Is it done? I don't know!

I've enjoyed playing with my bowl over the past several days, each day focusing on one area and coming up with some way to enhance or embellish it.  The last photo shows my latest addition: a swirl, which is one of my longtime favorite symbols.  There is still some of the lower areas that could be enhanced, but I don't want it to look too overdone, so I think I will study it as it is for awhile, then decide.  One last thing I will need to do is attach the base which is a few coils of fabric wrapped cord that I stitched together, leaving the center open.  It's been great for adjusting the position of the vessel while I worked on one thing or another, and I'm tempted to leave it unattached, but that's a decision I will make soon.  This has been a really fun project because I didn't have any preconceived ideas other than to try the process, and I let my imagination play with "what if" thoughts, and just went with whatever came to mind.  I think this is just the first of these I hope to do going forward, just for the fun of it! If you're intrigued or interested in trying one of these, you can see the tutorial I used as a guide here:

 https://www.alteredstatesstudio.com/blog/2022/11/25/fabric-bowls

Fun new project!

 I've been busy doing a number of things since my last post, but I'm having so much fun on my current project that I couldn't wait to start showing you what I'm doing!

I was browsing Instagram the other day and came across a post by Kristin Peterson of alteredstatestudio - it was about a fabric vessel she created with part of a plastic milk carton, fabric scraps and loads of craft glue.  I visited her blog at https://www.alteredstatesstudio.com/ and saw 2 variations - the one with a milk carton, the other using a balloon.  Well, I didn't have the milk carton (do now, just have to drink up the milk!) but I did have balloons and heaven knows I have a ton of fabric scraps, so off I went!  I didn't have a lot of elmer's school glue but did have a bottle of Mod Podge Stiffy - which is pretty much the same thing.  I culled through some fabric scraps, pulled a bunch out and grabbed a container to pour the stiffy in and a cheap brush.  Here are some process shots:

Here is the bowl, resting in a colander to allow the glue to dry.

Still drying - it takes awhile, since there are 3 layers of fabric, each with a layer of Stiffy.

Dry and resting on a potential base, made of rope with fabric wrapped around it, stitched into a circle.

Here's a shot of the inside 

I wanted to try stitching with embroidery floss, and decided to create needle holes first.  Note;  it was very challenging to work the needle through and find the hole on the inside to return the needle to the outside!  

Here's the bowl after doing some stitching.  It's nowhere near being done, but I needed a rest after stitching just that small area!  

I can't explain it, but things like this are always so intriguing to me!  I know it's a very simple idea, but I think they are amazing, and no doubt I will be finishing this and making more.  Stay tuned!

 

Bowls and cards

 Good grief, October is almost gone already!  Time really flies these days...

It's been a month of making bowls, moving my booth in Sedona Artist Market, and preserving autumn leaves along with using some.

Here's my "show and tell":

Here's my first attempt at a bowl with a braided rim - definitely something I hope to do more of!

Haven't done a bowl with a lid for awhile, and this one just seemed to be a good one for a lid - slightly different shape than my usual ones.

And it's been awhile since I made a ribbon bowl!

I picked up this fabric on a day trip to Phoenix last week - love the warm, autumn colors!

I have been collecting leaves to preserve for some of my cards, and made a few nice ones while I was learning about methods that worked best for preserving the leaves.  Here are a few:

I pressed the leaves in a book covered by other books to preserve them, then lightly sponged on some metallic paints before gluing them to a botanical print card.  I'm glad I finally took the time to try this - I love autumn leaves, and love that I can incorporate them into my creative pursuits!

My lovely new booth at Sedona Artist Market!  Much larger than my old one, and I got a larger clothing rack so I could expand my inventory.  Can't wait to see how my sales went this month!

On the home front, I got our heater vents cleaned out, got some work done in the yard, and did a little ice dyeing:

Time to start thinking about what to do in November - hard to believe Christmas is just around

the corner!  Stay tuned....

Autumn

 Somehow, September got away without me creating a post!  Ask me what I was doing, and I don't think I can come up with anything significant... 

Finished cleaning the mud out of the garage left by summer floods

Got my displays set back up at Arts Connection following the month-long Prelude exhibit:

Completed a special order for a friend and long time customer:

She ordered 5 of these - 2 for herself and 3 to give to friends!

Dyed a few other things for the galleries

Took 3 loads to the dump - finally got the garage cleaned out which has been on my list for awhile!

