webbed.

based on an emphatic recommendation by russell, we made our way out of austin today and straight to a specially arranged gallery visit to the webb gallery in waxahachie, texas. even at off-hours, we were lucky enough to get to meet both owners, bruce and julie webb. the place is beyond amazing, and so are the webbs. passionate about what they do, kind, generous with their time and knowledge and, as it relates to the gallery, each of them has a killer eye for the obscure and the heartfelt.

housed in a spacious old building in the centre of waxahachie, the gallery is such a feast for the eyes and senses, that it is hard to even begin to capture a visit in pictures.

the main exhibition at the moment is a grand-scale collection of sculptural works by camp bosworth entitled 'plata o plomo'. in exploration of the mexican drug trade, it features relief portraits of drug lords, massive hand-carved wooden guns that fold out into bars and the biggest piece of bling i have ever seen (bling not being a word i use often or lightly). it is a brilliant show, dazzling and scary, that is installed perfectly into the spacious gallery.

in their smaller loft space upstairs is another show by another texas artists, esther pearl watson. i have been aware of miss watson for a long while now from the zine scene. in fact, some of her zines must be some of the earliest added to my collection. but i have never had the privilege of seeing her paintings in person. i found this collection - an autobiographical series based her childhood home and family happenings from her formative years - incredibly touching. for me, it fell somewhere between fine art, self-revelation, sequential art and snapshot. you know those moments when you feel incredibly broke because artwork is so reasonably priced yet you are so outpriced? yup. i felt really compelled by these works.

and all of this not even to mention the webb's extensive collection of circus ephemera, secret society regalia and general wonderfulness. suffice it to say, if you are in the area, you should seriously make a visit. especially you, faythe.

more pictures here.

under the bridge.

and to cap our incredible day off, i finally got to see the famous austin bats stream out from under the congress street bridge. my attempts to take pictures of the bats we crazy, but i did get this picture of bat gawkers. thank you, austin!

junk rock.

as if our austin adventure day was not filled enough already, we ended our daylight hours with a trip to the cathedral of junk. thank you for the tip, scott! akin to structures like the watts towers, the cathedral's construction is amazing - totally teetering and solid all at once. and massive. so massive. i am always completely in awe of this sort of self-figured engineering.

dust in the wind.

i have been hearing tales of the museum of natural and artificial ephemerata since the last time we passed through austin. on that tour, i abandoned aitor in bat city for a week while i flew up to edmonton to shoot a movie. he got to explore everything while i jumped from oil town to oil town. his excitement over the museum was palpable - he even wanted to turn our apartment into a rotating display as a result. although we never fully acheived this dream (well, not yet, anyway), i have felt a great desire to visit this inspiration point ever since.

the museum, run out of the front room of co-curators scott and jen's home, is usually open only on saturdays but we were lucky enough to schedule a special appointment today. partly inherited from a mysterious great uncle of scott's, the 'impermanent collection' is a deceivingly small assortment of sub-categorized (aura, trace, natural, artificial, abject) cultural relics - elvis' hair, marilyn munro's cigarette butts, a yeti toy, glass from new york's doomed crystal palace, a bottle of sleep, incubator air, a flamingo head, snow globes, hair wreaths. although this collection is quite dense and dazzling enough, scott and jen also program a themed show or two a year with pieces from their own collection and relics on loan from kindred locals. they just wrapped up what looked to be a great show about the underground and caves. it was extra funny to see the cave room complete with fabric stalactites making its transition into their growing son's room.

the packed collection made my head spin with thoughts of other projects and general notions about objects, story, value and collecting. many of these themes have been ongoing in my life and i very much enjoyed being immersed in an environment dedicated entirely to the exploration of collecting. i was reminded of works by collectors and arrangers like barton lidice bennes, william davies king and even some friends like faythe and leah. as a side note, one of my most haunting regrets of last year's tour was becoming too run down and harried in california to collect on mr. king's invitation to visit his nothing collection. hopefully, i will find my way to rectifying that situation this year. but, i digress...

even with such a relatively small collection, i can't wait to revisit the museum should we ever find ourselves back through austin. even looking at these pictures i see objects whose stories i did not hear. we did go home with a bit of ephemera of our own - a couple of publications from the museum's past shows and impermanent collection. these books are as slim and dense as the museum itself and i hope they serve to fill me with thoughts and stories that will tide me over until we find ourselves deep in texas once again.

batting average.

we tried to see bats tonight and failed. i think we were too late. a free night dip in barton springs provided more than cold comfort, though. it has been under a week and we have already busted out the bathing suits twice. tour thus far = success.

free moustache rides.

i am sorry to admit that the crafty moustache trend has never entirely been my thing. i admire the work from afar but somehow it has never entirely gotten its hairy claws into me. maybe it is because i share my life with an awesome handlebar or maybe it is because my eastern european roots have me growing one of my own. regardless, when our friends jesse and darcy invited us out to this excellent austin taco stand i was thoroughly tickled to see it's accompanying moustache seesaw. i mean, c'mon.

