"Hold Me"

My show at Clay Paper Scissors that opens November 11th. Babies!

My New Studio @ Clay Paper Scissors

Here's my new studio at Clay Paper Scissors! I haven't quite got it decorated yet, but I'll get some pictures up as soon as things. Things were a little messy for Art, Design and Dine because I didn't have the time this week to really clean up. But, hey, working studio. It's pretty amazing to have white walls to hang things up on. Makes for good pictures. My soon-to-be-father-in-law and his gaggle of middle school students stopped by to look at art and talk to the artists. It was really fun to talk to them about working in fiber arts. I wish that I had known that you can be a serious artist and work with fabric when I was in middle school and high school. It would have saved me a few years of bumbling around in paints. Then again, you learn great things in painting too. I also met a woman that runs a quilt shop that I didn't know was in town, Around the Block Quilt Shop. I'm getting interested in doing a block of the month workshop.

I finally figured out what to do to the sister sculpture of "The Spine".The problem was that it was too wide and too short to carry off the wideness. I couldn't quite find a way that I liked to display it so that you can see the petal like ruffles and thread and not a whole bunch of the underside. I think this works because it fills up the inside - shows you the outside and still sculpture even though it's hung. I'm pleased with the little red strings handing down from it and the shadows that it casts. It reminds me of a weird flower or a snail. So I call it "The Snail", though I should probably come up with a more sophisticated name for it later.

This is the next sculpture that I need to get done. When I drew it out it seemed really cool, then I put it together and I thought it looked like a wreath and I hated it. Now, have it quilted and the beginning of the binding put on it and I don't think it's all that bad (This is a terrible picture). I'm teetering on the idea of either bending it in on it's self, like I originally planned or bending it out to kinda form a poof ball.

I was working on it last night after Art, Design and Dine and I was so engrossed the hours just flew by. That's the great thing about finally having a studio, I can just work and work and work. But that's also my down fall. When I finally surface I'm like, "Man, my back hurts, why does my stomach feel weird?" because I've been sitting on a bench for four hours and haven't eaten anything in a while. That's exactly what a studio does to me. I love the exhaustion too. You don't go home till your utterly exhausted from all the work, and if you do anything else your just going to mess it up because you can't even see straight.

Love it, absolutely love it.

Yeah for Canning!

I did a lot of really fun things this weekend. My mom came down on Saturday and we went wedding shoe shopping with no success. I did find this really cute pair of purple fuzzy shoes but we gave up because we thought they wouldn't go with my dress. I should have gotten married in purple! Then that night was my bridal shower/bachelorette party. Some friends of mine and my moms met us down at Suite 1901 for drinks and present unwrapping. There were so many presents! Mom mailed out invitations to my family and I'm so thankful they sent so many beautiful things. I now have 8 place settings of plum fiesta ware, three stainless steel mixing bowls, a bamboo cutting board and nice knife, a stack-able mug set, wine glass set, earring, Victoria Secret gift card...not to mention all the Macy's gift cards, money, and the things mom bought me for canning!

Speaking of canning! Mom, my future mother-in-law and I canned apple butter for for wedding favors on Sunday. It was sooo much fun, I'm going to start canning everything in sight. We couldn't have done it without my mother in laws neighbor's chinois sieve. It looks like this:

It's such an amazing contraption and I'm going to have to buy one because you can use it to make homemade apple and spaghetti sauce. and it's just so much fun to use. There's nothing like home made apple sauce. All you do is put the cooked apples in the cone (they have to be boiled to the point they are splitting their skins) and then use the pestle to smash them against the sides. All the apple mush leaks out the sides of the cone. It's a perfectly tasty and messy way to spend a cold rainy fall afternoon. Then you add a whole bunch of spices and lemon juice and cook the stuff down till it's brown and tangy. Then we canned everything - I have so many grand schemes for next fall - green beans and garlic, my grandmothers mince meat, spaghetti sauce, pears, peaches, apple sauce, jellies, peppers - There's so many things that I could do! I guess right now there's this whole revolution of canning going on, but my mom and her family always canned - especially tomatoes and apples. I'm excited about putting my spin on canning. This next weekend I'm going to work on pumpkin butter for the wedding favors.

The other awesome thing that happened this weekend is that I finally moved into my studio down at Clay Paper Scissors! My mother in law helped me move in my table and move my shelves. There's so much wall space! I'm gonna hang all kinds of crazy things up. There's a huge fiber show in Wichita coming up and I'm hoping to get a few pieces put together and work on some crazy ideas in the meantime. I'm also finally getting a laptop so that I can work on selling/websites better. So many good things are happening.