Walking around and looking artfully at the world

So one of my favorite things about making art a part (p-ART!  hah, I amuse myself) of your life is that I think you notice things more.  Appreciate the effort that others make, or that just seredipitously happens, to make the world just cooler.   I also really enjoy the Toy Camera iPhone app - you can get artsy on the go.  That's what these photos were taken on.  Note the faux-Lomo camera effects.  Badly taken shots turn artsy!  Except much cheaper, as you aren't dealing with real film and real developing and prints as you do with a Lomo camera.  Do I want a Lomo camera?  Of course I do.  I'm also a bit cheap.


Speaking of prints, I do wish, however, that iPhone would make an agreement with the Pogo Printer from Polaroid.  Have you seen these things?  It's a little tiny mini printer that hooks up to your camera and prints out pictures directly from it. As stickers, no less. I was fortunate enough to see one in Art Journaling action at Journalfest last October, and I think it's going to add bells and stars and twinkles to journaling on the go.

Now for my other exciting bit of news - I'm going on a trip to Spain in a few weeks!!!  As you can imagine, I'm planning on using my Pogo Printer for all my art journaling while I'm there.  Delivered by Accident in Twilight - The Art of Collage with Nick Bantock. Now doesn't that sound like something you just HAVE to know more about?  It hasn't really even sunk in that that's actually me, and actually me in Spain, with the grand master of the collage world.  It's on the verge of intimidating.

In the meantime, until the way exciting tour de Spain, here were a few sightings from my local Thai restaurant.  Just flowers, and wall hangings, and rugs, but don't they conjure up images of exotic, lush art filled rooms?  The food was great too.

A few experiments with paper cloth

I've been a little bit..uninspired...by ordinary old paper lately, and I've been taking an interest in cloth instead.  To this end, I've taken a few basic sewing and quilting classes - not with the idea that I'm going to become a real quilter (not sure that I have that kind of patience - I think quilter would turn into quitter fairly soon.) Not really with the idea that I'll become a real seamstress either - I am perfectly fine with purchasing my clothes.  There is no such thing as anything being "sew easy!"

I never learned to sew at my mother's knee (I can't recall her ever sewing other than when she complained about having to sew my brownie patches onto the uniform).  So to make up for this lack of prior training, I've been taking classes at my local Joann's Fabric with the patient Miss Brenda. Me and the other eight year olds that can outsew me any day.  I'm still pretty intimidated by the women at the fabric counter, the bobbin on my machine still makes me feel a bit uncertain, but I'm slowly learning the nomenclature and thinking of small (very small) things to make.  My goal is to make an art quilt - something nicely impractical. What's the difference between art and craft - how useful it is!  Well, no, that's not really my definition, but it's funny.  In the case of an art quilt, however, by the time you've got all that stuft stuck on there, it would cower in front of a washing machine.

Anyway, to that end I've been reading the book Stitch Alchemy and have found some inspiration in the idea of making "paper cloth" which is basically muslin or similar cheapie fabric saturated in gluey water and then covered in paper strips.  You let the stuff dry overnight, and then collage and embellish - just like regular paper.  This I can deal with.  You can see a couple of examples of what I've been up to with this in the pictures.  I think this has distinct possibilities!

I'm a little concerned that this is definitely in the impractical for regular use category, as I think the dye/ink/paint will most likely run right off the second its exposed to water, but I'm going to experiment with covering it with spray-on sealant, and with sticking gel medium on it, and maybe decoupage medium.  See what sticks, so to speak.  It's some fun, very non-intimidating to make stuff though.  And it's almost like paper - paper I can deal with!

Nesting and stitching

Nesting and stitching

Swimming through the sea of reeds and murk

Watching and waiting

Listening in limbo

Wondering if the sleeper is going to awaken


Hello friends - apologies that I haven't posted to this blog in months.  I really am here; I've just been on sort of an art hiatus.  Its not to say that I haven't been doing a few things in the background here, I redecorated my studio, made the 12 days of jewelry at Christmas (guess what were given as gifts this past year?), danced around the edges of art, was fortunate to spend an art playdate in January with my good friend Sarah Whitmire . Heck, i even made a creation for submission to Somerset Studio for an Impressionists challenge....no idea if it will be accepted, but at least I submitted, right?  The issue comes out next month; haven't heard anything, but I'm viewing it as no news is good news, right?

