Pop art, I think is a rather broad form of art and I find it hard to place any certain example as the cornerstone of the genre.  I like it, a lot.  I like many different forms of pop art.  Who can pass up the comic book style paintings and advertsiments collaged together in a funky mass?  If I could sum up what pop art is to me, it is typically all the crazy, unique, designer styled art that is very nichey.  It’s always fun and typically colorful and it can range from a fluorescent can of tomato soup to a pair of sushi earrings (which I have made a pair of).  I struggle to find my own niche.  I like so many different forms and styles of art that I can’t hardly narrow it down to an actual niche.  I love Ugly Dolls, I love Andy Warhol, I love Kurt Halsey.  I love candy heart earrings and stars and I also love skulls and punk rock.  What can I say, I’m eclectic.  It’s a good quality but a hard one to keep under control.  I may feel like making monster earrings today and sewing felt tomorrow.  Which ever way I go I know I need to do more of it.  I have ideas galore and notebooks filled with plans and sketches… now to do it.  No, last night I played Prince of Persia instead… grr.  Anyways,  my plan is to make a bunch of fun wearable art in punk style, goth style, emo style, sweet style, mean style, you name it.  I will be free in my art no matter what the mixture, crayons and vampires.  It’s my site, it’s my art, it’s how I feel.  So there.    Ohhh the drama!  I shall create earrings of robots and post cards of emo art and necklaces of cupcakes.  I shall create wearable art of many different shapes colors and styles, and it will be good and Abbi Normal will come to life.  Yes, I have a dream.

Ok, so last weekend we went garage sale-ing with the master of garage sale shopping.  My mother in law.  She knows where to go, when to go, and best of all she doesn’t stop at every sale, she scopes out the good ones.  Now this was our first experience with ‘rich people garage sales’ yes that’s right.  Rich people garage sales take place at any home that is worth twice the value of my own and is also located in a housing addition.  We hit like four different additions having their community garage sales.  This to me was like shopping at Pier One or Target if they were having a 75% off sale, it was awesome.  My husband made out the best of course.  He scorred some surround sound speaker conglomeration for $50 that I guess was a great deal.  I found an 8 piece Pfaltzgraff  dish set for only $40, we didn’t buy it though.  My husband didn’t seem overly thrilled about buying it, so we didn’t.  It’s not so much that I wanted it, I just knew it was a kicking deal. I don’t think I need to point out the feeling of unfairness of us purchasing speakers but not dishes, but who am I!??  Anyways, I was happy with my purchases.  A dog bed big enough for all our dogs for $5, two pads of water color paper for $1.50, a night stand for $5, a giant round fish bowl for $2, a small tv with dvd plaer for $15, fifteen rolling stones magazines for $3, and the best of all- a 10″ batman figurine for $1.  Wait a second, I only spent…  $32.50, darn it.    Our real goal was to find a couch and a dining room table.  Not so much.  I think the couch thing is hopeless, I can’t imagine finding one in good enough condition, that doesn’t smell funny, that isn’t butt ugly.  Who knows.  Hopefully we’ll be hitting some more garage sales this weekend.  YAY!  Exciting news number two, I got the greatest book ever in the mail on Friday.  I am totally into toys and especially designer toys, though I don’t own any of those.  I LOVE the art style though.  So I spyed a book on KidRobot and fell in love, well someone on Amazon had it for like a third of their price so I ordered it, it FABULOUS!  It’s like a huge hardback book of nothing but close up pictures of awesome toys!  Who could ask for more??  When I flipped through the book I got a sense of ‘all is right in the world’ for a spilt second then I remembered all the poverty, war, slavery, racism, and so and knew I was wrong about that thought.  Certainly a book of toys isn’t going to fix the world anyways, right? 

