lemonade sandwich

If the world was crazy, you know what I'd eat? My own interpretations and reactions to a crazy world.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Lotus mini quilt - Whiplash


Lotus mini quilt
Originally uploaded by lemonade_sandwich

I interupt my most fascinating stories about Art and Soul with an actual project:

I've been on a mini mini-quilt kick lately, so the current Whiplash theme was irresistable. My pile of Amy Butler fabrics have been mocking me lately, insisting that they can be so much more than stash filler. Plus, how do you buy more fabric if you don't use at least a little bit?

It takes so little fabric to make something so fun. A few squares, some time to fuss with the arrangement, and soon there is an actual quilt. This one is my first one with a border, which I am so happy with.

So there's no prizes for the current Whiplash, just a chance to show off a little. I'm really impressed by the entries already, with so many clever ideas.
whipup

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Art and Soul - Story Fragments

So I actually took very few pics at Art and Soul, too busy making stuff! I will have more of my own artwork soon, I hope, but in the meantime I show off some of the paperdolls I made as trades. I traded them all!

Day 2's class was Lesley Riley's Story Framgments class. I admit that I was less sure about how I was going to like this class. I already work with a lot of the techniques, so it was going to be a matter of how this particular project settled with me. Lesley also specifically wanted us to bring pictures of heads, to make a person with an accompanying story. I'm not really big on representing people in my artwork (other than Michelle, which I didn't really want to do for this one.) After much agonizing, I found a photo I took at the Bronx Zoo of an elephant sculpture that I thought would work well.

We spent the morning painting our fabric - very fun and freeing. While it dried we started to plan out our figures. The elephant worked out great. I ended up giving her a tiered skirt, and her story somehow involves flying coffee cups. An elephant also freed me from worrying too much about proportion, since she's already not a person. We attached everything with wonder under. I think I will need to go back and add some stitching to hold some parts more securely. I didn't get far enough to write my story on, and her skirt still needs some stitching. I'm really pleased with how she came out. A photo will follow ASAP.

I suspect that Lesley has not had a lot of people do a non-human figure before, and she definitely gave it a thumbs up. She was a good teacher. The techniques aren't hard, but she had a really helpful hand-out giving some basics of human proportion that were really useful. Its interesting to see that while many elements were repeated (a lot of people had a tree) there are so many variations. There were some very nice women to chat with as well, and I definitely didn't have the "fitting-in" problems that I was feeling on Friday night,. Whew! You can see the work of some of the other artists in the class on my Flickr account. I, of course, did not make a note of anyone's names, so can't give full credit unless the artists want to jump in!

Saturday after class my sister and I joined a group she had fallen in with at the Manager's reception. A margarita and many trades soon followed, along with a really nice conversations with lots of new people. Any inability on part to remember more specific details we'll just chalk up to that margarita. We decided we would wait for after vendor night to get dinner, and went off to go shopping.

Vendor night shopping was interesting. The booths of emphemera and collage things we mostly passed by, since our favorite way of acquiring such items is to go through our parent's garage. Plus, the prices are a lot lower in the garage. We enjoyed looking at the artist booths mostly. Seeing the artwork of some of the instructors made us want to go and sign up for their classes next time. Paul Johnson, a book artist, had some absolutely amazing pop-up books, a small one with a story involving a house (my personal totem these days) and a princess (Michelle's obsession) just jumped out at me. I would definitely look for one of his classes sometime, although he is from the UK, so I don't know how often he teaches here. We also picked out a bird sculpture from Stephanie Lee that we were sure our Mom would love for mother's day. (It turns out we were wrong, but that's for another day.) Another teacher to add to my list for next time. I also couldn't resist a clothes-line of little wax dipped dresses from Pamela Huntington. Sarah took a class with her on Monday and had nothing but raves about her as a teacher and a person. The dresses were so sweet and had a cute story about peanut butter sandwiches. Sarah was taken in by one of Sally Jean Alexander's charms. I will have more to say about Sally Jean later, since I spent the next 2 days in her class.

