Tart

A new embroidery piece.  A just because I'm feeling these colors piece.

Wings and Knots

I have two new pieces that I have not shared yet.  One is a collage made with painted papers that came together easily and was a joy to make.  I have started three collages since then and all three have been on and off difficult.  One may be destined for timeout.  Another will need lots of 2 AM epiphanies to fully reveal itself.  And one is just a beautiful pain in the tush that's a lot of teeny tiny tweezer work.  So it's always a win when a piece just comes together with no fuss.

I think it's on a 10 x 10 wooden canvas and is titled, "Growing Wings."

I also finished a new zen piece that went from a tiny blob to fully done after one weekend where I found myself unable to walk away from it.  This piece has already sold.  I used multiple needles and broke a few in the process.  After some trial and error, I can say I officially love doubling up on French knots.  It took an upholstery needle to make the piles of French knots happen, but it was worth it.  This was also my first time using an oval hoop.  I usually use circular hoops and am also not a huge fan of plastic hoops, but I found this oval hoop at an art recycling place.  I enjoyed it so much I am now on the prowl for other unusual shapes.  I think the reason I didn't like plastic hoops was due to constantly adjusting the fabric because it slips more.  I was definitely adjusting the fabric the whole way, but it didn't bother me this go around.  Growth!  The family who bought this piece are planning to keep it in the hoop.  When the person bought this piece he sked me to take a picture with his family!  Naturally, I did not think to take a picture as well, and there were kids in the picture so it wouldn't have been a good idea.  But now I'm thinking that I will ask artists to take pictures with me when I buy their pieces.

I titled this one, "Fingerprint."

I am preparing for the first art fair of the season - Artsfest in Springfield, MO, which will be May 2nd & 3rd.  And by preparing, what I mean is that I am still moving at my normal snail's pace but spending as much time as I can working on my current pieces.  Hopefully at least one is spared the fate of the dumpster! 😆

Blinded by the light (and also golden retrievers)

I started this piece a couple years ago and walked away from it because it was too bright.  Too much.  I felt like it was punching me in the face every time I got it out of my sewing bag.  There's only so much abuse I take from inanimate objects, so I chucked it into timeout.

Recently I heard the call of its Lisa Frank colors and decided to revisit it.  It was about halfway done, and I sat down with it during one of those lulls we all get where there isn't a morsel of creativity to be found.

I ended up finishing it in one sitting.  I'm not afraid to admit that sometimes what I create isn't what I thought it was going to be.  Sunrise colors don't always create a sunrise!

There are quite a few artists that influence my work, and always at the top of that list is Lisa Frank.  For better or worse, she is one of the reasons I love color so much.

I just realized Lisa Frank may also be the reason I love golden retrievers so much. 😂

This piece feels like taking a peek into my ten-year old self.  Blinding, ferocious energy lacking any kind of direction, aiming for sun, waiting a touch too long, but happy to sop up the remaining light.

helter skelter

We are still incredibly busy at work with no real lull on the horizon.  This is only my second year, so it's tough to tell at this point how long it takes to claw our way out of the end-of-year awards.  It's good to be busy, but we still haven't melded as a team, my crew hasn't had proper training, and survival mode has the shop looking a bit helter skelter.  At one point Nini was setting aside some food packaging from her lunch and asked if I was a fan of beautiful food packaging.  Robert who happened to be there, asked me, "does she know you're an artist?"  Nope!  We only really know the basics about each other at this point - I'm the only one who likes coffee, Chris has two super busy teens, Nini is a new homeowner and thinks opossums are adorable.  That's about it. 😂

Add three mornings of PT and still not being able to drive to the mix, and it's been bananas.  I had to ask my poor mother-in-law to run and grab some last minute awards at one of the warehouses in town!  She saved the day!

I'm hoping that I can drive soon.  I've been doing over a hundred heel raises a day thanks to my stand-up desk at work, but it's been a tough go getting my ankle to flex again.  This means I still can't press the pedals down in the car, let alone panic stop.  But soon! 

I don't have a lot of free time at the moment, but thanks to being finished with my degree, I can give what I do have back to my art.  I've been tucking into it with the ferocity of of a thunderstorm.  A few things look like they need to be scraped and sanded back down.  Too much enthusiasm too fast equals disaster for me.

Thankfully there's still sewing, which cannot be done thunderstorm style.  I don't have any progress pictures of this piece, because it went by fast all the way until the end, and then it turned into the devil.  It took about six tries to balance the heaviness of the darker blues.  I actually mapped this one out, but it still surprised me!

enjoying the calm

I feel like I'm in the eye of of the end-of-year tornado.  Mostly caught up at work.  We're managing to stay just barely on top of things, but that will do for the moment.  Yesterday was the first day I didn't work past the point of what I had to give, and we got home at a decent hour.  I've been managing to still take Sundays off, which have been devoted to school work.  Robert hasn't been so lucky.  He's working today.

Next week we meet the other side of the storm.  Teetering piles of things to do at work.  I also have PT twice, a dentist appointment, a doctor's appointment, a get together with my poetry friends, a holiday party, and a special concert Robert and I are traveling to St. Paul to see.  Mostly good things.   But today it's like my brain and body know about what's to come.  Though I didn't finish as strongly as I hoped, school is done.  It's my first Sunday with nothing on the schedule.  I have decided to hunker down and start a new embroidery project.

I just wrapped up this piece, which feels like a meadow reprieve from the gray and cold of December.

