Kit Lang Art

Photo shows a Canadian artist in the wee hours of Sunday night - about to head to bed*

Lol

Since we spoke last (uhhhhh…3 weeks ago?); the following happened.

I was at work, and all of a sudden, I started getting vertigo. My desk would rush up at me every time I sat down or looked away from the screen, I was sweating and nauseated, and when I got up to go the bathroom I was staggering around like a drunken sailor.

I had broken my glasses that morning, so I thought it had something to do with my vision being borked. I made an appointment to see my opthamologist that afternoon, and left work early.

I went home, lay down and tried to make the world stop spinning – got up later to go to my appointment and ordered my new glasses, and then went back home to bed.

The next morning I woke up with the same symptoms.

Same thing the next morning, and the next and the next.

By this time it was the weekend, and I was fully expecting to go back to work on Monday. But on Monday morning I was no better, in fact, I was worse - with an ongoing fever added to the mix. I tried to make an appointment with my family doctor, but she wasn't available until the next day, so I called in nearly dead for two more days.

The next day I went to my doc and found out that I had a severe ear infection; hence the vertigo, nausea, imbalance, fever, etc. She told me that I would need another TWO weeks off work (!) and sent me home with a fistful of prescriptions and a "stay in bed" order.

I'm now back at work. I'm not quite myself yet (I still get dizzy when I get up too quickly or when I roll over in bed or get out of bed); and I had a bout of quite severe nausea and fever yesterday, but I'm more or less okay.

In GOOD news since we talked last, I sold "Starling in Hawthorne" and received two commissions. Yay!

For whatever reason, I tend to get most of my commissions in February/March; I work on them through June/July; take the summer off, and then try to get back into an art practice in the fall.

This year, I had hoped to get into a regular studio practice and never mind the rest of it, but my commissions started coming in early. I'm not complaining – and perhaps this means that I won't get any in March (although I hope that doesn't happen!); but this is why there will be a lack of posting over the next little while as I try to catch up/get going/produce work!

I'm also trying to make a gift for a friend – the original plan was that I would dash that off over the last couple of weeks of January, but now that needs to be put on the back burner and stuck in - maybe at the end of this month?

So… see you soon? I don't know. I hope so! :) :) :) I was enjoying talking with you all of you again.

* P.S. amazed that my all day lipstick really did last all day! It's Colourpop - an American brand out of California with a very friendly price point. If you like make-up (I LOVE it lol) check it out! :)

For Christmas I received some generous gift certificates to fabric stores that I frequent, so recently, I hit up the January sales and purchased fabric and notions.

I have a few pair of embroidery scissors (and a multitude of snips); but all of my embroidery scissors were hand-me-downs and were quite dull. I have been using snips for the last several months, but have thought from time to time that I would like a purpose-made pair of embroidery scissors.

About a year ago I saw this pair and thought they were really lovely, but the price was more than I could (or would) justify.

But guess what was up for grabs in the January sales? You guessed it – and marked down from $89.99 to $69.99, to… $8.99!!!

I was thrilled to scoop them up, and they have such a lovely weight to them that you feel as if they are good quality. And more importantly, they're quite sharp, too!

In thinking it over later though, my nose was a bit out of joint. I imagined that if I had splurged and spent $90 (plus 13% tax) on these scissors and then saw them for $8.99, I'd be quite upset. So I had various uncharitable thoughts about "capitalism!" and "One percenters!" etc.

Butttttttt…

Well, the truth is of course, that these stores have to pay staff, and rental or mortgage payments for their properties, utilities, insurance, pest control… stock of course, and all manner of things that I probably can't even think of.

So then I began to feel quite badly for the store owner. What if they were selling them at a loss? What if it was an error and they should have been more?

Well, I wasn't going to return it and find out! Lol

There are some cases where manufacturers and purveyors of goods are clearly out to squeeze as much money as possible out of us. There is clothing store here that I used to buy a lot of my clothes at, but the quality of the fabrics they used had deteriorated so much that I couldn’t do it anymore. And it has gotten even worse since then.

And so many products at the grocery stores from orange juice to soda to soup to cereal have gotten smaller, or significantly smaller in packaging, so you end up with much less volume of product, for the same price that you were paying before. That one in particular ticks me off, because how stupid do they think we are? We NOTICE. I'd much rather that they charge us more than that they think we're so stupid that they're getting away with something!

