Through The Keyhole

New Jewelry

I made two new rings this week. The first is a lovely nutty brown and gold beach stone, polished by the waves and sand, smooth and gorgeous. It's sterling and fine silver.

The second is a vintage metal button with it's silver wearing off. The brass showing through slightly at the edges. I love this one the best so far, it's so sweet. It is also sterling and fine silver.

I love making bezels. The soldering is magic still to me. The filing and polishing is so meditative and satisfying. I took a couple of hours off of work Friday afternoon to go to the studio and was surprised I was able to finish the button ring in this time. I wasn't even sure if I had all the materials I needed to make something when I arrived but it all came together better than if I'd planned. The perfect end to a hectic week.

Artfest Part 4

Tonight I'm posting the last of the pictures from Artfest.

Keith and his fabulous hat.

I don't know who this instructor is but I loved the hat.

One of the art cars.

A necklace by a student in Keith's class. That's a perfume bottle stopper, a piece of wood, and steel wire.
So simple and so beautiful.

This attendee came to the first night of trading well prepared!

I'll end with a few beach photos.

That's it. I'm wiped out. I'll add links and put names to faces on Friday or Saturday.

Artfest Part 3

Tonight we have photos of the goodies I picked up at Vendor night, Show and Tell, and the Journal Party at the beach house.

First up, some amazing vintage glass slides I picked up from Thomas Ashman. I've no idea what I'll be doing with these but I fell in love with them.

The rest of the goodies. From left and then up, Keith Lo Bue's portfolio, a vintage autograph book, vintage crepe paper, vintage embroidered "your book" letters, and a vintage square bezel all from LK Ludwig, a vintage caliper of some sort from Bird and Kathy, a birdseed bag and balloon shoes from I don't know who, a Madonna and Child card from Michael Jon Peterson, and two postcard packets from a very generous Misty Mawn.

Journal Party
Here we have Kathy, Tejae, Andrew and in the upper left smiling big my friend Lelainia.

Lelainia and Kristen

People I don't know. I love this building. It has such soul. If I squint, it reminds me of a cabin I barely recall in Alaska when I was a child.

Show and Tell night was amazing. Four rooms filled with gorgeousness. It's amazing the amount of work created in just 3 short days. Once again, I didn't note artists names. If you see your work here leave me a comment so I can give you credit.
The dolls simultaneously intrigued me and repulsed me. I couldn't stop looking at them.

Alright, I wonder if there's a limit to the number of photos that will fit in one post. I guess we'll see. Tomorrow night I'll wrap up the Artfest posts with part 4. Have a good night.

Artfest Part 2

Tonight I have the amazing trades I received from my housemates. First up from Lelainia Lloyd. An ingenious little necklace to hold moo cards. Very sweet! I love the colors and design. Lelainia is the organizer of our house, bringing us all together.

Next from Kristen Robinson. I hadn't met Kristen before and now I feel like I've known her forever. How could I have not known her before now??? She presented us all with a cozy pillow in some of my favorite colors, chocolate and blue. The fabric feels like your favorite pillowcase, it's been washed a million times it's soft soft soft against my skin.

The next little treat is from Penelope Harris. She stayed in the house last year but chose the dorms this year. I was so happy she was able to come over in the evenings and thrilled that she participated in the house trade! It was great to be able to see her again. She's incredibly productive and I love this sweet little book.

The fourth amazing piece was from Sharon Dibble. Sharon is new to the house this year and I'm so grateful she joined us! Her necklace is beautifully etched copper, patina'd and strung with beads on a steel wire. I enjoyed visiting with her each night after dinner and hope we can get together to make some art since she lives nearby.

Up next is a cd from Tara Finlay. Tara's original art is on the label and the music is wonderful. All of it new to me and some I'm going to need to explore more deeply. I just love the characters Tara draws. She too is highly productive. She'd just finished up preparing for an art show before heading to Artfest.

Finally, from Jonna Barnett. I met Jonna the very first night of my very first Artfest and we've stayed in touch since. It's been wonderful to watch her art evolve. I'm thrilled that she likes crows and ravens as much as I do. She's been my roommate these last two years and hopefully we'll be able to make it a third next year.

