getting ready for more installations this year- just imagine if these sculptures were 6ft tall and in a public park setting! i'll be applying to the project soon, so wish me luck.

Fun with Stencils

This weekend has been home improvement time. It must be the warmer weather, I'm starting to want to clean, organize, and stencil the walls! So I made this design by stylizing the dandelion into a very nouveau motif and I had hoped the repetition would make it look like wallpaper. I think it worked. Now I no longer notice all the cracks, holes and shoddy paint job underneath. YaY!

An Experience

Our journey started when a friend recommended Greg and I watch a documentary called The Art of the Steal. It tells the story of an art collector, his collection (one of the best post-impressionist collections in the world), and how a man's last will and testament can be systematically picked apart and discarded for personal, political and/or capital gain. At the end of this film we were warned that the collection would be moved to a new location at the end of 2012. So this meant that we booked a ticket to Philadelphia as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

Jet lagged and sleep deprived, our plane reached the airport in time for a major snow storm, so we were rerouted to Baltimore to wait for an hour and a half. When we finally touched down at our intended destination, unloaded baggage at the hotel and found transportation to the suburb where the art currently is located, we were three hours behind our original appointment time. (You have to make a reservation for this place.) The staff of the Barnes Foundation was very welcoming, I was pleased to note. They all seemed very happy with thier jobs and I was sad to think that they were soon to be disbanded.

The museum was amazing, to put it mildly. Mr. Barnes had an incredible discerning eye for art at a time when the European impressionists were not appreciated in the states. He built this beautiful building to house his vast collection and used it to educate artists and art lovers. He even wrote a few books on his theories of art appreciation (I got one) and I was amazed to learn that he was close friends with John Dewey, the art critic and philosopher who wrote Art as Experience (also a book I own).

We did not have much of a chance to see any more of Philly in that trip, for the next day we were off to visit relatives on the east coast. But even for a few hours of looking, the whole trip was worth it! Art is an experience, especially when those who understand this are rich philanthropists devoted to making the experience accessible to the common man.

October and November at a glance

My week of vacation finally came, and I spent it in San Francisco. I saw the sun, it was warm! I stayed with my best girlfriend and made a lot of food! But most notably I visited the California College of Arts to tour facilities and talk with advisors. That was probably the best thing I've done this year. By the time I returned to the cold and wet I was so pumped about going back for a masters that I jumped right into the projects I've been avoiding, and they've been getting done!

I had bought a bunch of beveled glass jewels to make snowflake-sun-catchers from to sell for Christmas. You can bet from that description that I was dragging my feet all the way. However, since I started seeing the possibilities of using three-dimentional stained glass for larger projects I've been getting more into it and using it as an exploration of forms in that medium. (and it would be nice to make some money from these experiments.)

It was about three years ago that I threatened to make more plates to eat off of, we have two currently. And since returning from SF I threw four more when the temperature was still bearable in the garage. These too have an exploratory function. I am now carving intricate scenes into their faces to practice my bas-relief sculpting and prepare compositions worthy of translating into cast glass- a project that has been growing in my mind for some time.

Finally, I've been revisiting my stockpile of yarn. It was the snow- preventing me from reaching work two days in a row, and then Thanksgiving, that allowed me to spend half a day going through and removing all the nasty worm casings and nibbled yarn ends left over from a moth orgy. It made me very sad, but also motivated to get to my yarn before those nasty pests do again. I'm thinking of making a skirt.

That's all for now.

Happy Turkey Day.

Bumber-mania

Oh my, where to begin?
Last weekend I spent a day with Greg and my mom at Bumbershoot, Seattle's music and arts festival. For those of you who have not heard of it, it is a three day long festival jammed packed with music (at least six stages with bands playing all day) performance, dance, comedy shows, theater, film and visual art exhibitions. It's like I've died and gone to heaven.
Some of the highlights that we saw that day: Squonk Opera A group that puts on a musical performance that is truly a work of art.
Bob Dylan- although you cannot tell what the hell he is saying, he puts on a damn good concert.
And as we wondered through the Flatstock (rows and rows of poster artists selling their wares) I came across something I think I want to buy. I may need your help with this, I really like the pigeon with the pencil but I don't know if it would be too dominant displayed over the fireplace.
Go to the artist's site and tell me what you think. The Bird Machine
oh, and here's pictures

Art for Artists

How important it is to keep a nice a home! If I haven't been busy making art lately it's because I've been paining the walls "Waffle" and the trim a mahogany crimson. After the kitchen was painted two shades of green I sewed some curtains for the windows and am currently working on curtains for the living room.After Greg and I saw the documentary Herb and Dorthy we were moved to start buying the art that we admire. A year later I own my first oil painting by a fabulous Northwest painter, Linda Bean.I don't know why I never thought of it before, but I find it refreshing and inspirational to have other people's artwork around.

Lemonade

Two sad things have happened in the past week:
1) my car was stollen, stripped and abandoned
2) one of my greenhouses was destroyed
but life is too short to get upset over silly things, so what did I do?
I sold the remainder of my car and replaced the greenhouse with another. Problems solved.
I am ready to move on.
see how my project is developing too...
updated pictures