Antiques and ITunes

Hey everybody!

Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club's new album "The Beautiful Untrue" can officially be bought on ITunes as of today!! Yay!

Today my  mom and I went to Fairground Antiques in Keene, New Hampshire. I love that place so much. There's very little junk and very many beautiful and well-priced things. I wanted this painting so much. I try to make outfits that look like summer nights (fireflies, dark yet bright blue skies, grass that glows in the moonlight) and this painting is everything I love about all of that.

Ducks!

Pretty bird tea set.

I also wanted this ship brooch. :)

A seriously carved dinosaur.

I love rubber toys! Especially when they're dogs!

floral turtle.

awww, someone's cats. <3

bottle candy

plastic animals that sit on your straw!

a lovingly handmade pooh bear.

I liked this fan.

secrets.

We had this exact cow when I was little! I called him Bossy and I think he was supposed to be a decoration but I played with him all the time.

Toy camera. It makes me sad to think of what "pictures" were taken with this that cease to exist because it is just a toy. I'm in favor of kids having real cameras.

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Happy girl.

I got this dress at Viviana's Vintage in Clinton, MA the other day! It has six buttons (two rows of three) going up the waist. I love it.

I hope you all have an awesome weekend! More art to come soon.

Love,

Amanda

read between my lines, she said

"'You are one-third friend, one-third brother, one-third bee-partner, and one-third boyfriend,' I told him. He explained to me I had one too many thirds in the equation, which, of course, I knew, as I am bad in math but not that bad. We stared at each other as I tried to figure out which third would get deleted."

-Lily, The Secret Life of Bees

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That is probably my favorite quote from that entire book. I underline my books like a fiend, so I can always flip through them and quickly rediscover favorite lines. It's the best when you've kind of forgotten them, and then they hit you all over again when you stumble upon them.

The way I underline has kind of evolved. The first book I remember underlining was "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran. I found a line that touched me so deeply that I had to differentiate it from the rest of the book. I remember it still, "to know the pain of too much tenderness." So I underlined it, to keep it.

Next was Henry and June by Anais Nin. I also connected so deeply with that book, but stuck to a rule: only underlining things that, were I not with a pen in my hand, would take my breath away for being something different from everything else in the book. I remember the first quote I underlined in the book, Nin's views on people who are very sensitive and how they are often misunderstood as being insincere, when really they're just trying too hard to be kind. I loved that, it hit home so well with me.

After that book, I think I just went underline-crazy. When I read now, sometimes a whole page is underlined sans about two sentences. I write in the margins, things that don't even have to do with the book sometimes, or complete over-analyzations of a word or a sentence. I often have to remind myself to only underline the exceptional lines, but sometimes it's hard when almost every line feels exceptional. 

Sometimes now I don't let myself underline certain books. It feels nice to just read through them without worrying about underlining them, and I'm finding that each book has about one passage that stands out to me so beautifully. And if I went back to my old ways of underlining, it would be the only thing underlined in the entire book, blue ball point stars on the side.

My Darling From the Lions was filled to the brim with exceptional lines, and I didn't underline, but there is still one passage, which I cannot quote here, that means so much to me.

I guess that's all for now, then! I hope you all have a lovely wednesday.

Love,

me

good evening, spring time.

Today I got wonderful mail: a package of The Beautiful Untrue CDs, postcards, and posters from Jerry Fish! I'm so excited about how Tattooed Lady looks on it all, especially the disc, probably because I hadn't even though about what that might look like. Jerry is so nice, as I know I've said before. There's a new interview with him which you can read here.

Spotty has taken a liking to the envelope all the CDs came in. He's developing a collection of things he likes, though his Manpurse, as we like to call it, is still is favorite (the vinyl flowered thing at right). 

Tonight really felt like cool, spring evening air. Night time spring air always brings me right back to Cambridge and college. I have so many wonderful spring-evening memories from all four years, of long walks and ice cream and stars and sprinklers and lilac bushes and treetops and staying up late, playgrounds and 5 am mornings, wearing dresses and tea and rooftop restaurants.

I hope you're all enjoying your own beautiful spring weekends!

