mood music

he's been playing and composing music for about six years or so, starting with piano, dabbling with the viola the year he went to public school, mostly with the keyboard since then, and he's recently added mixing digital music.

frustrated by the limitations of the free software available online, artemis asked for ableton line and a class to learn how to use it. a local mix music studio opened up this summer in town (how convenient!) and he attended an intensive week-long summer camp. he emerged with his own mix cd including original compositions in addition to mixes of others' music.

i consider myself lucky when he emerges from his room and offers to let me hear his newest work. and sometimes he's willing to let me share his work, like this newest release on soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/oxydized/pyromaniac-re

i can jam to it. i think he's good. yes, i love a lot of his artistic endeavors, but i'm also a musician and know when there's something i can connect with.

woodshop: wooden spoon

as i was posting about artemis' experience making a wooden notebook i realized i hadn't posted about his first experience at this woodcraft location with this teacher. her name is nicole and she makes furniture and she teaches woodcrafting to students of a wide range of ages.

so my son went into the class as the only young person (under 18) and came out with a beautiful utensil imagined in his own mind and fashioned by his own hands and a request that i buy him a safety glove and a fancy knife, which i indulged. this is art, after all, and potentially a future career.

and he can use a power sander.

sometimes you just gotta

sometimes you just gotta give yourself a little pick me up. you know, to nourish yourself. cheer yourself. celebrate being alive as yourself.

bouquet from trader joe's - $3.99

pretty arrangement by yours truly in a cut glass bowl from a relative gone from this world but kept close in the heart's memory - priceless

woodshop: wooden notebooks

artemis went to a woodworking workshop at woodcraft and i was invited to participate, as there were space and materials available, and the teacher is super nice.

i used standing/mounted power tools for the first time - heehee! artemis had already used a bandsaw before, but it was my first time. we both learned how to use a drill press and do some artistic, decorative woodburning on our wooden notebooks.

cut covers to size on bandsaw

use an awl to create guides for the holes you measured (twice) and marked

tools of the trade

the drill fits nicely into the guides from the awl

second try - the first one had an irreparable split in the wood

even with the handle, the wood burning tool get HOT

oil for a nice finish

his - for dungeons & dragons

mine - i like how my flower turned out

flowers and friends

flowers nourish my spirit; they also nourish the bees.

kennedy space center, day one

ander's big summer trip with his dad was to the kennedy space center. just wow!