Miniature Masterpieces

The Arts Council in the city where I live has decided to do a visual arts fundraiser entitled "Miniature Masterpieces", where for a flat fee every attendee gets to go home with an 8x8 piece of artwork donated by a local artist.  I was asked to donate a few canvases for this project, and I had *so* much fun painting them!!!   Usually I am frozen solid at the sight of a blank white canvas, but the small format really made it easy for me to experiment and just have fun.  Painting has not been my "thing" for many years (and even then it was always watercolors!), so this has been a learning experience for me and has sparked a real passion for small format acrylic work.   Here are a few examples of recent paintings (a couple of which are available in my Etsy shop):

I learned some valuable lessons during this process about having patience, having FUN, and not being discouraged if things don't turn out exactly the way they were in your head... lol    I also figured out that sometimes a painting really only comes together at the very end (although I suppose that is probably true of everyone - if it hasn't come together yet, it's not done!  hahaha)

2014 Holiday Invitational

Holy cow - I can't BELIEVE it has been more than a year since I posted on here, ugh!  Well, I suppose I never really claimed to be a "blogger" per se - it's just nice to have a place to post photos and projects so I can link them to Pinterest...!!!   hehehehe

With that in mind, here's some of what's been going on in the studio lately, in preparation for the Wilson Arts Council's annual Holiday Invitational !!

"I must be a mermaid - I have no fear of depths, and a great fear of shallow living".  This little lady is a hand-made spirit doll, about 9" tall.   I made a goddess doll body (with a tail!) out of muslin, then hand-painted it with various acrylics and embellished it with glitter (of course), various shells and beads.  Her face is a cabochon I cast in polymer clay and painted, and her hair is an assortment of yarns and ribbon I had stuffed in a drawer.  I'm thinking about possibly making more of these to sell in my Etsy shop - I think they might make awesome Christmas ornaments, or just decorative spirit dolls for those so inclined.  :-)

I've made about 30 of these little birdie ornaments, and I just LOVE them!!  These are made with hand-stamped polymer clay, and are about 5" wide from beak to tail.  I've beaded hangers and dangles for them, and each one is a different color with different images stamped into them.  I'm hoping that will be my big holiday seller, and I did list some of them on Etsy.  And if they don't sell - well, I will hang them on MY tree because they are so sweet!  LOL

I'm also working on a big wooden art doll and a pieced paper "painting" of a sheltie - these are still in the works, so I'll have to (try to remember to) post some pics later.

It's hard to get holiday momentum going when it's only *just* autumn - hoping that between Starbucks lattes and the cooler weather, I'll have lots of energy to get things done before the busy season starts!

Back to work!!

Oh, what a long, long, long (long) summer it was, chock full of trying to keep a 9-year-old from getting bored and lethargic.  Needless to say, not much got done in the studio... lol   But, as happens every year, school's back in session and I'm back to work doing what I love the most!   Here are a few samples of things I've been working on lately:

The last two are photos of my prototypes for this year's Christmas ornaments - can't wait to have a whole wall of them ready and waiting for the holiday show season!  These are made out of polymer clay and aluminum flashing, but I'm also thinking about trying a few with wooden hearts.  The initial creative process is so much fun for me - once I get the overall design and materials nailed down it's mostly just a matter of production line assembly (which for me is FAR more enjoyable than sitting in a cubicle!), but the real creative energy comes at this beginning point, when everything is still possible.

Pressing on, regardless

Winter was hard on me this year.  For some reason, the cold and the dark really affected me - mostly I just wanted to hide under my electric blanket and ignore everything that was not mission-critical.  Who would have imagined that one could get Seasonal Affective Disorder even in the south???  Thankfully spring has sprung and things are beginning to wake up around these parts - including me.  I've been noodling around in the studio quite a bit lately (trying to make up for lost time!) and trying some new things.  As I've mentioned before, whatever I'm working through in life inevitably comes up in my art, so make of this what you will..!

You are SO loved!

Happy (belated) 2013!  I tried to post something right after the new year dawned, but Blogger is determined that I will no longer be able to efficiently post anything through Internet Explorer, and I just wasn't ready to be held hostage to Chrome, so... procrastination won out.  I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world to be occasionally emotionally defeated by technology, but wow - floored by my own stubbornness sometimes.  (Me and my first-world problems).

ANYway... with a mind to the upcoming and ever-popular Hallmark holiday of hearts and flowers, I was noodling around in the studio and came up with this series:

Which of course lead me to question why it is that we feel the need to set aside only ONE specific day a year on which to tell people how special they are to us, and how loved?  Shouldn't that be the goal pretty much EVERY day - to take a moment's pause and shower the people we love with love?  (with apologies to James Taylor for the blatant rip-off).  One of my official "New Year New Start" promises to myself was to take more time for doing just that - sending more love out into the world, intentionally, thoughtfully, and with no expectation of reciprocity or acknowledgement.  It is tough to resist getting caught up in the "daily grind" - old habits die hard, I suppose - but I really do *want* to live a more intentional and meaningful life.  

