standing guard

sentinel

Hello! Here's a little piece I finished up this week. I found a wonderful old book about mushrooms...I always think these guys have so much personality- must be the early influence of Fantasia when I was a kid.

No real time to post, I'm afraid- I'm knee deep in clean up and final prep for a birthday weekend. I may have taken on a little much in the detail-department for the Harry Potter party. I finally admitted this to myself while whittling ten wands from sticks collected on walks. Be that as it may, I'm having fun - here's hoping the kiddos have fun too!

regularly scheduled blogging

returning

I'm feeling motivated to be more regular in my blogging. I've been working out my schedule these days- between making art, volunteering and family-life- and I realize I'm ready to let the art part take a more up-front position. 

I spent last week polishing up my photos and submitting to some art fairs and one gallery. I was supremely disappointed by a rejection last year, and realized that I really let that scare me off of making other submissions. I am a classic perfectionist- and if something doesn't go 'just right', I tend to want to just quit it all together. So in an effort to relax that part of me, I am committing to sending out submissions until I get another show, and then more after that to keep me rolling. If I suffer more rejection in the mean time- well, it's high time I learn that that doesn't define me- it just means it wasn't a good fit. (If you have any suggestions for galleries or shows that might be the right fit- let me know!)

This week I'm beginning some new pieces, using a wonderful 1940's guide to Ferns, published by the Natural History Museum in New York. I found the book in an antique shop in Madison in January...so lucky! I love, love, love ferns, and am hoping to capture a little of their quiet spring-ness in these new pieces.

I'll show you them as they progress- but will also be showing them over on Heather Kirtland's blog- as she's come up with the wonderful idea of hosting an online critique once in a while. I am so looking forward to this. The comments I received on my last post were incredibly helpful- not only with the piece, but with making me feel like this blog-world is slowly helping me build a bit of an artistic community- which was really my whole point in starting a blog. So, yay, Heather! Thank you for getting this going- I hope we have lots of participants!

venturing off my beaten path

I think I finished a new piece today:

untitled

So...no actual subject in this piece. There was one there, but it felt so forced - so it got covered over and reworked and here's where I am.

I have to say, I really like it. But I've not done any completely non-representational work yet, and I find myself wondering if this piece is valid if it's not really about a thing? Or maybe I'm needing just a small bit of encouragement to help me listen to the inner voice that's trying to tell me Hey- this works! It's done- be happy!


Anyone have any comments or constructive criticism for me?

update- after such helpful feedback, leading to just a little change:

free-wheel

*******

Other creative energies have been going toward a certain 6-year old's Harry Potter birthday party. My youngest turns 7 at the end of the month, which marks the last 'themed' birthday party I plan on throwing (after this it's the ol' invite some friends to a bowling alley for an hour). I tend to pour a LOT of creative energy into their parties- and have a ton of fun doing so. Themes in the past have been Construction, Outer Space, Bionicles, Bakugons, Science Experiments and Insects. I love that we're going out with Harry Potter as the last one- we're all huge fans.

I've never been great about posting pics of the parties in the past- but this time, I'm going to use up a little blog-space to show it off.

So far, we've sent the invites, and I've labeled jars for potions ingredients:

More to come!