POR AMOR AL ARTE

 

after accomplishing "some" order, sorting through art supplies, paints, fabrics, laces, trims, buttons and embellishments, the creative itch kicked in stronger than ever.  

but the tidying continues.  as a matter of fact top dog has kicked into full gear putting order into closets (getting rid of lots), garage, filing cabinets, hard drives, photo albums, email messages and the piles and piles of paperwork that tends to accumulate on the dining room table. i am also trying to start lists again to make sense of where everything is going and sketching ideas rather than being all over the map creatively.

 so much seems to be going on of late.  invitations, travel plans, a soon to be move to a new home, the opportunity to garden again, an interview in the works and all the upcoming holiday preparations for which we finally bought and old time chu chu train.

mary stanley of art spirit had invited me to visit one of her shows up in santa barbara

which lead me to sign up for a weeklong workshop taking place in oaxaca come february.  10 women will travel to one of my favorite cities to share at casa colonial our idiosyncratic selves. i couldn't be more excited since i pick my workshops very carefully, having attended only three in my artistic life, one with susan tuttle , one with nina bagley and now one mary.  one remains....a lynne hoppe if and when she has one.  

these workshops are more about meeting kindred spirits, making new friends and creating human bonds as in the case of my deep deep regard for nina bagley whom i have come to love on so many levels.
above, is a portrait of her springer spaniel, the now famous walter that i recently painted as a christmas gift for her.

paint brushes used to paint walter

another recent friend encountered thanks to a common thread is 
lynn holland who has introduced me a whole new playfullness with fabrics and stitching

 as is the case with these long strips of mixed fabrics which roll up on a large wooden spool.

  or this bunny doll i made for a customer from australia living in saudi arabia.

my love of fabric is endless and i have recently delved into a little altered couture

over the top, i know, but so romantic yet boho, like me.

my latest sacred hearts, beaded and appliqued onto purple velvet

 i have also begun to play with beads and embellishments, especially in my religious fabric work which always seems to pick up at hslloween and for the day of the dead celebrations all through christmas.  the sacred heart, as you know, is one of my favorite subjects to work with.

 but my faces keep popping up and i scribble and doodle them and make them into brooches

i had intended this to be a longer post, with all the ins and outs of the goings on around here, but i am becoming more and more frustrated with the limitations of a new windows operating system, an ipad that is not good with blogger.  today, as i uploaded some photographs from my camera chip, a german photo program took it upon itself to do the job.just too weird.  i used to be able to blog in ten to fifteen minutes when i had a simple tower computer. 

one program i do love though on my ipad is snapseed.  for those of you who have one, i highly recommend it as a photo editing tool.  

as thursday approaches and the house prepares itself i leave you with a little clip from a great lettering book by jenny doh which sums it all up