Last Weekend Trip

This weekend I took what may be my last weekend trip for a few months. School starts next week, which pretty much guarantees the end of all recreational activities. Anyway, we had a family reunion up at the family cabin in Pine, Arizona. It was really fun to spend the weekend with almost the whole family, especially all of our neices and nephews (we have 22)! All the wild blackberries were ripe, so my nieces and I picked loads of them and made fresh dutch oven blackberry cobbler. It was AMAZING! We also made apple and peach cobbler, but the blackberry was the most delicious and the first to get all gobbled up. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it all cooked, but by the time it was done it was way too dark outside!

We did lots of fun things, but one of the all time favorite cabin past times is painting rocks for the rock garden.

This was my artistic endeavor for the weekend, and my addition to the garden. Do you think I can include that in my portfolio?:) In case you can't tell, its a sumo wrestler. They make me laugh.

Oh, and we did a little antique shopping and I found some great things which I will post soon!

Coppersmith

I don't believe you have been formally introduced to my friend Coppersmith. He lives with me, and he likes to eat my art stuff (especially expensive prismacolor pencils and doilies). I've had him for just over a year now. The little boy who owned Copper before me named him Waffles. He even has a tattoo in his ear that says WFL (the rabbitt not the kid). I thought he needed a more fitting name so we came up with Coppersmith and it just fit. Isn't he cute? His favorite food is cilantro and he does not like carrots. He also likes to thump his back feet really loud on the floor and shake his ears back and forth angrily when he doesn't get his way. If you scratch behind his ears in exactly the right spot, he stretches out like a dog. Oh, and he likes toes.

Front Page!!!

Woo Hoo! My Elk Tracks Embroidered Necklace is on the front page of Etsy right now!!

Dumb

Sometimes I do really dumb stuff. Like today for example. I bought this platter on ebay months ago. When I bought it, it was painted ugly tacky gold and had lime green and cream colored flowers painted all over it. Ick. I knew it had potential though, just look at that pierced decorative edge! I spent HOURS huffing lacquer thinner (I know, I'm bad, but I just kept thinking 2 more minutes...) to strip all those coats of horrible kitchy paint off. I wish I had taken a "before" picture to show you. Then I religiously spritzed the platter with water every hour or so when I was at the studio FOR WEEKS trying to get it to rust. I wanted a rusty color background for a silhouette wall piece idea I have. Well, things take FOREVER to rust in Arizona. Forever. Anyway, some of the know-it-all sculpture grad guys told me to just spray it with Muriatic Acid, but I was too lazy to go out and buy it so I just kept spritzing it with water hoping for the perfect rustiness. Today I decided I was happy with the rust. It looked so pretty. So, I thought it would be a GREAT idea to spray the platter with a varnish coat to make it permanent. BAD IDEA. All it did was turn my beautiful rusty platter into a dark shiny brown mess. So then I had to spend forever burning OFF the acrylic varnish that I meticulously coated ON (and probably filling the studio with some really nasty fumes). Some days I swear are just worthless. I accomplished nothing at the studio today. Except maybe a good dose of humility. Duh. And, now I have to re-rust my platter. Fooey. Lets hope tomorrow is more productive!

And, if this post sounds negative, its not, I'm just sharing a valuable learning experience with you. ALWAYS test first. I know that. I have learned that lesson a million times! Apparently I needed to learn it once more!

Made me laugh. SO hard.

I found this hilarious artist,Marc Johns through dear ada. I went to his flickr site and just couldn't stop looking until I had seen them all. Even his statement was hilarious...

"Marc Johns creates whimsical drawings filled with dry wit and humour. Whether it’s a man with branches growing out of his head that need pruning, or a pipe that’s trying to quit smoking, his characters are simply, sparsely drawn, yet speak volumes with just a few strokes of the pen. He's been drawing since he was tiny. He's not tiny anymore, but he's not exactly big either. Marc is not sure why he's talking about himself in the third person... "

Click here to read more.

Artwork by Marc Johns.

Etching

I will be teaching an etching class at Phoenix Center for the Arts this fall. We will cover all the basic resits and PNP transfer paper. The dates are November 22-December 13th on Saturdays from 12-3pm. More details here.

Work in Progress

Here are some in progress shots of a wall piece I am working on at the moment. The black "chain" links are just drawn in sharpie. They will eventually be embroidered, but I haven't decided what stitch or colors to use. The top platter is about 8" tall, and the bottom one is about 6" wide. Right now, the only thing embroidered on them is hands. The top platter has a hand, letting the chain fall, and the bottom platter has two cupped hands ready to catch it. I also have not decided yet if I will do a border on these. So, they sit unfinished until I make up my mind or just start drilling. Usually I just start drilling because it seems like I can never make up my mind.

Drawing

I've been doing a little drawing lately...nothing serious, just for fun. I was never any good at it, but there is something very calming about taking a pencil to some paper and just letting your mind take you where it wants.

I also like to add embroidery.

