What Does Your Wife Think?

/ Martha Keim / Leave a comment

Just read it

Nobody HitchHikes Anymore

EllenThat is the most commonly asked question. There is an alternate phrasing, usually posed to Ellen – how can you let him do this?

Her answer – do you think I could stop him?

And then there are those people who ask straight up if my wife thinks I am crazy, to which I reply, as does she, that this has been known for quite some  time.

I’ve been talking about this trip forever. Any time Joe comes to visit or we see him for any reason references to the summer of ’78 come up. It was an opening up to the world for both of us.  And as I’ve watched the world change in these many years, I’ve always wondered if it was still possible to take such a journey. This I know for sure – I couldn’t do it without such a supportive partner.

Ellen and I have…

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REVIEW: “La Gorda and the City of Silver” by Sabrina Vourvoulias

/ Martha Keim

SFF Reviews

Review of Sabrina Vourvoulias, “La Gorda and the City of Silver”, Podcastle: 506 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

I participated in a discussion on facebook recently about defining subgenres of speculative fiction, and the question of comic book superheroes came up. In practice, superheroes can draw from fantasy (X-men, Dr. Strange), science fiction (Iron Man), mythology (Thor, Wonder Woman), “realistic” (Batman–at least for the Batman character himself), or any number of other subgenres, but what they have in common is a fantasy of agency and justice, even when justice sometimes fails. This multi-focal genre has been adopted as speculative fiction by popular acclaim, regardless of the specific mechanism of the hero’s powers.

“La Gorda and the City of Silver” is clearly a superhero story. The world of masked and costumed luchadores is deeply rooted in the genre regardless of the apparent lack of overtly fantastic…

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Yesterday

/ Martha Keim

I poured all of my cobalts blue , as well as phthalo turquoise, the only two-pigment mix in my pallet. There was a starters wash underneath. It’s a half sheet watercolor, with a few crayons, high flow acrylics and tears thrown in. This is dedicated to my late husband, James Michael Pensinger.

The shells are just weights.

Here are the dead paint tubes.

Tell me, what would they see in your eyes?

/ Martha Keim

The eyes have it, from my friend Jim MsKeever

Irish Investigations

On a downtown street in Lansing, Mich., a woman asked for our help. She was with her daughter, about 7 years old.

We could see in the woman’s eyes several things: warmth, strength, wariness. In the young girl’s, shyness. Perhaps fear.

The woman, about 30, wore a hijab. Her daughter had long, dark hair, uncovered.

There was a significant language barrier, but we managed to learn that they are from Syria and have been in the U.S. for seven months. They had walked from a nearby Catholic church, the woman said, to find Bus #5 to get to her appointment at a job-training agency.

She carried a folder with her. We walked, and I asked if there might be any information in it that could help us get them there.

As she pulled out a couple of forms from the job-training agency, I noticed a packet of penmanship worksheets, with…

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10 July 17

/ Martha Keim

#worldwatercolormonth

Effects of water hardness on watercolour paints

/ Martha Keim

Way interesting

Lee Angold

For the past couple of years,  my tap water has been curdling my paints.

It all started with a tube of Quinacridone Rust (PO48)  from M. Graham.   I was attracted to this paint partially because the pigment is listed as non-granulating,  and I fell in love with the colour, but ever since I got it, the paint has had a tendency to clump and curdle when mixed with water in the palette or dropped into a wash, resulting in an incredibly pronounced granulation pattern.  This pattern becomes even more pronounced when Quin. Rust is mixed with another dark valued, non granulating paint such as a phthalo.

13934947_10205655508741469_4385919295537911773_n Colour mixing experiments with Quin Rust (PO48) and Phthalo Turquoise (PB16)

I searched the internet extensively, and could find no other reports of quinacridone rust granulating like this.  For months I was actually convinced I had received a dud tube, but avoided investigating…

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Cedar Key

/ Martha Keim

Pinks, purples, aquamarines and sun collude and collide everywhere in this Florida city. We came up here airplane shopping, had dinner in a dog-friendly joint on the beach. Now it’s time to sleep, but I have these colors swirling around my brain. Here’s a sunset. Paint flinging tomorrow.