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I”m a typical introvert, which means that I occasionally require a total lack of human engagement in order to recharge my batteries. On Friday I dodged the world, retreating to a bench in Kirstenbosch Gardens with snacks, my endless tapestry project, and a new copy of New York magazine. It was the perfect little secret bower, surrounded by bushes, bounded by a stream, and almost every other possible entry point was cut off from the outside world by enormous spiders and their sparkling webs. I’m no closet goth, that’s for sure, but I appreciated my spidery sentries on Friday, keeping the humans at bay until I could face them once again.
A little while ago – the end of last year or so – I spotted a sign tied to a pole just near the Mill Street offramp onto De Waal Drive. It was typical of the kind of sign that the more desperate breed of housepainter or plumber daubs roughly onto an old piece of corrugated card to advertise his services, except this one said BOOBJOBS, followed by a cellphone number. Very funny.
Over the next little while, Paul and I started spotting more of this prankster’s signs all over the city, advertising services anomalous to the format of the sign, like LIFE COACHING, and FREE BREAST MILK, and SECRET CLUB, and (maybe more appropriately) THERAPEUTICAL HERBAL WEED.
I’d been dying to take a pic of one of these signs, but they were always in pretty inaccessable points on busy roads. And then, on Sunday afternoon, Destiny smiled on us. We were returning to town along Paradise Road, and we pulled to a stop at a red light. In my bag was my camera, and right next to my window was a brand new sign:
Would love to know if anyone has seen more of these, and if anyone has called the number (and booked a haircut).
Updates from readers about other signs spotted:
HUSBANDS
SEXY TIME
WHITE WITCH
ROMANTIC DATES
SWINGERS!
No Making Friday for me last week, as Pearl’s away and I”m pretty frantic trying to do everything myself. But it all came to a wonderful full stop on Saturday, when Paul kindly took over my stand at the Biscuit Mill maket and I went off to do a monotype workshop at Warren Editions. 
When I signed up, I had no idea what a monotype was, but can now quote from my notes and tell you that:
A monotype is commonly referred to as the ‘painterly print’… the outcome of a printmaking process whereby an image is created on a surface… from which it will be transferred onto another surface.
So, what we did with the oil monotypes was use oil paints, rollers, brushes, earbuds etc to make marks onto a piece of prepared PVC that then got rolled through the press onto wet paper, thereby transferring the painted marks, and making a reversed image of the marks made.
Those pink handled Speedball rollers and a Rothko documentary I watched during the week collided as I selected colours for my first experimental print, and although quite uncharacteristic for me (pink and acid yellow?) I really loved rolling and applying these colours to my PVC.
Here Warren Editions master printer Zhane Warren and her studio manager (and workshop facilitator) Sara-Aimee Verity point out successes and problems with our first monotype attempts.
I then decided to do a quick paper cutout and see how this would work as a mask in a second print, hoping to get a nice contrast between the layered colours rolled onto the PVC and the crisp outlines of the papercut.
Didn’t turn out badly at all! And next Saturday we return for a second workshop, this time doing watercolour monotypes. I canNOT wait!
While my own neglected Christmas shopping may well plumb the depths of a combo springclean/regift allocation, I am devoted to the shopping needs of my fellow Capetonians. This upcoming Wednesday evening, please find Skinny laMinx representing at both the Neighbourgoods Night Market at the Biscuit Mill, starting at 5pm till late…
… and also at the brand new Designer-Maker Artisan Market in the beautiful courtyard behind the Lutheran Church on Strand Street. Gabby Raaff will be selling her Lux lights with me there, and this market starts at 3pm, then winds down as the Carols by Candlelight begin in the church. Lovely.
Meanwhile, the Skinny laMinx shop above Vida on Somerset Rd Greenpoint will be open daily until 22 December. Hope to see you there.
I just got the Saks Corner newsletter in my mailbox, and it’s full of things upholstered in Skinny laMinx prints. Here’s a deco sofa (made up to order) in my Duikers print. Coolsticks!
Check out the dining chairs and extendible table with nifty panel insert too, by reading the Saks Corner newsletter, and visit the Saks Corner website to get in touch.
Walking to my studio on Loop Street this morning, I spotted a number 1 that seemed to have shed some bulk recently.
The next thing I spotted was a number 2, wishing it was elsewhere.
The number 3 fooled me into thinking I’d gone back in time when it was possible to get a breakfast for R3.00 (not R35.00).
Not kidding when I tell you that the very next number I spotted was a number 4.
But number 5 eluded me until I was nearly home again at the end of the day. There’s a little portrait of sunset on Kloof St there too, if you look carefully.
When I picked up my freshly fixed watch from the watch shop on Friday, I had my camera with me, and they let me behind the glass counter so that I could photograph all the hundreds and hundreds of little drawers and boxes where everything is perfectly categorised. Well, almost everything is perfectly categorised: it took them a while to find my watch.
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