Years of Experience

Years of experience have taught me that opportunities come from where you least expect them, and they come when you are not expecting them.  Paying it forward and karma are never lateral actions, the good you do does come back, but never in the way you expect.

Take, for example, the massive show prep I put out over the last month.  I was hoping for, expecting, intending, a great show, to sell the wonderful work I’ve been creating.  To touch people and speak to them through my art.

Well, I did get the speak to people part.  But I only sold one piece, and that was to another artist at the event.

I came home disappointed, sad, and yes, a little crushed.  I indulged in a little pajama-moping time, and let myself take a few minutes from the constant go-go-go of creating work and marketing work and breathing work.

And I remembered the many times I’d gotten the rejection letter from Quilt National, and how those same pieces of work had gone on to other shows, winning multiple awards in several cases.  How not getting jobs had worked out to free me to visit family, or to be available for other opportunities which were even better.

I didn’t do the usual beating myself up over prices, because no one even looked at the prices, so that couldn’t have been it.  I told myself I made some great connections with local women artists who I’ve vaguely known over the years, and got to know them a little better.  Connection is always good.  I read the new Mercy Thompson novel.

I took Friday and Saturday, and then I posted the work to my Etsy shop. I kept moving, and I fully expect something better to come along.

Here are some pictures of some of the work I posted:

 

 

I will let you know when that something better comes along.  Until then, I leave you with this:

Almost There

Almost Heaven, West Virginia.  Well, on Thursday, anyway.  We leave bright and early for a quick and fun trunk show and presentation.  I have been in the studio madly putting finishing touches on some pieces to take along, and today I set up some of them to see how they’d look.

  

To see how it could look, I used some wooden boxes I picked up at a photographer’s yard sale, as well as some wine boxes my mom bought for me back in her yard saling days.  This enabled the work to be raised up and therefore more visible.  The fabric is a piece of yardage from my at-home dye party last summer.  I painted it using Setacolour fabric paints and the speckled pattern came from sprinkling the wet fabric with chunky salt and letting it dry in the sun.

A detail of some of the images.  You can see the frames I bought at Dollar Tree to use for the larger collages, and the little easels I found at JoAnn that were just right for displaying the small 4” x 4” canvas collages.

The smaller pieces are beaded brooches left over from my beading days.  You can see one of the free-hanging recycled collages in the foreground, and the wire and bead hanger I attached using scrapbook grommets.  You can see one of the mini quilts in the background, attached to its canvas.  I’m really happy with how those are turning out.

Finally, another view of extra pieces.  I also have a half shutter door that I am going to use to hang pieces from, I think using mini bulldog clips and fishing line, but I need to test that out next.  So far I am really excited about how these pieces are coming together, from the colors I’m using to make them to the process of attaching the images onto the frames.  I was so happy when I found out the mini easels would work with the smaller canvases.  They will be included with purchase to make it easier to display the work, always an important consideration when selling artwork.

Tomorrow I will put finishing touches on pieces.  I ordered business cards from MOO.com and they arrived last week.  I’m going to make color copies of the informational side and attach them to the back of each piece in addition to the price.  I have two more quilts to sew to canvases, and the duck collage that is in this display needs some embellishment.  I think that will be about it, and any extras that come home will go up on my Etsy shop over the weekend, at least until the next show.

In Process

I have taken the cardboard bases I showed you last time and have been collaging like mad, using color copies of personal photos and images of my other artwork.  These are still in process, I need to do a final basecoat, I think of gloss varnish, as opposed to my usual matte varnish finish, to help bring out the colors more.  None of them have titles yet, and I may add grommets to the top corners and run colored wire along for display purposes.

All of these measure 5” x 7” or 7” x 5” depending on the orientation of the image.

The photographs are of my daughter.  In the top picture she is wearing a crocheted dress that was made by my grandmother for my mother.  I have a picture of her wearing it, and I’m sure somewhere there’s a photo of me wearing it.  Now it’s back with my mom, who is planning on having it framed in a shadowbox.  The bottom picture is from my Frida Kahlo phase, circa 1988.  I took a lace scarf and some fake flowers from Woolworth’s to make her headdress, and bought real Gerber daisies from Kroger’s. 

More art about art, this piece has a copy of on of my MOO cards.

When you have an interesting embellishing material, consider making copies of it to use in collage.  This leaf is an Indian applique I picked up from Treasures of the Gypsy.  I have a whole sheet of images of these appliques that I use for collage fodder in my journal and on pieces like this.  I also crocheted the little purple flower, but found doilies work as well.

You can tell these are in process because you can see the difference from where I applied the matte gel medium to adhere the images to the cardboard substrate and the original painting.  The background papers are both painted on the contractor’s paper, starting with a layer of gesso first.  I’ve been cutting out stencils in addition to using the Print Gocco fish screen and Speedy Cut stamps.  It’s been fun to put all the different patterns and colors together.

If I can find them, I have some coffee bean beads that would look cool on this piece.  I adhere the three dimensional embellishments using Golden Heavy Gel medium, it’s easier to apply to a specific spot because it’s so thick and it fills in the gaps on the bigger pieces so that it will stick to the surface.

More of the Indian applique copies, a contemporary button and a vintage embroidered applique enhance the copy of the cow quilt I made for myself after my Gran died.  I rarely make pieces that are specifically for me to keep, but this is one of them.  Using the image in this way makes it possible for more people to see/own it, and enables me to keep the original.  It’s kind of like licensing, but I am the one reproducing the image.

More buttons.

The seam in the cardboard really shows up in the photo, but isn’t quite this obvious in the original.  The sunflower charms are fairly dimensional, which is why the heavy gel is good for adhering them.  You can also see more detail of the fish print I talked about earlier.  That’s the yellow paper I showed in a previous blog post.  I am really happy with how it turned out.

I am also working on small canvases, 4” x 4”

On this one I used color copies of an old beadwork to make the landscape.  You recognize our friend Bessie from the earlier images.  I love her little purse and the bird on her shoulder.

Another one using my daughter in the heirloom dress.  The sunflower is an applique left over from the piece I made for The Artful Storybook.  It’s machine embroidery on fabric that is stabilized with Pellon interfacing.

We are all made of stars.

This one is 8” x 6”.  I used some canvas I painted with Setacolour paints as the background for the photocopy.  The star punchouts are from a sheet of scrapbook paper.  The composition was missing something, and it occurred to me that I could use some buttons from my stash to fill in the corners.  This is also when I realized I could embellish the cards.  Sometimes the solution is so obvious, isn’t it?

Mosaic, Embellish, Recycle

What do you do with old nametags? If you're me you find something to do with them. In this case, I used my standby Golden's Tar Gel on parts, and plain mastic cement on others, to create these:

Chanticleer, he includes delicas in the background. The mastic cement was tinted using Createx Pigment colors in blue.

Bird in Garden. Old magnets from a yard sale, new buttons and rhinestones. The bird is a silkscreened tin piece I've had for years. He is still in process as I'd like the background to be a bit more opaque. :)

Fishy fantasy, just a fish swimming in the sea. Love the bubbles.

Octopus moon. More stash stuff. I love little things and always loved making dioramas.

Aqueduct my friend, don't you start away uneasy. Well, anyway. He could be swimming above the layers of rock. Either way, he was fun to make. More to see at my flickr.