If you have a great mom...

...biological, adoptive, or anyone else who stepped up to the plate... never forget how fortunate you are. Think of everything you have now that would be lost without her in your past. Think of everything that would change if you lost her now. And don't forget to tell her how great she is.

And if you've already lost your mom, remember that you were most assuredly her everything, and remember all the priceless things she gave you while you had each other.

And even if you don't have a great mom... remember that you still have her to thank for life itself.

R.I.P.

"...the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve."

R.I.P. the very articulate Arthur C. Clarke.

ColourLovers and MOO update...

If you don't know whatever in the world ColourLovers or Moo is, check out my previous posts re: them.

Now that you know that much, ColourLovers is one of the "designers" from whom you can order ready-made designs on Moo's products. ColourLovers submitted its top however-many palettes from last year for inclusion in its design packs, and I spied a few of my palettes in the shuffle.

Just thought I'd share that. If you're inclined to support Moo or CL by donating or buying something from either of them, know that you'd be supporting two very valuable and forward-thinking members of the internet's art+design community.

Either way, Moo added a design "Dropbox" to facilitate easier creation of the products you want, and I thought I'd brandish a handful of links to palettes of mine that were included in the pack :)

Victorian Wallpaper
Time Lapse
Mon Monsieur
Malaria

Some of my other very favorites are in there too... check it out.

if you have teenage siblings or friends...

Please pass the word along.

I'm advising the production of a newspaper called Teen Voices, which is part of New Morning Youth and Family Services and is funded by United Way.

The paper is written entirely by El Dorado County teens and is free, nonprofit, and uncensored. We produce four issues a year and distribute copies all over the county.

I am continuously looking for teens to contribute submissions to the paper, and to join our editorial team (which also builds community service hours).

Do any of the teenagers in your life like to write or draw? Do they have a passion they like to share with others? Are they opinionated, stubborn, outspoken? Are they on a crusade for their favorite cause, or are they just doodling graffiti all over their notebooks? Whatever their talents or passions, they have something to offer.

Teen Voices offers exposure, a venue for expression, an opportunity to connect with the community, and an opportunity to be published and be seen by the entire county.

We will publish essays, opinion pieces, new pieces, interviews, poetry, art, photography, photo essays, music, movie and tv reviews, comic strips, advice columns, and all other manner of creative and informative content.

Submissions and inquiries can be sent to me here on myspace, by email at erica.inderlied@yahoo.com, mailed to Teen Voices, c/o New Morning Youth and Family Services, 6765 Green Valley Rd. Placerville, CA, 95667, or dropped off in person to me or at New Morning's Offices.

Thanks in advance to anyone who passes the word along. You're doing a favor for me, New Morning, the community, and the creative youth :)

the cover up.

Anyone and everyone,

Christmas has come and gone but the cold weather isn't taking a holiday any time soon. My friend Jackson is conducting some pre-dawn outings this winter, volunteering his own time handing out blankets and coffee to homeless people in our area.

Here in the next couple of days, I'm making a trip to downtown Sac to donate some blankets and styrofoam cups to his effort. Anyone from the Pollock Pines thru downtown Sac area who wants to help by donating, please drop me a line.

I'm looking for
-clean blankets,
-styrofoam cups, and
-coffee or other hot beverages.

If you can donate any of the above (or have any other ideas), I'll gladly come pick them up from you on my way down the hill. Just drop me a line here, or saintfortyfive(at)yahoo(dot)com, or 530.306.2102.

Sincere thanks.

Primary Colours.

We're taught growing up (or at least we are in the USA) that red, yellow and blue are the primary colours - that all secondary and tertiary colours can be mixed from them. We're shown a colour wheel, which lays out how everything interacts, and all the colours seem to be there.

Everything seemed in order until one morning a month or two ago, I woke up and wanted to paint a piece with the scheme black, yellow and magenta. I dug around in my box of paints, which is short on fancy colours but has plenty of red, yellow, blue, black and white. I mixed and mixed and mixed and... well, magenta never materialized.

Granted, light and pigment primaries are a yin and yang, but I never gave any real thought to print primaries - inkjet printers and all other four-pass process systems (magazines, product packaging, etc.) use magenta, yellow, cyan and black ink to create all other output colours.

Primary colours, by definition, 1) cannot be mixed from any other colours and 2) can be mixed to create all other colours. Magenta is a pure hue which must be bought, and can then be mixed with yellow to create red. Cyan is a pure hue which can be mixed with magenta to create "primary" blue.

