No matter what it costs, the kitty lives.

Well my precious Gussy Cat was diagnosed with diabetes this month. His blood sugar has been all over the place and Sunday he ended up in the emergency room with hypoglicemia. He had to stay overnight at the hospital which was probably more painful for me than for him. He is home now and I'm trying to figure out what's going on with his glucose levels which requires testing his blood with a home meter.

This has been a stressful month for all of us - although Carma (Gus's sister) seems to be hiding her stress very well. I've had to learn how to give injections and how to home test Gus's blood glucose. Gus has had to learn how to be patient with me while I treat him like a pin cushion.

Even more difficult than injections was the emotional stress of removing dry cat food from Gus and Carma's diet. They love dry food - especially Carma, but as I have learned it is the equivalent of kitty crack. Cats cannot process dry food and they cannot process grains and all that other crappy filler used to cheapen cat food. My kitties now eat a diet of high protein, low carb wet food as well as real chicken and the occasional bit of raw fish.

Carma is really thriving on this diet. She has lost weight and runs and plays like a kitten. The vet told me if you want your cat to act three years younger - remove the dry food from their diet. He was right. My Carma Cat is almost like a different kitty now.

As for Gus, I'm still trying to get his blood glucose stable. It is my hope that his diabetes can be diet controlled, but it is still too early to know if that will be the case. Luckily he loves wet food so the change in diet was rather easy for him.

I would love my kitties even if they were out mauling and maiming young children at night (which to the best of my knowledge they do not do) so I will do anything to ensure they are healthy and well cared for. Even though this has been a difficult past few weeks, I made a committment to Gus and Carma when I adopted them that I would take care of them. I cannot imagine life without either so even if it requires knocking over banks to finance their health care - the kitties will live!

My interview with Venus Zine

Thank you so much to Venus Zine for not making me look like an idiot! When I did the interview with them at Renegade, I felt like I was just babbling on and on. Luckily, only a short part of the interview was put in the final video and they showed some shots of my work. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LiWOdb03m8

I'm at the end of the video for those who are impatient : )

To view the Venus Web site:

http://www.venuszine.com/

Post Holiday

This was inspired by the Blink 182 video for the song Miss You (which you can view on You Tube). The video is a gothicy art deco style and I thought it was one of the most beautiful music videos I've ever seen so I was inspired to paint something in that style.

I'm planning on submitting some works for a few gallery group shows so I'm working on those at the moment. I will probably include the one posted above in my submissions.

Things are getting back to normal now that the holidays and the art fairs are over with for now. I finally feel rested. I'm hoping to just spend the next few weeks working on new art pieces before my class starts.

Renegade Holiday Show - Photos of my Booth

One more thing....

The Indie Collective wrote the nicest post about my work on their blog so I just wanted to put a quick link here before I forgot:

http://indiecollective.net/icstyle/category/ic-style/page/2/

Scroll down a bit to see the writeup.
Many, many thanks to the editors at Indie Collective!

Renegade - Over and Out - & Venus Magazine Video Interview

I just got home from the Renegade Holiday Show and my dogs are beat. I want so badly to soak in the tub, but fear I will pass out and drown so I may just crawl to my bed when I'm done posting this entry.

The show was exhausting - as all art/craft shows are. The up side is that the organizers did a great job with the set up. It was so easy to get in and out of the show and I was really impressed with how smoothly that went. I also met so many wonderful people and made new friends.

Also, Venus Magazine stopped by my booth and did a video interview with me which they said they hoped to post on their web site. I was completely unprepared to answer in-depth questions so who knows what kind of dumb shit was flying out of my mouth as the camera was pointed at me. What I do know is that I wasn't going to turn down an opportunity to be interviewed by such an awesome magazine. If the interview gets posted on their site then I will post a link to it.

Thank you to all of those who stopped by. I appreciate it greatly!

Architectural Artifacts Holiday Show - I'll be there!

I just got my acceptance in the mail yesterday for the Architectural Artifacts Holiday Show. Here is a link with the information:

http://chicago.metromix.com/events/shopping_event/the-annual-holiday-show-lakeview/250248/content

I'm currently working my little fingers to the bone and running on little sleep. My apartment is a small disaster, but I'm really looking forward to this show and to Renegade the following week.