Gotta Resin Some More: Pokémon Earrings and Pins

I did a bit of resin crafting, finally making use of the last batch of moulds I had ordered. These require quite a bit of secondary work, painting in the details, but I absolutely love them.

Head of Galar fire starter, next to a 1€ coin

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I first cast the blanks. They have all the outlines I need for later. Usually I use one colour only, but the scorbunny has the orange red ear tips. After that I paint in the details, using either acrylic paint or UV resin. Small lines like the nose are painted in with a permanent CD marker. I had to try some out to find one that doesn’t dissolve in the final layer of resin (mostly UV, epoxy only if I’m making some anyway, no use mixing up 5 ml of epoxy) . The hooks are sterling silver, the bead is some semi precious stone.

Head of galar plant starter

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I love Grookey. I don’t like its evolution that much, but Grookey is absolutely adorable. You can see in the top one where I didn’t wait for long enough for the acrylic paint to dry.

Head of the Galar water starter

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And Sobble. Sobble gets the coolest evolution, but as a baby they’re just a little Emo. I love Sobble.

Squirtle head earrings

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I also got moulds for the original Kanto starters. If you compare Squirtle to Sobble, you can see how much more complex they got. Here it’s just eyes and mouth, done.

Bulbasaur earrings

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Bulbasaur is the least favourite Kanto starters and I don’t know why. They’re so cute! Here I went from semi precious stones to a glass bead I had lying around.

Original Game Boy silhouettes with Galar Starters as earrings

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A bit of an anachronism: Original Game Boy design with Galar starters. Yes, making the tiny silhouettes is fiddly. I still have my Game Boy, btw.

Pins of the Pokémon

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And because not everybody has their ears pierced, I also made some pins. Bulbasaur is missing, because my friends nicked them.

 

In Memoriam: Uli

 

Obvious content note

About 20 years ago, a friend hung up notes around uni: Lord of the Rings Trading Cards Game, players wanted. A young woman with a head full of curls showed up, and my (now) brother in law remarked afterwards: “Well never see her again.” Rarely in the history of humankind has somebody been that wrong, and I’m glad about it. The young woman returned. We became friends, we became close friends, we became the best of friends. Society doesn’t have a word for what we were. Somebody you love dearly, though there is neither family nor romance involved. A few weeks ago she signed the contract to buy a house just three houses up the street. We were planning to grow old together. In September she would move in, we’d plan and put up the kitchen together. New Year’s Eve we’d have our traditional party at her house this year.

The Covid restrictions were hard on her, being single she was the only one of us completely alone. But spring came, the vaccine came, things were looking better. We found that house. No pandemic would ever separate us like this again. Four weeks ago she had a belly bug. After her second jab she was pretty sick. Vaccine reaction, everybody said. She got better, then it got worse again. That was a pretty severe reaction and none I’d heard of before. This went on and off for some more time, with her doctor still claiming it was a vaccine reaction, but ordering blood tests for this week. I know I was getting angry with her doctor. Her cousin speculated she might have stomach ulcers. Thursday morning her brother in law called me to tell me that she’d died that night in a hospital in Milan, where she’d gone for a holiday with her cousin. She’d suffered from undetected fallopian tube cancer. The weight she’d put on was actually the tumours growing in her belly. The “vaccine reaction” was her body finally shutting down, and now we’re left to deal with the fact that she won’t come home again.

She was a kind person, and maybe that’s the best thing to say about a human being. Wherever she went, she left her mark. Not as a “leader”. She hated to be the centre of attention. Finding pics of her was a real challenge. She’d just always be there, part of whatever community she found herself in.

She enjoyed things, with all her heart and without any shame. “Dance like nobody’s watching” is a wall tattoo for most people, for her it was a motto of life. She loved ballet and went to whatever ballet class she could find. She didn’t give a fuck about what people thought of a small fat woman in her 40s doing ballet. We always crafted together. “She was bad at it, wasn’t she?”, asked her sister and yeah, she was about the clumsiest person you can imagine. But she didn’t care. If the seams of the dress were off, they were off, and she still wore it with pride. I always tried to be like her in that respect: Do what you enjoy, not what others think you should be doing.

I miss her, terribly. And I will miss her. And I want to give a big, fat middle finger to the heteronormative patriarchal kin system. I will be forever grateful to her sister for involving us, for allowing us to participate in her funeral, but I also know that the law says we’re strangers and she didn’t even have to give us a phone call.

Goodbye, Uli. Most of the world didn’t know that you existed. Because had they known, they would feel your loss now.

Fry Day 13-th

I was born on Friday 13th, 45 years ago. This Friday, to be precise. When I learned that it is supposed to be a “bad luck” day, I thought to myself “that makes sense, considering…”.

I am not superstitious, but whenever I reflect on my life so far, I do think the same still, although in some respects I am among the lucky ones. But depression does not lend itself to dispassionate analysis.

Anyhoo, this year the world burns, again, and it keeps getting worse. Hooray.

TERFs Failing to Posthumously Claim Pratchett as Their Own

If I were on Twitter (which I am not) and if I were keeping up with what flavor of nonsense TERFs are currently peddling (which I am not) I would probably notice that they are trying to claim late Terry Pratchett as a transphobe.