I feel so fortunate to have been able to share this years Artfest with these amazingly generous and kind hearted women.

I enjoyed the general trading this year so much. It's fun to see what people choose to create. This first one I received after sharing some silver wire with a classmate. The image in the center is the Schoolhouse building from Fort Worden, where we were taking class.

More trades. The ATC's.

Here we have a mix of original little paintings, Jonna's mushroom postcard and the sweetest little book of her handmade papers, magnet, an intricately decorated pencil, pins, and some mystery packets that I haven't wanted to open yet.

The charms, owl themed items, and ephemera.

Here's a few more I was especially smitten with.
The first by Penelope Harris again.


I love the sweet little hedgehog!

I'd planned to include instructions for this little game in the zine I'd made but ran out of room. I was so excited to get one with a candy necklace no less.

One more trade pic. This one is a print of an original piece. Again, I missed the artists name. Then there are inchies and mondo inchies by Penelope again. I told you she was productive.

Toast, tea, and birds are three of my all time favorite things in the world.

Tomorrow I'll post photos of my purchases, the Journal Party and Show and Tell.
For now, have a restful night.

Post-Artfest....finally!

Finally, the photos have been dowloaded, I've nearly unpacked and I'm ready to share about Artfest. Re-entry to my real life after Artfest is always difficult and strange. This is my fourth year and it's always the same, I feel out of synch with my surroundings and the goings on of my day to day existence. As though this were not my real life but a shadow existence and what happens at Artfest is the life of my heart. Actually, it isn't my life, it's my work that is the challenge to come back to. I love my life and am fortunate to mostly enjoy my day job but the job crowds my mind and my days. Alright, enough of that. On with it.

This year and last I stayed in an Officers house with friends, old and new. We did an exchange based on the theme of house or home. This was my contribution. I made one for each of my housemates.

Here they are all lined up.

The found poem says
he propped his bare feet on the railing that surrounded the porch
he could see a scrap of the sea;
he could smell it too,
fresh and salty
remember this moment

The words are from "Our Arcadia" and brought to mind the view from our house at Artfest.

It's made with all my favorite sorts of things, driftwood twigs, glass and stones smoothed satiny and round from being tumbled in the waves, bits of silk ribbon and fabric rumpled and torn, black beads, copper wire and mica.

Tomorrow I'll post what I received from each of them. They are wonderful!

For my general trade, I made a zine. It's my first ever and it was okay. I interviewed Michael Jon Peterson, (a new instructor at Artfest and a new friend) and mistakenly named him Michael Jon Smith in the title of the article. No idea what I was thinking but it's now his alter ego. He was so very kind about the blunder!

I've a few more left so if you'd like one just leave me a comment and I'll email you for your address.

Finally, I did a painting for the gallery and as luck would have it, it sold. My first official sale! I was a bit confused when I went to pick it up and it wasn't there. I'd never entered anything in the gallery before so I didn't expect it to go.

Here's the first night trading frenzy at dinner.

Teesha and Tracy and the opening event in the hangar

And here's a few gallery pieces. Sadly I didn't note the names of the artists.

This next piece was done by my friend Jonna Barnett.

With that I bid you goodnight. More tomorrow!

Hello! and Mail Call

First, a big WELCOME to my mama friends! Glad you're here, I hope you stick around.

Next, several days weeks ago, I received a lovely package from a former Artfest housemate, Karen. She's an amazing quilter, doing the most intricate piecework. Painting with fabric really. She sent me these wonderful fabric postcards.

I'm especially fond of the frog. I may send one or two out into world via snail mail. It would be interesting to see how it arrives. For now they sit in my desk. When the studio is finally set-up they'll be tacked to a bulletin board or a wall for appreciative viewing.

I've participated in a Traveling 1001 Journals project. I've finished my pages and am awaiting mailing instructions. I'll be posting my pages to the website soon. Here's a peek at one.

8 days to Artfest and counting. As usual I've procrastinated so long I'm completely freaked out. I'll muddle through but egads I do horrible things to myself.

Sweet dreams.

