Blackbirds and a black cat

Hope everyone is having a nice holiday, whatever it is that you celebrate. How about celebrating that the days are getting longer again! Have you come up with resolutions for the New Year? My number one is to enjoy each and every day to the fullest. Isn't that hard sometimes? You really have to pay attention too.

Here is a recent piece. I have been using a pouring method to make multicolored sheets of paper. The pours are random. But, like inkblots, imaginations turns them into something!

Here is the sheet after it has dried. Do you see the blackbirds? Immediately the song by the Beatles, "Blackbirds" came into my head. This song has long struck me as an anthem to people who need to break free from whatever has brought them down.



"Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise"

I love sewing, and sewing on paper is interesting. You can't not use a hole you've made, so make holes carefully. My teacher, Trish, says that I should do more of this. It's amazing how much stuff there is in the sheets of paper I've been making. Dear reader, you will no doubt be seeing more of these...

Salem trying to sleep in the basket on my worktable. He is so sweet, often purring gently while I work. Sometimes I'll look up at him, and one eye is just barely open, watching me work. It's good to have a friend, especially one who loves all that I do...

Plant love

This is our front porch now, in Pompano Beach, Fl. As you can see, it's getting overgrown, which is just how we like it. There are statues of Kwan Yin and Rebecca hidden under the pothos, and some shells and glass balls. We love the Vietnamese pots, and over the years we've collected a few of them for all the succulents.

























Behind all the pots in the front there are some ruella which aren't in bloom today, but when they are they are a lovely purple color. You can't see all the lizards, but I assure you, there at least a hundred of them, different kinds too. The iguana live out back in the gumbo limbo and palms near the canal. We had at least 8 babies hatch in our yard this year.

Marvelous Miami Mosaics!

A whole week in Miami at Design Impact learning mosaic techniques. What a blast! Gina Hubler is an amazing mosaic artist and we enjoyed both her expertise and her lively sense of humor. During her frequent absences we were privileged to be lovingly guided by her talented apprentice, Veronica. Veronica is also extremely talented and working on an amazing piece that will be in a Cuban church when finished. Between the two teachers we were able to nearly complete three projects, each in different types of mosaic techniques. A week is barely enough time to sample techniques. Gina showed us classical setting, tile setting and smalti (Byzantine glass) setting. Please see her website for available classes.

Here are our tile mirrors drying before we are able to grout.
This is my piece, before it was grouted.
Here we are grouting in the pouring rain. You see Veronica's back (Gina had personal business most mornings), and at the end of the table is my new friend Gail who lives near where my husband and I are moving. Can't wait to get together and see all her mosaic projects! The rain kept us from being able to finish all our projects since it seriously slowed drying time. Thanks Veronica for being so patient and helpful!
Here are my classmates. Gail (left standing) is working on her yin/yang turtle tabletop. Bonnie (black tanktop) and Gail are sisters and have collaborated on mosaic projects. I can't wait to see their outdoor shower! Bonnie made a beautiful pink flamingo, which you see here in early stages. Vivian (far right standing) set her tabletop with three large leaves. Sitting with her back to us in this picture is Margo. Margo is a printmaker from Wisconsin, whose amazing sturgeons came out fabulous. She showed us many pictures of real sturgeons which are caught during the winter on Lake Winnebago, near her and Vivian. Her sturgeons were beautiful and colorful!

Open, Illustration Friday challenge

Grow means a lot of things, soon I'll have my own veggie garden. I'm growing into a whole new lifestyle. Every thing you learn is a kind of growth. Growing stronger by allowing everything to happen and just being curious about it, rather than worrying about it or denying it.

The Fernery

The Fernery! Building will begin very soon now. We have the site plan, and most if not all of the required documents to take to the county for building permits. Roger is getting bids for various things, like concrete and plumbing. My good friend Larry is coming up with more folks who are local who are interested in working on some part. Friday I spent all day staking out protected trees, the area to be mulched for the big trucks to drive on, driveways. We are putting down mulch to protect the tree roots from the compaction which will occur with all the big trucks that will be coming in during the building process. We will have at least 9 concrete trucks!

