Tuesday, July 24, 2007

FIRST CREATIONS WITH TEAL FABRICS


Well, here it is: the first creation with those beautiful teal fabrics I found two weeks ago in Carpinteria: a little wooden doll bed on stilts inspired by Swedish antique bedrooms. I used a wooden tray from the local craft store, painted it, stenciled it and proceeded to make sheets,pillow, throw pillow and comforter. Wish I had the skill and know-how to make a life sized one for myself. I also made these two wall hangings for my guest room using two large wooden embroidery hoops.


In the works, two more in larger sized beds maybe for the 3 Swedish Bears?

Thursday, July 19, 2007

In Search of Feng Shui (NOT)




As much as I try to become a minimalist, there are just too many beautiful things in the world to pass by. Since moving into my smaller home, I have had to sift through literally hundreds of boxes large and small and sort things out. Then find a place for them and hopefully give them enough space so they stand out. In the process I have had to do away with many of my collections which I have slowly listed on etsy. To part with some of them hasn't been easy. The house had begun to look like a museum/bazaar and things were accumulating on the floor. I suddenly realized that clutter can really overwhelm a space and create mental confusion rather than serenity so I have started to read about the truth behind decorating around the notion of Feng Shui. I think I have narrowed my walls to the bare essentials. Most of my artwork has been purchased from fellow artists and they are my dearest possesions; each one has a soul of its own and speaks so much about the people who made them. I share them with you as an homage to the endless possibilities.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Feeling Girly

Just came back from two days in Santa Barbara where I finally got to wear dresses and skirts for a change. At home it's mostly the comfortable capris and Ts. It just feels so good to go feminine. Came back all pumped up to put my hands to work some more after stopping in Carpinteria at one of my favorite fabric and yarn stores on the way. Also to find that I had sold quite a few items on etsy. GOD is soooooo good to me when I need HIM the most. One of the items sold was a winged heart I had made a few weeks back and although I like to make one of a kind items, I just had to make another. For display I used my all-purpose mannequin and it just looks so beautiful with all the other girly things I had pinned and wrapped around it. Poncho and scarves and vintage brooches. I wonder if on a winter's day I walked out wearing all of these together people would consider me crazy. I think they look so beautiful together.

And here are some of the girly fabrics and craft peraphernalia I picked up in Carp. Can't wait to play around with them.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Nesting


Pearl S. Buck in her autobiography My Several Worlds wrote: "I am an inveterate homemaker, it is once my pleasure, my recreation and my handicap. ....being a woman, my work has had to be done between bouts of homemaking. Thus to establish again my Nanking house and garden took solid months. I am not a perfectionist, I do not like floors that cannot be walked upon or books that cannot be left about, or untouchable tables and chairs. But a strong sense of design, and a love of ordered beauty are essentials of life not only for my family, as a duty, but for myself as a background. I cannot live anyhow. In one room, if it is all I have, I am compelled as instinctively as a bee to create order and produce a home. I cannot settle myself to writing books unless I have first made this background of life as complete as I can. The necessity is a curse and a blessing, separately and together, but so it is."


Never has a woman described so to perfection what I try to explain to those who don't understand that side of me. I cannot begin to be (as in alive) in a new environment until I have created my personal nest and am capable, having been in dire finincial straits many a year, to create a home with almost nothing. The nesting instinct might seem simplistic and infantile to many but creating my Home Sweet Home wherever it may be is uppermost on my priority list. Having a full refrigerator and pantry and a garden where living things are witnesses to our aliveness, at night, lighting up the house so it looks warm, alive and inviting from the outside, baking on the weekends, and planting a new seedlings in the garden are joys unsurplantable in my sense of worth.


TOKEN: Ye Olde English Tea Cozy

Friday, July 6, 2007

Oh, and made a darling little pincushion


No, these hands can't keep still. Sewed another little pincushion today inspired by http://www.tumbleweedandrosestudio.blogspot.com/ of whom I own two mini creations which bless my sewing basket. Be sure to see her blog since it is truly inspirational.

Spaces Within and Without


Years of picture files all spread out on the hard drive at last half sorted and titled so I can make some sense of what I intended to do with them in the first place. The conception of this blog has turned out to be a new form of journalling to me and forced me to put some order into the chaos of my "shoeboxes". Files were made for family, friends and travel and all my artwork categorized. Spring cleaning hits the computer. Results, over 96 images deleted (you know, the fuzzy ones), personae non grata and the ones too dark for a picture. Word files too await the sorting. Hopefully I will be able to share with you some of my favorite poems, writs and a capella musings. In the meantime, putting up some photos of some of my collections, walls and spaces both inside and outside my home and some of my assemblage pieces most of which probably adorn other walls across the world.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

ATCS






FABRIC COLLAGES


I don't know about you other altered artists, but when it comes to parting with my artwork there are some items I just can't let go of. I know clinging, posseiveness and all thos bad feelings of me, me, mine are unhealthy, but sometimes a piece takes so long to assemble and soooooo much love has gone into it that for me it is impossible. The journal cover is one such item. I have sold most of my other work over the past 8 years, but here is one I refuse to do away with. And there are a few I did part with which I shouldn't have......sniff