Zazzle is an American online marketplace that allows designers and customers to create their own products with independent manufacturers (clothing, posters, etc.), as well as use images from participating companies.
Zazzle.com offers digital printing, and embroidered decoration on their retail apparel items, as well as other personalization techniques and items.
This is how it works for me. I upload one of my photos or an image in the public domain to the Zazzle website. Then I can adjust the size of the image plus add text, backgrounds, or other improvements. I can add the image (and text if I like) to postcards, note cards, shirts, tote bags, magnets, notebooks, luggage tags, caps, water bottles, buttons, and lots of other things. Here’s an example of merchandise I have for sale in the Stop Hate Collection in my BlaizinSunCreations store, all featuring a photo I took of a stop sign in Northern New Mexico.
The plus side for me is that I don’t have to pay for and stock all this merchandise. When an item sells, I get a (small) royalty, and Zazzle does all the work.
My second store is called Postcard_Emporium, and it’s focus is on (I bet you already guessed!) postcards. I’ve designed a lot of postcards using my own photos as well as images in the public domain.
I’ve got plans for other stores too, including one especially for vandwellers, rubber tramps, nomads, boondockers, RVers, campers, vagabonds, and travelers of all kinds. I also want to open stores dedicated to the sights of Arizona and New Mexico. I’ll be sure to let you know when those stores are ready for you to browse.
In the meantime, I’d love for you to take a look at all the great items I currently have for sale. If you feel like buying things, that would be fantastic too.
I took the photos in this post. The Rubber Tramp Artist logo was designed by the late Samantha Adelle.
Maybe you noticed my blog has a new category to click on in the menu up top. It’s ok if you missed the addition of a new category. I know you’re busy (and maybe stressed too). Today I’m here to tell you what that new category is all about.
The new category is all about…
POSTCARDS!
That’s right,
POSTCARDS!
I’ve taken some of my best photographs and turned them into postcards. Those postcards are for sale, so you can send my photos through the mail to your postcard friends and other special people, or you can keep them for yourself.
All of the postcards are sized to go through the United States Postal Service with a 35 cent postcard stamp. They also make great small space artwork for vans, camper trailers, motorhomes, teardrops, 5th wheels, and other tiny (or not so tiny) homes.
The price is only $5 for six postcards or $10 for a dozen cards. The cost of me sending the cards to you is included in the price. If you want larger quantities, let me know and I’ll figure out a price for you. You can get all one design or mix and match designs.
I don’t have an order button, so folks can contact me via email at rubbertrampartist@gmail.com and let me know what they want and we can discuss payment methods. (I accept PayPal, Venmo,and GiftRocket, as well as cash and money orders for people who want to mail payment.)
I have all of the designs shown below available for your postcard pleasure.
Quote by Willa Cather. Photo from Rockhound State Park near Deming, NM by Blaize Sun.Yeah, I said it, and my sibling made me write it down. I took the photo too, somewhere in Northern New Mexico.I took the photo of the heart cactus at Rockhound State Park near Deming, NM. I only have a few of this design left, but I can order more if you need them. These are great for desert dwellers to send during the winter holiday season or as a Valentine’s Day greeting.Love the Land of Enchantment? I do too! I took these photos and put them all together for a postcard that represents New Mexico.How many postcards feature the state insect? This one does! Perfect for the entomologist in your life.The Zia represents New Mexico.A New Mexico license plate on a postcard.Love that cracked and faded yellow!Let everyone on your mailing list know you’re a Rubber Tramp Artist fan.Logo by Samantha Adelle. Photos by Blaize Sun.
I took all the photos shown on the postcards in this post and created the layouts as well. The only artwork I didn’t do was the Rubber Tramp Artist logo. That was created by the talented Samantha Adelle before her sad, untimely passing.
I once had to catch a bus in Chicago. There were many hours between the time the first ride deposited us in the Windy City and when we had to board the bus. Instead of sitting and waiting, my traveling companion suggested we explore downtown.
I’d been to Chicago before. Once I flew into Chicago (which airport, I don’t remember), then traveled on public transportation to the bus station where I caught a bus that took me to a small town in Wisconsin. At least twice I traveled by train to Chicago and caught a connecting train for the next leg of my journey at Union Station.
I’m not one of those people who leaves the train or bus station or airport for a bit of fun before I make my connection. I’m one of those people who fears missing my connection. I’m one who sits. I’m one who waits.
I once sat for three or four hours in the packed downtown Las Vegas, NV Greyhound station because I was afraid of losing my place on a probably overbooked bus. I could have stored my bag and walked outside to see the sights, but I didn’t. I waited in the crowded waiting room so I was sure to make it home as planned.
