FREE FREE FREEBIE FREE (why be subtle?)

The only thing better than seeing some of your own work published in a magazine is getting 23 copies of it and surrounding yourself in a magical circle of magazine madness. It's bit like a fairy ring of mushrooms in a forest, sit in the center and make wishes, or in this case just sit and absorb the papery goodness of the publications that surround you, turning a blind eye to every page except 46, 47 & 48.
Some of these magazines are spoken for, friends and relatives will soon be the lucky recipients, whether they want to be or not, of their very own copy. Bragging by mail is even more satisfying than bragging by blog and it's harder to ignore. ;)
But after a bit of math I still have copies left over sooooooooo I will be giving away 7 copies of the magazine to 7 lucky blog commenters. This is an exciting opportunity, free for you should you win, one brand spanking new copy of the most awesome issue of Art Doll Quarterly EVER and I'll even make sure you don't get a drooled upon one. (I'll save those for my family)
Just leave a comment on THIS post between now and Aug 1, 6 pm west coast time, and I will add your name to the drawing. Check back after 6 and see if you won! If you did, email me with your address and I'll mail you one FREE, brand spankin' new, authentic, absolutely awesome, 100% real, genuine paper, copy of the BEST ISSUE EVER YET of Art Doll Quarterly!!!!!!!!!! (look how many exclamation marks I used, you just know this is a good deal if it warrants 10 exclamation marks)
One entry per person please.
For anyone unfamiliar with Art Doll Quarterly (and how sad for you), it's a gorgeous 128 page, 9.99 retail price valued, 15.125 ounce, magazine full of color photos and text about art dolls. There's a little something in there for everyone whether you like pretty or creepy or whimsical or serious dolls. A lot of styles, a lot of mediums, it's a visual feast! Of course I'm sure you'll find it as difficult as me to tear yourself away from pages 46, 47 & 48.
So leave a comment and tell your friends!

Wholly excited about Art Doll Quarterly

Hi, My name's Tracey and you might know me from such places as:
The ice cream aisle of any and all super markets within reasonable driving distance of my house.
The parking lot with the parallel parking spots behind the grocery store.
And now, for the first time ever, from pages 46, 47 and 48 of Art Doll Quarterly, Autumn edition.

I am thinking of having shirts made.
I know I always threaten to do it but I am so precariously close to the tipping point on this one that I may actually do it. In fact typing is becoming increasingly harder as my fingers pause and twitch, as my neck spasms from resisting the urge to turn and stare at the doorway leading to the back room where my iron on tshirt transfer paper awaits. I am not sure but I think I just heard a soft, papery whisper calling out "Tracey, Tracccceeeeey, print me. Do it."

And the next sound is my resistance dissolving, and finally breaking altogether as I decide to make true the dream of a tshirt that really speaks to me AND for me.

5 actual minutes later.

Ahhhhh, that's better. Nothing like doing a bit of bragging, er I meant blogging on a warm summer's evening in the cozy comfort of a freshly ironed tshirt. (Wondering why I didn't do a tank top and wondering if I forgot I'm in Southern California and it's the end of July for goodness sake)
By the way, lets just ignore the slapdash job of tshirt logo-ing, ignore the fact I have left the kitchen in disarray, transfer paper, warm iron and ironing board all blocking access to the fridge. Lets also overlook the fact that in my excitement I forgot to trim out the transfer and now the entire front of my shirt feels like a rubberized bib, in fact lets go WITH that concept and considering I'm supposed to be bragging about my arty-ness lets say that I have in fact created a new sort of bib/tshirt combo for adults who slurp their coffees too violently. Waterproof adult bib tshirts...I am on to something...
But anyways we are forgetting ALL of that because lets for one moment pay tribute to the fact that I just asked my husband to take a photo of my chest so I could put it on the internet.......and he didn't even blink an eye, though maybe there was the slightest twitch when he saw my shirt and realized we were going a whole other direction than what he might have assumed.....

So, where was I? Ah yes, as if I could forget.
I AM IN THIS AUTUMN'S ISSUE OF ART DOLL QUARTERLY.
You saw the tshirt? That proves it!!!!!! I am not sure I have ever seen 3 more beautiful pages of a magazine. I am not sure my family has ever heard the words "Art Doll Quarterly" so much in all their lives. My brother is expecting a baby and I am wondering if I could convince him to name the child ADQ? That's sort of multi gender sounding right?

