More Pink!

I just wanted to put up a quick note that you can see my entry as well all the other artist's entries which were in the Ravenswood Pink Walk on House Beautiful's Flickr page (photos taken by a professional photographer...I had serious digital camera envy when I saw him taking photos...lol). Below is the link to their Flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/housebeautiful/sets/72157626113654489/
(For reasons unknown to me I can't seem to get blogger to put this in as a link so you will have to cut and paste...sorry!)

Been Awhile!

Yikes! A whole month has gone by since my last post (actually , I think it has been two months....arghhh). Well I haven't just been sitting on my laurels. The project I began in my last post is finished as far as the felting goes (still needs to be embellished some more) although it got interrupted midstream and put aside so that I could do a last minute piece for an artwalk I got into (It was called The Ravenswood Pink Walk and was sponsored by House Beautiful Magazine and The Ravenswood Art Walk Organization). House Beautiful Magazine declared that the color for this year is pink. They did their whole March issue around the theme of pink.

Anyway, first up is the project I started at the last post.

The above picture is the culmination of the lace, vanilla & white & oatmeal merino wool, the natural colored blue face leicester wool, cotton doily, silk roving, and locks you saw in the picture of my last post. It took me quite a while to felt and the lace on the sides did not get as tacked down by the wool as I would have liked. The doily is tacked down nicely though (I wonder if it is because the lace trimming is synthetic...usually that is not a problem if the weave is loose enough...hmmm, I will have to ponder on that). Of course I am planning to do some embroidery on it and maybe even a little beading (not sure about the beading). Anyway, the wall hanging is my representation of the tree of life crossed with the idea of the hearth fire or the furnace of our being.


Next up is the wall hanging I made for the Ravenswood Pink Walk.


As I said the theme was pink and I only had two weeks to pull it together. It was February, the theme was pink, and the only thing that was coming to mind was hearts. Hearts...hearts...and more heart! I know it it cliche but my brain was fixated on it, so I tried to think about what hearts are associated with and just went with it. The title of the piece is "Three of Hearts" and it is made of various shades of pink, purple, and red merino wool and merino prefelt, lace inlay, and some violet merino tencel blend wool. It has some embroidery around the pink hearts (I did not do as much embroidery as I wanted because I ran out of time but I may revisit that now that the walk is over). Lastly it has an old time medical illustration that I silkscreened in each of the hearts. I had a lot of fun with it even though I felt a bit rushed. Below is a picture from the reception for the Pink Walk which was held at Architectural Artifacts (if you look close you can see my piece standing on an easel in the back).


Hopefully things will calm down for a while so I can continue to work on the first piece. I hope all of you who are reading this are safe and well.

Been Working On Nuno Felt Scarves and on Taking Pictures of Them

I have been working on making more nuno felt scarves and also on trying to take better pictures of them. I found a small mannequin bust (probably for children's wear) in an antique/resale shop and thought it might be the perfect display for taking photos of my scarves with (either nuno felted, dyed, and/or printed). So I tried taking pictures outside but the mosquitoes drove me inside (they are really nasty this year. I swear they are getting bigger and more aggressive as well as more abundant). The rest of the pictures were taken inside after I figured out a set-up.




I have also been working on my picture taking set-ups and skills because I have been applying for craft fairs and have not been happy with my past pictures. Plus it was time to show something newer. I have also been paying for an artfire online shop and should really start using it. So I have been working on photos as well as production.

Another thing I need to start thinking about is what I want to do for United Felt's International Day of Felt and where I want to display it. I could display it outside my house/studio or I could display it at a friend's Frame & Gallery Shop (or possibly LillStreet...I would have to talk to them about that). Yep, I have a few options as to where to display...but what to do? I think this week I am going to spend some quality time with my sketchbook and take some walks since I will be out and about.

Anyway, here is one last picture. There was this butterfly flitting around all over my backyard, and, being the crazy person that I am, I chased after it for a good hour snapping shots with my camera. Here is one of the better pictures (really hard to take pictures of a moving target...lol).


I hope you enjoyed the butterfly picture! Have a great weekend and enjoy the summer while it is still here.

2009 Wrap-Up

At the end of 2008 I attended as a vendor one craft fair (my first one). In 2009 I was a vendor at 3 Art & Craft Fairs and 1 other event. I am also still selling my scarves (in addition to my Nuno-Felt scarves I am also selling dyed and printed ones this year) at Painted Light Photos & Framing (and Mom is selling her hats there too). So I feel that I have made some progress as far as getting myself and my art out into the public eye.

I was in the Lill Street Member Sale (my first Art & Craft Sale on my own).



