An Open Letter to Governor Strickland

Dear Governor Strickland,

I am writing to ask that you reconsider the proposed budget cuts for the Ohio library system. Libraries are so important now, more than ever, as people use their resources for job searches, resume help, a non-judgemental place where one can find out about services for people in need, and yes, even as community centers. In our small town, the library serves as a place for our children to go after school, and provides snacks and activities during the summer for all of our children. These budget cuts would be catastrophic, as our library would be shut down, leaving the children with nothing to do after school.

We have used the libraries when our power or water goes out; they are always a haven, especially for those who are elderly or who are home with small children, giving people a place to go which is welcoming and free. The libraries provide gallery space for local artists to exhibit, exposing many people to the pleasures the arts can bring into their lives. The libraries also provide low-cost meeting areas for groups of all kinds from La Leche League to local conservation groups, and programs for patrons of all ages, including yoga, writing, local history and more. The loss of these services would be devastating.

Please, please, please reconsider and do not cut funding to our libraries. They are too vital and too important to let go by the wayside.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Andrea L. Stern

If you are in Ohio, find out more about saving our libraries at these sites
Athens County Public Library (lists the budget committee members)
Save Ohio Libraries (Facebook page)

Beading With World Beads Giveaway

The new book Beading With World Beads features 38 beautiful projects made with beads from around the world, including beads from Africa, Thailand, and Tibet. I am proud to have 8 projects included in this wonderful book, and am inspired by the work of my fellow designers. Today I put together this pair of earrings, inspired by “the good earth” pendant designed by Candie Cooper.

In Candie’s wonderful design, she dangled a bone face bead from a filigree star pendant. I took a page from her design and made the loop extra large on the wire so that the star pendants could dangle in front of the long bone spears. The piece is completed with Tibetan prayer beads, ostrich eggshell and carved wood beads. (Bone spears are from Becky at St Theresa Textile Trove, the other beads have been in stash so long I’ve forgotten where they are from).

Ok, I hear you asking “But you mentioned giveaway in the header of this post, where’s the information on that?”

Here’s the details. You can win a signed (by me) copy of Beading With World Beads if you are the lucky winner chosen on July 7 (Ringo Starr’s birthday :) You can enter up to three times, by

A: Leaving a comment on this post telling me what your favorite world bead is (mine has to be the wonderful Thai silver I used in the Temple cuff)

B: Adding me on Facebook and leaving a comment here that you’ve done so (I am Andrea L. Stern on Facebook)

C: Following me on Twitter, or tweeting about this giveaway. Leave a comment here and let me know your user name so I can follow you back!

I chose July 7 because it is Ringo Starr’s birthday, and he was my favorite Beatle when I first re-discovered them at age 12. July is also full of birthdays of my loved ones, including my Gran and my BFF for longer than I can count, Beth. I figured this is a great way to celebrate those happy days!

To whet your appetite, here are a few teasers from the book:

The cover, with delicious coral and turquoise Mumbai Melody by designer Jamie Cloud Eakin.

The Temple Gate Bracelet, image from the book, above, and on my wrist, below.

Silver Dragon necklace, live and in person (project is on page 104 of the book). Chinese turquoise and Chinese silver, with some African turquoise cones on the bottom.

Zambezi Journey, illustrated from the book and live and in person below. So simple yet so funky.

I really love everything about this book, from the designs (and not just mine!) to the layout and the photography. The editor Ray Hemachandra and crew, including the magnificent Beth Sweet, really knocked themselves out for this one. This is a volume you will come back to again and again for inspiration and fun. Remember, you have until midnight on July 6, 2009 to enter. I will choose the lucky winner on July 7th. Good luck and happy beading!

An A-Muse-Ing Workshop

For the past 4 weeks, I have been receiving regular emails from Artella’s Make Change With Your Muse online workshop.  This new course mixes both online email journal prompts and lessons with a wonderful packet of ephemera and world coins mailed to your doorstep to use in the many projects designed to help you both appreciate the abundance you already have in your life and bring more abundance into your life.

May may not have been the optimal month for me to sign on with this course, as I have had many other events happen in my life, from my husband nearly totalling our only car on the 1st, to the SAQA conference here in town Memorial Day weekend, to my uncle passing away on May 24th.  The emails gave me something to look forward to each day, and always had something that helped me step out of where I was at the moment and appreciate what I have. 

