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Photographs and drawings by Georgette Freeman © 2011. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2011 by Georgette Freeman. All rights reserved.

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Currently on the Drawing Board: 11/2011

Here's what was on the drawing board back in August: Photo op spotted and organized by Leigh; picture's location scoutage and art direction by Georgette. The picture ran in the Advocate's November 2011 issue under the heading "A Day in Gay America," along with a zillion other pix, pages 20-25, 30-37. We are on page 32.

Online, see us at http://www.advocate.com/Print_Issue/Features/A_Day_In_Gay_America_2011/
and click on page 7

Currently on the Drawing Board: 9/2011

A Portable, Lightweight, Geodesic Dome

Inspired by a 69 cent steel-remnant lamp base, this dome is self-supporting and, with 10-foot long aluminum angle "rods" (and stainless steel carriage bolts, washers, and wingnuts for hardware), stands about 18 feet tall and about 25 feet wide when erected (with the top removed, as pictured on the work bench, but with the "legs" oriented down). The (semi) dome has been up twice for a week or more at encampments in Idaho (Dog Camp) and New Mexico (Literally Letters at Ghost Ranch).

Pictured is the "base" model, which features the lamp bases (struts), connected by drilled rods giving an effective distance of 3-1/4 inches between struts. This version has a circumference of 22-1/2 inches and needs to be dismantled (removal of the top, as pictured), to get it into my studio. I'm currently thinking of using rods shorter than 10 feet and orienting it in the fashion shown on the bench as a "blister module" to be skinned with opaque cloth and transparent material and used on future encampments with the van.

For those of you worried about such things: Once up and mated with the van, the van wouldn't move. A Vespa Rallye 200 (1975) carried in the van (along with the dome and its hardware) would be used to get around instead of the encamped van. While assembly takes longer than disassembly, alone I was able to assemble an unskinned dome in less than an hour.

Currently on the Drawing Board: 7/2011

Five Days After

"What do you do?" the doctor asked. The question wasn't socio-economic. I wasn't being evaluated for membership, residency, competency, or association. I was being evaluated for surgery. He is a Kaiser bone surgeon. I had broken the right-most bone in my right hand, the one connected to the little finger; a hump was sticking up from the heel of my hand now that the swelling had gone down, and I had also fractured my left elbow, above the joint.

What he meant by his question, as far as I could reason, was, "Who are you? How do you use this hand and arm? Are you a warehouse worker, pianist, writer? Someone who does repetitive or refined movement? Someone who could take time off from whatever and let this heal without surgery?" His assistant had previously asked if I was right or left handed. I'm right handed, but had just driven a stickshift car from Colorado, some 1200 miles. She was amazed. He was impressed and my recuperative powers seemed to decide him against surgery.

"What do you do?" I ask it all the time. With a little probing it opens folks up to tell me about themselves. Everybody does something, and in the answering, their auras shine through.

Vanity and Lack of Time in Type

Achey. Took a header, on the chin, after my (new to me) bike’s brakes grabbed too hard (and possibly locked) on a high speed downhill run, steering one-handed. (My other hand was grabbing for my hat which was flying off.) Yes I should have been wearing a helmet, but not for the usual reasons. Damage done, which appears to be only soft-tissue, would still have been done. However, with the helmet, there would have been no hat to worry about, and I would have had both hands on the handle bars when this bike exhibited its unfortunate tendency to apparently lock-up. I chalk the accident up to vanity—the hat, instead of a helmet—and my lack of familiarity with this particular bicycle in a broader range of conditions.

Currently on the Drawing Board: 6/2011

Here she is on Market Street, demurely seated on her 1975 Vespa Rallye 200, in the "Independent" contingent of Dykes on Bikes,
just before the start of this morning’s SF 2011 Pride Parade. Georgette is the Vespa's original owner.

Currently on the Drawing Board: 1/2011

from The San Francisco Chronicle, and sfgate.com, Tuesday, January 11,
"Bay Area Living/People Meter: A measure of what's on our minds," p. E3

To see the whole article: download pdf

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