I am totally Jazzed and Grateful!!!!!

I spent the weekend at the Quilter's Unlimited Quilt Show in Northern Virginia, totally surrounded by glorious fabric, quilts and talented generous artists . I returned home ready and itching to stitch and create. Then to my amazement and joy, I found that my Pink and Orange Beaded Cuff bracelet had sold at Liberty Town!!!! (Shown in the picture above ) WHOOO HOOOOOOOO!!! I have had two beaded cuffs for sale at the Emporium for over a year and I was becoming tried of seeing them there and was determined to replace them for a bit, to freshen up my display.

No Need for that now, as I got an e-mail just yesterday that the second cuff, the All Purple one had also SOLD!!!!!!

It just goes to demonstrate that a sale of a very special item takes a very special customer to find it, love it and to honor the artist by purchasing it!!! The planets of the lovers of beads must have been perfectly aligned, or perhaps it was because I returned a lost dog to it's home yesterday! HMMMMMMMM... Does not really matter! I just know that I feel incredibly honored that other's like my work enough to buy it and that I must get the beads out again and create another piece of beaded art!!!!!!

May the palnets align for all of you today, and if you come across a stray pet, take it home, one never knows who is watching!!!!!! :)

BABA Blankets- Women Changing the World!!!

This past weekend I worked for my friend Judy Gula at her booth for her shop Artistic Artifacts. The huge Quilter's Unlimited Annual Show was held at the Dulles Expo Center. There were over 600 quilts on display and many many wonderful vendors. One of the wonderful artists that I met was Aminata Brown, the Founder and Designer for BaBa Blankets. Aminata has established a Women's Artistic Collective in Ghana. The Collective dyes beautiful damask woven cottons and then creates all sorts of home decor items with the gorgeous fabrics. At the quilt show, Aminata had fat quarters and 1/2 yard pieces for sale as well as all of the lovely products.

After lots of time, attemping to make a desicion and watching the time of my break slip by, I settled on these gorgeous fat quarters. It is almost impossible to see here but each piece has a subtle damask pattern beneath the dyed layer. These fabrics have amazing depth and a wonderful cotton hand. I cant wait to start using them in my fabric collage work.

This is the back of the Post card for BABA Blankets. You can find out more about this wonderful enterprise by clicking on this link. You will find a calendar of upcoming shows where you too can find Aminata and gather your own collection of these wonderful fabrics. At the website, you can also purchase lovely home decor products such as wonderful duvet covers pillow shams, throws, quilts and beautiful baskets!! Women supporting women can only make our world a healthier place!!!!!

Women are out there changing our world through their art work and tenacity!!!

After the Storm

Yesterday was one of those hot and humid days that Southern Virginia is well known for. Matthew and I spent most of the day in Chantilly Viginia setting up for a large quilt show. He was putting together steel pipe and drape dividers that are used for display of quilts (He was being paid!!) and I was helping Judy Gula set up her Vendor booth for Artistic Artifacts. By te tjnime that we headed sout just ahead of the rush hour wave of traffic the sky was darkening and we had a fabulous view of forked lightening in the near dsitance. As we got to the Back Roads part of our trip , the skies opened that the lightening flashed and we were forced to crawl along, or pull ove rhte wait it out. Not a fun ride home!! Eventually we got ahead of the storm and beat the worst of it back to Stafford and our very nervous and upset dogs and anxious Becca. We were safe and sound .

After about an hour of thunder and lightening and horrendous amounts of rain, the sun broke through and created a shimmering sparkling show in the garden. Out I went with camera in hand to catch the moment. You may click on any picture to enlarge, or , if you don't want to see yet more garden shots, you are free to stop reading now, I won't be too upset!!:(

Even tired roses look suprememly elegant bedecked in glittering drops!

My platter sized Hosta leaves are the pefect stage for glittering diamonds of raindrops!!

I love how my self seeded Dill has fluffed out behind this Pentstemon and is supporting three Swallowtail butterfly cysalis!!!


If you are experiencing summer storms I hope that they are not severe and offer some of the joys that I have found in this after the storm experience!!

Birthday Treasures

We still have about 1/3 of this lucious and oh-so chocolately chocolate cake left. It is SPECTACULAR with a hot cup of coffee, and DEEEEVINE with raspberry sauce!!! I will definately be using this recipe again- perhaps for Matthew's upcoming Graduation Celebration. If you are interested in the recipe, just give me a holler!! Perhaps the best part of this cake was creating it with Becca. She is becoming quite the dessert specialist!!
I had a wonderful birthday that extended from May 19th with the start of my advnetures at Art and Soul and culminated yesterday with a surprise in the mail from my dear friend Robin! It is a wonderful gift to have a family who is supportive of my artistic journey and takes joy from my love of this special retreat that I so enjoy.
After all, if Momma's not happy, NO ONE is happy!!!!! Right??!?!?!This wonderful piece was created by Julie Haymaker, the wonderful artist who I met at Art and Soul and who taught the first class taht I attended. You can see more of her art here. As we were all setting up for Vendor Night at Art and Soul, I cruised by Julie's table and this piece literally lept inot my hands. (Ok, a bit of artistic license taken!) But I could not take my eyes off of this piece. Brown is not usually a color that I often consider at all, yet this piece was screamng at me!! My Mom had given me a bit of 'Mad Money '
for an early birthday gift, hoping that I would find something specail at the retreat. Well, this was the piece. It occured to me as I looked at this piece that it was speaking of the changes that are fast approaching in the life of our family. We are all growing and coming and going and taking flight and hopefully returning home for visits. With Matthew's upcoming graduation, we are going to embatking on a new journey, so this piece was the perfect momento of this years Art Retreat.

