OMG, the holidays are coming!

 I'm losing it... seriously!  I can't believe it's been more than 2 months since my last post!  My only defense is that I've been busy dyeing and bowl making to get ready for holiday shoppers!  And at last, my racks are full, the bowl table is groaning, and I have a minute to catch up, if I can remember what I've been doing!

Here are a few things:

Tried a new dye on this hoodie... love the color splits and flow

Did a series of these jackets, aiming for lighter, more pastel colors

Made more bowls - love the fabric on this one!

Made a bunch of Keeper Peepers - great gift items!

Brought in a bunch of stuff for Black Friday sale!

I also completed some custom orders, and have 3 more to complete.

Now that I have a full inventory at Arts Connection, I decided it might be a good time to clean my studio, so that' what I'll be working on for a week or more, then I might take a day off, lol!

I hope if you're reading this that you had a nice Thanksgiving if you're in the US, and hope you have a lovely holiday season if you celebrate.  Thank you for reading my posts, and I will be back in 2025!

What's new?

 I've been a busy bee since my last post - ramping up my dyeing to turn out some hoodies, jackets and a custom order:

On the weather front, the temperatures are coming down, and our area is blanketed with brilliant sunny yellow flowers!  Here's a shot I took several years back, but it looks the same this year too:

And here's one bowl I did recently after seeing someone else's creation using this fabric:

With that, I wish you all happy Autumn, coming up later this week!

Flagstaff Open Studios is a wrap!

 What a great event we had this past weekend!  Our 26th annual Flagstaff Open Studios tour was a great success, with 8 artists at our location - my friend Cinde's lovely home!

Above is our group - Phil Goldblatt, Wesley Ayers, Sky Kremer, Mike Frankel and Leandra Pearl in the back row: next to Phil is yours truly, Ann Rice and my friend Cinde Dalhover.  

Here are some shots of the amazing art we had at the event:

Ann's beautiful clay creations - note:  the hanging on the white wall in back will soon grace Cinde's living room wall!

Some of Cinde's amazing bead creations - not shown here, she also creates wall art which will be back at Arts Connection in Flagstaff Mall later today.

Joey Rhue did a wonderful job catering our snacks!  He's an up and coming food artist, hoping to do some small event catering as a side job... delish!

Leandra with her amazing photography!  It's so clear, you feel like you're right there!

Mike Frankel with his recently published memoir of his photographic adventures and experiences in the 60's - he was at Woodstock, and also got to take photos of the Beatles' first tour in the USA!  So many great stories, and the photography will blow your mind!

I had a full rack of tie-dye along with a mess of rope bowls - the main bowl display is just to the right of the clothing rack.  Didn't bring home nearly as many as I brought, thanks to all who came and bought!

Phil Goldblatt's wonderful landscape photography - many from our area, but also some taken in Iceland and other locations.

Sky Kremer, with some of her whimsical artwork - she also creates magical sun catchers that bring rainbows to you when the sun hits them!  And yes, she is wearing one of my dresses - looked great on her!

Wesley is an accomplished painter and illustrator - great imagination and wonderful use of color to create very unique scenes!  He had a lovely array of fine art prints with him, along with some holographic stickers.

Thank you to all who came to our event, we loved having you and if you took away some of our art, we really appreciate it, and hope you enjoy what you purchased!  BTW, many of us are regular artists at Arts Connection in Flagstaff Mall, so if you're in the area I hope you'll stop in and see us and the other artists there!  

 

Save the Date! Flagstaff Open Studios Tour! It's almost here! The 26th Annual Flagstaff Open Studios tour will be Saturday, August 24 and Sunday, August 25 from 10:00 am - 5:00 pm!   Flagstaff Open Studios is a FREE self-guided tour of at least 27 member artists and their work, which allows the public to witness up close the artists at work in their studio environments, demonstrating their techniques and offering their work for sale directly to the public, at multiple locations throughout the greater Flagstaff area. Participating this year are artists working with paints, photography, jewelry, ceramics, glass, fiber, and multi-media covering the entire artistic spectrum.     This year, there will be 8 artists at our location:  Studio # 11, 9815 E Townsend Winona Rd.  We will have a full house of beautiful creations to browse and buy, so we hope you will make it a point to stop by! Bring friends, neighbors, co-workers!  We look forward to seeing you.                                                                                             Cinde Dalhover, Beadwork, Jewlery                                               Leandra Pearl,  Photography                                            Judy Sall, Fiber Arts, Mixed Media                                                              Weston Ayers, Oil Paintings & Illustration                                    Phil Goldblatt, Photography                                        Ann Rice, Ceramic Sculptures                     Sky Kremer, Suncatchers                       Mike Frankel, Rock and Roll Photographer and author SPECIAL EXTRA!!! We will be offering refreshments as usual, but this year, we are blessed that Joseph Rhue will be catering our refreshments! There is a downloadable guide HERE  and a few print copies at Arts Connection gallery at Flagstaff Mall.                             Hope to see you there!

Save the date!

July already!

