A new beginning--creating art in small spaces

Living in an apartment isn't the easiest way to create art but sometimes you just have to find a way to deal with things. I've been wanting to make another skeleton piece but ran out of orange fabric and really can't be dyeing here-we don't even have a kitchen as such, just a refridgerator-sink-stove along one wall of the living room. I decided to try painting the fabric instead.
I did 2 pieces; one I painted blotchy orange and then stamped over in red/orange paint:

The other i stamped also but wasn't as happy with the overall spacing so i restamped over it with a blue checkerboard. This piece will be worked on further; I'm thinking of dyeing it a medium blue to integrate the checkerboard into the background and make the red stamps stick out more.



For now, it felt good and I'm pleased with the start I made.

caffeine!

I don't understand caffeine. It was a cool night and the hot chocolate seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe I shouldn't have mixed it with coffee instead of water...?

So here it is after 1am and my alarm is set to go off at 5:30. I have tried to sleep but no luck. I've edited pictures for my etsy account (http://www.urbanartifaks.etsy.com/). I've read blogs and threads. I've paid my bills online. Now here I am at my last resort, writing my blog entry.

Still my eyes are wide open.



Again, I don't understand caffeine. The other day I was driving from PA to Cleveland and I had coffee, I had Coke, I had sugar and I was STILL falling asleep on the road.

In 6 hours I will be setting up to photograph 750 children for picture day at a school the online reviews said "I wouldn't send a DOG to this school let alone a child..."

I'm really looking forward to work.

trains gone by / originally posted Feb 19, 2009

I live close to the airport now...not so close that it annoys, but close enough that i can hear the roar of the jet engines preparing for take off. No matter how many times i hear it, I always feel a longing to be onboard. Destination is immaterial, I just want to be entering that 21st century magical carpet that will take you anywhere you want to go...to walk that narrow path between the seats looking for my own place by the window where i wait to be whisked above the clouds.

I have to have a window seat; only once was i in the second seat and luckily for him, the person in MY window seat was sleeping because i spent the entire trip nearly on his lap looking out the window. No matter how many times i've flown since, i still love peering out, trying to decipher the ground beneath me and identify the towns, the rivers, the mountains as I pass over them. Even at night, the sparkle of the lights as we pass over the cities is amazing.



I remember the first time I flew, only 10 years ago. We took off, heading out of the snowy Cleveland airport to the sunshine I thought could only be found in Florida but now I realize exists everywhere--above the clouds. No amusement park ride thrills me as the sensation of lift-off! We banked out over Lake Erie and then headed south...I had my nose pressed to the window watching the ground unfold before me as we gained altitude. I could see a river looping below and was excited--that must be the metro park--and then my amazement when the captain came over the loudspeaker to welcome us on board and tell us we just crossed the Ohio River! We had traveled the equivalent of 5 1/2 hours on land in just minutes!!!


The engines' roar creates in me the same longing that the railroad whistle must have done to others a hundred years ago. However, an airport just doesn't look as romanticly evocative as a set of rails do. A few months ago, a friend took me around to some places in our neighborhood I never knew existed. Who'd have thought there'd be an abandoned railroad roundhouse in the middle of an urban neighborhood? I stood on the tracks and the rails stretched as far as the eye could see...the only difference is these rails eventually led to the steelmills rather than across the midwest plains.

Wait til next year.........

I thought of another name to call my artwork: Second Wind. Most of my work is done late at night when--and IF--I get my second wind, so I thought it sounded good.

I'm at that time of year when ALL of my jobs and ventures are running concurrently...my full time job doing school portraits has started up for the fall and overlaps my summer job of shooting MLB fans at the stadium, which overlaps my replacement for that job shooting for the House of Blues and then all my artwork--I delivered the 5 new Day of the Dead Skeleton pieces (see below) for a show and then my jewelry--there's a gallery artwalk coming up the first weekend of the month (just 1 1/2 weeks away!!!) that I need to gear up for PLUS getting new work up on my Etsy account (urbanartifaks.etsy.com). I've been drinking a lot of wine lately from local wineries so I can make jewelry from them in the hopes of marketing local-to-local.
Add to the mix I'm supposed to be taking care of my 90 yr old parents...

Good thing I cancelled out of the 3-day show I wanted to do. My motto has become "Wait til next year..." Must be rubbing off on me from working at the ballpark.

