?…….

I recently imagined that someday someone might ask me “Why should I buy one of your prints since they are digital and you can make them forever and each one looks like all the others and I want something unique”? As I said no one has ever asked  me that, but by god,  I want to be ready when they do.

I know that some analog print makers destroy or deface their plates, woodblocks, or stones and thereby create an edition that can’t be added to. I thought of doing something dramatic like removing the hard drive from my computer and smashing or burning it- I could even make a video and post it on youtube -  as a piece of performance art. Unfortunately, this idea has too many unintended consequences.

My solution is to take a print, Mask#65, and create a collage/painting mounted on a piece  of material made from ground wood scraps that local contractors call “head cheese” (don’t ask). The result is a piece I call Sunset Vines”

Posted by Dennis

Visit  Galerie Yggdrasil   our Etsy store.

Standplant?…..

O.K. Plant stand then, or fern stand, a spindly, often fragile easily tipped over piece of furniture designed?, to display a plant. Designed to fall over, I say. I’ve repaired a number of these over the years,  they arrive in the shop each with a tale of woe. Broken, water stained, missing tiny ornamental bits and some of them so narrow and spindly as to fall over if you look at them. Mind, the iron stands are much more robust especially when firmly bolted to the floor, (amazing the insights one gains from living with seven cats and a dog).

      

 

 

 

Forthwith I present my contribution to this wretched tradition, the Standplant, containing both elements, stand and plant. Assembled as a fiendish complexity of random twists and turns so as to sorely try the patience of anyone unfortunate enough to ever try and repair it.

I look forward to being cursed through the ages (assuming the cockroaches don’t win.)

Posted by Dennis.  Susan and Dennis have all kinds of strange stuff for sale at  Galerie Yggdrasil

Faux News……..

                                                         Faux News.  Pastels and ink by Susan Owen

The house still smells like smoke.

I suppose it is my fault, when it comes down to it.  I am an avid watcher of Rachael Maddow and have been  joyously  awaiting the return of Keith Olbermann and the Countdown show on Current tv.  The kids didn’t seem to pay attention most of the time since they are customarily in Skosh’s room either listening to unintelligible music, playing games on the computer or endlessly snacking.  Since the advent of the babyvamps, I cannot count the pounds of tomatoes I have gone through, and even Heather seems to have developed a taste for the odd beakful of bologna…go figure.   Three days ago, however, the sounds from the kid cave seemed different on many levels.

What music there was coming from skosh’s room was in brief spurts and sounded wrong somehow, rather like something one would hear at a parade for the ku klux klan, and there was a lot of alternate shrieking,, howling and mumbling.  I could hear a few comments from the young ones but nothing I could make out…however, as the time wore on and the mumbling raised in volume, I could hear a few words now and then from the flatscreen, such as ‘Jesus’, ‘kill’, ‘army of god’, ‘outrage’, and my all time favorite, “liberals!!” This latter word spoken much as a viking would howl “kreegah!!” or something of that nature.  Hmmmm.

The kids began to mutter imprecations and from what I could gather from their tone, they were becoming restless.  in the world of Skosh, restless does not bode well.  I was on my way to his room to see for myself what mischief was afoot when the whole back of the house erupted in chaos.  There was a loud uncontrolled hissing from the babyvamps such as I have never heard, especially from the twins, Tad and Vlad, since they are the older of the lot and their voices are changing which makes for an interesting tonality.  Heather was peeping in shrill outrage, in counterpoint to the higher notes of Neckers and his brother Neil, who was clearly so upset that for once he forgot he was not a rooster and reverted to very angry hummingbird status.  I hurried my pace but didn’t reach the door in time and there was a wall-shaking roar and the entire door caught on fire.

What fresh hell is this, he knows better than to…I thought as I raced for the nearest extinguisher.  It took about half an hour to extinguish the door and about half of his room. Naturally the flatscreen was untouched by damage but his “How to train your dragon”. “Eragon” “Smaug” and “Jabberwock” posters are waaaay history.  Calming the cru down was even harder than taming the smoldering ruins, but eventually I got the story out of them.

I didn’t have the heart to ground Skosh for singeing even though he knows it is totally and at all times verboten, because in truth this was a breach I could understand full well.  It seems that the kids decided to see how the other half rants, and had been watching Faux News.  As the afternoon wore on and the lunacy escalated, so did heir tempers at the outlandish silliness of show after show but they managed to hold their tempers in until the very end when from what i can gather, there was a 10 minute interview with Blareah Failin.  ten minutes…apparently, as long as she can appear even remotely sane in public…but it was enough to flip the kids over into full-on outrage mode.  Skosh said he couldn’t help it, it just got away from him, and he’d never do it again and Heather said totally fer sure, like…ewwww….Mina was in a corner terrorizing  an heirloom tomato and snarling sotto voce about “feminissssssss revolution”.   Neckers and Neil decided they were thirsty after all that smoke and were heavily into the nectar, hopefully non-fermented, but who can tell….and Tad and Vald were piling their unruly, heavy hair on top of their heads,donning pairs of my glasses, and laughing..”nudge, nudge” said Tad, while Vlad responded with “WANK….WANK!!”  and Skosh announced that he might just take a little flight to the studios of Faux news and show them just exactly what the meaning of ‘flame wars’ really is. I know better than to reprimand him until he settles down since I tried it once.  Ow. hot. Ow.