I was once again in the Streeterville Artisan Market with my mother (which is also the one we were at in 2008).



Mom and I also attended the Bucktown Bazaar as vendors.



Last of all my Aunt who owns Stern's Book Service (which is a psychology bookstore and service) asked my mother and I to include some of our work in with her books for a recovery conference put on by Hazelden in downtown Chicago. She figured that since it was so close to Christmas that some of the people would like to do some Christmas shopping while they did their book shopping. I was only there the first day of the conference (though our stuff was still their for the second day) but mom and I actually sold several items. I was very happy about this. It was a nice wrap up for the year. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of the table at the conference. Although if I did, I think I would have skipped the pictures of the table and taken a picture of the salad bar the hotel put out for the conference goers. It had to be the fanciest salad bar I had ever seen (and so very, very tasty)!

Also, there was one last thing that put my work prominently out in the public eye and that was the Felt Hanging I did and showed on my front porch for UnitedFelt's First International Day of Felt back in early October. My pictures are not only on my blog and on the Lill Street Textile Department's blog but on the We United Felt website at
http://www.feltunited.com/
just scroll down to the bottom and click on "2009 exhibit online" which is in red and then choose the format that you want to see the pictures. I highly recommend taking a look at it as there were many, many excellent feltworks done for this event.

I also took various art classes at Lill Street Art Center(printing, embroidery, glass bead making) and attending one of the SDA's post-conference workshops in Kansas City. The post conference workshop was great not only because it dealt with felt but because I got a chance to study under and Internationally Renowned Felter, that being Jorie Johnson. I would recommend her classes to anyone.

I am still working on figuring out my resolutions as far as the direction I wish to take from here, so, that will have to be written up on another post. I hope everyone had a happy holiday and a great New Year!

Craft Fairs

Hi!

Just adding a little self promotion. I promise a full post with pictures after the weekend. I am in two Art & Craft Fairs this holiday season. If you are out and about this weekend in downtown Chicago come by the Streeterville Artisan Market and say hello. It is located at Northwestern University Lurie Research Center at 303 E. Superior Street in the Lobby. My mom and I are in booth 15. If you are in the Bucktown area on the 28th and 29th of November then come see us at the Bucktown Bazaar at 2200 N. Oakley, Chicago IL. We don't have our booth placement for that one yet but I will blog about it when we do. Have a great weekend everybody!

Lill Street Student & Member Sale

This past weekend I was in the Lill Street Art Center's Member & Student Art & Craft Sale. I didn't sell lots; about a couple hundred dollars worth. But that is enough to buy some more wool and silk scarves in preparation for my next Craft fair coming up in November. Yes, once again I will be in The Streeterville Art fair. I am looking forward to it. There are a couple other fairs I am looking into also. Today I picked up my leftover stock. I will have to post some pictures tomorrow.

More Photos From Trunk Show

The Picture to the right was my mom's display of felted bags, hats, cobweb lace felt scarves, and jewelery. Mom also had felted art bags (small bags meant for wall decorations) for sale against a window backdrop, but I manged to miss taking a photo of that. That is what happens when I let the photo's become an after-thought.


Above is a picture of the nuno-felt scarves I made that were displayed on an antique quilt rack. I also had scarves hanging from a wall hook display to the left of the quilt rack. But again, I wasn't thinking enough about a photographic record and didn't think to take a picture of the scarves on the wall. I most likely forgot about them because that is where they are always displayed at the shop. Although I like the antique quilt rack, I think I need to come up with a better way to display my scarves. The wall display isn't quite right either. Maybe suspend something from the ceiling so that the scarves are more up at eye level? Hmmmmm... I will have to think on this further.

This is a picture of my mom's felt hat with a vintage silk scarf twirled into a rosette surrounded by one of my nuno-felted silk scarves. That we had matching colors was an unplanned but pleasant surprise. They look good together don't they?


That is it for photos for the moment. My next project is actually not scarves. I am thinking about making a nuno-felted wall hanging. I have a couple yards of silk I shibori dyed yellow and green. Maybe I will make use of that for a backing. I will post photos as I work through the project. Right now it is just in the thought stage.

Trunk Show

How did the Trunk Show go? Well, we didn't really sell anything, but we did get experience in giving short demos. We also got exposure through the shop's advertising. So, although it was not rewarding monetarily speaking, it was rewarding in other ways. We also got to meet some very interesting people (some of which we may have turned on to felting). And, we got some good feedback (feedback is always good to get, except when it's not...lol). Above is a picture of the shop we had the Trunk Show at. I will post some more pictures later.