Speaking of babies this issue of ADQ, though I'm sure the creators of the actual magazine probably feel otherwise, feels like MY baby. I've been waiting for months now. It's been worse than Christmas, sleepless nights, finger drumming, constant googling to see if someone out there managed to get an early copy of the magazine and I could maybe live vicariously through their words before I got mine.
I resisted, ignoring all impulses directing me otherwise, the desire to print the preview images that the managing editor of Art Doll Quarterly emailed me and sticking them in the older issues of the magazine I already have so I could experience the glory of MY work in that magazine. But I thought about it sooooo hard that I am surprised I didn't develop telekinetic mind melding powers with our printer and awaken some morning to find them printed all by themselves.

To pile awesome on top of awesome the Stampington headquarters is only an hour away from home and I happily picked up my art dolls just the other day and when Jana Holstein, the managing editor of ADQ, handed me a copy of the magazine, MY MAGAZINE, I about burst into a shower of Tracey atoms, taking the magazine with me into a cloud of us to hover in all our sparkling, molecule split glory, above the building, finally united. ONE thing, me and my magazine.
I swear, no person has ever been as excited and thrilled to have their work in ADQ as I have. And should any one try and challenge me on this fact then I call "Duel, lets art-doll-off." and then we can have a merry crafty time figuring out the rules of an art-doll-off and maybe just skip the whole thing and make more brag tshirts as we await for the TWENTY copies of my issue to arrive. Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy. I can't wait, if one copy is as satisfying as described above then I am guessing being surrounded by 23 will be downright...illegal...yeah, illegal cause anything that good has gotta be illegal (or taxable). Oh yes, you're wondering how 1 plus 20 gets me 23, well I have a subscription so that's one more magazine, plus the one they said they mail me so TWENTY THREE ISSUES....I could paper the walls.....hmmmm....
Most likely I'll just hand them out like candy to my relatives and of course with the ones left over have a blog give away! I promise to only give out the copies I haven't drooled on.

In anticipation of the magazine I kept myself busy by updating my website. Er...well I designed some new pages like a profile and welcome page and my husband updated my website. Going a few steps even further and giving me a searchable database among other things! Woo and hoo!!! BEST web designer in the world, I figure out what I want it to look like and what I want things to do and he does his code-y magic and it works!

By the way I have figured out that this being published in the Art Doll Quarterly magazine is a 3 month cow sort of deal. I am milking it for all I can, every second word outta my mouth will be ADQ related, it being a quarterly magazine and all, that gives me 3 months until their next, non-me, issue comes out.
You know what that means don't you? I gotta figure out what part of my body could use a tattoo that says "As featured on pages 46, 47 & 48 of the Autumn 09 issue of ADQ"

In the mean time I will celebrate this magazine awesomeness the Canadian way, with little sandwiches!

A fortune in clay.

