Fun with Molten Metal

Gosh, my 2010 has been so fraught with troubling events that I kind of fell off the blogging box for a while. Just the blogging box, not the art making box - that never goes away. Might be even more important during the troubling times!
I need to get back in the grove posting the things I am fooling around with. I have been working on a secret project for SOMEONE'S birthday that's had me busy for the last week. I will show that soon. Shhh.....
In the meantime I took a timeout on Saturday to play with the new soldering iron I got for Christmas. Thank you Andy and Alayna. THIS IS TOO MUCH FUN! The little trinket with the rose on it is my first attempt. It's very crude but I was happy that I managed to cover all the edges and attach the jump ring to the top without getting cranky. I can hardly wait to try again. I have all kinds of ideas for little collages I want to make. So tiny, so easy. Well, at least the collage part is easy. The soldering will take some practice. But it's the fun kind of doing something poorly - LOL!

Haiti By Hand

If you follow Rebecca Sower's blog (there's a link on the left, too) you know that she has been gone for awhile and left behind a tease that her absence was somehow intertwined with Jenny Doh's new endeavor, Creshendoh. Art Saves is the Creshendoh mantra.

Rebecca returned a few days ago and began to slowly reveal that she had been in Haiti where she met many talented artists eking out a meager living from their handcrafts. She gave us a peek at what was to come by profiling an impoverished young woman who supports herself and her baby by crocheting little purses.

Rebecca's plan was to set up an Etsy store as a method for the artists she met to market their crafts. 100% of the profits go to the artist in Haiti. She was in the process of setting up HaitiByHand when the news came in about the devastating earthquake.

Today she took a leap of faith and went ahead and filled up the store with gorgeous metalwork by a very talented young man named Jean-David Remy. Read his story on her blog. You won't be sorry. Every single item sold today. Every. Single. One.

One woman taking her own popularity as an artist and redirecting it to benefit others who don't have a way to do it for themselves and so desperately need a leg up. Yes, art really can save.

She does not know if Jean-David is alive. Say a prayer for Jean-David as well as all of the people suffering through this horrific tragedy. And say a prayer for Rebecca Sower. The world can use more people like her.

When did creativity become a luxury?

I have been thinking about how much is written lately about lack of time for creativity and making time for making art. It seems there has been a huge cultural shift over the last half decade. Skills that were once commonplace and considered necessary have become hobbies. We feel indulgent when we spend time on them and they get pushed to the bottom of the list.

Sewing, knitting, weaving, embroidery, letter writing, folk art painting are all things women used to do as part of their everyday lives. They were necessary skills. They made clothes for themselves and their families. They fashioned quilts from the scraps and the quilts really went on the beds and kept them warm. They used their creative skills to beautify their homes making them comfortable and comforting.

Then something happened. The variety of ready-made goods soared and stores sprang up on every corner and there was no need to make things for yourself. But there WAS a need for the money to buy the things. Our appetite for the beautiful things and the instant gratification of buying them grew until nearly every household needed two incomes and there was little time for making things. We spend our time making money instead of things.

But the NEED never left. The need that is inside us. The craving to take something that is nothing and make it into something that is beautiful or useful and do it with our own hands.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think women shouldn't have careers! I just wish people would stop and think about what drives the need to create and put a little higher value on it. Maybe that would make it easier to find the time.

Art saves...

... if not lives then at least some sanity. I worked the first two pages in my Whispered Thoughts prototype journal today and began to wrap my head around this latest dieing time. Maybe it was karma leaving it on the corner of my desk at just the right time. Yes. Art Saves.

Stranded and numb with one foot on each side of a decade.

I had a plan for this vacation week between Christmas and New Years. A plan to remodel my Etsy Store. A plan to finish two projects to submit to Somerset. A plan to dabble on a painting for a book jacket. Yes, I had a plan. A plan.
The train stayed on the rails for a whole week. A joyful Christmas. A shopping trip with my sweet Alayna preventing me from talking myself out of every purchase (no easy task). Dear Andy taking Mama on a field trip to Hippo Hardware. Good times.
A trip to visit my Grandmother. Her favorite Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch. A grateful smile for a short visit on an icy winter day in December. One hundred years old this coming March. ONE HUNDRED years. Maybe not.
A stroke on New Years Eve. A woman twice-baked like biscotti by a life that just wouldn't cut her a break. Memories baked so hard they are all she can remember.
Always, ALWAYS look for the joy. They say that if you smile a lot your wrinkles will be in the right places when you get old. I think you can say the same about looking for the silver lining. I hope my thoughts will be in the right places when I get old.

