Category Archives: my art history

the Chicago report

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I had a fantastic trip- Thank you Chicago! I feel like I am still glowing from all the Midwest Love! People really did tell me that they read my blog and know my work- I’m glad I asked in that last post. I loved meeting everyone!

I flew out on Thursday and got to visit the workplace of my daughter. It was fun to see where she spends her days. We went to the taping of Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me.

Yes, Paula Poundstone is just as funny as I thought she’d be; actually funnier. The strange part of the evening- the man who sat next to me on the flight out from Boston? Boy was I surprised when he walked out on the stage…

It was Charlie Pierce. Weird.

On Friday I was featured in the RedEye, a Chicago free newspaper. WooHoo!

I had to go find myself a copy on the way to picking up the rental car. Besides that I spent the day doing errands, petting my daughters’ kitty, taking a nap. I was feeling vacation-y. Then on Saturday, we were up at dawn and running all day. And what a day it was! Eleanor (daughter) helped me all weekend and also documented the weekend- Thanks E!

This is one of the boxes I sent out to Chicago- ready to unpack.

Renegade was scheduled to start at 11am but people were all around the whole time we were setting up and were seriously looking by around 10:30 am. A little before 11, a very nice person came into my booth, we chatted for a while and then she introduced herself- do you recognize her?

Mary Engelbreit! Yep- I’m starstruck! That started the day out very nicely.

A little later-

Eleanor kept taking pics when I was eating- eeps! Here is the big picture-

I will post some more tomorrow- enough excitement for now, right?!

 

 

 

what a week!

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I’ve been meaning to post about this book- Adventures in Bookbinding by Jeannine Stein. I did a piece for it, just about a year ago, and the book arrived right before I left town for Brooklyn. The book is bookbinding with a twist, namely combining bookbinding with other crafts, such as needle-felting, jewelry, weaving, collage, polymer clay, quilting, crochet,… and dollmaking! The book has 3 levels of projects for each craft- a beginner level project, one for those who have experience with the craft, and one by a professional in that medium. Jeannine asked me to make a doll that could incorporate a book. I make this lady to be the “cover” for a garden journal. I love figuring out a puzzle like this!

This week has been a bit of a roller coaster. On the one hand, I still seem to be stumbling around in a post Renegade Market fog. I can’t seem to settle into anything and I am still so tired. And stumbling is a word I am using literally here- I actually fell down a few steps the other day- not what my already iffy back needed. BUT, I got a surprise present in the mail on Monday- you can’t beat that. And this very cute couple has flown off to the mid-west to start a new life together.

AND:

One of my fish is in this amazing ezine, Spoon.

My tattooed Ladies got highlighted over on the Bust Blog. (ignore that smirky picture of me- I always get all tense when someone is taking my photo)

And Kath did a post on Whip-Up about wool applique (one of my favorite topics) and included me. I loved checking out the other links.

So WoW!!! It is turning out to be a pretty great week at Studio Mimi after all! Now, I guess I better start working on getting back in the groove. The studio is now much cleaner anyway.

Renegade Brooklyn 2011

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This post is hard to write because there is just so much I want to say- so I will split it into 2 posts- Renegade and the rest of the NY trip.

Brooklyn is fantastic- I love being there! There is so much energy, the venue is wonderful people watching, the other vendors are as nice as can be and the visitors to my booth make me feel like a crafty celebrity! People in Brooklyn “get” my work.

Here is the tent, just set up on Saturday morning. To be honest, Saturday was a bit of a bummer. It rained and was cold and many of the visitors seemed to be speed looking. I gave away a ton of business cards so I hope that some come back to my Etsy shop. At the end of the day, we had a carload of damp.

Sunday was a lot better- mostly  warmer and drier. On the second day, I always seem to put out a lot more items- like it is their last chance!

In the end, I didn’t sell as much as I’d have liked, but it is now all in my Etsy shop if you’d like to check it out. Because things were slower then last year, I had a chance to walk around and see the other booths, see some crafty friends and former show neighbors and talk to lots of people.

I had wonderful booth neighbors- Elena Stonaker who came all the way from Colorado for her first ever show- wow!

And Hero Design Studio on the other side (sorry, no pic). I’ll be hanging this up in my studio.

I got to meet Argyle Whale who I only knew through Twitter before. And Ashley who I always enjoy seeing at the various shows. She wrote up a super nice review of Renegade Brooklyn here.

Some of my Boston Crafty Biz meet-up friends were there- Eling, Jen and Laura. I like Laura’s top ten post here.