I like to include progress pics, but there aren't that many for this piece.  It came together quickly and was easy to get lost in.

a jar full of barn sunshine

This piece took a while, but it gave me zero grief to make.  I have definitely become a little too attached to the green felt, so I'm determined to walk away from it for a while and use a different fabric next time.  Most of the buttons from this piece came from one of the several jars of buttons I found in the barns on Robert's grandma's property.

I used up a lot of neutrals to make this piece, but sunshine found its way in.

I am eager to share the piece I made for the Columbia Art League's Interpretations VII, but I haven't taken proper pictures of it, and I have been unable to travel and see the show.  I've been apart of Interpretations twice as a poet, and this is my first time as an artist.  I have been a little bummed about missing the reception and not being able to meet with the poet I was paired with.  I'm hoping I can travel at some point next week and see the show before it comes down.  I should have pictures and the poet's poems to share soon.  

But for now, there's many paths to take in the threads of this piece, all leading to sunshine.

Wild

When I chose the colors for this piece, I wasn't entirely sure how they would react with each other.  I thought the red would pop, the multicolored threads would unite, and the blue would be that subtle thing that creeps in and stays longer than the rest of the colors.  What I didn't expect was for the multicolor threads to throw a party and the red to be all like "hey I'm here for it, for all of it!"

the focus became the light

Two embroidery pieces I made recently:

A teeny 5" zen rainbow piece where the focus became the light no matter the weight of the blue.  Sometimes even our own creations can surprise us with their meaning.

Each time I sat with this piece, any anxiety I was feeling disappeared almost immediately.

rainbows

I loved working with the orange felt so much, I jumped right into another felt piece.  Every so often I need to grow some variation of a rainbow.  Rainbows feed my soul.  I occasionally like to create some off-the-wall rules just to see what color gets a little carried away.  It's an effective way of surprising myself, but occasionally I have to fiddle with the first draft so to speak in order to soothe any moments of imbalance.

It's for sale on Etsy.

staring at the sun

I am a little behind sharing my latest pieces, so my next few posts will be all about my artsy fartsy stuff. 

I knew I was going to use an ungodly amount of  baubles for this piece, so I used a ridiculously thick and soft piece of felt.  Any time I hit a snag, I pretty much had to say the hell with it, and move on.  There were no backsies due to every single stitch being gobbled up by the felt.

This piece has already sold, but I took some pretty snazzy shots for prints, so it will live on in different ways.

My niece, Autumn picked out a jar of buttons for me during one of their family trips, and a few are in this piece.  

This is for all you I Spy fans.  Autumn's buttons are the fuzzy red one (something I would have never looked twice at but am now obsessed with finding more), an orange umbrella, and a red star.  Can you find all three?

 

Flowers in November

 These flowers grew at about the same time but in different places.  

I was in the mood to cut shapes, so that's what I did!  I used a flower picture from a long-ago hike outside of Salt Lake City.  I remember looking at the picture of the flower and thinking about how the background was stealing the show.  

I used many recycled papers - a silver and peach perfume box, unused pastry bags from Paris, an endpaper from a damaged book, a Starbucks gift card holder, tea packaging, and even some old thank you cards.  Included is one small piece of a print from a licorice box that completely jazzes me up.  I love the licorice print so much I would probably use it as wallpaper somewhere if it was possible.  Can you guess where the licorice print is? 

Also included is the last Kew Gardens coffee sleeve from our trip to London/Paris in 2019.  The coffee sleeves were not only this calming yellow, but the paper itself was buttery and crackled so beautifully when used.  Can you find the word, "Kew?"  How about, "Make a difference?"  Those are from my very last Kew coffee sleeve.  I will never feel uncomfortable asking for a few extra coffee sleeves or various papers from places again.

This embroidered flower was my sidekick for a couple months.  It went to Florida with Robert and me when we visited family.  It went to my first art show, so I could keep my hands busy and my anxiety muted.  I used up some leftover thread and let it grow how it wanted to.  I like to think it's one of those healing flowers. 

big life wonkiness art things

Despite the small blip of turmoil and change in my life (calling it a blip because I know how good I have it in spite of job woes, but really it has felt tremendous), I have still been making things.  Though my construction of sentences isn't what it used to be!  

Naturally, when one goes through big life wonkiness, it's a good time to dramatically change other things too.  I have finally started transitioning to a different way of doing my pictures.  For a long time, I've been uploading chunks of pictures from Dropbox to iPhoto.  In Dropbox I have a folder that syncs with my phone pictures.  As I need the pictures, I move them from Dropbox to iPhoto.  I also sit down occasionally and move all the pictures to wherever they need to go, whether they go in iPhoto or not.  Confusing?

Well, I finally got organized enough to just sync my phone pictures with iPhoto, and now I'm realizing I'm not as organized as I thought I was.  Add to this small drama the fact that you can't upload pictures straight from iPhoto albums to really anything on the web - blogger, art show submission forms, social media.  The upload box only opens all 80,000 of your pictures rather than the albums you lovingly created for such online adventures.  So now I'm recreating some albums in Dropbox for easy access.  I love undoing and redoing work as much as the next person, so I'm simply glowing from the zen feelings I get from all this. 

So yes, I've been making things and there are pictures of these things...somewhere.  I am getting back to a place where I only have to deal with the complications of Blogger living in the dark ages when it comes to generating a post with pictures.  

Here is something I have made recently and it's for sale.  Check out my Etsy for prices, sizes, and additional info.  More art to come!