Diversions

I've been planning away for Artfest. My general trades, my house trades, a music exchange, a couple of paintings for the gallery, purchasing supplies etc. In my mind much has been accomplished. In my life, not so much. Actually, not much in the way of Artfest prep. Instead, this house project has been occupying my time.

I'm off now for a bit of actual prep work before I tumble into bed.

I'm plastering the wall. This is a project that's needed doing for waayyyy too long but this was a ridiculous time to tackle it. Can't be helped now. The bathroom must be put back together again quickly. I can't stand brushing my teeth in the kitchen.

Now, there is something good that might come out of this. Besides the nice bathroom I have planned. Bridgette has been writing about using plaster in her encaustic paintings. I'm intrigued. I'm drawn to encaustic because of the gorgeous texture. Adding even more texture with plaster sounds amazing. Look at what she's done with it here. It's just gorgeous! When I was deciding how much dried plaster of paris to buy I had a choice between the 4 lb box and the 25 lb box. I wasn't sure how much I'd need for the wall repair. You know I had to get the 25 lb box. It couldn't be helped. I didn't want to risk running out before I'd experimented with it.

I'm off to tumble into bed now.

Birdman 1

These are the front and back of a page for an artists book I'm creating. I started these in a class with LK Ludwig quite awhile ago.

28 Days until Artfest 2008!

Artfest

I've decided not to post about the Flower and Garden Show. It was monumentally uninspiring so humbug. It's time to start prepping for Artfest. If I'm going to have any trades I need to get on it. And there's a project for my housemates and a couple of special projects for old friends. I'm looking forward to it immensely, especially as I'm not sure I'll return next year. I'd never intended to go back again and again but enjoyed it so much I decided it was well worth whatever I had to do to get there. I've been slowly building my skills so that I could feel I had enough basics to take Keith Lo Bue's Precious Little class and this is the year. It's a 3 day class this year so I'll be able to dive deep.

In a few weeks I start another jewelery class at Pratt here in Seattle. The classes were full winter quarter so I'm thrilled to be able to get in for Spring. I haven't been able to do a bit of jewelry making since that class. I have been able to start painting though. For my birthday Debbie agreed to help me set-up a studio space including an area for painting with encaustics. We finally got the area sorted out and I started doodling. Hmm, I just remembered another thing on my to do list. I want to enter at least one painting into the Artfest gallery and if I can get it finished I have a necklace planned as well.

Yikes, it's an ambitious list.

Here are some photos from last year.

From Show & Tell

From the gallery. I wish I'd bought this first piece.

The journal party at the beach hut.

Home again home again and Happy Birthday

Happiest of Birthday Wishes My Dear!

We're home from the Oregon coast. There was hot tubbing, swimming in an frigid pool, not near enough beach walking, sight seeing, a dash into an art gallery, playing, playing, playing, and relaxing. Oh, and baaad food.

We visit Oregon often but this trip I was awed by the sheer amount of damage sustained in the huge storm they had this last winter.

This is a Sitka Spruce, the largest of it's kind in North America and the oldest tree in Oregon. As you can see it couldn't survive another year. I'm saddened to see such a mighty giant so destroyed.

Here's a photo w/Debbie and Tanner at the foot for perspective. It was such a beautiful tree.

We saw tree after tree upended, roots and a blanket of earth laid bare.

There were full hillsides with the trees snapped off. It looked as though a giant napped here.

These photos don't begin to convey the devastation. I just couldn't capture it. I had to remember that trees weren't just snapping and ripping out of the earth way out in the forest. This same degree of damage happened in the towns. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to hear the wind whipping and the trees falling while it was happening. I'm not sure how some will recover.

In the meantime, the towns are thriving with tourists arriving in swarms. For all but one day, it was barefeet weather and the beaches were beautiful. We spent a day letterboxing. I enjoy the mystery and adventure of it.

Tanner has been paying attention and is becoming a gatherer in his own right.

And here he photographs his treasures. Many of these pieces of driftwood did indeed make it home with us.

Unlike Tanner I didn't come home anything more than a feather or two. There were plenty of birds to watch and listen to.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about my trip to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show.