Mike Leavitt’s recent show at Seattle’s Gallery 63eleven featured renderings of places like the Sunset bowling alley (painted on a bowling pin) and the Blue Moon Tavern in the University District (painted on a pack of smokes).  Mike Leavitt creates a variety of incredible work including handmade action figures. It is a minor travesty we can’t show it all to you on our blog. However, we can direct you to a place where you can view the fruits of his artistic labors.

1. Who or What is your biggest artistic inspiration?
Lately it’s been Barack Obama. I’ve been inspired by him personally since 2006, but all the success as of late has got me all high on hope and amped on optimism. The more direct inspirations for my work are pretty obvious and self-explanatory if you take a second to look at it. Since I base most of my work on real-life people, places and objects, it’s basically just these exact subjects that inspire the work. If I B.S. my way through explaining it any more than that, my work will seem like self-obsessed catharsis and it’ll sound like the boring old talk of an over-educated grad school student.

2. What is your favorite local book store?
Elliott Bay. I’m so fucking sick of old squeaky wood floors being torn out in Seattle. The only other one besides Elliott Bay is what used to be a cozy REI, now Value Village. At least they still left the staples ground into the wood bricks. There are some wooden corners of Pike Place that are squeaky, but you gotta deal with all the SUV-sized baby carriages, glacial tourists, and cell-phone-yapping yuppies.

3. Where is the best place to view art in Seattle?
Goodwill, Roq La Rue, Schmancy, Uwajimaya, Golden Age Collectibles, and any other place without huge sterile white walls imprisoning entertaining objects.

4. What is the best site or blog that we don’t know about yet?
Mine - http://www.intuitionkitchenproductions.com/

5. If you could be a made up comic book superhero what would be your name? Why?
It would be Fo’Real, so I could run around and call out all the corny, played-out, artificial, impersonal crap that most people pass as genuine, interesting, or meaningful. I’d have a magical bitch slap that’d make someone instantly quit being a chicken shit and start saying things they’ve always been afraid to say. I’d probably have to have someone like Mr. Diplomat as a sidekick to balance my attack. We’d fly around in a supersonic PR machine, hunting down loud-mouthed pessimistic assholes that keep people quiet, cynical, and complacent.

http://www.intuitionkitchenproductions.com/

[Editor’s Note: As in the print magazine’s Artist Portfolio, the blog feature will showcase exceptional visual talent in all mediums. Please send submissions to ali @ rivetmagazine.org.]

Nevermind that it was the first night in months that I had to turn on the heat. Nevermind that it’s the first time in weeks that I’ve needed a scarf. Nevermind that despite daylight savings it’s still not quite sunrise at this time. The birds are hungry, the crocuses are gone, and blooms are popping up everywhere. The spring palette alights on every corner, in every measly shrub. Somehow in the midst of this mess it became March, and the flowers are arriving to prove it. You can’t say that doesn’t feel good.

I am still noticing the things that are missing, like the cherry trees that were cut down on the corner of those streets, and a lot of street art that has been recently painted over. But these things grow back, like a bad haircut. But then I remember about the tree they cut down in Volunteer Park a few years ago - it was dead, but beautiful - and then in the wake of a shrine that arose at the stump, a young sapling was planted. And so eventually it too will grow back and I will again be able to take shade under its branches on a hot summer day, painting watercolors to send in the mail.

And the end of my walk my eyes landed on a Guinness sign, and I realized I am to have a day of pinching to look forward to, because alas, I have no green on my person.

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) was founded by Iraq war veterans to give a voice to the large number of active duty service people and veterans who are against this war, but are under various pressures to remain silent. IVAW’s strategy is to mobilize the military community to withdraw its support for the war and occupation in Iraq. Therefore, IVAW is leading the movement of veterans and GIs who are working to bring the troops home now.

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan will feature testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those occupations, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground.

The four-day event will bring together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, there will be panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists to give context to the testimony. These panels will cover everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans’ health benefits and support.

Tune in March 13-16: check here for details on where broadcasts are taking place. Check here to see where events in your city are being hosted.

On this morning’s walk, all I could do is think about yesterday’s constitutionals. I learned that word this week: Constitutional. It’s a noun, defined in Merriam-Webster as “a walk taken for one’s health.” It’s a word for what I’ve been doing all along, so I’ve latched onto it pretty quickly.

Yesterday’s constitutionals were both morning and evening events, full of laughter and storytelling. At sunrise there was the telling scenery of the Seattle coastline, the snow-covered Olympics and the silver cloud-colored water. At dark, there were two cats - first one pure white and then another pure black, both deciding to join us for a period of walking. In the morn, coffee, and at night, tea.

In comparison, this morning is a bit of a letdown. Daylight savings happened but it was not any lighter. Also I ran out of coffee grind, so a lack of caffeine makes things just a bit duller. But we perservere, we do. Why? Because it’s good for our health. Because I say so.

Two questions today, totally unrelated except for the fact that they both occurred on this morning’s walk.

1. What’s the best kind of rain? The kind that is so light that you stay dry and don’t need a raincoat? The kind that is so wet that no amount of water protection has an effect? The “wintry mix” kind that makes you need, like, really need, hot chocolate and whipped cream? My favorite, I think, after all this wandering and pondering, is the kind that seems to be falling from a cloudless sky. Other people have probably seen this. The clouds have moved on, the sun is out, and - what? - it’s still raining? What’s up with that? It’s kind of cool.

