Craft Fair Production and two more Fairy Houses

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Please note the new fairy house workshop date is January 30th. That's a Saturday- from 10-2 including lunch. What a deal! Only a couple spaces left so please contact me to sign up now! (see flyer in my next blog entry).

Matching prints to vintage frames to sell at craft fairs. probably around 40 dollars each. So very reasonable! What a deal! These are the bigger ones. I have some true miniature sized frames- the fabulous old ones- mostly oval, as well. What do you think my readers, should I have black friday deals? First ten shoppers get 15% off! That's not bad for the Fairy Houses which are around a 100 each. Doors open at 6:30! Line up!;)

Another week another two fairy doll houses completed. Having fun with wood themes. The material really decides the final shape. Eucalyptus Oasis came out all upright and tall. I like craggy twisty trees, and feared Eucalyptus would not please me but in the end it has its own interesting character- its round skylight roof and regal beams. Redwood Retreat has more of the usual bends and twists, with the one amusing anecdote being that its main branch destroyed my clippers. my BIG clippers. and the bridge of my nose, swollen and a bit blue under foundation, since the metal of the clipper SNApped and flew back at me. The tree won. But I was able to snap the branch anyway. weird.




Redwood Retreat
front, close-up back, and another close-up
sorry the swing is hard to see as it is perpendicular to the front, and there is actually a third platform under the 'swinging lights'.




Eucalyptus Oasis
front, back, close up of swing

Fairy House Workshop

..Please note the new workshop date! I already have some people signed up so only two spaces left!

"Master Crafter!" Doesn't that sound swell?

Fairy Doll Houses

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Grape Vine Villa
2' Tall

Can you believe, dear reader, it has been an entire month since my last post. I do apologize! The holiday season has crept up on me, hiding behind blue skys and chicken eggs and suddenly I realized I needed to get with the times. That is, deal with this crap economy by spreading out even more than I already have. So Im on full time Fairy doll house construction mode. Empty tables at Craft Fairs await me. Im even trying to arrange a workshop on how to make your own fairy house. Join us if you like. Space is limited so write me asap! December 6th. Ill post the flier momentarily.

So some alternate personality I have of crafty mom has taken over my studio. Bark and bits of moss, scavenged from graveyard stone and pruned trees litters the floor. The boys play with the branches and pieces even as I attempt to organize them and there is more than the usual chaos. Still- as impractical as these all natural doll houses are, I am really loving sculpting again. I have flashbacks to being a kid with a couple nails and my fathers hammer in the wood pile. Its terribly fun, though my three unfinished paintings glare at me from their easel perches and I long also to finish them.



Madrone Manor
2' Tall






Chateau de Curly Willow
2' Tall

Chateau de Curly Willow -back view
2' Tall
Pricing these houses, like anything else I do (darn my obsessive detailing!) is a pain in the *!*. It takes five or six hours to finish one, not including collecti0n times. Other people sell theirs for upward of 200 but I'm trying to keep them down around a hundred. Who knows if they'll sell. I'm putting them in the window at Kidspot at Coddingtown mall tomorrow until early December when they'll join their warm fuzzy friends at school craft fairs.
Wish me luck...

New Miniature Painting - The Hunter

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Hunter
9.5" X 7"

Another miniture portrait for you, kind reader, to view. Is it odd I am, in part, coping work from the past? I HATE actually copying works- like artists that hover before some masterpiece at the museum trying to emulate the work. how dull. Sure you can learn so much but, hello- yawn. These don't feel that way. Maybe the animal head makes it mine?
I want to do a whole family portrait of deer. At first I thought to borrow the figures from Las Mininas by Velasquez (I love the little girl but a dwarf deer?), but I want something less roomy. Any ideas?

Works in Progress and Magical Realism

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Rower 2'x4'
click on image to enlarge

Generally, when my painting is done it's done, but every now and then I get a challenging piece that just won't finish, darn it. So it is with "Rower". The teal chair just wasn't vibing with the rest. A case of really liking a part but knowing that that part really wasn't working in the whole picture. It had to go to get to a better place. Sorta like life, eh kind reader? Certain relationships? It just wasn't happening, persnickety thing, so I attacked it with a sander. Please don't think I'm suggesting you do this to your boyfriend.

