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Showing posts from August, 2010

(Emma's) Inner Beauty

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The entire months of July and August were consumed by the creation of three 12 x 12 pieces for a gallery show, in which I'm very honored and grateful to be included. I have very little experience on canvas, especially a piece bigger than 6 x 6! My desire to have pieces in the show won out, and I began planning the series of flowers - this is the first. For the petals, I take a piece of heavy paper, texture, embellish, paint and torture, then cut it into pieces. Fortunately I have that enormous stash of found objects and junk jewelry I've mentioned, so I didn't have too much trouble finding centerpieces, frames actually for the images. I am really bad at cutting a face from a collage sheet - or one from my own stash - without paying close attention to the maker of the sheet. I want to give credit where credit is due, so perhaps a bit of research is in order. I normally get collage sheets from Artchix, Kris Hubick, Paper Imagery Design... well, I'll go look. If anyone rec

soldering and synchronicity

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Every so often I find myself questioning the direction my art is taking... more cigar boxes, or mixed media canvases, how can I retain my sense of self and still evolve. The first answer came when the senior pastor at my church called on me to create a series of pieces based on the discussion during a new Sunday School class. The Edge is about our ancestral need to express our faith, in written word (the Apostles Creed for example), story and visually. Of course, I said, never stopping to wonder about the challenge he'd handed me. Then, I dropped my daughter off at the Woodland (Park) Art Fair , a juried annual show that attracts 200+ artists and an enormous audience. Impressive art sprinkled with mixed media. Like this guy, a piece by Brad Devlin , a Louisville artist that I 'discovered' in Ann Arbor, MI a few years ago. Having been in the midst of a rather nasty flare, I hadn't planned to stay but I happened upon a parking space - right beside the show - no walking!

Cigar, Cigarillo?

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Having finished the 12 x 12 canvases that consumed the month of July and part of August, I was thrilled. Then I decided to have some fun. The local gas station sells cigarillos in a variety of interesting flavors, peach, strawberry, white grape... I can't imagine what they must taste like but I'll bet the nice Indian man who owns the place can't imagine why I keep asking for the empty boxes! I had to let sit for a day or so with the lid open to air it out! No more grape scent and I went to town, gluing, grabbing scraps and odds/ends that I've had sitting for quite a while. Voila! The finished result is a half inch thicker thanks to all the layers, which also add stability, and hides the ink on the box. I have more junk jewelry than the law allows, or if there were a law I might be in violation. I've had my eye on the earring that I dismantled for the centerpiece; in the same family is a bracelet with some cool stones in the same 'family.' Below is the origin

six word saturday

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creative, chatty, connected, contemplative, close
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I've already established that door hangers can be fun (yes, Sharmon, you know they can:) So, I'll just say that in the midst of a deadline for a gallery show, for which I am not yet prepared, I find myself distracted by fun. Not that a mixed media canvas isn't fun, but I don't have the seasoning to separate creativity from the thought that a date is looming large. I'm in the midst of my third 12x12 and I really love them; for me they are a larger project so making door hangers is like instant gratification, one of my favorite things! Here's the one I made for Al, my nickname for my lovely daughter Alice, who never ceases to amaze me...

Art, Insecurities and Realizations

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Over the summer I've learned a lot about myself as an artist. Could have been the dozens of hours I spent making water angels in the lake... Several days I did little else; I truly realize the luxury of idle time, thought and the insight it often allows. We chose to spend our free time two hours from home in a cabin, minimal packing and travel time (and expense), no sights to see or relatives to visit (except the in-laws and Jim's mother is a great cook:). That's one of my ideal vacations, especially since this auto-immune disease swiped its portion of energy. But I've never liked to need a vacation to recuperate from a trip. I have been making art for just over four years and I still hesitate to call myself an artist. Maybe it's a relic from my writing days. Tell people your a writer and the first question they often ask is, "oh, what have you published?" Hence the differentiation between writer and author. I have written all my life, published commer

Flight of Dreams

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Flight of Dreams You stretch your arms, palms held out the way you reach into the chambers of my heart, once lush, velvet with dreams of my own, so many unspoken, now pale as the last hint of evening light. The sun has dropped low over the old black barn, weathered by hundreds of days just like this one. The sweet grass and Queen Ann’s lace return each summer from an imaginary sleep; who would have guessed that an uncultivated carrot could dream itself into such gauzy white lace, nodding in the slow breeze, they sense, like you do, a certain current in the air. Others might shrug, if they noticed at all or understood the flight of dreams. I watch you gather up the breeze, rise into the veiled yellow pink light and smile, knowing that the magic in your heart is enough. That you will defy this life of mortal gravity the way only you can.