Working on a google map with local area interest. There is so much to see and do in the area, especially if you are interested in hiking, biking, fishing, boating, birding. We are so LUCKY! Come visit

Free Cemetary Images on my website

Here's the famous Buck headstone, you may copy any of the photos from Maine cemeteries on my website.

Hope you will be enjoying a spooky Halloween!

Pleasures of Fall

Dear Reader, are you ready for Fall? Have you seen leaves changing yet? Here is a piece of paper that I made with a leaf skeleton in paper class a week ago. Gampo fibers. We use the Japanese method of papermaking, drying on plywood boards.

It's so good to be back taking classes. Everything shuts down here in the summer, in Florida. There aren't enough full time residents to keep classes full. Fall starts up a lot of things here in South Florida. Soon the art festivals will be starting, and the outdoor antique shows. My favorite things to do on weekends, shop outdoors! LOL!

I owe you some more pictures from Maine. They're coming up...

Bar Harbor, Maine

We are in Maine for a few days visiting Steve's family. They took us out on their boat, here's a picture of a lobster boat stopped to collect lobsters. Notice the seagulls that follow them around while they work. Guess they get some free food!

The next pic is in Bar Harbor, a beautfiul town. This is the door of an Inn right downtown.


Dear reader, hope you are well.
Barb V

For Beth, tube rivets

Beth, this piece has some hand dyed fibers under mica, the frame is attached with tube rivets.

Collage Discovery Challenge, Lesson 1

Canvases from the first "lesson" of the TreasureArtTrends Collage Discovery Workshop Challenge. We are using the book by Claudine Hellmuth's book, working thru trying each technique. The first four techniques are for backgrounds.

"Dance" started with the paper-pulling background technique. Learned some interesting stuff on that one, like if the paper is wet, you can scratch a lot easier. The paper was a piece of music. It was a bit too busy and that threw me, and it didn't end up as well as it could have, but I do love the lady dancing!

All these use acrylic paint. The top left has an opaque layer of dark cherry and a transparent layer of a mix of fuchsia and coral. Love that dark cherry!
The top right demonstrates using petroleum jelly to give a "peeling paint" look. That was interesting even just getting petroleum jelly since I didn't have a clue where to buy it. What does it get used for? Found it in the same aisle at CVS with the bandaids. You have to seal the opaque layer with gel medium before you smear some jelly where you want the paint to come off. Then use a wash on top of the whole thing. It was fun using the heat gun on this, the paint moved around on top of the jelly. I'll definitely use this technique again as it was high on the funmeter. CH is very into using fingers, even with paint. Clearly I'm going to enjoy her workshop in Bonita Springs! Better take my apron...
The bottom left should have turned out better. You use a big blob of titanium white and smear it around. Then use deep stamps (I used some metal ones that I got on Granville Island a couple years back at Maiwa) and whatever else to make impressions in the thick layer of paint. You can write, use your paste paper tools, whatever. Then it has to dry overnight. The top is a wash, and here's where it didn't quite work out. Since I left ridges in the white paint, they obscured the stamp images. Also, the fuchsia wash isn't quite dark enough, the colors she used in the book are much more interesting with this technique. But I shall try again with different colors.
The last canvas shows my favorite technique, paper pulling. This makes a terrific background and, dear reader, you are sure to see it again! This was an old dictionary page, starting with an old piece of paper adds to the whole effect, something that would have helped in the piece "Dance".

Hope you have a creative day,
Barb V.

Henrietta and Ruth Ann

I wish I could have met Henrietta, but alas she is probably long gone. The old photos I have of her are all from 1916, where she looks to be about 20 years old. I am much taken by her since in every photo she is grinning or laughing, and it looks like her friends were always laughing with her. I wonder what her life was like and hope that it was as beautiful as she was.

She has shown up in some of my ATCs and one altered book, but I just can't seem to stop wanting to put her happy face on everything. Here is a necklace that I just finished. It's sterling. The black stones are onyx. The chain is fun, I used 16 g ss wire, balled up an end, hammered it flat, then put a hole thru it. The next link goes thru, with one hammered flat ball end bent. It's kinda wonky, but I like it. Everything got thrown in liver of sulfur (except the photo) and then polished in the tumbler. The photo is a copy of the original on some really good paper that I found at Jerry's Artarama. I wanted the shape to look like a torn piece of paper, what do you think?