I had spotted this glorious sterling and turquoise cuff bracelet at an Antique store in Fredericksburg, back in April. I came home and drop one or two, maybe ten, rather heavy hints about the location and availability of this glorious piece. Along comes Mother's Day and there it was!!! I was shocked and delighted. Apparently, my hints ahd been noted and acted upon and the kid's ahd gotten quite impatient. So I was gifted with this wonderful bauble for Mother's Day, so I could wear it at Art and Soul. After recieving such a gift I made them all promise that this would also count as a Birthday gift!

Look at this glorious card!! This arrived in the mail yesterday!! What an amazing work of Stamp art, I am going to frame it!!! Robin has outdone herself. Robin and her daughter Laurel attended a Rubber Stamp Convention in California several weekends ago. I have always wanted to see what such a gathering was like and they seem to still be going strong in California. They sent me these two wonderful stamps by involk Arts- one of my favorite stamp companies and Robin didn't know that. She knows me pretty well though!! Robin is a very talented graphic artist who always puts all of her creative energy and attention to every detail into everything that she does. She introduced me to Rubber Stamps when she discovered the Inka -Dink-A- Doo rubber stamp store near South Station in downtown Boston, when we were living in Boston back in the early 80's. SOOOO, Robin is partly responsible for the rubber stamp collection that lives in my studio!!!! Thank you so very much for thinking of me Robin and Laurel!!!!!!

All of my relationships and adventures have played a huge part in my artistic journey and I would not have it any other way!!!!

Memorial Day Weekend at a Glance

Scenes of Fredericksburg Union Cemetary Illumination Remembrance. It is always amazing what one can discover right in your own back yard. Vacation locally, it is a great way to grow your local economy!!!!

15,000 graves known and unknown from the Union Forces at the Battle of Fredericksburg. A truely amazing and breathtaking sight. All of the luminaries were created and lit by local Scout troops and the event was run by the National Park Service Rangers. A visit to this park is a MUST for anyone coming thru Fredericksburg!

Father and son walking back to the car along the Sunken Road that bisects the battlefield and played a major role in the siege of Fredericksburg.

The Seniors of Mountain View Orchestra. Matthew is the second from the left. Their last concert was Thursday evening and they recieved commemorative plaques from their Orchestra teacher. This was his first class to be with him from Freshman year to Senior year. The Concert was wonderful and featured music ranging from jimi Hendrix Purple Haze to the John Williams Trilogy to a Cello Quartet playing Apocalyptica!!!!

<

The last time that brother and sister will play together under the same director. Hopefully Matthew will continue to play an instrument!!! Playing the violin definately added a huge benefit to his High School career!

Wonderful garden visitors.

Liliies.

Iris.

Foxgloves. The glories of the garden continue to fascinate!!

Now it is time to join Becca in the kitchen were we are going to create C-A-K-E, with chocolate and raspberry sauce! Couldn't ask for a nicer birthday!!

I hope that all of you have enjoyed your holiday weekend, where ever you have found yourselves!

Art and Soul Project #2

As many of you know, I ifnd it extremely difficult to pass by a used book sale, and in fact our local library holds a sale at the firts of each month!! I ahve been collecting abused and tattered books for a long time and waiting for the opportunity to take a class with collage artist and painter Cathy Taylor. Cathy offered her class, Anthologies , this year at Art and Soul . Above you see one fo the two large collage pieces that I created. And to make things even more astounding , I came home, added a few finishing touches and framed it immediately. Now it is ready to hang. Cathy has a wonderfully inovative way of looking at the innards of old books, many are destined for the trash pile. We literally ripped the covers off and dissected the book down to it's simplest elements, taking great joy in finding thredy spines and old end papers with the gorgeous patina of age.

Here it a tighter shot. I had found the book titles Elizabeth and Her German Garden, several years ago and had been saving it for this exact use!!! The title is done in Gold leaf and shows a bit of tarnish but is so glorious. I added a bit of vintage lace, other covers , a pagee from a gardening book, some daylily seed pods form my garden, various buttons and accents from other books, including spine pieces and there you have it!

!
The second collage that I created in class needed a bit more work upon returning home. I ahve finished added the necessary touches and all that is left is a frame. Thei collage is all about my wonderful Grandmother.