As a note, still waiting for "Queen Isabella at the Frost Fair" to appear, this was a piece I submitted probably two years ago for Black and White challenge.  I was very excited to have my first published piece of artwork in SS, but due to outside factors beyond anyone's control, (the economy) it's publication was put on semi-forever hold.  It is supposed to be appearing in this Summer's upcoming Somerset Gallery, so hopefully it will and then will wend it's way home.  I'll be happy to see it again!

But all that being said, I haven't been feeling inspired to jump back in to art for me for months. 

I do experience these creative recessions every so often; my muse just goes into sort of a long winter's nap.  She and I normally have a very cool and groovy relationship, in which she spins and dances and keeps me up at night. But, sometimes she just needs to be the introvert like me too.  The bigger me (that's the one the rest of the world sees - has been feeling pretty introverted too.)  I have a long list of correspondence that I need to return letters to, a long list of to-do's that I need to accomplish so I'm less of a feral friend to the folks that send me letters and attempt to keep up with me.  Lord love em!

I feel a bit (a lot) guilty for not making art, but then there's other things that I also really enjoy, like genealogy, and bicycling, and gardening, and so for a while now, I've just done those instead.  And then of course, there's all that boring "real life" stuff like holidays and Christmas cards, and post-holiday hangover (not a real hangover, but I swear I don't recover from December until the end of January) and family matters and a six-week stretch of cleaning out our entire house of nicknacks and junk that have been a bit time and energy consuming. A dear lady on one of the bulletin boards that I read described this sort of thing as "nesting" rather than flying, and that made me feel a bit better about the whole thing.  The guilt and so forth.  Made it seem less lazy, and more necessary.  The creative flow stopping to pick up sticks so to speak.

But as the months have gone on, I have been waiting and wondering and listening to see if the muse is done with her nap.  Beginning to wonder if this hibernation is going on a little too long.  I listened to the very inspiring podcast by Rice Freeman Zachery (notes from the voodoo lounge) on "10 Ways to Jumpstart Inspiration" and followed her suggestion of "try something completely new" so I did a few quilting and sewing classes - way the heck out of my comfort zone.  I'm a paper artist, darn it!.  Overall I quite enjoyed them (though very stressful!  Argh! So much math in sewing!)  and I do want to get a bit more into art quilts, definitely, but I'm not sure that they are the whole answer either.  I redecorated, and I sewed a sofa cover (not artsy, in fact of all things, it's beige, but my dogs seem to love it.)

Which all brings up to today; I was out for a bike ride with my beloved, and we were talking about the-rest-of-our-lives (hey, we're middle aged, the span of time suddenly seems a little less elastic) and he suggested I really do need to get on with this art teaching and getting my art business going.  And with the conviction that spring and sunshine and birds and orange blossoms bring, it suddenly seemed like an awfully good idea. Ideas are beginning to churn around

Am I over the long winter's nap yet?  Jury is still out, but I'm feeling a bit of creative fluttering.  I hope so.

Do you have any muse nap wake-her-uppers?  Any suggestions for your fellow artist(s)?  Bring em on!

Art cottages by the sea

My art cottage that you see is from a collage (if wishes could make it real!) it represents my ideal life.  You know about that one...the one where we live in a fabulous art community of kindred spirits, and we eat lots of delicious food and don't gain weight, and our dogs come to "work" with us every day, because our work is art and we do this in an adorable cottage by the sea with the smell of roses and lavender wafts through the windows, and we can wear our gypsy clothes....

I am at least lucky to have a room of my own in my ordinary suburban house for my art studio (and that's a pretty cool thing too) and I've been a bit fired up this week to paint the boring white bookshelves in it into glorious hot pink, and mango orange, and Indian Yellow Hue gold (well, that's what Golden paints calls it) and maybe some sage green.  I got a couple of guest chairs for my room this weekend at an antiques market (nice word for maybe-I'll-find-something junk rummage) and they're already painted in adorable stripes and spots and so forth, but I think they need a little more tweaking...

Good thing it's a four day weekend, huh!  Hope you spend yours the way you want to - with family, or friends, or solitude (and that's a GREAT thing too) and pets and art and your muse!

Beeswax collage with Claudine

Parisian Collage - with photos taken by me this summer in the city of light...

Flower fairies dancing in my autumn garden...

And see that they have a queen! She loves pink flowers and rainbows, notice how her throne is crowned in them...