ps - i am extra sheepish to admit my trend rebuffing because i have some great friends doing excellent work with moustaches. see? see? i am the worst kind of jerk.

vernacular desserts.

recent events have seen me making increased visits to my amazing mechanic, eric (who will have his own post here soon for being, truly, a prince among men). he is located up at st. clair and vaughan, an area i don't otherwise find myself in very much. these visits keep reminding me of one of toronto's most outstanding examples of vernacular/visionary/self-taught art, dutch dreams. an ice cream and candy shop, the flat iron-type building is festooned with all manner of cow, dairy and dutch themed hand painting and sculpture. my documentation here is pretty rushed and perfunctory, but i was having a rushed and perfunctory day. i had to pick up boris for the last time and was feeling distressed. i will have to go back another time (eric and i still have business so i am sure i will be there again sooner rather than later) and take some more detailed shots. at the very least, the sidewalk waffle cone making set-up made the entire intersection smell like a cloud of vanilla and sugar; this did a lot to soften my anxious mood.

anyone want an ice cream date in may?

highliner.

(bigger)

after gallery browsing, our friend melissa took us up to the high line, a defunct elevated train line (that was apparently a death trap) converted into floating green space and a promenade. everything felt nicer and cleaner and more open there. we didn't want to leave. i swear it is even a few degrees cooler two stories above the meat packing district. if you find yourself in this part of the world, i suggest a visit.

adventure and exploration through philadelphia city.

we've passed through philly a lot on our tours and have thus consumed much of the touristy stuff that has been suggested to us here (the mutter coming up constantly). new things to explore in this perplexing city are always being sought. i think we heard about the wagner free institute through garth. we did. what an amazing start to our philadelphia adventure day. photography is not allowed, so you will just have to visit for yourself, but let's just say that everything from the catalogued insects, corals, birds, mammals, gems and fossils to their means of display is entralling. i though of so many people i know in the craft world as i wandered the aisles of glassed cases. ryan and matt could stand to visit for the fauna inspiration alone, karyn and jen came to mind as i marvelled at the colour palettes of everything from birds to shells and shauna and stephen seemed very present in the case filled with wood and plaster morphology models of various crystal forms (even their storage boxes were beautiful). i hit a wall at a certain point, having absorbed too much stimulus. i will have to return. you should go, too. this place is incredibly amazing. oh, and they did let me take pictures of the outdoor painted signage for faythe. faythe, there is some gold here - both literally and figuratively.

after the wagner, it was time to pile in the car. i was treated to the extreme pleasure of not having to drive. this allowed me to snap pictures and sip tea. thanks, julie! it's a great gift while touring.

we visit fabric row, the much suggested loop yarn shop (a thoroughly stocked and friendly place), and this hidden gem of a tourist stop - a small fortune cookie factory with a special secret product:

...the x-rated fortunes range from revolting to nonsensical. i highly recommend them. oh, there was more - wig shops and parks and cheese fries and dinner. we are pooped. but i feel fuller and more in league with this strange city than i was before. you're great, philly. but you drive like a collection of lunatics. you know, just sayin'. a whole day out makes me wish for more taxidermy displays and less road warrioresque madness.

museum of everything.

today's travel itinerary was our most modest yet - we had to find a motel halfway to a town one hour away. this left lots of time for more capitol tourism. almost all museums in washington are free and the options felt endless so we chose to just find parking near the smithsonian buildings and wander. our meanderings were limited to the american history museum and natural history museum. above is a paper dress made by the scott paper factory in the 1960's. it immediatly reminded me of anabela and her new project. we happened upon lots of things (naturally). following is a random selections of things we saw.

a heavenly rendering of the prehistoric soup that we came from:

i could have spent weeks on end in the gem and mineral display (good call, autumn). that first giant quartz has to live in the shadow of that snotty little hope diamond. but i am more impressed by the quartz. there was even a whole section dedicated to minerals pulled out of the mines of our beloved bisbee.

further along route 66.

today we mostly picked up where we left off. this crossing the continent business has always been a mild ordeal for us. we have friends between the east and west but not a lot of crafty things to do. this translates into long driving days in the hot hot heat. (by the way, if you are a crafty sort along route 66, we want to hear from you. the vague plan for next summer is to set up a small gallery/boutique/trailer park tour along this path to los angeles).

but back to our crossing to albuquerque...

we quickly passed through oklahoma and crossed into texas, reading historical markers about towns that ebbed and flowed with deposits of natural resource. i really like traveling the panhandle along route 66. the towns are pretty and interesting. we were again thwarted by our own timing as we passed through mclean, texas, in the hopes of gaining entrance to the devil's rope museum. i guess we are doomed to just pass through, stare through the glass and leave.

we left texas and entered new mexico where the sun was going down and weather started to turn.

until it really turned into the most white knuckled our drive has been yet. aitor took some pictures as we came through the end of our mountain monsoon outside of tucumcari. my arm was numb from stress.

i considered not posting these pictures for fear that our moms would have heart attacks. but it's okay, ladies; we survived. and look: