Been gone a long time...

I haven't posted in a long while, and I admit that I feel really guilty about that. I have my excuses and you probably don't want to hear them...but here we go anyway. I recently costumed another show at a local college (Dowling College), a production of "Little Shop of Horrors". This was a fabulous and rewarding experience. I really enjoyed working with a group of older actors who conducted themselves in a highly professional manner, as well as working with a director who really appreciated what good costuming could bring to a production. It was hard work, but worth it. And I got paid....which was also nice.

Then I did a "Sheep to Shawl" festival where I demonstrated felting all day. This was a fun day, as the sun was shining for a change and I managed to not only educate many people about the range of things that can be done with felt, but also sunburned my HANDS. Yes....just my hands. That is what happens when you wear a long shirt, floppy hat and sunscreen, but have your hands in soapy water all day in the sun.

I did hand out a few business cards and actually got a couple of convo's regarding some of my items which I had for perusal at the demo. Unfortunately, I think that when I mentioned price, it scared off some prospective buyers. I fear that is what often happens in the land of the handcrafted. Folks love the idea of a thing, but when they discover that the thing they love took 26 hand hours to create and (gosh) actually had material costs involved and so will have a price aligned with that fact, they no longer love the item so much. It is tragic, but I won't be a sad crafter who feels compelled to lower my prices just to move that item off my shelf. My integrity is worth more than that....thank you very much.

I am also busy making some new felt for an exhibit at a local library. I will keep more posted on this as it comes available.

Felting Tutorial Part 2: Curly-que

Here is part 2 of my Video Felting Tutorial: Felting a Curly-Que.

This portion of the tutorial covers the actual process of wet felting around the wire form. Part 1 covered how to wind the felt around the wire form and prepare it for wet felting. (If you haven't seen Part 1, it is in yesterday's post!)

Enjoy!



Link to part 1 of the tutorial here: Take me to it!

Felting Tutorial Part 1: Curly-que

I thought that it would be fun for me to start filming a series of tutorials on some basic felting techniques.

So here is the first in that series: How to wet felt a curly-que, just like the one you see here!

These little curls are really useful as embellishments or as fun elements in larger pieces, I use them all the time. Besides, they are a great place to start because they work up quick, don't take much roving, and they are just as whimsical as all get out. They can take something that is kind of ho-hum and elevate it. They can also be just the thing to add a touch of the organic to a piece that is feeling a little staid or static.

I hope you enjoy part 1 of this tutorial, parts two and three will follow shortly!

Part 1: Taming the wool (The wind up)

Part 2: Prepare to get wet (Felting it up)

Part 3: Taking shape (Forming the curl)

Raw Bones: Felted necklace

This is the "Raw Bones" felted necklace. When I finished the snake, treated it with the acrylic, and cut it, I thought that it looked like uncooked bones....which is kind of creepy to me, being a vegetarian. However, with the little rose quartz spacers and the touch of red coral, it turned out to be quite the engaging necklace. The upward facing side of the cut beads really does frame the face.

Even if it is a little...morbid?

Felt Heirloom Roses

So...I am off the Peonies for a little bit and on to Heirloom Roses. I consider this little guy to be an heirloom rose, cause he is so open. Aren't those the roses we always remember as smelling the best and lasting the longest, even if they were not the most showy in the garden?

This 4 inch wet felted and hand beaded beauty with needle felted details would dress up any ensemble, from a simple black turtleneck, to a blushing pink evening gown. It also looks spectacular in a chignon, and that is why it is convertible from a hair fork mounting to a traditional corsage pin.

I love making these, and I made the flat felt for this over the summer, and had it sitting about for a while waiting for it tell me what it wanted to be. Last night it whispered to me...so I helped it along.

How I love my Newsday!

So tomorrow I am in Newsday again! Yippeee!!!

They are publishing their Handmade Shopping Guide, and I get a picture and a blurb.

The link to the web version is above....psssst I'm #5.

SWEET!!!!

Guess I am going to need to make more flowers this weekend!

