Aw Shit.

A la John Cambell.

If I wasn't so sure I was going to be rich someday, I would be getting headaches all the time thinking about how much higher education costs in this country.

Summer Reading II

Currently I am doing research on the United States, mostly pertaining to race and gender relations. I was always interested in historical gender relations and how they are relevant to gender relations today and how we can continue to move equality forward, but I recently also became interested in race relations. I think it may partially have something to do with the coming election as well as the disconnect I feel with the side of America that is still full of racism and sexism. I was also prompted to research because of my fascination with Faulkner, who chronicles both antebellum and postbellum south in his novels. Absalom, Absalom!, his book I am reading at the moment, is the story of Thomas Sutpen's attempt to create an antebellum southern legacy from low class standing as narrated by Rosa Coldfield (his much younger sister-in-law and later, fiancee) and Mr. Compson to Quentin Compson of The Sound and the Fury fame. During the war, Sutpen leaves his two daughters, Judith and Clytemnestra alone in this great southern mansion on a plantation he built years before to fend for themselves while he went and fought for the Confederacy. Judith was his daughter by his wife Ellen, a "true" daughter while Clytemnestra (Clytie) was his by a slave and therefore was a slave owned by her own father. Rosa, her own father having passed, comes to live with Judith, her niece (Ellen was her sister). One of the most fascinating portions of the book for me is how these three women, all related in some way, live together and survive together in this sparse room yet hardly speak, hardly know each other. They are kin but one (Clytie) is considered hardly so. Rosa is Judith's aunt, yet Judith is older than her.

"We are three strangers. I do not know what Clytie thought, what life she led which the food we raised and cooked in unison, the cloth we spun and wove together, nourished and sheltered. But I expected that because she and I were open, ay honorable, enemies. But I did not even know what Judith thought and felt. We slept in the same room, the three of us (this for more than to conserve firewood which we had to carry in ourselves. We did it for safety. It was winter soon and already soldiers were beginning to come back--the stragglers, not all of them tramps, ruffians, but men who had risked and lost everything, suffered beyond endurance and had returned now to a ruined land, not the same men who had marched away but transformed--and this was the worst, the ultimate degredation to which war brings the spirit, the soul--into the likeness of that man who abuses form the very despair and pity the beloved wife or mistress who in his absence has been raped. We were afraid. We fed them; we gave them what and all we had and we would have assumed their wounds and left them whole again if we could. But we were afraid of them.), we waked and fulfilled the endless tedious obligations which the sheer holding to life and breath entailed; we would sit before the fire after supper, the three of us in that state where the very bones and muscles are too tired to rest, when the attenuated and invincible spirit has changed and shaped even hopelessness into the easy obliviousness of a worn garment, and talk, talk of a hundred things--the weary recurrent triviata of our daily lives, of a thousand things but not one. We talked of him, Thomas Sutpen, of the end of the War (we could all see it now) and when he would return, of what he would do: how begin the Herculean task which we knew he would set himself, into which (oh yes, we knew this too) he would undoubtedly sweep us with the old ruthlessness whether we would or no . . ."

(Faulkner, 126-127)

Because of the way the society is structured, these women become little more than paper dolls for Sutpen to command. Without him, they are merely surviving, with him they are miserable and aware of his brutality, but have a purpose. The war has stripped these societal gender roles to their barest roots with the men cast as objects of fear (yes, objects, for violence in our society can objectify men just as much as sexuality can objectify women) and the women as ghostly figures for their use. It's creepy and haunting, but undoubtedly accurate.

Along the same lines I am also reading the following:





I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with all of this information, what book will come of it, but hopefully after more research I will be able to focus my brain and create something interesting. I guess we'll see. Really, right now, I need to focus and finish creating all the imagery for My God, so it's possible all of this will become a side project real soon.

Holy crap that was the nerdiest post ever. Also, only three and a half weeks until classes start up again.

Stationary.

Ho-kay. So the stationary is (finally!) up in the shop. Here are some photos! As per usual, click on the photo to make it larger.

Late Summer Hydrangea Stationary:






Late Summer Tulip Stationary:






You can order as many as you want HERE.

MORE COMICS

click to make larger.

So, it has come to my attention that one of my favorite webcomics, Minus., has come to an end. It's a great, sweet, weird little comic about a little girl who has the power to do anything she wants. If you haven't seen it yet, you should check it out. Also, you can buy prints for a very limited time.

I'm going to have a photoshoot for my stationary tomorrow. It should be up for sale in my etsy shop very soon.

COMICS

So fat little ponies will always make me giggle. Especially when they poo.


Thank you, Kate Beaton. Comics like these make me want to kind of start doing silly little comics of my own. The only problem is I would take all the drawing way too seriously and a silly little comic would turn into an epic project. What is the matter with me?

Another reason I love Shetland ponies? Because when I was little my parents would take my brothers and I to this place called Blackberry Farm all decked out with tractor rides and a little train and stuff and there was this little Shetland pony wheel with the ponies tied to a revolving pole and kids would be set on them and they would lazily walk around in a circle like they had been doing it ever since they were little little. A look in their eyes and you would know that their souls had long been dead. Haha!

Also because the spunky Dick King-Smith character Sophie (her name is like my name! That is why I read the books!) wanted to be a farmer who had a Shetland pony. And a spotty pig. I have similar aspirations.

I have found an awesome new artist that I am too exhausted to write about now. But later. And also new stationary.

Guestbook

So, my brother is now married. It's still a little weird and I think it may take a while to get used to saying "My brother and his wife," etc., but he seems happy and Lali, his wife (!) is a real sweetheart so I think it's good. They got married on Saturday in our backyard with an audience of only about 20 people. I don't think our backyard could have fit many more. The past week has been a whirlwind reunion of relatives and meeting new relatives. Apparently I now have relatives that live in Peru and Japan. It was strange, too because everyone was speaking different languages and there were some people who barely knew any English and I don't know Spanish or Japanese so we had a bit of trouble communicating. But it was fun and crazy and cool. I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone better in the future.

Anyway, part of my wedding present to my brother was a handmade guest book. I made it all from scratch aside from the paper, so I ripped the paper down and sewed it together. Then I took a piece of watercolor paper and painted some atmosphere on it and glued down one of the invitation fronts. Then I poked a hole through the inner bit with my awl and strung a piece of the herringbone ribbon through to act as a tie. I then attached the sewed together paper by gluing down the decorative paper (which was sewed on the outside) to the book front. Voila! Easy book! If you want to know how to sew paper together, this site has a much better tutorial than me: Make-a-Book

Pictures:












There's one more part that I'm going to add in a bit, but in order to do it I have to figure out alternative photography, and that is another adventure entirely!

More wedding present updates to follow. I still have two more things that I'm working on to give them.