All in all, it could have turned out worse.  Tonight we will all settle in with a few hours of Hetty Wainthropp mysteries on dvd and some parmesan popcorn. Oh, yes…and chips with marinara dip, And for the rest of the night, all is forgiven.  we shall no more speak of this.  But I swear, young man, if you EVER,  and I mean, EV….Ow. Hot.

Posted by Susan. Shop Galerie Yggdrill  where you will find many items that smell slightly of smoke.

Milady’s chair…….

Gee, that was fun.

I believe I have mentioned more than once that Heather, Skosh’s girlfriend, was a pathetic, messy, lonely little chirpster, totally devoid of style and not much in the personality department before she met Skosh and his friends and began to bloom under their loving tutelage.  The reason for this sad state of affairs was Heather’s treatment, or lack of it, at the wings of her mother, a stylish matron with a penchant for social-climbing, haute couture, and martini-heavy afternoon ‘teas’ with like-minded harridans, teas that customarily lasted well into the evening and sometimes longer.  on the rare occasion that Heather did receive any attention from her mother, it was almost always negative.  Heather had no sense of self-worth and had no idea that she would ever have even one friend, much less as many as she now has.

Heather spends most of her time at our home now, to the shared delight of both Heather and her alleged mother, who no longer has to explain to her cronies how it was that she came to be related to such a ‘terrible disappointment’ as her daughter.  However, at one point when we were planning a three day (possibly four if we felt the urge) trip to Dragoworld, Heather’s mother decided to do a little mothering and find out exactly who her daughter was hanging with and just exactly what a good for nothing bunch we obviously were and required my presence at her stately home for a ‘nice little chat’ as she put it, before she would allow Heather to accompany us. so.  off we went, heather bringing up the rear and I, wearing a faux Chanel suit and enough Shalimar to peel paint, bravely in the lead.

We wisely decided not to allow Skosh to tag along.

We were seen into the drawing room and the old family retainer announced our presence.  Within a short half hour, Mrs. Pinfeather made her appearance, swanning down the spiral staircase like a cross between Bette davis and a feather boa, and offered me a limp wing in greeting.  I opted not to kiss it and contented myself with a quick shake of the wingtip.  she bade us sit down, please, sit, rang for tea (uh oh) and glared at Heather’s new beak piercing with a ladylike shudder.  when the tea service arrived we were offered a cup each, only two cups on the tray as mrs. p. already had her own cup sitting on her tiny side table. Uh huh….

It began easily enough with a round of questions as to what do I do for a living, “an artist, ahh.  I seeee.  no, I mean, what do you  REALLY do?”, and other queries in that vein. She then proceeded to still more questions about the location of my home, “ahh. I seee…I believe I drove past that um, area once…mmm…”  but as the afternoon wore on and more tea was consumed by the good lady,  the questions grew  less to the point of our visit.   Mrs. P. relaxed a little too visibly and began to speak of the grandeur of Heather’s upbringing and her own exalted status in the community.

“Forr exshample, this ssshhh…ermm..CHHAIRR upon which i sh..sh..ssit” she began. “it onesh belonged to the shhh..erm..Shhhah of Irang.  He gave it to me on the occashhion of my reshent vishhit to his lovely (HIC) parrdon home.  He washh delighted by my interpretashhhion of a ballad I ushed to shing when I wash with the New Yark..York Phlaparmonic.  I shall give you an ideear of my former gander…I wash alwayshh hoping that Heather might have inherited sshome of my giftsh but..alashh…” another glare at Heather, rather more bleary this time.  Heather ducked behind my Chanel jacket and wished fervently that she were anywhere but where she was.

At this point things got a lot more interesting.  Mrs. Pinfeather stood up on her ‘sshair’, a dainty if somewhat wobbly backless affair, and began to belt out a tuneless but really loud version of “Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey”.  Things might have worked out better for the redoubtable Mrs.P. had not the chair decided at that point to go south, and the great lady was dumped unceremoniously to the deep lush carpet, where she promptly passed out cold.

Heather and I chose that moment to make our graceful exit, legs and wings leaping and flapping out the front door withall speed lest our hostess should awaken before we were safely away.