Winter White Majesty Necklace

This is the Winter Majesty Necklace. It is a blend of cream and white merino and corriedale rovings that were wet felted and then sculpted. It is embellished with freshwater pearls and some very tiny sweet pearly seed beads. I simply adore the sculptural nature of this piece, and think that it is one of the most visually interesting and inspired things I have made in some time.

I can imagine the White Witch of you-know-where wearing this to a garden party before she drinks some sweet pale wine. It would look amazing with a simply cut evening dress....or a black V-neck T-shirt. It would be divine for a winter wedding! It weighs hardly a thing for being so substantial.

The process of building it was really organic, in that I started with the curly-cues and then went out from there, adding elements and sculpting parts as the necklace called for them. The part that is slightly redolent of a marriage between an open egg and a bird's nest dusted with spun sugar was actually felted around a small stone from my garden, which I then freed from it's woolly captivity. The tiny felt and pearl "cameo" on the opposite side is the doorway through which the stone made it's exit.

I'm almost too much in love with it to let it go....almost, but not quite. It could be yours...just go to Etsy.

No Holes

I am happy to report that I don't have a hole in my heart.



That is what they were looking for with the whole "gargle this Karo thick Lidocaine and then swallow this Sharpie on a rope" thing I did this morning. I simply won't tell you all the crude things that are going through my mind to describe how my esophagus feels right now...but let's say one scenario involves the Coney Island side show and a mug of flaming bourbon.



It is a great relief. I am a little torn however, because if they had found a hole (also known as a PFO) they would have been able to fix it pretty easily and then my Migraines might have gone away. The migraines mimic TIA type strokes pretty closely with progressive blindness radiating out from the center of vision until complete, total loss of sensation on the left side of the body, hemi-paralysis, and finally mind-crushing pain for 6 to 12 hours. Now it is back to the drawing board to try to find the root cause. I count myself as lucky though, I have found a medication that staves them off almost completely (Topamax), but I live with the constant fear that one day it might stop working. As someone who worked in research for a long time, I can not accept that a causality will not be found.

At least now I can go back to the studio and make my happy little flowers with one less thing to worry about.

So There!

Title: This is where all the trouble begins

(Yes, that is my brain in there)

Invasive

I'm feeling a little bleak today. It is cold and raining buckets, a preview of fall to come, which is generally ok, but not for today. I haven't been allowed to eat or drink anything since yesterday because of a procedure I am having today where they, numb up your throat, sedate you and then stick some ultrasound equipment down your esophagus so they can get a very clear look at your heart. I am thirsty and cranky and more than a little apprehensive...so I started making this shadowbox.






It is significantly darker than my other work as of late, and it is probably NOT destined for Etsy, but then I am feeling a little darker than usual today. Keep your fingers crossed for me...it is not a very risky thing I am having, just an uncomfortable one.

Vacation Inertia

Ugh...I need the inspiration fairy to strike.


I got back from vacation days ago and I can't seem to get anything done. My butt is glued to my office seat and although my studio is alluring, I have no clear plan once I go in there. I feel easily distracted and uninspired, which is exactly the opposite of how I was hoping that I would feel after a jaunt away from home.





I did go tag sale-ing on Saturday and picked up a few fun items that I might incorporate into my work, including these odd little curio boxes from the 60's. They were obviously made for the decorative market, because when I started dissecting them I discovered that several of the pieces were assembled directly on the fabric backing with some black brittle resin type stuff. I am hoping that I can grind that crap off with my dremel. There were bits of newspaper stuck in behind some of them for filler and they were obviously Russian...which adds a bit of mystery to their production. They say that they were made in New York, so I am guessing in some drafty 5th floor walk up tenement in Brighton Beach.

Alright...enough talk, time to walk the walk...gotta get my butt into the studio and see what gets made.

Pretty Packages

Sometimes I like to do something a little extra....

I always try to have nice or quirky packaging, but today I must say that I outdid myself. Maybe it was the rain that forced a delay in my trip to the post office, or the old papermache box that I found, but let's say that my customer is going to get a bit more than she bargained for when she opens up this package!

