2009 Retrospective, originally uploaded by exoskeletoncabaret.

2009 was definitely one of my most challenging, rewarding, and backbreaking years. Some of the crucial plot points:

+ I joined Starfish Studios, which taught me the finer details of using monolights and seamless backdrops, and coerced me into making more work this year than I ever have previously. I probably shot between 30,000 and 35,000 images this year. My top-viewed photo on Flickr has had 14,753 hits (as of this morning) since August.

+ By proxy, I did 11 art walk shows, 2 solo art openings, and a month-long group photography show. I shot two weddings. Also, I did not sleep.

+ In May, I lost my “real job” and have freelanced (read: struggled) since. However, as demoralizing as it’s been to be on a low income, it’s forced me to bust ass and really take the photography and design bull by the horns.

+ This year, I’ve had work published in the Brazilian Marie Claire, three issues of Filament Magazine, Morbid Outlook, and a steampunk jewelry book. I’ve started blogging about steampunk fashion weekly at the Steampunk Workshop. I was on television, too, for like, 8 seconds.

+ I met/re-met a plethora of wonderful creative people at the Bay Area Maker Faire. This weekend was probably the most joyous one I had all year.

+ I had three friends hit the emergency room with scimitar wounds, appendicitis, and bike accident injuries, respectively. I’ve spent way more time than I’d like in nursing homes, doctor’s offices, and hospitals. I’ve been sick constantly.  I’ve found that I am absolutely wretched at taking care of myself and terrible at remembering that if I don’t put myself first I’ll be useless at helping others. Figuring out how to adequately care for Libby is a major goal for the new year.

+ I truly learned the value of having a family I chose/an urban tribe. Without the support of my people, both in Bloomington/Seattle meatspace and online, I’d have failed miserably at 2009. I’ve had to rethink and inject a spirit of DIY into a lot of my relationships. A big thank-you goes out to everyone who brought me crack chai and samosas, came to my shows, defied gender and steampunk conventions, traded YouTube videos, electrocuted me for fun, cooked CSA potlucks with me, hauled frames and hung work, taught me the benefits of non-sexual physical affection, listened to my kvetching late into the night, accepted and discussed non-traditional and non-heteronormative behavior, etc. etc. etc.  Thank you to everyone who believed in me when I doubted myself and my work; thank you to everyone who didn’t mock me for obsessing about Lady Gaga or Turkish pop videos or bacon. Thank you for the endless screening and quoting of “Happy in Paraguay”. Faxing ham and apple juice to each other has been a high point. I am so proud of all of you guys, and so grateful for you.

Thank you.
Love, Libby

My tribe frequents a bath treats company here called BLISS Soaps. The gentlemen who own it are positive, pro-freak, gay entrepreneurs who have lavished my crew with free goodies to try, extra fat slices of rich, creamy soap, and double the bath bombs for which we’ve paid. I never leave without guinea-pigging new scents on my wrists and being complimented on my hair or mode of dress. Their generosity has not gone unnoticed–after our last trip to BLISS, the crew spent at least twenty minutes debating the company’s business model, and we decided that the decadent spoiling manner in which BLISS treats customers is ideal and divine. This stuff is better than therapy, kids.

I received word a few minutes ago that BLISS Soaps was massively scammed and are desperately trying to recoup losses so they can stay in business. From the BLISS email list:

BLISS Soaps has unfortunately fallen victim to a fraudulent business deal. Many local customers may recall a large soap, lotion, facemask and eye cream order that we were working on as they came to visit the store. The order was made, delivered and distributed to the Cruise-line executives ahead of schedule. Emperors Essentials, the company that commissioned BLISS Soaps to fulfill this contract fraudulently reversed ALL of the payments that were made to us. After researching the company, we discovered that the couple who own Emperors Essentials; Robert Friend, Jr., and Shao Mei Wang, operate 4 charities in Gig Harbor, Washington. 1) National Association of Disabled Police Officers. 2) American Veterans Coalition. 3) (Childrens) Cancer Assistance Network. 4) Disabled Firefighters Foundation. All 4 charities are fictitious and an estimated $5,000,000.00 was raised for the charities and around 2 cents per dollar was used as assistance. If you hear of these in the future, DO NOT DONATE.

The devastation to BLISS Soaps came at such a time that we may not recover the funds in time to maintain operations.

In an effort to make this a win-win situation for both of us, we are offering this 4 day only Internet, call-in, and walk-in special in an attempt to earn pre holiday revenue.

All orders over $50.00 will be doubled and the next 5 future orders over $50.00 will be given a $15.00 credit.

All orders received in the next 4 days will be filed and a VERY special future offer will be offered to you in our December E-mail.

ALL orders place in the next 4 days (EVEN orders under $50.00) will be given the Special December offer.

To call in your orders, please call 1-206-322-SOAP, 7 days 4-10 Pacific Time.  Internet orders, please only order ½ of what you would like as we will simply double the order received.

Thank, you for your past and continued patronage and hope to hear from you soon.

Phil & Chuck
BLISS Soaps

Thanks to anyone who is able to throw some help toward these gentlemen, and thanks to BLISS for being so fantastic.

619 Broadway E,
Seattle, WA. 98102
http://blisssoap.com

[Bath bomb photo from the BLISS website.]

FILAMENT Magazine And The Erection Dilemma

The beautifully-produced London-based magazine FILAMENT has a problem.