Even more unbelievable, I once spent an entire eight hour layover in the Hong Kong airport because I was scared to venture out and find public transit in a strange land. I was worried about all of the many things that could have gone wrong if I had left the security of the transportation hub. I was afraid of a disaster that would have made me miss my connecting flight.
However, this time in Chicago my traveling companion insisted we venture out and look around. He was not one to sit and wait. Luckily, we had access to luggage lockers, so we were able to secure our big backpacks rather than haul them around with us.
We walked toward the water, and by water I mean Lake Michigan. I’d seen Lake Michigan before, when I’d visited my college boyfriend’s hometown of Milwaukee. I vaguely remembered the hugeness of the Lake.
As we walked down the urban sidewalks, we saw many panhandlers standing back against the buildings. They were mostly older Black people, and they had a panhandling technique I’d never encountered before. Instead of muttering Spare some change? Spare some change? or asking for a dollar to catch the bus or get something to eat, they simply shook the cups they held. The cups obviously already had some coins in them; I could hear the coins clinking against each other. I guess words are unnecessary when everyone already knows the script.
Before we made it to the Lake, we saw the huge reflective sculpture in Millennium Park. I’d seen the object in movies. It often turns up when filmmakers want to distinguish an anonymous big city as specifically Chicago. I don’t remember trying to find the sculpture; I think we just happened upon it nestled among the skyscrapers of downtown.
According to the Choose Chicago website, Cloud Gate (also known as The Bean)
is one of the world’s largest permanent outdoor art installations…
The exterior of The Bean is made entirely of stainless steel. It was created using computer technology to precisely cut 168 massive steel plates, which were then fitted together and welded shut for a completely seamless finish…
[It is] is 33 feet high, 42 feet wide, and 66 feet long. It weighs about 110 tons — roughly the same as 15 adult elephants.
is regarded as one of the most prominent British-Indian sculptors of his generation…
Kapoor is well known for his intense, almost spiritual, outdoor and indoor site-specific works in which he marries a Modernist sense of pure materiality with a fascination for the manipulation of form and the perception of space. Kapoor, who was born in Bombay and moved to London in the 1970s to study art, first worked on abstract and organic sculptures using fundamental natural materials such as granite, limestone, marble, pigment, and plaster.
Anish Kapoor’s webpage about Cloud Gate features preliminary sketches for the sculpture, plans for construction, and a photo of it being built. The webpage says
Cloud Gate is a single object of around 25×15×12m. It is made of polished stainless steel and is seamless. Cloud Gate draws in the sky and the surrounding buildings. In a vertical city, this is a horizontal object. Seamless form confuses scale.
I was a lucky photographer on the day of our visit to Millennium Park. There were clouds in the Chicago sky, and they were reflected in the shiny surface of Cloud Gate. We were also fortunate to arrive early in the morning, before crowds surrounded the sculpture. I was able to get some nice photos without too many people in the frame.
…a blob-shaped mirror that vaguely resembles a bean.
He goes on to say,
It is as unremarkable as it sounds.
Oh Zach S., I beg to differ! Yes, Cloud Gate is rather blob shaped, and it is certainly mirrored. As to whether or not it looks like a bean…Who cares? “The Bean” is only a nickname anyway. I suspect the artist was not necessarily trying to convey the idea of a bean when he created the piece.
Where I really disagree with Zach S. is his assertion that Cloud Gate is “unremarkable.” I think Cloud Gate is quite remarkable. I like its size and its heft. Cloud Gate takes up space, yet its reflective surface brings the sky down closer to human level. The reflective surface also draws people to the sculpture, including me and my traveling companion.
What’s that over there? we wondered.
Let’s go see it, we said as we went closer.
I don’t remember what day of the week we wondered into Millennium Park and discovered Cloud Gate, but as the day progressed, more people arrived. By the time we left the area, crowds had come and gone, all looking at the art piece and taking photos too.
My favorite part of my experience with Cloud Gate was playing with the reflective surface. Like a funhouse mirror, Cloud Gate shows visitors a view of themselves that’s not quite true. I moved closer, then backed up to see how my figure changed with distance. The changes made me contemplate who I was, really.
Lake Michigan (Chicago)…bigger than I remembered
After spending some time with Cloud Gate, we walked down to the water and looked out at Lake Michigan. It was as big as I remembered…bigger, maybe.
We sat on the grass and contemplated the water. It was nice to rest for a while before we got up again and walked to a new adventure.