 I think I've definitely lost track of time!  Can't believe I haven't posted since April!  If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you know I'm not just laying around eating bon-bons, lol!  But here's a little recap for those who still follow me here:

This has become one of my favorite patterns for tie-dyeing shirts, and now cover up dresses... always comes out interesting, and frequently contains surprises!

I dyed some rope to make a Spring rainbow bowl

Decided to try some black rope and boy does it make this fabric pop!

Tried Jute rope, and it has become a favorite!

This fabric definitely needed white rope - now I'm ready to find more fabrics with white in the

design!

On the home front, I finally arranged to have our deck repaired and renovated - it was over 20 years old, and we neglected it.  Needed some boards replaced, and the couple who did the work did a fabulous  job!  Here is a photo of the end result:

As for the weather, we are already in Monsoon season here!  It usually doesn't really get started until mid July, but it came early and it looks like that "mild, dry summer" predicted was way off base!  I'm glad, because the monsoons cool the temps, and we started hitting 80's in late May, and have already had temps in the 90's a couple of days!

On a totally different front, look who is in our yard this year!  We actually have a pair, and we think there are babies somewhere, just haven't spotted them yet!

And on that note, I hope you're having a great summer!  More to come, hopefully before the end of the season, so stay tuned!

Spring is finally here!

 Good grief!  I can't believe I haven't posted since February!  Winter has just dragged on and on, but FINALLY Spring has sprung and the birdies are singing... in fact, we even have a pair of Road Runners who are nesting and I can't wait to see the babies!

In spite of the cold weather, I got back into dyeing and here are a few items I've done recently:

A rayon jersey jacket done in the "Geode" pattern

A "Cosmic Egg" roll - I really love how these come out!

A "Spider" pattern, even though I don't think it looks like a spider - still love the pattern!

And I got back to making some bowls, especially after my annual trip with my friend Joyce

to the valley to thaw out, hit fabric stores and just enjoy the day!

I saw this fabric at our last stop and just couldn't resist!  The colors and adorable critters just had to come home with me, and I had a lot of fun making this!

I found a few batik fabrics in blues that I really liked - this is one of them.  I have another one in the works... hope to pick up some sea shells at our local craft store to use as an embellishment.

Other than that, I'm still enjoying almost daily exercises - been over 3 months since I got back into exercising and I'm feeling a lot younger than my years, yaay!  And it's time for me to exercise, so I'll get this posted and hope to do a little better at keeping you updated on my adventures in the future!

Stay tuned... 😉

Almost Spring!

 Wow, this month has flown by!  But then, it is a short month, even though it's a leap year!  

Since last month, I spent time playing with watercolors and marking pens, just for fun!  Here are a few of my results:

With each of these, after I slathered water colors onto paper, I thought "how ugly"!  But after they dried, I started creating the lines with fine point Micron pens, and not only was I pleased with the outcome, but I really enjoyed the time just focusing on where to put the lines!  No, I won't be making these to sell, but they are great for "play time", when I just want to relax and unwind.

I also got back to ice dyeing again, and here are a few of the items I've done since my last post:

This is a rayon jersey jacket dyed in Teal and black.  The first one I did sold the day I put it on the rack at Arts Connection, so I got busy and did 2 more.  I have several more that aren't dyed yet, but I'm hoping to come up with some spring colors on them, since Spring is just around the corner!

Today, I washed out my first attempt at a "Cosmic Egg" pattern on a shirt:

I have a way to go before I can do one as well as the example I was working from, but I'm excited to be learning a very unique pattern!  Notice that the front pattern is very different than the back! The shirt is turned inside out, with one sleeve inside the other, then it is tightly rolled from side to side.  I use sinew to tightly tie the rows, letting the shirt roll back over itself, and I continue tying to create some of the patterns.  The front reflects the sinew rows, but the back is a much looser pattern.  I didn't notice until I took the photos that there is an "alien" on the back near the neckline, ooh!  For sure, I'm going to be working hard to get better at this pattern, it's the first time in a long time I wanted to learn something as ornate as this.  Stay tuned!

Oh, and to kick off this year's bowls, I made these to celebrate sunshine and flowers:

Okay, that's what I've been up to on the creative front.  What else have I been doing?

EXERCISING!!  It's been 2 years since I stopped going to the gym for an exercise class, twice a week.  I just got tired of having to drive to town, and I already go to town at least 3 days a week on a regular basis.  Well, in December I fell and hurt my back, so for 3 weeks I pretty much nursed my back.  Then I thought:  if I exercise, I'll strengthen my muscles, and almost simultaneously, I found yes2next, which is a gal and her mom who have made a bunch of exercise videos and uploaded to youtube!  I also joined their group on Facebook for support - the exercises are designed for beginners and seniors, but can be modified to do more or less.  I started January 13, and have exercised almost daily (except on days when I had to shovel snow), and my back is healed!  I may be old, but I'm stubborn!  I did a 50 minute workout this morning, and it was wonderful!  Not bad for an old fart, lol!

Okay that's it for now - looking forward to Spring and longer days, so I can dye and make bowls and who knows what else?  Enjoy!