Hello World!

Sneak peaks

Ok, I'm here, I know it's been a while. It seems like life around here has been taken up with errands and appointments which don't leave me much concentrated desk time. This week I am finally enjoying hours at a time at my desk painting and it has been wonderful!  I am going to post a few sneak peak sketches for my featured artist show in March with Cannibal Flower. The photos are pretty bad because I took them with my phone, but you will get the idea.

I don't have titles yet. But I have been thinking of this one as "push me pull me". The pull between the searching side and the struggling side of humans, inside and with each other.

This one has a mirror image piece. In one she is puppeteering ships, getting them through a storm. In the mirror image she is puppeteering the clouds with boats approaching. I like the choice these two pieces pose the viewer.

This last one is a group of struggle, searching and peace. I can't wait to get this one done, there are some little extras that are going to make it really cool.

This Year's Line Up

I don't think I've ever had a year that was so planned out work wise. It does feel a little weird - not much room for spontaneity, but I'm not going to complain! Right now I'm working on artwork for my Featured Artist spot at Cannibal Flower in March. I will be a part of a mixed media show at The C.A.V.E. in April and a Featured Artist Spot at the Hive in July. I am going to be very very busy. I will update the dates and times as they get closer for anyone wanting to come out and see my new work this year!

Renegade Handmade

I've been holding on to this tid-bit for way too long. I am now selling a few things at Renegade Handmade in Chicago! I feel so honored to have been chosen to sell in the mix of such great artist and crafters. I've got necklaces and prints there right now. Skip on over to their artist page if you have some time, there are lots of great people to get acquainted with.

 

Reading Frenzy

I feel super lucky to have been invited to Reading Frenzy's 13th Annual Cheap Art & Craft Show. Everything in the show is under $100 dollars. I will be sending them necklaces for the show and sale. Just in case you don't know, Reading Frenzy -- An Independent Press Emporium -- is a multifaceted hybrid project: part book, zine and comic shop, part art gallery, part community hub and event space.

Yea! Thank you so much for the invite Reading Frenzy! I've always loved you guys, thanks for making me feel special too. If you are in Portland, be sure to stop by for the opening.

So how did it go?

It was so much fun, and so much work! Our camera is having some issues right now too, so I don't have the best photos to share and I know some of you are really wanting to see FC for yourselves. I will be collecting photos from Cate and Laurie soon so I will share what I have - crap and then re-post some better shots as I get them. There will also be better shots of the new products but again, still working on it.

So FC day was finally here, morning greeted us with spooky ashy conditions because of all of the forest fires out here. There was ash every where - coating our cars and blowing across the street like snow. It sucked for loading up - stinky and unhealthy. We headed over to Laurie and Chris's to borrow their truck and drop of Quimby. Brian loaded up while I finished getting ready - Love him, he is so organized and efficient. When we got to FC there was already a line - at 9 AM. It didn't start until 11. Those grab bags for the first 250 people were pretty sweet. I prob. would have waited too. It did make us feel like celebrities a little bit. Oh, and over last week my back started to go out so unloading was slow, I had to only carry one thing at a time. Luckily Cate and Lily showed up way earlier than I was expecting and helped so much. We made Lily a little fort under our table with couch cushions. She was amazing, she stayed content from maybe 9:30 - 3:30 in her little fort with just a few excursions for tiny little bites from Brian's muffin and some nacho chips. I don't even know how she could hear her little DVD player because the music was so loud on the stage, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. We got everything set up, I was super excited to be near the stage because we would be able to see the entertainment without leaving our booth. Sadly being near the stage was not the dream I thought it would be - the music was too loud and by afternoon was really too much. It was hard to hear Brian from the other end of our table. On the other hand, it was a bonding connection with shoppers - just talk about the loud music! I have to take some time here to say how surreal it was to be in the same even as some of my favorite artist -Jill Bliss, Saelee Oh, boygirlparty, Axelhoney, Figs & Ginger, & Mara Drygoods just to name a FEW. I needed someone to pinch me.