I got to have some seriously fun plush biz talk with two monster makers- Phil Barbato and later, Joshua Ben Longo. And, I rode the elevator at the hotel with Jordan Elise! I came home with a stack of business cards of shops I want to explore, once my brain has unfogged. I have uncovered one so far- Tidiworld. I am very interested in her approach to dollmaking and love her fabric designs.

BurdaStyle and Spoonflower had tables set up. I was able to get myself a set of fabric samples from Spoonflower- maybe that will inspire me to try some more experimentation!

And seriously, is everyone from Minnesota incredibly nice? The people from Worker B are super- we chatted throughout the 2 days. And I came home with one of these treatment sticks- probably as close to make-up as I ever get- I love it!

I will post about the other things we did in NY soon. Right now I am recovering. I am so exhausted. I am planning to take it easy this summer and hopefully work on some projects that have been put off for too long. So, who knows what will be showing up on the blog this summer!

2010 review

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I made 27 tiny worlds in 2010-

and taught 2 workshops at my house.

I made 31 fish and wrote up the pattern-

14 swaddled babies-

8 ladies-

15 girls-

21 guys-

11 kitties, 4 foxes and 9 owls.

That adds up to 113, but I actually did 114 and can’t show one because someday it will be in a book (weird, right?). You can see these mosaics larger over on Flickr. Just find where it says “view all sizes” and you can make it big.

Onward to 2011 and lots more dolls!

thinking about the old year

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This is the disaster that is my studio on December 31, probably every single year! December is always crazy and it takes January to get everything back in order. Actually, I’ve already started. I can see the top of the ironing board and that was not true a few days ago.

One of the best parts of blogging (for me) is the written record of what has happened over the year. And, being able to go back to other end-of-the-year posts and think about where I was in my head. 2010 has been a good year in many ways. In my “real” life, things are better and more secure. Two of my kids have finished degrees and that is exciting. Over here in crafty blog land, I’ve moved forward in a quieter way then 2009. No big public wow events- like the Etsy Handmade portrait or my PurlSoho pattern.

Instead,  I think the most wonderful thing that has happened this year is my crafty biz meet-up. It has been a success and I am going to do a post just about that in the next few days. The other highlights have to be Sage– my wonderful intern of last summer.  And, Brooklyn Renegade– which is a show that all others will have to live up to!

Once again this year, I was lucky enough to travel and meet up with other crafters in far away places- in Minneapolis, I met up with Kristen, Erika, Susan and Hannah. In Paris, I met Catherine and Laure- and that was the highlight of my Paris trip! So, this year, the best was all about the people I connected with and I can’t think of anything better then that!

Happy New Years Eve! I can’t wait to see what 2011 will bring- it is always interesting!

knitting nostalgia

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and some crochet.

I was putting all the winter blankets away today and decided to pull everything out of the blanket box to have a look. And give the box a once over with the vacuum before putting everything back, away for the summer. At the bottom were all the kid knits. Sigh.

Baby hats and a pair of mittens-

2 knit hats, 2 crochet hats.

Baby sweaters- Eleanor wore both of these and the boys probably did too.

and another- this one was Peter’s coat-

A little guernsey sweater (maybe size 4 yrs?) with  an orange stain and some wool pants- all 3 wore these.

I made this skirt for Eleanor while she and Julian were sick with Chicken pox. I knew I’d be stuck at home with them so I wanted a fun project. Eleanor wore this skirt a lot.

2 vests. Peter was the only one who would wear them.

and 4 granny square blankets. The one on the left was Julian’s baby blanket. The other 3 were made by my husband’s grandmother (I think) who I never met. They are doll blankets- one is a rectangle, 2 are squares. The smallest one, on top, is about 16″ square. I always loved the old ones.

And lastly, out came an old vest of mine. I wore this a lot and really liked it. I am not sure why I saved it though- it is full of holes. I am going to try felting it to see if it is worth trying to use for something else.

I don’t knit much anymore. It makes my hands sore. On to other adventures. Sorry about the bad photos- I was snapping them on the bed so little bits of floor and quilt seemed impossible to keep out of the photos.

another tiny world, books,

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and some other notes.

One more tiny world done-

Another meet-up this morning and it was fantastic! Thanks for showing up ladies- Liz, Crystal, Louise, Linda, Lisa, and Kerry! Next one is April 14. Hmm, the day before taxes. Wonder if anyone will show up?

And, a book report. I bought myself a book about the circus. It is gigantic!

