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July 27, 2008

Studio Shots for July 27

Posted by mwashburn at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2008

Hard at Work

I'm actually toying with the idea of starting a separate art blog, but haven't worked myself up to the commitment yet. I just need to quit my day job, and everything will be fine. Ha! Here's another work-in-progress:

And I thought I'd try my hand at ACEOs (Art Cards, Editions and Originals), which are little 2.5 x 3.5" pieces that are all the rage on Etsy, the idea being that you can buy prints or originals by your favorite artists to display and collect, for under $10 in many cases. Making these little things is addictive...

Posted by mwashburn at 07:18 AM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2008

Untitled

Posted by mwashburn at 04:18 PM | Comments (1)

July 13, 2008

So... Tired...

My first kid-free weekend away. It's great to be home, but as a brief summary I will tell you that my weekend involved (in no particular order): lesbians, mummies, ballroom dancing, being flirted with by men nearly a decade my junior, good coffee, bad coffee, Brooklyn transplants in Indiana, Indiana transplants to Brooklyn visiting Indiana, half a Cuban black bean pizza, on-the-house sushi dinner, the horrifying experience of actually seeing a Pussycat Dolls video on the MTV at my hotel, and less sleep than I normally get living with a toddler. Bliss.

Posted by mwashburn at 08:39 PM | Comments (1)

July 05, 2008

Shameless Self Promotion

Happy Fourth of July everyone. I hate the Fourth of July. Why? Yes, yes, birth of our country and all, but, three little words: hillbillies with firecrackers. For TWO WEEKS surrounding the main event. Someone tossed a rather large LIT FIREWORK out of a CAR about half a block from us on our walk home from the fireworks display last night. Not cool, people, not cool.

In any case, a little bit of cheer did come my way this loud, loud weekend, in the form of being the featured artist on the Etsy Indiana Street Team blog. link here.

Not much else new. More family in town, which is mostly a good thing, and plans for a girls' weekend all to myself in Bloomington coming up. Look out central and southern Indiana!!!

Posted by mwashburn at 07:47 PM | Comments (1)

July 03, 2008

More Around My Studio

I'm toying with the idea of starting a separate blog for artwork-related stuff, but a) I hate to commit to any more busywork when I should be painting and b) I don't know if my readers here would bother to read both. On the other hand, having a top-level domain for my blog would make me easier to find, and having an art-only theme could only be good for my online presence. Thoughts?

In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of what I've been up to this afternoon (hooray for abbreviated work days due to pre-holiday slowness!)

Posted by mwashburn at 07:48 PM | Comments (0)

July 01, 2008

Things You Should Do NOW

Go make a mojito with ginger ale instead of club soda. Do it. Trust me. Do it.

Posted by mwashburn at 08:00 PM | Comments (1)

The First Let-Down

I read today that Barack Obama wants to expand President Bush's Faith Based Initiative. So, sure, there's a lot of fine print about how Obama's vision of the program is different than Bush's, but really, come on... how is the government supposed to regulate whether federal dollars are being used to proselytize? Should the government have to? And why do we say "faith-based" when we really mean Christian?

Now, I understand that churches do lots of good things, lots of volunteer work, and run lots of legitimate, beneficial charities. I just don't think it's right to be supporting that with federal tax dollars. I don't think the government should be supporting organizations that can hire and fire based on religious beliefs. You scream that my NPR shouldn't be funded by the government, well, I scream that your church soup kitchen shouldn't be funded by the government either. There, we're even.

Is Obama just pandering to Christian Conservatives to try to broaden his appeal for the general election? Does he really think this is a good idea? Because I, for one, have had enough of the government and radical religious elements being in bed together. Unfortunately, the choices here both seem bleak. Either Obama really believes this shit, or he's just playing politics, neither of one rates very high on my list of things to aspire to. I realize that I hold a minority opinion on religious belief, but even if I were religious, I can't see chipping away at the wall between Church and State being a good thing.

update
Here is a link to the Obama campaign website that includes a document outlining Obama's faith initiative. It sounds somewhat less sinister, in that it emphasizes support only for secular programs and includes secular, community based organizations BUT I think my criticism still holds-- how can you separate out proselytizing, especially when churches are ministering to very vulnerable people? And although the programs cannot discriminate according to current Civil Rights law, they can still discriminate in their hiring practices and, presumably, in providing services when it comes to gays and lesbians. Not that that isn't a problem in the secular sector, but it seems we often give a free pass to bigotry when it is religiously motivated.

Posted by mwashburn at 12:08 PM | Comments (2)