I can’t say I’m a big fan of Chicago. To me it seems to lack the charm of San Francisco with its bright murals and Painted Ladies Victorian houses or the gritty but captivating street culture of New York City. Maybe I’ve never been to the right places in Chicago, never seen what it has to offer me. In any case, I really enjoyed seeing Cloud Gate, Millennium Park, and Lake Michigan. I don’t care if it’s more a touristy area and less what locals think of as the real Chicago. I don’t care if locals think it’s overrated. I don’t care what Zach S. thinks. I think Cloud Gate is really cool.
Lake Michigan with ship and Ferris Wheel (Chicago)
During our early March 2020 trip to Santa Fe, we walked from the Plaza to the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi (more commonly known as Saint Francis Cathedral). One of the things we saw at the Cathedral was the 7 and 1/2-foot-tall statue of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha.
Statue of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha in front of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I grew up Catholic, so I had heard of Kateri Tekakwitha before viewing the statute in Santa Fe. For everyone who doesn’t know, she was the first Native American canonized as a saint. According to Catholic Online,
St. Kateri Tekakwitha is the first Native American to be recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. She was born in 1656, in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon [in what is now central New York state]…
The website says her mother was Algonquin and her father was Mohawk and gives more details about her religious life.
At age 19, Kateri Tekakwitha converted to Catholicism, taking a vow of chastity and pledging to marry only Jesus Christ. Her decision was very unpopular [among her community]…to avoid persecution, she traveled to a Christian native community south of Montreal.
Kateri was very devout and was known for her steadfast devotion…just five years after her conversion to Catholicism, she became ill and passed away at age 24, on April 17, 1680.
Her name, Kateri, is the Mohawk form of Catherine, which she took from St. Catherine of Siena.
St. Kateri Tekakwitha was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012. She is the patroness of ecology and the environment, people in exile and Native Americans.
Her feastday is July 14.
Wikipedia tells us the bronze statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha in front of Saint Francis Cathedral was created by
Estella Loretto, a sculptor from the nearby Jemez Pueblo, and installed in August 2003.[3] A plaque noting Kateri’s canonization was added in October 2012.
Estella Loretto is currently the only Native American woman working in monumental bronze sculpting. She is recognized internationally as one of the finest sculptors living today…She has studied and trained with mentors including her mother, her grandmother, and most notably with Native American sculptor Allen Houser-Haozous.
Estella was commissioned by Most Rev. Michael J. Sheehan to create a monumental bronze statue of Saint Kateri, which has welcomed visitors at the entrance to Saint Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, NM, since 2003.
The 2012 article “Long Journey to Sainthood” by Staci Matlock in the Santa Fe New Mexican explains the look of Loretto’s Kateri sculpture.
While other statues and paintings of Kateri show her in traditional Mohawk dress with two braids, Loretto envisioned her more in Pueblo style. In her statue, Kateri has loose flowing hair, kind eyes and is holding four feathers with a rosary. “She’s in Pueblo country,” Loretto said when the statue was unveiled in 2003. “I’m an artist. I have to do her the way she comes to me.”
I’d often wondered why this station of Saint Kateri looked so different from other images I’d seen of her. Now I know!
I enjoyed visiting this statue and taking some photos of it. I hope if you ever travel to Santa Fe, you too can spend some time here.
This is what the outside of Meow Wolf looks like. Even the exterior of the building is art.
I’ve already written two posts about my recent visit to Meow Wolf, one a general review and one about buying a piece of art from the Art-o-mat® in the lobby. Yet, I still have a lot of photos I haven’t shared.
Giant robot smells the flower.
The building that houses Meow Wolf was a bowling alley back in the day.
Is that a meow wolf under the New Mexico sky?
The Man took this photo of the giant spider.
The art pieces in the photos above are in the Meow Wolf parking lot.
What’s weird is that while I felt as if I took a lot of photos while in the House of Eternal Return exhibit, when I look through my photos, I realize there were so many photo opportunities that I missed. I was trying to experience the experience and not live behind my camera, but it seems like I left out so much.
We found ourselves in a desert scene and sat down to take a break.
Wait, there was an entire canned ham travel trailer in front of us. It was a passageway to a whole new scene.
Oh, this stove! It was in the travel trailer. I love the color!
I think we were in Arizona for a minute. There were cacti and yes, an entire travel trailer in the place.
Of course, it would be difficult to adequately explain Meow Wolf to you even if I had carefully photographed every single different thing I saw. (Such a task would take a very long time.) There’s so much going on in the place. There are not only objects and paintings to look at, but there’s music happening and ever-changing lights. Some of the lights and music change because of something someone touches. In some places one can play music by touching lights. Almost every aspect of the House of Eternal Return is a multisensory extravaganza.
