My Window

My window has an interesting story. I first saw it at my fave antique collective in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, California. The price was $750.00. I visited that shop several times a year, for about 5 years, and I would just stand there, coveting it. Wanting it so badly. And unable to part with that kind of coin. One day when I went into the store and made a beeline for it, the price had dropped to $500.00. I asked the shopkeeper where the window came from, and he said he thought it was from a restaurant that went out of business. Brian was with me that time and he thought it was cool too, but again, $500.00 just wasn't in the budget for a large stained glass window we can't really use.

One day I decided to take Holly up there to check out the collective, and when we went in, I said, "I have to show you this killer stained glass window!" The price was now $175.00. I wanted it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. She was trying valiantly to talk me into getting it (she and I are very accomplished at spending each other's money), but I was afraid to part with the money. I thought Brian would be mad or something. When we got back to Fairfax, I casually mentioned that the window had dropped in price to $175. Then Holly, my tactful (not) and fellow Year of the Dragon/Sagittarian, quickly pipes up with, "Yeah and I tried to get her to buy it, but, you know Jo. Didn't want to spend the money!" To which Brian exclaimed, "WHAT?! You didn't buy it? Oh my god what the hell is wrong with you!" and Holly shakes her head and says, "I told her....I tried....." I stared at them blankly and said, "So you guys think I should get it then?" In unison I got a very loud, "YES!". Brian actually made me drive back to Sebastopol the next morning to get it.

It's pretty large, about 3' across at the bottom and it's pretty tall too, and it's heavy. But it's absolutely exquisite. I guess it didn't sell because it was so name specific. I've always disliked my first name, but this time I was really glad that it it what it is. This photo does not do it justice at all.

It's still in the packing material, at the back of my closet, from when we moved up here 11 years ago. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it at all. It needs a wooden frame or something to stabilize the edges and keep it from twisting with the weight. Someday, maybe we'll be able to have a house where this can be custom installed in a west facing wall. It would be a shame not to display it.

I Simply Must Make One of These!!!

This is Ramona Moon's "Turkey Toyota", a fixture at all Fairfax Festivals, Parades and Farmers Markets. Fairfax is a very funky, arsty, hippie, tree hugging town in West Marin County, at least it was when we lived for 6 years before moving to Washington. It was stuff like this that made us decide to live there. It's a 1967 Toyota Corona. I googled her name and the car and it looks like she lives in Ohio now, and had the car shipped there. I shot these photos about 15 years ago.

I really, really want to do one of my own. I have looked at this one up close on many occasions and the stuff she's stuck to the car is just soooo cool. Plastic jewelry, toys and dolls. Magic Markers form a rainbow on the doors. Action figures. Pez Dispensers. Stickers. It's awesome.

I figure the whole thing would be about a $2,000 investment for a beater car that runs OK, all the special adhesive and whatever I decided to stick onto the car. Oh the possibilities are ENDLESS! I could actually BEAD the car. I'd have a whole part devoted to a celestial theme too. Tie Dye of course. Bits of glass. Prisms. As the Grateful Dead song goes, "Too much of everything is just enough".

Too bad I don't have any disposable income. But someday, if and when I do have the disposable income.....Do I dare? >:P

Our Stonehenge

Our townhome in Fairfax, CA had a unique floor plan, with vaulted ceilings and skylights upstairs. We moved into the place in August of 1994, and that fall, we watched as a narrow ray of sun crept down the wall along the stairs, from the skylight at the top of the upstairs hall. In March, it happened again. That time, I grabbed a faceted crystal ball, stood on the bottom stair and held the ball up into the ray of sun and a thousand rainbows flashed across the whole room. Brian yelled, "COOL!!!!! We gotta hang that there!" So I beaded a suncatcher, that hung there above the bottom stair in the livingroom, year round. Friends were always so puzzled, "Why in the world would you have a window crystal hanging there?" Because twice a year, near the Equinoxes, for about 4 or 5 days, the sun would light that bad boy up. So we started calling it our "Stonehenge". Now here's the kicker: The one and only time I thought to shoot a photo of it, as seen here, I didn't realize I had black & white film in the damn camera.