ad libitum

A BIT OF SELF PROMOTION

Some of my art is currently on display (and for sale) at For The Art (210 Lake Street, Kalamazoo). I was there for last Friday's Art Hop and am keeping my work there for the month of March. I invite anyone local to stop by and take a look (hours are usually 11 to 5 Mondays through Fridays and 11 til 2 on Saturdays, but it's a good idea to call first).

This is a tree of angels, birds and word people.

This is a display of my dolls.

More of the dolls and some of my fabric photoshop images.

Fabric images and some large, matted photoshopped images.

These are two of my fabric collages commemerating my trip to Ireland. The collages are about 16x16 inches.

Frankly, the store 's participation in Art Hop was not particularly well attended (the store is out of the usual Art Hop pathway). I tried not to take this personally (with semi-success); and am deciding to focus on the fact that my art is on display in an actual place of business.

CHRISTMAS PURSES AND SOME ANGELS

I have become obsessed with reverse applique and Christmas fabric. This has resulted in making purses (one for me:not reverse applique; one for my  younger daughter: reverse applique; and one that I sold: mostly reverse applique.

This is the purse I made for myself. There are two zippered pouches on the inside. On this side, there are two pockets. On the left edge, you can sort of see the pocket for my cell phone.

There's zippered pocket on this side. On the left is a big, ong pocket for a water bottle or my foldy-cane.

This is the purse I made for my daughter.

And, the purse I sold. It has a zippered pouch on the outside and pockets on the inside.

I also have had some time for playing in photoshop. I'm involved in a prayer flag project and I decided that angels would be good prayer messengers. I love angel statues and am happy to have a nice collection of photos I've taken (always on the look-out for more). I have to admit, I'm rather pleased with my results. I may decide to use them for my Christmas cards.

GETTING READY FOR ART HOP AND GIVEAWAY WINNERS

First off, the winners of my fall banners (I'll send them off to you tomorrow, Monday) are Lori Hutchinson, Karen Owen, Carla Trump, Jackie Smith, Deb Lewis and Jeanie Croupe. Thank you, everyone who wanted a banner.

The past week and week-end, I have been working on some projects for the November Art Hop in Kalamazoo.

 

Below is a torso canvas I was working on. It's almost finished in this photo. The paper swirl has been painted over and now matches the rest of the canvas.

I made 13 digital/fabric sewn pieces of this show. I printed out digital collages (which I have previously made using Photoshop) on fabric and then sewed around them.

I wasn't sure how to finish these pieces. I tried putting them in frames, but wasn't happy with the frames I had. I then decided to sew the fabric onto watercolor sheets. I like the look of this.

I also have 10 dolls that I'm going to exhibit.

I want this to all be indicative of my work, but I flit about so much in my art that it's hard to show an accurate sampling.

CROWNS AND FRIENDS AND VENDING AT ARTUNRAVELED

ArtUnraveled was a delightful event. Kudos to Linda and Chuck for their great organizational skills; I'm in awe. The good news is that I got together with a lot of friends; the bad news is that I was so busy enjoying people, I forgot to take many pictures. Jennifer and Martha and Maija made large deposits in my Memory Bank, but, sadly, not on my photo card.

Here is a photo of me and Lorri Scott. I am wearing the incredible duster she created for me (I had to provide the basic negligee for her to work from because she couldn't find one in my size). I told her to make something beautiful for me. She did more than that; she made me something that makes me feel beautiful. (In case you're wondering why I'm wearing a crown; I wore one almost every day to advertise my crown class.  And, yes, I painted those shoes).

 

Here's a photo of Angie Platten at lunch at the Phoenix Art Museum (great Cezanne exhibit; and, just as important; great restaurant).

 

I include a photo of me because it looks like I have only two chins in this shot.

 

Friday night, Fran Saperstein helped me set up for the Shopping Extravaganza (Saturday from 10 to 4 - crowded enough that we forgot to take photos during it).

 

The very nice news is that I made more than my booth fee; so I'm in the black from my first big vending experience. Michael bought one of my crowns ("I wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight?") and I just had to take a photo of him in it.

 

Monday night was my crown class. I had four delightful students. One of them was Fran and she very nicely took some photos of my class.

Here's a shot of me demonstrating how to wrap fabric around the wire base.

 

Our class wan in a hotel suite (perfect size for a small class) and he're a shot Fran took of people working on their crown.

No crowns were finished during the class; but everyone got to the adding embellishments part, which is the last step and and I'm pretty sure they will be finishing (if they have not already finished) their crowns soon and will be making more.

Here's Marion in her crown of many colors.

 

Here's Andrea showing her intricate crown.

 

Louanne (sorry if I have the spelling wrong) made a beautifully multi-layered crown.

 

Here's a photo of Fran, taken on Wednesday, after she complete her crown.

My students were all jewels in my teaching crown and they made the class a delightful experience.