How fortunate I feel that I had the opportunity, on top of all the other artistic wonder that I've had the pleasure of experiencing this most artful of years, to attend a beeswax collage class with Claudine Hellmuth this past weekend at the Art League of Daytona Beach.

A nice small class, lots of one-on-one guidance and inspiration from Claudine herself - I felt like this class was such a revelation! I've had all the supplies for about four years, but never really quite had the confidence to step much into the world of beeswax collage. Now I'm very glad I did! This was the second class I've taken with the glamourous and gracious Claudine - and I just adore her. She is such a sweetie! She really keeps things upbeat and positive, but always with a wry sense of humor and a lot of patience with demonstrating and explaining things.

The thing with beeswax is that it basically renders everything with a filmy, gauzy haze of dreams - and it makes the divisions between the layers disappear. It's like working in collage heaven, all your images seem to blend and become transparent. Like Photoshop for the fingers. Ok, maybe not quite, because Photoshop has never actually burned my finger and I did manage to touch a hot iron with my thumb! Claudine observed that "I don't usually get injuries in my class..." Well, I also managed to shoot myself with my own arrow in a college archery class, so clearly when the right brain takes over from the left. Uh huh, I need supervision. But, it's a clear sign that the muse is dancing and gallivanting, and she was certainly out for a spin with the wax. I can't wait to try some more of this technique!

Pictures above are of a cigar box that I collaged the top of (I think it will be the holder for my Art Journal that I did of my summer trip to Europe) and the front of a vintage photo album that'll eventually become another art journal. The flower is just...well...a flower. But it was "rescued" from the "distressed plants" section at Lowes and I figured it might light a moment in the blog spotlight.
Wheeeeee!!

A little bit of Inspanahatation

Thank you so much to everyone who has been kind enough to visit my blog and even more thanks to the lovely folks who have left lovely comments :-)

Heartsfire asked if I could post a few samples of work from Anahata's class - I'm happy to (thanks for asking ;-) Here's a few bits and pieces of widsom in my "class notes" (a bit stream-of-conscious but there it is) that I took to remember all the outpouring of wisdom pure creative juju that was zooming and flowering in that quiet and sunlit room where some swore that they saw a blue aura around our Queen Anahata...

The journal is not a finished product, it's not perfect, it's not "precious" -during the first 20 - 30 minutes of working on the page, expect a lot of mental chatter. Don't feed that cookie monster, art friends! Banishing the blank page with some pencil marks, some pen marks, some scraps of paper - whatever you can dish out to start pushing that blank page monster away. Start to create an environment on your page - your ingredients are a character, a background where your character lives, and then play paperdolls with whatever accessories the character needs to tell the story. Keep the "sweet spot" in one area of the page (the sweet spot is where you have whatever coolness is emerging) and try to resist the urge to do that same cool effect everywhere else too. If you start to delay and question what to do next, you aren't moving fast enough, and you're thinking too much. Let your impulse rein. Do what is unexpected - if you think you are supposed to put on another layer of paint, then resist that urge. Splatter on some random ink lines instead. Dark colors push objects into the background, light colors bring the object out. So, use this theory to make the parts of your picture disappear where you don't want to see them, and make the parts you want to highlight pop.

Oh, I wish I'd had a tape recorder, or maybe it wouldn't have made a difference - maybe it was just the juicy inspirational flowers that were seemingly placed in our heads. I do know that we all created work that we had probably never done anything like before or since, and there definitely was a sense of building techniques from the first illustration (the rose one) to the second (the white background one). I had a harder time with the white background, as when in doubt, I tend to stick on more color. Even with this, I probably cheated and gave my girl red and purple dreadlocks, hey, go as the spirit moves you!

Journalfest collage and a list...

What I loved about Journalfest:

all the glorious true art sisters in my classes, dorm, and everywhere...

the food - delish, fresh, creative, great quality

walks with my companion the sea at daybreak from zen calm...

