Art & Conservation

I'm an artist and conservator. I'm happiest when I'm making things.🏳️‍🌈✡️

[partywithponies]

I love vague labels that make people go "but that's confusing" or "but that could mean anything" Good. Keep guessing lol

[partywithponies]

"Queer doesn't actually tell me anything" who says I wanted to tell you anything. Who even are you.

[livethrushit]

[orcboxer]

happy pride I'm glad I'm gay I'm glad you're gay I'm glad we're both gay and alive

[dragon-in-a-fez]

when a government bans young people from using social media, and then categorises messenger apps like Signal and WhatsApp as "social media", they are pushing those young people toward using text messages, a fundamentally insecure form of communication. texts are not encrypted in transit and can be read by both the sender's mobile carrier and the recipient's. that also means they can be leaked in data breaches, subpoenaed, or just handed over willingly to law enforcement at the carriers' discretion.

hmm. I wonder why governments might want this

[dragon-in-a-fez]

this is not JUST about destroying kids' privacy by the way, although that is bad on its own! but think about it: if you can push everyone to spend their formative social years communicating through an insecure protocol, most of them are not going to do the work of moving to a secure one the moment they're legally allowed! banning everyone under 16 from Signal and WhatsApp creates a whole population of people more likely to continue, for the rest of their lives, to communicate using a tool the government can access at the drop of a hat

[torstherapy]

[wizardarchetypes]

i was like 'it's weird the way everyone is doing free pr for the catholic church rn just bc the pr for the new pope has already been that good' and someone was like 'wait? why don't you like the pope? did something happen?' i feel insane i'm not exaggerating i didn't even know what to say?? 'did something happen?' yes the last 2 thousand years of global history, and no, going back 2,000 years in catholic history is not dramatic because it's remained consistently that bad throughout and in fact i do think the church should answer for every single century of its sins while all of its assets are returned to the people from which they were stolen and its global power is dissolved.

[souvenirs]

[spitfaggot]

happy birthday, gilbert baker. (june 2, 1951 — march 31, 2017)

[acquiredalias]

THIS PICTURE JUST MADE MY LIFE.

[marzipanandminutiae]

people in the notes of that "I don't have a serger" post are going off on tailor's chalk for some reason? as if that's also something that's hugely expensive and insane to assume everyone has?

like. okay. you don't HAVE to use tailor's chalk, but you should at least use something you know won't bleed or otherwise mess up the material. in this case, it does make more sense to do the extra research and maybe buy something new if what you have to hand isn't ideal. ruining your fabric will cost you more time and money in the long run

much as we all hate Am*zon, you can get a 10-piece box of tailor's chalk on there for like $6 USD if you're really cash-strapped and want to sew. that's not the only safe marking material, of course, but it is a tried-and-true option you don't have to research the fabric safety of.

trust me- it's worth it in this case

[marzipanandminutiae]

if this is helpful to anybody-

Marzi's Sewing Must-Haves:

needle

thread

fabric

ruler, or ability to eyeball 1/2" reliably

scissors

pins

way to mark fabric that you know won't cause problems down the line

Marzi's Sewing Extremely Helpful To Haves:

sewing machine

specifically a clear ruler intended for sewing

ironing board and iron

Spray bottle for dampening fabric to be ironed, if you're like me and keep losing the little iron-filling cup

scrap fabric/cheap fabric to use for mockups

Things Marzi Swears By Because Her Main Money-Consuming Hobby Is Sewing:

French curve (for drawing curves if you plan to modify patterns)

Needle board for ironing velvet (okay can someone explain why these cost an arm and a leg?)

Beading needles

Embroidery Needles

Awl

Pinking shears

Sleeve board (for ironing sleeves and smaller pieces of fabric)

Gridded paper to transfer patterns from books (I use wrapping paper, tbh)

Tracing paper to transfer soutache and embroidery designs

Ribbon-threader/bodkin/drawstring-pull/whatever you want to call Big Needle For Threading Ribbons And Drawstrings Into Casings

Needle case

Piping foot (called by normal 21st-century people "zipper foot")

Things Marzi Sees No Need For Because She Is A Misplaced Victorian-Era-But-More-Progressive Alternate Universe Dweller:

Serger

Buttonhole foot (I just like having more control over things like buttonholes, personally, than a machine can comfortably afford me)

Super-advanced computerized sewing machine

Things Marzi's Friend Got For Christmas And Promised Her Use Of And She's Incredibly Excited About:

EMBROIDERY MACHINE

[vinceaddams]

Also very important:

Thimble

Seam ripper

Measuring tape

Other things I find useful:

Pin cushion. Easy to make yourself, just double up the fabric layers and stuff it with sawdust.

