hand-made christmas ornaments

My very first project in kickstarter's new "Crafts" category is one which is in memory of my stepdad.
He was a whittler, too.
He gave me one of his "ball in a cage" pieces as a Christmas ornament one year, long ago. It was fashioned from plain, unfinished wood and is a cherished possession.
Dan Hunter paints his Christmas ornaments in the bright colors of the holiday. Like my stepdad, he's Georgia-born and raised. Dan lives in Texas, now.
The project is already funded. In fact, it's already hit its first stretch goal and is trying for the second stretch goal of $750.
That's part of the reason I added my thirty-three dollars to the pile.
I want to have one of those candy cane ornaments.
Candy cane, you say? The project only promises to deliver ornaments patterned after stockings and presents at that reward level!
True, that is how it originally was written.
But read this.

Update #1
Sep 16 2014
STAFF PICK!
Wow! This project was selected as a staff pick! Someone up there must sure love Christmas! In celebration of this, I have decided to release another ornament. This is a limited edition ornament, only five, that's right, FIVE, will ever be made. It will be the Christmas tree, but instead of green, it will be painted gold.
"But wait," you're thinking, "Why is this ornament so special?"
Well let me tell you. Not only will it be painted gold. It will have actual gold dust mixed into the paint! Now that's exciting! Jump on this soon, because these ornaments won't last long. I might even pledge one myself.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

I felt the stretch goals needed something more, so I'm introducing a new ornament with a $750 stretch goal. If we hit $750, I will release "The Candy Cane." It may be creepy, but there is no better way to remember an old man sneaking into your room while you are sleeping and leaving a candy cane under your pillow than hanging this guy on your tree.

Thank you everyone for your support, and I look forward to celebrating the holidays with you!
Dan

Pretty sweet! I can almost taste that peppermint goodness now!

the android's astrological companion

Yes, I have already completed the categories for "Art", "Comics", and "Literature". Those pieces of my kickstarter backer "pie" were completed quite a while back, multiple times.
But I couldn't resist!
You see, I like the name, too. It reminds me of Tanith Lee's "The Silver Metal Lover" and Isaac Asimov's robot novels that I so enjoyed in my younger years.
This art book of short stories promises to be quite lovely and will be right at home beside my copy of "Speculative Relationships", wouldn't you agree? I think they will be a most winning couple!
I do so appreciate Cody Vrosh providing me an opportunity to help bring this project to life. Honestly, I don't know that he really needs to utilize the services of kickstarter to advance his work. He already has his own bookpress and screenprinting workshop, known as Binary Winter.
Perhaps he's simply wanting to spread the gospel, too.
That dieselpunk-flavored, modern creed with comic coloration.
One NOVA-sized cup for me, please!
That means my paltry forty-three dollars will gain the PDF, the signed hardback copy of the book, AND a signed print - of my choice! I'll make sure my "Kickstarter Rewards Wall" has a waiting space beside the cover print from "Speculative Relationships".
Together on the wall AND on the bookshelf!
That's for sure, too. This is another project I'm joining late, as its active time ends tomorrow. This is also another project which has well outstripped its funding goal. The creator has chosen to expand the rewards into additional levels as "stretch goals" are reached.
In fact, I'll not only receive the NOVA package, but also an additional book! This one is titled "The Zodiac of Teeth" and should make friends easily on the bookshelf with "Creature disComforts".
Very nice perk!

dieselpunks will not fall

Woohoo! I'm on my way to restoring my backer stats!
What better way to begin than to merge old and new in the realm of dieselpunks? To quote the dieselpunkencyclopedia website, the movement combines the look and feel of the 1920's to 1950's with "postmodern sensibilities from a counter-cultural viewpoint" to create "a distinct style of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering".
This is hardly the first project I have backed with these elements. Even though the two other projects weren't specified as "dieselpunk", they most assuredly are.
(They were both local, too, which is another plus in my book.)
In September of 2011, "The Flight" was not yet off the ground, but I went ahead and bought my ticket to ride! A beautifully crafted film eventually emerged, with definite dieselpunk aspects in the story, costumes, and cinematography.
Then, in January of 2012, another project caught my eye, promising to make Education come ALIVE! They made good on that promise, too. Inspired by the works of Nice One, a Chicago artist, students helped create a blend of art-deco-colored wall murals which featured modernistic, goggle-clad explorers. Children and dieselpunk - now, that's a way to start a revolution!
For all I know, the artists who created those two projects are followers of the online magazine and social network devoted to the dieselpunk art movement. First created in 2009 by Emmy-winning artist Tome Wilson, the site is now in danger of shutting down.
Why?
Lack of money.
The overhead for maintaining the five-year archive of art, music, and history is $3500.
That payment is due next month.
So, the funding goal for the project was set for that amount, not one penny more nor less.
In return, the creator pledges to help expand the site, encouraging the creation of new artists and new books and films and music.
Get the picture?
The creator wants to help spread the gospel, as well as maintain the place of worship.
Amen, I say!
He has even already surpassed his humble goal. My funds certainly aren't going to be the "make or break" addition to the success of the project.
Still, I wanted to be in on this.
Even if fifteen bucks isn't much these days, back in the 1920's, that sum held true worth. It's also 50% more than the minimum needed to receive a "handwritten dieselpunk postcard" from Mr. Wilson.
I'll be looking forward to that piece of mail.