Giant “fossil.” People could walk into the rib cage and use the “bones” as a percussion instrument.
I thought this information was true at first.
In this experience, people could walk inside a giant “fossil” and use the “bones” as a musical instrument. The entire “fossil” changed color over time. I saw it change from pink to green.
The only way to even begin to understand Meow Wolf is to make your own visit. Actually, there may be no way to understand Meow Wolf completely. But I certainly can’t explain it to you.
This creature appears to be about to eat a corn dog.
This guy is really cool.
Are these delicate, delicious treats?
Are these soft-sculpture internal organs?
This entire room was painted to make visitors feel as if they were in a black and white comic strip.
These are all random pieces of art I liked from throughout the multiverse.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Meow Wolf for me is that those people have an entire bus in there! Is it a reference to Ken Kesey’s bus Furthur? Are the Meow Wolf artists on the bus or off the bus? Did I mention the bus is vertical, with its engine and front wheels in the air? We first encountered the bus on the ground floor. I was beyond pleased when we went upstairs and found the front half of it sticking up through the floor.
I first experienced the bus while sitting behind this steering wheel.
When I looked up toward the ceiling, this is what I saw.
The bus is vertical.
Those are the entrance doors. Are you on the bus or off the bus? Be careful, the first step is doozy.
There’s a bus in Meow Wolf and it’s pointed towards the sky.
But is it art? Who cares? It’s an entire bus (or most of an entire bus…I couldn’t tell if it was all there) inside a building sticking up through the floor. What is there not to love?
Here area few more random things I saw during my visit to Meow Wolf.
Soft lights…what’s on the other side of the window?
This piece kind of creeped me out. The face and hand were 3D. Who is this creature? What does it want?
This creature was in the room with the warning about flashing lights. What is it?
This was one of my favorite pieces. I called it the trash carriage. If I were magical, this is how I would travel.
Even the long hallway between the ticket counter and the restrooms was full of art. The whole place was about art and life and thought and coolness.
This art was between the ticket counter and the restrooms, just your average hallway.
When I go back to Meow Wolf, and I do plan to go back, I will take more photos.
Diner is served…but something is not quite right with this food.
Postcard decor.
Another postcard.
I’m doing something a little different today. Maybe you noticed. I’m using galleries for the first time so I can share many photos at once with you. If you click on the smaller photos, they’ll enlarge so you can see the better. I’d love to know what you think about this format. Tell me what you think in the comments.
I took the photos in this post unless otherwise noted. The low light in the exhibit made for substandard image quality. My apologies.
This is one of the postcards I bought in the Meow Wolf gift shop.
After a little more than two hours in Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe, NM, The Man and I thought we had seen all there was to see. (Spoiler alert: We didn’t. The Man saw a photo of a ship on a magnet in the gift shop and realized we hadn’t laid eyes on the actual structure. We had no idea how to get to the ship at the time, so we decided we were ready to leave. We think we know how to find the ship now, which is one of the reasons we want to go back.)
Anyway, we were on our way to the Meow Wolf gift shop so I could pick up a couple of postcards (and two is all I bought since they cost $1 each), when I saw it: the Art-o-mat®.
The Art-o-mat® in the Meow Wolf lobby.Isn’t it lovely? I think the color scheme is fantastic! And that sugar skull…swoon!
I’d heard of Art-o-mat® machines, although the term for them in my brain was “art vending machine.” I’d maybe even seen one, somewhere, but I’d never bought art from one before. I figured if there was ever a time and place for buying art from a vending machine, that time and place was now, in the lobby of one of the greatest art spaces I had ever experienced.
What exactly is an Art-o-mat®, you may ask? According to the Art-o-mat® website,
Art-o-mat® machines are retired cigarette vending machines that have been converted to vend art. There are over 100 active machines in various locations throughout the country.
The inspiration for Art-o-mat® came to artist Clark Whittington while observing a friend who had a Pavlovian reaction to the crinkle of cellophane…
In June 1997, Clark was set to have a solo art show at a local cafe, Penny Universitie in Winston-Salem, N.C. He used a recently-banned cigarette machine to create the first Art-o-mat®…The machine sold Clark’s black & white photographs mounted on blocks for $1.00 each…
AIC [Artists in Cellophane] is the sponsoring organization of Art-o-mat®. The mission of AIC is to encourage art consumption by combining the worlds of art and commerce in an innovative form. AIC believes that art should be progressive, yet personal and approachable…
My fortune as given to me by Alva, a robotic soothsayer from Portals Bermuda.