Needle book. Also easy to make yourself.

Beeswax. Important for a lot (but not all) hand sewing. I've used the stump of a beeswax candle and it worked just as well as beeswax cakes made for sewing.

Another thimble or two in slightly different sizes, for when your hands are a bit swollen.

Terrycloth hand towel, or a piece of cotton velvet, to use instead of a needle board. I've pressed soft slinky velvet just fine on terrycloth by pressing lightly and carefully, using mainly the tip of the iron right on the seam.

A small chisel for cutting open buttonholes. (PLEASE don't use seam rippers for that, I beg.) There are ones made specifically for buttonholes, but a cheap little wood chisel works perfectly fine, just as long as it's sharp. I have two I got from a junk shop.

A few glossy magazines, to use as a cutting surface for said buttonhole chisel. For situations when you're pressing straight down with the blade it's WAY better than a cutting mat.

Tweezers & a lighter for burn testing the fibre content of thrifted fabrics. Mine live in their own little jar.

Magnetic bowl, which can be found at any hardware store. Keep it next to the sewing machine and you can just chuck the pins at it as you pull them out.

Several thrifted metal trays & serving dishes. Good for keeping all this clutter contained and easily moveable between surfaces. And it's fun to keep pins and buttons and thread clippings in fancy little dishes.

Pressing ham. Also super easy to make yourself, though I have a fairly old one someone gave me. A lot of people stuff them with fabric scraps, but we also had a big one at school that was stuffed with straw.

Organza press cloth. Great for pressing intricate things because it's see-through! I have a couple metres of secondhand silk organza and it's lasting me forever, I just cut a new chunk off it, about the size of a sheet of printer paper, every time the old one gets full of holes. A cotton organdy would work too.

Assorted thrifted glass paperweights, to use as pattern weights. I also have two pattern weights that are just broken chunks of iron sewer grate I found in the gutter. They're nice and heavy and I just washed and painted them.

[thylacines-toybox]

This little dimetrodon was lucky enough to catch this evening's rainbow at its brightest! 🌈

[lgbt-tiktoks]

Description: [A video of a woman riding a galloping horse bareback while holding a large rainbow flag.]

[nattousan]

i felt like these tags really added to the experience, thanks @cynderxdustypaws for your knowledge

[banchie]

i've been phasing the phrase 'google it' out of my vocabulary and going back to 'look it up'. fuck you youve lost your generic trademark privileges

[uboat53]

I've been using Duckduckgo for about a year now and I'm fond of saying "duck it" when I'm not overly worried about being understood.

[captain-price-returns]

[transmechanicus]

Revealing the ignorance of my youth here, but who is this and what is she known for?

[boybeetles]

Anita Sarkeesian, feminist who interpreted media under a feminist lens. She did a series about video games and she was the subject of targeted harassment. That was the start of gamergate

[flurrin]

Minor correction, the start of gamergate was based around a different reporter, Zoe Quinn, but they were both absolutely violently threatened over their involvement in video game criticism and development. A hate campaign was started by Quinn's ex-boyfriend when he wrote a post falsely accusing them of dating video game journalists in order to receive positive reviews on their own game, Depression Quest, which led other bad actors to accuse all women in the industry (Zoe identified as female at the time) of perceived sexual immorality. Anita Sarkeesian's brilliant Youtube series Tropes vs Women in Video Games (which everyone should watch, right now) sparked a particular nerve for criticizing popular games of killing and/or victimizing any important female character (there is a CHILLING bit that borders on ludicrous where she describes the plots of a seemingly endless parades of games as "In [title], [male player character's] wife dies, and you then have to rescue [his] daughter."). That series did actually make a huge change in the industry, especially when touted by progressive legacy developers like Tim Schafer (Monkey Island, Psychonauts), who went on to expand hiring in his company to front women and minority voices, but the shift didn't really show for a long time and echoes of the sexism that plagues the industry at its core are still rampant.

[crazy-pages]

In all seriousness, if you live in the US and you aren't familiar with the misogynistic harassment these people in the game industry faced during Gamergate, you need to watch this series right now.

This was the beggining of the current form of the US fascist movement and it underpins the entire thing about it to this day. If you live in the US and Gamergate isn't familiar to you, you're missing critical history to understanding US fascism. I'm not joking even a little bit here, you will understand modern United States fascism so much better if you are familiar with Gamergate.

[cumaeansibyl]

Not an exaggeration. Gamergate led directly to the redpill/incel movement, which white supremacists exploited and colonized. Not to say that most of the white men in those movements weren't already racist to some extent, but that wasn't an active part of their politics until white supremacist recruiters came along and convinced them that the women ruining their videogames were part of the conspiracy to destroy the white race.