The door opened and people started flooding in, there were a lot of people, around 4,500. When Laurie and Chris came they said the line went around the block to get in. It took a little while for people to start buying things. If I had been shopping I would have had to look at everything before I made decisions, especially if shopping for Christmas. The first items to be purchased and sell out were little laser cut versions of my silver necklaces. Brian made some up for me a long long time ago when he was playing around at work and I bought fancy ribbons to hang them on. Brian thought I was crazy for thinking people would want them, they are cute don't get me wrong here, he was just really really surprised. It just goes to show that you never really know what is going to sell at each show. We wished that we had more of them. Now I have visions of the next show with lots of little creatures all grouped together by their pretty ribbon colors. Over all, people were so nice and responsive and friendly. There were quite a few people who came around the booth to look at my artwork and ask me questions. No one faltered over the prices, which I can say I have never had happen before. I usually feel bad about my prices, even though I know how long things take me to make - my artwork prices still don't accurately reflect the time that goes into them. That was a nice feeling. It was like everyone was aware of how much work went into everything.

We were so tired by the end of the day, we were ready to get home and relax. It was amazing how fast people can pack up. I just want to thank everyone that came out and wished us luck. Thank you to my amazing helpers, I couldn't have done it without you. And now this huge post has me all worn out and I need to go rest. :) ( I haven't even mentioned Leslie Hall yet - when I get the pictures ya-ll.)

The booth set up before the doors opened:

Here is a good one of the crowd, can you spot my walls?

Lily under the table:

Hello!...Hello?

I'm here! It's been a while. Quite a while! It's almost time for Felt Club! It's this Sunday to be exact. We are scurrying around here like squirrels trying to gather enough nuts before winter. I'm on a new path of organization though - just focusing on the most important task on hand and then moving on to the next when finished. This is helping me focus and not feel so overwhelmed. Unfortunately, blogging is always the last thing that needs to get done!

I will be back next week to catch up on posting. I don't have good pictures of my new product, but I will still post what I have today. First and most important though:

Brian has helped me out so much as usual. My artistic endeavors are very much a team effort at this point! He built me a back wall in sections and I painted most of it outside until we had a few rainy days. I had to move everything inside. This place is not big enough for our projects!

Here is my growing stack of boxes to pack up on Sat. I finally got all my t-shirts folded and labeled for easy access. You can see one of my new t-shirts - the yellow ones, I'm so excited about these! Again, wish I had good shots of these for you guys. If you can, come see everything at the show, if not, I will give better info about all my new goodies next week as I put them up for sale in my web shop.

Here is the box of post-it notes I still need to package up:

In the middle of everything, I realized I should make new product postcards. Cate was great and let me come over last min for a quick photo shoot of Lily in one of my t-shirts for the card. I love this look she gave me, matches the shirt. Instead of "Lil Stinker" I'm gonna call it "Lily Stinker". He-he.

Here are the new Horoscope Girls stickers and the front of my new postcards.

Ok, back to work for me, I've got a long list still to be checked off. Most important thing is to have a little time to pull myself together and  relax so that I can have a great day on Sunday!

Backbreaking

Right now this one is showing at The Hive:

Adding darkness

Thought you guys might like to see part of the process of antiquing my charms. Here I am adding Liver of Sulfur to the charms. I do it on the stove because either the liquid or the metal has to be heated for the process to work. I have found heating the charms to work the best for this particular project.

p.s. Mom, this little pan is specifically used just for jewelry. No intermingling here. I can hear you in my head as I type this post! :)

Children's Picnic

A few weeks ago our friend Emily called us in need of help. Work had thrown a project on her lap last min on a Friday night. She needed to redesign a flier for a charity event. The flier was too busy, too much info, and the graphics weren't reflecting the status of the personalities that were volunteering their time to help raise money. I of course quickly volunteered Brian along with myself. He is so quick with Photoshop and Illustrator that I knew he was a must for getting this done so that we could all move on with our weekend. Emily and I were thinking we would get together and spend and hour or two on the project. She came over around 8 pm and we ended up pulling ourselves off of the computer around 1 am. We felt pretty happy with what we came up with, and we were a really good team.

Here is the what we were given to work with:

This is what we had by the end of our work session Friday:

They loved the redesign, but requested brighter colors so we gave them two options and they went with the second one:

Georgie

Here is a commission I recently finished for a baby gift. It was fun to work on something a bit lighter and brighter. I know it's still a bit sassy though. I can't help but think of all the salty adventures Georgie has been on. Now he is settling down to fuel the imagination of a child. I think that's pretty cool.