A Good Mail Day

I stopped at the library on my way home from work today to drop off "Good Mail Day: A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art". When I got home look what I found in my mailbox!
I signed up for Ricë Freeman-Zachery's mailing list the other day and she sent me a very generous thank you PLUS it came inside this totally cool piece of mail art. I scribbled the addresses a bit in PS but you get the idea. The back side has a coffee sticker and is stamped with "I like my coffee just like I like my men... black & strong & sweet." Pure Ricë!

Pacific Northwest Artists

We are fortunate to have many talented artists here in the Pacific Northwest. It seems to be a part of the Pacific Northwest culture; respecting and encouraging creativity. I don't know if it is our culture that encourages people to pursue their passion here or it is the ever changing climate that stimulates the muse or if artists just gravitate to the sea. Whatever the reason, it does seem like our little corner of the country is brimming with talent. I follow several of their blogs and feel a particular "kinship" from the familiarity of their daily observations.
DJ Pettit, one of our finest, is offering an online class next month to share her Photoshop techniques. I think it is remarkable when an artist feels so comfortable with owning their style that they are willing to reach out and teach others. You can find the details here.

I craft, you craft, we all craft!

I met my friend, Carol, for lunch today and to exchange our Christmas presents. I love the way that sounds, like I hang out and socialize like normal people. LOL!
She gifted me with this beautiful wind-up music box that she made herself. Yes, SHE MADE IT HERSELF! I am so flattered. She is new to crafting and obviously has talent and an artist's eye that she didn't know was lurking inside her just waiting to get out. So beautiful on many levels.

The two little charms say LOVE AND LAUGH - two things Carol gifts to everyone lucky enough to call her friend.

I am Merry.

Christmas Times A-Comin'

I got both of our Christmas trees put up; the one in the living room as well as my favorite little birdie tree in the kitchen. The packages for mailing are wrapped and boxed and ready to ship. Most of the shopping is done. Big exhale. I love this part when you just putter at wrapping the presents and decorate a little here and there and listen to Christmas music and plan for a yummy Christmas Eve. It was a good weekend. Maybe I'll bake something. Maybe I inhaled too much frankincense and myrrh.

Jenny Doh - don't go!

Jenny Doh has done so much for so many by giving artists her encouragement, a place to be published and validating the the passion that drives us to create. I read her blog tonight, as I usually do, and found a goodbye message. I am so proud of her for following her heart into a new adventure but so sad to know that she won't be leading and guiding the Somerset magazines any longer. She will be sorely missed. Big sigh. I will continue to follow her blog and I know that anything she touches will be something special. She isn't capable of anything less.

Dinking away my evenings....

... when I really should be wrapping some Christmas presents or decorating or doing SOMETHING besides dinking around with these journals!
I have two more in process and I thought I might put them in my Etsy store but, AS USUAL, I am over thinking every single aspect of making them and the end result looks way too stiff - ARGH! I "threw" the first one together and it has issues with the binding being a little crooked and the method I used to attach the sewn-in envelopes is kind of funky so, naturally, I set out to solve those problems and ended up with something that's a lot more boring. Good grief. Maybe I can lighten up a little on the other two!

Prototype Journal

This is what I've been playing around with this week. Making the little journal from the Teesha Moore lesson set my brain buzzing with ideas for other journals I wanted to try making. Then I remembered the big stack of vintage sheet music I have accumulted and decided they would be just the thing for the covers.
This front cover is a collaged combination of the sheet music, roses I cut from some wrapping paper and a pretty postage stamp. I love that title - how perfect for a journal! The back is covered with scrapbook paper. The journal for the Teesha Moore class was entirely watercolor paper. I wanted this journal to be more like an altered book. The inside pages are made from book pages with printing that will lend itself to journaling and "altering". There is a variety of types and sizes of blank papers including pages from a vintage accounting journal and sewn-in envelopes. Some of the pages have their original edges and I cut scallops along the edge of others. Two have fold-out on the end so they have even more room for drawing or journaling. Lots of fun places to stash bits and pieces!