New Piece: Linked

So, I know I already posted this, but I had some issues with Blogger and accidentally deleted the post (and all the comments, sorry to those of you that commented) so, I am posting it again. This piece is in the Night Gallery show for a month, so go check it out. See here for details. The professor in charge of the Gallery changed my title from "Linked" to "Chain of Evidence". Apparently he sees something very different in the piece than I do, but isn't that part of the beauty of art? A million interpretations. I enjoyed reading some of your interpretations on this piece and I'm sorry they were lost.

Altered silver platter, embroidery, hand fabricated chain

Trade: OlliesWoollies

I've loved Swedish artist, Catherine Svensson's work for a while now. Her jewelry is just so tactile and vibrant. I finally got up the guts and asked her to trade and to my delight she said yes! I got this warm rusty orange woolly bobble bracelet and I LOVE it!!!
Check out her etsy shop...OlliesWoollies.

Oh, and next on my list of things to buy...is one of these awesome necklaces!

Opening at the Night Gallery

Come see another great show (and my new piece in the post below) at the Night Gallery! The gallery puts up a new show with all new work in lots of different mediums every month. All work is created by ASU Graduate Students, Faculty and Alumni.

The opening reception is Thursday, August 7th from 6-9 pm. There will even be delicious catering. Oh, and some of the artwork had to be brought in with a forklift...just trying to get you excited. It should be another awesome show!

The Night Gallery is located at 2000 E Rio Salado Parkway in Tempe. Crossroads are McClintock and Rio Salado. The gallery is located next to Aeropostale.

Nothing Better

There is nothing better than logging onto etsy and seeing one of my own pieces included with awesome other artists on the front page (its the embroidered animal track necklace). I love etsy! Thanks loosewirestudio for the front page worthy list:)

The Nerdiest Thing I've Ever Done

I swore I wasn't going to blog about this, but everyone I know keeps asking me why I haven't yet. Okay Okay. I didn't want to announce to the world what a dork I am, but you talked me into it. On Friday I went to the midnight release party at Barnes and Noble to pick up my copy of Breaking Dawn. Yes, I braved the crowds, hundreds of screaming squealing girls, crazy people in costumes, and the embarrassment of being in the middle of it all just so I could read it ASAP. Breaking Dawn is the 4th and final book in the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. I heard about the books a couple of years ago but didn't want to jump on the trend train and read them. Then when I went to Tennessee this summer I needed some reading material for the airplane and I caved in and bought them. I ended up reading the first 3 books in 6 days and then twice more since I got them in June. I got the 4th one, Breaking Dawn, at Midnight on Friday and finished it yesterday afternoon (its almost 800 pages). I read all night and all day until I was done. Anyway, I don't want to give anything away for the people that haven't read it yet, but I am curious about you guys... Do I have any fellow Twilight fans? Please say yes... If not, give them a try. They are really good! They say Stephenie Meyer is the new JK Rowling. There is even a movie coming out in December. You better believe I will be there opening night:) Check out the trailers...

Summer Experience

This summer I taught two 4 week classes at Phoenix Center for the Arts. The class was an intro to metals for 8-12 year olds the first session, and 11-14 year olds the second session. It was only 2 hours once a week (8 hours total).

The thing with kids is, I always dread it at first. I hate the discipline part of it. When you teach adults you don't have to worry about telling them to stop hitting each other with hammers, stop pinching each other with pliers, or to stop winding wire around each others necks. With kids, you almost always have to teach and discipline. I just like to teach. So, because of this, I always stress out when I teach kids classes. But, the kids classes are always the most rewarding. The second group I had this summer was really awesome. Maybe it was because it was mostly girls, or maybe it was because they were older, but I had SO much fun with them. They even had me laughing so hard one day I was crying. Anyway, the classes are over now but the Phoenix Center put on a little art show at the end to show off their work.

The kids did 2 projects. The first project was etched pendants. I just had them use nail polish and paint pens as a resist. I didn't mess around with asphaltum or anything like that. Too messy. The second project was a wire wrapped beaded mobile.

The girl who made this one was hilarious. She said her dad went through a mid life crisis and bought a hot air balloon, so her family always goes on hot air balloon rides. She made a mobile of all different shaped hot air balloons. I thought it was pretty neat.

I also liked this one a lot. You can't tell, but she made wire letters that spelled her name...

I really liked the superheroes that they did in the drawing class though. The one on the right is "The Flower Spreader" and he "spreads flowers throughout the town and creates flower gardens wherever he goes." We need more superheroes like that!

It was a great experience, and I think I just may do it again!

New Piece: Self Portrait

Just finished this new piece. It hangs on the wall rather than being displayed on a pedestal like the others in this series. I should have finished it days ago, but I don't like it so it took me much longer than it should have. These pictures aren't great but they will do for now. "Unsure" (A Self Portrait)

Altered Silver Platter and Embroidery
12"x5"x2"

Here is a view of it on the wall. This is definetly not a likely place for this piece (it really wasn't meant for my living room), but I just wanted to give you an idea as to the perspective.