The newest idea for a series of art necklace/collars/yokes..It's so fun to pin things on my mannequin - Each of the circles are hand stitched together with felt and the insides are metal grate. I can't wait to get it finished and try it on! 

Kinda want to start using my couch as a back drop now...who couldn't love it's hot pink textured-ness.

Oh, the things we do...

I'm having one of those weeks at work, aka. really busy and frustrating. But everything will even out eventually. I realized that missed inspiration Thursday. If it helps, I did do some art stuff. I attended a webinar for helping artists develop websites. That's part of the reason that I don't have a website. First, I really don't know how to make one, and second, I don't really have the computer and the time on the computer to do it. Sounds lame in this day and age but it's true. Eventually, I'd really like to get my own website.The webinar was held by Wyoming Entrepreneur.Biz by a pretty cool dude. There are a lot of things that I need to consider about making art into a business that I can work on until I have the ability to make a website. Sigh, it's always about time and money.

This week I've been stewing on a new series of work that has to deal with felt, metal, and some Jacobean embroidery, or crewel work. I bought this pillow at a thrift store and it has the most beautiful embroidery on it. I didn't really understand what kind of embroidery it was. Then I found out that it was crewel embroidery (wool on linen) and then upon further investigation I found out that it was Jacobean! It kinda looks like this...but a little more retro.

So, I've been reading books (The New Crewel) and collecting pictures and trying to figure out how to incorporate crewel into a series of sculptural collars and necklaces. There has been much drawing - and there will be more as week gather to watch Project Runway off Tevo tonight. How much I love food and fashion! Too bad they are mortal enemies.

My Birthday Weekend

What does a fiber artist do on her birthday? She makes a duct tape dress form!

Doesn't it look awesome on my pink couch? Almost art by itself.

I've wanted to make a dummy of myself for a long time  - I just haven't ever had another person/enough time/or the materials all in one place. The boy and I woke up on Sunday morning and I knew that this is what I wanted to do. So we bought some tape and because he's a theater techie he already knew how to wrap the duct tape around to make the dummy.

We had a lot of laughs because I couldn't bend over because I wanted a neck on my dummy too. I had the hardest time getting a drink because my arms couldn't move very much with the duct tape on the shoulders. and boy was it hot! The duct tape keeps the heat from your body in and you get all sweaty. This is where I printed out my set of instructions, but the boy really just free formed it. There was a lot of unnecessary patting because the tape needed to "stick". After the taping was done, we stuffed it with batting and old pillow insides. I'm so excited to start using it. 

I also got M & N's wedding quilt bound this weekend. All I need to do now is buy a dowel and stitch on some sort of hanging device.

So many things happened this weekend! It's was almost too hard keep up. Saturday, I volunteered with the boy for Cheyenne's Plein Air event. I was escorting the judge around most of the morning between The Link Gallery and Deselms Fine Art. John Encinias was the judge. He was a very nice man and we had a good conversation about art and painting as I was shepherding him around. I like his paintings because he started out as an abstract painter and he doesn't do your typical mountain landscape paintings. I also like his more natural light and color. His paintings also have this lonely, hazy quality that make them almost surreal. After the judging I got to user people to the viewing and auction.

Moai Inspiration

My birthday is this weekend...I'm getting really old. My boss gave me some little desk Moai (Easter Island head statue thingys) and I have been researching them all day. Just think of the fantastic-ness that is Polynesian art. If you want to read about Moai of the Rapanui this site is pretty interesting. You would think that for such a tiny island out in the middle of nowhere that people would be nice to each other just to survive. Not true, the history of Easter Island is fraught with civil wars, slavery, diseases, ecological devastation, cannibalism, and creepy stone statues.

Cannibalism was a pretty common thing out there until everyone was converted to Christianity and TB. It makes a lot of sense in a strange way because there were no large mammals, so all you had to eat were fish, the occasional bird and Polynesian rats. I think that I would probably eat women and children too...yah, you guessed it, women, children, and the occasional stranger were those most often signed up for hu-meat-fest. Thanks guys, real classy.

But the main interesting thing about the island are the Moai. They range anywhere from 6ft tall to over 30ft. tall. They are placed all around the island facing inland (we are not sure why) but most of them didn't even make it out of the quarry, while some tumbled mid route. I read an interesting story which may or may not be true, but that there were two types of people on the island - the Long Ears and the Short Ears. Supposedly the Long Ears enslaved the Short Ears and made them build all the Moai. Then the Short Ears over threw the Long Ears and slaughtered them all. I also heard it speculated that the Short Ears were Polynesian and the the Long Ears were from South America.

