Cutting-Up’s Artist Blog

“Dear Prudence” is one of my fave Beatles songs.  Click on the lyrics or the image below to watch a video of the very cool song.  I hope you truly enjoy!

Dear Prudence Lyrics

Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It’s beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won’t you come out to play

Dear Prudence open up your eyes
Dear Prudence see the sunny skies
The wind is low the birds will sing
That you are part of everything
Dear Prudence won’t you open up your eyes?

Look around round round
Look around round round
Look around round round

Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It’s beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won’t you come out to play

While nature winds down for the season’s change, nature never stops impressively giving.  This beautiful flower continues to share its beauty with me just at my doorsteps.  Seems we should learn much from nature.

Some days I look at the world differently and appreciate people, things, and experiences even more fully.  Of late, I’ve been collecting bids from plumbers for a pipe leak in my 1950’s home, aka: “the craft cabin”.  

Today a plumber stood me up, for the 2nd time, sniff.  (Okay… um, yewww do nawt know me, snap!).  Prior to getting “The Heisman” from the ‘plumber’dzur’, Steve, one of the Cutting-Up partners, decided he would survey my situation, an offer I found endearing from our infrasturcture cultivator, numbers man, & appointed Pres also moonlighting as husband, father, friend, custom home builder, ironman - oh, and he has a full-time, high-pressure sales job.  (As an aside & very appropriately, long ago Jay dubbed Steve with the nickname “Inspector Gadget” and the scope of that title has certainly become more apparent as our time together expands.)

DIGRESSION #764 - THE TEAM EXPLAINED: (more…)

Well shiver me timbers!  Cutting-Up is indeed honored to have been selected by Sabrina James, Editor in Chief, as an “Editor’s Pick” for her Central Florida’s Hip & Sophisticated Parenting Magazine, PLAYGROUND! Sabrina placed us on page 10 of the Fall 2008 issue of PLAYGROUND. Big thanks to all the magazine’s staff in Orlando, Florida for seeking, finding, selecting, and highlighting the Cutting-Up Road Warrior T-shirt!  You can find a higher quality of the article that includes our tee via the link below by selecting page 10 of their publication. Here is a direct link to download a high-resolution PDF of each page in the magazine of this issue of Playground Magazine.  A small copy of the page is below for you to see!  We are so happily honored, PLAYGROUND!  

Cutting-Up hopes to assist in elevating all the Hip Moms of perpetual motion, united by coffee lines and carpools everywhere!  With your gift of keen intuitive natures, there’s no doubt you’re channeling into our collective good vibe which lies beneath the creation of each of our designs, and most assuredly, all your good mothering routines. You’re true Road Warriors!  Like go mom, go!   

At first glance, understandably, bats are not easy to fancy.  Faced with the challenge of creating a new Halloween tee for Cutting-Up, I decided on a bat.  As I worked, however, a creative impass arose and I phoned my wise mother for help.  Mom said, “You don’t love the bat.  You need to learn about the bat.  They truly are nature’s little helpers.” With her encouragement, I set out to learn about bats.  I didn’t expect to appreciate and fall head over heals for the little creatures and wrote two poems about the bat… one for the website and one for the back of the tee:

Bats are cool, not that scary.

Flying mammals with fur, but not too hairy.

Bats help the earth as they fly through the night,

In just one hour they can eat 600 mosquitoes - that’s outta’ sight!

Don this design and boast the bat,

And you’re sure to be the talk of all the Halloween chat.

On the tee, the poem is about a bat who has learned to appreciate her gifts no matter how she’s percieved:

Loving herself uniquely

Gigantic wings genetic,

Acrobatically she flew,

Her joy a pure aesthetic.

Surfing the web, I discovered the worlds largest bat experiences is as close to as Austin, Texas! Near the bat experience is a bat sculpture called “Night Wings” created by Dan Whistler an artist and Austin-local. The bat story of Austin’s Congress Avenue Bridge is quite fascinating. The site has bat trivia, bat stories, bat links, and bat quizes.  

As fate would have it, the generous universe arranged an opportunity for me to personally experience the bats of Austin.  Accompanying my friend on a work conference, I was overjoyed as we drove right to the hotel with the fabulous rotating bat sculpture that I had seen on the web.  And, along with bat fans from all over, we walked down a small portion of Austin’s hike and bike trail and joined others sitting under the Congress Avenue Bridge at dusk.  Many more observers gathered atop the bridge and we waited to watch the colony of one million bats head out for their evening of ridding the evening of bugs and pests.  It’s truly a site to behold, an amazing, unique experience.  Personally, I was brought to tears as the bats emerged and loved how the crowd rose and cheered as the bats began to take flight.  I hope you too can learn to love the bat!  BOOYA!