The Other Side of Somewhere

Moving the Furniture Around

If you're looking for art*play*possibility, you've found it.  I'm in the midst of a blog redesign, which includes a new blog name (The Other Side of Somewhere).  All will be explained in short order.  In the meantime, if you're a new visitor, I thank you for stopping by.  If you're a regular reader, rest assured, the name and design are changing, but everything else is same bat-time, same bat-channel.   More soon. ♥

Treats

At Art & Soul, they have a vendor night where, well, vendors, hawk their wares.  Everything from original art from Rock Star Artists (usually the teachers) to ephemera and vintage goodies, to art supplies of all kinds.  I usually try to buy myself something special on vendor night.  It's something I save for.  This year I didn't go into vendor night with a specific thing in mind, instead waiting for something to speak to me. 

Well.

That something screamed to me the moment I walked in the venue. 

   

I bought this little (3" x 4") handmade journal from Doris Arndt.  I love the size! The inside papers are lovely and will hold up to water media.  The binding is so detailed and exquisite.  *swoon*  This was just the thing to commemorate a retreat defined by visual journaling classes.  I'm both excited and terrified to work in such a beautiful book.

And speaking of treats ... I received this little treat from Mr. P. today:

Art & Soul

Art & Soul was an amazing experience!  This is my third time attending, and hands down, it was the best time!  My original plans got shaken-up about a week prior to the event, but it all ended up for the best as I ended up having unhurried time to get together with individual friends for dinner (or lunch) and conversation.  Much laughing and sharing ensued.  It was all very good!

I took three classes over four days and came home with a renewed spirit, clarity about many things, new friends, and a completely new appreciation for tape.  Yes, tape.  Scotch, masking, packing, strapping, electrical, decorative, transparent, tape.  They even make cool tapes with pictures on them, including the Jolly Roger. Jill kindly shared her pirate tape with me.  Tape is my newest obsession.

My favorite and most deeply meaningful class was the visual journaling class with Juliana Coles.  It was such a great experience to spend two days with 12 other women doing very personal journaling work.  The purpose of the class is not to make pretty art.  It is about letting go: of expectations, control, judgment.  It is about personal expression and not keeping a visual journal to impress anyone else.  It is about trusting your intuition to guide you.  In this way, I used colors I never would have chosen, experimented with familiar tools and found new and surprising ways to use them.  I had a couple of epiphanies that rocked my world like little earthquakes. 

I left her class yesterday afternoon, changed. 

My description does not do justice to the experience.  At some point I might share some of the pages I did, but as they are more process driven and not results driven, I'm not sure their "beauty" would make sense to anyone but me.  What's funny is, the resultant pages are not meant to look good, but I'm always very happy with the work I create through this process. 

In any case, if Art & Soul wasn't wonderful enough, the bigger news (saved the best for last!) is that Mr. P. arrived home two weeks early.  He arrived home at midnight Sunday/Monday!  It is so good to have him home for awhile!

If you're reading this at my blog site, you'll notice some changes which I'm still tweaking and will explain in another post.

Cheers!

(Journal page made in Traci Bunker's "Confessions of a Daily Journaler" class).

 

Illustration Friday (Seed)

Scatter Seed, Harvest Dreams
6" x 9" mixed media collage on watercolor paper
Various papers, vintage ephemera, original illustrations, pencil, paint, stamps, colored pencil, found text (the text reads: "She began scattering seed").

Limited Edition reproduction prints of this design available at Boodzoo Studio.

Previous Illustration Friday work: Wrinkles, Primitive, Homage,  Garden, Leap, Theory, Tales and Legends, Plain, Stitch, 100%, Soar, 2006 Retrospective

I'm off to Art & Soul!  Catch you on the flip side!

Tornado

I hesitated to post about this, as I was not directly impacted, but I've received a flood of emails and calls about it, so I thought I would make a little post.

The city where I live was hit by a tornado yesterday afternoon.  There is a lot of damage in Suffolk near Obici Hospital and in a a little section of Suffolk called Driver which is within a few miles of where I live.  Because my work route takes me past Driver, I can report that the tiny (and charming) downtown is in splinters.  The damage in both locations is not to be believed.

Our house was not impacted by the tornado.  It is very strange because we had a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon that seemed very mild in comparison to many many storms that pass through our area.  Because I am paranoid about and terrified of tornadoes, I checked the weather on TV for any alerts only to discover a tornado was down in our general area!  What?  Really? I grabbed my cats and put them in the downstairs bathroom (we have no basement) and then stood in the hallway monitoring the situation on TV and occasionally looking out the window to see if there was anything to see.  I stood there until the weather peeps said the storm had moved out.  We lost power briefly several times, but otherwise, no damage. 