...to free, wild chop

the rainbows in the sky (I don't have a picture of them but this airplane window image will have to fill in as "nearest-to-rainbow"...they were there though)

the rich and juicy creative flow with so much inspiration everywhere

the gold and orange trees (no fall colors where I live, and much the pity for it)

the way-cool trades that everyone made, being surrounded by that much creativity was an unearthly boost!

my cozy "artist's garret" room where one could have company when one desired and solitude for introspection

wonderful, insightful classes with such lovely teachers who were so accessible and engaged

feeling like part of the "Teesha and Tracy family" with the super helpers (Ben and co.) who seemed to be at all the right places at all the right times - so organized that it made the whole event seem effortless (now that's organized!) No problem seemed like a problem at all in their capable hands

the down-to-earth atmosphere and real-ness of it all

Saturday night's party with the perfectly right grooves of Surrealized and the generous wine bar!

the stop-you-in-your-tracks and abandon your luggage Sunday a.m. sunrise - almost surreal in its orange-pink glory outlining the mountains beyond the bay in a jagged purple that felt like you could touch them. (I'm sure nature and the Moores conspired for this)

(Photo above in the banner - it was bannerworthy!)

and finally, Mt. Ranier (at times a bit shy - like for a week last summer when I was in Olympia and didn't get to see it once) even poked its head out from the clouds for the girls on the shuttle bus to see on the way back to the airport

I'm still coming back to earth from all that floating in the creative stratosphere..... and I'm journaling just about every day now!

I learned so much,

I felt so much

I'll hold it in my heart for a long time.

Back from Journalfest!

Hello readers, and once again, apologies for the long absence. Guess I'd better get one of those "blogging without obligation" badges that Tiffini Elektra X has to make it seem like it's...uhh...intentional or something ;-)

Anyway, I was lucky enough to attend my second art adventure of the year - Journalfest - hosted by the wonderful and gracious Teesha and Tracy Moore. What an experience of a lifetime! The energy of three days of classes - each so different and special - with Anataha Katkin, Traci Bunkers, and Ingrid Djikers. Daybreak walks on the beach, followed by art making, followed by delicious lunch, more art making, afternoon strolls down the beach (oh! the photos) with a glass of local wine in hand, more awesome food, and then parties! The closing night band - Surrealized - were incredible and created such a rich energy and mood. The Moore's festival angels - Ben, this means you - were everywhere at just the right time, and nothing seemed to be too much trouble for them. Plus, the artists at the fest themselves - the "big names" and the students - we all mixed together in a democratic, equal, kinship of spirit. And then, just when you think it can't get better, it started with a rainbow that reached into the sea right over Ft. Worden, and it ended with the pinkest, orangest, purplest sunrise that literally stopped you in your tracks. I also loved that after all the fun, I had the peace and quiet of your own cozy little "artist's garret" room to journal introspectively into the wee hours. Oh yeah, and then do it all over again!

It was incredibly awesome, and I hope to put some pictures in here sometime soon. I think it's the pictures that keep me from posting as often as I'd like to - something about having to go into photoshop and resize the pictures to make them low resolution just keeps me from doing it. I'm an analogue girl in a digital world, I'm afraid. Of course, as this is an art blog, it kind of helps to have pictures. Will have to get this dichotomy sorted in my head.

Anyway, the pictures (for lack of actually having pictures of the event downloaded from the camera yet) what the confirmation packet looked like anyway. It took me three days just to find the right, special-ist time to even open it, and it didn't disappoint. The packet was so full of well thought-out goodness, so much journaling material. So much caring and thought went into it. Plus, a journal for you to get started on as a prelude to the event. When I got it, I knew that this event was going to be special, and it certainly was everything I had hoped for. I carried my Journalfest journal around with me everywhere - I didn't dare go without it! It is now a treasured souvenir of such a special, intense, introspective, rich, colorful, lush week.

A shot of old fashioned Dutch coziness

Hello friends!

I haven't updated the blog in quite a while, as I'm sure you noticed, but fear not! I have not been idle on the artistic front during the absence :-) Quite the contrary - I had the extreme good fortune to spend three weeks in July in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and England, and I'd like to share a few souvenirs of my adventures with you...

So, Amsterdam. Depending on your viewpoint, the mention of the word Amsterdam either brings forward mental images of windmills, canals, people wearing wooden shoes, and tulips, or...sodom and gomorrah with canals. Of course, the stereotypes have a bit of basis in reality, but the real deal is far more than any of these things.

Travel is a mind-altering experience any way you look at it. Amsterdam is...cozy, quiet, relaxed, warm, friendly, funky, tolerant, beautiful, zen, juicy. As an artist, you simply must take the opportunity to have your mind altered.....by slowing down and just relaxing, taking photos by the dozen, seeing the art museums.

