༄˖°.🍂.ೃButternut Squash & A Fall Color Tour.ೃ࿔*:･🎃
Well, hello friends. I am literally sitting outside on my back deck just BASKING in the glorious fall weather we have had all week. It has been absolutely perfect this week (though my plants would argue they’d like some rain…) & I gotta say, mama natche sure knows how to change a season!! The colors are spectacular, the temperature is gorgeous, and the smell of the leaves change in the air is absolutely intoxicating. It’s like the beautiful calm before the storm… (I’m referring to our November 3rd elections as the foreboding inclement weather.) Speaking of, I hope all you scallywags are prepared to vote, know where you are voting, and who you are voting for… PLEASE show up. In our last presidential election alone, 100 million US citizens DID NOT vote. That is insane. If you have the means: PLEASE do your civic duty. I’m not even going to sit here and sway you one way or the other, JUST GET YOUR ASS TO THE POLLS! I DO want to give every Michigan residents a huge heads up about PROP 1 called Con-Con or Constitutional Convention… This is an absolute bullshit proposal. PLEASE VOTE NO. A constitutional convention is a convention held by already shady and self-serving state legislators and would allow them to gut the entire 12 constitutional laws at the same time, redraft a new one, and propose it to the public as either pass or fail. This convention can also last MONTHS and costs taxpayers millions. The last Con-Con was in the early 60’s and cost Michigan taxpayers 80 MILLION DOLLARS. That was in the SIXTIES. You can imagine it will be much higher now. Okay, no more political crap. Please vote.
Last weekend was my pop-up event at the Frauenthal Theater’s Free Family Movie of the Addam’s Family and I’m going to be honest with you guys… it reminded me of why I don’t like doing pop-ups. (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵) Yes, I love the Frauenthal. Yes, I did talk to some incredible people. YES, I did connect with some individuals. YES, I was super thankful for the invitation from the Front of House Leader, Sarah. My thankfulness being established, it was the weirdest pop-up I had. Upon arrival, I had begun to set up my things when an older woman approaches my table (without looking at me whatsoever), she says “ew” and picks up my Gourdy pillow, shows it to her friend and says, “I don’t like this at all!!”. Then she puts it back down and walks away with her friend… I was shocked by that first impression and then I became a little concerned that THAT was the vibe set for the whole pop-up. And unfortunately, it really was. Though the movie had a great turn out, and the majority of the crowd enjoyed my spooky art, I did have a lot of bizarre interactions; one guy was thoroughly convinced my drawing was a Pokémon character. One little girl kept trying to steal my stickers. And my own child was grumpy and less than supportive. In the spirit of full honesty, after ALL was said and done, I made ONE $10 sale. And it was to a friends’ brother-in-law. Is there a lesson in here? I have no idea. I DO think from now on, if I am going to do a pop-up, it will have to be at larger conventions/shows.
Photo captions- Cover Photo: gorgeous fall colors… in fact, that’s what most of these images will be. Photo 1: I’ve started reading The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins and FREAKING LOVE IT. It is very hard to put down. Photo 2: My baby girl (and her bestie) at their first dance (╥﹏╥) She had such a good time and was even asked to go with a BOY. She is so beautiful and getting way too big!! Photo 3: Spotted this Pacer at the Whitehall Walmart… badass! Photo 4: I made homemade butternut squash soup… it was not worth the multi-process labor and my family refused to eat it so I had to have leftovers for a few days. ( ദ്ദി ˙ᗜ˙ ) Photo 5 & 6: Spooky morning mist and a poor fella missing an antler in our neighborhood. Photo 7: WIP of 2026’s Christmas card design! Photo 8: I witnessed a raccoon sleeping in a hollowed part of a tree and it was just the most perfect and magical thing in the entire world. Photo 9: We did another patio movie feature, this time: Under Wraps the 1997 version which is now on Disney + because they must have heard my prayers. Tonight will be our last outdoor movie of the season and we are going to watch Casper (with Christina Ricci)! And carve pumpkins! Photos 10-15: We took the kids and Ozzy and went on a beautiful fall nature hike at Clear Springs Nature Preserve and it was absolutely STUNNING!!
As far as art goes, I had the Visual Language Exhibition reception yesterday and it went really great. A ton of the artists attended that were featured in the show and there was a fantastic conversation had about our experiences as artists living in this time. I love connecting with other artists and hearing all their stories and their creative process. It was also lovely to be a part of such a meaningful show. You can read a little more about it here! (My piece was titled “It Hurt But… You’ve Grown.”) This week I’ll also be receiving my piece “Cactus Hollow Hotel” back which has been in Pennsylvania for a few months! WOOT! I’m also really looking forward to starting up my larger grim reaper piece again but MUST finish 2026’s Christmas card design before I can do anything else. This year’s card is a little goat that is pretending to be a reindeer, with the classic black, white, & red Christmas wreath that has been my steady theme since I began doing a yearly card! I’m excited to share more & I’m honestly excited to (hopefully) slow down in these cooler months and just… ahhhhh…. rellllaaaaxxxxx. (Yeah, right…) Anyway, I hope you all are enjoying your spooky season and have a very happy Halloween! What are you going to dress up as? And if you don’t do Halloween, what’s your favorite thing to do in fall? Okay, be good babes, and I’ll talk to you next week! Thanks for being patient this last week! ♡
xxx-Kanda 𓄧
