No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on October 24, 2011

Yesterday we went up to Sacred Heart University to see Ariel’s choir concert. She did very well. It was an interesting mix of modern and classic choir tunes. We spent some time with her before coming back home.

We watched Once Upon a Time and don’t understand what the reviewers were complaining about. It has our interest. We’re going to give Grimm a look even though it looks just like a novel that Peter wrote and sent around to editors a number of years ago. So we struck that one off the Crazy 8 list at this time because we are tired of explaining that his novel was done way before the TV series was even conceived. It happens more than you would think.

I got to watch some football yesterday. I feel sorry for Dolphin fans at this point in the season. They had the game and then handed it back in the last quarter.

They keep this up and the World Series is going to go to seven and the Cardinals are going to win since the Rangers keep winning even games and the Cardinals odd games.

Today is back to Caroline’s costume. The Mask is giving me fits. More on that tomorrow along with pictures.

It’s going to be a long Monday. I can tell.

I am grateful when clay does what I want rather than what it wants to do.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 21, 2011

I have been thinking about a lot of different things this week. Some of it connects to things that happened at New York Comic Con and DragonCon. Some of it is connected to things that have been going on at Casa David.

Kung Fu Panda was on the other day. And the first line I heard was “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present.” I have always liked that line. It is part of a larger quote but this is the part that sings to me. Living in the now is not a bad thing to do.

I know a number of you love my tag line where I express something I am grateful for each day. Sometimes it is directly tied into what I am writing about and other times it is things that are on my mind. And, yes, there are days that it is hard to come up with something to be grateful for but I dig down and really examine my life to find something that I am grateful for.

I have been told I am a positive person. I like to encourage others to follow their dreams and hopes. I am a big cheerleader for others and I am happy when I see others achieve those things that are close to their hearts. I know I have been incredibly lucky and blessed that I have been able to achieve things that I have wanted to do. I haven’t achieved everything and what I want to achieve changes as my life changes.

I also put a copy of Plato’s Apology, which is Plato’s account of the trial and death of Socrates, on my iPad. From which my eye went over “a life unexamined is not worth living”. Which is what got me on this Introspection.

Some of you may remember that I was a history major for my undergraduate degree. Probably many of you didn’t know that. I was told by a wise professor that undergrad was going to be the only time that I could explore what I wanted to learn rather than when I need to learn for a job. So I took that to heart and did a lot of different courses in a lot of different fields just so I would have some knowledge of various subjects.

Those who have known me longer than that can attest to the fact that I tend to find a subject or an author interesting and I will go into research mode and read all I can on that subject. And that has served me well over the years because I have a screwy brain that researches very well and retains what it reads over time. May not be able to do a direct word for word quotes but I have all the ideas in my head. And I play with those ideas. That’s why I like math. I can play with Math in my head and due to my dyslexia, Math always made more sense than spelling to me.

Back to Plato, I have been examining my life recently. Some stuff happened that got me looking back and looking forward and I feel like I am losing the now which is probably where I need to concentrate. I wasted some really great opportunities in the past couple of years that might have me in a very different place. So I am resolving to use the new opportunities that have cropped up and stop wasting what the universe is giving me chances at. I have to stop being afraid of succeeding or failing spectacularly. I have succeed and failed at things so many time in my life, I really should be over the butterflies I find myself having still as I show off new art or a new writing to someone. I can take criticism. I had to learn how to and it was a hard lesson but a very useful one.

So one foot in the front of the other and move forward. I need to live in the now right now.

I am grateful that Peter has always given me his honest opinion and never sugar coated it.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 20, 2011

Thursday is kind of a funny day of the week. I don’t mean ha-ha funny more strange funny.

Caroline has her bowling league today which means that Friday is the only weekday that there isn’t a David bowling in one league or another.

There is a lot of anticipation for the weekend and, if we have something we are doing, planning and packing. One has to remember that we do conventions which tend to be Friday through Sunday so technically we work a lot of weekends.

Today on my docket is the Elementary School library, digging out the Halloween decorations, trimming the hedges where the decorations go, putting out the decorations, and taking Caroline to bowling. There is pick-up stuff and cook dinner in there as well.

