New Fabric Store Page and a Valentine’s Sale

Tags

art, cameo, cameos, Etsy sale, fabric, fabric desing, fabric shop, mixed-media art, skull, skull cameos, surface design, wearable art

This is the first week of new classes and it is going to be a busy one so I just wanted to take a quick moment to let you all know that I have added a new store page here. In addition to my art store page I now have a fabric store! One of my goals for this year is to produce a new fabric design a month and rather than leaving my designs to dangle around in no man’s land over on the spoonflower page I decided that it would be a good idea to let people know that I have been doing fabric design and let them know where they can get my fabrics.

When you click a link there it will take you to my fabric shop on spoonflower (much like my art store takes you to my Etsy shop). Right now I have the “Best Girls” fabric line posted for sale there and hope to have another to add soon. If any of you have been looking for a special fabric that you can’t find let me know, I will take a whack at making your dream fabric come to life.

In other news… I will be adding two new pieces to my Etsy shop later in the week. “Garden Party” and “Monster Factory” will both be listed on my store page here by Friday (I am still calculating shipping fees for these pieces as they are too large for the flat rate boxes that I typically use).

Speaking of my Etsy shop! I would like to announce a Valentine’s Day sale! From now until February 14^th get free shipping on all Skull Cameos (while supplies last). Just enter coupon code “bigheart” at checkout. To see my Skull Cameos and the available colors you can visit my store page.

I have two classes this session so I may not be posting as frequently as I would like to but I will keep you all updated on all things arty as often as is possible!

Pepperoni Stogies and Talking Moustaches (Part Two)

Tags

art supplies, Blick Art Materials, fun, Portland Oregon

Alicia and I had managed to kill an hour or so and decided that it was safe to brave Blick by that time. But first we found it necessary to sit in Alicia’s car like dillholes while she snacked on a pepperoni stick as long as a Twizzler and as big around as a Cuban cigar that smelled so strong it left the fart I cleverly timed to coincide with the slamming of my door completely undetectable. We ignored the people driving by, faces alight with hope, waiting to fill the parking spot that we would soon empty.

I wish I had thought to document this moment with photos but I was laughing to hard. It seems that at this point in our morning my punch drunk mindset fully took over Alicia’s already weak grasp on any senses of reason or decorum. As she munched her pepperoni stick, unintentionally holding it in a way that very much resembled the way Norman Bates held the knife in the famous shower scene in “Psycho”, we heard a flurry of sirens and noticed a KGW news van. With an astounding level of excitement she exclaimed “Somebody shot someone at Blick”! Mind you, this was not said with concern or even shock, but with a bloodthirsty enthusiasm I haven’t seen since my father and uncle took off after a strange man who tried to choke my brother at the park when we were little kids (I think she was still feeling bitter about missing out on the gift bag valued at $100).

I lost what composure I had been clumsily clinging to and burst out into a full-blown, tear streaked, belly laugh that rendered me unable to speak. As you well know, this kind of laughter is horribly contagious so Alicia and I cackled like maniacs; wiping tears from our eyes and gasping for air the entire six blocks back to Blick’s.

Despite the fact that the line outside was completely gone, it was still unbearably crowded inside the store so Alicia and I formed a game plan. We would share a basket that she would carry and I would meandering down the aisles, ping ponging from side to side like a sailor trying to shed his sea legs and continue to drop my cane each time I took something off a shelf or snapped a picture.

I was so tired by this time that I actually felt drunk and the fit of laughter we had just recovered from gave me a case of obnoxiously loud and randomly timed hiccaburps, so I am positive that more than one middle aged woman took off in search of the free wine they assumed was available after crossing my path.

All in all we had a wonderful time shopping and got some great deals. However, the music being played in the store made me suspect that I was in a dream, so much so that I occasionally spoke out loud to myself to make sure I wasn’t speaking Latin, which I inexplicably speak in during weird, surreal dreams even though I do not speak or understand it in waking hours.