I’m not sure how I first discovered it. Maybe an Amazon search? I discovered that one local library has it as a reference book so I went to look at it. I literally gasped when I opened it. 600 plus pages of inspiration. But… wow, it cost SO much. It took me over a month to decide to buy it. First I thought I’d wait to see if I lost interest. When I didn’t, I checked out all the used book sites, watched on ebay, and then discovered there is another book of the same name by the same author but smaller… That was when I finally decided to just go for it and buy it on Amazon. I am not sorry.

and like I said, 600+ more pages!

And another book- this one I got out of the library, but I think I’ll be looking for a used one online.

Someone posted about it on their blog a while back- sorry but I don’t remember who. When I saw the book, it brought back a flood of memories. This book was the one I was using back in 9th grade when I made this sampler-

It is so much fun to page through the book and see how it influenced me. It is inspiring me once again – this time I am using the stitches on my tiny worlds.

sad anniversary

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Ten years ago today, the studio building where I had worked for 11 1/2 years- the Kendall Center for the Arts, burned down. The fire has been one of those markers in my life- before the fire when I did pottery, and after the fire. Right after the fire was a very difficult time for me- no surprise. It happened right in the midst of my art midlife crisis. Losing my studio and community, my sketchbooks, photos and notebooks, changed where I even considered going next. I have thought a lot about how the loss propelled me into new directions in a way that might have never happened otherwise. You know- all those phoenix rising analogies. It was after the fire that I got onto the internet. That’s right- before mid-1999, I was a computer illiterate. And why did I get onto the internet? I wanted to replace the books I’d lost. And I found Ebay- which turned out to be the gateway drug to the wide world of the internet for me! Wow- and did that ever start me off on an interesting path.

So, this is one of those tales- bad things happen and you never know where you’ll be 10 years later. I know I have been lucky.

2008 review

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Bear with me- I find this kind of analysis very helpful.

I finished 72 dolls this year-

and some cookies.

There were 23 tattooed men in various modes of fashion-

18 girl dolls-

11 babies

15 ladies-

2 gifts that inspired 24 more tiny world pincushions-

And the other stuff- I went to NYC, London, Portland, OR, and Chicago. I met Diane, Melissa, Jan and Susan in person. The paperbag swag project got finished after a long delay caused by 4 out of the 6 participants having babies- a pretty good excuse I’d say. I grew tomatoes! I did 4 shows. I was mentioned on Design Sponge by guest bloggers in January (Thanks Kath!) and then again in December (Thanks Camilla!). That was a little freaky. And, one of my dolls is Mr. April in the Whip Up calendar. All in all, it was another great year for my artwork and for my own crafty blogging universe.

Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by and visited and left comments or not in 2008. Happy, healthy and creative 2009 to all!

the story thing…

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I am going to explain why I don’t write stories for my dolls, but first-

sometimes I go away for a day or two and it’s hard to get back to the blog. I am in the middle of an ocean of wip’s right now, so nothing really to post. Just a lot of potential…

The post has to have a photo though- I received an email last week asking if I was the M. Kirchner who made the mugs in the photo attached to said email. Asking if I was still making them. Her mom collected them and she wanted to continue the collection- it was wonderful to know that the old work is cherished.

Many people have suggested that I write stories or bios for my dolls. Many other doll artists do this and do it very well. This is why I don’t.

1. When I was a senior in art school, I was finishing up a ceramic sculpture. Someone came over to look at it and started describing what they thought was going on in the piece, what they thought the story was. I was amazed at the richness of their narrative- much better then I could do. I realized that, left to their own imagination, viewers would come up with much more interesting stories then I every could and they enjoyed doing it.

2. When I made functional pottery, I pictured the user contemplating the images on their coffee cup or cereal bowl. The image might draw them into their own fantasy world (away from the real world) and inspire different stories each morning. I hoped to make a world in bowl- or at least a little vignette.

3. A few years ago I bought a doll from someone who wrote rich and wonderful bios of her creations. I did not see the bio before I received the doll. When I read it, I was taken aback. I’m not quite sure how to say this- I didn’t like her (the doll) from her description… I mean, I liked the doll itself- just not how she was described in the story… I thought- I would never be friends with this person- she would totally intimidate me in real life. She was smarter, more popular, more accomplished… I don’t know- the kind of person that I feel completely overwhelmed by. That certainly clarified the issue for me-no stories.  Resolve is easy when you don’t want to do it anyway!

I want to make characters that will inspire peoples imaginations- viewers will come up with their own stories. The dolls will be a catalyst for the imagination. No static story lines. I absolutely LOVE when people tell me who they think my dolls are- it always makes me feel successful when my work creates a spark.

I don’t want to sound like I have anything against other people writing up stories for their work- it just isn’t what I want to do.