Listening to jazz drifting in the air as you peruse the colors of Indonesia and the exotic east at the Waterlooplein market.

Pedaling out of town along the Amstel river to visit the windmills. Feeling the quiet settle around you as you whirr past farms with cows and ponies knee deep in the clover and grass.

Sketching the flowers in their planters on the houseboats.

Renting a bike and flying along the moonlit canals with the wind in your hair, floating like a quiet bird.

Laughing, having fun, stopping for some cheese and beer, or a rose and honey flavor liqueur in a 300 year old creaky wooden-floored bar.

Catching the nightly parade of happy families on their boats cruising down the canal.

I'm sure some of the locals must have had cares in this world, but I didn't see them, and so I didn't have them either.

Ah, Amsterdam. Relax and breathe......

July night sky on the Prinsengracht, 10 p.m.

Pedaling along the Amstel on a sunny afternoon

They really do have working windmills! Didn't see any wooden shoes though.

Twilight in the Jordaan District, any second you'll see the boats come out with their Dutch flags flapping in the breeze

A waterfally of color at the Waterlooplein Market

Chapter Three - Happy Technicolor Dream of People to Meet and Things to Buy

Day Three of Art and Soul - Hampton

Day Three and I'm quite firmly in the routine of this whole art camp thing by now. Up for breakfast, scramble to find whatever corner of my luggage all the items that I need for the day's class have fallen into, chase into class and grab a chair, WHEW...

Vintage Metal Deck with Leighanna Light

Transform ordinary metal into fabulous thick, chunky beautifully embellished decks of cards. Each card will represent a meaningful word or theme which will be explored in text on the back, and upon completion they will be bound together with wire and danglies. Learn several surface altering techniques using patinas, rust, gesso, and wax...(bring Modern Options Patina)

So a few days before I left, I was raiding my local Joann Crafts for Modern Options Patina. I am pretty well versed in the exact placement of every item in every row of their store, so after devoting a good 20 minutes to finding a pile of fake rust and striking out, I knew this was not the place to go. (Must be at other craft store...) This theory was supported by the inquiry of the cash register chick, "Did you find everything you needed?"

Note: if a cashier asks you if you've found everything you need - just tell them yes, it saves 30 seconds of babbling inquiry. They don't really care, and they have no idea how to fix the issue. They are apparently just conditioned into asking you a rhetorical question. If you indicate that you haven't found what you needed, they seem universally confused and unsure as to what action to take next. So, they proceed to ring up your items and say, "Oh, well, sorry about that...Did you look in paint?"

Anyway, I made the mistake (against my better judment) of saying, "Well, no I am looking for Modern Options Patina..." Was greeted by blank stare. (me) "It's a two part surface finisher, makes objects look like rusty metal..." (sales person) "Well, can't you just leave whatever it is in the yard for a couple months?" (me: "That will not produce rust by Wednesday!") But I digress...

Leighanna's class quickly grabbed the metal "decks", sandpaper (the worst part, you have to sand everything to get proper adhesion), and were busily pounding away with hammers and dapping blocks and daubing our patinas in new and excitingly rusty ways. (Michaels Crafts carries it, by the way) Class was a smorgasbord of different techniques to try - venetian plaster, stamping with gesso, alcohol inks, paint, tissue paper, and after about four hours, lovely rust! Even in places I didn't realize could get rusty, such as on the drip paper I put beneath my "rust." Lovely effect, by the way!

I have to admit, by afternoon I was getting a little tired. I'm not sure if everyone experiences this, but the creative muscle was shaking a bit from all this flexing. Our class was really great, and I had wonderful table mates, but I felt the need to eat lunch by myself in the empty class room. Batteries were starting to sputter just a little. Art and Soul learning - don't overschedule yourself. Although the idea of studying with all the Big Names at one time sounds fantastic in your studio at home - I really suggest you don't try to push yourself to day and night activities. It's exhausting! Also, there is so much to take in, so much color and funky stuff, so much total creativity - it just gets physically and emotionally overwhelming after a while. A while, for me, was three days.

I kind of got my second wind after lunch, and I wound up with a good start on the deck, but I must confess it is still a UFO (unfinished object). It's on my list of things to do. Leighanna's sample decks, however are really amazing, and I truly strive to be able to embellish as she does one of these days. Our class had a lot of esprit de corps, and I think we all really enjoyed meeting and supporting each other creatively.