What was so strange about the music you ask? Well, they had a DJ who was blaring dance music as if he were surrounded by sweaty teens building up the courage to lose their virginity during senior prom.

I don’t even care for most of the music he was playing and I am either 20-30 years younger than half of the people who were there or 10-20 years older and far less committed to the need to set myself apart from the crowd by being punk rock on a douchetastic level. In other words, the music was not at all the sort you would imagine being played at an art store grand opening and I think I may have been the only person in the store who appricaited the Cee Lo Green.

Having been awake and moving for almost five hours on so little sleep, I was really starting to slow down and during course of our shopping trip I started getting less boisterous and more sarcastic and lost. Every time I turned around Alicia was gone and I was walking into a stranger mumbling things like “What the f**k is a Do It Yourself Munny, I don’t get it”?

Or “Finger cots! Those are always fun”!

Alicia and I eventually reconnected and wound around the store to find the end of the line for the checkout… that is where the 150+ people who were lined up outside ended up! The line extended nearly ¾ of the length of the store and wound through people trying to look for canvases and portfolio cases in a very crowded aisle. I don’t remember when she grabbed them but Alicia was trying to navigate this labyrinth with several long piece of balsa wood sticking out of the basket. After she knocked a few things over and jabbed me with them several times, causing me to shout “mind your wood” and resulting in a new fit of inappropriate humor and giggles, she tried to reorganize her load. This was only made worse five minutes later when she accidentally poked the woman ahead of us in line with her strip of balsa wood and said “Oh! I keep poking everyone with my wood”!

Once again I went over budget, this time by $20 and I was unable to make it through the impulse gauntlet without giving in to temptation; I got my son a hilarious talking mustache key-chain. I got everything I needed and a couple of extra items that I decided I needed once in the store but don’t know what I needed them for now that I have them home. I guess this mystery will solve itself in time as it always does.

Alicia and I were separated at the checkout counter but not by so much room that I didn’t overhear the wood jokes carrying over to her and her checker. As she was walking off with her goodies she almost forgot the balsa wood and when the checker called her attention to it and she said “I better grab that wood” and he, being the younger fellow that he was, couldn’t help responding with “OK, but you better not tell your husband”! We giggled our way over to the “wheel of prizes” where my guilt and shame for going over budget were erased when I won a fancy brushed steel Sharpie!

We wrapped up our day with brunch at our favorite Multnomah Village restaurant and not five minutes after Alicia dropped me at home I collapsed on the couch for a two and a half hour nap. By the way, my son loved his moustache keychain and immediately started forming his plans for using his new comedic prop to “woo the ladies”. His silly reaction to this gift pretty much sums up the tone of the day and I can think of no better way to close than sharing his delight with you.

Pepperoni Stogies and Talking Moustaches (Part One)

Tags

art supplies, Blick Art Materials, books, fun, Portland Oregon, Powell's Books

Let me warn you before I even get started today; this post will most likely be just as ridiculously nonsensical and borderline confusing as my day looked to the casual observer Wednesday (and twice as long). I should preface that by explaining that I have been having trouble with insomnia and have not been able to fall asleep before 3-4am in over a month and although I am now able to sleep and stay asleep, my schedule for this activity is a bit backwards.

A few weeks ago when I had my therapeutic art supply shopping trip I found out that my beloved Art Media turned Blick Art Materials that has been in the same location for over twenty years was to be changing locations. As I was checking out the adorably dimpled cashier informed me that there would be a grand opening celebration on January, 25^th, involving a gift bag valued at $100 for the first 100 people through the door, prizes, food, music… Dimple girl didn’t need to go on with all the details because she had me at “gift bag valued at $100”. When I got home that night I immediately called my friend Alicia to make a date with her. I started to give her all the details but she stopped me before I could finish. I had her at “gift bag valued at $100”.

Wednesday was the big day and because I have some mobility challenges I wanted to be very well rested. The plan was to arrive at 8:45 (15 minutes before the doors opened, but I will get to that in a minute). That means that I would have to be up at 7:30am. I went to bed early in hopes of a good night of restful sleep but didn’t end up falling asleep until 4am. A sane person would have canceled but there were free gifts to be had and I rarely leave my house so there was no way in hell I was missing this!

