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Saturday, September 1, 2012

A New Painting

About a month ago I was speaking to someone about my desire to paint again and how I don't really have the space or the time. She suggested I make finding the space and the time a priority.

So like all new ideas I come across, I obsessed about it.

I posted on Facebook about wanting to find a studio to rent and was contacted by a fellow artist friend. She was also interested in finding a space.  1 day later we viewed a studio space and signed a lease on the spot!!

I can't even begin to explain to you the excitement I felt knowing that I finally had my OWN space!
A place to hid and create. A place of my OWN. All mine. Me.
No more excuses. 

Awesomeness...

Yea well now I'm dealing with finding the time....
Stupid life getting in the way.

Anyway... now for the subject of the post.

As you know if you've read my previous post, I'm in love with interesting looking and pretty people.
I can't help it.
So I thought I'd paint a picture of a woman.
Nothing deeper then a pretty picture.  My art is not intellectual.  I just like pretty things.

Here she is in progress:



and a close up:



I'd say she's about 1/2 done.

Of course I'm struggling with my old enemy Insecurity.  I question my talent. I'm trying to remind myself I'm painting for ME. No one else.  But I worry I'm no good... Nevermind that I enjoy painting....

I hope to finish within a month and will post the finish project.

If you feel the need to comment, make it something constructive. If you're cruel, I'll hunt you down and punch you.  I'm incredibly scary in person (said no one ever who's ever actually met me...)

Sunday, July 15, 2012

The back story of Inspiration (with pictures!!)

 I don't get out much.  I'm about middle age (get that..."about"). I have a young child. I work full time plus I have my side business. So I'm tired most of the time.

I usually try to go out at least once a year.

Yes, once a year.

But let me explain what this once a year for me entails. If I go out,  I wanna GO OUT.  I have cocktails (sometimes a lot of cocktails). I dance on tables (or dance floors. bathroom stalls. street corners. I'm not picky). I hug strangers. I talk to anyone who will listen. I touch people (not inappropriately!! seriously...)
I eat at Perkins at 3 am and laugh with the drag queens.

Last year, after dancing at 80-35 (Girl Talk! Dance it out bitch!) and then dancing with the drag queens at the Saddle, I attempted to walk the 10 plus miles home with my sister.  She refused to wear shoes since "the ground feels so good".  We ended up laying down in someone's yard about 3 miles from home and calling a cab.

So yea, I can't make this a weekly occurance anymore! Or monthly for that matter.

Friday I went out.  I went with my friend Casey. She's awesome.
(Casey is part wolf)

Friday night I was thoroughly entertained. I was inspired. A feeling that unfortunately does not happen enough. 
I was inspired by the people I encountered that night.

Here is a list of the people who have started my latest inspiration:


Vince: An old friend I haven't spoken to in 20 years.  Unfortunately, he was working at the bar and couldn't really talk.  He had Jesus and Mary lights set up at the end of the bar. I loved them.
(blurry picture of Vince in the Jesus and Mary glow)


Glow sticks boys:  I think there were about 4 of them.   One gave me a high five and one gave me a hug.  The hugger had glow sticks in his ears. oh youth...

Boy with lights on his gloves:  This boy was wearing some kind of cape, had approximately 100 beaded bracelets on each arm, was wearing an Iron Man mask and most importantly, was wearing weird colored light gloves. Casey fell in love with his gloves.  I think I happened upon a rave....

Old biker couple:  The guy was about 70 years old and his old lady seemed about 20 years younger.  They told us they hang out at the Court Avenue district every weekend. Just sitting on their bikes, watching people. They both had guns on their hips and mullets on their heads. Not sure which of those things I found more frightening.

Christopher:   Oh where to begin with this one???  It was later in the evening. He was drunk. And obviously lonely.  He was in his thirties, shaved head, sleeveless shirt, ex military with a kabala tattoo. Lives in a hotel.  He kept hitting on Casey and trying to read our auras.  He was very wrong.  At one point he asked if we wanted to watch True Blood with him at his friend's house. "She's bi-sexual".  Um, that's your big move?  Wow.....  hold me back!!

There were other random people through the night who caught my eye.  The 3 person jug band. I love a good washboard solo.  Or the girl dressed as big bird.  Another rave boy whose ears were extremely fascinating to me.  Or the guys all wearing wolf t-shirts who gave Casey the wrong directions.

                         ("we're the four best friends that anyone ever have....")