Piece #5--Wait Til Next Year"

I submitted photos to Skull-A-Day, a really cool project where he posted a skull a day for an entire year in 2007. then he did another year posting skulls submitted to him or found by him on the web. You can find his story here:

http://skulladay.blogspot.com/2007/06/about-skull-day.html

What a way cool project!

http://www.skulladay.blogspot.com/

New work!!

I was asked to do a show about day of the dead, one of my favorite themes.

I planned to do a couple new pieces because I only have 2 of the old ones left and I've been pulling them out any chance I got. It was time for new work.

I've had a list of ideas that I wanted to do 'someday', quirky little play-on-words or twists of old favorites like "Whistler's Great-Great-Great Grandmother" (a skeleton sitting in a chair just like the painting) and "Me and my Shadow", a remake of one I'd done as a gift--a skeleton walking a skeleton dog.

Here are my completed pieces:

1. "Don't Even Ask" for Mr. Bones restaurant in Holmes Beach, FL

2."Nude Reclining"

3. Trout Fishing

4. Demon Drop

I have one more I hope to finish....

where to start??

What do people do all day? I remember reading that book to my kids when they were young. A fascinating book by Richard Scary about all kinds of occupations and what all they entailed. It was actually quite interesting.

When we go to school, we're taught to think in terms of a life's vocation. What do we want to be when we grow up? Why do we have to choose? And, why then?? That has to be the worst time for most of us to decide-what do we know at that time of our lives? We didn't even have the benefit of Richard Scary's book when I was growing up. All we know for sure is 1) we want to get out of our parent's homes and be on our own, and 2) we don't want to be like they are.

It's not until we get knocked around a bit that we finally figure out what is really important-if even then. Some people never figure it out. (I have heard some actually have it figured out right away but I haven't met many.) Luckily, by the time we have it down, we are at that time in our life when opportunities open up...the place I mentioned before, that "second half". Today's Over-40's are living longer, healthier, more active, and wealthier lives than ever before. They: * Own more homes than any other demographic age group* Purchase 41% of all new cars* Spend 74% more on a typical vacation than younger age groups* Enjoy more than $900 billion in income* Exercise at least three times per week (taken from "Secrets of Successfully Advertising to Seniors")

This is an exciting time of life if we just realize the potential and grasp it with both hands and DON'T LET IT SLIP AWAY, ONE BORING MINUTE AT A TIME. One of the reasons I stopped watching TV was because my entire evening was eaten in 30 minute increments, and I was left with nothing to show for it. There is So Much To Do, to Try, to Experience! (My kids learned early to never complain to me they were bored!)

By this point in your life, you know what kind of person you are--do you like being around people all day or do you prefer to be in your own world? Are you service-oriented, meaning, do you like helping others? Do you like working with THINGS as opposed to IDEAS? If you do something, what part of the process do you like the best-the planning, the execution, the marketing? For instance, I absolutely love planning new things. I have spent days coming up with brief, "wouldn't it be neat if--" ideas and talking about them to my friends, even going as far as drawing up business plans, just to put them away. People may think I'm a quitter, that I don't follow through, but in reality, I love the planning, not the execution. Let someone else DO the thing, I just like working out the kinks and knowing it would work. But...how do you find out what your passion is?

beginnings / Monday, April 2, 2007

One year, three months and nineteen days ago, my world as I knew it came to a screeching halt. My husband of nearly fourteen years, out of the blue said he wanted a divorce. He had many reasons, yet no reason. This man--this man that I had devoted my life to--decided my all wasn't good enough and our marriage not worthy of the effort to work on it. I just didn't make him happy. So. Here I am, one year, three months and nineteen days later, bruised, battered, alone (but still married!) and STILL STANDING.....I have reached that mystical 'SECOND HALF' of my life. We all get here, sooner or later; some alone, some not. I just never thought it would come this way.Valentine's day, i took the plunge and quit my job. What had I to lose? My children are all grown and doing very well. My husband is on his own journey. Its just me. Should I keep at a job that was steady and secure, but draining me emotionally, just to pay the bills? A life that was more a life sentence, and that kept me wondering, is this all there is? But, I'm not ready to give up! I haven't even started!!!
This is where I stand now. I'm no longer just someone's mother, or someone's wife. Who, or what, am I??? What were all those dreams I left along the way, like so much debris? This is my journey, my search for balance and reality; my search for my Life. I have no time for husband bashing or a lot of introspection; this is to be a positive time of learning, trying new things, and DOING.