Hello, new year.  I'm happy to see you.  Although I have no complaints against 2017 (well, minus the one that will remain a complaint for the next three years) I'm always grateful for a fresh start. 

If today is indicative of how the rest of the year will go, it seems as though I might have a very clean house in 2018, and that said house will also  fall apart at some point in the upcoming year.  Seth and I spent the morning and afternoon doing some much needed cleaning.  We took the tree out, which has given us back a quarter of our living space.  We also discovered a large puddle of water oozing from the floor boards, which I suspect is coming from the spicket outside my unit. Water dripping from the spicket tells me that it was not winterized.  It was 7 degrees in Denver last night, and I have a feeling that pipe has cracked and is releasing water into my floor... cross your fingers that it is repaired and Lauri gets new laminate courtesy of the HOA.  Also cross your fingers that they do not have to tear out my new backsplash in order access the pipe. 

For the last few months I've been complaining to the HOA about a sewage smell coming from my bathroom.  First they sent someone to snake the drain.  No change.  Then a plumber came out and accredited the smell to a dry drain in the boiler room.  No change.  Then they stopped answering my emails, probably under the belief that I just poop a lot and can't get over the fragrance.  Today, while cleaning the bathroom I discovered that the wall behind the toilet is quite wet and stinky.  Another leak.  I find this to be good news though, since at least now I have a suspect for the stench.  And it's inside the walls, which means I won't be paying for it. And the HOA will stop knowing me as the "girl who can't believe her poop stinks".

Have I mentioned how much I love living in a 70 year old building? 

Today, besides being the start of the New Year, also marks a year of sobriety for Seth.  I'll be coming up on a year on the 15th, and you can definitely expect a long blog post on the impact this decision has had on my life.  I will say that my sobriety was the best thing that happened to me in 2017.  I flash back to New Years Day last year.  It was so incredibly uncomfortable, going to brunch with a wicked hangover and ordering coffee.  Just coffee.  Then it was weird coming back home and sitting there and staring at each other with all this time on our hands.  I think it took us awhile to get used to just the large amount of time you have when sober.  Seth has used this time to do all sorts of weird computer shit.  He built a 3d printer.  He recently learned Linux.  He took up the art of embossing and carving leather.  He's currently building a Google Voice box, which I suspect is going to be like a little Alexa. 

It took me longer to get the hang of it.  Because I apparently forgot that I'm not just an art teacher, but also an artist.  So at some point last January I went and bought a bunch of cigar boxes, then turned them into little habitats for butterflies.  Then I ran out of space to make them so I used all the money I used to spend on booze and put it towards renting a studio space on Santa Fe.  Then I used all my extra time over the summer to try and figure out how to make a living as an artist.  I'm still working on that one, but it seems to be going pretty well.  I've seen an increase in arts sales over the last seven months.  And while it still isn't enough to pay the mortgage, I think I'm onto something....

I've spent the last couple months working on making my butterfly mandalas into 3d mandalas.  And it's been a real pain in the ass.  But every day, I go back to it. 

I initially started this project using balsa wood as the base.  I quickly realized that it is next to impossible to cut 40 perfect equilateral triangles. So I had some laser cut.  Then I sanded them all down, transferred images onto 40 different triangles, and assembled it.  Then I realized that I was going to have to cut a piece of wood into a a perfect 6 point star.  I also realized that plywood doesn't warp nearly as badly as balsa, but it is enough to throw off a tessellation. 

Over break I started just building them out of photo paper, watercolor paper and epoxy resin.  And I love them, but it's still not quite right. 

Now I'm onto attempt #4 at this project.  Instead of constructing the pieces with a paper backing I laid them all out them in photoshop, so that once the prints arrive I'll just have to score along the edges, then cut and and glue the pieces together.  Then I'm going to epoxy resin them once built.  And I'm switching out my heat gun for a blow torch, so that should be fun...  

And this is all just experiments in technique and craft.  Once I get that down, I can move onto the real fun shit- more blow torches.  Just kidding.  No, next I can move onto the math part of it.  Seriously, I just said that the math part of it is the fun part of it. No,  seriously, geometry is some pretty cool shit. I've been reading "Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art and Science".  It's kind of mind blowing.  It also makes me wish I had paid more attention in geometry class as a kid, because now, as an adult, I have to pause every minute and google how to find the area of something.  Or the height of something.  Or I have to draw things out using a compass and protractor, cause I'm not sure if I did the math right. 

But this is one of the many, many things I love about art.  It challenges you.  It pushes you to discover new things, and try things you never thought you could do.  It's kind of like a life partner.  A life partner who never asks where his keys are.  (Love you Seth.)