I've also been working to expand on my "you can do hard things" line, because I am madly in love with it.  It's not a bad thing that I currently have a studio full of these that I get to look at every day... LOL

I also had a commission earlier this month - a great big Serene Buddha piece (20"x20") that took me forever because the tiny town I live in did NOT have a Buddha head that I could cast a mold from for the faces.  (Well, the fact that I live in the Bible Belt may also have had something to do with that - I suspect there are not too many Buddhists lurking around in this particular corner of the sandbox).  I did find the perfect thing on Etsy (yeah!!!) from which to make a mold just the right size, which I have been playing around with in other pieces to find something that works the way I wanted it to.  I'm not quite there yet, but I've had fun "doodling":

Fighting the urge the last couple of weeks to hibernate - it's been very cold lately, and all I want to do is huddle under my electric blankie and watch my backlog of recorded episodes of Project Runway.  *sigh*  I'm really ready for a girl's trip somewhere warm and toasty, to thaw out my spirit and reconnect with the people who know me best - asking the Universe for some unexpected abundance to help facilitate that!!  

You Can Do Hard Things

Two of my dearest friends have been facing some really tough challenges recently - and really, aren't we all at one time or another?  Sometimes, the life-altering grenades that life chucks at us can make us doubt ourselves and our ability to carry on and make a wonderful life for ourselves.  Fo shizzle.  (Lame attempt at hipness, please excuse...)

One of the most inspirational blogs on the web for me this year has been http://momastery.com/blog/, written by Glennon Melton.  She keeps it real in a way that is just mind-blowing (especially for me, as a parent), and my favorite tag line of hers is "you can do hard things".  I cannot begin to count the number of times in my life I wish I'd had someone standing over my shoulder whispering that in my ear - that, and perhaps a whole lot of other bits of timely wisdom to keep me on the right path.  Maybe that accounts for my current obsession with guardian angels... LOL

Of course, everything that rattles around in my brain long enough eventually comes out as a piece of art.  I am totally loving this simple little message, and I'm actually going to remember to keep one of these for myself, tucked in a prominent place where I can be reminded, daily, that *I* can do hard things.

When Dreams Come True

What do you do when a dream comes true?

When I first heard the news that Patti Digh Designs For Life was going to carry a few of my pieces as part of their inaugural inventory of inspirational art, I bounced around like a baby goat on crack, bleating and whooping it up and head-butting everyone I knew with the news that I was WOW WOW WOW, OFFICIALLY AN ARTISAN because Someone with a capital S said so!!!  Now, Patti *is* one of my heroes - a truth-teller of extraordinary caliber and a standard-bearer for anyone who wishes to live a more examined and intentional life.  Her blog, http://www.37days.com, has been a daily read for me for several years now, and I give her full credit for inspiring my artistic leap of faith back on 2010 when I officially started selling my little altars on Etsy.  But once the euphoria of The News wore off a smidgen, I started wondering why I hadn't considered myself an artisan all along, and what made this particular event so pivotal...

Literally as far back as I can remember, I have been passionate about making art. My mother was "craftsy" (as she liked to say) and always let me join her in making whatever the project du jour was, and as a teen I had a fabulous Fairy Godmother who introduced me to just about every craft form imaginable (from calligraphy to shrinky dinks and just about everything in between).  In high school and college I painted; at some point later I was seriously into "picture" quilts.  My collection of art materials has grown from a shoebox to an entire studio full of treasure chests, and I still love playing with all of them.  But in spite of all of that, I never once considered myself an "artist".  Really.

When I moved to North Carolina, all of a sudden I had the luxury (for the first time in my grown-up life) of not having to go sit in an office to "make a living".  My husband graciously allowed me to set up the sunniest room in our new house as a dedicated studio, and I started playing.  I had been making my own mosaic tiles out of polymer clay for a couple of years and putting together "little altars" for friends and family who needed a place of spiritual focus, and I wondered if maybe others might be interested in something similar.  I listed my first altar on Etsy on April Fools Day of 2010 (!!) and it sold a day later, much to my amazement.  Since then I have made close to 100 pieces that have gone out into the world - but not once, when someone asked me "what I did", did I ever reply that I was an "artist".  Wow.

This past November, the local Arts Council put out a call for artists to submit work for their annual holiday art show and sale.  I was so unsure about whether or not what I do would be considered "art" that I set up a meeting ahead of time with the visual arts director - who assured me that yes, it was art and yes, they would be delighted to include it in their show.  About the same time, I was invited to sell some of my work at a local studio gallery. A few days after all of this happened, I met someone new for the first time - and when they inevitably asked me what I do, I told them I was a "stay-at-home mom".  Yeah.

In my heart, I know that I have a calling which expresses itself through art.  I understand that I need to shine this light, and would do this work even if no one ever paid me a cent for it.  That being said... why is it so hard to feel "worthy" of the title of Artist with a CAPITAL A?

Selling my little altars on http://store.pattidighdesigns.com/ is a dream come true for me.  And from now on, when someone asks me what I do, I know what I'm going to say.  :-)