What I'm driving at here is obvious, and I want to know if I'm going crazy or if I just overlooked something that's old news to everyone else. I'm in my twenties and I've only once heard someone else agree that magenta, rather than red, is the primary. As a lifelong artist who is continually experimenting at home and has taken a brazillian art classes (including colour theory), the notion that red is not a primary colour rocks the very foundation of my understanding of colour - the Holy Trinity is not composed of the three entities I thought it was!

This is probably obvious to anyone in the professional printing business, but it should be just as obvious to someone working solely in pigments. If I'm not going crazy here, then I think the red-yellow-blue dogma is a serious misinformation. Colour forms the foundation for so many other disciplines and we're so conclusively taught to start at red, yellow and blue. I don't want more aspiring artists growing up thinking that, too.

Am I mistaken, or going crazy? Or just wasting my time caring?
Either way, for the time being I'm off to buy some magenta pigment....

http://www.colourlovers.com/forums/1,1,599/Primary_Colours.

ode to a holiday season which thusfar seemed pretty bleak.

When the best part of your life no longer wants to be yours, it's time to take stock of what you have to live for. The holidays have always meant family (read family and friends who are like family) to me, but this year, single and with family and friends sparser than ever, I've had to stare down the real meaning of Thanksgiving: the giving thanks part.

I am thankful to have been born with all five of my senses, able-bodied and (so far as I can tell) able-minded. I am thankful for all ten of my fingers and everything they can and ever will do for me. I am thankful to have been born in a place where electricity, hot water, internet access, and all manner of mundane luxuries are the norm. I am thankful to have been born in California, where Reno, Vegas, San Francisco, Hawaii and LA are just a jump away. I am still privileged, even if I'm not proud, to be an American. I am thankful for the people brave enough to fight our wars, regardless of my acute misgivings about the wars. I am thankful to have two jobs I love, which is two more than I had last year at this time. I am thankful to have college available to me, even if I'm waffling and unable to take it on right now.

I am thankful for the way conflict and sheer time have sloughed off insincere and fickle friends. A man is like a stone in a stream, and when the tide runs high and the waters run harsh and cold, there are very few people who won't wash away with it. I am thankful for the gems who still remain after the storm. I think you know who you are. I am thankful for a best friend who remains closer than ever after thirteen years of growing up. I am thankful for the time I had with Sean. I am thankful for my mom, who is one of maybe only two people on this earth who loves me truly unconditionally (read: for exactlywho I am, nurturing my strengths and forgiving me my flaws), and I'm grateful that I'm at least wise enough to know how valuable that is. I am thankful that she has been such a good role model. I am thankful for all the time my grandparents, who are dead now, spent raising me, and I regret that the reality of their deaths did not set in until after the fact. I am thankful for my dad and his parents, who, despite 20 years of separation, have never forgotten me. I am thankful for the Harrises, who are everywhere in my life now and treat me like family even though the last thing they need is more people in their family (haha), and for the Faifereks, who have saved my butt plenty of times when I was in a bind or just needed a semi-surrogate family, and always treat me like family, no matter how seldom I visit. I am thankful that I have thus far never been homeless, starving, truly alone, or had to weather the death of someone I couldn't live without. Heartbreak has slapped me upside the head more times than I care to think about, but real tragedy has never touched me, and I'm grateful.

I am thankful that I have learned a lot of life's hard lessons already, that I have reached into many of the farthest corners of man's emotional gamut, and regained equilibrium. I am thankful that, despite not believing in god, fate, or the afterlife, I find meaning and purpose in every day of my life. I am thankful that I can cook and draw and paint and write and I am thankful for all the possibilities those abilities will afford me in the future. The list goes on, and it includes small things too. I am thankful to be Irish, and plan to go home some day to drink a ton of Guinness and stand in the presence of ruined castles. I am thankful for The Simpsons, which I still love despite their shitty new episodes, and Futurama, which keeps me distracted and amused when the weight of my losses keeps threatens to keep me awake at night. I am thankful for the color orange, and for plaid, and for coffee (!) and for cats, and warm blankets and fire places and beer and pecan pie and... oh, and for Mollly, who is just a dog but still loves me unconditionally (believe me, animals can be more fickle than you'd think).

The world is still a lot grayer than it was a few weeks ago, and I can't revel in the holidays this year to the extent that I'd like to, but I've sworn myself to never forgetting that my problems are relatively small in magnitude. Thank you.