Hope you are well, dear reader.
Barb V.

The orange cat wears fuchsia

Since several projects are always underway, sometimes stuff spills over. Does that happen to you too, dear reader? The old lace curtain grabbed at Trash 2 Treasures for the Trash 2 Art projects got painted with my favorite fuchsia color. The lace was being cut up to use on the Red Queen (which you haven't seen yet since it would be unseemly for the Queen to be seen not completely clothed!). And these Gothic Arches were just lying there, and whoopee! doesn't the lace look nice on them? Don't you love when that happens? Remember the Textile Show in Minneapolis? Well this morning I was reading an old Surface Design magazine (Gallery, Sept. 2006) and came across the work of Lynda E. Andrus. Her Grandmother's cabinet is in the Gallery, and here is what she has to say about it: "My work consists of using mixed media and multiple techniques. I have crossed the boundaries of fine art and fiberart. I take an idea, then address the materials and techniques I need to execute it with. The union of fibers and fine arts opens up a whole new world of exploration."

Dear Reader, as some of you know, Barb V. is into walking and is trying to join up with a group who would like to do some walking somewhere fun like Tuscany or Provence. I'm hoping some of my friends from Green Mountain will want to go!

What about the orange cat? She had to go to the vet yesterday, and they put a lovely fuchsia bandage on her paw where they took the blood. She didn't appreciate it much though and we had to have it off quite soon after returning home.

The Red Queen Principle

The Red Queen said that you have to keep running just to stay in place. Isn't that what life feels like?
Well, that's what I've been thinking about a lot lately and so it ended up being explored in this shrine. The mat board and recycled paper came from Trash 2 Treasures. There is an art challenge coming up, you need to use 75% materials that are gathered from Trash 2 Treasures. This shrine is more or less experimental since I wasn't sure what techniques to use. Shrines are very popular right now in the altered art world. It seemed like a good way to start.

You need a very sharp knife to cut the mat board or it will rip. Since mine wasn't, the next step was to cover up those rips. The recycled paper makes nice papier mache.

Since books are part of my shtick, there's a book in it's own niche, made from some of my very own handmade paper. This paper is very nice smelling too, since the teacher, Trish Halverson, brought some tea in that day and we added that to the pulp.

The food references didn't even occur to me until just now, but the sticks on the book binding are bamboo skewers that I painted, and the tin with the shell on the left was a food mold of some sort. Hm. That's the cool thing about creating stuff, though, isn't it, how stuff just sort of comes out without you realizing until later. I love that.
Here's the back, if I hadn't managed to take the picture right in front of my lamp/magnifier, you could probably see the top better, oh well.

Hope you are on top of it all today, dear reader.
Barb V.

My little corner

Right now this is a corner of the "studio", really the big bedroom of our house. My helper is Alice, and she would dearly love to play with something (anything!) on this table. But she has learned that if she wants to be on the table, then she must stay in the basket. I've tied a little ribbon and bead on the inside and sometimes she will play with this. If she starts looking too interested and not sleepy enough, then I give her a little eraser from a stash that is okay for her to have. Later I'll find it on the floor somewhere and return it to the stash.

When we move, the studio will be a separate building and there won't be any cats in there. But that's okay because we are building a huge porch for them. It will be all the way around on both floors, so that should be quite enough play room for them!

Got interested in Gothic Arches after hearing about the Gothic Arch Challenge from Keron Lee on the Yahoo group ClothPaperStudio. Keron has a great art blog. Right off I saw the possibilities for a book using this shape and have started two using some of the fab watercolor paper that I got at Trash 2 Treasures for free! (They got it from a dumpster behind an art supplies place that closed!)
Yep, they are various shades of coral, fuchsia and purple. So far. Just a start for the backgrounds. The other set is blues and greens mostly. With some bits of underwater map and water related old music sheets. Guess I need to take a picture of that. What did we do before digital cameras anyway? LOL! I don't think the second set is going to be a book, but will have book like qualities. I think a book that you can't open. Like an altered book that has a hole in it, only a handmade book instead. Hm, well, maybe I better just make it and then show you.