(Tablemate Jill, Leighanna, me, and tablemate Kari)

Skip ahead - early dinner - more drinks at happy hour - to the potential promise of parting with unseemly amounts of cash at Vendor Night. I met up the New Zealand gals and hit the convention center with a hundred bucks to spend. Word to the wise - don't get cash advances on your credit card; turns out your trusty credit card company penalises you to the tune of $10 an advance - damn you, Chase Visa! I was quite determined that I wouldn't spend past my hundred. I have the ability to lie to myself quite convincingly. What a crush of people! All the big names are at their booths, with lovely bounty of their creativity for sale. Oh my - the good news was that the truly important stuff was way beyond my budget, but some of the artists had things in the $30-ish range, and that's about where I am. So, one Jane Ann Wynn necklace, a Kerin Gale pendant, a Sally Jean Alexander soldered goodie, and some lovely bits of old sari fabric strips, paint, bits and bobs later - I managed to make it out with only minor credit card damage and quite a few new trinkets to finger covetously. I managed to avoid buying a mini-theater, and my friend from NZ bought the vintage mortician's document box so I didn't have to. We get buy with a little help from our friends.

Me with Sally Jean, the Soldering Queen

Day Four - Paint, paint, paint....

The toughest class yet (though still much better than being at work) that I'd scheduled myself. Adventures in Color, with Claudine Hellmuth. This was a "real art school" type class, in which we mixed colors of paint, mastered the color wheel, and tossed around words like "value", "tone" and "hue" with impunity. Sure enough, within a couple of hours, we were mixing up various shades of red, and green, and getting to match fairly close to the color chips we were given, and starting to branch out on our own with selecting colors and duplicating them. As Claudine put it, "paint matching for the recession!" You too only need red, blue, and yellow paint to make pretty much any color, and I definitely want to practice this new skill some more - I'll put it on the to do list, right after that UFO from the previous day. She definitely made it a lot more fun than my dreaded junior high school art teacher, and I felt like I got at least a glimpse into why people could get into heated arguments of which is a bluer blue, technically speaking.

Me with the spectacularly glam Claudine Hellmuth

By now, though, my energy level was really flagging, and no reflection on Claudine (who is a sweetie!) but I was ready to be done and outta there by the last hour of class. I spent my lunch outside the convention center lying in the sun next to a fountain and not speaking to anyone. I think my nerves had been though every emotion that it's about possible to feel - I was so happy, but so wrung out that I remember bursting in tears at some point and thinking, "But I'm happy!!!" What can I say, it's a life experience. Next time, though, I'm going to take it a lot more easy.

After class I went for a swim in the Embassy Suites pool, fortified myself with one more glass of wine for the road, and went to my last class, Fab Art Boxes with my my roommate - Traci Bunkers. By now, I think most of the conference attendees were about where I was. Creatively satiated and perhaps ready to sit back and put it all into perspective. I had a sense of "I'm ready for this to be done, but at the same time, I'm already missing it and all my new friends..." I decided to just take it very easy and just do whatever with my box in the class and if I didn't finish, if I didn't do a great project, well, hell with it.

May I say I got so much technique tips from this class! Traci is a very laid back, quiet teacher and I think was the perfect person to end the week with. This was not a hard, intellectual stretch - we just started painting and texturing our cigar boxes, and laying on layer after layer of papers and stamps and paint - I felt like I was back home in my studio except with a great art journaler by my side to help and advise. I sat with one of my New Zealand buddies and we just relaxed and did whatever, and it was really great. We went to the hotel lobby and had the last huzzah of the event - just curled up in the big armchairs and drinking gin and tonic and just laughing and relaxing and realizing that it was all over. Other attendees came over and joined us, and it was a laid back, comfortable old velvet kind of party in the lobby. The richness of the time we had all shared, the laughter, the feeling of sisterhood and of finding your tribe. We all reflected on it, and we knew that it was time to transition back to the "real world" but we didn't quite want to let it all go, now that it was done. Not yet....

Two months later - Fab Art box is still not finished, in fact, it contains the bits and pieces from all my other UFO projects from Art and Soul, but one of these days I'm going to finish it. Friends and I went our separate ways, some I've been in contact with since, life has gone back to normal. Most of the attendees have told me they haven't really done too much creatively since, but they're just getting ready to....and that's why I think in the end that I enjoy this so much. It's all part of a bigger circle of life and art and love and there are no time limits on that. It's not about the hours, it's about the moments of transcendent happiness and quiet satisfaction that comes from expressing your art, and by extension your soul.