I love coincidences. A lot, they make my brain happy.
I think it's because when coincidences occur it's like getting a teeny tiny glimpse of the universe's master plan. It doesn't make sense, it doesn't really change anything, except your brain sits up and takes notice and a little zing of pleasure signals to all your cells as you happily point out "HEY! That thing is like that thing over there! Life has meaning and structure after all!!! Wooohoooo!"
And you feel just like a little kid again who happened to walk by the teacher's desk as they were writing up tomorrow's test and you just happen to see one of the questions and get to strut around for half a day feeling like you know just a little bit more than every one else....
The thing about coincidences though is usually they're not earth shatteringly exciting. Does any one but me and my husband find the fact we were both sleeping on top of green futons that were laid on top of our mattresses before we'd even met, simply amazing? I mean...what are the odds? That two people, destined to be together, to meet online by complete random chance, should both be snoozing away, unaware of the other, on top of green futon mattresses laid on regular mattresses? While maybe not exactly goosebumpily I think it deserves an eyebrow raise.
Little coincidences are great, they're the salt of life. Enhancing all the regular flavors of human existence. If they were too big, too often I think it might be a little too much like the universe being a great big peeping tom. Jamming it's big universal nose into all our business, arranging us like chess pieces that don't follow any rules but gravity's.
I like thinking the universe has a plan, that there's a reason behind all the madness and chaos that still exists on the planet. But a master plan is like ghosts, it's a really nice idea but if you reallllly think about it you'll give yourself the heebie jeebies, start second guessing everything and never shower again in fear of your entire ancestral family watching.
If I should examine the teetering mismatched pile of coincidences that have happened in my life the most recent, the one precariously perched at the top of the pile and can clearly be seen while most others get buried down deep in the recesses of memory, would be one of my favorites....that I can remember. Coincidences are like that by the way, you know you've had them but trying to recall them is dang impossible. They slip away like dreams, elusive little threads of memory. And short of an impossible to forget moment like running into your own doppelganger, they drift away, faint echoes of experiences you can almost but not quite sort of maybe remember.
In the not too distant past, like several months ago I created a character. I sculpted her, baked her, painted her. Then I named her and did what I always do and imagined her little world and what was happening and tippity typed up an accompanying little story for her. Then I put her in my Etsy store and she sold. And I was pleased and so was she, characters love finding their homes. :)
And, coincidentally, she was shipped off to a person with the same name as the character. And then I received the most lovely feedback in my Etsy store from the customer. And the pile of coincidences in my mind shivered with delight as yet another little one fell down to join their ranks, and I peeked over my shoulder to make sure the universe's nose wasn't actually pushing through the ether and spying on my goings on.
My character I created and titled "Una lives in a haunted house" went off to live with a real Una, who apparently from her lovely feedback might actually live in a haunted house.
Cue the goosebumps.
Here's a portion of Una's (the character's) story followed by my lovely Etsy feedback.

Una lives in a haunted house.
There were nights that Una just could not fall asleep. Head filled with so many thoughts that she imagined a passerby could hear the grinding of her mental gears.
When she should have been tucked, safely, warmly secure under the quilt on her bed, Una's pillow lay cold. Her head no where near it, rather, Una stretched out beneath the window of her room and stared up at the moon and stars. Cold silverly light washing over her face.
The comforting creaks of the house settling around her was the music of the night.
Una watched the stars brighten as midnight came and went. The sky blackening until the points of light stood out in sharp relief, each one a jagged crystal that seemed to pulse with mysterious life.
Una watched them, eyes tracking the occasional falling star that streaked across the sky as if suddenly thrown by an unseen hand.
She did not start when she heard the light thump behind her, the padding on the hardwood floors, the quick brush of fur against the back of her hand. She'd have petted her cat if she could, but experience had taught her long ago, not so very long after Petunia's passing, that the tenuous connection between the afterlife and this one, was easily broken. If she turned, there would be no cat to see, no whiskers to touch, no furry feline cheeks to rub. But here, now while she stared up at the night sky and the almost impossibly bright glow of the moon, the un-imaginable happened behind her. Her beloved pet was there, and yet it was not. Sometimes Una imagined she saw, just out of the corner her eye a shadow of her former pet. A small dark shape that moved fluidly, far more fluid than Petunia ever had in real life and Una smiled. Pleased, imagining it made for better mouse hunting, albeit ghostly mice she assumed.....
You can read the rest of Una's story here.

And here's my lovely customer feedback:

"I wish I could tell you what this little lady has done for me and my husband. My name is actually Una, and we just recently lost our much loved and painfully missed kitty, Basil (we called him Bubbies) I swear I can see his long white fur with his bushy tabby tail out of the corner of my eye, or I dream about him playing with his little pink catnip pillow that matched his little pink nose. Thank you...the universe is a very strange place indeed. Warmest regards, Una (from my own haunted house)"

Positive feedback is awesome, but positive feedback that gives me goosebumps is like awesome topped with fantastic and a side of oh wow.
I 'm left with two ways to consider this little blip in life. One, it's just the universe, just another intriguing arrangement of life to create a coincidence that is just that, a coincidence and nothing more....
OR....
or just maybe I am on the verge of becoming a psychic sculptor.
Oh, oh, ooooooh, I vote for possibility two, I could use a crystal ball.

We Zoo-ed!