I think dinner that followed will deserve its own separate post, as it was an adventure unto itself.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Art and Soul stories


Mine! My house!
Originally uploaded by lemonade_sandwich.

I managed to convince my sister Sarah, usually less of a structured class crafter, to come with me to Art and Soul in Virginia. Thus begin the adventures:

Friday morning I got a special treat before I left, to see the house next door partially demolished. This was not a surprise, but it was an interesting way to start the day.

I arrive at the airport and cannot immediately locate Sarah, who has taken up residence by the wrong US Airways counter, and has also turned off her cell phone. (Sarah, I promise this will be the last time I make fun of you for that!) She does eventually realize the latter, and we get to our gate with plenty of time to spare, especially since our flight is late (no real surprise there.)

Despite the delay, we arrive with enough time to cross the entire Philly airport to get to our connecting flight. We go to check out the deal, and slowly come to realize that this flight is scheduled to leave EARLY. Who ever heard of such a thing! The inevitable fall out does occur - we make the flight, the luggage does not. Did I mention that we also did not get a chance to grab lunch? Sarah has a much mocked turkey sandwich in her bag, so she is fine. I am surviving on Luna bars and airplane pretzels.

At the hotel, hunger starts to set in, and all restaurants are closed (that lunch-dinner lull) and the hotel shuttle is off on some unexpectedly long jaunt. We finally get the brilliant suggestion for room service, which I admit NEVER would have occurred to me normally. It actually wasn't too overpriced, and was reasonably tasty.

Now its time for class, and there's no sign of the luggage. So off I go to Susan Lenart-Kazmer's tassles and fringe class without any of my specially ordered tools, or carefully selected ribbons, yarns and charms. The classroom is already full with people who have been in her earlier class all day. This is a sure tip-off, since they are all already comfortably settled, familiar with everything in the room, Susan knows their names, and I am already feeling left out. A totally empty workspace does not help any.

Susan shows us some of what we're doing, and fortuantely has many ribbons and metal supplies. What I really need is tools - pliers of various sorts. The woman next to me has offered to share hers, but somehow everything of hers seems carefully placed on her other side, and after repeated attempts to ask for things or reach across, I give up and use Susan's tools at the center table as much as possible. I then get missed in the distribution of some copper circles for a different fringey dangle, probably because my space is so clear its not obvious that someone is working there. I end up taking apart Susan's class example (at her suggestion!) to use the parts.

So when its done, I have 3 different tassel forms for jewelry that are fine, but nothing very personal. Pictures will be forthcoming, I was understandably not interested in taking photos at the time.

I do get a call from Sarah, whose class is in the hotel itself, just before the end that our luggage has arrived! So at least we don't need to do a late night run to the nearby Target for clean underwear and toothbrushes. We happily go through our bags to get ready for tomorrow's classes.

To be continued... (Hint, things get better from here!)

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Too much stuff


Princesses
Originally uploaded by lemonade_sandwich.

Here is my first reason why there hasn't been a blog entry in a while. We decided to indulge Michelle a bit, and took her to Disney World at the end of March. She is currently and inexplicably obesessed with all Disney princesses, particularly Cinderella.

Needless to say, it was a great success, although thoroughly exhausting!

But just look at that smile.

The other big thing I will catch up with soon includes a trip to Art and Soul in Virginia with my sister. There was prep work that and projects completed there that will be shown off. There will also be long sagas of lost luggage, people who don't share well, others who are so generous, wonderful art created with metal, ribbons, fabric and glass, an explanation of how you can have 5 breakfasts in 3 days, and a few choice quotes that made us laugh.

As a special bonus, there is an international package that arrived soon after my return, in case I had not had enough wonderful art experiences!

For a sneak peek check out my Flickr pictures from my shiny new sidebar banner.

Stay tuned....