Anyway- the painting almost seems a bit spooky small like this, especially since I sanded her face off. Ill have to let it sit a couple weeks before I know where to go next. Even like this though its so much more interesting. So much art out there is just plum boring. I fear being dull or not unique or too trendy, which is equally boring. I want to give my pieces all a magical air. I like the concept of magical realism created by many South and Latin American writers (Marquez, Borges, even Calvino)- just a stretch of life- symbolism and the metaphorical layered onto real life.

And another miniature almost done- a sneak peek at my desk! The three wooden boxes are rolling about in my head waiting for their tripich images to magically appear. Perhaps a mobile?

The Rower and Other Challenges like Religion

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Rower
2'X4'

Wouldn't it be nice if just because a painting pushed our abilities it was also a masterpiece? Sometimes in the past I have felt this to be the case but not this time. I worked from an older sketch I had. What works when it is only 4" X 8" doesn't not necessarily work when it is 2' X 4'. Ironically shrinking it down again for the blog makes it look better again. Perhaps I will go back into the painting in a few months or perhaps it will grow on me. Parts of The Rower make me happy. The child God rowing in the sky over wood-grain Buddhist clouds. The feet (which are my squat little feet).


My son entered Saturday school and its been in my brain- I always saw a lot of really great kids come out of various religions weekend youth groups, but then again it is religion in all its crazy doctrine and all the good and bad that religious groups have done in the past. All that history sure muddies the spiritual waters. And I am wary. I've never painted God. Goodness gracious why take up that one? Next I'll be doing illustrations for kids bible books with old men Gods and God Light (actually there have been some awesome religious illustrations not to mention..oh that entire history of Italian Renaissance art!). But it snuck up on me-really. I didn't realize the child might be God until after I'd painted it. And no i don't think of God as a person at all yet to be anthropomorphic He got a bit sneaky this time, and I don't really mind. Oh and I am actually planning to paint a piece called Beware of God that will in fact have a surreal sort of Old Man God and god light as well!
Happy Roshashana!

The Art World and Childrens World, Never the Two Shall Meet

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Why is it that as an artist revealing that you have kids makes one seem unprofessional? As though the world of motherhood should be kept a secret from the world of art. Kids just aren't cool in the art world. Do I believe this?

I recall having to go show my art to the owner of a upscale bistro, with my 18 month old son in tow. This was NOT intentional. The person who was supposed to be watching him for me had gotten sick for the zillionth time and I was stuck. Would it matter? Phineas sat in his stroller, happily turning a string cheese stick into goo while I showed this rather serious young entrepreneur my portfolio. He kept glancing at Phin, expressionless. He seemed nervous. Who could blame him- after all you never know when an 18 month old child will suddenly free themselves from stroller restraints and launch themselves at your neck like the Monty Python Rabbit. He had supposedly seen all this artwork before on my web site and said he was interested. About half way through the portfolio he came to my portrait of Jim Hensen as St.Francis blessing the muppet animals. He balked. He didn't even know who Jim Henson and the muppets were. He didn't get it at all. Suffice to say I didn't get the show.

Most museums these days have a childrens area but one rarely sees kids in the adult areas. While I love having a space for the children to get their hands in the art, I wonder if we aren't working against ourselves. Traveling to Europe I was amazed at seeing children in galleries and museums. The mom or dad would be leaning down and explaining things or asking questions. The children seemed, amazingly, well behaved and interested. How wise to raise them to appreciate art! Not only by giving them bits of fabric and beads to glue on a cardboard crown or whatever the craft of the day but by treating their eyes to amazing artwork.

When I try to bring kids into galleries in the city most proprietors think me mad. But they should not be surprised when so few adults value and want to buy original art.

Sorry- I wanted to post St.Henson for y'all kind readers but I don't seem to have a digital image of it! Still have the painting though so I'll post it tomorrow when the light is better for a quick shot. Meanwhile here is a sketchbook page- the Rhino of Change, for Sarah Soward , the Rhino girl who comes with me to the zoo but only really wants to draw the rhinos.