Without Paint

"Alfred Orders the Number 7 Entree"

by Sheryl Todd (tapirgal)

Collage on paper

September 13, 2010

I submitted my first collage to Scrapiteria. When I found the collabortative collage blog site many months (or years?) ago, I realized I had stumbled into a nest of kindred spirits. I understood the medium. I understood the humor. I laughed a lot. I added their link to my blog sidebar and visited often. I've been making collages since 1967 or 1968 (few are posted here, and that's another project for "when I have some time,") but mine are usually made with paint and often some kind of drawing or scribbling included. Scrapiteria's format is strictly cut and paste with paper. I thought of making one without paint or scribbles to submit, but I had also stopped making them for a number of years during this past decade while my business was growing and I was focused on other things. Too bad. I love making collages. So, with encouragement from several friends, I pitched back in. When, recently, I noticed that Scrapiteria was now open to guest submissions, I found a weekly theme I wanted to try and here is the result. My mother (why do I think of her at times like this?) would never understand Scrapitiria, but it's definitely my cup of oysters.

Originally I intended to caption the collage, "Alfred concluded that what the menu lacked in refinement, it made up for in attention to the particular sensibilities of the saurischian palate," but I think the short title is just fine.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

A Blast from the Past: Posters for Auction from "The Bank" Rock Club in Torrance

Photo credit: The HeART of Rock and Roll

It's a blast from the past because my first husband, Robert A. Wilson, drew this poster along with a number of others in 1968. They have now become collectors' items and there is an auction running right this minute that includes six of the posters. (Just type "bank" in the keyword search.) The photo is not great, but the seller probably doesn't want anyone making excellent prints from it. Five other posters from The Bank are also in this auction. I don't have the typing capacity at the moment to rattle on about experiences from The Bank when we'd go each week to take the posters and see the shows, but I've typed them to several people in the past, and there are some web sites around that have included my input or comments. Here's one TAPIR STORY on my web site that includes Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead from those crazy times at The Bank!

Other sites:

. Rock Prosopography 101 (1)
. Rock Prosopography 101 (2)
. Rock Prosopography 101 (3)

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

About My Blogs, and Fun with Stats

From my Animal Photos blog (now merged)

Both of these pix have appeared on my other blogs, but today I combined two blogs and wanted to mention it. I wasn't enjoying the animal photos blog very much. I'm not sure if it's because 1) I don't have that many good animal photos, or 2) they felt like the needed to be integrated rather than separate, or 3) I was making it too boring and too much like work by feeling responsible for figuring out the species and linking it to good information, or 4) all of the above. Anyway, the animals seemed like they needed to be integrated with Tapirgal's Daily Image, so that's what I did. Blogs should either be fun or part of my job, and the animal one turned out to be neither, exactly.

From my Tapirgal's Daily Image blog

After messing around with individual transfers, I realized I could just export the whole animal pix blog and import it into Tapirgal's Daily. Wow! Too cool! And fast.

So now I have 8 blogs, and I'm considering starting two more. It's really not insane. OK, it is addicting, but not insane. Beyond the "different subjects" reason and the "search engine optimization (SEO) for business" reasons, it's just a fun way to work with photos and the occasional thought.

I don't know if the stats on Blogger are new or if I just found them, but I was astonished at the hits some of my blogs are getting. Here they are, the brief justification for their existence, and the number of hits they each got in August. In no particular order:

. My Personal Journal in Pictures: (The one you're reading.) A lot of pix, but not that personal. Although the name keeps changing, it's the same blog I started with: my first, and I consider it my "basic" blog. It's a long chronology and fun, but is never up to date, and never will be as long as I keep taking photos and have things to do besides sitting a the computer (868 hits in August, which is not bad considering I haven't worked on it lately, but it does have a lot of subjects).

. Tapirgal's Daily Image: A random image each day from my archives. Very satisfying for some reason (561 hits in August).

. On the Pavement: I realized I was taking a lot of photos of things we walk on every day. It turns out, it's fun to see them in one place (254 hits in August, pretty good for a new blog without much PR and an esoteric topic).

. Animal Art Along the Way: Fun, and long overdue. I realized I take pictures of animal art everywhere I go without really thinking about it (386 hits in August, still pretty new; many more than I expected from the few Facebook fans it has).

. Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo: Just what it says. Part of the City Daily Photo family (4,253 hits in August, quite a surprise; even though there are 880 fans on Facebook as of today, this number was beyond expectations).

. Tapir and Friends Animal Store: The offical blog for the Tapir Preservation Fund's animal-themed online store (4,588 hits in August, another big surprise; this blog lies fallow a lot of the time, but Lee has been helping with daily posts lately, showing real animals and not just the toys and replicas I usually blog about).

. Tapir Preservation Fund (TPF): The official blog of the Tapir Preservation Fund (491 hits in August; this surprised me as being on the low side, but I have not done much with the blog in any consistent way; I intend to fix that now that I feel like I have more time and focus for it, and some other things have become organized).

. Hudson and Joy: A History in Letters: This is specifically for posting letters, documents and information found in an attic and a basement. I haven't done much besides setting up the format and posting a few letters. This will become a really interesting resource as time permits - hopefully soon (82 hits in August; actually, more than I expected).

And what are the two upcoming new blogs? Stay tuned :) One is about rainforest conservation and one is a fun thing about tapirs and travel.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Surreal Bovine Choreography

Found on Facebook. Thanks, Chuck Hillestad!

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Ships and Geese

The marine layer is still in, keeping the air nice and cool. It's always a pleasure to see the bright Tokyo Marine ships in the morning - this time in a ray of sun against the clouds. The ship's name is Argent Aster, and I don't recall seeing that name before.

The pilot boat coming in.

Seeing Canada geese around Astoria is nothing novel, although I always enjoy them, but what is unusual is seeing them swim past my deck. I see them most often west of here.

Swimming. . . .

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.