The Dingus and Tr-octopus

This spring, I decided to sign up for a couple local "adult education" classes. It's always a good excuse to get out of the house on a weeknight and learn some fun new skills, so I signed up for a "mosaics" class and the Thai cooking class I mentioned earlier.

I knew it would be a bit of a stretch for me to take an art class - despite the wonderful artistic genes provided by my mother, aunt, and grandmother, I've never exactly been a natural talent. I recall one day in high school when my friend Steve and I presented our art projects to the class. The art teacher commented, "Steve, that is really wonderful work. You are very talented. Kate.... well, you try REAL hard!". Heh.

Anyway, at the first day of mosaic class, I was happy to see that the try-harders outnumbered the natural-talents about 9 to 2. We are quite the motley crew - we have gone through two emergency kits' worth of band-aids already. For my contribution, I have clipped my fingers with tile cutters 2 times, gotten one small piece of flying tile shrapnel in my eye and probably inhaled a fair amount of silicon grout dust. But no sacrifice is too great in the pursuit of true art!

And so, without further ado, I present to you the first two Kate Nichols originals. I call them the Dingus and Tr-octopus. Anyone need a really big drink coaster or two?