In the car on the way home I turned to heather and said, “gee, I think that went well, don’t you?”  To which heather replied, “Oyeah.  for real. I’m all packed”.  “When were we leaving for dragoworld again….and would it be at all possible to stay a week?”

We may throw caution to the winds and do just that.  I hope the chair can be repaired..It may just be needed again in the very near future. Posted by Susan.  Visit Galerie Yggdrasil and see all our offerings (burnt and otherwise).

Imagine…..

” Outburst” by Dennis Kish

Claude Monet as a plant geneticist who decided to “do something about Peonies”.

Posted by Dennis. Be sure to visit Galerie Yggdrasil  and view a vast quantity of commercially viable offerings by Dennis and Susan

Oops!…………..

Mask#74 by Dennis Kish

Curses?! I meant blessings! -Posted by Dennis  who says ” read the manual first.”

Find lots of strange and cautionary art at Galerie Yggdrasil

The Emmys…….

I am the proud mother of a large, satiny, and alternately loving and quarrelsome calico cat named Emma.  My daughter is also a proud mother…she has a lovely, horribly spoiled little creme Dachshund, also called Emma.  The names are coincidental.

The canine Emma loves it when my daughter goes to her bed of an evening to read propped up on her pillows, since that gives Emmy license to drape herself becomingly around my daughter’s head and fall into a blissful coma.

Were she to try this tactic with the feline Emma, great bloody unspeakable horrors would ensue.  This drawing pictures the nanosecond before said hairy apocalypse. Posted by Susan, who has many drawings, prints and a music box for sale at

Galerie Yggdrasil  ps; Dennis has stuff for sale too.

Fashionista……..

                                                   Fashionista.  A pastel and ink drawing  by Susan Owen

Upon reflection, she thought it all started with that Yves diaper bag.  Baby Chanel loathed the sight of it and went immediately  into tantrum screechings every time her little eyes caught sight of it.  Her mother was a slave to high end brand names and everywhere Chanel looked as she grew, there was another loathsome set of initials of scrawled and famous signature on one or another of her garments.

She grew into pre-adolescence with a defined sense of her own style and she and her mother regularly locked horns.Chanel would put together an outfit that made her mother’s teeth itch and delighted the young lady…plaid men’s ties and shiny black tap shoes from the goodwill, mini skirts with a chiffon underlayer, tanks that she would embellish with antique buttons, or ribbons, or outlandish pins from the 40′s.

Upon graduation from high school, she attended a fashion design school and emerged with the knowledge she sought as regards to pattern making  and use of the various complex machines that she would need for her life’s work.  By this time her mother had begun to go a little grey but continued to try, to no avail, to get Chanel to wear business suits and ‘acceptable’ boring blouses and power pumps.  Chanel continued to make the ‘gag me’ sign at her mother as she donned her 1950′s net petticoats and trotted off to her job as a pattern maker for a small garment manufacturer.

At night, Chanel continued to pull together her own creations and after much wheedling, talked her boss into giving her a small showing at a warehouse in the bronx.

The night of the show, a ceo of a large company, seeking fresh blood for his junior division, found himself with nothing to do and having seen the flyer for Chanel’s little show, decided to drop in for a moment.  He expected nothing of interest  but was curious for a look.  After all, it couldn’t hurt, and he did have a small block of time.  What he saw made his jaded jaw drop to the sawdust on the floor of the warehouse.

Within a month, Chanel’s creations were crowding the fashion pages and the signature piece was gracing the cover of Vogue.  she had joined her models to show the pieces at her second, and much larger, show, and as she strutted down the ramp, smiling from ear to ear, flashbulbs exploded around the new darling of one of the most fickle industries in the world.  “It can happen to anyone,” she said to Women’s Wear Daily. “You just have to take your dreams unaltered from your head to the fabric, and never, never listen to your mother.”- Posted by Susan

Susan and Dennis have prints, drawings, paintings, and A music box, at Galerie Yggdrasil

Ps; the hairy tapestry is one year old, well a year and a bit, since we forgot our anniversary, so, ah, happy birthday to us and an extra ration of tuna all ’round!

Shopping spree……

What a great day!!

I was informed three days ago that there would be a calvinball match the next day and the boys would be watching it on the new flatscreen, and would require nourishment aplenty.  The morning of the match, I provided the usual suspects:  bologna, cheese, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes….flasks and tubs and bowls and vials of various and sundry liquids for the young gents.  After all, this was an important match between the Vamps and the Weres, and thus the babyvamps had a stake in the outcome.  Neil was excited since it would give him an excuse to crow nonstop with no one to yell at him about it.

The girls and I decided we would rather watch paint dry, so I bid them all adieu with a warning to Skosh that I realized there would be much excitement afoot, but if I saw one spot, even one tiny spot, of singe anywhere in the house, he would be grounded until he was 700, and I mean it, young man.

