Kickstartin'

Here's the latest cool thing I've Kickstarted. Watch the video, it's soooo cool. I have tons of ideas of things to make for fun and profit with this. It's already funded, so it's just buying in and getting the tool at this point.

Museum Pieces

Mother & Child

Family vacation in the summer of 2012 took us to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum in Williamsburg, Virginia. It was awesome!
Too much to see, pennies to smash, cousins to keep up with, I only had time for a few photos. Most were of this wonderful artwork.

The sign says:

Junk Art Figure of Mother & Child

Created by renowned "junk" artist Leo Sewell of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Believe It or Not!, these people are made from common kitchen utensils, plumbing supplies, auto parts, toys and rubbish.

Spoiler: I believe it.

  

"Child" has a Fisher Price mom in his face

Show & Tell @ Work Day

Evidently it is. Happy Friday.

Crafty Family: Sudoku Quilt

Here is the quilt wall hanging that my Rubber Stampin' Auntie made for my mom and dad to hang in their camper.
My parents really like sudoku puzzles, and other number and word fill-in kind of games, and they've tried to introduce sudoku to this Auntie a couple times, but she's just no that into it.
But she did figure it out enough to make a perfect sudoku grid for this cute little quilt.
She made it out of several old ties that my Grandma had taken apart.
I love the connections, the patterns are cool, and the orange makes it pop!
And yes, I knew about it before it was done, but not knowing if this would end up being a "Muffin", I didn't mention it. ;p

Reflections on a Podcast

I get so inspired sometimes when listening to podcasts, similar to how some books give you a different perspective, and after reading (or listening), your view of the world has changed. One little insight, a connection, a couple words put together in a new way, an idea or just a spark, a moment of relaxation, something just right and somehow it hit me right when and where I needed it.
How I listen to podcasts is, I think, unique. I work as an Accountant (In real life I am an Artist, but my secret identity is an Accountant), not a CPA or numbers-crunchy type, mostly researching and rearranging numbers, but still something that takes a certain part of my brain. While I’m working, and using that logic part of my brain, my creative brain section is completely free, and often bored if not fed. That’s why I’m listening to podcasts most all day as I work. Since my creative journey at this stage of my life often feels like I am in a gathering phase than a doing phase, I appreciate the creatively inspiring podcasts tremendously!
I am always so very inspired by Craft Cast, it would take too long to list all the inspired things I have learned from the great Allison. The latest episode, with Kelly Rae Roberts is a great example.
As I listen, I have a notebook that I jot down notes or sketch ideas in, and here randomly are some of the things that were said &/or my reactions to what was being said:

“Creative journey” I love this phrase (see I used it in the paragraph above!) I have often thought of other parts of my life as a journey-spirituality, parenting-but I want to remember that my creative soul is on it’s own journey as well, and it’s the journeying that is the important part, not getting there.

“Expressing vulnerability” through creativity. I have had thoughts similar to this recently, and didn’t have words for it. It is something that I am not sure how to do, and I want to let myself go and see what happens.

“Quiet time” and “Listening to the creative soul” Having to pause the podcast to start writing this post, and having to put into words how I listen to podcasts at work, I was made aware that my most quiet time actually is during my work time. This awareness makes me think a couple things: find ways to utilize this quiet even more, and/or see if I can carve a space (probably both physical and mental) into the rest of my life where I can actually feel the quiet and listen.

“Butterflies out of the cocoon” The word I chose for last year was Emerging. As of right now, it is still my word.

“Walking through the ring of fire” Allison has said this before, and I love this phrase and the image (not to mention the great song) it conjures up, my interpretation ****

“Redefining balance” and “Losing balance is part of the process” A few years ago I had a phrase I decided represented my life at the time. Just about time I think things are going to get back to normal, I realize that normal has up and moved, and there’s no getting back there from here. When I was able to be ok with the truth of that, and even laugh about it, and take it in stride, I was able to move forward in the non-normalness of my life. And everything was ok. And now, I want to add the knowledge that losing balance is part of the process and I can redefine balance, just as I redefined normal, and everything will continue to be ok.

So that's just a few things that really struck me while listening to this fantastic Internet Radio Show. There were more wonderful moments, but these are the moments that really struck ME. Listen for yourself, and see what inspires YOU.