Do you have a $5 bill, I asked The Man. I’d broken my fiver to buy a pair of Meow Wolf chromadepth glasses (a waste of $1, as far as The Man and I were concerned) and spent another buck to have my fortune told by Alva, a robotic soothsayer from Portals Bermuda stationed in a glass cube in the arcade. I was now $2 short of buying a small piece of art from the Art-o-mat®.
Alva the soothsayer from Portals Bermuda
The Man pulled out his wallet, rummaged through it, and produced a $5 bill. Yes! Now we could choose which knob to pull.
Oh! What a decision! We had twenty choices after all! Twenty. Choices.
The top row had the name of a specific artist above each knob. Of course, I didn’t recognize any of the names. There was even information about what kind of art would be dispensed above some of the knobs. Did I want a leather key ring? Did I want matchbox art? I was overcome by choices.
On the second row, each knob was labeled “Random Art.” Maybe I would be better off if I let the Universe decide what piece of art I needed. Of course, there were still ten “Random Art” choices. I managed to narrow my choices down to two.
I narrowed my random art choices down to these two.
Should I go with creating a rainbow by buying art? (Note: I knew that buying art doesn’t really create rainbows even before I read the disclaimer.) Should a take a chance on an unknown artist? Although I’m not much of a gambler, I decided to go with taking a chance.
The Man fed the money into the bill acceptor of the sort one uses to get change at a car wash or laundromat. Now was my moment to pull the knob.
The aforementioned Art-o-mat® website answers the question What do you get? [from the dispenser] this way:
The experience of pulling the knob alone is quite a thrill, but you also walk away with an original work of art. What an easy way to become an art collector.
Pulling the knob was a thrill. Those old machines were built to be sturdy, so I had to give it a strong tug. I was rewarded with a hearty thunk! when the art fell into the tray at the bottom of the dispenser. I reached in and grabbed something the approximate size and shape of a package of cigarettes, although this item was heavier than the packs of cigarettes I’ve held. I thought the art would come in an old cigarette box, but instead it was wrapped in paper to keep it from getting scratched. I peeled off the paper and found a small painting (or maybe the image was created with markers) on a block of wood.
This is the art I received when I took a chance.
I’m not sure what exactly is depicted here. Like all good art, it leaves the viewer with some questions. Is that the sun in the upper left? Is that water on the bottom? Is it a lake? An ocean? Why is it jagged? What’s in the space between the sun and the water? The middle space looks really hot. Is it hell? Phoenix in July? What does it all mean?
This is the artist’s signature on the side of the little art piece. I took a chance on you, Jack. Thanks for this beauty.
You can answer those questions for yourself. You can ask more questions if you like. As for me, I appreciate this piece of art and its randomness and mystery. Most of all, I enjoyed the experience of buying art from a vending machine.
Why is the Meow Wolf sign shaped like a bowling pin? Keep reading to find out.
The Man and I finally visited Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, NM, and we had an awesome time. I want to tell you all about it, but please know that my words and photographs simply cannot do the place justice.
Actually, even if I could tell you all about Meow Wolf and show you all of my photos, I probably shouldn’t. Part of the fun for me was going in fresh, not really knowing what to expect. Before I went, I purposefully avoided doing a lot of research on the place. I wanted to experience what was there without a lot of foreknowledge.
I did know a little bit about Meow Wolf before I went, and I will share some information with you.
Meow Wolf is an arts and entertainment group based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. [The group was] established in 2008 as an art collective.
One painting inside Meow Wolf. It reminds me of art by my favorite surrealist artist, Remedios Varo. That bird does not look happy to be held by that orange and yellow avocado with arms.
The aforementioned webpage says,
Meow Wolf is comprised of over 400 employees creating and supporting art across a variety of media, including architecture, sculpture, painting, photography, video production, cross-reality (AR/VR/MR), music, audio engineering, narrative writing, costuming, performance, and more!
Also, Meow Wolf is housed inside an old bowling alley! According to the Meow Wolf FAQs, the bowling alley closed in 2008 and sat empty for several years. There is no bowling there now and the lanes have been stripped out.
Is this a Meow Wolf?
While reading those FAQs to learn more about the old bowling alley, I learned how Meow Wolf got its name.
At the very first meeting of the collective in 2008, everyone put two words into a hat. Then they picked two random words out of the hat and got “Meow Wolf.”
There are some things you should know about Meow Wolf Santa Fe before you go. It is located at 1352 Rufina Circle, just off Cerrillos Road. Regular hours of operation are Sunday through Thursday from 10am to 8pm and Friday and Saturday from 10am to 10pm. Meow Wolf is closed on Tuesdays. Check holiday closures here.
