Studio Tour

Over the weekend I took the afternoon to to a semi-local studio tour of 9 artists.

Luckily the weather co-operated and it was a nice day out. (Sitting in the tour van and getting up and out all the time was torture, for me though. I managed to injure my tailbone slipping on the step and bouncing on my tail down to the concrete pad.)

The first stop was a charming pottery/painting studio. The artist uses her painting skills to decorate her pottery work. lovely fruit and floral themes on all amnner of pottery creations.

The next artist raises alpaca and uses their wool to create luxuriously soft knits, and amazingly soft stuffed animals. Here is an alpaca mom and her baby.

Some of the alpaca items, hats, scarves, mitts, sweaters, stuffies ect..

Elaine was part of the tour as well with her polymer clay work, but alas, there were too many admirers at her display to get a good photo.

Here we have a fibre artist, she mostly does various dye and dye techniques, but she also does amazing quilting work, which wasn't displayed. as well as photography of local wildlife which she uses in her cards and prints.

Another artist has her studio on her farm in a nice sized building, huge windows and wall to wall paintings and artworks. She does acryllic and water color painting, felting, all sorts of different needle works, everything really.

The same artist as above. I had to show this dragon, all needleworked in gold thread, beads and sequins, the details are amazing. It took her 2 weeks of 10-12 hr days to stitch this gorgeous and priceless work. I drool, seriously.

This pottery artist is very different from the first one, the patterns in her work are more textural, though there were a few painted pieces. She also does amusing little faces, and "mosquitoe house" garden decorations.

The last 2 artists are a husband and wife team who have thier studios in the basement of an old old schoolhouse they have renovated. The live in the upper floor.

She does plaster casting impressions of nature scenes, animal tracks, feathers, different plantlife ect.

This one is a huge casting of a busy gopher area, full of rodent tracks.

Her husband does black and white classic photography using a bellows style camera, which my photo didn't turn out of, sadly. lots of nature scenes, and he does images in a totally darkroom, slowexposure where he runs a flashlite around the subject and ends up with a wild light outlining the photo subject.

It was a really fun and busy day seeing all the different local artisans, and their equally different studio areas. So much talent, and so much inspiration. I hope they do a tour next year too!

Bowl full O fun!

 

Last Month at a family reunion I went to the local farmers market. There I found a couple of women spinning wool yarn at their display. I spotted this gorgeous purple wool, and brought it home. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to make with it, it was just to gorgeous to leave there! After a couple weeks I decided to make a bowl with pulltabs, and expand my catalog of items I make with tabs. Perfect thing for the wool! So here is my first can tab bowl! I like how the verigation comes through in each row like I switched yarns. I think I might make a few more bowls, maybe slightly larger.

The second item I am chatting up is this fun pull tab purse. It's a custom order and each row is a different shade of green. I actually have over 16 different greens in my horde! Some shades are pretty similar, but side by side are different.  I tried making a button loop closure for under the flap, and I think it turned out pretty well ( small pic). I had my daughter model the bag for me, and you can see my messy studio in the background!

Anyway I am now making a blue bag in multiple shades, and after that I have a project to represent my hometown for a juried in art show this fall. I haven't done an "art" show before so this should be interesting to try!  More pics and progress when I complete them.

makin' stuff

I am still trying to create a little free-er, and more art inspired. This bracelet uses several fillet crocheted triangles in different sizes and metal colour, copper, gold, silver. Originally they were layered together as a pendant and earrings. I decided to attach them all together for this asymertical but geometric designed bracelet, after ripping apart a few older pieces that have been in my stock for a few years unsold. I kinda like this new design it's fun and funky and I hope this new direction will sell, time will tell right?

This is what the triangles  pendant and earrings looked like before. yeah my photography has improved a lot in that time too LOL!!

some of my new work is still similar but showing more of the crochet work, less simple chaining.

I am rather liking the lacy disks behind the beads look right now.

Currently I am working on a pull tab bowl using hand spun and dyed wool I got at a farmers market. I'll be sure to show that one off when I am done!

trying new things

I am planning to push my creative boundaries a little. I did my first freeform wire crochet last week while at my Tuesday Makers meeting. I must admit it was a bit daunting, having no idea what stitch was going in next or in what direction I should work. But it is a pretty artsy piece, I decided to add a chain and make it a bib necklace. Wearable art, I am sure someone out there will appreciate it, but I know it's not everyones taste. I might keep it too, but being me I'll have to make earrings too LOL!!

I was at the local art galleries summer salon show this Sat. And it occured to me that I really need to get myself into the fall/winter one. Wondering if I should just do my usual or make more artsy stuff for that. Maybe a bit of both. Hoping I get the time to make a new purse design I've been pondering too.

Well right now I need to concentrate on getting Adaira ready for diabetes camp and prepping for my parents 40th anniversary surprize party this weekend.  Should be a crazy week as usual!!

The Demo

Yesterday we did the usual go to church, and I sold a strawberry shortcake to a family who gets me to bake cakes for them at least once a month. Got a message this morning apparently their cousins who were at the party the cake was for wanted them to pass on their compliments. How nice is that? Makes a good start to the day I tell ya!
So after church we had a quick lunch and off I went to the art gallery to set up for my display and demo of wire crochet for a couple hours. It went really well, I had quite a few people come to look and ooh and ahh. Always flattering, even had a request for teaching a class! There was a pottery class in the next room, one of the students came out to get something saw my diplay and was quite impressed, a few minutes later the rest of the class all came out at her insistance to see the crocheted wire jewelry. The one lady wanted to buy a set but didn't have $ with her so I gave her a card and told her I'd be at the gun and hobby show the 27th and 28th. Laurie the amazing gallery education co-ordinator bought a set too, it suits her really well. She's the lady in the wine coloured shirt with the purple and green fluorite set.

And a set of ladies came in and bought some of my rings. I really wasn't thinking sales, so all this was an unexpected bonus, plus I get $50 for the demo. Elaine was there for a while and took a few pictures for me. She rocks, and her demo is next Sun so I'll have to return the favour and shoot a few pics. Crafty friends are the best aren't they?

Maker meeting

Well today the local art gallery hosted the first "maker" meeting. Basically anyone who creates anything is welcome to come in for 3 hours and we can work on our projects have a coffee, chat, and network. Already we have a few ideas to work on together how cool is that? There were about 6 of us and a few people just popped in to say hi. Quite a few people said they'd try to come in Sunday for my wire crochet demo, so that's awesome :) Elaine, aka Tooaquarius was there, the gallery curator Laurie I bellydance with, The others I don't know, yet. Laurie just started doing needle felting and has an increadibly detailed felt doll in the works. It looks to me like an ambitious project for a beginner, but she rocks at it, this doll has dimples, joints that look correct, and even individual teeth showing in the mouth! 2 of the other ladies do collage one had a sort of steam punk look to a few of hers, which was fun. I had a few people interested in my art, which is great, but I didn't think to bring a finished project to display, silly me. But next week I'll bring something. Looks like my afternoons on Tuesdays are now booked. 15 blocks there and back is good exercise too.