Seriously, the freaks really do come out at night!

We ended the night as all fantastic nights should. Eating breakfast foods at Perkins and admiring the drag queens.

I probably won't be able to go ALL out like this for another year. But the people of Friday have provided me with an artistic kick in the ass.

I hope to show you the outcome of this inspiration in another post.

Until then,  you should go out...











Saturday, June 23, 2012

My Des Moines Arts Festival


This is what I bought today at the Des Moines Arts Festival. The picture doesn't even begin to show you how freakin' beautiful it is!
It's a hand dyed turquoise and teal fabric piece. It's fairly small, at 16" x 20". It was on sale.  And for that reason I'm extremely grateful.  I loved this artist's work but I'm broke.
Her name is Mimi Damrauer and she's from Chicago.
Here's her website :
http://www.mimidesigns.tv/index.html#hero-gallery-1

Not only does this woman have fabulously beautiful work....she's extremely nice! I mean, to the point I'm writing about her!
I first visted her booth after being drawn in by all the colors in her work.  I love me some color yo. and this woman knows color.  And my guilty little secret (not really a secret or all that dirty) is my love of quilts.  Her work has a look of quilting to it.
You'd think I'd be better at describing work after studying art history. But that was a hundred years ago and I didn't do so well in school....
                                             
                                                 From MimiDesign website! This WILL be mine!!)

ANYWHO, back to the story. So she is immediately friendly and talkative and tells me there are some "sale" items that her boyfriend told her she needed to mark down cuz they didn't fit in her car anymore! love it.  and all her "sale" pieces are beautiful. I'm immediately drawn to a bright fushia and pink circle piece and the turquoise one I bought.  I couldn't decide. So I told her I'd be back.
And in reality, I wasn't really planning on coming back.  I wanted one of the large pieces but I don't have $2500 and then I start to fight myself in my head about all the other things I could buy with $100. 
So we leave and finish the loop. Which for some reason is really short.  I would love for someone to tell me why there are more beer tents then artist tents at the Festival. stupid.

And we do end up walking by again, so I HAD to stop and look again.  The artist wasn't there but stepped away for lunch. The helper girl there was hilarious and was adamant I call the artist immediately to ask her the price of "my" piece. I didn't want to bother her. I mean, I hate being interupted during my lunch...
But I called her after being bullied about it. I felt like a dork.  The artist was so gracious, she offered to run back to her booth right away. She told me the piece was $100 but would "work with me". YAY!
I told her I'd come back later after her break...and I meant it this time :)

So my sister and I wander to look at more stuff we may have missed.  We did stop at a jewelry booth that was being attacked by what seemed like every woman in Des Moines, all of them wearing really ugly hats.  I thought it must be some really cool jewelry to be surrounded like it was.  I was kinda annoyed to find the so called "art" was what appeared to be mass produced necklaces and bracelets for really cheap.  They actually were made of PLASTIC and painted to look like silver!! WTF? I thought this was supposed a fancy shmancy art festival. stupid.

As I'm trying to hide my disgust at the made in china booth,  Mimi the artist calls me. Perhaps she thought I wasn't coming back? Is she psychic but with timing issues?  She tells me she's at her booth and she'll sell the piece to me for less if I buy it.  That kinda doesn't make sense but whatever.
So 10 minutes later I am the proud owner of the beautiful turquoise piece you see above!!  Mimi was really so nice and sweet and not to mention generous. Did I mention she told me the piece originally was priced at $300?  I'm a lucky girl. 

If you're in Chicago, or anywhere around the midwest and happen upon an art festival and you happen to walk by a booth exploding with color, stop by and see Mimi's work.

She also will give you homemade cookies shaped like her artwork!!


Friday, June 8, 2012

Summer is here!

Ok Summer isn't "technically" here but it's 90 degrees out and vending season is in full swing!

Jeez it's been so long since I posted I don't even know where to begin!

I guess I'll start with what's been my goal for the last few years...

I got in to Market Day!! WOO HOO! Here's a picture of the June Market Day. My table is pretty sad in my opinion. I need to work on my displays. My issue is I enjoy making the jewelry a lot more then the "business" stuff.


But I've had fantastic response to my work...and even my display! It's been great so far meeting so many different people. Vendors and customers. I love doing this!

My next show is Reiman Gardens Art in the Garden on July 7th.