Because Alicia lives in North Portland and I am in SW Portland we decide to have Big Orange (my husband) drive me to meet Alicia at Blick (which he gladly did). As Big Orange and I drove around the block at about 8:40 I started counting people and reached 80 before we even hit the end of the block. This is the part of the story where I say “I should have listened to my mother”. She told me that 15 minutes early wasn’t early enough but my lack of morning faculties outweighed reason in this case and we were too late for the gift bag valued at $100.

After picking Alicia up at her car and an additional three denial fueled trips around the block she too was satisfied that were we to wait in line the only thing it would accomplish would be me undoubtedly falling over and flailing around on a dirty sidewalk due to the vertigo so much commotion in my peripheral vision causes. Being as opposed to public humiliation as I am and an even bigger germaphobe than myself, Alicia finally agreed that waiting in line in hopes that we were just imagining this crowd of 150+ people who all had the wherewithal to drag their asses out of bed in a timely manner was indeed a fruitless effort.

We decided to kill some time at Powell’s Books so Big Orange dropped us off at her car and away we went. I had a book that I was specifically looking for so we went directly to the info desk to find that I needed to go across the street to their technical book store in order to find it.

Now, when I am sleep deprived one of two things can happen. The first is an hours long bout of nausea inducting disequilibrium that makes me feel as if I loaded up on cotton candy and elephant ears just before being locked in a tweeker operated tilt-o-whirl ride that went on for three hours, which makes me horribly bitchy. Thankfully I was instead stricken by a case of the punch drunk giggles that are a less likely, but far more entertaining occurrence.

I am not sure why I had my little point-n-shoot camera in my purse but when I found it while digging around in search of chap stick I immediately started snapping pictures like a tourist on crack while Alicia searched for her books. While she was looking for a book on the edible plants of the Pacific NW I was cracking up at the other end of the aisle over this book.

I don’t know if she was initially as amused by this as I was but because we tend to feed off each other’s moods it didn’t take long for use to revert to the mentalities of 12-year-old boys.

This is Alicia suppressing her laughter moments before I convinced her that a book about composting titled “Holy Shit” was as hilarious as I thought it was.

At this point I completely forgot what she was even looking for and hobbled around the store behind her, dropping my cane every time I found something I deemed hysterically funny or ridiculous enough to justify taking its photo. She laughed, rolled her eyes, picked up my cane, and made apologetic looks for me.

Here are some snippets and highlights of our conversation during this time.

Me: “Gross”!

Alicia: “You don’t like goat cheese”?

Me: “Well I do but that doesn’t mean I want a “how to make your house smell like musty jock crotch and dirty feet” kit”!

Alicia: “OMG! You are disgusting! You dropped your cane again, dip shit”.

Me: “What the hell”?

Alicia: “What now? Hang on; I need someone to come reach this book for me. I am knocking all the books off the shelf below with my boobs because I can’t reach it”.

[Enter employee with stepladder trying to act like she was not amused by our antics]

Alicia: “Was that your flash or did I have a stroke? For the love of f**k woman, you dropped your cane again”!

Me: “Vampire A Go-Go? They are destroying an entire genre! Now I am picturing Goldie Hawn on Laugh-In as a vampire and I seriously doubt a vampire would act like such a slap-ass”.

Alicia: “That is just like them f**king all the zombies”.

[Giggles from the employee now failing in her attempts to ignore us]

By this point Alicia had her books; we managed to knock a few stack of books over (well I did with my incessant stumbling), and Alicia dropped her books a half a dozen times while picking up after me. Somewhere in the process of all this Alicia lost her cup of coffee so rather than backtrack to find it and risk someone having tampered with it (you know, because people walk around books stores with loaded poison rings all the time) we made a pit-stop at the in-house coffee shop so she could get a new coffee.