2. Who goes shopping at 7 in the morning? I’ll tell ya, not a whole lot of people. It’s nice to be in the store because the bright lights and the refrigerating hum obliterates all sense of time. It makes you forget that it’s early and that it’s dark out and that you havent had your coffee yet. For a brief moment in time, you feel equalized. If more people knew this, then they would shop before work. I guarantee it.

I will leave you with some words of wisdom to begin your week. Please remember that you always have a choice. This is a condition people forget or psych themselves out of [the human condition?], but it’s true. Always.

Thanks to all who came out for the R20 release - it was a blast!

This morning there was an uncomfortable-looking man stumbling down the street in the classic seven-dwarvian manner with one of those new green bags from Whole Foods. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to food shop we go? It’s possible that he was using the bag for non-food-related contents, just a conveniently sized tote. Or maybe he is a person that plans ahead, realizing that he was going to get some food shopping done after work so he may as well bring the bag along, lest he get suckered into snagging another one for 99 cents.

99 cents ain’t bad, though. I’ll admit that I bought one the other day. I’ll also say that those flimsy things hold a lot more weight than you’d expect. But it made me wonder about a lot of things at the store. For instance, it’s a nice thing to eliminate the plastic shopping bags at the checkout, but how much good are you really doing when your “green” bag is packed with numerous other plastic bags full of vegetables and granola and beans?

I’ve been saying for awhile that I think Starbucks should stop serving to-go cups. It looks like WF beat them to the media punch, but not in such a big way either. The coffee giants certainly could use the good publicity and maybe the chance to revolutionize the design of the mugs they sell. Not that it would get me into their stores - not in Seattle, anyway.

Kudos to Whole Foods for making a small step. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s a green way they go - or maybe.

Serious business thoughts for a Monday morning. That poor guy just looked so disconsolate.

Portlanders and Seattleites! If you are in any sort of design business and are a lady, too, join Design*Sponge for a Biz Lady Meet Up at your city’s Design Within Reach showroom next week.

Superblogger Grace Bonney will host the discussions of “small business concerns, marketing/PR, real life designer success stories and retailing/wholesaling” Tuesday, Feb. 26 from 7 to 9 p.m. in Portland and Thursday, Feb. 28 from 7 to 9 p.m. in Seattle. You can get all the details here.

(And even if you don’t attend the meetup, there’s always something pretty and new on the blog—so definitely visit.)

Mmmmm, coffee.

No, wait, I’m supposed to be outside, walking, at 7AM. And I was, not to worry. I would not fail you, fellow blog-readers, at least I have not yet.

Nevertheless, I just love my Vivace coffee and I wanted you to know.

Virginia is humid today. If I thought there were so many birds out last Monday morning (and I did) - well, it was just a prelude. Today was a symphony. And it’s not even spring yet. And, checking in on those daffodils, I found them waiting in the soft dirt with yellowing tips. I think they will be able to hold out until March, which is a safe time to bloom.

But the branches, the barren, twisted branches still show absolutely no sign of life.

Has this become our fate? To lie in wait for a season that will elude us for weeks to come? Lately I’ve been keeping tabs on other people’s conversation topics, and I’ve been around a lot of other people, all over the country, so I think its probably true to say this: People are obsessed with weather conditions. Obsessed!

Firstly I think it’s about natural disasters - the rubbernecking impulse. And not even disasters, but any kind of extreme weather will do the trick. Secondly, it’s a conventional ice breaker, for when parents and grandparents call to see how you’re doing, or when you find yourself awkwardly placed at a dinner party. Thirdly, it’s a way for people to project their emotions:
“How’s it going?”
“It’s okay, but it’s been raining all week, so, you know…”
Typical for a Seattle-ite pretty much all the time.

Think about the word, weather. It’s a verb too, in the sense that we weather the weather, we stick it out, we persevere. Often it is said that we must “weather the storm,” but do we ever get to “weather this glorious summer day?” Of course not. Weather is by it’s very definition a thing that we suffer.

But soon, if it hasn’t happened already, another conventional national obsession is about to emerge - Election 2008. We don’t quite know yet what the tone of this summer’s campaign is going to be. There’s a chance it may be hopeful, glittering with a future that not very many people even thought possible a few months ago. There’s also the possibility of some serious and damaging domestic warfare. If we are not careful, our friends could become our enemies by the end of a serious conversation about foreign policy or government-sponsored health care.

Maybe we are all better off just sticking to the weather.

Get your black comedy on this Tuesday at 7 p.m. with Heathers, the first selection in the EMP and Science Fiction Museum’s new Exposed: Inside Film series. The screening will be followed by a conversation with writer Daniel Waters, the man who penned lines like “Bulimia’s so ‘87″ and who recently reunited with Winona Ryder for Sex and Death 101.

Heathers aficionados can toast Heather Chandler with a “Big Blue”—Captain Morgan’s Parrot Bay Coconut Rum, Blue Curacao and pineapple juice, muddled with lemon—at Revolution Bar & Grill’s pre-movie happy hour.

Future films in the monthly series include The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival and The Golden Compass.