Hope you are well and happy, dear reader.
Barb V.

So many projects!

How are you supposed to have time to work on your projects, and still blog? Hm. Well, someone pointed out that I haven't got any of my current stuff up here. So first I'm going to put some pics from two recent swaps.

These are the cards I sent for the Vintage Bird swap sponsored on the Yahoo group TreasureArtTrends. The base is watercolor paper, then various art papers and ephemera. There's at least one layer of acrylic glazes. For some reason, one color is never enough for me. These are my favorite colors right now, fuchsia and salmon. Or raspberry and coral. Some of the birds are from Dover CDs. Then some silk ribbon and a bit of hand dyed/painted old lace and some sequins. Somehow beads and sewing always end up getting into each of my projects. The beads on these are holding down the sewn on sequins.
Here's a journal page from a swap in ClothPaperStudio, another yahoo group. See - my favorite colors and sewing too.

Some lot of maps that I came across had this old technical drawing that was from the 60's. Back when they did engineering drawing by hand. So I cut that up and used it for the journal pages. It had a great old quality to the paper. And some of the pages had parts of the drawing on it which I thought was really cool. Can't wait to get started binding the journal so I can started using it. The pages that I got in return are terrific and make me feel like I could have done better. But since I always feel like that, I'm letting that useless emotion go.

Okay that's enough for now, hope you, dear reader, are well and happy and working on something fantastic.

Thinking of Minneapolis the day before

Having been on the bridge in Minneapolis the day before it went down, indeed less than 24 hours before it went down really made me have to stop and think for a while. There were two women who died, the report said one was 50 and the other in her 40's. And I thought of my friend, Laura, who is in her 40's and me, 53. And wondered, still wondering, what were their dreams and hopes. Were they laughing and sharing?

My friend Laura had never even seen the Mississippi before, and one night we looked up from the bus and saw the moon over the Mississippi, yes, on that bridge.

The next week Laura was asked by Robert Lu of Ornament magazine to send him her wonderful beads to be photographed for the next Ornament magazine.

What would those women be doing now? Would they have gone on to splendor and glory as will my friend Laura? I am so sorry for their families and friends.

I finally put some pics up on my website of the "Nothing New" show at the Textile Center, an utterly marvelous place. I spent hours in the library looking at just a few of the hundreds of books they have on fabric and textiles and related topics. Stop in there if you can.

Minneapolis meanderings

The textile center in Minneapolis is fabulous! I spent three hours just randomly accessing books in the 60,000 book library. These purses were hanging on the wall across from the library. There is a wonderful gallery with a great show: "Nothing New". If you are in the area, go see it! (pics from that tomorrow)

Loved these purses and took some pics to share with you, dear reader! Hope you can figure out the makers from the attributions on the left.
http://www.textilecentermn.org/

My friend, Laura B., and I were in town for the ISGB Gathering. I just had to see this place and the Book Arts Center. Missed some good demos at the Gathering, but no regrets! It was a fab day and I got in a lovely walk too! Downtown Minneapolis is beautiful this time of year. My friend Laura, who is from Washington state, had never seen the Mississippi before. Her first view was early evening with an almost full moon!

Off to Minneapolois

Tomorrow morning I leave for Minneapolis and the International Society of Glass Beadmakers convention, the "Gathering". A very cool four days. We will get demos by some of the top glass beadmakers, do a museum tour by bus, shop, enjoy a banquet with auction afterwards, and shop some more. Can't wait to see my friend, Laura Bowker, and her new beads.

She has been spending time in Italy, Murano, Italy, studying with a master beadmaker. Her new beads are amazing and I can't wait to hold them in my hands! I will post some photos when I get back.

These beads are some from a few years ago since I haven't been making a lot of beads, or at least none worth taking a picture of! BTW, have you noticed that the new digital cameras are 10 megapixel? Wowzer! Got to get a new one before I go...