I have only had time to work on three of the projects, a candle holder, a gratitude purse, and finally an abundance ATM card, which I made today.  I found the process so fun that I made several:

The horizontal format ones.  I used a pack of bristol board ATC cards by Strathmore which I picked up at Crafts 2000 sometime during the past year.  The backgrounds are a mixture of color photocopies of my work and images taken from magazines.  I love the fish stickers, and the coins are from the ephemera packet I received as part of the course.  The Bible verse stickers were from my Gran’s collection, and contain quotes about abundance, asking and receiving.

The vertical format ones, including an image from an ad in American Style magazine, an Absolut ad, more fish stickers and more color photocopies of my work.  I just love working with color photocopies of my work, it makes it that much more personal.  These cards are designed to be kept in your wallet or placed in other areas where you will see them regularly.  They are intended to help you keep your focus on the good things in your life and the good things you intend for yourself.  I plan on keeping a couple in my purse, but I am also pinning a couple up next to my bed so that I see them in the morning and at night.

Marney is also launching a new program, the Artella Artbundance Coach Training Program and is offering a free live workshop/trial of the program on June 29.  I am really excited about this opportunity, as I love to create and I am always seeking ways of helping to spread the healing that creativity brings to my life to others.  You can find out more by clicking the link either here or in the sidebar.

This week I am finishing up a new water tower piece to take over to the Parkersburg Art Center for their “Splash” regional exhibit, so I may be a bit skint online.  I hope you all have a happy and creativity filled week!

Can You Help Me Out?

I am working on my artist statement for the grant this fall as well as for my Artful Home application. I'm having a hard time clarifying and actually just talking about one or two points. Alyson B. Stanfield suggests you ask an impartial person some of these questions to help see how others view your work and what they may want to know that you think is obvious.

http://www.embellishmentcafe.com/NEWwallgallery.htm
for images of the work (for the grant I am using the water tower body of work; for Artful Home I will be including a bit more broader range, but all are pieced and appliqued)

http://andibeads.blogspot.com/2008/09/water-towers-lifelong-passion.html
for just the water towers

Now for the questions. If you can answer any or all of them or if you have any other questions you can think of I would really appreciate it. (and there are no wrong answers and no stupid questions). Thank you in advance!

1. Do you have art in your home? Tell me about it, why you selected it, what drew you to it, what you love about it.

2. What do you find most interesting about my work? What are you attracted to?

3. What do you find least interesting? Distracting? Puzzling?

4. What would you like to know about how it was made, displayed, and so on?

5. Does it remind you of anything in your life? Or recall a memory for you?

6. Is there anything you would like to know about me or my background?

Thank you *so* much!

Catching Up

I just spent three days attending the Studio Art Quilt Associates “Art and Excellence” conference here in my hometown of Athens, OH.  It was three days of meetings and workshops designed to help art quilters further our art and gain more exposure and respect for our work.  I took workshops on time management, self-publishing, and self-promotion using alternative methods of getting the work out there, and on Saturday we heard an inspirational talk from art coach Alyson B. Stanfield, who spoke on surviving tough times by getting tough.

I came home to continue working on this:

The Andrews Air Force Base water tower, approximately 4 feet wide.  The finished quilt will be around 80” high by 54” wide.

Detail of some of the fabrics and preliminary stitching.  I create the water towers as free-standing appliques using a base of Pellon 40 interfacing.  Once the image is totally pieced, I then sew it to the base quilt.  I’m thinking this piece will also have liberal use of white or clear iridescent sequins.  I need to check C. Cartwright to see what my options are.  I love to use sequins on these huge pieces.  They just add extra highlights and depth to the image.

I also need to prepare some new pieces for the July show at Casa Nueva.  I used this drawing from an old journal as inspiration:

Lots of octopuses.  I tend to doodle spirals when I doodle, this time I took them beyond and grew the creatures from the base.

Tentacles I, reverse applique using Pointillist Palette from Lunn Fabrics and hand-dyed cotton from Ellen Eddy.  Still in process, about 18” x 18”.

And just for a diversion, a collage:

Acrylic, torn Mexican bark paper, some threads and fabric on a canvas base.  The Mustang came from a mailer we received after signing up at the Ford display at the Ohio State Fair, and it is driving on a road collaged with a photocopy of another quilt I made.  Mustangs were the first car I could identify as a young child growing up in the Detroit area, and I still intend to own one (or several!) some day.  Just a happy piece to help process all the energy I received from the conference.  If you have an opportunity to attend such a conference, it is a great way to connect with like-minded people and find new friends.  I know so often we work alone, but it is good to get out once in a while.

