New Ring

I got this ring a while back and LOVE it. It was made by the talented Ashley Akers of AshleyJewelry. Ashley also happens to be my mentor in EtsyMetal. You should check out her shop!

Table Manners

The opening for the Table Manners show was last night. The show looks SO good! The Arizona Museum for Youth is such a nice space! You should definetly check it out if you get a chance.

Scott was camping and couldn't come with me, so this is what he surprised me with. Orchids were the first flowers he ever sent me. We met in my first year of college, and I can still remember having those orchids in my little dorm room!Anyway, it was a great day and the show was awesome!

Table Manners

Recently, I was invited to exhibit a piece I created as an undergrad in a show at the Arizona Museum for Youth, entitled Table Manners.

The museum describes the show as...

"The dinner table is often a place where families gather to talk about their days and share a good meal. For many artists, though, it serves as a source of inspiration, leading them to create work that examines the evolution of kitchen-related objects, food preparation and sharing. Table Manners offers a refreshing look at artwork and objects created from an imaginative range of materials, and celebrates decades of artists transforming the family table and kitchen devices into objects of beauty, whimsy and wit. The messages of the materials, and their very familiarity, add layers of content and the delight of recognition."

I am very excited for the opportunity to be included in this exhibition!

The show dates are March 29th-September 14th. If you have a chance, check it out!

Other ASU artists who are also participating are Mindy Sue Meyers, Becky McDonah, and Jonothan Brown. It should be a really fun show to see!

Things I Enjoyed This Easter Weekend

Being with family, especially my little Bro who is graduating from U of A in electrical engineering and moving to Boston to work for Raytheon:( Smarty Pants!

80 Degree weather, sitting on the porch all day

BLACK JELLY BEANS

Scrabble

Sleep

Reeses Easter Eggs
and...

Helping my mom set up her new Etsy shop! She makes stained glass windchimes and suncatchers, among other things. Check it out! She just started, and will be adding things slowly, so give it a couple of days! (These pics are some of her suncatchers)

P.S. Whats your favorite part of Easter?

Inflatable: The Day After

Well, the day of inflation went great (other than the major sunburn I got and the fact that I had to run and check on the beasts every hour because the tape kept melting and the seams kept opening up.) Its only Easter and we are already in 90 degree weather! I love it:)

My students did a great job!

Now, I am in Tucson to spend Easter with my family. See you Monday!

Inflatable Sculpture

This semester I am teaching Three Dimensional Design at ASU. It has been really fun, but recently has been WAY fun! Tomorrow we will be inflating some large sculptures (16 feet in one dimension). If you need something to do, stop by for some excitement!

Come see them inflate in person!

When: Thursday March 20th 10am-730pm

Where: In the Art Building Courtyard

Why: Because its cool, and its a giant plastic thing filled with air! Duh...

OR, if you have a really good reason for missing out on the fun, you can watch our trial run on

this video...

In case you can't tell, one is a dragonfly and one is a frog. I am really proud of my students for their ambition with this project! Come check it out!

Or, see what else they have done here.

Ghostown Adventure

Yesterday was my husbands birthday. He asked me to take the day off and spend it with him, so we could go explore an Arizona ghost town called Cochran out in the desert of Pinal county. So, we began our little adventure early in the morning and drove as far as we could on paved roads. We did have to drive for quite a while on dirt roads though.

Spring in the desert is beautiful and the landscape was scattered with patches of brightly colored wildflowers. It was gorgeous! My husband found this info on ghosttowns.com...

"Cochran's post office was established January 3, 1905 and discontinued January 15, 1915. Cochran was a mining camp but also served as a stop on the Sante Fe, Prescott, Phoenix railroad. The town supported about 100 people and had a general merchandise store, boardinghouse, and many other establishments. Today all that remains are the coke ovens across the river. The town was named for John. S. Cochran, the first postmaster."

These are the coke ovens. They are really strange looking out in the middle of nowhere!

We tried to get to the kilns, but weren't interested in trespassing across the fence below, or wading the river. Next time we will go prepared. We definitely plan on returning.

We walked along this neat little path for quite a while, wondering if we would ever get to the river, but eventually we found water!

This is us at the Gila river.

On our trip we also found this mine near Winkelman, AZ. It looked like a man made grand canyon, it was SO huge.

This is us inside the shovel of the tractors they use to mine. The tire was three times the height of our car.

Chrysocolla is one of the things they mine there.

It was a really fun trip and nice to take a day off!

Spring "Break"

This week is spring break. Translated that means "cram as much studio time into one week as physically possible, while also trying to get some research done in the library". Funny how these are the two things that I can never seem to find time for when school is actually in session. Teaching sucks up all of my time! So, I visited the library and got way more books than I could possibly read in a year. I am also making major progress on a wall piece that I am super excited about. I'm not going to tell you about it just yet. I will just tease you by showing you some in progress images and making you wonder in agonizing anticipation:)

Speaking of teasing, did I mention it was 86 degress today? I love Arizona!

Printed Textiles

This semester I have been taking a printed textiles class and have been loving it! This was my first ever screen print on fabric. Here are some progress shots. I started out with white cotton and printed a simple shape and repeated it randomly in varying colors. Then I added some larger shapes. And some dotted outlines...Here is the final product! I added some profiles and silhouettes.

Then I did a registered repeated pattern. Its supposed to be hands, but I think it is hard to tell.

Not sure what I am going to do with these fabrics now... any bright ideas?

Yuma Presenters

The presenters at the Yuma Symposium were awesome and gave great lectures, I listed the artists whose lectures I went to here if you want to check out their websites. The image above was one I took during a demo that David Clemmons gave (it was awesome!)

Diane Falkenhagen, metals. Diane's work (below) was so inspiring to me, it gave me all these ideas for new work and new techniques. Her jewelry is so clean, and so feminine...I love it!

David Clemons, metals

Marjorie Schick, sculpture and jewelry (image below)

Robin McClosky, printmaking

Myra Greene, photography (image below)

Yuma is a really great Symposium and I am already looking forward to next year!