Bryan the Master Control Zombie

Museum

Due to me not reading the free pass correctly, The BFF, The Artist Extreeme, and I did NOT go to the local zoo as planned yesterday afternoon. And would you believe that the free pass only expired the day before! Arrrrgggg!
So we were still set to go somewhere, and we checked out a few local things on the web to see what we wanted to do, and we all agreed on the Sheldon Memorial Art Museum. After finally finding a place to park, we weaved our way through all the new students finding their way around the downtown and campus area to get to the museum.
There was a very cool video installation, and of course, the permanent collection is great, but the best part for us, was the sculpture/multi media exhibit by Elizabeth King. Sculptures of her face, most about 1 /4 size, with blown glass eyeballs created by another artist, were so life like, I kept expecting them to move. Hand sculptures carved from wood, with animations of them actually moving, with stop-frame photography. Just breathtaking all of it.
One of my favorite parts of this phenomenal exhibit were her sketches of how to make the figures, even cut out with paper, now that's an art journal page! And there was a display case of antique dolls and figurines that the artist has collected to help her explore how her predecessors made their art.
Very inspirational indeed.

Make Me!

I love when something demands to be created. That happened to me this past weekend. I’d been using my duct-tape wallet for a few months, liking it, not loving it, and the past couple weeks, I’d been thinking about what to replace it with. Thursday morning at work, the idea overtook me, and I had to stop working for a few minutes to draw out the plan: a small felt wallet, embroidered with beads, with a zipper and two other pockets. This morning before work, I transferred my important things into the completed new wallet.
Granted, it was a long weekend, and I was able to work on this project more because of the holiday, but I have a feeling that whenever this project had demanded itself to me, I wouldn’t have been able to do much else until it was finished.
Don’cha just love when that happens? When a project refuses to go on the back burner, jumps into your head shouting "MAKE ME", and just about puts itself in motion without you.
I’ve mentioned that I have been feeling a little noncreative lately, so it was even more exciting for me to have this priority project hit me. Through my noncreative-feeling period, I did keep working, mostly crocheting, and kept watching blogs and flickr for ideas, and researching on Etsy. A week ago or so, a quote inspired me, and I dug my Art Journaller supplies out from the bottom of the stack of crap on my desk, and moved it to my bed stand. Most nights since then, I've doodled, nothing spectacular, but just kept working.
I guess that's the key, do the projects that inspire you, and even when you're not feeling so inspired, keep working until you're inspired again.

A Few Of My Favorite Things

Even when I'm not actively creating (or feeling that way), I'm still gathering ideas, reading blogs, watching flickr streams, being inspired. I have 113 Blogs linked in Bloglines, with over 22,000 posts still to read in the Creative/Artsy blogs alone! (I think, unfortunately, that I need to pare down that list a bit)
One of my favorite creatively inspirational blogs to read, or rather look at, because it is the magnificent pictures that draws me, is Animation Backgrounds. Animation is a wonderful art form, and Rob collects and posts some of the absolute most beautiful. Check out a couple recent posts that floored me: Hyde and Hare, one of my favorite cartoons I remember from my childhood, and The Lion King, a family favorite from my children's childhood.
I'm happy to see my felting hero's blog Bugs and Fishes is up posting again after an internet issue. She makes the coolest pins and things from felt, and inspires me on many levels. Check out her Etsy shop too. Her felt mustache disguises were featured in a Craft magazine! The photo of the blond mustache is one of the best photos of a craft that I have ever seen!
And I have to admit, I have a new infatuation! I am completely in LOVE with the kitchy dollhouse Dizzy Heights made by Rainbow Mermaid. I have collected miniature things at different times in my life, mostly in combination with specific dolls, but she combines so many different things together, it is sooo cool. I have acquired a taste for Re-Ment mini things, and I may have to start collecting them, or watching for them on eBay. She has a wonderful Etsy shop, too.

Felted Bag: The Inspiration

Thrifted Purse
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

I go thrifting fairly often. In fact, one of my favorite grocery stores is my favorite partly because of being right next to a little thrift store. So it's pretty easy to scan the thrift store quickly before getting the groceries. (not so quickly if I have a kid with me, I think they like thrifting even more than me if that's possible)
About a year ago I saw this cutie purse, which appears to be partly felted, and partly fun fur. Funny thing, I didn't buy it the first time I saw it, then I kicked myself for a week until I went back, and luckily it was still there! It is not a size I would use, which is partly why I didn't buy it the first time, but I bought it for inspiration. I took a bunch of photos of it, and gave it to a wonderful young woman who enjoys it very much.
This was way back before I could crochet, when I was just starting with the knifty knitter, but I really wanted to make something cute like this.