That's a very brief summary but you can go back step by step over the past decade and see how they did it.

[marzipanandminutiae]

"man, museum work pays peanuts, has an incredibly low supply of full-time jobs for current demand, sometimes involves getting yelled at by the public, causes Imposter Syndrome, and is often undervalued by people who assume it's easy"

"but is it unsp-"

"unspeakably cool? YES"

[conservethis]

Some of the moments when I have felt the coolest in my life are when I was doing internships in a museum. Because they kept the dang room where I was working below 70F and my fingernail beds turned blue.

[rederiswrites]

Been actively working to replace “Google it” with “websearch” because fuck ‘em, that’s why.

[ahedderick]

Y’know what, this is a good idea.

[vashti-lives]

Yes but if we use google it often enough to mean “do a web search” they loose the ability to own the term google.

[rederiswrites]

I mean, valid point and that is a really funny long game, but I’d rather undermine the idea of Google’s inescapable supremacy in people’s minds and encourage the idea of choice. I, for example, don’t actually google things. I usually use DuckDuckGo.

[rederiswrites]

My efforts to find this post were greatly complicated by the fact that I have since taken my own advice, and so “do a web search” wasn’t a great search term.

Anyway. Fuck Google. Stop saying Google it, and also stop googling it.

[headspace-hotel]

I don't even bother hardly to orrect my typos anymore. It is just affirmation that these words were typed by the hands of human being and not extruded by a fucnking AI

[headspace-hotel]

one of my professors was like (paraphrasing) "AI makes you sound the same as everybody else. The idea of a single "correct" English is racist and flattens the diversity of people. I don't care about grammar outside of the writing being understandable. I want to hear YOUR voice, Your dialect the unique way you communicate."

I have been more appreciative of the rough edges of human communication since chatGPT came to be. The misspellings and turns of phrase that real people produce.

The inherently flawed nature of an alive thing vs. the empty perfection of something that never had life in it at all

[maniculum]

Reblogging because I tell my students exactly the same thing. Good to see other instructors are making that same point.

(At least I hope that’s the case, because the terrifying alternative is that there’s an overlap between “people i follow on tumblr” and “students i’ve taught”.)

[liberalsarecool]

Cosign.

[thebibliosphere]

Every so often I catch a glimpse of the book drama going on over on the Insta/Threads sphere of the Internet, and it makes me so glad I’m considered too Tumblrina to sit at their tables.

What do you mean an author is railing against people using libraries/the Libby app because it’s “free” (it’s not. you as the author get money from the library purchasing the digital lending license) and meanwhile their book is on Amazon for free to try and get readers??? Hello????

[thebibliosphere]

“But if people read it for free they might like it want to buy the rest of my work!”

You mean like how people read books at libraries, and end up buying them if they like them?

“That’s not the same 😡”

Correct! Because again, libraries pay us. You putting your books up on Amazon for free means you get nothing.

[thebookewyrme]

I am staring directly into the camera like I’m on the Office in Librarian. Libraries are literally an author’s best friend. We get books to people they never would have known about otherwise, & create Fans out of disinterested bystanders. And! Libraries are often paying MORE for a book than the average user, at least for digital editions, because it is expected that the library will lend it to more people, so theoretically we need to pay more to compensate the authors! (This is not I think how it works in practice, it more often just benefits the digital lending company instead of the actual author but. Greed is ever thus). Also, in some countries (sadly not the US, boo hiss) authors get paid for every checkout of a book. So, you can literally get royalties on those “free” books. (Also, they’re not free, they’re paid for with tax dollars for the good of everyone). How some fool can think temporary freeness on Amazon Kindle is superior to libraries I cannot fathom. Like, how does this person even manage to function in the real world?

Anyway. Authors. Love your librarians. We love you and seek only to help you get more readers so you can write more books. We have a symbiotic relationship, each needs the other.

[thebibliosphere]

#I thought if you were self pubed#you basically couldn't get into the library#sounds like being mad at a club#that won't let them in

Just saw this in my notes and thought I'd reply. You can't get into libraries if you only use Amazon, but platforms like Draft2Digital, Ingram and Kobo Writing Life make it possible for self-pub authors to have their work made available to libraries across the global network.

You're sometimes more likely to get picked up by libraries if you list yourself as having a publisher, but as a self-pub author you can do that by registering as an LLC (which for me was $250 back in 2020, I don't know what it is now) and then listing the name you used as the publisher. But even that's becoming an unnecessary step with how prominent self-pub has become.

Really at this stage, this person is shooting themselves in the foot by opting to remain an Amazon exclusive author and being a twit about it on main, but that's their hill. They can die on it.