I went a little crazy decorating the box: vibrant paints, delicious papers, shiny brass brads, soft velvet ribbons. I just couldn't stop. I could probably sell this in my shop, but I wouldn't. It is a little thank you for giving a home to one of my favourite things I have made so far.

Then I had to figure out what to put it in to ship it. The post office doesn't like round things, you see...that is where the old wooden cigar box came in. I figured, no irate carrier could destroy that bad boy. So in the box it went, with a gift card, a magnet, a wing and a prayer. Wrap it in brown paper and it is off....

I love it more than zombies love brains.....

I was poking about on Etsy, like I do a lot, when I found this featured shop foldedpigs. She makes the most hilarious porcelain. Including this plate:


Which I thought was an incredible coincidence, as I had just been listening to the musical stylings of Jonathan Coulton, who as some of you may know, is the roving troubadour for Popular Science magazine and a musical genius to boot.



Why is this a coincidence, you may ask? He has a fantastic song called "Re: Your Brains" which you can just so happen to listen to below.


I dropped him an e-mail to let him know about this alignment of the arts, and what do you know but the man wrote me back....within 24 hours. How is that for being responsive to your fan base?


I love his music more than zombies love brains......

Art that Stinks...

Some of my art really stinks.

Ok, well, it smells because it is encaustic. Encaustics, for those of you who may not have seen or worked with them before, are essentially a mixture of beeswax and oil paint, which are sometimes mixed with a resin. This mixture is then melted and applied to a surface. I mix my own encaustics and love painting with them. However, while I am working with them they do tend to get odoriferous. I am sure there are things in the paint that I should not be inhaling, so I open the windows in my studio space nice and wide. My hubby (who wants me to stop calling him that, by the way) always complains and leaves the house when I am working with them.

I used to mix my encaustics and then melt them directly on the canvas or surface using a heat tool. I sometimes still do this, but recently I found a groovy buffet warmer from the 70's. It is all ripply glass and danish modern handles and I LOVE IT. It doesn't get terribly hot, and I can put my pans of encaustic on it to melt without them getting to too high a temperature. Because the surface is glass, any drips I might make clean right off when the warmer cools down. I still use the hot tool for detail work, but I am getting burned a lot less now.

Note: The little pile of Buddha heads in the corner is a trick that I use to get my wax to melt faster for the pans. I pre-melt a pan of beeswax, and then pour it into a silicone mold of a Buddha that I made a few years ago. That way I have small bits of wax that melt fast without having to saw them off the block with a knife.

Encaustics are stinky when you are working with them, but smell like delicious beeswax/honey when they are done. I am all about integrating all 5 senses into my art, and this is just such an added bonus.

And oh yeah, that little guy you see on my encaustic bench is for newly for sale on Etsy...or will be shortly.

Trees for Denise

My friend Denise loves trees. What is not to love....they do photosynthesis which is pretty groovy when you think about the chemistry of carbon fixation and all. They make oxygen which is a fairly nice trick. And they are pretty.



Here are some pretty trees for Denise.



Who just happens to blog here: http://deniseculberson.blogspot.com/



And for the observant of those amongst you, yes, this is the image that I am carving in the previous post. If you noticed you get the gold star today.

You are all doing very well.

What do you make when the block is in your brain?

What do you make on a lovely day when the sun is shining and you have a big old mental block? I reach for a rubber block. I find that one of my old carved rubber blocks is great for un-stoppering the creative juices. I just ink it up, press it out, dab out the inks, watercolors or what-have-you, and within a few minutes I have a finished piece in front of me ....and amazingly....I have made something.

Any artist or writer will tell you that the most important part of getting out of a creative slump is just MAKING SOMETHING.

So when you see my Emily or Tree motif show up, chances are that I am in a funky brain fog and am trying to clear away the cobwebs. Here is to hoping that once they are clear I can move on and do something totally new. But at least it is good to have something that works as an artistic jump start.