So I Gathered...

Playing Catch-up

So I invited the nephew over to keep the daughter occupied while I attempt to catch up on my blog posting.  I apologize for the length of time away, but the last two weeks have been chock full o' stuff!

The week before last I took on the behemoth task of fitting all of that clutter pictured in a past post back into the studio, and fixing up the rest of the house because a good artist friend, Pamela Huntington, was coming in to visit from Connecticut.  Nothing like the iminent arrival of a fellow artist to get one's butt in gear!

It literally took several days and by the time I was done, I didn't recognize my studio.  The nice thing about gathering art and cool objects over a period of two years is that once you decide to put it all up, you can fill some serious space!  Here are a few views of the studio.  Remember that card catalog I told you about?  It is now in place and almost filled.  Paul suggested I turn my work table and now I have a cool cubby area to work in...

 

Isn't this cabinet lovely?  60, count 'em, 60 drawers to put things in!

Sorry for the darkness of this next shot...I finally framed a lot of my antique bird engravings and hung some artwork around my computer...

 

 

Here are some photos of the filled drawers...it was a lot of fun putting things away.  Now I just have to find the time to make tags...

Jell-O molds...

 

Baby shoes...

 

Vintage metal post letters...

 

I love these drawers because they turned out to be unexpectedly deep!

 

I spent one afternoon trying to hang these vintage insect collections on my back wall.  First, I took them all apart to clean the glass and put some moth crystals behind the cotton because some critters had already gotten in and munched a bit.  I measured, cursed, rearranged and finally got them up...and promptly decided I didn't like how they looked where I had them.  I tried to put them on a narrow strip of wall between my back door and window, but there are two off-center lightswitch plates there and the whole thing looked too busy.  I called my sister-in-law for advice to see if I was over-thinking it.  She said that if it looked like my studio, it was too cluttered, but if not, it was fine.  Thanks.  So, they ended up in a lovely arrangement of five on the wall on the OTHER side of the door.

 

I purchased these last year at Warrenton, thinking that the greens and browns would fit perfectly in my house somewhere.  Alas, they sat in a pile in my studio all this time.  I think they appeal to my biology background and the ones with the plants remind me of the plant collection I had to make for Coastal Plant Ecology for my marine biology degree.  Here are a few close ups...

 

 

 

Paul risked life and limb to hang a silk leaf mobil he had purchased for me in the front entry way.  I love how it moves each time the door opens and fills that empty space...

Pam flew into Houston and stayed with her friend Gloria Becker, who is an amazing artist herself!  It turns out to be a small world because Gloria is good friends with Steve (who owns Uncommon Objects) and he purchased some pieces via phone for her during my show there in 2007.  Gloria was telling Pam about this wonderful artist she knew from Austin and Pam asked her if it was Stephanie Rubiano.  Like I said, a very small world!  So of course, when they came in on Friday, we met at Uncommon Objects for a bit of shopping.  Here are a few finds...

I love these paper-backed appliques with vintage sequins and metal bullion thread.  I had one two years ago that I used in a butterfly box (which I kept!), so you can imagine my thrill when I found a vendor with a bunch of them in different sizes and goldtone too!

 

 

I also found these candle holders, perfect to perch a pixie in!

 

After a yummy lunch of Mexican food at Guerro's we walked across the street to get a cupcake from Hey Cupcake.  Evidently, others approve of their business plan of vending out of an Airstream trailer in a vacant lot, for many others had cropped up!

 

We brought our cupcakes back to the house, so they could see the result of my hard work!  Remember me mentioning that Gloria is a great artist?  Look what came to roost at my house...

 

 

 

 

 

I love how she pays such attention to detail...notice the feathers coming out of the sleeve?

 

She fit perfectly on top of the card catalog among the bird cages and red and black color palette.  Gloria does have an ETSY shop...and definitely check out Pam's blog...she posted images of Gloria's fabulous house!

I was also in a time crunch because I was invited to teach at a new Art & Soul venue next February...Las Vegas!  They needed the class information by the end of May, so I was trying to finish up my samples and proposals for that and ArtFest too.  I am very excited about my new workshops and will post more information about them soon.  Gotta run and split up the super-heroes...so much for some "me" time, lol!

Art & Soul Treasures

So my boxes that I shipped home finally arrived and got unpacked!  I thought I would share with you some of the treasures I found.  I really can't express how rejuvenated I feel after having some creative time to myself and finding all of these fun things to play with!  I am ready to jump back into the saddle, uh studio.

Here are some amazingly beautiful sequined appliques.  If you haven't picked up on it by now, I love objects that run along the ivory/antique silver/pewter range...

 

And I can never resist little items with numbers!  Check out the nifty vintage optician's lenses...I had never seen any like these!

 

Cool odds and ends...