I hit my first garage sale this year & found a few odds & ends that made it worth it.  Let me fisrt state that I have never really enjoyed garage sales, I have always seen them as a sort of cesspool for worthless items no one wants then someone else buys them & starts a cesspool of their own.  Sounds quite unappealing eh?  Well this year I have a different point of view, I am on a mission to gather all the trash I can & turn it into something more.  You know, that whole crap about one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  Anywho, so I look forward to collaging & painting misc. items & maybe even finding some awesome furniture we can revamp.  Here’s what I found: 

Ok, so all I really got at the garage sale was the top right pic- some fun frames from IKEA, some distressed decor signs, & those funky white things.  I thought I could paint those fun colors, maybe turn them into birds or something.  I also snatched the purple penguin from my past.  I had the bigger version of this little guy when I was like 6 so I couldn’t pass him up for $.50.  Other than that I bought some felt to play with & some funky beads called- bling bling beads, who could pass em up with a name like that??  So I sewed up my first felt project & I was ever so glad I inherited my grandma’s sewing kit full of spools of thread of every color.  Yay Gramms.  Today I wondered around Michaels craft store for about an hour but resisted putting us into thousands of dollars of debt.  I made it out of there spending only $7.00.  It’s a miracle.  My main reason for going in was to look at canvas’.  HA.  I knew they would be expensive but come on.  I haven’t built one in years & thought, well maybe it’s easier to just buy one.  Ehhmm at aroun $70- I don’t think so, especially since I have no intentions of selling whatever I paint on it.  So that was a no go.  So I thought, well I guess I’ll paint on cardboard for now, that’s fun anyways.  So I looked at those things for science projects, they were like $7.00.  I was like… hmm, guess I’ll paint on old boxes .  I think it will add character anyways.  I have all these ideas & not the time to put them into action.  I have a hard time focusing on what I want to work on first.  I really want to make some more jewelry, pop art wearable art jewelry.  I think I need to come up with a name for it like…   pawa jewelry… or something.  It’s pawa ya’ll.  Which reminds me, I finally bought Family Force 5’s diamond edition cd, that’s like the first cd I have actually purchased in like a decade.  I actually got to meet these guys about a year ago when we still had our teen club open, they came & played there twice which was really cool for a po-dunk town, though not many people showed up.  I like em, & I already got an idea for a painting from one of there songs, so yay.  Where are those old boxes?? 

Today I feel so full of creative energy I could nearly burst, rather I did feel so full of creative of energy until about 30 seconds ago.  All morning I have been drawing sketches, writing down ideas, surfing the net to form my plan.  Abbi Normal is taking form though I am still not even convinced of the name.  I like it then I don’t, I am just too fickle.  Since the site hasn’t opened yet, I am safe to change my mind I suppose.  Anyways, I have many product ideas & other painting & drawing and misc ideas I just need to get under way.  I didn’t realize how important it is to have friends that are artists.  In fact, I don’t have any really, which is kind of weird.  Looking back, I didn’t have art classes with any of my friends & I didn’t really hang out with my art class students.  I suppose high school didn’t really count for most though, it was more of an easy credit to them.  Anyways, we do have a couple of friends now that are artists & it is an inspiration to see their work & their work space & know that they probably think in the same ways I do, even if ever so slightly.  So I filled pages of my notebook today with ideas that I am excited to work on, then I went to the bathroom & apparently all my creative energy got flushed into non-existence.  This is ok though, since I haven’t done a lick of actual office work yet today.   So yay for inspiration.  My favorite quote of the day which has inspired a painting I plan on creating:   
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” 

So we’ve been back from Africa for about a month now, in fact it’s been a month today.  I must admit I have missed the Sudan on many occasions over the past weeks.  Whenever the people there cross my mind I have to stop & look at the time & figure seven hours ahead to picture what they might be doing around that time of day.  It is weird to think of all the people we met & the patients we cared for & we really have no idea if some of them even survived.  Dut definitely touched all of our hearts.  He was a premi baby who we had to feed through a feeding tube every three hours during the entire time we were there.  Dut ended up there when his mom had him & he wouldn’t suck for the first two days & her family wanted her to take him to a witch doctor but she refused & took him to the compund instead.  Her family basically abandoned her there as they were unhappy with her decision.  So we all go to know Dut & his mom quite a bit as we spent so much time with them while we were there.  We got to see him progress & even start to drink quite a bit from a bottle.  I sure wanted to smuggle him home with me.  Since we have returned we know that Dut & his mom were released to go home with his tube taken out, but anymore than that is unknown.  The birth rate in the Sudan is about 50% survival.  It is a wonder when any baby pulls through.  I find that I want to go back more & more as time passes.  It’s just hard to imagine them there & us here in our comfortable lives.  I also think I could be so much more productive this time around as I would be so much more prepared.  It is hard to believe sometimes that we ever went at all because we anticipated it for so long and it was over in a blink of an eye.  I won’t forget them & I look at pictures & think of stories often so the memories won’t fade.