I used a picture of young Jenny that was taken in Sweden before she came to the US when she was 18.

Just below the tip of the frame that surrounds her picture you can see a recipe that was taken from her Luteran Church Cookbook. The recipe for Ice Box Cookies was one of Jenny's donations to the cookbook and her married name is printed in the bottom right hand corner. Throughout my childhood, we used this cookbook constantly for all sorts of recipes and it is now literally in tatters but still too very dear to throw out!!In one of her books I had discovered an ad from a swedish newspaper with info regarding ships passgae from Goteborg to the US. That ad had to be included ,as did her name that she had written on the inside of one of her books.
Jenny loved to garden and taught me many fo her gardening secrets so floral images and refeerences were a must. I also added bits of sewing supplies as she did glorious handwork. You can see a scrap of burgandy thread that someone had carefully wound onto a scrap of notebook paper, to be used on another project, (Jenny would have done something just like that), a bit of a vintage cloth tape measure, a wonderful purple glass button and a label from the top of an old spool of thread.

As I was prepping the spine of an old book to use as a collage element, some pages fell open and there tucked deep inside, were four pressed 4 leaf clovers!!! The book was published in the 20's and was a young adults novel, so we are sure that the clovers had been collecteed by the reader and forgotten. What sweet treasures! I carefully glued the clovers permanently to the page where they were and added a protective coat of matte medium. Once dry, I added the spine element to the collage. You can see it lying horizontally along the top right hand edge of the collage.

Jenny prided herself on always remembering the birthdays of all of her friends and relatives ,so the vintage lilac covered Best Wishes greeting card was an easy addition. She also took very good tender loving care of the birds that visited her wdnerful gardens, so the brass stamped flying bird added a wonderful element to finish off this collage.

I can see myself creating all sorts of similar collage pieces in the near future and I plan on adding many more fiber and fabric elements to make my collages unique and my own. Goodness knows, I have enough old books in the basement to get me thru the adventure!!!

Art and Soul Project #1

May I introduce Steam Punk Lily.

I started off my Art and Soul experience for 2010 with a class taught by the amazingly talented and super nice Julie Haymaker Thompson. Originally, when I was planning out my 2010, I had not penciled in a trip to art and Soul. Then I wnet to visit Julie's blog and read her post about joining the Hampton Schedule for teaching. Well, that announcement changed my plans completely!! That very day, I scheduled my trip with Julie's Steam Punk Lily being my first choice of classes! Isn't she wonderful!! We ahd sooo much fun and there were only three of us in the class. This will be the first and LAST time that Julie's classes will be so lightly attended!!! When i walked inot the dining area carrying my LiLy, I was swamped with eager questions and many hands trying to touch. Lily was freshly glued so I had to beat people back and ask them PLease,Please to look with their eyes not their hands!!! I am not sure just how man times I explained the process or how many times I raved about Julie and her talents and teaching abilities, but no one should plan on getting into her classes with ease. She is going to become an extrememly sought after teacher!!!!

For those of you who are not exactly sure just what the Term STEAMPUNK refers to, here is a definition from Wikipedia click here. I was not at all sure of the exact definition but I knew what the style looked like and once I saw Julie's class sample of Lily, I was hooked.

Lily was created by wrapping sheet pewter around a craft store bird form and then embellished with all sorts of bits and pieces and perched on a collaged wooden egg. Julie taught us how to use all sorts of metal based paints and oxodozing agents to achieve that authentic steampunk grunge look. We each added our own touched by varying the trims and stitching patterns that we used. We also had a chance to play with Paper Clay containing volcanic ash. We used the clay to create various hat styles .

As I was thoroughly enjoying the class with Julie I realized just who she reminded me of. I felt like I ahd known Julie for along time and then I realized that she closely resembled my good friend Trina of the Paper Flea Market. As nit happened the super talented Trina would be attending Art and Soul begining on Saturday, to take a class and to be a vendor at the Bazaar on Saturday night. As it happened Trina's table at the Bazaar was immediately behind Julie's table. I was so right- they do look like long lost twins!!! The resemblance was really uncanny and the two quickly became fast friends. Here you can see for yourself with Trina on the left and Julie on the right!! After we had all broken down our booths from the vendor sale, we met up at the Hotel Bar and had a good visit and debrief. It was all very necessary after a very hectic and noisey three hour sale.
The ART and Soul Retreats are so much more than art classes ! Theya re amazing gatherings of like minded artists and creative people who all speak similar art languages and are driven by the same desires to create. I have decided that these trips are my versions of a week at a Spa. This is my place to recharge my enthusiasm and regain my excitement about the creative journey that I am traveling. I will be forever grateful to all of the wonderful people that I have met and the teachers who have shared their time and talents. The amount of validation that I recieved as an artist is truely empowering!!!!
Stay tuned for the next several blog posts in which I will reveal the rest of the classes and projects created at Art and Soul 2010.!