The really freaky thing about the Moai is that they used to have white eyes made from shell/coral and red rock top knots. Which made them look like this:

Much scarier.  And actually more akin to Polynesian art. I'm not sure how I would feel about all these statues facing towards you from the sea. It's like they are imprisoning you and watching you. Or a really intense psychological experiment. Makes for some creepy artistic inspiration.

P.S. Art, Design and Dine is tonight! see you there.

Loveland Sculpture

I woke up with Natalie Portman's Shaved Head playing in my head this morning. Sigh, back to work.

It was quite the Colorado whirlwind this weekend, between relatives, friends leaving for grad school, and a Celestial Seasonings tour, there was so much great inspiration. The boy and I did manage to meet some friends at the Loveland Sculpture in the Park Show. I went last year and really loved it. There are so many great things there and established artists to talk to about form and color. It always seems that 60% of the show is realistic bronzes of Indians, Horses, and Buffalo. Which is a little depressing, but that's what sells out here with the cowboy wannabes. The show is definitely worth seeing, even if you have to do a little imagery sifting.

This year, I had the forethought to bring a little sketch book to record compositions and designs. I consider cameras to be rude at art events because then you really have a chance to rip the artist off. With a sketch book you really can't copy to the extreme. So I'm sketching a couple of this woman's bronze sculptures because I liked the abstract fullness and movement in her pieces and her assistant comes over and tells me that they don't let people draw their work. I was outraged but I calmly moved down the line. The boy and I have been having this conversation over the last couple of days about intellectual property and copyrights and this got me thinking about that. All the great masters have had people copy them - that's how people learned to do art. Some of the other people were pleased that I was drawing their stuff because I would tell them that I'm an emerging artist and that I really loved their compositions and colors. Isn't emulation the highest form of respect? It wasn't like I was camped out in front of this ladies tent for hours copying everything that she made, and I would never recreate what she was doing because they were Navajo women statues. It's a big debate in my mind about how much an artist "owns" their work, because a lot of artists pull from lots of other sources. It seems like there are two camps on this one, the pro copyright and those that give their ideas out freely. I should have questioned this lady about her ideas. Too bad.

Anyways, here are some of the artists that inspired me:
Carolyn Sato
Ed Hart
Sean & Anne Gillespie

Taiwanese Inspiration

I was feeling really uninspired yesterday. Things have been a little topsy-tervy this week, thus I'm trying to  be inspiring today.

My fiances sister is leaving for China soon and I'm really intrigued by Chinese minority historical dress. And on top of this I get the Taiwan Review at work. It makes for a lot of stewing about Chinese design.

One of my favorite fashion collections (well, the one that I remember) was Chanel's Paris-Shanghai Metiers D'Arts collection 2009-2010. You can see all the slides at that link. I love the combination of eastern and western dress, along with the traditional Chinese jewelry accents.

Also, American Craft has an article on their website right now about Taiwanese artists/crafters. I'm jiving with the Asian aesthetic right now.

Art Quilts

Every once in a while something awesome happens along that is all kinds of sources for inspiration. Last night was that night.

All afternoon I had been day dreaming about wedding reception decor and taking an art trip down to Denver for my birthday weekend. I wanted to go thrifting after work for wedding decorations, or at least to get some ideas. I got a flat tire as I was leaving the parking lot. It was definitely not the highlight of my day. Luckily, I could walk to get the boy to fix the tire. Then I found out that his mom was going to a talk given by an art quilter to the Cheyenne Artist Guild. Apparently, they have completely revamped their website since the last time that I saw it. I'm not exactly a member, I've been dragging my feet a little bit. I'm so happy that I went to this talk though.

Do Palma was presenting on her work kind of in general. Her work is fabulous, and deep! She really gets into researching all the different aspects of the stories that she works on and she isn't shy about tackling political subjects. She also does stitching and beading is a lot of her pieces! The picture that I posted is of a work about child soldiers being recruited in Sierra Leone. It's called "Children in Arms: Prayer for Sierra Leone". I love her use of color and patch working pattern mixed with other fiber techniques. The best thing, is that she's a really nice person and I'm hoping to learn a lot of techniques from her in the future. Especially, silk screening, dying, applique, transfers...just all those things that I've been a little afraid of tackling for so long.

The other amazing thing is that she is apart of an art quilt group called Front Range Contemporary Quilters. They've got some amazing pieces on their website and some nationally known members. They meet in Westminster so maybe I'll get to go down some times. They also have critique sessions. I've really been wishing for other artists to critique my work since college. At least one of these sessions is in Ft. Collins, I'm really itching to go down for that. Hopefully, this will open up some new doors to meeting more artists and creating some interesting work.