Because I still had my cup of coffee and was feeling uncomfortable standing in line holding a New Seasons coffee cup I played around with the Walking Dead action figures.

On the way to the checkout I of course found some end cap books that I really wanted.

Me: “Oh! I want these!

Random lady behind us: “Well aren’t you lucky you are in just the place to get them”. (This was said with a very sarcastic tone)

Me: “Yeah, as soon as I start shooting money out my ass I will get right on that”.

A bug eyed Alicia trying not to spray coffee out her nose: [Cough, cough] “Can’t you look at a book without dropping your cane”?

Me: “Oh! I want this too! Maybe I can shoot enough money out my ass to get it as well”!

With our shenanigans in Powell’s proper accomplished we checked the parking meter and walked across the street to the technical book store. Upon entering I froze in place and made a noise that caused my cohort to stop dead in her tracks wondering what in the hell was wrong with me. I whispered “there is a glitch in the matrix!” while clutching her arm; the poor thing looked at me in near panicked confusion for a split second. I should take a moment to explain that one of my deepest, darkest fears is that I am actually bat shit crazy (certifiable, not in a fun way) and all of my loved ones just appease me to save my feelings. What the matter was, was the face I saw when I walked in the door and looked at the counter directly in front of me. It was a woman who looked exactly like the woman who was working at the information desk in the building across the street! This could have been her identical twin (matrix agents aside, twins freak me the eff out).

Thankfully the adorably sweet Chris saw the panic in my eyes and said “Yes, it is me! They moved me over here for the rest of the day”. I like Chris.

I did go into my adventures with a list of things I needed to purchase and I made my first acquisition moments later when I found a used copy of the book I have been ogling on Amazon for $10 less than I have been able to find it elsewhere. This is great news and brings me to a quick announcement. I don’t know if any of you remember but I have been planning a podcast for well over six months now. I have a little more to learn about editing and a microphone upgrade to do but starting in March you will be able to listen to the jackassery of myself and my friend Alicia Caudle in the “Two Arty Girls” podcast.

To be continued…

Pill Bug Annihilation and Other Insect Tragedies

Tags

acrylic paint, art, art with a cause, Asperger's art, call to artists, fundraiser, Katie Chaill, little bug studio, mixed-media art, nonprofit art group, painting

Do you ever have one of those projects that just refuses to go as planned/as you would like it to no matter what you do? Well that has been the case with these little bug paintings from the moment my 3=H, Grip 2001, Faber-Castell pencil touched those dinky little canvases I told you about earlier in the week. I had a vision for this series of paintings but soon realized that painting bugs on such a small scale is not something that I excel at.

My original thought was to have very realistic paintings done on fun, sassy backgrounds and for the most part the sketches I did on my canvases turned out rather promising. Musca domestica, otherwise known as the common house fly, was the first of many exceptions to numerous rules… I couldn’t draw one and if I couldn’t draw a simple little fly on a 2” x 2” square canvas then there was no hope in hell of painting one. In one of many bug frustration filled phone calls to my friend Alicia I complained about my inability to draw a fly, to which she jokingly responded, “You can draw the entire human skeletal system! What in the hell do you mean you can’t draw a fly”?!?!? I have been asking myself this question all week…

My inability to draw a tiny fly aside (I have plans for a large redemption drawing btw), the first real tragedy of the week was the poor Pill Bugs (otherwise known as Potato Bugs, Sow Bugs, or Crustacea isopodalem). I had just finished the background for this painting and was pondering the color I chose as it didn’t seem all that festive when I stood up to set it aside and dropped it. With visions of nightmarish raw umber stains on blue carpet I lunged forward to try and catch the canvas before it landed wet side down on the floor. I failed in my attempt at catching it but did manage to just nick the corner; of course this only served to bat the canvas farther from my reach requiring that I step forward for another crack at snapping it up before disaster took place. It was too late and this last bit was all in vain… rather than the miraculous last minute interception I was hoping for I ended up stepping on the canvas just as it made contact with the floor and crushing it in a spectacle that resembled Godzilla taking out a building in Tokyo (my cat witnessed all of this and left in disgust after briefly stopping to give me a look that told me exactly how ridiculously stupid she thinks I am).