Poly Clay: Sculpture

I would say sculpture is sculpture, no matter the medium, and there are two basic ways (or, of course, a combination of the two) to achieve the sculpted form: taking away from, and adding to.
Sculpture by taking away from, or carving, can be boiled down to a joke (or artistic legend) that I've heard once or a million times. To carve a sculpture of a horse (or whatever), take your stone (or wood, or polymer clay chunk, or soap, or concrete, or candle wax), and carve away all the parts that do not look like a horse. ;p Wish it were all just that simple.
Sculpture by adding to is building that horse with lots of smaller pieces. Again, because the coolness of this medium is the color IN the clay, sculpture by adding to is most popular.
I haven't actually seen a lot of carving of poly clay, not at least in a traditional 3D sculpture, but more in carving stamps, and
other flatter pieces.
Using the color in the clay, building up a sculpture can be extremely beautiful. Artists can use different colors for every different detail, however tiny, or use fleshy colors to make gorgeous figures.
One of my greatest inspirations in this category, happens to also be my first cousin. Alicia has made some of the most fantastic dolls, several in the theme of her favorite musical, Phantom of the Opera. I also really love her almost unsettlingly beautiful Bird Doll, which was, I believe the predecessor to her line of Parrot Jewelry.
After all that inspiration, if you need any more of a push to get your fingers into the clay, here is a great Puppy Tutorial and a Mummy Video Tutorial.

Poly Clay: More Thinking

As soon as I hit 'publish post' on that last post, and ever since, I've been second guessing myself. Can I really put all of polymer clay into three categories?
I can, partly because these are my own made-up categories, but also because I have a (slight) explanation.
What to me is the absolute coolest thing about polymer clay is all the colors! Between the different manufacturers having slightly different takes on their pallets, and the fact that you can mix any color together with any other color to make a new color, like with paint, the color choices are unlimited!
And using the color of the clay to be the color of what you are making is the basis of both sculpture and millefeori, everything else you are more using the clay as clay, and the color plays a great role. Maybe the third category should be 'everything else'.
I have often called polymer clay 'color clay' (especially back when no one knew what poly clay was), and this separation is kinda the difference between if you are emphasizing COLOR clay or color CLAY. Symbiotic both ways.

Poly Clay: Where to Start??

I received a wonderful comment to my last post from The Sick Chick, "I've just bought some poly clay and a bead roller to try making some little round things for the first time. Any tips for the absolute novice? I've worked with real clay before but never polymer and I'm hoping it will hit several of my clay itches that I haven't been able to scratch due to lack of kiln..."
And since I'm kinda feeling like I'm starting all over again, this is a great opportunity to address this question, for myself too. I will start a series of posts to this end.
The first tip I would say, is to look around for inspiration. Yeah, that's a lame tip, there are always tons of great sites to look at for inspiration, whatever the media. But in the case of poly clay, part of the inspiration is figuring out what you want to do with it. There are sooooo many things you can do with it, you could get bogged down if you're not sure which way you want to go.
From my perspective, there are three basic ways you can work with the clay, and millions of subsets of ideas. Let's start there.

• Sculpture: using the poly clay like any other clay, using your hands or tools (including push molds) to make the clay look like what you want it to
  
• Millefiori: like millefiori in glass making, putting tubes of color into a log, slicing the log to show the design in each slice, think cookie dough with a design in it
  
• Changing the Clay: adding things into the clay, to make it look like stone, or wood, or just not look like clay, &/or subtracting layers from the clay, with metalworking mokume-gane techniques, I would also put into this category any/all new techniques that people are constantly creating, or looking to other mediums to borrow from
  

These, again, are just my categories, and they cross over, and work together, but to me, these are the three basic methods. And if one interests you more than the others, emphasize that one, or work in it exclusively. Each method is a complete art form in itself.
Of course, just starting out, you may want to try a little bit of everything, and to that I would recommend a comprehensive book like The New Clay. This book first came out the same year my younger son was born* and I purchased my copy that same year. I went through most of the techniques as the book showed them, practicing techniques just for the sake of practicing. This book has history of the clay up to that point, and the history of the techniques it presents, and is one of my all-time favorite books.
I'll delve into each of these categories, and share some of the projects I made from the book, in the next few weeks, with links to inspiration. Now, since this is the week the kids are gone, I'm going to get all my clay stuff out all over the kitchen table!! Yay!



