So life is a blank canvas, some say, waiting to be filled with whatever may come. I believe this. but how daunting is that thought. You have a blank canvas sitting in front of you. It’s perfect. Sturdy. Clean. Bright white. … now what?
Sometimes i wish that ideas came naturally to me. But then again, having an idea is only the first step. I have to then carry it out. Point “A” to point “B”, right? I wish it were that simple.
I finally have an opportunity to show my art in December at a local coffee shop. I’m stoked beyond belief, but needless to say, I’m struggling. I have ideas, but what to do about them, I’m not sure.
I’m going to grab a orange popsicle out of the freezer and mull it over for a while.
Little Brown Owl is coming along swimmingly. I can’t wait to get it officially launched. My friends and family, I bet, are a bit tired of hearing about it, but soon there will be visible proof of my hours of invisible work. Stephen has been so supportive and helpful with all the back end crap that goes into starting an online store. I’m so thankful for him. Anyway, I just wanted to give an update to those who were wondering, “what the heck is happening with this?”. Thanks for the wonder. I will be producing the goods soon.
So, I know it’s been a while since I’ve written. But I asure you, it’s not because of the lack of content. no. no. I’ve been terribly preoccupied. Which is no excuse. I’m loving life and all it’s strange-ness. So now that I’m not working full time, I’m now working overtime with all the projects and stuff I love to do. It’s been amazing. To give you a quick peak, I’ve been volunteering a bunch in our library at church; creating posters and advertisments to promote it’s weekly features. I’ve also been working with a couple of friends to create a monthly publication, zine thing, to distribute locally. My hope is that it will promote community and give people a bit of art to look forward to each month. Also, I’ve been preparing to head up a Drawing 101 class starting next month. It’s a bit daunting, going back through past stuff I’ve learned and trying to figure out how to teach it myself. I’ve never taught a class in my life, so it should be an interesting experience. And last, but not least by any means, I’ve been working on Little Brown Owl. It’s going to be a website to sell crafty stuff that I make at home. So, that means, I have to make stuff to sell as well. Awwwwhhh! Craziness, but I’m having so much fun doing it. On top of all of that, I just got a part time job at Peet’s Coffee here in Concord. So, needless to say, my schedule is now over flowing and it’s exciting.
Happy as a blue bird. Busy as a bee.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved stuff that has been handcrafted, made from things of the past. Growing up, I would raid my Grandpa’s junk yard for materials that I could fix up or include in some latest art venture. Ok, I admit, I still do this. Last weekend, I took home an old wooden frame that I found on his back porch. This look has become crazy popular lately. Everything is made to look old-fashioned, worn, antique… the older the better it seems.
Since starting this blog, I’ve been doing a bit more web surfing that normal and have discovered that this handcrafted, independent type of art, whether visual, music, fashion or film carries the label “indie” as of late. I think it’s somewhat ironic that this has become the staple look, sound and feel of everything commercial when in it’s very nature “indie” means to be independent, made by hand and self-sufficient. That’s America for you.
Anyway, back to my Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I mentioned that I visited last weekend. I always knew they had collected old stuff throughout the years, but never fully realized how incredibly sweet it all is. I took some pictures to share. I love that years before “indie” anything became popular, my grandparents were just being completely authentic with what they liked.
I’ve stumbled across something I am rapidly growing to love; using fabrics as art. I’ve always loved painting with layers to add depth and visual texture, and now I am appreciating the vast amount of interest that a piece of fabric can bring. Obviously, I’ve explored using my trunk full of mismatched fabrics to sew something… a quilt maybe? Quilts are beautiful and useful but it wouldn’t show the raw beauty that already exists. Having plenty of “cut-off” jean shorts in my life, I knew that if I was to throw fabric in the washing machine without hemming the raw edge, it would fray. Great. So I tried it. I cut a bunch of my fabric in strips of all sizes and washed them. What came out was incredible. Everything tangled together and made this great mass of strings and thread. I wanted to just hang it on the wall from there, but decided to take it a couple steps further. 
I took a piece of pine (10″x30″x1″) and painted it black. Then wrapped the pieces of fabric around it until it created something more interesting. I uploaded the finished result under my portfolio page. Scroll down to “Fabric” and take a look. Next, I’m going to sew the pieces together first before wrapping them. I’m thinking this will create a more uniform look, without sacrificing the imperfect quality of the fabric. It’s all a mess and I love it.
Folk art is described as a wide range of objects that reflect the craft traditions and traditional social values of various social groups. Folk art is generally produced by people who have little or no academic artistic training, nor a desire to emulate “fine art”, and use established techniques and styles of a particular region or culture. Along with painting, sculpture, and other decorative art forms, some also consider utilitarian objects such as tools and costume as folk art.
Antique folk art is distinguished from traditional art in that while it is collected today based mostly on its artistic merit; it was never intended as a category to be art for art’s sake. Examples include: weathervanes, old store signs and carved figures, itinerant portraits, carousel horses, fire buckets, painted game boards, cast iron doorstops and many other similar lines of highly collectible “whimsical” antiques.
[Definition taken from www.wikipedia.org]
I guess as an amateur artist, I identify with folk art’s non-mainstream, non-mass produced nature (if that makes any sense at all). What you see is what you get. Imperfections and all. I’ve always loved the idea of creating something new from already existing materials… making the old new, making the useless useful, and the imperfect beautiful.
On Saturday, my husband, Steve and my sister-in-law, Shalina spent the morning in Martinez, California. Shalina takes awesome photos, so we went out there for a photo shoot. Our little Rosa dog came too. The pictures turned out amazing. Check out www.shalinalives.com to see more of Shalina’s work.
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