Ben and I went on a daytrip to Logee’s yesterday- so much inspiration!
I love this rust and green slime covered crank-
and this is the ceiling in the bathroom! I couldn’t help myself, I HAD to take a photo!
I made a set over at Flickr with full size images from our visit.
some more things I’ve been doing which have not yet lead to making finished dolls.
I spent half a day at CraftBoston. I saw some great work, but also a lot of high-end and expensive craft that looked like a lot of other expensive and high-end craft I’ve seen. And I saw people I knew that I hadn’t seen in 20 years, and people I’ve become friends with in the last year, and in the middle of it all, got a phone call from the daughter with some fantastic job/school news. It was a a great day!
Here are some links for the things I liked the most-
Sarmite Wearable Art- incredible coats
Valerie Bunnell- figurative art
Ananda Khalsa- jewellery
Insect Lab- bugs
Sheilagh Flynn- pottery
Wendy Ellertson- fantasy figures
I also spent a while talking to a very nice woman in a booth that was showing textile artists work from the Wales, UK. Amazing work, but I don’t seem to have a link- bummer- here.
I spent most of one of my days in London at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Since I didn’t have to be concerned about anyone else being bored, I could spend as much time as I wanted pulling out drawers and looking at textile samples- mostly embroidery and lace. My arms were actually sore at the end of the day! Taking photos is allowed (unlike most US museums), but the dim light combined with the glass cases, made it almost impossible to get a decent photo. These photos will at least remind me of the treasures I saw.
I have a page full of names of artists to research. The day at the museum will give me a starting place to find more inspiration. I love the internet!
I spent another day out of my studio… when I have been away for a while, it can be hard to get back into the groove. Today, I drove down to Cape Cod and had lunch and a visit with Salley Mavor. I got to see the projects she is working on, such as this self-portrait-
She is also working on a book of nursery rhymes- she has been working on it for 2 years and thinks it will be another 2 years before it is finished. She showed me pages and pages of her beautiful work. It is truly inspirational. I picked her brain about card making and selling and also about book publishing. All so interesting. And, Theresa, she has your magnet on her fridge!
desk photos- I love to see how people work!
All the beads on the pipe cleaners have little faces painted on them-
Bags of flower parts, sorted by color-
Aren’t these beautiful? I picked them up when I was walking to mail some envelopes.
Fall- busy crafting season. I am trying to crank up my production to have inventory for the very limited venues I will be showing in this fall. I have a stack of ladies cut out, ready to put together and embellish. The first 2 ladies-
this is going to be one of those all over the place posts… bear with me.
It is a rainy day today- hurray! We haven’t had rain since my July workshop and everything in the garden has been shriveling up. That said, I hope it stops by the weekend because I will be showing at the South End Open Market on Sunday (9/16). It is the Open Studio weekend in the South End. I will be sharing tent space with Betsy of Stonehouse Studios.
I have had a classic me kind of morning.
I went upstairs to get to work. My table and desk had gotten to the critical point where I had to do a little cleaning up. I dug down through the layers- tattoo men patterns and fabric on top, a few big man pattern pieces and floss colors, lots of swaddled baby wool and rejected cut out applique pieces. Okay, I got the table usable again. Back to work on my latest tattoo guy. I was busily embroidering away, trying out some new stitches on the hair. Having fun. I ran out of my color and went to find the skein- I couldn’t find it. Arg! I HAD to have more. I went through my drawer. Everything out. It turns out to be a clean and sort morning. I pulled out the wood cigar box at the very back of the drawer. (This box has history. My mom used it to store rayon embroidery threads probably as old as the 1920’s. I still have those threads although I’ve never figured out anything to do with them.) The box has a big tangle of floss that probably dates back to the 60’s. Not anymore though- I untangled them and sorted them by color and added them to my other threads. And, I did find my dark brown floss- see, I knew I had it!
And here is the drawer now- probably doesn’t look so great to you, but it works for me-
other things-
* An acknowledgment- I want to credit this cute little girl by Heidi for the push to make my tattoo guys. I have lots of ideas in my head and sketchbook that never get made. The dolls in limbo. There is always some little spark that causes one idea to jump to the front of the line. I’d been mulling over the toile/tattoo idea since June.