The parking lot at Meow Wolf is rather small, but parking is also available on nearby streets. The Man and I visited at noon on a Sunday and had to park about two blocks away. The parking lot is not available to RVs, trailers, or other oversized vehicles; such vehicles must be parked on the street. Vandwellers traveling with companion animals should note that animal control may be called if animals are left unattended in vehicles in the Meow Wolf parking lot. Vandwellers should also note that overnight parking is not allowed in the lot.
The Man is trying to decide if he wants to walk through that door.
Strollers, backpacks and oversized bags are not allowed in the exhibit, but the items can be securely stored for you for a small fee. Stroller/walker/wheel chair storage is complementary.
An important concern for many people is the accessibility of Meow Wolf. This is what the FAQ page has to say about accessibility:
[T]he first floor of our exhibition is ADA accessible and navigable by crutches, walkers, wheelchairs or scooters, but some areas may require additional navigational guidance from our docent staff (they are here to help!). There is almost always more than one way to access to an area…We do not have elevators…to the second floor, though, and the second floor is much more difficult to navigate as well (more single steps up/down and narrow passageways). Areas with flashing lights are located behind clearly labeled doors. You do not need to coordinate ADA accommodations with staff prior to your arrival – just know that we are here to help however we can.
Also note that there are many places throughout the exhibit to sit and rest. From cushions on the floor to sofas and chairs, you do not have to be on your feet for hours on end. There are also several points where it is possible to exit to the lobby so you can visit the restroom, get a snack or beverage at Float Cafe & Bar, browse in the gift shop, or quietly create art in the David Loughridge Learning Center. You can decide to go back into the thick of things as long as you haven’t left the building.
So many pretty lights…and music too.
If you’re concerned about getting overstimulated at Meow Wolf (and this is a distinct possibility for many folks), consider picking up a sensory bag at the front desk. What is a sensory bag? The FAQ page says
[s]ensory bags are a tool guests can utilize to aid in their experience inside House of Eternal Return. Each bag can be checked out upon arrival and has items inside to help ground and re-center folks who might feel overstimulated or overwhelmed while inside the exhibit.
Looks like somebody puked up filthy lucre and glitter.
Admission to Meow Wolf is what I consider pricey. The regular adult admission price is $30. The regular admission price for a child over the age of four is $20. Children ages four and under enjoy free admission! (Anyone under 14 needs to be accompanied and supervised by a guardian over 18 years old.) Students, seniors 65 and older, and members of the military pay $25 to get in.
If you’re a New Mexico resident, you’re in luck because you get a discount. Cost of admission for adult residents of New Mexico is $25. Children who are residents of New Mexico pay only $15, and the student/senior/military rate for New Mexico residents is $20. However, every Monday and Wednesday night (4-8 PM) and Second Sunday of the month New Mexico residents pay only half off the New Mexico resident admission rate.
While I typically enjoy activities that are free and cheap, I recognize that my admission fee is helping to pay artists and maintain the Meow Wolf facilities. I can tell you that every aspect of Meow Wolf from the restrooms to the tree houses to the cushions on the floor were clean and in perfect working order.
I don’t know who these little creatures are, but I love them.
I was also pleasantly surprised that I did not encounter a single person behaving in an obnoxious way. Although there were lots of people at Meow Wolf the day we visited, people were being respectful of one another. Children were having a good time, but no one was screaming or running or annoying strangers. Adults were well-behaved too, and not once did the word asshat run through my mind.
If you haven’t already figured it out, there’s a lot going on at Meow Wolf House of Eternal Return. There is an actual, full-size house, complete with portals (hint: there are five) to other dimensions. (And here’s another hint for you: start with the house. You can start in the other dimensions, but for your first time, I HIGHLY recommend you start with the house.)
There’s a wrinkle in the reality of the bathroom floor.
You will see people stepping into and out of household appliances; you can step through some of them too, if you wish. There’s a mystery you can try to solve as you move through the house. (I’m not sure if it’s possible to solve the mystery or if it is meant to remain unsolved, but look for the clues and decide for yourself.) You can open cabinets in the kitchen and find wondrous things. You can sit in the bathtub or on the toilet of the wavy-floored bathroom. You can look into the cookie jar and see what awaits you there.
A fantasy world awaits you when you step through the refrigerator portal.
Once you move through the portals, you enter fantasy worlds filled with art and music and soft lights and magic. Well, maybe not magic; maybe what you experience is technology cleverly disguised to seem like magic. Even if you’ve never dabbled in psychedelics, you will know you’re in a the midst of some trippy shit.
