Maura

Maura’s New Studio

I’d like to present to you the newest addition to the Fowler/Cluthe home:

We’ve been spending most of our free time working on Maura’s new studio and it’s all been worth it! In fact I took a week of vacation to help with the siding. We’re so excited to see it near completion. There are only a few more small details and it’ll be ready for Maura to move back in!

I’ve been obsessively taking pictures of the whole process. You can see them all at my Studio Renovation Gallery. Thanks to our friend Mike Mastin and his crew, Mike, Pete, Chris, Randy, and everyone else that helped. They do great work if you need anything done to your house!

Vancake

If you didn’t already know, I have a soft spot in my heart for vintage VW’s – Ghias, Vans, Squarebacks, Things, but particularly Beetles. I have an extensive collection of toy VWs, mostly Bugs, only a portion of which I have the room to display. Someday I hope to photograph my collection and post it. We just buy a beautiful new display case which lives in our front entry so several more of my friends can live out in the open. They love sharing the space with Maura’s robots too!

The observant amongst you will notice that the walls are a different color. It’s a bad picture taken at night with a flash, so the color’s not 100% accurate but you get the idea. We did that last weekend, it needed new paint and we decided to go with something a little different.

However, none of that was what I really set out to write about. What I wanted to share with you was this:

From the original post:

Volkswagen parts specialist Just Kampers teamed up with artist Andy Saunders to produce the World’s Lowest VW Bus – also known as the Camper. The 3-foot (1 meter) tall VW Bus entitled “Vancake” that’s fully road legal was created by Saunders and his team in just three days during this past weekend’s (July 18 to 20) Bug Jam festival at the UK’s Santa Pod Raceway. Apart from lowering the roof the team also applied a custom paint job and an electric sunroof.

I love seeing the modifications people have made to their classic VWs. It’s great to see them restored to their original condition, but some of the mods are very creative and fun!

One Hundred Pushups

Maura and I quit the gym we had been going to – a good friend of mine had an unfortunate interaction with the owner (I won’t provide details, but the owner could have handled the situation better), and in all honesty, we hadn’t been in a while. A couple weeks ago a ran across www.hundredpushups.com and lacking any other physical exercise, we decided to try it. It’s a progressive pushup training program, each week you are required, and able to do a few more, until after the sixth week, you should be able to one hundred pushups in one go, with no breaks. I managed to do twenty-five in the initial test, which surprised me. At the end of the first week I did sixty-three with breaks.

We just started our second week and I definitely feel a difference. Right after doing them my arms feel like jelly, but the pain I felt when I first started, which lasted for a few days, is gone. I don’t hurt at all after a new set.

I realize that it’s far from a complete workout regimen, but it’s a start.

Going to Nashville

Maura’s been working on some pieces for a show at Tag Art Gallery in Nashville and I think we’re going to try to make the opening! In the four years I’ve known her, we have yet to make it to one of her openings together. She’s been out in the studio a lot in the past two weeks, with the exception of last weekend of course) and she’s been doing a lot of super fun stuff! This is one of my favorites:

Visit her page on the TAG website for a preview of the work she’s displaying. Here’s more info about the show.

Another very cool piece:

I’m very excited about the trip. Nashville is an interesting place, but it’s also the first opening of hers that we’ve been able to attend! It should be a lot of fun!