Support Jain's art!

Long-time readers may recall that I am a huge fan of the work of local artist (and friend) Jain Faries. Jain is best known and makes her living from her work in fabric, which you can see here and which though I appreciate it is not the sort of thing I seek. The art she creates that I love is her weirder stuff, some of which you can see on her personal site and at the occasional convention.   She gave me one of her "balls onna stick," and I adore it; for more on them, read this earlier post. 

Lately, though, Jain has expanded into small, hand-built libraries, one of which she made for me and gave me as a Christmas gift.  Here it is standing up; sorry for the crappy photography and the glare off the protective plastic sheet, which I left in it.

As always, click on an image to see a larger version.

For a sense of the size of this wonderful creation, here's a (less glare-covered) picture next to a Mac Magic Mouse.

Every compartment in the library is a little box that you can remove.  On the back of each box is a burlesque image.  Jain made every single wee volume, each of which features different texts or images and a variety of binding styles.  Yes, that's a skull in the lower center, and an acorn above it. 

Why? 

What does it all mean? 

What I love about this piece of art is that I suspect no one, including Jain, can definitively answer those questions.  Each viewer mixes her or his perceptions with what Jain builds to create her or his own meanings. 

Jain's weirder art generally does not sell as well as her more conventional stuff.  That's a damn shame.  I think this little library and others like it should be going for many hundreds of dollars in galleries and at conventions. 

If you like what you see, contact Jain, bring real money, at least a couple hundred bucks, and commission her to build something for you--but leave the commission just that vague.  You'll be glad you did.

This is not, by the way, a paid advertisement.  I even violated my own rules for the blog and wrote this without first consulting Jain.  Jain's first knowledge of this blog entry will come when she stumbles upon it.  I simply feel strongly enough about the quality of her work that I wanted to pimp it.  If she's a bit embarrassed by this post, she'll just have to get over it. 

Imagine the hours of enjoyment you could have exploring your own little library. 

Now, make that dream a reality. 

What the heck is it?

At my birthday party, Jain (the talented artist whose 3D art you absolutely should be buying now; go here to see some of what she has on offer) gave me the following extremely cool glass object.

Click on the image to see a much larger, more detailed one.

The tubes poking from it are hollow, and the bit in the middle will spin.

I quite like this little guy. Everyone at the party did. There's just one little problem with it.

None of us knows what it is.

Oh, we all have theories, and most agree it's some sort of lab device, but no one could definitively state what it is.

Do any of you know? If so, would you please tell me?

On the road again: World Fantasy Con, Columbus, day 1

Other than an hour in the Cincinnati airport once many years ago, I've not spent any time in Ohio. This trip will begin to fill that gap in my travel resume.

We drove here, a long drive that with lunch and gas breaks took almost nine hours. For a bit under an hour we had to fight fog and rain, but the rest of the way the weather was lovely. So was the scenery. I'd also never previously been in West Virginia, but I've always heard it was beautiful. It truly is. The old, low mountains sported fall colors just a bit past their prime, as if they were college professors adorned in well-worn plaids. Rarely was the view less than lovely.

For lunch, on Jain's recommendation, we pulled over and ate in the food court at Tamarack. This odd structure houses many different types of craftspeople, a conference center, an art gallery, and, of course, the grill from which we ordered. The food was decent, better than I'd initially feared, and the break in the trip was great.

Even though I had cellular connections most of the way and so could keep up with work somewhat, I still hit the hotel desperately behind on work. The evening plan thus turned simple: work, get dinner, work many hours more.

For dinner, we headed half a mile north to a very pleasant little place, The Happy Greek. I have no idea how authentically Greek the food was, but it tasted good, the portions were bigger than we'd expected, and I left happy.

Of course, we were only a block and a half away from a Jeni's ice creams store that was still open, so we had to drop in there and try a little tasty creamy goodness--and good it was. I expect to visit that place another few times before I leave town.

The con starts tomorrow, and I hope to manage to do it and my job and my writing--always a recipe for long days!