And if I were making YouTube videos (which I am not) I would make one just like Shaun did (and I did not).

Whenever I think about trans issues and Terry Pratchett, the Monstrous Regiment immediately springs to mind. I did not like that book after the first reading, which was rare for Discworld books – I liked most of them straightaway. But it grew on me with subsequent reading and like most Discworld books I ended up reading it multiple times and I probably will read it some more before I finally die.

We cannot know what a dead person would say about some issue. Even a word from their living friends and relatives might not be entirely reliable, since friends and family could tend to be overly favorable when judging their loved ones who passed on (although when multiple people say the same, it does bear significant weight). Throughout the books, many things about Pratchett become apparent, among them his deep humanism and knowledge of the intricacies and complications of the human condition. There is absolutely no doubt that he would reject any notion of trying to shoehorn people into neat little boxes with simple definitions. All of his books stay and fall on the only “simple” fact about humans – that each is their own person and categories and words are mere imperfect crutches that we use for communication, always imperfectly.

Kyoot Kestrels

Yesterday evening when watering my citruses in the greenhouse, I heard the typical cry from a nearby oak tree and when I looked there, I saw these two cuties sitting atop of it. They were kind enough to wait for me to go inside and fetch the camera, but not long enough for me to get the exposition settings right for the crappy lighting – I only got one shot and they whooshed.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

In case you are wondering, the tree is living, but it was struck by a lightning a few years ago and it has one dead branch on the very top and a strip of deadwood down to the earth since then. Right next to it is an ash tree with a dead branch on which I have photographed kites a few times.

Raptors like to sit on dead branches, I guess they provide them with a good view.

Restorating the Kitchen Table and why “Sustainability” Can’t Work Within Capitalism

Everybody in a long term relationship knows the horrors of buying furniture. You may have been together for a decade, have basically the same interests, plans in life, you combined your families and friend circles, and then you need to buy furniture. Suddenly your beloved looks like a total stranger. How can the person you love more than anybody else like that couch? If your relationship survives the first round of furniture shopping, you may survive as a couple. And then you are together for so many years that you have to do it all again. Especially when you have children. Especially when your children are alien monsters in a cute disguise.

Last year around autumn the little one managed to actually break the legs off a chair. The other ones weren’t very stable either any more, so we needed to go out and buy new ones. And the table looked horrible as well. 14 years of eating, crafting, living had taken their toll on the plates. Nevertheless, while we could agree quickly on new chairs, we could also agree quickly that the tables were not an option. Our table needs to be large and extendable. For some reason, the large tables all had a plate that is split lengthwise, and at that point (apparently they changed since) , could only extended by inserting a plate lengthwise, which doesn’t make sense, since it doesn’t sit more people, but make sitting down and getting up  difficult since the table is too wide now.

The only one available at the big Swedish furniture shop that suited our needs was the exact same one we already had… so i decided to restore that one instead, which only took me about 10 month to get done.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

This is how the table looked before. The varnish has basically disappeared in the areas most used, there are big scratches and dents. I seized the opportunity to get a random orbit sander and got to work. I removed the old paint and nasty scratches at 60 grit.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Then I did a second round at 150. In the image below one half is already sanded, the other half is not. People who work with wood can feel the image.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Last round was done at 220 grit and off we went for varnishing.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I used varnish for wood floors/stairs, since that is the most durable, and you saw what already happened to the table once.

I applied a total of three layers of varnish, giving them ample time to dry in between.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

A first coat of varnish. I lightly sanded in between applying the coats, but by hand and with a 800 grit. One thing about the varnish is that it doesn’t “pull even”. It keeps a bit of a structure, and if you look closely, you can see it (though not in this pic). It also hides dirt until it’s dried and it’s too late…

The legs got some repairs where needed. Down at the feet, where you stub your toes, ant the bars where you put your dirty, sweaty feet. I had to do that inside, it was not nice.

Table legs in the kitchen

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Finally, here we are. The two plates have been sanded and painted. The middle extension isn’t done yet, but we don’t need it every day.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved With bonus husband running into the pic

Now, what does my little project have to do with capitalism? It’s easy when you think about it: Capitalism wants me to buy a new table. Capitalism needs me to buy a new table. Capitalism makes it impossible for most people to not buy a new table. A new table would have been around 300€. The materials for restoring the old one were 80 bucks for sanding discs and varnish and brushes, and 150€ for the tools (though I still have those, but they lost about half their resale value the moment I carried them out the door.) That’s 230€ with no guarantee that this would work.

It also took me almost a full week. I have an outdoor space for sanding, but of course that required the rain to stop occasionally, and an indoor space for painting and drying. Also a separate living room with a separate table we could eat on in the meantime. And most importantly: I had the time AND skills to do this and it’s actually something I enjoy. Nobody who dislikes crafting would do this to save maybe 100€. Unless you’re completely poor and have to hope that somebody else throws away their perfectly usable but pretty shabby table.