Dear readers, I hope you are well today and feel inspired to try something new. Do something that you don't think will work - and learn from doing it. Learn from the process. It might open your eyes to something unexpected!!

Working with Green, healing the heart

Mid July, and it is devil hot here in South Florida! Everything is green since we had 7 inches of rain in June, which we desperately needed. Lake Okeechobee is almost 20 inches low, and we have been having to ration water. My Ruellas are blooming beautifully again, they make me smile. What hibiscus has bloomed, the green iguanas have been eating. We have at least three, maybe more, and a new young one this year. They love hibiscus flowers, I do not begrudge them these. The iguanas are a fabulous green themselves, so beautifully prehistoric!

The green pendant I bought at Offerings in Vermont at the end of May, with my new friend Linda. It needed something more than just a silver chain, so I created a green freshwater pearl and mother-of-pearl blister pearls necklace, what do you think? It looks good against black.

Green is one of the colors representing the heart chakra. Since I lost some very good friends last year, green for me is healing. Breathing in, I pull in all the pain from people around me. Breathing out, I return only compassion and love.

Dear reader, may you be blessed with peaceful feelings.

Fabric from Trash 2 Treasures

Wow! Can you believe all this fabric for free? Can you imagine that they were all going to go to the dump? Can't wait to try painting on all the beautiful white on white pieces, maybe you will want some pieces for your stash! There are sample pieces, small pieces, remnants and also some large yardage pieces.

And there was a whole bin of faux leather pieces. Will have to get a leather needle for my machine. Some pieces came with grommets in them, I'm thinking handbags for those! Could just tie some handles thru the holes...

Dear reader, hope you are well. You may have heard about the terrible crash of a twin engine plane into a couple houses near Sanford Florida. The day before another twin engine plane crashed, killing the pilot and co-pilot. The pilot was a friend of my husband and a very cool guy, Bob Cunningham. He had 37 years experience flying. Have to say that this shook my confidence in learning to fly. But I went and took my lesson, and fly patterns and faced my fears. Isn't that what life is about - learning to face your fears and growing stronger?

Ou-est the bibliogator says hi. My husband is flying his plane today for the first time by himself. I'm trying not to be too nervous. So I'm going to go wash fabric that I got for free yesterday at Trash2Treasure.

http://www.trash2treasurefl.org

There is about 6 yards of the most beautiful beige on beige heavy silk fabric that I can not wait to paint and dye. So I'm going to go wash it and hope that it still looks beautiful! LOL! I got a lot of little pieces too, for altered books and purses and altered clothes.

Next time I'll put up some pics of the fabric.

Do your exercises often!

Something about me - I've been to Green Mountain. If you are overweight and have tried every diet there is, then you need Green Mountain. My life has changed, my health is so much better, I have been empowered on so many levels.

All those diets? They aren't telling you the truth!! Everytime you go on one, you lower your metabolism. Yeah, you lose while you eat the diet food, but as soon as you start eating normally, you gain back! Every time you do that you harm yourself! Big time! What you have to do is to raise your metabolism - and there is only one way to do that! You already know what it is! You have to increase your lean muscle mass!

At Green Mountain, I learned that this is not as hard as you think it will be! In 4 weeks my body responded by losing more than 10 inches and 14 pounds! And it's still off, and more is coming off. Your body responds amazingly! It WANTS to do this - and it makes you feel SO GOOD!

Because I want the best for you too, dear reader, I am putting a link to another website with a free download of yoga postures. I've never met these folks, but they are giving a great gift with this. Try it. And look up Green Mountain - they're online!



FREE DVDS Yoga Online

Visit the Yoga.org.nz Online yoga website
heaps of cool yoga stuff including a free downloadable Videos and DVDs.

Tin can art, with beads of course

Took this great class with Charley Orlando and Bobby Hansson at John C. Campbell. We recycled tin cans and made shrines and jewelry and whatever you wanted to make. This is a shrine with pics of Lady Meux and Whistler's mother. (both by James Whistler) And a mirror at the top.

Of course I had to add beads!