Love,

Amanda

The most romantic thing I've ever seen.

He drew a crown on paper, added crayon jewels. He cut it out and asked me to tape it together. I did as he asked and returned it to him. I did not know the destination of this symbol of royalty, hint of you are better than the rest.

He walked over to her and placed it on her head. She was unsuspecting. The transaction was silent with the exception of their smiles, one following the other as though smiling were a game.  Her pigtails were too high and the crown didn't sit right.

He took it back to his desk and cut two small triangles on either side, one for each pigtail, so that the crown would rest properly. A matching bracelet was drawn and taped.

He brought both crown and bracelet back to her and put them on her head and wrist. Still no words were spoken. They kind of laughed to themselves, together, and he returned to his table and she sat back down at hers.

It is one of the most romantic things I've ever seen.

I love subbing first graders. 

It's just the spring escapades.

Things I'd like to know more about:

-The poetry of Ilana Fulop

-Is there a biography for Arija Muray?

-sign language

Things that I like, a lot:

-The discovery of new relatives in England

-chocolate bunnies

-dogs that lay their heads in my lap on the T

- wooden bears

-blue parakeets named Bambi

-John Denver

-dress weather

-30 Rock

-treasure maps

-Daniel Striped Tiger

-Cummings in my bloodline

-Neko Case on a saturday night

-book maker

-grey envelope

-the escape I'm planning and the green suitcase I'll take with me.

caught up in birds

The Fuller Craft Museum

"silver strapless" (a tree wearing a dress, be still my heart.)

gear duck

mixed-media portraits by Micah Sherrill.

installation by Kitty Wales.

Kevin.

and a dog named Otis.

The first book I ever illustrated?

Today I subbed at the kindergarten for the teacher I had when I was there!

With the help of my mom, I had made this book for my teacher, Mrs. Waugh, to give her on the last day of school. She had it out on the counter for me to find today! Some of the drawings are full of strange and mysterious happenings, while others are more straightforward. 

"When I first started kindergarten, Mrs. Waugh TOOK MY picture."

"My favorite holiday that we celebrated at school was HALOWEEN."

"The most important thing I learned in Mrs. Waugh's class was MY LETTERS."

"The funniest thing that ever happened in our classroom was when SANTU SAT ON MY LAP"

(It seems like it should be 'I sat on Santa's lap', but I don't think that would have been the funniest moment, so Santa must have sat on my lap.)

"My favorite subject in school was when we studied DiNOSORS."

"My favorite art project with Mrs. Gerwick was when we made OWLS."

"The best book Mrs. Waugh ever read to our class was THE 3 BILLY GOATS GRUFF."

"My favorite thing about snack time was TALKING AND EATING."

(is that a spider?)

"The best new friends I made in school this year are NICOLE, PATRICK, AND CHARLES."

(I put this on facebook and I tagged them. :)

"My favorite game we played in gym was SHARK."

"I especially liked when Mrs. Waugh would let us PLAY."

"My favorite classroom visitor was THE VET."

"The best book I checked out of the library was DABBLE THE DUK."

(I don't remember this book...at all.)

"Our best classroom pets are the geRBiLs. They are very cute."

(Their names were Sarah and Tiffany. I picked the name Tiffany. I got to bring them home for the summer.)

"My favorite song I learned in kindergarten was FRIENDS."

(Mom: how did that song go?

Amanda: I have no idea.)

"My favorite thing to do in Mrs. Waugh's class is READ ATTENDANCE." 

"The reason(s) I loved having Mrs. Waugh as my teacher are SHE WAS NICE."

"The thing I'll miss most about kindergarten is MRS. WAUGH."

awww.

Haha. Oh boy. Sometimes I wish I still drew like I did when I was little. It looks so free and from the subconscious, I think. But I'm glad I never stopped loving drawing. And I really have been loving substitute teaching for kindergarten and elementary school so much. I really think teaching art to little kids might be something I want to do.

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I traded a print for this dress. I love it so much. It is my Nancy Drew-detective dress and it's vintage Sears. :)  I'm sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I feel back in the swing of the blog again. I hope you're all having a great week!

Love,

Amanda