CricketDiane Cricket House Studios
Engagement
Note from CricketDiane -
The works contained in these pages are either my original work, alterations with the computer of my original work, or otherwise noted. The collections of research will be handled a little differently because I am not selling other people's work nor claiming it as my own. The research collections of information will have the materials explained by me and then links to find the exact work and sources that I was using so that you can find it and see it for yourself. It will save a lot of time and efforts for you since, I culled through a multitude of sources to find the real ones and those that could be trusted for the information contained within them. Where this information needs to be considered with some care, I have noted that. Even some government sources of information can tend to color their results by leaving out information or by subdividing the information and statistics in ways that fail to show the whole picture. I've tried to note that where I've noticed it.
I do hope you have enjoyable experiences here wandering around my brain and the worlds contained there. Not all of it is positive, happy information because I would much rather be a realist and develop solutions where they are needed. And, where I've been able to inspire that to be done or accomplished it myself, then I've done my part. And, some of that you will find here.
- cricketdiane
Cricket House Studios
dianecphillips(at)gmail.com
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About CricketDiane, Diane C Phillips -
I find it hard to write down the information about me for bios, which I've done it seems like, infinite numbers of times. But I will try to put something here anyway -
Born sometime.
Lived at the turn of the 20th and 21st Centuries.
Went to a lot of schools.
Learned a lot of things.
Continued in independent study over the course of my life.
I was the kid who read encyclopedias and played chess at night by flashlight next to my bed most of the night rather than sleeping - and took notes as I did it for most of my growing up life . . .
Although I was very into sports growing up from sandlot football on the beach to tennis to the golf team awhile, the volleyball team, horseback riding, roller skating, water skiing, basketball and swimming - now, I have been an affirmed "sit at the computer too much kind of person", that I doubt I could do any of it (much).
I've lived in the South for many years (35 years more or less) after graduating high school and in every moment of that time - although all of my family has come from the South for five generations and more on both sides, I have hated it and mostly, they have hated me. And, I am fine with that. Someday, I'll tell the story of how that has made them and me more miserable than I could've ever imagined . . .
I was born on an Air Force Base in Ohio. My friends in Georgia still believe I was born in Georgia and have no children - I'm not sure if they think I was ever married or not . . .
Most of the time I've spent in the last twenty years has been working on my own projects which never seem to make any money for the most part and running all over the world on the internet - working on developing solutions, learning, creating, and completing inventions that I've designed and can't patent yet. Recently, I created a store on zazzle to host the artwork, paintings, designs and photographs that I've done as designer products. They are very expensive right now because each one is made individually by zazzle and then sent to the buyer. It has been nearly impossible cataloging the images on the site with over 10,000 products so far, and my computers are full of art and research that I've done - of which, I've only barely scratched the surface to put them into the zazzle store or on my blogs and websites or anywhere else public. But, I'm working on it. It represents, conservatively 38 years of work, although to be honest, I had started work on a lot of it before then . . .
In case you are wondering, I'm 53 years old this year and well, there you go - everything takes time when there isn't any money to take care of it . . .
Believe it or not, I do more than art. I design things. I invent things. I create music and research things. And, I write - in fact, there are pages and pages of things I've written on the blog over the last five years, but most of what I've written isn't on the blog. Most of the time, when I've researched something and written about it - those are things that never were put on the blog or anywhere else in the public domain - yet . Some of it wasn't ready and although some of it could've been put on the blog, I ran out of time in the moments when I was working on it. That comes of not having a car, and having to put everything on hold to walk to the store to buy groceries or shoes or mail off the bills - or whatever else. So, those things sit waiting to go online and hopefully, I will be able to put many of them here on this site and on the blog this year.
A note about the ocean -
When I was growing up from elementary school through high school and a bit of college, I lived in California. What this means to paintings that I do of the ocean is that they have waves and images far different from the East Coast - I didn't grow up in the South. The beaches in the South are foreign planets to me though I like them and enjoy them when occasionally I've been to them. If you like images of the Caribbean, Florida, Gulf of Mexico or Georgia coasts - you probably won't care much for my paintings of the ocean. That's okay. After studying a bit on it, I've discovered there are many places around the world where the oceans look just like the images I've painted, including California, Oregon, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Brazil, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, Washington State, Maine and elsewhere . . .
Yes, that's me - as usual upside sideways upside down hair flying in the breeze . . .
My philosophy -
Today is but a moment in time, valuable only for what can be done with it - alive, living, creating, doing, being, inventing, innovating, learning, growing, discovering, exploring, interacting, and making great things happen. Life is too short not to do it. And, I do it because I can.
Once upon a time, I asked dozens of people one after another, why did these bad people do bad things to me in my life - and finally someone answered, "because they can." And, suddenly I realized that if the bad can do it, then I can do the good things I can for the same reason - "because I can." And, I believe that if more people simply did that on the good side of things - the world would be a much better place.
So, I'm doing that.
There's already plenty of ugly art in the world . . .
And, problems . . .
And, disasters . . .
And cruelty and bullying and abuse of others and meanness and backstabbing and underhanded politicking and whatever other violent inane daily crap goes on . . .
