Featured Artist!!??

I have to share the good news I received last week. A lot of people have heard this, but I can't help but be thrilled, so I'm repeating it here. I received a wonderful email from Nancy Chrisman, representing the Women's Advisory Council for St. Bernard's Development Foundation, Inc. in Jonesboro, Arkansasa (a non-profit organization supporting the mission of St. Bernards Regional Medical Center), inviting me to be their featured artist for their exhibit in April 2011!!! The net proceeds from the show are donated to The Flo & Phil Jones Hospice House in Jonesboro. The Council raises money from a silent auction, from vendors' booths and from sponsors.

Fabulous! Nancy said they could easily have space for 20-30 pieces of my work, since I work fairly small (not larger than 36" any direction). My dilemma is that I only have 10 pieces at this time that could be featured and sold (they appreciate a 20% donation from the sales). Holy Toledo! I have until March 1st, 2011, so I'm not too concerned. I'm sure I can get at least 10 made by then. If I work at it!

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I have been moving in a completely different direction with my art lately. I am an ardent admirer of Mary Hettmansperger and have taken the leap to using copper with my fabric. It is so much fun! I have a Fat Boy Bernzomatic propane torch for annealing copper sheeting! Woohoo! Is that ever a blast! Can't you just see me with a blow torch!!?? I hammer copper wire and have some beautiful color-coated wire. I play with copper foil and I got some Mica to have fun with, too. So - here are some not-so-great photos (sorry - copper is very difficult to photograph well).

This is the first piece I made. I used some tiny cloisonne' beads (on the right) that I just love, as well as the two in the center of the copper that I made with fabric. The copper piece has been annealed (torched!!!) and hammered for texture. The copper paddles have been hammered and then tied onto the copper sheet with very fine blue-coated copper wire. The pinkish-beige backing is actually paper ribbon and I hand-stitched this onto the multi-brown background. The small blue dot on the tiny copper piece is a French knot of embroidery floss.


This piece I call "Verdigris I". It is not my favorite piece. I stitched a piece of cheesecloth that I dyed over a piece of green and blue fabric that I also dyed. Copper leaves and shapes are annealed and hammered for texture. Most pieces are held onto the backing with teeny tiny brads. One rectangular piece with a bent copper bead is tied on with the fine red wire and the paddles are stitched down with thread. The square in the upper right corner is copper foil. What appears to be a painting is some thread that I had stitched together with water soluble stabilizer. A piece of mica is on top of that to hold it in place. Fun techniques - not crazy about the outcome.


"Verdigris II" is a little better. This has 3 layers of cloth on a foam core base. The top layer of fabric is one I had previously rusted and thought it would work well. Again - lots of fun techniques here. Pounded wire into shapes, used leftover strips of copper sheeting to make the curly-cues, and more mica and copper foil with tiny brackets.


This last one Steve named "Reeds". We think it looks like sunrise at the beach or on a marsh, and the various colored and hammered copper wires are the reeds. When the light hits the colored wire, it is really beautiful. I'm quite thrilled with this one. Steve says it's not leaving the house. Guess he likes it! 8>)

I haven't decided whether to use some of these in the Jonesboro show or not. Steve thinks I should, to show part of the "journey" I'm on with my art. I'll have to think about it. In the meantime, I need to get back into the studio and get some work done, so there can be a show!!
Thanks for looking and feel free to comment.

A New Blog Year

So - it's been a year since I last blogged. Steve and I went to New England a year ago and I took so many photos that I was overwhelmed with them all, and when it came time to choose some for the blog, I abandoned it.

So now - Steve and I have just returned from a quick weekend holiday at the Outer Banks (OBX for those who don't know). I had never been that far up the NC coast and it had been about 40 years since Steve had. I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't a Myrtle Beach type of jammed up 3 story cottages and no view of ocean no matter where you drove. I felt somewhat like someone from another country coming to visit Texas and finding out there aren't really cowboys and Indians riding the wild west. I guess I expected there to be a lot more openness.

So - my main reason for going was to see the wild ponies up at Corova Beach - where the OBX road ends and you have to drive on the beach. It's important to check your tide tables before attempting this, which we did. Now, my 2009 Honda CRV has all-wheel drive, which is always good. Not quite great for driving on sand, but okay. It was the ground clearance that was the problem. Like a snow plow - it tried to push the sand, but wasn't strong enough.

So - here are the lovely ruts in the sand and here is Steve trying to shovel the snow out from under the engine.




He wasn't able to do that, but a nice gentleman from Utah stopped and pulled us a short way out so we could get back to the road.



Unfortunately, the nice gentleman didn't pull us out quite far enough, so Steve got the shovel out again. He still wasn't able to dig us out. And then another nice gentleman with a much larger pickup truck came to our aid and actually did pull us out far enough. Who says size doesn't matter? hah! In ground clearance, it certainly does!



We gave up on the ponies and decided to drive south to check out the other 2 lighthouses. We'd seen the Currituck light and it was pretty cool. But everyone takes pictures of light houses and I had a new camera, so I took this photo, instead.



We were disappointed in the Bodie Island Light - it is currently covered in metal scaffolding. You could see it through the scaffolding, but who wants a photo of metal scaffolding?

I was talking with Keri as we continued our drive south to the Cape Hatteras Light. Suddenly, on the sound side (right) of the road, we saw what appeared to be several large half-moon-shaped kites.



I quickly hung up from Keri & Steve pulled the car over. There were about a dozen sail boarders taking advantage of the 30+ mph winds. It was so exciting to watch them speed across the water and then fly up into the air! One guy was definitely a hot dogger and waved at us while I took his photo - too bad I didn't catch it! 8>) But these are some of the fun ones I did get.




Those guys really move and often look like they are about to run up onto the beach, but manage to turn on a dime and keep moving like the wind! Definitely a sport for the extremely fit!



The Hatteras light was nice and I took the standard tourist photos, which I won't bore you with, and we went back to our room (which did not have an ocean view!). We had some time before dinner, so we decided to take a walk on the nearby pier. The waves were incredible, thanks to Igor. "No Swimming" signs everywhere.



But the signs didn't deter this young daredevil - it took him forever to fight the waves and current to get out far enough to make it worthwhile, but he finally did.



When we got back to the motel after a fabulous steamed clambake at the Black Pelican (a MUST-DO!), Steve went out to have fun feeding the gulls, although it looked like they really meant business!






We'd had more than enough sun, sand (stinging our faces, arms & legs with the wicked wind) and waves and, not having been able to see the wild ponies, decided to cut it short by a day so we could relax where we really enjoy it best -




And when Steve had filled the bird feeder, our resident wildlife were glad we were home, too. (there is actually more than one bird - but he was the only one willing to pose!)



So - back to work tomorrow. Blogger has definitely changed during the past year, so I apologize for the erratic photos and I fully intend to get more up to speed with it, but bear with me. I promise to post about my art and show some photos of the new copper stuff next time. Thanks for reading and enjoying my very short vacation with me! I hope you read again soon!