There’s an entire bus in there and a dinner you wouldn’t want to eat even if you could. There are beams of red light you can play like harp strings (or drums), giant birds, and a multitude of items that will make you wonder WTF?Is it art? you may ask yourself. Does it really matter? It’s beauty and fun and color and experimentation and the chance for childlike wonder.
When we left Meow Wolf (after realizing we’d missed an entire reality but too tired to figure out how to get to it), The Man said he’d enjoyed himself but didn’t really feel the need to ever go back. But the next day, we were still talking about our experiences in the House of Eternal Return, and we both admitted we were excited to explore the place again. (Maybe it’s called the House of Eternal Return because so many visitors want to go back.)
The Man took this photo of me photographing a tiny portal in the bathroom medicine cabinet.
I can’t speak for other people who’ve been there, but The Man and I are saving our pennies so we can visit Meow Wolf again.
I took the photos in this post, except for the very last one. The low light in most of the exhibits and the camera on my cheap phone made for substandard photographs. My apologies.
Today is Nevada Day. If you don’t know the first thing about Nevada Day, see the post I wrote about the holiday last year.
To celebrate Nevada Day, today I will share with you photos I took of Nevada Car at spark! Mesa’s Festival of Creativity that I attended with Nolagirl in the spring of 2018. Interestingly, Nevada Car hails from Bisbee, AZ. The Art Car Agency website says the art was created by David Best and is owned by Patrick Dailey.
It turns out that David Best is a big deal when it comes to art cars. In the 2015 article “David Best: the Man Who Builds Art – and Burns It” author Geoff Dyer writes that Best got into doing art cars
in the early 1980s, in Houston, right at the beginning of the art-car craze but – in a way that is typical – is careful to emphasize that he was just one of a number of people involved at the time, that the first art car was actually done by Jackie Harris.
Here’s a front view of Nevada Car.
It was really difficult to get a photo of the full view of this car with my camera. In my opinion that’s actually ok because the beauty is in the details.
Here’s some sort of gaming device attached to the car. In the same photo I see about a hundred tiny white buttons, a plastic sea turtle, a stack of smaller-than-life traffic cones that were maybe once bright orange but are now faded and dingy, a toy baseball batter, a combination lock, and a dozen rusty bottle caps. What do you see that I’m missing?
In this photo it looks like a dozen gumball machines and a kindergarten class worth of Happy Meals upchucked onto a relatively small area of the car. All of these crappy plastic toys merge into such a cohesive whole that it’s hard to pick out individual objects. Look! There’s Buzz Lightyear! To the right, a dozen plastic crabs! I see a leg! I see a lion! I see creatures I can’t identify.
In an article on the KQED Spark website, Best’s process is described like this:
… Best strips vehicles down to the core before reconstructing them, striving to make the car’s original form unrecognizable. Rather than merely gluing objects to the body of a car, Best, who religiously goes to the dump, likes to use found object materials that ultimately take on their own personality. After making 30 art cars and 2 buses, Best has worked with over 10,000 people.
It’s easy for me to imagine an artist finding these items at the dump and being delighted to add them to an art car work in progress.
I’m not sure why this is piece is called Nevada Car. Because of the gaming devices? Because of the gaming device that says “Nevada Club”? I wish this exhibit of art cars had included statements from the artists.
I like the juxtaposition of the statues of saints next to this old gaming device. Is it a commentary on praying for luck? An observation of the degree to which our society treats money as divine? A mere putting-together of objects in a way that looked pleasing to the artist’s eye?
I found my favorite feature of Nevada Car, and it didn’t have much to do with Nevada. I’m not talking about the BMW emblem either.
I’ll leave you with a wish for a Happy Nevada day and a self portrait with dancing bear in chrome.
Today is World Photography Day! According to an article from The Economic Times,
World Photography Day…aims to inspire photographers across the planet to share a single photo with a simple purpose: to share their world with the world.
Unfortunately, at the time I’m writing this post (on Christmas Day 2018) I can’t figure out where we are supposed to share our single photo today. The World Photo Day Facebook page hasn’t been updated since August 2017, and when I go to the Wold Photo Day website, I get an Error 521 message (“web server is down”). Maybe by the time this post actually runs in August of 2019, there will be updated information out in the world.
In the meantime, I want to share photos today of two of my favorite things: cameras and vans!
Yep, it’s the Camera Van!
