Shortly after I started assembling all the supplies I would need to start the diorama, my mom started sending me more pictures of the "art" her and her girlfriends had been working on. My mother lives most of the year in the desert of Arizona. There is literally nothing there. Now, when you picture nothing, I am sure you are envisioning something like Amish country. Nope. If I had to describe it to you, I would say Fort Mohave, AZ is more like the final shot of Sarah Connor in Terminator leaving that gas station. (It's sad, I know. I can only visualize via blockbuster movies. )
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| If this is nowhere, you're about in the middle of it. |
Town is a gas station. Burros run wild. Roadrunners get in the kitchen from time to time. When my parents first moved there, the sheriff stopped by and explained to them that if they ever went walking in the desert, there was an ordinance requiring them to carry a .45 because of mountain lions and coyotes and God knows what else. So, anyway, my mom met up with a group of other desert wives who like to walk their dogs in the desert carrying sidearms. They get together every morning, walk their dogs, drink coffee and shoot things. On a particularly memorable day, my mother's Dalmatian, Ava Hedwiga (no, seriously.) ran off into the desert and brought home the entire corpse of a coyote. (Henry got the skull for his birthday. You have never seen such a happy 9 year old.)
People dump trash in the desert all the time. Which is what sparked the idea in my mom and her friends to take all the desert trash and create art with couches and mattresses. It looks like this:
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| The original artwork |
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| After original was damaged by haters |
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| Happy St. Patrick's Day |
IT'S GENETIC.
My God! Here I am creating micro-verses of the dorks in my life, and there's my mother on the other side of the United States doing the same thing on a grand scale in the desert. It's quite the emotional speed bump. And my daughter is afflicted too! She likes to draw gorgeous landscapes and then fill the edges with tiny flying vampires! She decorated my dining room last week with sponges! It must increase with age. Which begs the question: what the hell will my mother be doing 10 years from now? Will she be stenciling and be-dazzling part of the Grand Canyon? Or will she still be doing community service when the people who posted this in town catch up with her?
The fire department and the local do-gooder group ERACE posted this in "town" last week. At first the ladies panicked, convinced they would be arrested for decorating the desert with trash. When the initial shock that they had "Wanted" signs all over town passed, they decided they had not yet begun to fight. So they regrouped and had a plaque made up that said the following:
Winner 2012 International Desert Art Show
Which they placed in front of "Stickman". They figure it will give the fire fighters and ERACE pause before they toss the installation in the garbage truck. I'll let you know what happens next week.
So that's why I haven't worked on the dioramas. This was all a bit of a wake up call. I must suffer from a genetic need to express what must be a high-functioning mental illness through crafting. Which brings me to this lovely inspiration:
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| oh, deer |
Lorie sent me this Pinterest picture and I loved it immediately. I think she looks like Ann-Margaret in Bye Bye Birdie. I had to make one asap, so I went to craigslist and bought a deer mount. I brought the husband with me for the exchange, because he was convinced I was going to end up in a shallow grave by meeting someone from craigslist in a parking lot at night in Medina. My bargaining-wise friend Victoria told me to talk them down and tell them the deer looked like crap and offer $10 for it. But I took one look at my new deer head and was so delighted, that I pretty much started throwing money at some poor bewildered woman trying to unload her husbands' trophies. Winston said it was embarrassing. I actually apologized for not giving her more than the agreed upon price.
But I took one look at my new friend and knew that although she was too beefy to be an Ann-Margaret, she was definitely a cross between Miss Havisham and Queen Victoria. And so this was born:
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| Elegant and sad |
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| A bride forever in mourning |
She's so lovely I can't stand it. And not only is she a cheerful addition to the TV room, she finally helped me decide what to do with the limited edition Princess Diana engagement ring my mom got me for my birthday last year. (note the brooch)
I learned a lot from all of this:
1. You can't fight genetics.
2. Lorie and Pinterest are enablers.
3. Me, my mom and my daughter need to get to work on something really big.
~dana