If you would like help the tornado victims, here is a list of agencies from our local paper who are accepting donations.  I am not affiliated with any of these, though personally I often give through the Salvation Army as they do good work.

Thank you again for the outpouring of concern.  It's been pretty amazing.

♥

American Red Cross www.redcross.org – Suffolk, Southeast, Petersburg and Greater Richmond Chapters

Salvation Army www.salvationarmy.org

Federation of Virginia Food Banks www.foodbankonline.org

Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia www.cceva.org

Lutheran Disaster Response & Lutheran Family Services of Virginia www.ldr.org

Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia www.sbcv.org

Virginia Baptist Mission Board www.vbmb.org

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance www.pcusa.org

Virginia United Methodist Church Conference Disaster Response www.vaumc.org

Adventist Community Services www.communityservices.org

Virginia Beach Society for the Preventions of Cruelty to Animals www.vbspca.com

The Humane Society of the United States www.hsus.org/disaster

United Way www.unitedwayshr.org

Title-Less in Virginia

Yes, it's the first warm weekend in forever and I am sitting inside blogging.  I love warm weather.  I do not like humidity and even after five years living on this side of the country, I stubbornly refuse to surrender to it (I miss the desert that is California!).   At the first sign of elevated humidity levels my inner Southern Belle arrives and threatens to wilt if she has to sit outside for long.  She is very high maintenance ... she can occasionally be bribed into sitting outside if an umbrella and a tall glass of something iced (tea, coffee, lemonade, or mint julep) is provided, along with something to keep the bugs away.  Unfortunately there is no one providing these things today, thus I am inside under the ceiling fan.

Today's mail included some Sally Jean bling.  I love these little charms!  Not only are they pretty and shiny (all that glass and silver solder), the little collages are clever and make me laugh. I was originally planning to take a soldering class with Sally Jean at Art & Soul, but didn't feel 100% thrilled about it, and came to the conclusion that while I love these soldered charms, I really don't have any desire to make them myself (and no one can do them the way Sally Jean does).  While I love learning new things, I am happy to say my {authentic} realm is that of paper and paint, occasionally fabric.  This doesn't mean I'm limiting myself, just concentrating on what I truly LOVE.   I do not love mechanical things, tools, tools that BURN, I might add!  A sewing machine is about as mechanical as I get! 

Life is shifting into overdrive next week.  It's funny, the last five months with Mr. P. away have been quiet and low-key but suddenly in May - wham - many things are converging and concentrating at one time. 

Art & Soul begins on Thursday.  This is my third year attending and despite a shake-up in plans, I am tremendously excited about taking classes, seeing dear friends, and making new ones.  It is always to great to go to one of these retreats because conversing is easy ... art and creativity are built-in ice breakers.  I am taking classes in drawing and journaling.  At the last minute I was able to shuffle my classes and I ended up in a Juliana Coles's class, her last at Art & Soul.  What's interesting is, I needed a book to use as my journal for her class.  I found this book on the bargain rack at the book store.  It was the right size and heft (and price) so I bought it.  I came home and looked at the class title which is: Reconstruction Era: Rebuilding the Self Through Shadow.  Reconstruction.  Interesting coincidence, yes?  Anyway, I am really looking forward to spending two days immersed in Juliana's intense and introspective process.  Her classes last year were the most valuable to me, both artwise and personally.

Shortly after Art & Soul, I will be driving to Northern Virginia to see Mr. P. who will be doing some work up that way.  We'll spend a couple of days in D.C.  I've never been to Washington, D.C. and am looking forward to seeing the standard attractions (monuments and museums). I'm hoping we can find a neat place for dinner one night.  After our little trip, we'll drive home and Mr. P. will have a few weeks of leave.  To say I can't wait to see him is an understatement! His trip home comes just slightly short of halfway through our year apart.  Good timing!

This is the longest post I've written in awhile.  If you've made it this far, thank you!

I hope to get some blogging time in between Art & Soul and the trip to D.C.  I have a few Plans for my blog to share in my next post.  In the meantime, if you are dying to know my opinion on important matters of baked goods, please check out Jessie Oleson's Cakespy blog.  I found out Friday that I won one of her awesome cupcake illustrations simply by taking her informal poll about cake, pie, and muffins (oh my).  I can't get over Jessie's "cuppie" illustrations - cupcakes wielding brass knuckles - hee hee - too much fun!