Thank you all Art and Soul sisters, tribe members, gentle readers - I've enjoyed getting to share my tale with you, and I strongly encourage you to go if you at all can. Invest in yourself, and take your art seriously but lightly. And bring an apron - you never know how many places gesso can get to if shaken without the cap on...

Slight delay on Chapter Three of Art and Soul saga

Dearest readers -apologies, but I spent the afternoon with my fellow Altered Artist of Central Florida, my friend Cindy, painting instead of writing my blog. We were supposed to be making Creativity Cards following one of the exercises in LK Ludwig's True Vision journaling book. What I wound up making is the new banner that you see at the top of this blog. Cindy's work is still in progress as my husband "borrowed" her to practice singing with him. (He's in a band). So, I promise to try and work on the rest of the story this week - please stay tuned and my apologies again that I am a little unprepared to tell...the rest of the story...

Thank you everyone that has sent me wonderful e-mails and comments, I truly appreciate your support and enjoyment of my little story. :-)

Percolating post-Art and Soul - Chapter Two - "Drawing it Out"

NOTE: Please see chapter one, "J'arrive" in the previous post for the beginning of the saga. Well, if you want to...

I am registered. I am really here at Art and Soul. I am really hungry, it's 7 p.m. on night one....

My stomach is pretty disciplined around a lack of food, but not a lack of drink. Thus a visit to the Hampton Inn Manager's Happy Hour was clearly in order. I don't know who this manager is, but I wish I'd been more like him back in the days when I was in management! Free drinks and nutritively suspicious chips for everyone! I didn't have a lot of time, so I grabbed a gin and tonic (the first of many over the course of the next few days until I was actually tired of them and switched to the more artistic merlot), and saw Juliana Coles (my heretofore unmet roommate, and teacher of my first class) in the drinks line.

Juliana is the creator of Extreme Visual Journalism, which is her form of art journaling with an emphasis on raw inner work. She's a bit of a force of nature, and one of those women that just exudes "artist" with her awesome energy and soul and wacky chick vibe. (I mean that in the best way!) Relocating a glass of wine from the hotel to her class, she was quickly emoting in a throaty voice that we should "bear down harder! Ooooohh yeah, harder! Harder!" with our pencils! I'm drawn to gorgeously eccentric like a moth to flame, so obviously an evening with Juliana is far better than the normal dozing in front of "Good Eats with Alton Brown."

First she had us introduce ourselves, then select five magazine images. As you can imagine, everyone thought they were going to express their artistry, their aesthetic values, their ability to select things they might be able to actually draw. When Juliana said, "Now give your pictures to the person sitting next to you, " the lady sitting next to me looked like she was going to have heart failure! To be honest, I wasn't inspired by lovely images of cats (dachshunds all the way for me), nor was she best pleased with my kabuki dude and African women in beads and not-much-else. (actually, the horrified reactions to this exercise was my favorite moment in the whole class.) I think we were practicing letting go. I hope the lady next to me emotionally recovered.

I don't want to give away Juliana's trade secrets, but we did a rather neat and unexpected thing with carbon paper and our journals, and there was no shading of boxes. We then made backgrounds with tape, lots of wild lines on pages (harder! more graphite!), and did some visual note taking of stuff around us. I can't say that I made a gray convention center partition wall look any more interesting than it was, but I did get the idea that really, it's not about the object. It's not about the drawing either. It's about the documentation of your life. You need to practice it. You need to lose your judgments of it, and just get it onto paper. Even if it's harder than it looks. Really enjoyed spending some time with Juliana, and even though it wasn't one of her deep inner work classes, I think I got at least a flavor of why her fans love her.

Yes, I gave the unused kitty images back to my neighbor, my karma is intact.

9 p.m. - still hungry - hadn't eaten since 7 a.m. Is this what they mean by starving artist? I sat in the hotel dining room by myself, and before I knew it I heard a "Yoo hoo! Come sit with us!" from one of my classmates, the estimable Pinky La Rouge. Pinky, another force of nature, is a member of the Bretheren from Juliana's Key West retreat in January. I'd been rather curious to meet her as I've enjoyed her energetic blog posts on Juliana's Extreme Journaling Yahoo group. I visualized her as swathed in a hot pink feather boa, spectacular earrings, and a big saucy grin more or less permanently in place. I'm so glad to not be mistaken! She was exactly who I thought she'd be and was much amused by the Edward Cullen action figure fondling that took place. So, suddenly I was enjoying my solitary shrimp and grits and wine with Pinky, Sandy, Pinky's son and girlfriend, and Juliana.