Once I was over that indignation and my kitty decided we could again enter the studio with our heads held reasonably high I went back at it and after days of listening to the brutal art critic who lives in my head, I finished the final bug yesterday afternoon. I hated every single one of them. I hated them so much that I couldn’t even look at them and had to leave the room. I hated them so much that I muttered to myself all afternoon and into the evening but after dinner and torturing my  16-year-old son with a couple episodes of Oddities (one of my favorite shows) I felt settled enough to give them a second look.

In the process of loathing my bug paintings earlier in the day I had once again called on my poor friend Alicia for a little arty tantrum ranting and she let me in on a secret of hers. She told me that when she hates a painting that she has done, she paints the sides of the canvas a fun color and then gives it polka dots. I had no idea why on earth this would improve my outlook on the situation but I decided to give it a try and was pleasantly surprised! I don’t know if it was the process of doing something so simple or the polka dots themselves that cheered me up but I was once again smiling about the little critters.

After I got them all dotted up I glued little ribbon hangers to them (which added to my cheer) and glued backing on all of them, leaving them to dry until morning. My cheer was momentarily dashed this morning when I awoke to find that I got a little carried away with my 2am glue application and the brown paper backing on all of the paintings wrinkled. I left the room to grab a cup of coffee and have a smoke on the porch where I changed my mind about what the paintings were supposed to be all along. You see, I was still stuck on the original vision that I had for them and this was the cause of all my aggravation. Once I convinced myself that the paintings were supposed to be fun, whimsical little depictions of real bugs and not friggin’ photo perfect paintings suitable for a damned Audubon Society Field Guide I lightened up quite a bit. Then I remembered why I was doing them in the first place and that knocked me off my high horse.

These little bug paintings are a donation my friend Alicia’s “Mum and Finn” Etsy shop that I mentioned last Monday in my “Call to All My Handy, Arty, and Bighearted Friends” post. I have them boxed up and ready to go to Alicia’s first thing tomorrow and so I am sure they will be added to the store in the next day or so. I am not sure what they will be priced at yet but I am thinking it will be around $8 – $10 each and 100% of the proceeds will go toward funding the “Little Bug Studio”, a nonprofit art group for children with Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism (if you haven’t already you can read all about it in the post I linked above).

Here is a closer look at my silly little bugs! Make sure to visit the “Mum and Finn” shop to get these little guys and other wonderful creations. Decorate your world while helping to support a great cause! It will make you feel good, I promise!

Boisea trivittatus (Boxelder Beetle – nymph)   

Chrysina gloriosa (Jewelled Beetle) 

Chrysochus aurtus (Dogbane Beetle)

Coccinella septempunctata (Lady Bug)

Cotinis nitida (June Bug)

Leptinotarsa decemlineate (Colorado Potato) Beetle

Melanoplus differentialis (Grasshopper) 

Solenpsis invicta (Fire Ant)

  

Therapeutic Art Supply Shopping

Tags

art, art supplies, Blick Art Materials, mixed-media art, PanPastels, Portland Oregon, shopping therapy

I can’t believe that I am saying this but I am so glad that the holiday season is behind us. I LOVE the holidays and am usually sad when they end and we go back to the average humdrum of life without pretty lights, trees in our houses, sparkly decorations, and the excitement gift giving and spending time with those you love.

It is actually that last bit that kind of left me in a state of depressed madness during and after the holidays. Too much family bullshit this year! I won’t get in-depth about it but I will say that it left me feeling the way I feel when my husband has been put in charge of making toast. For some reason he thinks that a slice of bread just warm enough to melt butter constitutes toast. This is one of those silly things that couples fight about in our marriage because it infuriates me when he hands me a floppy, butter-soaked, chunk of wannabe toast. That is how I felt when I woke up on January, 2^nd; as if my entire holiday season was a soggy, butter soaked, piece of fresh effing hell, rather than the slightly crunchy, toasty, golden brown delight that one expects the holidays, and toast, to be.