Why should I add more of that when the world already has so much extra and I can usually manage to do at least some of that unintentionally without even trying, much to my dismay?
Well, there you go.
That's my philosophy - except for this part which I'll share here (and some that I won't) -
My Mantra for a New Age -
I am an asshole. You are an asshole. The world is full of assholes. If we all close up, shut down and shut up, the shit will back up and the world would explode. Then what would we do? The world is full of assholes. I am an asshole. You are an asshole. We are all assholes . . .
and this -
from the Bush administration I learned this -
"Anything worth doing is worth doing half-ass." - my quote
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I like splush puddling in the edge of Lake Acworth or at the beach or anywhere there's a stream or creek - I'm always going to be the first one to take off my shoes and socks to go wading and walking, splashing and playing in the water - even today.
I like the rain and the sunshine and the night time and the moon and stars. I love looking at them and getting to see them . . . and snow . . . and stormy lightning weather . . . and misty dewy mornings when everything is blue.
And, sunsets early in the late afternoon just as the sun is starting to set - and twilight, dusk-thirty when the air is cooling and the transition to night tugs into place . . .
And, I love flowers and growing things and gardening in the dirt whether houseplants or creating gardens and rocked terraced growing spaces outdoors in the yard . . .
And I love trees with the light of the sun or moon or the street lights streaming through the leaves or when they are covered in snow deeply laden on their branches or when the rain has spit its tiny raindrops all over them and the droplets sit glistening in the sun after the rain has gone . . .
And, I love music and writing and knowledge and arting things, and creating solutions and inventing things.
I love the big city, its sights and sounds, smells and feelings - I love the country only as long as I know there is an endpoint at which I can soon get out of it . . .
But I do love forests and mountains - especially deep in the Smoky Mountains and Appalachians, the Sierra Nevadas and Northern California Big Country with its redwood trees, sequoias are so beautiful - it is a shame they are almost gone . . .
And, I love the ocean. There is no way to describe how I feel about the ocean . . .
- cricketdiane
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Taking a picture of some jewelry that I designed - a pair of earrings with a music treble clef and dangling beads in copper and stones. Yes, that's me, too.
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What else do I need to tell you here? Maybe that I know a bit about what I'm doing in art, music, writing and research? Hmmm....................
Maybe.
I'd hate to follow that asshole thing with my great credentials, but here it is -
There's way to much I don't know in the world . . .
I've been working hard to learn all of my life with every moment actively engaged in doing so - well, damn near every moment. I'm sure there are times that I'm not doing that - surely . . .
Maybe not.
It is important to me - to learn, to discover, to grow better understanding of the principles of things - like math and science and how stuff works and what is already known about things. And, to get better at doing things with that knowledge - in applications, in inventing things with it, in using it, and in the applied sciences of it.
Oh yeah - and now, especially it is important to me to integrate cross-specialties in my understandings of that knowledge so that I can better understand it . . .
Okay, well - maybe I don't do anything else really.
I began reading the encyclopedias and the dictionary when I was five years old, what do you expect that to yield? And, although I went to several good colleges and universities, a trade school, an art school and had private tutors in piano, classes in various things over the years plus hours upon hours of studying books and now, on the internet . . . I don't have a college degree . . . which is not exactly how I would like it to be.
But, I certainly have a level of knowledge and mastery beyond where I started and beyond each point along the way from before college - and long after . . .
The one good thing I can say about independent study as I've undertaken it, aside from being able to go at my own pace and study things that interest me along the way, is that it offered a range to me that no university was willing or able to offer - and a greater depth of understanding in many ways along a vast array of subjects. Yet, the drawback is that I'm not going to be able to tell someone when Henry the Eighth lived unless I look it up . . .
I might be able to make a pretty good, educated guess though that would probably be right. And every day I learn more and get better at assimilating it, integrating it and understanding it - so in some ways - I have an extreme advantage over anything a college degree program would've given me. And, I can spell better than most people.
So, what else?
In art - my study of it started when I was very young. In fact, the first small abstract painting I did of a wave and the ocean was when I was seven years old - it was in oil paints and has the strong blues, greens and motions of the waves in it. It is as if the physics of the waves attracted me more than the beauty of the overall "pretty ocean scene", even then. And, it does even today. When I see an ocean wave, my mind is thinking - that is one drop of water . . . many times over . . . .glistening in the sun . . . joining by molecule and constraints of time and energy with one another to make this glorious wave of sheer power and magnitude . . .
and . . .
its pretty - ooh, look at the colors, the sky, the air changing it as the wave charges for the shore . . . the sand and the wet of it sparkling under and through the foam of the shallows and the dynamic pull and tug of the wave's multitude of droplets as it powerfully draws back out to sea - and then where is that little droplet, that single molecule of water now? . . . .
That's just how I think of it. The lights and changes of shadows and forms and colors modifying moment to moment in fractions of nano-seconds . . . amazing - absolutely amazing.
My encyclopedias probably don't look like yours . . . Encyclopedia Britannica - the written in it edition . . .
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