drying rack #2 !!!!!!!

It’s two years later and my drying rack design is so much improved. The second rack works much better, and is actually simpler in its construction, than the first one which you can see to its left!

(the same side of the studio, april 2008.)

Here’s the how the top & side connect:

Yes, I like cutting things precisely, even when working with medium-quality plywood and drywall screws… and yes, I finally bought a dado blade set, it does beautiful work…! (It may only be hilarious to me that the same week, I bought a food processor: two things I had felt the severe lack of for a long time, both potentially dangerous, high-precision, specific-purpose, well-made cutting tools… at opposite ends of the classic gender binary!)

The whole thing, without the shelves — it’s on wheels (or else it would be totally immobile: it’s bulky, about 3’x3’x4′, and when the shelves are in, it’s pretty heavy).

I don’t know why this took me sooo long to finish, it’s what I’ve been working on, or at least, putting as my first priority, for the past two weeks. Initial guesses: some difficulty with logistics like transporting wood and tools from my house to the shop (requires a car, which I don’t have); being restricted in how late I could work in the shop, since people with ‘normal’ schedules live and sleep above it (and I usually work late at night); needing to recruit a helper for cutting large pieces of plywood on the table saw (a problem I partially solved by finally, yesterday!, setting up a run-out table to catch wood coming through the saw); and really, a lot of ‘being scared’ of the project and getting overwhelmed by the thought processes necessary to figure out the numbers precisely and actually finish it. I don’t know why that is scary, because it is also the fun part! But there is a feeling that I got to know quite well during the process of making this rack, that would stop me, when it would get late or I would be tired or cold, that would just say in my ear: “Man, go to bed, this is too complicated to figure out when you are [tired/cold/sleepy], just work on it in the morning!” and my thought processes would stop dead.

Oh, also the fact that for a lot of the past two months, the temperatures in the woodshop have been BELOW FREEZING — that might have had something to do with the long time this project has taken me. (This is a recent realization: till a couple of days ago, I thought it was just really, really cold in there, then one of my fellow shop-mates pointed out that the sprinkler system must be a dry one, because otherwise its pipes would have burst…) Mostly I wear fingerless gloves down there; but because I’m not an idiot, I take them off to run stuff through the tablesaw… plus the square and ruler I use are both made of metal… ow ow ow. Looking forward seriously to SPRING.

Building this second drying-rack is a precursor to cleaning up my studio & sorting out the long-unsorted piles, which is a precursor to printing. Which I have to do, to finish up old stuff, before I can really draw any more new stuff. All in all, that means: I will be working on posters and prints soon. !!!

Books and magazines have been piling up in my bed-loft: the other day I counted 17 and took a picture.

(subject matter, generally: architecture, japanese art, dystopian futures, radical art & politics, gender identity and theory, photography, feminism, utopia… plus a couple of national geographics from 1988.)

Today: I cut my hair and made some fan art!

(Also worked on preliminary dimensions for the new print drying rack, FINALLY. Things have been taking me a long time recently…)

Fan art: for Mickey Z‘s comic “Bullshit Frank & Gorilla Joe”, which I don’t fully understand but do fully love:

“in solitude we all are Birdeyes”
(mickey, is it birdeye or birdeyes? if I’m wrong I’ll fix it when I ink it!)
much better!

Haircut: Reiter says “SHARP!” (photo, and back-of-neck trim, by scott)

This is the shortest my hair has been since the summer of 2003 (when I’d had a shaggy mohawk for a while, then an italian anarcho-punk squatter kid buzzed the sides of it for me. It’s been growing out since then, for the past year or two it’s been mostly just looong). I was gonna not post pictures of myself here but, whatever, haircuts are crucial moments, and I’m psyched about this one.

(yes, that is an american-flag-painted ceramic grenade sitting perfectly as an extra hat on top of mini-santa-claus-cup in the background…)

A little while ago I hilariously joined Facebook, after much persuasion by my brother. If you are into the social media stuff you can find me here. I also signed up for twitter, but for now I’m just putting my updates from here onto my twitter feed, so if you’re already reading this you already saw it. However, if that kind of thing works well for you, here it is.

Lilah has been rocking it with amazing posts about fashion, appearance, and identity at mattababy, and Deb perfectly captured where I am at these days with this post on her art blog. In the real world, good conversations with many friends, about intense stuff, each offering new insights and different perspectives. Also a lovely day spent playing pinball in two different cities, and listening to/seeing this show. Thank you everybody.

ps. that is my first fan art ever!