Since it was a lovely, sunny day, I took off for the hinterlands with my camera and a bottle of vitamin water, and the girls (oh BIG SURPRISE) decided to go shopping.

Mina had been telling Heather about this totally SICK shop she frequented, there was just anything a girl could want there, awesome, so that was their first destination.  after perusing the chains and leather goods and torn tee shirts and oversized, clanking Steampunk greatcoats, Mina decided to get a new tattoo from the artist in the back of the shop.  Heather was also just perishing for one, but since her skin is covered with feathers it might not be a viable plan.  She waited and chatted with Mina while she got her tattoo, a tiny ladylike cherry tomato on the left cheek of her dewy little butt, and then Mina had an idea: why didn’t Heather get a piercing???

Now, as I think I have mentioned , Heather was a shy and somewhat neglected little lady before she met Skosh and company, so having a friend, especially a cool friend like Mina, was heaven for her, and a piercing…well, hey, her mom wouldn’t notice anyhow and yeah, hey….wow, so in a matter of moments and with only a little alarmed cheeping, Heather had a brand new Peridot stud in her dainty beak.  She felt like a new woman!!

Now that they were all tuned up, what next?  Heather told Mina that she could really use some new fuzzy socks (hoping that Mina wouldn’t think that was uncool) but Mina was excited at the thought of soft furry feet (she may have had a little Were blood, but she sure as heck wasn’t gonna tell anyone about THAT)  so off they went to Birdbath and Beyond in search of the socks that Heather had seen there during the winter months.

They searched all over the personal area, as it is termed, for their socks, but no such luck, so Heather approached a young associate in the hopes that there were still some available somewhere in the store since there had been so many earlier in the year….but now, all the spring merchandise was out on the floor.  The young lady, Savannah by name, was very helpful and looked along with the girls but couldn’t locate the desired items so got on the horn and called for backroom assistance.

in a moment, a young gentleman came rolling up and Savannah asked him to go search for the socks.

“they’ll be in the personal products backstock, Matt” said she.  Matt took on a hunted look. “Personal products…ummm…thats chick stuff, right?  Ummm…” but off he went, determined to do his job, no matter how onerous.

Five  minutes passed, then ten, and finally Matt came back holding a small box between thumb and forefinger.  “These, ummm?”

Alas for Matt, those were the wrong socks, being the kind with lotion in them to soften those pesky heel calluses, and he was sent forth once again by Savannah to bring back the fuzzy ones.  on the top shelf.  On the left.  Poor Matt.

While he was on his second quest, the girls found that they had a great deal in common with Savannah…favorite bands, favorite tv shows, clothing (they all love to wear their blazers belted and omg BOOTS..) and made plans to meet at the closest panera the following week.  In a few moments Matt returned, flushed with success, his former fears of ‘chick stuff’ forgotten, with the very socks the girls wanted.

Ahhh….they were the stuff of which dreams are made.  Soft, comfy, high on the ankle so as not to let an errant cold draft in, and perfect for trotting about the house without shoes.

The girls got back to the house a little after I returned.  Attired in their new footwear, they proudly proffered a gift:  socks for me!  Ahhhhhh.

Our timing was perfect.  the match was over, the Vamps won by two points, and I had held back enough goodies for the girls to have a snack.  The rest of the day and evening was filled with happy chatter, a succession of dvds (with no squabbling about content) no scorch marks anywhere (good boyo, Skoshie) and best of all, oh frabjous day….warm, fuzzy socks.

Posted by Susan. For prints of the illustrations from the Skosh Chronicles visit Galerie Yggdrasil

American Meltdown….

The Hairy Tapestry lives on the left coast (unless you live in Canada and are looking south) we live near a twenty year old nuclear power plant built near not one but two earthquake faults. The license for the plant will expire in thirteen years which is why the utility company (Pacific Gas and Electric) is anxious to renew the license now, in fact they would like to have the whole process finished by September of this year. Hey,  don’t put off for say ten years what you can do today! And because they are in such a hurry  they don’t want to wait for the completion of a geological study using  3-d imaging technology that didn’t exist when the plant was approved for construction in 1968, twenty three years ago.  Imagine, geologists can produce a sort of 3-d cat scan and perhaps tell a lot more about the potential for and strength of an earthquake on  the two fault lines located close to a twin reactor power plant and twenty years worth of old radioactive nuclear fuel. Who wouldn’t want to know about that? Apparently Pacific Gas and Electric.

Let us pray while chanting the American Mantra.  Moving forward, who could have imagined? (repeat  1,000 times while watching CNN) and attain enlightenment, or is that irradiation?  Posted by Dennis

Dennis and Susan also hold forth at  Galerie Yggdrasil where they have stuff for sale.