I can't believe I haven't posted yet this month. I started an online class with Misty Mawn that's been absorbing my time, although I haven't done anything yet that's post-worthy.  Learning from her is really a wonderful experience on many levels, for anyone who has thought about taking a class from her. I think everyone in the class would agree that as we're learning new art skills and techniques, we're also learning things about ourselves.  Online classes can also be such a supportive environment, as the other students really help and encourage each other.

The class started with portraits, with an assignment being a number of self-portraits. It made me think of this piece I made a while back, which had a lot of meaning for me. It's hard to see from the picture, but there is a soldered birdcage in front of her face with an old key hanging from it.

Magic

I recently spent a little time in the magical town of Port Costa, CA, and I wanted to share.  The wonderful artist Wendy Addison has an open house at her studio there a few weekends during the holidays, and this is the only time it's possible to buy from her directly. You wind around the top of a mountain overlooking the water, thinking this can't possibly be where I'm supposed to be going.  Then amazingly you see the street you're looking for, drive along it a bit, and suddenly the street ends at the water and you're in a ghost town.  Old abandoned looking hotels, post office, etc, under huge trees. There's an old courtyard with a wonderful old sign over it, and a crumbling fountain inside.  This is where Wendy's studio is, and it's absolutely magical.  The tiny area at the front of her studio is absolutely stuffed with magical beautiful things - she calls it her Theatre of Dreams, and it really is. It seems to put a spell over me, and suddenly price is no object until I'm back in the car thinking "I spent HOW much?"  But I've never regretted a purchase, and friends who have gotten something of hers as a gift from me are always wowed...

And this year, for the first time, the abandoned hotel across the street was partially opened as a coffee shop, only open on weekends. I don't think I've ever been in a more charming, magical little cafe.  It's partly the setting in the charming old hotel, where they bake their 2 kinds of cakes they make in a wonderful antique oven, and it was enhanced by it being Christmas time and decorated so lovely.  I had the most amazing sweet cornbread/cake with cranberries that I can't even describe, and the best hot chocolate I've ever had. I didn't want to leave....

Christmas Craft Fun

I had some fun over the weekend making this for a friend of mine for Christmas. The box is a cigar box without the lid, and I had picked up the old snowman ornament and tree recently, and suddenly last week I just saw them all put together. I covered the sides and top of the box with old yellowed ledger paper, and the inside I covered with pages from an old hymnal, and the inside back is a picture I loved that I'd saved of a snowy scene with Victorian ice skaters.  The stamps I used are all from a set of very vintage looking Christmas ones from Tim Holtz. I embossed the ornament stamps on the sides, and collaged the 2 little Christmas scenes. I added the beads and some glitz and the feet, and it was done!  You know when you start a project not particularly confident of how it's going to turn out, and then as you go along you start really liking it and by the end you love it?  I LOVE when that happens, as it did with this project. Now I want to make more of them so I'll be on the lookout for more vintage little Christmas things to put inside them.

Family

I realized that I had never posted this plaster/encaustic piece, which is one of my favorites, and it seemed appropriate with it's themes of travel and family. I adore the torn out piece of music from an old hymnal (and I mean old, this book is so fabulous, the woman I bought it from said she pictured Jesus carrying it around, and if you saw it you'd understand). The name of the hymn is "The Absent, Unforgotten", and I just love that, especially at a time like now as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, as we gather with family and think of loved ones who have passed, or are perhaps away serving in the military.  I have to travel just a little at Thanksgiving, but it's so worth it to be immersed in the comforts of my family and the home where I grew up - I am very thankful that I still have that (and that my significant other is equally as happy to go there, where he is very loved).  I wish all of you the comforts of family and lots of love this Thanksgiving...

Christmas Cards

It's that time of year, when I put away my normal projects and get out my Christmas supplies. I've learned to start early if I plan any Christmas projects, and since I've now set a precedent of homemade Christmas cards I try to get those done first. Maybe not quite as many homemade ones this year, I'm going to try to limit it to people who I know truly appreciate them, so I still have some other kinds of Christmas projects left in me. This is a sampling of ones I've made this year - people have suggested that I just design one and make them all the same, but I just can't get myself to.  I'm sure it would be faster, but it would take the fun out of it I think.

I make very few cards these days, but they take me back a few years to where this whole art journey began - happening to see a copy of Stamper's Sampler (a Somerset magazine) in a Barnes & Noble, and looking through it and realizing what could be done with stamps. Then a few weeks later I decided to walk into a store I'd been curious about called The Paper Garden, and it turned out to be a wonderful store full of paper and every kind of stamp imaginable. I decided it was meant to be, bought my first stamp and went home and played with it and made my first card. Now, many many stamps later, I don't use them as often, less as a focal point and more as background for larger projects, but I still love them...

Art Under Duress

My friend Val asked me to make her something with her dog's name on it, many many months ago. Someone else had made her something with her other dog's name on it, and she wanted to have one of each. (She's pretty Dachschund crazy....)  I was immediately unenthusiastic about this assignment, as lettering is not a strong area of mine, and I didn't have a lot of confidence in what I'd make. I put it off, and put it off, but finally decided I absolutely needed to get it done for her for Christmas, so I grudgingly sat down to work on it. This is the result, it's on a 6"x9" canvas (it got kind of cut off because I scanned it), but I actually do like it, and most importantly, I think she'll love it.  It's made me realize that I need to work out of my comfort zone more, push myself to work on things that I don't necessarily have a lot of confidence about. How else do we grow, right?

Art Journaling and Inspiration Paralysis

I thought I'd share some of my art journal pages.  This is a variety that I happened to have scanned, as you can see I flit around a lot between different styles and mediums, depending on my current inspiration and what I may want to experiment with.  I love art journals, I love the whole thought of them. Art done just for yourself, with no one else to try to please, no wondering what you'll do with your piece when it's done. It just sits there on a shelf waiting for you to flip through and enjoy all over again.  I'm very sporadic about it though.  I feel sometimes like a sponge, that's absorbed too much inspiration, ideas and techniques to try, and it paralyzes me. Having a full-time job, when I finally find the time and energy to sit down in my "studio" (corner of our guest room), deciding what to settle down and work on is always the most difficult part. Sometimes I wish I had settled on just one thing that is my thing, art journals, painting, encaustic, plaster, assemblage etc.  Then I could just focus on that one thing and have less noise in my head, but I can't, I love them all. Maybe someday...