but very nearly a lamp fire.

Art is not always the seamless and graceful creation of something beautiful out of random other things. Often it is the messy and curse-laden creation of crap out of other crap.

Today I was attempting to make another lamp as a gift for my son for Christmas. My idea was to make an octopus with XBOX consoles for tentacles and LED light strips running in and around the thing.

After hours of diligent work the base was finished, the lights were in, and I had three tentacles, having already decided it was going to be more of a tri-pus than an octopus.

After hours of hard work and preparation it was time to shape and cover the thing.

Which is when my friend asked me if I smelled any burning.

I live in an old house. She’s nearly 120 years old, so my first thought was wiring or the heater I was using on the porch. It wasn’t until I had given up on finding the smell and settled back down thinking it was a passing car that I smelled it again.

In the fucking lamp.

All those lovely LED lights were heating up just enough to cause burning chemical smells to emanate from my creation.

I swore some and began ripping the lighting out of the three tentacled monstrosity.

Which is how I ended up painting my son an image from Super Mario Bros. (Which I will not be sharing here until after Christmas in case he reads my blog.)