Izabella's Blue

tall DECAF iced latte pleaz~

2:00~ order a latte, 3 times I ask the barista DECAF?!

2:05~ guzzle my drink, it's 101 today!

2:10~ feeling really good! start chatting away on my cell, have to talk

2:15~ my friend on the phone says...wow you sure are talkative today

2:16~ my ears start ringing, my heart starts pounding, my mind is reeling a million miles an hour

11:00 pm!!  wide awake! I swear these Barista's do this to me on purpose, as they giggle behind the counter as I leave! ;)   oh well, I think I will do some rearranging of my blog tonight, till I get sleepy...last time this happened I was up until the sun was coming up~

update (the next day!)  I stayed up till 3 in the morning!  had to be up by 6 am...oh am I suffering today, so delerious ;) 

vintage men~

change in plans~

today I am longing for the dayz of irresponsibility & carefree youthfulness~  I have a change in plans, I am taking the house off the market, more houses have went up for sale just in my neighborhood alone, which now makes 7 for sale, no one is buying, I haven't seen a sold sign in months~ so the plan for today is taking the house off & maybe selling at another time, all doors seem to be closing on us being able to move to Seattle. 

Another plan I am excited about, is leaving for most of the summer to go play, bought airline tickets last night for Seattle....  living out of a suitcase is always dreadful, but we seem to torture ourselves every summer ~ not really torturous, we always have so much fun spending time with family, friends, playing at the beach, and eating fresh fish & picking fresh fruit at the kool little farms.  looking forward to doing some "real" shopping, antique stores, even the thrift stores are better in Seattle!  So, that is my plan as of today, I actually feel good about not moving, a huge burden off of my shoulders, although I have packed up so much, I think I will leave it all in the garage, my house feels clean, simple and uncluttered~ xo!!

11 year old kills giant wild bore~

oh my!!  you have to see this to believe it! 

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/child-kills-giant-pig/2007/05/26/1179601736704.html

new art up for auction in my ebay store www.velvet-rooms.com  starting tonight~xo!!

dreaming of pirates~

have you seen the movie yet... the lovely Jack Sparrow!?  I can hardly stand it!!  going to see it tommorrow~

Update 5~29~07... saw the movie last night....Loved it!!  it was so suspenseful, rivoting..I loved the everchanging thick plot, it was unusual in a wonderful way.  I have heard alot of people didn't like it because it was difficult to understand, I thought it was brilliant... keeping you in suspense...I was definately mesmerized by all of the actors. 

tagged~

I was tagged quite a while ago, by two wonderful friends, sorry it has taken me so long to play along, it takes a lot for me to bear my soul ~  I was tagged by  stiletto heights~ and gifling designs~ 2 blogs you must take a peak at, they are both amazing artists! 

Write 7 thing things that people don't know about me & then tag 7 others~ but I was tagged twice so this is 14 things.

fourteen things~

1~ I ran away from home at the age of 14 with my boyfriend, we took a car & a gun & headed out on the highway from Washington state to Florida, only made it to Wisconsin...details maybe at another time~

2~ I used to run a nightclub in Seattle, where I would book all the bands to play at the club, I loved that job!  except for checking the PO Box every day...filled with 100's of tapes & cds that I would have to listen to.  I met a ton of great bands, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, Garden of Hedon, Heart, the list could go on. 

3~ for some strange reason, when I was younger, I attracted girls/young women who wanted to fight me, I never have been able to figure that one out...when I used to go to nightclubs & parties, it would always end up, my friends & I would be running out the door being chased by girls who had the looks in their eyes as they wanted to pound on us severly.  I never provoked any of them, I wasn't rude to them.  Even my boyfriends liked to take a few punches at me everyonce in a while, Just the other day I was at the grocery store, a very snobby upscale one which I despise shopping at, but the fruit is to die for...I stopped in the middle of the isle, because my little one dropped his toy & this very large lady, ran her cart into me on accident, I turned around & she had that look in her eye, & she ran the cart into me again this time on purpose, she mumbled something about stopping in the middle of an isle, said some swear words & walked on~ strange things like that happen to me all the time.