STILL WORKING ON CUFFS

I am still making cuffs to sell at the Shopping Extravaganza at ArtUnraveled in August and to maybe sell on my website. I listened to people and am now making them in a variety of sizes (7 inches to 8 1/2 inches). I'm not sure how many to make, but I'm building up inventory. I've decided to use pcv pipe to display them and just bought some at Lowe's. So far, I've just made black ones and ivory ones (more of each partially made, in the pipeline, so to speak). Below are some photos. I do plan to make some in other colors. I do worry about whether they'll sell.

CUFFS

I love fabric cuffs. I love making fabric cuffs. I want to sell some on my web. I want to sell some at the Vendor event at ArtUnraveled in August. And, I want to give some to some friends. I have completed 11. I have 70 more in various stages of being finished (I really do tend to make multiples). So far, I have made two colors sets; the white/off white ones are made with bases of my fabric squares (see my March 13, 2009 posting) and the dark ones started as the vintage kimono I recently bought. I already have ideas for more. Making cuffs is very addictive.

Each cuff is embellished with bits of fabric/lace/resin paper/buttons/beads. I have used vintage buttons, some of my own polymer buttons, bits of vintage or regular lace, papers I have covered with resin, and assorted beads to embellish my cuffs.  Because I have chubby little wrists (if chubby ankles are called cankles, are chubby wrists called wrankles?), some of my cuffs are a tad longer than the standard 8 to 8 1/2 inches (I'm assuming I'm not the only chubby wristed person around).

 

NOT SO SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION

I love ArtUnraveled; and in 2010 I will be teaching my first class there. I am going to teach a class in making crowns on Monday evening, August 9 from 6:30 to 9:30. I promise it will be a fun class and you can run with your imagination. Registration opens December 30 and continues through the retreat. I invite you to sign up for my class (and, by the way, the line up of teachers and workshops at AU is great - see previous link - and you'll find a lot you want to sign up for: my problem is that I'd like to take more of the workshops than is humanly possible). I have posted some crowns below; but no one in the class will be limited to these rather traditional designs and the color palette is wide open.

Also, I want to let you know that I have posted albums of my photos from Israel, Egypt and Jordan on my Mobile Me account and have posted links on the sidebar to the right. I invite you to take a look. There are an awful lot of them, but there were so many wonderful things to photograph.

JOURNALS

I have an approach-avoidance relationship with journals. I love what people are doing with journals. I long to keep the really cool travel journals with sketches and drawings that people do (almost made it with a travel journal when I went to Italy last summer, fizzled out in the end). I would love to have a collection of journals that reflect my thoughts, ideas, worries, triumphs, secrets, art, etc; but I never seem to get to creating/recording them. I just bought Diana Trout's Journal Spilling (you can buy it from Diana, order it from Amazon or buy it in a book store) and really like her approach; but, I don't know how long I'll stay with it as I work my way through it. The closest I've come to keeping an art journal is this blog.

However, I do write lists, carry things around, and make notes to myself. I have a blatantly disorderly approach to journaling on paper...So, I make journals that reflect this inconsistent. untidy approach. I sew vinyl pockets and tags and different types (and sizes) of pages into my journals. Thinking that others may be intimidated by tidy, pristine books to journal in, I'm going to put my journals up on my web site to sell (and, if no one wants to buy any, I'm set for journals for a long time).

I've been working on making journals for the past 3 days and have completed 26, which I will probably get up on my web site this week-end (to join the one lonely journal that's posted there now). I took some photos of the process.

Here is a pile of empty fabric journal covers. There's an image and free form stitching on each cover. The covers are made from some of my favorite fabrics and from vintage cutter quilts.

Here are some of the tags I insert in the vinyl pockets (colored with Aileen Roberts' wonderful color mists, which she sells on her website.

I sew the pages as one signature onto the inside cover of the journals.

A sampling of journal pages after being sewn into the cover.

Besides inserting at least one tag into one of the vinyl pockets in the journal, I also sew one of my polymer buttons onto each cover.

Here's a sampling of some of the journals.

THANK YOU LISA RENNER

As I posted from ArtUnraveled, I took a doll making class from Lisa Renner. It really was my favorite class - and this is from a group of classes that I totally loved. I returned home wanting to make dolls (well, first I spent a week doing very little except marinating in Michigan after my two week absence) and I started a few. I realized I really like making these dolls and wanted to go into production mode (I want to get my web site up and running again by this fall and I was thinking that I would like to start by stocking it with fabric dolls and fabric journals). I emailed Lisa and asked if she minded if I used the pattern she gave in class (great instructions, useful ideas) and she graciously gave me her permission (Thank you, Lisa).

So, I dyed and stamped and painted some fabrics.

I sewed some doll forms.

I stuffed some doll forms.

I made some faces and gave them some hair.

Today, I completed my first doll. I have several others in various stages, but I needed to finish one for a present. She is embellished with crystals, has silver hair with bauble embellishments, is holding a butterfly and has a draped bauble skirt. Her name is Ivy, but she might be renamed by her new person.