Self Curating

Sounds something like you’d do to a ham or a smoked meat product. Curating. Ha ha. I feel like a beef jerky today, maybe tomorrow some turkey bacon. But I digress. I have been invited to exhibit my work with some other wonderful local art quilters at Casa Nueva here in Athens, and tomorrow we are hanging the show. Here are a few of the pieces I am going to take over:

Desert Twilight, fused floral on a base of hand-dyed twill, machine quilted back when I first got my Pfaff. It’s a delicate 9 3/4” x 10 1/2” in size.

Violet Jazz, 16” x 17”, again on a base of my hand-dyed twill.

Octopus’ Garden, 15 1/2” x 20 1/2”, done in my favorite turquoise, red and white combo.

And a detail, just love those polka dots!

Sunflower Morning, 11 3/4” x 10”, embellished with buttons from my collection of vintage buttons, as well as some new buttons sold for scrapbooking.

Spring Has Sprung, 16” x 18 1/2”, note how I used my (then) new machine’s number embroidery function.

And finally, for this series:

Tudor Rose, 11” x 10 1/2”

I made these when I first got my new Pfaff 2054, partially to learn the machine and partially because I had been working on a Kenmore without needle down and wanted to try out the new features. They don’t have my usual embellishment or my current over the top piecing, and they’ve never been posted on my website . Since they are small and come in an affordable price range ($75-$200), I figure they will be a nice fit for the venue.

Here are a few of my “rules” when self-curating:

1. Choose work that fits the available exhibition space

2. If it is in a high-traffic area, look for work with minimal embellishment (I am deliberately leaving several pieces at home because I do not want to find out something happened during dance night).

3. Choose work that you have not exhibited at this venue before. Since this is my first time at Casa, pretty much everything I have is open for showing, but I need to consider my other rules as well.

4. If you are hoping to sell, and have a good feel for your market, choose work that is priced appropriately for the venue. I’m sure there are people out there, even in poduck Athens, who could buy a higher-end piece of artwork, but for now, I am happy to send the more affordable for any budget pieces.

That’s basically it. I tweak for each show, but pretty much these are my rules. It’s one reason I will stop and make something smaller while working on one of the museum-sized pieces. I love making the work and I love to have the most people possible viewing the work. Self-curating and hard work help make that happen.

P.S. No animals were hurt in the curating of this project.

Driving Lessons

Someone over at Plurk posted that it sounded like a car hit their building. Then someone else replied that at one time someone had run into their house. Which brought up a few fun memories of driving lessons I would have been happier doing without.

When I was about 12, my Grandaddy took a bunch of us over to the A&W at 15 and Mound for some ice cream. He had a little olive green Dodge Colt that we all squeezed into. For some reason, he left us parked in the lot and was standing in line when one of my crazy cousins, jumping around in eager anticipation, knocked into the stick shift and knocked the car out of gear.

The car started rolling into traffic on 15 Mile. Grandaddy was at the ordering window, clueless.

Me, being the big brain trust I was (hey I grew up in Detroit, I should have known cars!) jumped out of my door and grabbed on for dear life, trying to keep the little Colt from rolling into traffic and (dum dum dum) certain doom. Screaming the whole time for Grandaddy to come help.

Everyone else noticed me. Eventually he did too. And after he ran over to the car and pulled the emergency brake, he said "Why were you yelling for me? All you had to do was pull the emergency brake!" (Emergency brakes play a part in my future driving lessons too, now that I think about it, but first....)

My second memorable driving lesson came when my aunt was parked in our driveway. She left, yes, another of my crazy cousins, alone in the car while she said goodbye to me and my mom. My cousin climbed into the front seat, put the car in drive (this time it was an automatic) and plowed into the fence right next to our cranky neighbor's house. I guess it's a good thing he was too little to reach the pedals. (And yes, he is the little brother to the cousin who almost rolled us into rush hour traffic).

And finally, my bestest memory of all. I was heading out from Wendy's on Texas Avenue in Bryan, Texas, to go take my SAT. As I pulled out into traffic, I heard a pop, and suddenly I was left with no working clutch cable. I rolled into traffic because I had no choice, stopped the car (did not turn it off, this is important in a minute here), put on the blinkers and got out to go back into work and call my dad to come get me.

As I'm on the phone, I hear one of my co-workers shout "Hey Andrea, your car is driving down Texas Avenue!"

Sure enough, I had not put on the parking brake.

Fortunately my co-workers ran out and helped me retrieve the car without anyone getting hurt. And I made it to the SAT on time. But yeah.

That parking brake? There for a reason!