4~ when I was 16 I took off to Florida, with the same boyfriend as mentioned above this time we made it there, the first day we arrived we swam in the ocean, I was wondering why no one was swimming on this beautiful beach, as we were LEAVING, I noticed signs that said KEEP OUT! Shark infested waters...I freaked! we were oh so young & dumb ;)

5~ I was almost stabbed by a crazy insane man, it was a miracle that I was saved by a good samaritan that just appeared & then took off as quietly as he appeared.

6~ when I was young I desperately wanted to be an archeologist or paleontologist

7~ I love to put money in parking meters for other people who's time has run out

8~ I love to leave little pieces of my art (unsigned/anonymous) in public places

9~ I love coffee... but have been trying to quit~ Quitting alcohol was easier

10~ I have weighed 98 pounds since I was 12 years old

11~ my first baby was 11 pounds, no drugs, no epideral..insane

12~ I love going to movie theaters' by myself, I don't like to cry in front of people

13~ many moons ago I wrote articles for a couple rock magazines, I don't know how I managed that, I can't write very well, I loved that job~

14~ every chance I can, I go to Las Vegas Speedway & experience the "ride along" ...  Mario Andretti indy race car, as a  passenger... 180 baby!

15~ i love to watch people walk

16~ i adore black & white silent films...my favorite is Picadilly

17~ I once kissed Johhny Depp....oh wait... that was in a dream, a really nice dream

hope I didn't bore you to sleep ;)  xo!! Bella

7 people I tag Nicole's art world~ Gypsy Purple~ Gypsy on adventure~ Dan's blah blah blog~ Nature conservatory~ figurative paper~ Urban Paper's~

the nature of monsters~

My sweet friend Marsha sent me this pic today.  She said it reminded her of my art~ I thought that was oooohhh so sweet, I wish my art was as kool as this... someday when I buy photoshop I will learn how to do altering like this book cover. 

Thank you Marsha for the wonderful comment & I put an order in at amazon for this book, thanx 4 sharing the info & your words of inspiration ;)  Wanted to pass along the info to my sweet blogging friends.....

Clark's sophomore novel, after the well-received The Great Stink (2005),is another authentically detailed and atmospheric historical. Set in the aftermath of the Great Fire in the fetid streets of eighteenth-century London, the complex plot involves a pregnant unmarried teen shunted off into domestic service as an apothecary's maid.

As it becomes increasingly clear to Eliza Tally that her shrouded employer has sinister motives, she must uncover the nature of his dubious experimentations and his unhealthy obsessions with the monstrous and the malformed before it is too late to save both herself and her half-witted fellow maid. Readers who are not put off by the graphically documented grotesqueries and perversions will be drawn into the spellbinding gothic netherworld Clark spins. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved.

Excerpt.  Afterwards, when I knew that I had not loved him at all, the shock was all in my stomach, like the feeling when you miscount going upstairs in the dark and climb a step that is not there. It was not my heart that was upset but rather my balance. I had not yet learned that it was possible to desire a man so and not love him a little.   Oh, I longed for him. When he was not there, the hours passed so slowly that it seemed that the sun had fallen asleep in the sky. I would wait at the window for whole days for the first glimpse of him. Every time a figure rounded the corner out of the trees, my heart leapt, my skin feverish with hope even as my eyes determined it to be someone to whom he bore not the slightest resemblance.