*He just turned 15 on Easter, so a couple interesting facts: you probably know that when Easter falls is determined by the cycle of the sun and the moon, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, and March 23 is the absolute earliest it could be, April 25 being the latest. Easter hasn't been on this early date since 1913, and won't be again until 2160.
/trivia lesson

Blast from the Past

Duct Tape Hat with Display Stand
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

Here's an old project I had never fully shared. A few years ago, I wanted to try to make a duct tape hat, and to start it, I decided that putting a strip of tape sticky side out, around my head would be a good base. Even sticky side out, it was getting stuck in my hair a bit, and then I remembered a recent gift my kids had gotten, this alien head lamp. (the word ALIEN is cut out, backwards, in the back of the lamp, so when you turn it on, the word shines on the wall)
Turns out, the alien and I have the same sized head. Whoda thunkit?
So I was able to use the lamp to create the hat, and display the hat. This is the hat I'm wearing in my avatar photo. It's a bit too hot to wear all the time! But I wore it to work once, on hat day, when I worked at an adolescent hospital, and it was a huge hit!
On the last couple episodes of Lime & Violet, they talked about ordering a display foot to photograph socks, that reminded me about this lamp. I may have to start taking hat photos on my friend here.

Fibonacci Date

So I actually enjoy math. (I guess that's good considering that my secret identity is an accountant) I'm not huge on all the advanced stuff, but I love all the cool tricks, and how there is math in everything.
I especially love the Fibonacci series, which appears so often in nature, and in art.
Today's date is actually all part of the series, 3-5-8, how cool is that??

Creative Hands

Creative Hands Vol. 1 cover
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

I thrifted this book Friday evening, when Artist Extreeme (sometimes also known as The One Who Can Not Make A Decision) and I went on a multi-stop adventure.
I didn't realize until I got home and really got to looking at it that it is Volume 1. It gives a little taste of a lot of hand work, so it seems that it could be complete with those little bits. But I guess it's a 22 volume set. I hadn't decided if I might take it apart, for collaging or whatever, but if it's a set, maybe I'll keep watch for the rest of the set instead of ripping this one up. We'll see.
Flipping through it while AE was looking through the clothes, I found some cool things, and a couple parts that kinda offended me, in that this-ain't-the-stone-age kind of pro-chick kind of way. But it was originally published in 1966, so we'll forgive the stupid parts, and relish in the nostalgia. One page had photos of a few of the contributors. Funny, they all had the same haircut my mom had in the 70's, but I guess all brunette mom-ish crafty women had the same haircut in the 70's.
I scanned a few choice pages (hopefully without stepping on any copywritten toes), click on the pix to jump to my flickr to see the other scans.

One of my favorite pages is below. It's showing an example of how to find a group of colors to use together. The smaller photos are of a harbor, and the large photo shows the afghan that was inspired by the colors of that harbor. Cool idea!

LOST Art

Even if you know nothing about LOST the television show (where have you been hiding?) here's enough info for you to grock the point of this post:
LOST is a huge mystery. A mystery within a mystery. And everything and anything can be a clue, anything on the show itself, or on the mini-games and clips on the web. The interest in this show (IMHO) is trying to piece together clues, and come up with theories on what is actually going on. Maybe like a giant interactive game of Clue, or one of those murder mystery parties.
Not too long ago, one character was doing some watercolor painting. I always love to notice when television or movie characters do arts and crafts, it doesn't seem to happen that often. And unfortunately, a lot of the times I've seen characters doing arts and crafts the character was where this one was: a mental hospital. (So does television tell us only mental patients do arts and crafts? I don't think so, I just think television doesn't want to remind us too often about the creative things we could be doing while or instead of watching-it doesn't want the competition. ;p That's my crackpot theory, and I'm sticking to it.)
So this character was painting with watercolors, and I, like every other LOST watcher I presume, started thinking about the clue that was in the painting. Does it mean he was abducted by Penny's people that are stationed in the Arctic? Does it mean the LOST writers are going with the super crackpot (again, IMHO) theory of the hollow Earth, and that the island they are on is directly tunneled to the North Pole? Does it represent that character himself, and that he was at some point in the cold weather?
Sorry, I probably lost a few non-LOST-ers there. Suffice it to say that there was much speculation over the painting.
Anyway, I heard an interview with this actor, and when questioned about the painting, he admitted that the producer just told him to paint, not what to paint. So whereas the actor thought about what his character might paint, the producer and writers did NOT have a specific clue in mind.
Sometimes a cigar is really just a cigar. But why he's eating the Cheetos is still a controversial question. ;p

There's lots of places out there on the net with screen grabs, I got this one from one of my favs: Lost Easter Eggs. Thanks.