 

I also love vintage light bulbs and these two were just the cutest things...

 

 

Ahhh...new vintage French papers for backgrounds!  I was salivating over these graphics!  Business receipts  just don't dazzle  like this anymore!  I especially love the chocolate ones...

 

Of course, I will have to use a picture of a large, tough-looking man with this tin...

 

A mini mani kit "for dainty fingertips!"

 

Here is one of my favorite finds of the evening...a metal jingle bell in the shape of a bunny's head...

 

and the other is this wonderful card of snaps...

 

Another vendor had these fabulous book covers and album pages...they will make wonderful backgrounds for some mixed media projects!

 

I am finishing up a commission piece for a woman whose boyfriend is graduating from medical school (neuroscience) and still working on my samples for my workshop proposals.  Keep an eye out and I will post the samples to give you a sneak preview of what I might be teaching in 2010!

Art & Soul Hampton 2009

So I attended Art & Soul in Hampton, VA as a student this go round!  This was not from prior planning on my part...I simply forgot to submit my proposals last fall when I was caught up in wedding planning.  Which reminds me...I need to work on my proposals for ArtFest and Art & Soul 2010 because they are due June 1 and July 1, respectively.

I made it into Hampton with no problems and immediately ran into my friend Kecia Deveney as I was checking in.  We had dinner with her friend Jane and caught up with one another.  It was very strange to go back to my hotel room and not have to prep for a class the next day or finish up inventory for vendor night.  I read my book and went to bed early.  Whoo hoo!

The next day I had Captured! with Jane Wynn where we soldered bezel wire and other fun stuff to pieces of brass and copper.  I made this piece with tiny fuses captured in the bezel.  There is paper underneath which I thought looked pretty nifty because you could see it through the glass of the fuses.  I soldered a piece of metal tape measure to the bottom  and suspended the piece from this beautiful vintage chain.  I still need to come up with a dangle for the bottom...

 

I had some sterling bezel wire, so I gave that a try and really liked what I came up with!  This piece is tiny since I used a gem tintype.

 

It was so nice to just sit and experiment and create for the love of it, not because I had to fill an order or make inventory for a show.  And Jane is a wonderful teacher!  I HIGHLY recommend her classes!

That evening I sat in the lounge and chatted with Dan Essig, Kecia, Jane...then Michael DeMeng joined us and so did Jane and her husband Thomas Wynn.   Here is Thomas with his tiny little laptop computer deciding where we should go and eat.

 When Susan Lenart-Kazmer showed up after finishing her class we all loaded up into a shuttle and went to Harpoon Larry's Oyster Bar on Michael's recommendation.   We walked into this place and my eyebrows met my hairline.  I hadn't been in a bar like this since my college days in Galveston.  We had to wait almost an hour for a table, but I will admit that the seafood they served was excellent and worth the wait!  I couldn't resist taking some pictures of the restaraunt vehicle as we departed...looks to me like the lobster is getting busy with the van!

 

New meaning to the word "declawed"?  That was a serious side-swipe!

 

The next day I was back in Jane's class, this time for Illuminated Shrines.  Again, pure bliss to sit and make something for myself.  Everyone's shrine turned out wonderfully and the lights just added that extra "something"!  Can you guess which one is mine?  I frosted my lights by dipping them in a mixture of acrylic paint and water.  I loved the resulting soft glow.  This is something I will definitely do again!

 

Jane was so excited that we all decided to have a show and tell at the end of class because she never gets to see the finished products!

 

I am sure Jane was getting tired of seeing my face when I showed up for a third day with her, Copper Tubing Bezel rings.  We cut copper tubing and made pendants and rings...very cool!  You then get to fill in the spaces with stuff and cover with plexiglass or even use resin.  Again, something I definitely look forward to playing with. 

I was in and out of the class because vendor set up was allowed after lunch.  I like to get set up early so I don't feel rushed in the evening.

I came across Sarah Whitmire in the lobby and had to get a shot of her slippers...

 

Here is Kecia in front of her booth...

 

And here are a few lovely things that I now own thanks to swapping with Kecia!  It's funny, usually I am not into the whole frozen Charlottes and doll parts thing, but these two pieces really appealed to me...

 

 

 

 

Vendor night was pretty slow for me, but I did find some neat materials for future boxes.  I hope to receive my stuff sent via FedEx at the beginning of next week, so I will try to post some of my finds!