The only thing that brightened my mood about the whole mess was the fact that I got some of my favorite things ever for birthday and Christmas presents… gift certificates and money! I got other cool stuff as well but the $50 Blick Art Materials gift card I got in my stocking and the $50 cash I got from my mom with explicit instruction to spend it on art supplies were the neon lit ball of shopping therapy light at the end of the tunnel that I needed to put me right again (I also got a gift certificate to get the tattoo on my upper right arm finished but that is a different kind of happy all together).

I didn’t get to go spend my gift certificates until last week but as you can see, it was well worth the wait!

I adore casually walking around the art store, investigation new products, sniffing the soft pastels and pads of paper… feeling the paint brushes… daydreaming about what I could do with all the shiny new art supplies. I rarely allow myself to do this because I usually go in with a budget and specific list to stick to and too much perusing only leads to overspending or disappointment; but when you have $100 to spend and nothing you really NEED at that moment in time it makes the whole experience so much more pleasurable!

I did pick up a few things that I have been wanting for a while. I got a glass palette because I had heard they are much easier to clean acrylic paint from. I have been working on a series of tiny paintings (more about that in a few) and have found that I LOVE the glass palette. It is perfect and very forgiving of my habit of leaving paint to dry because I get too distracted to clean up my mess right away.

I also grabbed a couple of new brushes as I am a terrible abuser of paint brushes. I have been wanting to do some experimenting with Gouache for a long time now so I grabbed a cheap set to play around with (haven’t had a chance to do that yet). I also grabbed some Golden metallic paints and I must say; these are the most fantastic metallic paints that I have ever used. I grabbed a gold, silver, and copper and I cannot believe the coverage that they give! They mix very smoothly with other colors to create a bit of luster (I have been doing this in the series of bug paintings I am currently working on). I have found metallic paints to be very difficult to work with in the past but these perform flawlessly!

Of course I was suckered by the impulse gauntlet near the cash register but am proud to say I didn’t go crazy there… I grabbed five 2” x 2” canvases and five 2.5” x 2” because they were only 17 cents each. I have been looking at these for over a week wondering what in the hell I am going to do with them but was struck with an idea a few days ago and am in the process of putting them to good use.

As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, my friend is starting a nonprofit art group for children with Asperger’s and Autism; the organization is called “Little Bug Studio” so I have decided to paint a series of little bugs and donate them to her Etsy store that funds the nonprofit. I will post more about this later in the week as I have almost finished them but here is a little preview of these silly little paintings.

I have saved the purchase that I am most excited about for last. I think the first medium that I ever got serious about in my artistic life was soft pastels. My mom gave me a set of them when I was in high school, I am guessing that I was about 16 or 17, and were it not for a leaky basement after the “spring break quake” of 1993 I would still have many of those early drawings that I did.

I fell in love with everything about them; their texture; the way the smell, the way the feel against paper, the vibrant colors, and mostly the way they blend. I used that first set until they were literally tiny bits that I smashed into dust so I could paint them on paper with my fingers. Since then I have experimented and learned about many other media and I kind of forgot about them for a while.

Last spring I took a mixed media class in school and we worked with soft pastels; I instantly fell in love all over again. I learned a lot of new things about them during the class and came away grateful that my love for that media had been rekindled. It was around this time that I first heard of something called PanPastels. I think my friend Alicia mentioned them to me and suggested that I might enjoy them.

I remember looking them up and thinking they were a bit too expensive at the time and then I kind of forgot about them. Recently my friend Liz, who uses PanPastels to do beautiful pet portraits, reminded me about them and these were top on my list when I walked into the art supply store. I intended on grabbing a couple of colors to play around with and see if I like them before making a big investment but that Blick Art Materials location was in the middle of packing up for the move to their new location and all they had on the shelf was one $80 set of 20 colors and all the tools you need.