Camera Van’s website says, “Before the first camera was glued to the van in 1993, fellow car artist Ron Dolce [said]…’you can’t just glue a bunch of cameras on a van and call it art…You have to paint with the cameras.’ The result? A perfect, blow up-replica of a kodak [sic] instamatic [sic] on the camera [sic] Van’s driver’s side comprised entirely of Kodak instamatics [sic].”
Nolagirl and I encountered Camera Van at spark! Mesa’s Festival of Creativity which we attended in the spring of 2018. There were a lot of art cars there and a few art vans too, including Camera Van.
The Camera Van website says, “The Camera Van’s front grill features every polaroid [sic] camera ever made, from the Land Camera to the popular “One-Step” to The Swinger.”
the world’s most unique rolling photographic studio, truly the world’s ONLY van carpeted wall-to-wall in cameras and rigged to catch the candid expressions of people everywhere.
…covered with more than 2,000 cameras and assorted photography paraphernalia. It took him two years to complete.
The Camera Van website says of the passenger side, “…a representation of the human eye glows and gazes outward in color lens filter, flashcubes and mirrored glass.
Harrod Blank is also the creator of the Art Car World museum in Douglas, AZ. According the the musem’s website, Art Car World is
[a] museum dedicated entirely to the celebration and preservation of this popular mobile art form…located in historic downtown Douglas, Arizona. Currently under construction, Art Car World will feature a permanent collection of 42 popular Art Cars with more on rotating exhibition.
Art Car World is located at 450 E 8th Street in Douglas, AZ and is open by appointment only. You can contact the museum to schedule a visit or to get more information via email at excentrix@aol.com or by sending a letter to the street address given above.
There are more cameras on the back of the Camera Van!
Be sure to visit the Camera Van website to see the surprise on the vehicle’s roof.
If you like, take some photos today. Share them on Facebook or Instagram or go old school and have prints made. However you do it, use photography to share your world with the world.
If you enjoyed this post, you may also want to read about another art van called California Fantasy Van and an art car called J Gurl that were also at the spark! Festival.
The Friendly by Nature Little Free Library. The top and side are mosaics.
My favorite Little Free Library (LFL) Nolagirl and I visited during our Phoenix Little Free Library excursion was the second one we went to. This one has the name “Friendly by Nature,” and the charter number is 5974. This registered LFL is decorated with beautiful, colorful mosaics and sits at the front of a yard decorated with more mosaics.
If you don’t yet know about the gift economy of the Little Free Library movement, here are a few things you should know. According to the Little Free Library organization’s FAQs
Little Free Library is a registered nonprofit organization that inspires a love of reading, builds community, and sparks creativity by fostering neighborhood book exchanges around the world.
The left side of the Friendly by Nature Little Free Library shows a saguaro cactus and a hot hot sun.
As soon as Nolagirl parked in front of the house this LFL
belongs to, I was attracted to the library’s bright colors. I was really
excited when I got out of the vehicle and moved closer to the library and
discovered the brightly colored scenes were composed from irregular tiles. WOW!
I also greatly appreciated the desert scenes featured on this LFL. Pictured on
the LFL are a saguaro cactus, the hot midday sun, and the starry night visible
when one leaves the city behind. Beneath the moonlight, there is a row of
books, much like those found in the actual Little Free Library.
The other side of the Friendly by Nature Little Free Library shows the desert night and a row of books ready for reading.
The outside of the Little Free Library was not the only thing on the property sporting bright mosaics. Several round poles just beyond the LFL were also decorated with colorful tiles. I didn’t want to infringe upon the privacy of the steward of the little library, but I did snap a few photos of other pieces of mosaic art.
I was so impressed with the artistic work that I wrote out a
quick note expressing my appreciation. I left the note tucked in the LFL. I
think it’s really important to tell people when we like their work. I know from
experience that artists often don’t get enough positive feedback, so I like to
rectify that situation when I can.
This mosaic is visible without going too far onto the property of the Little Free Library’s steward. I love that the lady’s nose is made from what appears to be a cup handle.
I left my email address on the note, and several days later I was pleased to find a message from the artist in my inbox. She wrote,
Thank you for the postcard regarding my Little Free Library and my other mosaics. I retired from Intel about three years ago and started making mosaics. I have done many commissions.
My adobe house, courtyard and casita are my inspiration!
The artist then invited me to come over and see more of her mosaics! Wow! I was so flattered. Unfortunately, I already had plans for all of my days in Phoenix and I was unable to visit the artist and see more of her work. So disappointing! I’ve dropped the ball during my subsequent visits to Phoenix and never made plans to go over to this gracious woman’s house. My bad. Maybe someday I can still pay her a visit. I sure hope so because I want to see more of these splendid mosaics!