A note for those of you who have never attended Art and Soul (for those of you who have, you already know this) it is the friendliest, most outgoing group of like-minded ladies imaginable. It's a technicolor swirl of scintillating real women who talk like there's no tomorrow, and who want to enfold newbies and oldbies and anyone passing by into their chat. It's like a United Nations of Paint. If you don't know anyone, you will by the time it'll take you to read this sentence. A simple, "So, what classes have you taken/are you taking?" will occasion at least 20 minutes of gab, an exchange of emails, quite possibly a handover of cool ephemera, and the knowledge that you've found your tribe. And (as I keep insisting) I'm an introvert!

Day Two - Friday - 8 a.m.

I wake up from a dream that Traci Bunkers has told me that I shouldn't put off doing art just because I'm convinced that I need to clean up an entire stable full of manure first. I heard many reports of people having the oddest, most colorful dreams over the next couple of days. Not sure if anyone else dreamed that their roommate told them to not clean up crap, because art is more important. Yes, I got the hidden inner message.

Breakfast and lunch (yay, I'm eating!) with Sophie - wow, what a talented and fantastic person. I really wish that I'd got to spend more time with her; she is just one of those people that I instantly connected with. As mentioned in my previous post, you meet soul sisters at this event that you just know you were supposed to meet in your life, even if just briefly. That's why it's called "Art and Soul" I think. I wear the beautiful crystal necklace that she gave me often, (always to rave comments) and reflect on how lucky I am.

Today was Altered Curiosities - The Illuminated Shrine with Jane Wynn- and it was amazing! Jane is an incredibly generous, kind teacher and gives so much encouragement that before you know it, otherwise well groomed and normal women are getting busy with a drill press. And a butane torch, and a copper pipe cutter. Oh my! What I truly loved about this class, from the pretty bags of mystery objects that we were greeted with to the photo session six hours (felt like six minutes) later was how everyone's individual creativity was so encouraged and supported. We all started with photo frames from Michael's Crafts, and we ended up with fifteen or so completely different illuminated (beyond cool when something is lit up from within!) jewelboxes of ideas. I had no idea what I was going to emerge with - my finished project turned out to be Mata Hari dancing on a glittering stage complete with footlights and a crystal chandelier. My table mates created a winter woodland scene with stars, and a cute little girl with birds. Others created beautiful miniature worlds under the sea, in an English telephone box, and with a glitter queen. For the trimphant class show-and-tell, look at the hyperlink above, my project below (as photographed by Jane Wynn herself.) Just a really inspirational creative class, I highly recommend.

6 p.m. - it's happy hour again! My, that is one generous Manager.

I waded with a "I hope I'll see that person I know in a minute..." look through the crowd, (actually, it was a ruse, I was hoping someone would ask me to sit with them). Sure enough, within seconds I was asked to sit with Jo, Jeane, and Dale. Dale is a patroness of the arts, and the hippest 80-something chick ever. I enjoyed several breakfasts and dinner drinks with her over the weekend, and she is truly inspirational. Jo and Jeane, the Girls from New Zealand, became my new BFF's (best friends forever!) and my great companions over the days ahead. We talked and talked, and closed down happy hour, and kept on talking and drinking over at Harpoon Larry's - and eating some awesome scallops too. By now I'd eaten plateloads of seafood, which just kept getting better and better. We just clicked like friends who had known each other since always, and I laughed harder and more that evening than I have in months. Also, the added amusement value of zooming around the New Zealand Embassy Squad Car to the local WalMart in search of 2 part epoxy at 11 p.m. on a Friday night just can't be beat.

Tune in to this blog for the next chapter - coming in the next few days.

"Chapter Three - Happy Technicolor Dream of People to Meet and Things to Buy!"

(Sneak preview, from "Vintage Metal Deck - Leighanna Light")

We transform ordinary metal into a fabulous thick, chunky, beautifully embellished deck of cards. Each card represents a meaningful word or theme which is further explored in text. Learn several surface techniques using patinas, rust, gesso, and wax.

Patinas! Rust! I'm there...