6/52

Sorry for the late posting. I know that my millions of followers have just be DYING to see this week's piece.

Anyway, this week was my roommate, Nicole Priest's birthday and we celebrated with a whole week of festivities, dubbed PriestWeek2K10. We started on Wednesday at Babe's for karaoke, followed up with a raging dance party at our house on Friday, went back to Babe's for more dancing on Saturday, and did brunch at Strange Matter on Sunday.

This week's artwork is based on this shot of Nicole and her girlfriend, Shay.

This is the first week I've used a non camera phone picture as a reference. It's also the first time that I've embroidered the person in the photo and drawn the other elements. I like how it turned out. The images around Nicole's head are a pitcher of mimosas from brunch, a karaoke mic, a solo cup from the dance party, a Jagermeister shot from Babe's, a disposable camera (which we still haven't developed), and a boot (which I put on everytime "These Boots Were Made for Walking" plays at our parties).

"#priestweek2k10"

Prismacolor marker and cotton embroidery on muslin

8"x10"

5/52

Last Thursday, my main partner in glam-rock, Stacemeister, and I made a roadtrip to see our favorite rockstar, Butch Walker. (Check him out at www.butchwalker.com There you'll find links to his twitter, myspace, etc) After a crazy drive, complete with a flask of vodka mixed with Panera lemonade, a 45 minute traffic jam because of a pothole, an eventful search for a bathroom, and having my grandmother guide us to the Norva by telephone, we finally made it to the show in one piece. We were, as always, first in line. (We're rockstars, we don't settle for anything less) While a small line formed behind us, we ran into no other than Butch Walker himself who came over and chatted with us about his new haircut and the tour while everyone was giving us death glares for knowing him. After this, we were informed of Kelly's backstage bar and restaurant where we could pick up our tickets early and have a few drinks. The perk to this is that they let bar patrons into shows 15 minutes early. We jumped right on that opportunity and managed to get in their line behind about 8 other people who were all there to see the headliner, Train. (Butch was just the opener. But we're seeing him headline in MD in May!) When the doors opened and we rushed to the front of the stage, we missed out on front row center. =( But luckily, we had made friends with the 12 year old girls in front of us and convinced them to trade us spots so that we could rock out properly to Butch and then relinquish our places for them to see Train. While waiting for the show to start, we taught them the rules of concert etiquette because it was one of their first ever shows. By the end of our time together, I'm confident that they learned how to properly throw elbows and snag setlists. (They both got pulled up on stage to sing with Train. I felt like a proud parent)

Needless to say, Butch Walker was amazing. All of the middle aged moms around us were blown away. No one ever expects that good of a show from an opening act. Here are my favorite pictures followed by this week's artwork:

Best freaking spot in the house, amiright?

This is Stace and me muggin right before they opened the doors. This was in a weird backstage hallway where Kid Rock had signed the wall.

And here is the artwork that you all came to see. (Do any of you really care about the story when it doesn't include you?) Sorry for the awful photo, I lost my camera charger but a new one is in the mail. The embroidery is hard to see but I've stitched the birdcage logo from the Butch Walker and the Black Widows' new cd, "I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart" (buy it!)

Also, I added some fun star sequins. It looks like I may have slacked on the embroidery this week but you just don't understand until you've tried stitching with Lurex metallic thread. It sucks.

"Backstage Pass"

Graphite and Prismacolor Marker on muslin

with cotton and Lurex embroidery and sequins

8"x10"

4/52

On Sunday, I still had no solid inspiration for this week's piece. I was having a bad day and decided to hang out with my friends Matt and Claire to cheer me up. As always, they delivered on the cheer. I was looking through Claire's recent grocery purchases when I found a huge jar of minced garlic. I thought it was ridiculous, she thought it was necessary. (Bitch loves her some garlic.) After teasing her, she (or maybe it was Matt) asked how much she would have to pay me if I ate 5 spoonfuls of the garlic. I told her no amount could make me do it. I love garlic, but that just seemed a little intense. Then her husband Danny broke out a $100 bill and laid it on the table. It's a lot different when you know there's real money involved. I decided to do it. I took the first spoonful, put it in my mouth, and almost immediately spit it out. No way in hell was I about to eat the rest of that garlic.

This is when Matt saw his chance for glory. He asked if the offer was still good if he tried. Indeed it was, so try he did. And it was glorious. That crazy bastard ate five whole spoonfuls of minced garlic with hardly any problem. Sure, everything he ate for a day and a half tasted like garlic, but he made out with $100.

Here is Matt before the last bite:

And here's the final piece. Graphite and Prismacolor markers on muslin with cotton and Lurex embroidery. 8"x10"

Inspiration Teaser

By now I think I've pretty much just established my blog schedule. A teaser post like this of whatever my inspiration is for the week and then, on Wednesday, the finished piece accompanied by an explanation of the image.

This week's inspiration was a last minute upset. I was going to use an image from a fashion show I attended on Friday and then I thought maybe I would do something inspired by the late, great Charles Lewis on the anniversary of his death. But no, as luck would have it, I got drunk in the middle of the day on Sunday and was dared to eat minced garlic.

More to come on Wednesday!

3/52

Week 3 is done! This piece was inspired by a random crazy night with my friends Jay, Matt, Steph, Angie and Stone last Friday. Matt just moved to Richmond from Fredericksburg and we all went to his new house to hang out and see the new digs. His roommate Angie is working for a gay underwear company called Nuwear and needed guys to try on underwear and shirts to fix the fit on them. I, of course, was down to try on everything. Jay would only try on the mesh tshirt. This is us looking sexy in our shirts.

Throughout the night, we were all drinking a bottle of 36 year old Canadian Club whiskey that belonged to Matt's late father. It was glorious and delicious. However, we had a pitcher of Kool-Aid for those who wanted to have chasers for shots. After a few glasses I decided to mix the whiskey and Kool-Aid - a horrible thing, i know. you don't do that to aged whiskey! - and it was surprisingly delicious. The rubber ducky in the pic was featured on the swimsuit that I tried on and ended up wearing for most of the night. I won't subject you to a picture of me in it but here is a slightly NSFW link to the site http://www.nuwear.com/bumgear-rubber-ducky-swim-boxer/

I can't wait to wear them to the beach this summer!

"Welcome to Northside"

Graphite, Prismacolor marker, and cotton embroidery on muslin

8"x10"

Week 3 Inspiration

I'm about to get started on piece number 3. I really need to begin starting each project as soon as I finish the last. I think then I could produce more detailed, elaborate artwork. As it stands now, I've been waiting until my Monday off from work to begin.

I suppose I'll stop wasting time and get to stitching but I'll leave you with a hint as to my inspiration for this week. It involves the following two things:

And that's all I'm going to say.