Dream Pin

Dream Pin
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

The morning of the 24th, so Christmas Eve morning, I woke up remembering one specific dream. I was going through some things I had made, I think I was just moving them from one container into another (probably because I had been working on re-organizing all my beads). Or maybe I was just looking through all these things, maybe showing them to someone? (Hmm, the subconscious, sleeping me, was showing them to the part of me that would remember them?)
Anyway, there were a bunch of flat pieces, mostly pins, or maybe pendants. I've made so many pins lately, I have pins on the brain! I know there were at least a dozen pieces, but I only remember three clearly.
One was completely done in beads, a round part in the center, with an extra beaded piece on one side, the other side wasn't finished. In the center of the round part was an American flag, it reminded me of a necklace I made my mom many years ago. The fact that it wasn't finished didn't surprise me, and I had the idea that it had been partially finished for quite some time. (that, unfortunately, doesn't surprise me, either!)
The second piece was a felt pin, in these same colors, tan and black, but in a kind of representation of an American flag. Like three-five black stars on a tan background on one side, with roughly the same number of tan stripes on black on the other side. Not a perfect copy, but kind of op-art. I wondered in my dream if this was just artsy or if I was trying to make some political statement.
The third piece was this felt pin pictured here. That's right, I somehow dug my hand into my brain, and pulled this pin right out of my dream! More like, I drew it out that morning before I forgot, and when I had to go back to work later that week, I cut it out and embroidered it together. I thought, both in the dream, and while making it, that this geometric, simple, 'modern' looking idea would work well in multitudes of color schemes and shape variations.
After all of the trial pins I've made lately (and sorry I haven't shown you but a slight percentage of them yet), this pin idea I dreamed could be the one I make tons of and put up on Etsy.

Project Runway

Another item in the category of sometimes-I-do-what-the-voices-in-my-head-tell-me-to (those voices being the wonderful podcasters of the creative podcasts I listen to), I started watching Project Runway this season. I don't watch a ton of reality television, and I guess I always thought that since I'm not much into 'fashion' the show wouldn't appeal to me much. But it's more than 'fashion', it's creativity in it's purest raw form. It's being inspired by seeing others working their passion. And I love the fact that the contestants are so varied in age (one is actually older than even me)! It's so cool to watch them deal with the challenges they are faced with.
I was terribly distraught the last couple of weeks when I thought the TiVo was plotting against me, and not recording it, but realized they were just on holiday like the rest of us. And last night, the newest episode recorded, so I love it (the TiVo) again.
Last night's episode was so inventive! They went to the Hershey's store, and had to make their outfits out of whatever they could grab in the store. The absolute cutest Kiss dress, pop art brown wrapper top, and licorice-used-as-food outfit ever! So neat to see how different they all thought through the same challenge.
So I was thinking about finding or making some similar sort of challenge. What if there was a group where we all had to use candy wrappers to make an outfit for a doll?? That gets my creative juices flowing! Maybe I'll just have to do it myself!

My Word for 2008

10-13-3chalk5
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

Do you remember the story about the butterfly struggling to get out of it's cocoon? I went to look up the specifics of the story, and found several versions. The story includes a butterfly and a human. The butterfly was never described, use your own imagination, the human in the story either a man, a grandmother, or a kid, so the human is basically anyone.
The story goes that Anyone sees the butterfly working on shedding it's cocoon, and sees the struggle the butterfly is having, sees how extremely hard the butterfly is working. And Anyone, being the helpful human that they think they are, decides to help the butterfly get out of it's cocoon, and opens the hard shell for the bug.
Anyone went back later to see how the butterfly was doing, and it was not doing well. At all. It's wings were all shriveled up, and it could barely move them.
And Anyone researched butterflies and cocoons (on the internet or library or from a friendly teacher, depending on the version of the story), and learned that it is the struggle to remove the cocoon that helps the butterfly strengthen it's wings, that all the wiggling, and hard work, is essential to getting the blood into the wings, to make them strong enough to fly with.
So when Anyone was trying to help, they actually hurt the butterfly, but they learned a valuable lesson: Sometimes it is the struggle itself that makes us stronger, and sometimes there is no short cut to that struggle.
I have been feeling the last couple months like I am that butterfly working on getting it's wings strong enough to get out of the cocoon. And I don't know how much working it will take until my wings are strong enough, but I know they will get there, and I will fly.
So my word for 2008, or at least for right now, is:
Emerging.