Now imagine we built our world not around consumption, but around community. Imagine community repair centres. There are tons of people, especially elderly people who can’t / don’t want to do a full work day, but who will happily work a few hours a week. Imagine such a centre where you can go and together (or without you) you can restore your furniture, repair your bike or learn how to fix your leaky sink. Imagine having the time to do so. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

My Dearest Deer (plush of the month)

I made another plush from NazFX Studios, just in time before the next project is looming around the corner (yay for holidays).

This one is a cute little fawn, with true Bambi vibes.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I changed my deer a bit from the original version. I used tan instead of white, left off the antlers, and moved the ears to a more natural position. Isn’t she cute? And I’m never going to make another one. Really. You’d have to pay me serious money, but this won’t become a “you remember it’s my birthday” pattern. It’s a good pattern, and it’s a lovely plush, but it’s also a hell lot of work. But I’m glad I finished her and she’s already been adopted by the other plushies.

 

Lost And Found Birdies

Today, I’m sharing 2 beautiful photos that were taken by Emily Davis, in La Jolla, during March of 2019. They were submitted by her mother, Anne, Cranky Cat Lady, in that same month and, upon receipt, I carefully filed them away in the wrong place! Then, I promptly forgot all about them until a few days ago, when I found them while I was looking for something else. So, here, at last, are two very pretty birds.

American Robin, ©Emily Davis, 2019

Hooded Oriole, ©Emily Davis, March 2019.

Slavic Saturday

Today again a little crossover with the Behind the Iron Curtain series.

Jan Hus and Jan Žižka are to this day considered great figures of Czech history. Even the communist regime venerated these two men to a great degree, so much so that it was during this regime that one of the largest bronze equestrian statues in the world was made to commemorate Jan Žižka in 1950. And movies were made about both. Today, we also have a national holiday on the day Jan Hus was burned at the stake.

We were taught in school that Jan Hus was a great reformer who has challenged and criticized the corruption within the catholic church, and that was true. We were taught that he has sparked a national movement that has fought against the hegemony of said corrupt, hypocritical, and oppressive church, and that was also true. However what was ignored was that he also sparked a fanatical religious movement that was not solely inspired by a desire for a better and juster society, but also by a merely different interpretation of holy writ.

As for Žižka, he was and is considered to be one of the greatest Czech warriors there was, and perhaps in history, as this short video suggests.

We were taught about his military successes, especially about the fact that he was able to take a bunch of peasants and merchants and convert them into a fighting force capable of defeating several crusades consisting of professional soldiers who trained in combat from childhood. What we were not taught was that he also burned at stake several dozen of “heretics” who took reinterpreting the scripture way too far for his liking.

To this day there is a lot of people who romanticize Jan Hus, Jan Žižka, and the whole Hussite movement. Perhaps there is some value in that. But I think it is also important to remember that whilst they were somewhat progressive in their times, today they would probably both be considered insufferable religious fanatics. They certainly would not approve of today’s Czech atheism.

The Art of …

… Netsuke, a small carved object made to wear with traditional Japanese kimono.

A netsuke is a small sculptural object which has gradually developed in Japan over a period of more than three hundred years. Netsuke(singular and plural) initially served both functional and aesthetic purposes. The traditional form of Japanese dress, the kimono, had no pockets. Women would tuck small personal items into their sleeves, but men suspended their tobacco pouches, pipes, purses, writing implements, and other items of daily use on a silk cord passed behind their obi (sash). These hanging objects are called sagemono. The netsuke was attached to the other end of the cord preventing the cord from slipping through the obi. A sliding bead (ojime) was strung on the cord between the netsuke and the sagemono to allow the opening and closing of the sagemono. Source – World of Netsuke.

19th Century Netsuki, artist unknown. Image from Skinnerinc.com

Netsuke of Mice with Corn, Meiji period (1868-1912). Image from Carter’s Auctions.

19th Century netsuke, artist unknown. Image from Picryl Public Domain Source.

Netsuke, Autumn grasses with praying mantis.Image from Asian Antiques.

 

The Art of …

… needle lace, by Hungarian artist Ágnes Herczeg

Born in the town of Kecskemét, Agnes Herczeg is a talented Hungarian textile artist. She graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 1997. While studying, she has learned many traditional handicraft techniques, from embroidery and lace-making to macramé, and weaving. Creating her works, Agnes uses only with natural materials – tree branches, roots, fruits, seeds, yarns, threads, textiles, which supplement in a single composition. They seem imbued with rays of light, their stories are unusual, the embodiment of elegance and harmony. Combining innovative techniques with traditional handicraft, Agnes has created one-of-a-kind art gallery. In particular, combining lace with various materials – ceramic, wood, and coconut shell. According to Agnes, lace-making is an extremely time consuming occupation. For example, it takes Agnes several days just to complete a small piece. – source Art Kaleidoscope

I encourage you to check out either of the above links to see more of this artist’s work. I’m amazed at the amount of fine detail and emotion that Herczeg is able to capture in such small pieces of art.

The Garden, Agnes Herczeg. Image from TextileArtist.org

 

Lace Art by Agnes Herczeg. mage from Fubiz Media

The Bath by Agnes Herczeg. Image from Textileartist.org

Grasshopper by Agnes Herczeg. Image from the artist’s website.