Art Fest!

Good news! The classes I proposed to teach at Art Fest were accepted! I worked on the proposals for a month, making samples, writing descriptions and photographing the pieces. I enjoyed the process, but it was a little stressful wondering if the workshops would be chosen.

Art Fest is an annual retreat that takes place at Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA in the spring. People travel from all over the world to attend the workshops taught by well known artists and craftsmen from a variety of fields. The workshops range in skill levels and techniques, but focus on new ideas. You don't have to be talented, or professional - just willing to learn and to enjoy the company of other creative people. I attended as a student a few years ago and had an amazing time! I met lots of wonderful people and really loved the location, a beautiful small town 40 miles north of Seattle, nestled right on the Puget Sound. The other, perhaps best thing, about Art Fest, is the encouraging enviroment to experiment with new materials and ideas. Its very nourishing to the spirit to just play, with no expectations to make great art, or sellable products, which can be stressful and limiting.

I'm extremely pleased to teach again at this prestigious event! I am also very happy that my brother Andrew will be assisting my workshops! We work very well together and I think folks will be happy to have both of us there sharing information. I am so looking forward to Art Fest this year!

Wonder Cabinet Butterflies

Create beautiful little butterfly creatures to place into wonder cabinets, incorporate into charming mobiles or sew into lovely dolls. This workshop will cover a wide variety of useful techniques: basic sculpting, raised effects on paper and wire, molding polymer and quick painting finishes. Many supplies will be provided, especially the more unusual ones like interference paints and polymer mediums. Various molds will also be available.

I am very excited to teach this workshop at Art Fest 2012! These little lovelies are really enchanting! I filled a shadowbox with a variety of them and displayed them along with my other butterfly specimens and they look pretty realistic at first glance. Observant folks always do a double take and lean in for a closer look, which always pleases me. These are so much fun to make and delightful to decorate with. I think they would also make beautiful ornament gifts. Join Andrew and I for this charming workshop this spring at Art Fest!

Whimsical Wings

Make luminous and lightweight wings for pendants, earrings, mobiles, sculptures and dolls in this experimental workshop. Expand your technical repertoire with these useful techniques: decorative wire working, coloring resin, attaching and painting acetate films and using interference pigments. Students will create a variety of wing shapes, starting with simple leaf-like pieces, advancing to more ornate wrapped pendants and layered pieces with painted embellishments.

I am delighted to present this workshop at Art Fest 2012! I really enjoyed creating the samples and found they were quite addictive to make (in fact, I just finished another batch a few hours ago). They are a variation or advanced version of my project 'Woodland Wings' from my book 'Enchanted Adornments', which may be the most popular project in the book. Try out this fun and addictive project with Andrew and I this spring at Art Fest!

Resin Reliquaries

Beautiful and unusual reliquaries are easy and fun to make with a few readily available supplies and a simple method. Create ornate frames or tiny wonder cabinets with a variety of finishes and textures, imbedded with sparkling stones and fragile botanicals. This workshop will cover a good variety of useful and spontaneous techniques: simple carving, resin basics (tinting, imbedding, pouring, finishing) and paint finishes.

This is one of the workshops I will be teaching at Art Fest 2012! These little frames/boxes are fun to create and are surprisingly simple in their construction. Interestingly, I developed this technique as a teenager, when funds and supplies were extremely limited! I guess that old adage 'necessity is the mother of invention' is proven true once again. Join Andrew and I for this useful and fun workshop this spring!

gratitude

We've spent the last few days in Florida, slowly unwinding after all the recent difficulties. The slow pace, surrounded by family and familiar sights is a comforting thing. Max is back to his old self, healthy appetite and rambunctious spirit included! In the picture above, he's playing near a tide pool, with his big sister Azalea and the rest of the gang in the background, swimming.

I thought this particular shot captured how peaceful and magical our little spot is. I've relished watching Max recover from such a scary state, everyday gaining strength. When we first left the hospital, he couldn't walk, or even hold his head up. The physical therapist warned us it could be a month or more before he would be back to his old self. We are happy, no thrilled to say our little boy is back to normal!

We will spend a couple more days in Florida, relaxing and feeling truly grateful that our little family is happy and healthy. It boggles my mind how quickly everything progressed, from thinking he had stomach flu, to realizing he had perforations in his intestines from swallowing a set of 'mighty strong' magnets (not a pearl after all!). Those tiny things nearly killed him (so of course we threw out every last one of them). Things will shift back into place, our routines and rhythms will continue and I will look on my boy with gratitude and happiness.

recovery

Max has been ill since Tuesday, with what we thought was gastroenteritus or stomach flu. He had all the symptoms, vomitting, diarhea and listlessness. So, my sister and I took him to the doctor, expecting the medicines he gave us would work and Max would get better. Well, they didn't do much, so we took him to the e.r. and waited for the i.v. that would make all of his issues go away. He seemed better, alert and even eating a little. That evening he grew worse, so were back at the hospital. Since then it has been an exhausting battle to try and figure out why his symptoms weren't responding to the treatments. When his belly grew distended and he was in obvious pain, the doctors used x-rays, ultrasound and finally a ct scan to see what the problem was. It looked like he had swallowed a pearl from the scans, but it didn't explain the blockadge. They decided he needed to go into emergency surgery to find out what was wrong. A few hours later they informed us they found three holes in his intestines, with white blood cells attempting to repair the damage, forming the blockadges. They didn't find the pearl. He is slowly getting better,he isn't vomiting constantly (a really good thing) but his tummy is still really swollen and things aren't progressing as fast as everyone hoped, but we are optimistic.