Recently Alan and I made use of our zoo memberships. For a long while they were doing a pretty awesome job of just taking up space in our wallet. A handy little guilt trip was triggered every time when went to the store. And since we need food to survive, we go to the store at least once a week and therefore suffered the agonies of guilt as we opened the wallet to pay and a little panda bear face peered back at us over the leather/pleather/whatever material the wallet is made of, pocket.
"We should go sometime." Alan would say.
I'd sigh and stare down into the wallet at our memberships, my own Mother should be so good at making me feel that guilty.
"Yes we should, sometime." And then we'd close the wallet and munch our way through the groceries, happily making shots of chocolate and whatnot, while the whole time the cards languished in the wallet unused, forgotten....until the next store trip.
I am not sure where the time goes, I don't understand how it gets eaten up so fast, but half a year can flip by easily and the downhill slide towards the holidays starts happening. Time picks up even more speed as we cross the halfway mark of July and if it was hard to "find the time" to do something in the first 6 months of the year then it's damn near impossible in the last 6 months.
But the other day a wonderful thing happened. A pocket of time just unfolded in front of us like a gift from the Universe. The couple whose schedule continually rotates around the clock found themselves up and about starting their day at 4 in the morning. By 10:00 am they were done of all the things that HAD to be done for the day. The pocket of time was so perfect and beautiful, a week day moment of early day time with which to do ANYTHING, it left us staggered. So many possibilities.
"We could go to the hardware store!"
No, no, we had to think bigger, this window of time felt bigger than a trip to the hardware store. This was bigger than trying espresso at a local coffee shop we'd never been to, better than a movie outing at the theater. The flavor of this pocket of time came to us after we chewed it over for a moment. Almost in awe of it's perfectness, feeling a little clutch of panic chasing on it's heels as the longer we thought about what to do the more of that perfect time ticked away.
It was Alan who dared speak the words into the hush of the car. "We could go to the zoo......."
The zoo?
You mean, not just let the plastic membership cards remain as place holders in our wallet, not just let them be little guilty reminders that we paid money for something we hadn't used yet this year? Could we? Should we?
Hell yeah we should could and would. We were rebels we were. We snatched that hunk of time by the throat and told it what we were going to do. We were going to see adorable wild animals in the confines of pretty man made cages and we were going to do it today and give those cards the shock of their life when they were exposed to day light for the first time.
So we went to the zoo.
Out of curiosity before I picked out some of the 340 plus photos I took that day to share on my blog I did a quick look on Google, doing an image search using the keywords "San Diego Zoo". The results were 1,480,000.
That's a lot of photos of the San Diego Zoo......so here are a few more. If you look hard you can virtually see my few contributions teetering on the top of the internet pile of photos.
I am always of the opinion more is more better. If one photo of a Koala bear is cute than half a million oughtta be down right heart achingly adorable. This is a fact. Perhaps not scientifically proven yet but just look at people with kids. Have you ever seen a proud Mama take ONE photo of their precious little human? Of course not, more is better. And that's my reasoning behind 29 separate photos of the Koala bears alone.
Finally getting to the zoo was very satisfying. We spent about 5 hours there and I only got sun burned a little. But that's good news, that's the hallmark of a good tourist, sun burn and camera permanently attached to one's hand. Constantly staring at the world through a lens rather than just your eyes. Gulping down water and ignoring the cries of our feet calling out "Mercy! Mercy." A little sweat, a lot of pointing and a ton fun, we were excellent zoo tourists.
The giraffes were my favorite part. I had no idea as I walked around a little turn in the path and spied the long necked giraffes in the distance that nothing was separating me and them but a little fence and a ditch.
Even though there were no signs expressly forbidding jumping the fence and hopping the ditch to fling one's arms around the legs of the most beeeeeeautiful giraffes in the world I suspected that it would be frowned upon. I probably have permanent fence stomach now from leaning so hard over the rail to be as close to the giraffes as possible. Luckily Alan is very good at keeping me balanced, in more ways than one.
I took a lot of photos of the giraffes as well, in fact 40 photos of the giraffes alone.
On occasion I love math. I like knowing that if I took 29 photos of Koalas and 40 photos of giraffes than that means I can mathematically prove that I love giraffes 37.93% more than Koalas.
That sounds about right to me.