pardon me, my stats are slipping

Yikes!
I popped over to kickstarter.com to update my backer information, as I've recently received more rewards for successful projects I've supported. Nice to keep up to date with that, you know!
As I had noted in March, I had allowed that responsibility to slip past, unaware of that page in my profile. No more! I have been working fervently to remedy that situation, writing reviews of the fabulous rewards the project creators have graced me with, even friending them on facebook.com or linkedin.com and posting my links on their pages.
THAT has been very gratifying to both me and them. They are reminded that there is an appreciative audience for their creative outlet. I am reminded of how much I enjoy being a responsive part of that audience.
Definitely: win, win!
So, as I was saying, today I took a moment to update my backer information.
After all, I wanted to let Marty Kelley know that his red-cape-bedecked book had traveled safely to my waiting hands and would soon continue on its journey as a birthday gift to my nephew, Conner.
And, while on that "Backer history" page, I noticed an odd thing.
My "pie" didn't look right.
In March of this year, the "pie" had thirteen colorful wedges. Each brightly-hued wedge represented that I had given financial support to at least one project in the category represented in the "pie".
In March of this year, my "pie" was complete.
No more.
Two white wedges, nearly bisecting the "pie" into halves, stared blackly at me.
I ran my cursor over the wedges.
"Crafts"???
"Journalism"???
Say what???
Yikes!

Sadly, the two white wedges are real.
Shortly after I had anteed up on "The Broken Hearts Table", the folks in charge at kickstarter made a few changes. Noticing that some of the subcategories had generated quite a few projects, two were deemed worthy of becoming slices in the pie of categories.
The announcement was posted in their blog on June 11 of this year.
Seriously, I only missed knowing about this by two days.
Then again, I imagine I was notified by email about the new post in their blog, but, at the time, I didn't truly comprehend its meaning.
Those two white wedges in my "pie" gave the news the needed impact.
I am certainly conscious of it now.
Time to complete my "pie" again!

muralcle is just a memory now

This morning, the wrecking crew came over to Habersham Street. Some of the backers were there, too, as well as friends of the artists whose work was portrayed on the Wall.
By the time I arrived in late morning, the middle section and the right portion had been partially dismantled.
One nice thing: the workers were very considerate of the fact that this was an artistic endeavor which was to be destroyed. Great care has been taken to salvage those portions which are to be given new homes.
Matt had been dragging whole concrete bricks up toward the front of the street, laying out neat rows to help folks find the images they wanted to cherish, their portraits captured on the concrete.
I looked, but my triangulated face was not there.
Up toward the wall I went! One by one, I turned over bricks, searching for mine, hoping it had not been destroyed, hoping the brick might be nearly whole and not shattered.
Hoping, hoping, hoping.
Twice I ended up on the ground. I had left the house so hurriedly that I had just slipped on my sandals, not "real" shoes. Twice, I stepped on a corner of broken brick and my foot slipped out from the shoe, landing me on my buttocks. BAM! The first fall resulted in a couple of scrapes; the next time, only my ego was bruised.
If only I had looked straight ahead of me that first time I fell.
My image would have been about at eye level, there on the lower left portion of the wall, below the gaping hole.
After my second misstep, I busied myself with turning all the fallen bricks face-up. That slowed me down, made me start paying more attention to the colors and patterns on the bricks. I realized that the two large sections I had just turned over, each consisting of three bricks still fused together, would have come from the same section where my image once was. Maybe my face was still on a section in that area!
And so it was.
On part of the wall which had not yet been dismantled, a section partly hidden by tar paper.

For now, the block rests on my living room floor.
I brought home eight and a half other blocks from the site.
I was careful to not take any blocks which had portraits on them; I am well aware of the value of such art. The blocks I rescued from the site have only splashes and swooshes and lines of color upon them. Somewhere in my back yard, those blocks will be grouped together to tell their stories.
Hopefully, that will be soon.

imagination is a superpower!

"A Cape!" has arrived!

I am so thrilled!

Today, "A Cape!" arrived in my mailbox!

Not literally a cape, of course.
Sure, there could have been a cape there, but I did not order one, so it would have been a huge surprise for me if a cape arrived at my house.

I knew this was coming, even though I had not personally ordered it.
Marty Kelley ordered it for me.


Well, not actually for me.

The book is for my nephew, Conner.
He's one of the most fearless boys I've ever met. He's never met a wall he couldn't climb, a tree that stood in his way, or any obstacle that truly was.
He starts the first grade next fall.
As I said before, when I saw this project on kickstarter, I immediately thought of this particular nephew and knew I had to support the author in honor of Conner.

Just look at that personalized autograph!

Conner is going to love it!

I think his big brother, Merritt, is going to be a little jealous.
That's okay.
I have another project's reward for him.



I haven't decided what I'll do with the poster.
Maybe I'll give that to Conner, too.
Maybe it will find a place on my Kickstarter Wall in my Ocean Room.
I still have a couple of months to decide on that.

But I am for sure keeping the bookmark!

Look at the sheer glee on his face!

What jubilation at being young and invincible!

I especially like this side, of course!
It echoes Einstein's thoughts on imagination being more important than knowledge.

But I also like the imagery.
The little boy leaps into the air, crashes down, and still flashes a 'thumbs up!" to signal that all is well.
Keep on trying, just keep on trying!

Great message.