* I got an IPod for my birthday- I know, I was the last person to get one. I love it!!! I am still figuring out all the great things I can do with it. As of yesterday, I am a CraftyPod-aholic. After a few tries I successfully got the podcasts onto my Ipod- I was a bit Itunes store phobic- afraid I’d be sucked into some money pit vortex or something. Phew, over that! Anyway, I’ve listened to about 10 so far and have to remind myself that I don’t have to listen to all of them at once. They are so much fun though- as I listen I am thinking/saying “Yes, yes, yes! That’s just the way I do it” or “I think that too!”. I love hearing the voices of the people whose blogs I read. Now I will go on a Craftypod diet so I’ll be able to savor them longer.
This is my table now- tattoed men and tikis piled up. Lots of projects started…
In the last few days, I’ve had several people ask what inspires me so I thought it might be a good idea to post about it, i.e. give it some actual thought. Years ago I took my son to a talk given by Philip Pullman. He was absolutely brilliant. One of the things he talked about was that people often ask where he gets his ideas. He said something along the line of- the ideas come to my desk and if I’m there, I get them. If I’m not, I don’t. I loved that explanation! So much of the art is just being at your desk and working. I googled “Philip Pullman inspiration” and I didn’t get that story but got this explanation. (the first paragraph) Not as funny but also excellent.
I am inspired by materials (these days beautiful fabrics), things that I touch (robots with the sewing notions for details), the seasons, the little stuff going on in my life everyday, some odd thing that I’ve read about (example- fat fairies), the photos of what everyone else is doing all over the craft blogging world and Flickr, a new technique that I’ve learned, my family, color. And if I am working on something, and if it doesn’t have a face, I probably won’t stay interested for too long! If I hit a dead end, I have 2 ways of recharging that usually work. I go back to my older work, look through it and try to come up with a new approach or simply do another one. I have found lots of inspiration for the postcards by going through old photos of my pottery. The other technique is to go through all my materials. That way I get 2 things accomplished- clear out some stuff and almost always find something that sparks an idea.
One event where dolls from the visiting artists are displayed, is the critiques. This is optional- well actually you have to pay extra for it. I didn’t participate in the critiques this year. I didn’t really want to hear someone elses “constructive criticism”- I have enough of that in my own head! These were my faves- These 2 dolls are all felt. They are made by a Russian artist, Alina Tatarskaya. I wasn’t able to talk to her because of the language barrier.
The next day, people displayed the dolls they had made for the gourd doll challenge. This one is by Akira Blount- so beautiful-
Saturday evening was the banquet and we received our souvenir doll. She was done by Shelley Thornton this year. I’ve got her posed here in the hotel with my other dolls-
The last conference event is the show and sale for the NIADA artists. That is where you can see the most incredible collection of high end doll and figurative artwork. Here are way too many photos- some pretty bad- and some people are missing. This is what I ended up having on my camera and as always, am missing photos of some work that I really liked.
This is Leslie Molen the newest member of NIADA.
and here is Annie Wahl’s table. She had some busts- she called them “Church Hats”. I bought one… I’ll post a photo later.
Charles Batte- I took an excellent color class with him on Monday.
This was the one piece that Forest Rogers showed at the gallery night and the sale.
tiny babies by Dorothy Hoskins
Ima Naroditskaya
Tatiana Baeva
Shelley Thornton- I took a pattern making class (draping) with her.
Tine Kamerbeek
and a detail of the foot on this incredible piece-
phew- that’s all for now…
The first event at the NIADA conference is a Gallery night where all the members display one special piece. These are some of my favorites in no special order-
Elizabeth Brandon-
Tine Kamerbeek
Ima Naroditskaya
I very carefully picked up business cards from lots of the artists’ so I’d be sure to have the correct contact information, but somehow managed to misplace them. I will update links if I find anymore artists websites. There is contact information for all the artist at the NIADA page.
I am going to New York City tomorrow for a few days. I’ve been checking out various blog reports for where my favorite craft people went in the city. It is harder then I thought though- People don’t just have a link on their home page that says “My favorite New York Places”… hmmm, maybe I should do that! I’ve checked out Distressed’s New York resources list- very helpful. It has a lot of the same stores as the Threads Magazine list had, and unfortunately that list seems to have disappeared off the web. I also want to go to some of the Japanese bookstores mentioned here on Crafting Japanese. This morning I was reading mmm… coffee and she mentioned some places she liked (perfect timing!). I thought I’d try to check out Pearl River- looks fantastic. I still want to see if I can track down the Yarnstorm New York posts and anyone elses… including my own.
I am not getting any craft work done, so instead of a boring no picture post, here are some beautiful colors from my garden-
hay ferns
Graham Thomas rose
Abraham Darby rose
Wife of Bath Rose
Betty Prior rose
Scented geranium
Allium
iris
sedum