link to amazon...  the nature of monsters~

art cards for sale on ebay www.velvet-rooms.com

Marta Becket~

update: I forgot to mention, Marta is now 82, at the time this was written she was 76~  she also has a dvd which is now available, I haven't seen it yet, but I have ordered it, I hear it is quite riveting~ TODD Robinson's Amargosa is a mesmerizing cinematic surprise, an offbeat, often-moving tale of a singularly odd woman. Marta Becket, age 76, is a semi-reclusive painter and ballet dancer who resides in a remote ghost town: Death Valley Junction, population 10, a slowly crumbling collection of shacks located at the edge of California's Death Valley. For decades, Becket has been out there in the middle of nowhere, performing inexplicable "dance-mime" shows for anyone willing to drive the necessary hundreds of miles. Her venue is the grandly named Amargosa Opera House, a once-deteriorating meeting hall that Becket named the Amargosa after the former mining town's original name. Crowds were scarce at first, so Becket painted her own audience on the interior walls of the theater. For no apparent reason, she painted them as Renaissance Italians. Filling the theater, these silent peasants and courtiers cavort merrily and watch the stage, beautifully crafted characters in an intricate al fresco fairy tale. Amargosa, the movie, of course, is nothing if not a fairy tale. It's a story of loss and redemption, in which an eccentric dreamer attempts to lose her demons in the desert and half-succeeds. It's also an inspirational tale in which a lone soul bravely pursues her art for the sheer pleasure and blissful salvation of the artistic act. If this were fiction--if Marta Becket were not a real person--then the whole oddball-in-the-desert scenario might seem like something dreamed up by David Lynch. Or Sam Shepard. But Becket is very much the real thing, and she has made quite a name for herself out there in the desert. The performances she continues to give--twice a week, every month from October to May--now sell out every show. The theater's murals have made the building a candidate for landmark status. Robinson's respectful, knowingly tangential documentary--a finalist for last year's Best Documentary Oscar--explores Becket's enigmatic existence with equal parts affection and amusement. Scenes of Becket toe-dancing on stage, sinewy and lithe despite her years, are intercut with segments that initially seem to have little to do with anything: Becket leading a midnight tour of the town's "haunted" hotel; Tom Willet--Becket's swaggering, semi-toothless stage-partner--tearing through the desert on his three-wheeled motorcycle or showing off a model train track he's run through every room of an abandoned house; Becket feeding wild horses from her back porch, or weeping softly as she remembers her father's disdain for her artistic inclinations, or firmly detailing her plans to be buried in the horse graveyard behind her house. The film is poetically narrated by Mary McDonnell (Dances with Wolves), and intercut with lively interviews by such Amargosa fans as science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury. Indeed, it is Bradbury who sums up Becket's importance when he says, putting the message of her life and work into words, "If you want to do something, don't talk about it. For God's sake, do it." In the end, the film, like Becket herself, is both whimsical and a little bit baffling--but, like Becket, it is also moving and quietly astounding. The fascinating story of Marta Becket begins as a small girl growing up in New York City. At the age of three, she discovered a burning desire to dance, which she never outgrew. Her father was a newspaper reporter, and because of this, he got passes to concerts, the opera, the ballet, and the theater. At least once a week, Marta and her parents would attend one of these events. Inspired by these experiences she found her home.

"Outside, in the world, people struck each other, yelled, honked horns," she says. "Inside, in the theater, they conversed by singing and dancing. I knew that was where I belonged."

Before long she was amazing her dance teachers with her talent. She also studied piano and art on a scholarship at the age of nine, developing as an artist and pianist.

As a young woman, she danced at Radio City Music Hall, and on Broadway. She appeared in "Showboat", "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", and "A Wonderful Town". But Marta wanted to dance her own dances, design her own costumes, and create her own show. Which is exactly what she did, and she took her solo show on the road.

Married in 1962, Marta and her husband found themselves in California, in the spring of 1967, after months of touring. They decided to spend a week's vacation camping in Death Valley, behind the visitor's center. One morning they awoke to a flat tire on their trailer. A park ranger directed them to Death Valley Junction to have the tire repaired.

While her husband attended to the tire, Marta began to explore the old adobe buildings. Walking down the long colonnade of what was known as the Amargosa Hotel, she was hypnotically drawn to the end, and around the corner where she discovered the largest building in the row. It was a theater! She could not believe her eyes.