Similarly, we went to a fast food restaurant the other day (which we almost NEVER do); and I was having a "Where's the beef?" moment. (Seriously dating myself with that one. Lol) I literally couldn't see it, and when I flipped up the bun, the patty was paper thin and half an inch smaller in circumference than the bun.

JUST CHARGE ME MORE AND GIVE ME A DECENT SIZED BURGER. Lol

In the same vein, I read an article a year just after Christmas, about the extremely popular headphones of that year. I was trying to get a pair for a gift, and it was like finding a unicorn. They were sold out everywhere!!!

The article was on one of those tech-y sites and they were comparing this particular pair to others in the same price range, comparing not only the quality of sound, but also how they were manufactured. And they said that this particular brand was producing headphones that were made completely out of plastic – 100% except for the little copper wires inside their plastic sheaths; and that they then put metal weights in them to make them feel heavier so that that we sheeple would think they were worth the price!

They said that yes, they were an excellent headphone, but that in terms of components and quality of sound, they were exactly the same as another brand, priced $100 less.

Is that their (evil?) cunning or our stupidity? I'm not sure.

I think that there are times when was can be justifiably upset with manufacturers and purveyors of services who are setting out to deliberately rip us off, either through maleficent cost cutting, production/distribution or by assuming they can hoodwink us, and there are times when perhaps the person/entity selling to us is nearly as much a victim as we are.

This might play out for instance in the anecdote that arleebarr shared yesterday of an observer who sniffed at her prices. We all know how exorbitantly expensive most of our materials and tools are, and most of us pay ourselves minimum wage (or sometimes less) and that's how we end up with our prices – which people than sniff at and think is "overpriced".

I myself charge a certain dollar amount per square inch, which doesn't account for the fact that some 'inches" take 4 or 5 of 10 times as long to produce as others because of the technique involved; but that I don't feel comfortable asking my collectors to bear.

I sometimes think "Why not?"

However, I'm a long way away from buying scissors at a discount, aren't I?

Blah blah. Lol

I'm posting every day, but it's more a free association, and I think I'm missing the point of my posting. Shouldn't I be posting about something more on point? Hahhahahaha.

TLDR: behold the scissors I got on sale!

Kit

Because I'm going to be doing hand work on these pieces, I'll be bringing them to work with me and working on them instead of reading at lunch time.

Doing handwork like this in public always feels a bit uncomfortable for me. It seems like showing off somehow, but I also feel criticized (without anyone ever saying a word!) and want to offer an explanation to anyone who happens to glance at it: "Oh, this is just the beginning – it's going to look much better in the end!" Or talk about why I'm doing it as if I need to.

I mean I should be saying to myself "Who cares", and mostly, I do … or try to Lol

It's so strange that I feel like that sometimes when I know that in truth, most people couldn't give a flying flip what I'm doing and are completely uninterested, and that's somehow worse.

Hand work, fiber work, textile work - whatever you call it - it's viewed as "women's work"; and generally people don't value it (or us), so they dismiss it out of hand.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a co-worker some months back. She said "Oh your boss is so nice, I really like him." I agreed that he seemed to be nice but that I didn't really know him. She thought that was strange, and we had a conversation about how I keep myself to myself at work, don't share my personal life, etc. and how she does the opposite.

She said that she forces her boss to listen to her when she talks about her running or her fitness goals, even when she can tell that he doesn't want to hear it (!); and she said "You should talk to him about your hobbies."

Although I'd just told her I don't talk about my personal life, I didn't want to seem rude by repeating that, so I said "Oh, I don't think he's interested in hearing about my sewing."

She laughed and said "No, NO one wants to hear about your sewing. I sure don't!" and she left!

I had to laugh to myself because there I was worried about coming off as rude to HER; but it made me a bit sad to think that it showed how much these skills are devalued, even by other women.

On the heels of the quilting and knitting "revolution" of the first decade of the 2000's, it would seem that people are turning back to their sewing machines again, judging by sewing studios that are opening in my city, and the business that offer rental time on sewing machines to the general public.

That's hopeful, but just to end this on a gloomy note: it would seem that these skills are nevertheless becoming archaic and rather quaint.

My evidence: the autocorrect on my phone and tablet continually change "sew" to "see", no matter how many times I tell it, "No, I really DO want to say "sew" (I mean, YEARS of this!); and did you hear that Monopoly wants to get rid of the thimble as "no one knows what it is"?

Ack!!

So I'll sign off with

#needlelove

;)