I have been reading my way through the Steig Larsson books. I am up to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest. I find the narrative compelling but sometimes the subject material is a little hard to read. I am glad that I waited until now so I have all three books since the 2nd and the 3rd are of a piece. I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on my iPad so that was the first book I read from beginning to end on the iPad. It was an interesting experience and I will probably be buying more books on the iPad in the future.

Yeah, this could be a random thoughts before the coffee kicks in but I am on my 2nd cup so that ship sailed very early this morning.

I did watch part of the World Series game until I was taping two things on my DVR so I had to pick between those. I choose to just turn off the TV.

Fig is chasing a fly that got into the house. I am impressed at her vertical leap.

Well got to get things together and start the day.

I am grateful for Halloween decorations I can get to easily.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 19, 2011

We are heading for the end of 2011.

We have a lot of holidays to go through along with a few birthdays and other things.

I need to get the Halloween décor up but not today because it is raining.

I have the materials for Caroline’s costume which I will be starting on today because it is going to take a while to make. With any luck, she will wear this at Farpoint as well. I need two items to finish the costume that I think I can find at a local costume store. I may have to make her a wig but I know how to do that. It just takes a while to do.

Today is restock the lader. Pick-up from New York Comic Con. Get started on the Mask for Caroline.

I am grateful for pauses in the rain.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 18, 2011

This past weekend I was at New York Comic Con. I had with me a couple of puppets for sale and a couple of puppets to play with out of my collection. I sold the X-men First Class puppets along with one of the Ben 10 ship-ships I made. And along the way I talk to a lot of people about puppets I have made and puppets that they might want to commission me for.

I was asked a couple of times whether I would make replicas of Muppets for them. I had to tell them nicely but firmly no. I have made a couple of them over the years but they are all in my possession and I build them as a learning exercise not to sell. I will not build Muppets unless I am working for Disney or Henson being whichever owns the copyright to the thing I am building.

Now I have puppets close to looking like Muppets but that is the nature of the beast when you are working with a set of geometric shapes. My Phluzzies are often compared to Fraggles probably because the head shape is close to each other but they are different too. My people puppets do have a similar head shape to some Muppets but again that’s the nature of limited number of things you can do geometrically to get a head to look like a head and size right for the body. But there are differences between them and I did that on purpose.

I know some doll makers that have lost business due to others copying or recreating their designs at cheaper prices. The doll world does police itself pretty well. A pattern was printed in a magazine that was recognized by a number of people as belonging to another doll maker. Within 24 hours of the magazine’s publication, the magazine put an apology up on their website and paid the original maker of the pattern for the use of the pattern.

Now some of the things I make are puppets based on characters in TV and Movies. Charles and Erik are prime examples of that. I also have a complete set of Doctor Who puppets that I have made. These are copyrighted characters by Marvel and the BBC respectively. However both companies have turned a blind eye to the sort of thing I do because I am not mass manufacturing the puppets for profit. Sort of like when an artist draws Batman in someone’s sketch book and gets paid for their drawing ability. If I make another Chuck and Erik, it will be for me not to sell.

I have been asked not to make more of a puppet that is a copyrighted character. I made a Sandman puppet. There are two on the planet that I have made. One is with me and the other is with Neil. He asked me to leave it at two so I did. It’s his character so it’s his call. (OK I know that is technically DC’s character but Neil did create that incarnation of it so I think of it as his.)

Now Ship from Ben 10 is a copyright character and I have made more than one but I got permission from Dwayne McDuffie to make and sell them in a limited number. I was working on one for him when he passed away. He knew how long it took to make even one of them and he thought they were pretty neat.

My dolls are my own creation. I make their clothes and create my own patterns for the clothes so there is no chance of infringement on anyone’s patterns because I freeform them. My dolls do have a Froudian influence but that’s because Wendy Froud taught me most of what I know about doll making so some things are going to look a little like hers because who taught me but the characters are my own.

Now all of this is my personal code of ethics for my work. I am not condemning anyone else for what they do. I don’t expect everyone to work by my rules. I just thought I would put this out there for conversation and also to give people what my lines are in creating and recreating.

I am grateful for the ability to create and recreate things.

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