Explicit images of women are available at any newsagent, but Filament, the world’s only magazine featuring male pictorials designed for the female gaze, is finding itself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to printing explicit images of men.

Filament only prints explicit images when these are of high photographic and erotic quality, and clearly designed for women – we won’t ever be putting hard cocks on every page. The problem is, all the printers that a small, independent magazine like Filament can afford have said they won’t print images of the male of the species in a state of obvious arousal. Reasons given include that printing these images may cause offence to ’women’s groups’.

If they can sell another 300 copies of FILAMENT #1, they’ll have the money to switch to a printer that isn’t terrified of the cock, and then they can

make history and print (we’re pretty sure) the first explicit male pictorial in a British women’s magazine.

Link to the fundraising page. And, here, a link to the purchase page. Obviously, click around the site and have a nose at it. I thought it was a lovely object, and I know Niki enjoyed looking at it, although there was, to her taste, a distinct lack of morbidly obese beardy men with all their hair burned off.

I’ve posted before about this magazine, one with whom I am directly affiliated (I’ve been sharing my food photos and helping Suraya with layout). It boggles my mind how easy it is for malecentric print media to disembody women (in a rather nasty and unwholesome way), but when a feminist indie wants to respectifully objectify and dismember male images, it gets shot out of the sky. So, give us a hand, if you will. I’m sure I can help with the beardy dudes on fire.

Thanks.

Today seems like a good day to hide in the kitchen.

I just finished making the butter you see in the lower right corner of the image. When I mentioned on Twitter than I was headed into the kitchen to prepare handmade butter, I received a number of comments saying I’d taken the DIY a little too far (Thanks, Dmitri–love you too ) . But homemade butter isn’t fancy or hard to make! All you need is:

+ 2 cups (1 pint) heavy whipping cream, chilled (I splurged on fancy cream from the Pike Place Market dairy)
+ Pinch salt

And a glass mason jar with a good lid, which you should chill in the freezer or fridge for a little while prior to filling it with the cream and a marble (or something else small and food-safe to use as an agitator–I used a little plastic egg). As a kid, when I made butter at home with my mom, we used an antique glass churn with a mess of gears attached to wooden paddles that’s been in the family for 150 years, but a jar works fine.

Take out every ounce of loneliness, aggression, and sheer unbridled hatred you possess on your cold, cruel jar of cream (read: shake that bastard). After 15-25 minutes of bashing that cream about, you’ll find it has become chunky and buttery. If your cream refuses to cooperate, you can finish the churning process in a blender (I set mine on “stir” and “low” and it literally took two good pulses to create butter action).

Once you have solid and liquid, strain the liquid off, which is tasty buttermilk (see my measuring cup in the photo) that you can drink or save in the fridge for baking. Then, pour cold water over the solid so it’s covered, and drain it off through a strainer. You’ll want to keep doing this until you get clear water as result of straining the butter.

After your butter has had a bath, press all of the remaining liquid out of it with a wooden spoon (any buttermilk left behind can go rancid and ruin it), add salt and/or spices (I recommend various kinds of sea salt, chives, dill, garlic, curry, etc.) and pack it into a container. Chill that sucker in the fridge and serve it on fresh bread. SO GOOD.

[Heirloom tomato came from the Local Roots Farm CSA. I'm not a big tomato fan but it was just too pretty not to photograph.]

Arm Warmers 1, originally uploaded by exoskeletoncabaret.

And, well, I needed an instant-gratification sort of project.

First set of stretch jersey arm warmers, handmade. One side is chocolate, and the other is heather grey. The embroidery is olive green backed with grey. I found the fabric at a local shop called Stitches.

Machine embroidery was done freehand with a zig-zag. Who needs 800 fancy-pants computerized stitches when regular ol’ zig-zags look rad?

Here’s another shot of Willow modeling them.

Like these? Let me know and I’ll make some more pairs in the same/other colors for Etsy.

Out the Window, originally uploaded by exoskeletoncabaret.

A shot of the view through my window in my Seattle apartment. There is much construction outside, but also a great and vasty pit below me, cluttered with industrial equipment. I have chosen to see this as metaphor rather than a nuisance, except for on mornings when the construction workers decide to make excessive use of the gas-powered demolition saw right below my open window. Apartments should not be decorated with smog.

Wee carnivorous babies (omg!!) and some sweet basil, garnered from the Fremont Indoor Sun Shoppe. The meat eaters are a red dragon venus flytrap and a Sarracenia hybrid pitcher plant. I transplanted all of the plants into larger containers (the carnis require special soil and distilled water) and have been spoiling them rotten.

The gentleman who urged me to adopt them remarked that carni plants are better than video games and that I’d soon be obsessed. He was totally correct. The flytrap’s grown another lobe even since I shot this photo, and the pitcher plant is having a heyday with the fruit flies that live on the basil. I keep walking across the room to poke at the things and am pathetically, gleefully entertained.

Some people are crazy cat ladies. I suppose I am a crazy plant lady. But mock me and I’ll feed you to the flytrap, one morsel at a time.

I am still looking for creative employment in the Seattle area. Check out my portfolio in the right-hand sidebar if you know of any job leads or would like to hire me, or email me at exoskeletoncabaret at gmail dot com.

And a big thank you to my illustrious web mistress, Sara, whom I now owe a very large piece of cake and a special hat. <3