I’m spiffing up some older stories…foundational myths, if you will…from my Lonhra Sequence space-fantasy universe. One of the fun/infuriating things about hobby-crafting a universe for nearly 40 years, are all the small stories that make up those secondary worlds and their histories. Side-characters and historical footnotes who would very much like to tell *their side*…
Read More More Lonhra Sequence stories…Are nearly done. Two days before I have to drop them off, nearly a year since I volunteered to do them, and at least six months after I intended to finish them. Life in a pandemic, eh? You’d think it would give us more time to finish things. But my job never locked down, and…
Read More Panels for The Violet Protest Project…Another year, another round of self-published stuff. Now I’m playing with a digitally altered and painted cover for my contemporary M/M erotic romance MAESTRO, while I add to that short 16K story. I needed brownstone houses. Fortunately, the Phoenix area has some, so I made a fool of myself getting shots of several at night.…
Read More New covers for ‘Maestro’I like glowing things. A few weeks back I ventured (gloved, masked and with Lysol & large plastic tubs waiting in the truck) to a local Goodwill store. I needed cheap cotton work clothes. While there, I found this lamp. For half off the listed price. It’s a 9×4 inch Hollywood Regency style crystal boudoir…
Read More Fae Lamp, Finished!I’m building covers for the self-published version of my M/M erotic romance space opera MORO’S PRICE. Bear in mind, I’m still finessing the art placement and text on both covers. Cover #1 links in some themes from the story (faceted diamond, star-field, male fighter in silhouette), but I still think it looks a little too…
Read More New Covers for Moro’s PriceAfter getting the rights back recently, I’m self-publishing my 103,000-word fantasy quest novel THE PURIST through Draft2Digital. When his wife is outcast from humanity, the last bard of a dying race thwarts a secret war and ancient gods to rejoin her. I made some minor revisions from the version that came out in summer 2018…
Read More Republishing THE PURISTBackstory: there’s a virtual gallery opening today that I’d wanted to attend, at a specific time. I have artwork in this show, I’m proud of the work, and I love the gallery. I also am lucky enough in the midst of a pandemic to *have a FT job with benefits*. It’s nearing the end of…
Read More Artists explaining themselvesFrom 1995 (when I started the needlepoint central panel) comes the wall tapestry ‘Hanging Garden’. This was a fun piece to do, beginning with a dream and a sketch in 1994, of a fantasy garden and a tree stretching from the ground to above the clouds. (Yes, I already had the dizzyingly tall gir-trees of…
Read More Old projects revisited: Hanging GardenFor my ongoing theme of ‘Taking Back Red’, here’s an old fiber art project that is calling for a reboot, possibly as a book art sculpture: 1994’s ‘Southron Sampler’, a small 14×9″ (ish) fiber art wall hanging donated to an Arizona science fiction convention charity auction to benefit a local literacy group. If this piece…
Read More Old projects revisited: Southron SamplerIf anyone is coming here as a result of the Art Quilts show, the Fire Mountain seed bead contest, or TusCon 2020 (or anyone but trolls and bots, really), please bear with me. An update caused a few problems, which I hope to fix in a few days. To paraphrase the late great Douglas Adams,…
Read More Wonky site, bear with meI wrote this post about beads a few months back. I’ve since been quietly processing the news that Kalmbach Publishing shuttered both Bead & Button Magazine and its annual flagship exhibition the Bead & Button Show. Covid19 may have killed the 2020 show, but it revealed larger market flaws and fragility in that part of…
Read More Beads, Diversity, and Green CitiesI’ll have work showing up in two anthologies this year. The first is the remarkable Mirrormaze, a dreampunk anthology of mind-melting SFF from editor Cliff Jones Jr. and Fractured Mirror Publishing, to be released on December 8, 2020. I’ve read the galley. It was stunningly well-put together. You should pre-order this book! My story is…
Read More New AnthologiesSpoilers! I’ll be honest: the main reason I got a new phone was its swanky camera, better rates from T-Mobile, and a reduced subscription to Netflix. The main reason I wanted Netflix was The Jim Henson Company’s ‘The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance’. This ambitious prequel to the Dark Crystal movie promised intriguing characters, plus…
Read More Dark Crystal CancelledThree years ago I bought a display form from a local boutique that was going out of business. I named it ‘Adelaide‘ after the boutique. Adelaide-the-mannequin had a cracked support post and base, and was permanently pitched backward (she frequently fell over). She also needed various bits of padding to mimic my ridiculously variable girth.…
Read More Say hi again to AdelaideI’m publishing a new version of my sword-and-planet fantasy novel BLOODSHADOW on July 10, 2020, through Draft2Digital. At 40,482 words, this is a revised version of the first part of the monster 135K book that was on Wattpad some years ago. Amazon US buy link Amazon global buy link Universal buy link (for platforms other…
Read More Relaunching Bloodshadow!Two good things have come out of our Plague Year nightmare: I’ve forcibly learned tips and tricks for a masked/veiled population in at least two of my books, so I have no excuse for any lack of verisimilitude later when working on NEEDLE AND SWORD or RED AMBER. As a rather standoffish person, I hate…
Read More Mask Selfie #1Is there any craft more ‘Karen‘ right now, than beadwork? Bear with me, I’ll circle back to that particular Molotov cocktail. My little existential crisis is *nothing* to the convulsions my beloved USA is going through right now. And yet, my tiny crisis has a direct link to what we’re seeing right now, in the…
Read More Beadwork, Karens, and Burning CitiesWe’re moving into the white-hot, flat-blue-sky phase of Arizona summer. There may be storms later in June or July, but for now they are a memory, a daydream, or a nightmare (our storms can be all three at once.) Anyone who has ever been through a desert thunderstorm knows the electric feel of the air,…
Read More ‘Rain Season’ beaded panelsBecause I can’t stay away from fiber arts. These fabric masks have an outer shell of embroidered and beaded cloth, surgical cloth filters, and inner linings of copper-infused bamboo and cotton cloth. They can be washed and sterilized. They fit very well. Are they the equivalent of N95 masks? Hell, no. But they help with…
Read More Three Covid MasksI’m psyching myself up to finishing some major pieces of fiber, bead, & book art this year, including some pieces in the design phase for years! To start, I wanted a pair or two of gloriously beaded sandals. (To work on, enter in art shows, wear to art & book events, etc.) I can’t justify…
Read More Beaded Panels for Shoes