After a late night (vendor night didn't close until 10 pm), I packed up everything for shipment and repacked my bags and got to bed around midnight.  Up at 3:15 to meet Michael at 4 am to share a taxi to the airport.  I was there so early, the agents weren't there yet!  I sat for about 45 minutes until a sky cap announced he was checking people in outside.  He ended up checking both my bags when I only wanted one checked, and then didn't know how to take the charge off the card.  Back inside to wait in line to find someone who knew how to work those big, bad computers.  Then through security where I was stopped because the change in my purse had lined up and looked ominous in the x-ray screen.  Waited at the gate and got on the plane, only to sit for an hour and a half on the tarmac while fuel issues were resolved.  A three hour flight back to Dallas and then a race through the airport to try and make my connecting flight to Austin.  I made it on, just barely, then waited for 30 minutes while a door was fixed.  Sigh.  So, I am running on 3 hours of sleep and no food when I arrive in Austin.  I got home and then had to go to J.C. Penney's at the mall on a Sunday afternoon because I had promised Fiona some new tennis shoes (the old ones didn't go with her "girl" clothes as I was informed one morning while in VA).  Every family and their dog, cat, gerbil, parakeet, and goldfish was there because of course a sale was going on.  We got the shoes and headed home...

Finishing April

So it has been a long time since my last post and I must apologize for that.  I thought I would be able to post before I left for Art and Soul in Hampton VA on April 29, but it just didn't happen!  One of my jobs is secretary for an Austin social club.  They had their annual spring soiree on April 24 at a club that is on the 22nd floor of a bank building in downtown Austin.  The club takes up the entire floor and different views can be seen from the floor to ceiling windows in each room.  Here are a  few pictures...

You can see the tower of the University of Texas to the left of center and the state capitol building on the right.

 

I thought this made an interesting shot, looking down on the people taking a tour of this building.

 

This is my favorite skyscraper in Austin!  Unfortunately, lots of tall condos are being built in the downtown area and altering Austin's rather low-key downtown look...

 

Sorry for the blurriness of this picture...the view was amazing once night fell and the city lights came on.  In another view, the  entire UT tower was lit up with orange lights, indicative that they had won something, sports-wise.

 

While I was at this event, Paul drove to San Antonio (about an hour away) and set up my booth so that I could participate in the King William Fair the next day.  What a guy!  He even volunteered to do it-I didn't have to ask!  I finished up late and got up early and drove to San Antonio Saturday morning.  I must say that the fair is set in a fantastic historic district!  I set everything up in time to watch everyone walk by to attend the parade that was going on at the end of the street...not a brilliant start to the day.  See...there they go...

This show was definitely not my sort of venue.   I made my booth fee plus about $50.  Ack!  It was more of a street fair than an arts festival, so people were mainly cruising by as they consumed alcohol and various foods on a stick.  I had one lady graciously take the time to inform me that if artists didn't mark their work so dear, they could sell a lot more.  Sigh.  I amused myself by taking pictures of interesting hats (there must have been a contest) and architecture.  I'm mad I missed the guy with a mini funnel cake stand on his head, but I was actually making a sale and couldn't leave the booth!  If you would like to view these photos, please read on.  Otherwise, you might want to move on to the next post!

 

 

This lady is not on a mission...the mission is on her!

 

And of course, this chapeau got my vote!

 

And now for the architecture... the house across the street from my booth was for sale.  For a mere 565K we too could live in this neighborhood!

 

 

Can't you just imagine a studio in the top of this little garage apartment!

 

 

 

 

And I couldn't leave the fair without sharing a photo of this guy... obviously he wasn't the one who piddled in my booth...

 

So we packed up right at six, had an excellent dinner at a restaraunt called El Mirador on South Saint Mary Street, then high-tailed it back to Austin.  We got up the next day (our sixth month wedding anniversary!) and went to the Austin Fine Arts Festival which was taking place in downtown Austin.  I had been waitlisted for the show, so of course I wanted to go and see who got in, lol!  It was a very windy day and many of the artists were holding onto their booths for dear life.  We chatted with quite a few that we knew, and all said that sales were definitely down this spring.  I did take a picture of this sculpture...it was metal horse in a rearing position...it had to be about 10 feet tall or more...

 

And this dog cracked me up...

 

I noticed a few empty booth spots and mentioned them to some of my friends who are veteran festival participants.  All of them said that I should have called up on Friday and said I was on the waitlist and inquire if there were any cancellations because I was in town.  Oh well, live and learn...

Monday it was back to the office and I planned to pack everything to ship out for Art and Soul on Tuesday, as well as pack for my classes, etc.  Fiona had gotten back in on Monday after being with her dad for 9 days, so when I tried to take her to school (pre-K) on Tuesday morning, the bottom lip began to quiver and she told me how much she wanted to be with me.  Feeling extremely guilty because I was leaving the next day for 5 days, I told her we could spend the day together.  So, the errands took a little longer and I went to bed much later, but the smile on her face during the day made all the extra trouble worth it.  And that is why I didn't get my post done...

Hopefully I will get my post about Art and Soul up tomorrow!