I walked around the store for almost an hour passing that section every few minutes. I went from the paints to the pastel isle, from the brushes back to the pastel isle, back to the paints and then the pastel isle… I walked to the other end of the store to look at papers, gave the canvases a onceover, got stuck at the sale table, and then couldn’t stand it any longer. I took a deep breath, walked to the back of the store, and grabbed that lonely box right off the shelf then hurried to the check out before I changed my mind.

I get an odd high feeling when I am in an art store, especially when I am making a purchase. Office supplies and the fabric store give me a similar feeling but nothing as powerful and exciting as art supplies. Because I tend to get wrapped up in this feeling I often lose track of my total before I get to the counter and this trip was no exception. Even after my student discount I was still almost $35 over my limit but thankfully my husband saved the day. Just as I was ready to put the PanPastels back he reached over my shoulder and handed the girl with the adorable dimples at the checkout his debt card. I whispered “are you sure” and he just shook his head and made a card swiping motion to the girl.

As we walked out of the store I told him that he didn’t have to do that and thanked him and he patted me on the back then said “baby, I caught you actually opening that box and sniffing it with your eyes closed three times… I can’t deny my smarty-farty art nerd something she wants that badly”. By this time we had arrived at our parking spot and were getting ready to get in the car. My husband, those of you who know me from Facebook know him as “Big Orange”, came around to my side of the car and gave me a hug and while he was hugging me he whispered “I love you which is why I have to tell you that you should really try and refrain from sniffing art supplies in public… you look insane when you do that”. And with that comment the last of my post holiday blues evaporated.

I haven’t used my PanPastels yet because I have had two projects going this month and I know if I get them out I will never complete the other projects. The good news is that I finished “Garden Party” last weekend and will most likely finish the “Little Bug” series this weekend so next week will be all PanPastel all the time! I can’t wait to show you what I have planned!

Garden Party

Tags

art, epoxy resin clay, Katie Chaill, mixed-media art

With all of the holiday hubbub I didn’t have much time or inclination to work on art through November and December but I am happy to report that I have finally finished “Garden Party”. Sometimes these pieces take me a while to figure out because I have a mental vision of what I want them to be but don’t always get the logistics worked out right away. This was the case with “Garden Party” (you may remember it from an earlier post titled “The Trees Stand Alone”).

I think the most helpful thing in getting momentum going on this piece has been the fact that I have a pretty low pressure class in school right now so I am not running around like a maniac to keep up on things (that and I haven’t done the dishes or laundry in three or four days despite knowing that I will be having company this week).

I think I might be getting a little tired of this style of work but I am so in love with the way these textural pieces end up looking that I am hesitant to move away from them. I probably just need to change it up for a while. Anyway, back to THIS piece. The concept for “Garden Party” was born almost a year ago when my mother was planning her birthday party. Right around this time I discovered tiny Lucite shoes (think glass slippers) on one my favorite websites for alterables and this in combination with the grand soirée my mom was busy cooking up put the idea of princesses playing  croquet in a garden into my head. I floundered with this for a long time and when I finally started it I was still going in that direction.

Once I got the trees made for this I lost direction and became frustrated with details that weren’t taking shape in the way I would have liked them to (which was sometime in late October, early November). It wasn’t until my friend Alicia announced the themes for the next edition of her mixed media arts zine that I found some creative footing. I won’t give many details here so as not to spoil the surprise when the zine comes out but will tell you that this piece took a complete 180 and its new direction was inspired by the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572 (and my weird obsession with all things de Medici). That is about all I am willing to say for now but I have been dying to share this piece so here goes!

Because this is a rather large piece (16” x 20”) it was difficult to get a good close-up with lots of detail so below are a few detail shots.

There is actually so much detail in here that I keep forgetting and rediscovering things! There are things that I am sure you just won’t be able to see here (like the fact that the little lantern lenses glow in the dark… I can’t get a photo that shows this feature well) but never fear! As much as I love seeing it hang on my wall, this piece will be listed for sale in my Etsy shop shortly! Check my “Store” page here to keep an eye out for it; once it is listed there will be a direct link to “Garden Party” in my shop on that page.