At the back of the building, she found a hole in a door, where she could see inside. There she saw a small stage with faded calico curtains hanging from a track. Debris was strewn all over the warped floor boards, and several rows of wooden benches faced the stage. It was obvious the theater had been abandoned for quite some time. It seemed to be the only unused building in Death Valley Junction. "Peering through the tiny hole, I had the distinct feeling that I was looking at the other half of myself. The building seemed to be saying.....Take me.....do something with me...I offer you life"

The next day Marta and her husband located the town manager and agreed to rent the theater for $45.00 a month, and to assume responsibility for repairs. Originally called Corkhill Hall, she renamed the theater the Amargosa Opera House.

Marta gave her first performance in the theater on February 10th, 1968. On that rainy night, she danced for an audience of twelve adults, children and grandchildren. From that day on the doors of the Amargosa Opera House opened without fail at 7:45 pm and the curtain parted promptly at 8:15 pm every Friday, Saturday, and Monday night for many years. (See 2004-2005 schedule for current performance schedules)

The audiences consisted of locals and curious tourists, and sometimes no one came at all. Working in the Opera House cleaning up after a rainstorm, Marta had a flash of inspiration. She would paint an entire audience on the walls of the theater. It took four years to complete the murals on the walls. Then Marta started work on the ceiling, which took another two years and was completed in 1974.

In January of 1983, Marta's husband left for other interests, but as fate would have it, at the same time another important person entered her life. Mr. Thomas J. Willett stepped in as stage manager and M.C. and has been with her ever since. A natural comedian, he acts as a performing stage manager, playing parts, co-starring with Marta, and adding humor to the classical ambience of the performances.

Marta says she does not plan for the years ahead. She does not try to guess what she will be able to do ten years from now. For the present, she dances, and she continues to paint. She has her stage to call her own. Her imagination has carried her from the past to the present. From New York to Death Valley Junction.....and a tiny theater nobody wanted.

"I am grateful to have found the place where I can fulfill my dreams and share them with the passing scene...for as long as I can."

more links about Marta http://www.amargosafilm.com/martabecket_review.asp

http://www.amargosafilm.com/

http://www.thecityofabsurdity.com/lhlocate.html

her book "To Dance on Sands" at amazon

another creative day! 3 art cards & a painting on canvas the second one 5 X 7~ I decided to put them up on ebay instead, it seems as though etsy is quite slow these dayz, hopefully Ebay will be nice to me this week ;) link to my ebay store www.velvet-rooms.com

just curious...how are your sales on etsy & ebay?! slow? ok? great? xo!!

a creative day~

today I was feeling a little blue, it's oh so hot outside 101 again, so I decided to try something new, searching for new inspirations, brought out my box of "found little things" and started playing, I was surprized at how magically all the pieces started to fit together, last time I felt magic like that was when I was experiencing Keith Lo Bue's precious little classes~ 

Within a few hours I managed to create 8 neckpieces & one bracelet!  oh how hard it is to put them up for sale, I really adore how each one of them turned out~

I should have a few of them on etsy tonight, if you're interested in coming on over for a visit here's the link http://izabellah.etsy.com   xo!!

2008 zazzle calendar

I wish Zazzle would state who the buyers are from my shop.... for those who have been buying there, I want to send out a big "thank you"!! 

thought I would share a picture of the calendar I created, they're only 19.95~ or you can create your own, with your own images or art, if you use this link we all benefit ;) xo!! zazzle.com/izabella777*

just wanted to show off this cute pic of my lil' one ;)  he calls me  "sweet cupcake" is that the cutest!

I also wanted to write a personal note to everyone who has wrote me or left comments on my blog welcoming me home, I have been so swamped I haven't been able to write anyone personally~ thank you so much for your lovely notes, it means the world to me ;) hope everyone is having a lovely Sunday~  it's so hot here in Vegas 101 again today!!  xo!!

feels good to run my fingers through paints again, I rarely ever use a paintbrush~

going to put these bad girls on etsy tonight or tommorrow~ xo!! http://izabellah.etsy.com