going to keep it simple this christmas; lots of anxiety lately. these digital Artist Trading Cards are quick, easy and fun.

went to a cookie bake yesterday where we did almost 3000 cookies. today i have to do typical housework and laundry. does not really feel like christmas with the grim news about lay-offs. i guess i could join the occupy movement but i like having my own space…which i am sharing again with Jess. this is a good thing as i get lonely this time of year.

maybe trading cards will be in your mailbox someday?

just did not get enuff sleep last night. Jess came over last night and we spent like crazy as usual at our favorite stores. I had to finish cleaning my room and pay bills when we got home so I was up till 1 am trying to figure out how I could make $793.00 appear in my checking account. I am exhausted this morning. But hey it’s a short week! Thanksgiving at Deb & Jeff’s new house! got to go the work now…this digital collage was buried on my old computer from my days w/crowabout studio b….

Last night I had company! It’s been a while but it was time Sydney got to hang out at her great Aunt Mary’s house. She was delightful company for a two month old and she slept most of the evening until it was very late and she wanted to party. We had schmizza and pepsi and watched a ton of tv. she enjoyed “Up All Night” and “Toddlers & Tiaras”.

It was a wonderful feeling holding an infant and snuggling and listening to her breathing and feeling her heat glowing out of her burrito like blanket. I was amazed she could stay up that late. I was so intoxicated from baby scent and pepsi I hallucinated UFO’s in this odd series. digital collage. images from nancy baumiller daurrogotype ville, flicker comms.

Sorry I have been missing again. Let’s pretend I was on vacation in Hawaii…I could tell you what’s going on but I haven’t much energy today. I made this 4×6 mixed media postcard the other day when I realized all I ever do anymore is cry and moan and wish I was dead. I was in a car accident in September which was around the same time I found out I need to have knee surgery on both knees for torn meniscus’s. I was going to hold off until after my bariatric surgery but truth is I can hardly walk anymore and going up and downstairs is agony. The car accident caused another whiplash and I am still trying to heal from that while working part-time. I can not sit for long without my neck going numb. I can not look down or tilt my head forward without real discomfort. I have some very strong tape holding my neck straight that the PT placed on there today. It is supposed to keep me from doing the head tilt thing. It feels like the skin is too tight on my neck to move in any direction at all! No one wants to hear any of this…so I just cry instead cause everything is so overwhelming right now especially the pile of bills that keeps getting bigger and the fact that I can no longer binge on ice cream to dull the pain. I am not dealing very well with it at all. I’d slash my wrists but I can’t look down to see where to cut!

My photo albums are basically plastic containers with snap lids. Not all photos make it to the plastic container. Occasionally I come across a stash of photos in a shoe box or some small wicker basket with crap that should have been trashed years ago. My idea of organizing is finding bigger boxes to throw the smaller boxes into and then shove the new box o crap into my closet. My system was working fine until Jessica moved in last June to save a little $ for her road trip to Austin or Nashville. Consequently boxes were moved to make room for her boxes o crap. It was like an episode of Hoarder’s Celebrity Death Match. But lo and behold a photo was found that I had little recollection of and I set it aside for months until I decided to work with it.

Here is a 4×6 mixed media collage of my dad and step mother in heaven. It needs a shrine box but I am having a difficult time finding such an irregular shaped box. I will leave it on my mantle for now with candles and incense. They would have approved of that. Very Roman Catholic.

digital collage with images from CPWC, flickr commons. Mrs A. Baltimore of East Sedgewick took a lover, Mr S Jamison, her literature professor. Jamison was very attentive to her but dismissed her student fiction as ‘elementary, cliched, and dull”. Her husband, Archibald, found the two while in a compromising position in the drawing room at their Manhattan townhome on 31 October 1899 and enraged, drew his revolver mortally wounding Jamison.
It is said that his ghost still haunts the home on 5th Avenue and 91st.
from flickr, posted 10/22/11

My dad was born in Hartford, Connecticut. This collage was made from some of his stuff that my family sent to me after the ‘files’ on each of my siblings was discovered after he died. Apparently, he spent some time in the Phillipines. Perhaps while he was in the service. These photos span his “young americans” look to his early 50′s. I always thought he looked like movie star and never understood why he did not quit his job with the FBI to move us all to Hollywood.

Happy Birthday Dad!

I am starting to send my website address to bill collectors in hope that they see i am too weird to deal with and they will stop calling me! Here is poor Maddie Dodd, born Madolyn Francine Dodd in 1868, in Portland Oregon.

this mixed media collage is about 8x 9.5. it is for sale for 539.00. or you can just write off my bill to bad debt and put this lovely artwork in your crummy little office….

thanks, sincerely, the artist, briedah