Call to All My Handy, Arty, and Bighearted Friends!

Tags

Asperger's art, building materials donation, call to action, fundraiser, little bug studio, nonprofit art group

I am very excited to announce that one of my best friends on the planet, the amazingly talented Alicia Caudle, is starting a nonprofit art group for children with Asperger’s and Autism. I am even more excited to say that I have been invited to serve on the board of directors for this wonderful nonprofit!

Alicia is the mother of a rather incredible young man name Finn. Finn is a brilliant, creative, and sweet little man who has Aspberger’s. Over the years I have watched Alicia do amazing things with and for Finn and I must say that I am constantly blown away by her dedication as a mother and the lengths that she goes to in order to understand and best serve her son. She honestly stops at nothing to do the best for Finn and it shows in what a mind blowingly outstanding child he is.

Because Finn is homeschooled Alicia puts a lot of effort into making sure that he has good social interaction with other kids his age and through the homeschool community, they have been put in touch with many other families who deal with Aspberger’s and Autism. And because their aren’t really any programs geared toward providing positive social interaction for kids with Aspberger’s and Autism in the Portland area Alicia decided to form a group of her own. If you are not aware of the challenges that these kids face the biggest is with social interaction. It was watching these little guys struggle to get along during play dates that gave Alicia the idea to pull out the art supplies and set them all down at her dining room table and in that moment she saw something amazing happen… the kids went from bickering and frustrated to focused, polite, and downright conversational the moment they sat down to create their works of art.

This little art group has since grown and Alicia’s dining room table is now rather crowded and there are more children and families wanting to take part than there is room for them all! This is what fueled Alicia’s decision to officially make “Little Bug Studio” a reality. She has filed for and will soon have her official nonprofit status; there are so many families interested that there will be enough participants for morning homeschool group as well as an afternoon public school group three days a week. There are big plans for Little Bug Studio and I am writing today to give all of you the opportunity to help make this happen!

There are a few ways you can help get this fantastic organization off the ground. A few months ago I posted about “The Tallest Book in the World Project” and this is the first way that you can contribute. Please follow the link to get all the details for this project. In short, you can contribute pages for this book which will be hand bound and HUGE! The goal is to create the biggest hand bound book in the world. It will be on exhibit for a while after its completion and then will be auctioned off to the highest bidder with all proceeds going directly to Little Bug Studio.

You can also contribute by going to Alicia and Finn’s “Mum and Finn” Etsy shop to purchase some of their original art collaborations. 100% of the proceeds from this shop will go to fund Little Bug Studio! My personal favorites are the “Finnsters”… these are stuffed monsters that Alicia has made based on Finn’s drawings. I happen to be the proud owner of a Finnster that Mr. Finn gave me for Solstice last year.

There are also original paintings for sale in their Esty shop! These are all paintings that were done by Alicia as she was guided by the kiddos in her art group. This is my favorite!

Lastly but far from least important, Alicia needs help getting the studio ready by this spring. As I already mentioned the group has grown far beyond the capacity of her little dining room table so she is giving her garage a facelift so that she will have a larger space and be able to accommodate all of the kids who want to participate! She has already been receiving donations and in order to get started on this project as soon as the weather permits Little Bug Studio will need to have some supplies ready and bodies willing to give time and a little sweat to the cause. Below you will find a wish list for the project. If you can donate any of the materials listed or are interested in donating some work you can contact Alicia at create@littlebugstudio.org  (reclaimed/recycled goods welcomed and enthusiastically appreciated).

Tyvek

Siding

Interior and exterior paint

Insulation

Drywall

2-3 large windows that open and close

French doors or 2 doors with windows

A little wood stove (to keep the kiddos warm in the winter months)

Electrical work to add outlets (materials and labor)

A large table (around 8’ x 3’)

Chairs

A couple of easels

Any and all arts and crafts supplies