Illustration Friday (Wrinkles)

Auspicious One
5" x 7" mixed media on pre-stretched canvas
joss paper, image from my own collection, acrylic paints and glazes, tissue paper, matte medium, Neo Color II watercolor crayons

Wrinkles in this case refers to the technique used on this piece.  One of my favorite ways to start a canvas is to apply layers of tissue paper with matte medium.  This provides an almost-instant textured, crinkly, wrinkled background. 

Previous Illustration Friday work: Primitive, Homage,  Garden, Leap, Theory, Tales and Legends, Plain, Stitch, 100%, Soar, 2006 Retrospective

Illustration Friday (Primitive)

"Olive Garden"
9" x 12" Mixed Media Painting on cold press watercolor paper
Acrylic paint and glazes, watercolor paint, Caran d'ache Neo-Color II crayons, pencil, colored pencil, spritzes of bleach

Previous Illustration Friday work: Homage,  Garden, Leap, Theory, Tales and Legends, Plain, Stitch, 100%, Soar, 2006 Retrospective

Not Impossible

"I cannot tell you how happy I am to have taken up drawing again. I've been thinking of it, but I always considered the thing impossible and beyond reach." (In a letter written by Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo)

Not impossible, I guess. 

I had a very hard time drawing an apple, a chair, and my favorite coffee mug, but I'm ridiculously pleased with these two sketches.  As someone who uses Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain as a sleep aid, I actually had fun with this.  Who knew?

Well, Danny Gregory did, actually.

Art & Soul is just around the corner.  I can't wait!  I'm most excited about my drawing class with Carla Sonheim. 

Exhibition 36

Please join me in congratulating Susan as her book (Exhibition 36: A Gallery of Mixed Media Inspiration) is live (and available for pre-order) on amazon.com.

I'm totally jazzed to be a contributor to this book!  I cannot wait to see it when it is released to the public later this year. 

I'm not permitted to share photos of the work I did, but I think it's ok if I say my contribution involves art. 

And cupcakes! 

How are we ever going to wait until DECEMBER to see this beautiful book?

Maybe I need to start a new countdown project?

Hmmmm...

Illustration Friday (Homage)

This is my homage to Sabrina Ward Harrison.  Not necessarily her artistic style (which would be hard to duplicate) but her spirit of expression and her willingness to put the good, bad, and imperfect bits out there and be vulnerable.   In a year in which I am living authentically I can think of no other artist who inspires me more.

I did try to capture a bit of her signature artistic elements (the loopy lettering, a hand drawn face) but copying isn't a good way of paying homage to an artist.  I hope I've done a not-too-cringe-inducing interpretation. 

I've shared this quote before, but it fits so beautifully today:

"I learn and re-learn that silence doesn't protect me. An unexpressed life is very painful to myself and those I love."  (Sabrina Ward Harrison)

Original drawing, pen and ink, fluid acrylic paint, pencil, colored pencil, acrylic glaze. 8" x 10" on hot press watercolor paper.

Previous Illustration Friday work:  Garden, Leap, Theory, Tales and Legends, Plain, Stitch, 100%, Soar, 2006 Retrospective

Pomegranate Smoothie and Peanut Butter Toast

When Mr. P is home, we sometimes go out to breakfast on a weekend.  His absence is good for my waistline, but not so much for my heart.

My solo Sunday breakfast: homemade Pomegranate Smoothie and peanut butter toast.

I've felt the need for quiet, lately.  Most of the activities I am doing (exercise, reading, emoting) are not interesting or blog-worthy.  I know there are people who blog spectacularly and movingly about these sorts of things, but I am not one of them. 

I am spending time reading other blogs, soaking up inspiration that will hopefully hold for me, until I feel up to being creative again.  Not only is blog reading good for the spirit, it can also lavish you with cash and prizes (ok, well not cash, but certainly prizes). 

First I had the good fortune of guessing a mystery photo on Susan's blog (it was "car wash") and I've STILL got that song on a continuous loop in my head!  If you are not familiar with this disco-era classic, you can read all about it here.  I would send you to itunes for a listen, but whoever edited the clips did not include any of the words.   

Susan, the magnet is so lovely and colorful - it definitely adds some brightness and whimsy to my grey office decor:

I also am delighted beyond reason to have named one of Stacey's sock dogs!  I so wish I made an art or craft that lent itself to making up little stories and personalities. 

Crafty

I made this log cabin pillow cover today!  The instructions can be found in one of my favorite crafty books from last year, The Crafter's Companion.

I am not much of a home decorator, but I was totally inspired by this headboard idea from Martha Stewart's Living magazine this month.  This is something I would very much like to do:

This "good thing" really jolted my latent interior designer.  I have a few more pillows planned and a trip to Ikea too.