Reiman Gardens List of Artists

Very excited about this one. I was here last year and the response was great. The only bad part was the weather. Typical Iowa summer. One minute a thunderstorm is rolling through and the next it's 100 degrees with 1000% humidity.  Hoping for a lot better weather this year!


On a brussels sprouts note:  Fried Brussels Sprouts from Zombie Burger + Drink Lab!  Otherwise known to me as "HEAVEN"


Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Start of Show Season

Yea so I'm clearly really bad at posting huh?
But I figured, I better start posting again since it's the beginning of a new show season.
I've been applying for shows like a crazy lady.  I really want to be in at least one show a month until Christmas. I think that's a pretty good goal right?

So far, I've applied for Market Day (2nd times a charm right?) 
www.marketdayiowa.com

Reiman Gardens Garden Art Fair
http://www.reimangardens.iastate.edu/en/garden_art_fair_2012/

Art on the Prairie in Perry
http://www.artontheprairie.org/newsandupdates/

The Market @ Lotus
http://www.facebook.com/events/333921366647930/?ref=nf

Hopefully I'll get into all of them....and people fall in love with my stuff and I make a million dollars...

or something like that :)

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Did you miss me?

Holy schnikies it's been a really really long time since I posted!!
I'm sure I was sorely missed right?

Well I won't bore you with stories of what has happened in the 4 months since I've last posted. I'll just say I've been busy and 2011 ended very successfully!  2012 is going slow. I think I burned myself out last year.  BUT the good new is I'm on track to have a great 2012. I'm really hope I can get more shows in, and therefore, more sales!

So my newest obsession is fabric.  In fact, I have spent WAY too much time and money on Ebay.  I think I like the color and the texture.  I mean, you can pick up paint but it's messy.  But a red batik you can hold in your hands! 
I got a few quilting books for Christmas. I love quilts. I love what they represent (warmth, traditional, reusing materials, my grandma), how they feel, how they look.  I think I'm strangely attracted to the mathmatical compontent too....cuz I HATE math.

Anyway,  one of the books is about making "untraditional" quilts.  They're mde by gluing the fabric to a base fabric and basically make a fabric "painting". The first one I made is about 10" x 10".

Here's my first attempt (note, the hands in the top left belong to my son. He's my biggest fan and I love him for it!) :



The quilting part sucked ass. I'm really really bad at free motion quilting so I just did stripes. For some reason the stitches came out wonky on the back ....and I'm not in love with some of the fabrics.  But I LOVE the process. It's so much fun to make! 
So now I wondering if I should incorporate these as items to sell....or just for fun. 

Would love some feedback here...

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

it's hell getting old

This week I started back on my "full time" schedule. I was technically full time before at 30 hours but apparently everyone wanted to call that "part time". 

My schedule was 7:30 - 1:30 every day and it was AWESOME!  I got all my work done at my day job and then was able to get a lot of work done at my REAL job, Fennibird.  AND I was able to take a little me time so I wasn't so bitchy all the time (though the boys may think differently).
I loved my schedule.

Well this week the powers that be decided that I had had enough of a good thing and I was told to come back to 7:30 - 4. boo. So now I'm tired, I'm bored, I'm crabby. I don't have any time to work at my REAL job or I should say I don't have a lot of motivation to work at my REAL job. I get off work, get my son, make dinner, clean, clean some more (yet my house is still a poo hole) and then I'm freaking exhausted by 8 pm.  Which got me to thinking....

I was sitting here about to pass out at 8 pm when it struck me that yes, it's only 8 O' FREAKIN' Clock. There's absolutely no reason why I shouldn't be busting my tush to get some art work done right now. But I'm exhausted.

Why? Is it old age? is it the complete brain drain of my day job (sorry if for some really wacked out reason my boss is reading this...but yes, my job is a snooze-fest. If you don't believe me, watch Laura for awhile. She falls asleep at least once a day. I digress....)

So what's the point of this rant? I have no idea. I'm tired. I have no idea what I'm talking about.

On a happy note...
Last weekend was the first of many East Village Sunday Bazaars!! I had a great time, met a lot of very cool and funny people. I made quite a few sales and there was a lot of interest in my work. YAY me!!

http://desmoines.metromix.com/events/standard_photo_gallery/east-village-bazaar-sunday/2803286/content

The Bazaar goes on every Sunday in September and October. Be there or be square. Seriously, I don't think I've seen so many hipsters since my last vacation in Chicago with my favorite hipsters, Joe & Dee (love you!)