I've heard throughout my life that there is nothing more agonizing and frightening than seeing your child in a hospital bed. I discovered just how true that statement was during this week, when I wouldv'e gladly given a limb, if it meant his healthy return. I've left his side only when I absolutely had to, needing to watch him closely for signs of improvement. I thought I'd known real fear, since I'd been through some scary events, but the fear I had for my boy was bone deep. We're not out of the woods yet, but I can tell you I've never looked so forward to going home in all my life.

new masters

Here's the next batch of masters. These are cast in silver and aren't polished or antiqued. They are destined for our pewter line. You may remember seeing the polymer version of this piece, when I was trying to decide what to do with it. I think it looks particularly good in silver.

Here's the back of the piece, engraved with the first lines of one of Emily Dickinson's most beautiful poems:

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

This little horned owl has been in more sketchbooks....but I just never got around to carving it. I've drawn it over and over, with different faces, feather patterns and body shapes. I sat down to make something entirely different, a rabbit, I think, then this took shape. He's quite small, perfect to dangle from a bracelet or in a long necklace with oval shaped beads.

I haven't made many pieces with openwork, but found a bit of antique handmade lace in my sewing box and thought it would make a lovely necklace. The first thing I thought of was a choker type piece, strung all the way around with the lacy drop pendants, with tiny briollettes wire wrapped in the middle opening and from the hole at the point. It would have a rather opulent and vintage feel, perfect for a summer wedding. I'm looking forward to making myself something with this design!

I love carving flowers and leaves, there is something quieting in the familiar shapes. It's almost meditative. Anyway, I carved this little dangly piece to go with our floral clasp. I think it'll look great with so many styles- retro or vintage, depending on the beads. These new pieces will also debut at the Bead and Button Show, so stop by and say hello!

winged things

This is a new version of the bird clasp that we carried for years. The original was misplaced (an unfortunate occurance that happens sometimes) and the mold broke, so I decided to redo the whole thing, rather than cast from one that had been polished. Casting from a second generation piece results in a smaller, less detailed finished item, since the wax shrinks slightly. I like this one better, it has a more refined shape and the loop has more detailing. I've also improved the fit, carving the loop a touch smaller, so the bird has to be jiggled a little to remove it.

This is another piece I retooled. I love this little bird girl, but her mold broke several years ago and we never got around to fixing her, so the design was shelved. Greg found her languishing in a box and asked me to fix her up, so I detailed her wings, changing the shape and also carved her little feet so that they have holes - perfect for gripping bits of chain or briolettes. These two will also debut at the show, so stop by and check them out!

butterfly key

This is a silver master of one of our newest pieces. It will be slightly smaller (since the molding process shrinks the final piece about 5%) and cast in pewter. We will cast a few in bronze for the show and a couple for my personal collection. One of the best things about this key is that there is a hole drilled through the bottom part, to hang crystals, or to use as a link.

Here's a shot of the other side. I'm looking forward to stringing up a bracelet with this! Or a necklace featuring a collection that includes Andrew's skull key and a skeleton key from our line. I love the look of antique keys, there's something about the shape that's bone-like and botanical all at once. The mystery of keys is universal, it sparks curiosity as one always wonders what the key unlocks. I think this one opens a tiny red door, a meadow of blue poppies and black butterflies just beyond the threshold.

calm afternoons

Max is so handsome with his new haircut! I think he looks a lot younger and sweeter, probably because more of his plump face is showing. He's peeking through a playhouse window, where he and his big sister were playing Dr. Who (Azalea is always The Dr., I'm always a monster and Max is the alien baby who needs to be rescued).

Here's my girl, caught up in her game with Max. I love watching my babies play. I remember the excitement and sense of adventure a few hours in the backyard could yield. We lived on a sizeable piece of property growing up, some of it wild and overgrown, with huge trees to climb and a tangerine grove to hide in. That was the perfect hideout since it was cool under the shade
of the twisty limbs and the tangerines were sweet and tart and peeled easier than bananas.

This is a drawing Azalea made of our day at Disney, showing everyone that was there that day

(from left: Azalea, my brother Andrew,my sister Sheila, her boyfriend Steve and myself and Max). Don't you just love the bun on my head, the pink shoes and the little detail that she drew me taller than my sis (since Sheila is just a hair taller!). My girl is so talented. I save her drawings and plan on making a book of them one day, starting from her earliest doodles to her more polished pieces.