Tyra N. Saurus

Happy Halloween kiddies!

balloon bowl

photography and google maps

Amy Stein is a genius. Her project, stranded, uses road trips, photographs and google maps. Exploring it is like flipping through her travel journals.

Two greats meet

Hugo and I love some of Laura Owens' monkey paintings. Hugo loves The Believer. Here, they met in 2003. How lovely.

funniest image roll overs ever

The MIT Architecture school has a pretty funny menu. Make sure you roll over and down the choices.

ROLLER DERBY!

The first MN roller derby bout of the season just happened to fall the day after Laurie, aka Tyra N Saurus', birthday. Here's that wild dino:Roller derby was f***ing kick-a**. Oh my god. We died five times that night we enjoyed ourselves so much. Here they are about to start a round about the track:

evening leaf tag

I was supposed to be writing a paper based on Erikson's psychosocial stages of development and instead I accidentally took a two hour nap that felt like (and was only supposed to be) 20 minutes and left me with a raunchy taste in my mouth. I got dressed, look surprisingly fashionable (I have a sleek light blue ensemble going on), grabbed my camera, and walked across the street to the park.

On the way I saw at one end of the park a car running with its lights on and a person sleeping very deeply (head back, mouth open, slouched over) in the driver's seat. I thought they might be dead. I stopped and stared at them and couldn't bring myself to get closer to see if they were really just sleeping. I wondered if they'd run a hose from the exhaust to the inside and killed themselves. I was still half-asleep and felt confused.

At the other end of the park was a kissing couple. I couldn't go make a tag by the kissing couple even though all the good pretty leaves seemed to be over there. I felt so confused. What had happened out here while I'd slept?

I started to make this tag hanging down from the leaves attached to the tree. I wanted to make several streams of leaf chains dangling. I am not Andy Goldsworthy and couldn't pull it off. Before it got too dark I just strung a few together on the ground.

And here's just a close up of the more intricate end:Back to Erikson and brushing my teeth.

yum yum

I photographed this Spam display in a local grocery store. I was astounded that the model would sacrifice her career by allowing her face to appear that close to and with such adoration for Spam.

cell portraits

Scroll down this blog a bit and look at the cell portraits.

New short story

I finished a new short story I have been working on. Here is the first paragraph:

Every night after she takes Ch00 Ch00 for a walk, she strips naked in her bedroom and takes a photograph of herself. She has done this each night for the past six weeks. It's the only use she's found for her outdated digital camera. She stands in the same spot in her bedroom and looks straight ahead at the camera, set up on the dresser so that it photographs from the neck down, so her face is in none of the photos. She's learned to download the pictures onto her computer, where she can scroll through them like a timeline. She can see the changes. Like a primitive cartoon, her body flickers down in size–her breasts begin to rise, hips begin to take shape, and her legs whittle away. Her fingers are even smaller, elbows no longer rest against rolls of skin on her sides – there's actually a gap, a space between elbows and hips. Black triangles like the isoceles of brown hair below her belly. Her belly button is no longer a gaping orifice – it's almost cute. In a few weeks she will send a photograph to Mickey of her face. After she loses ten more pounds.

You can read the rest of the story here.

If you get through it, let me know what your take is on the narrative voice. Too condescending? Too detached? Inappropriate humor/formal voice/switch in tone?

found question

I found this in Stadium Village last week. What do you think was on the tape?

leaf tag

Sanguinetti A! suggested that we make another tag because of the abundance of colorful leaves in our neighborhood right now. I started with this sketch today.

one step closer to my fur suit!

I am not particularly into Halloween or werewolves (aside from a bizarre novella I once wrote about a werewolf named Linda), but I just saw how to make this werewolf costume on Instructables and I got excited because maybe I could follow it to learn how to make my own adult sized baggy fur suit.

I've really been wanting to have it lately. AAghghghAA!@#@!@#!

Edit: I just read the body instructions and got the idea to get a baggy jumpsuit with hoodie and sew fake fur onto it. I'd add a tail and ears. I definitely want to be grey. I'm SO excited about these new ideas.

how to make a table

I really want to make a table like this. I've been wanting to make furniture for so many years now.

I feel a little lame saying it again, but here I go -- I just don't have enough time these days to be creative. It's sad. Maybe I'll hole up in winter break and make furniture and knit legwarmers???

First Frost

This is a sign that winter is coming, but I still think the first frost is gorgeous.

Green Tag

We've talked about nature "graffiti" tags, and so I was impressed to read about these tags using plant material.

conjoined sock monkeys

This is the strangest sock monkey I've ever seen. I came across this because my coworker knows someone who knows one of the roller girls, (and I'm freaking out like a 12 year old on Jolt cola,) we've been talking about since Saturday night's bout. The one and only, Cupcake makes these creations.

Teena's bugs

Teena is a good friend and her work is freshly online now. She makes insect inspired art, orchid holders, rattles and the most amazing wall beetles you've ever seen.

Urban exploration

I came across a collection of photographs of abandoned buildings, mostly in Detroit. (The Roosevelt Warehouse and Michigan Central Train Station sets are especially good.) Many of the photographs are simple snapshots of the exploration process or of notable graffiti, but several are quite striking on their own:

Mugsy Baloney

I have started a new piece of music and am very excited about it! Listen up - here's the first theme.



Or download it here: Mugsy Baloney

Perou's Secret Diary

I found Perou's Secret Diary today and this photo:



blew me away.

Lovely MPLS

Kevin Hayes of Lovely MPLS was showing at the art crawl last weekend. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw his poster that was sewn. There are stitches in the hand made poster. There were many of these. Kevin's posters and art are incredible.

Tyra tee

My amazing sister Nancy taught me how to make t-shirts with freezer paper and fabric paint. Tyra N. Saurus' uniform is starting to take form.

Ali K.'s Nightmare

Ali K.'s Nightmare is my new favorite photo.

trees

tree

Blog Action Day

Blog Action Day is a pretty creative idea. Check it out. I just registered our blog on the site.

Deer with ball

Here's another found object from the art crawl. Hugo, I asked the photographer (aka Laurie) to snap this just for you.

best furniture at the crawl

Sanguinetti A! and I went to the St. Paul Art Crawl last night. We came across this gem of an ottoman in Kevan Wellington's studio. He found it in the Mississippi River and it took three people and a pulley system to hoist it up to his fifth floor living space. It was dusted with a delightful blue that didn't come out well in the photo. Those are Sanguinetti A!'s great socks in the background.

Red ring of leaves tag

I tried to be like Andy Goldsworthy with very few red leaves.

White Stripes Holgas

The White Stripes partnered with Lomographische to produce limited edition Holga cameras. The Meg is so cute!.

I find it a bit strange that a band would make custom film cameras. Is film so old that it's become quaint?



Thanks to Amy Stein for first writing about this. Amy, I heart your blog.

Postcard art

There's an interesting article about a postcard that inspired Douglas Coupland here.

I need a roller girl name

Please help me brainstorm a roller girl name. The first bout is a mere nine days away and I need a name to put on my costume.

Eliot's sculpture

I haven't had much brain space for creativity lately, but I spend a lot of time with creative kids. This is Eliot's Wednesday morning sculpture. He's 3.

night tree

coffee grinder

burnt

Prince spotting

water bubbles

If I could be in one of these bubbles I would be the happiest kid on the block.