Gave myself permission to just veg a little - been a very busy summer, and I wore myself out!

So now, I'm working on some holiday gift items and thinking about Christmas decor items, but I'm also focused on getting some folks out to the house to do some yard work, heater vent clean out, and a few other things that need attention.  I'll post more about these things soon... right now just need a little more "veg" time!  Stay tuned...

Another Flagstaff Open Studios Tour in the can!

 Hard to believe we've wrapped up another Open Studios Tour, my 13th and the 12th that my friend Cinde and I have done together!  When we started back in 2009. it was just the 2 of us at her house, and it's over 6 miles east of the highway.... hard to attract shoppers when they have to go that far for just 2 artists, so a couple years later we started putting out feelers for other Artists' Coalition members to join us.  This year we had a total of 5, and while traffic still wasn't up as high as we have had in past years, we still had good sales and a fun weekend!

This was my friend Amy's first Open Studios Tour - actually, the first art event outside Arts Connection Gallery for her, and she did great!  Sold from the wall and print rack, and took some commission orders for pet portraits!  Go Amy!  And she was one of the only artists who sold an item at our annual Prelude Exhibit where artists participating in Open Studios show examples of their work so visitors can decide which studio locations to visit during Open Studios.

My friend Cinde who was our host, with her lovely beaded jewelry, badge holders and Tree Spirits, along with some wall art.  Cinde was the other artist who sold at Prelude!

Here I am in my space - sold some bowls, a Spirit Doll and of course some tie-dye.

This was photographer Mike Russell's first time with us - he has hosted his own studio in the past with his mother Linda, but she decided not to do the event this year so Mike came in with us.

And this is Phil Goldblatt, a very talented photographer who has been part of our group for 2 years now.

All of us are also regulars at the Arts Connection gallery in Flagstaff Mall so if anyone didn't get to come by this weekend, you can see and buy our work daily from 11am - 7pm Mon-Sat, and 11am - 6pm Sun.  

Now that it's over, I need a nap!  But I'm happy that we were able to resume our annual event!  

Good grief! It's August already!

 July was another busy month and here we are in August already!  It's been a month of monsoon storms, some bad flooding around us, our periodic river has resumed... no pix of it yet, but it was robust enough to need sand bags around the back and side of the garage!

Meanwhile, I've been very industrious, working on adding to my inventory and preparing for Prelude Exhibit at Arts Connection and our upcoming annual Flagstaff Open Studios tour Aug. 27 & 28.

Friday was the Opening reception for the Prelude Exhibit, and I got a few pix:

Shot from the entrance to Arts Connection, Aug. 5 Opening reception.

My display - tie-dye dress, coiled rope bowl and freestanding Spirit doll.

The artists who will be at location # 14: Phil Goldblatt, photography; Cinde Dalhover, bead artist and our host for the event;  Moi, in my fave tie-dye shirt; Amy Sheets, painter; Mike Russel, Iphoneographer.

As always, if you happen to be in the Flagstaff area, we would love to have you stop by either at Arts Connection during August, or at the Open Studios event!  Brochures are available at Arts Connection so that you can decide which studios to visit.

Other activities during July: lots of incline ice dyes!

This shirt is suspended over a sawhorse which sits in a bid.  I applied the dye powders to a shirt soaked in soda ash, then added ice cubes on top.  Several hours later, the ice had melted and the dyes slowly migrated towards the sides of the shirt.

A freestanding Spirit Doll in progress.  Awhile ago, I created the fabric I'm using here for the tunic, but had no idea what to do with it.  It languished on my cutting table for quite awhile before I looked at it one day and knew what to use it for!  I still need to do some embellishing, but she will be ready for Open Studios tour.

My latest bowl - a great representation of what it's like to live in our area - folks out here in the "boonies" frequently post pix of our local fauna, and I fell in love with this scene, had to use it for one of my bowls.  This shot shows that the bowl can be hung as wall decor in addition to being used for normal bowl uses, and I will be utilizing this method of displaying soon in my booth at Sedona Artists' Market. 

On another note, our monsoon season blesses us frequently with amazing cloud formations!  I captured this shot several years ago, and it represents the amazing skies we enjoy here this time of year!

I hope you all have a great August, and I'll post an update after Open Studios Tour, so stay tuned!

What a month!

My last post was not quite a month ago - I had to look back to think of all that has happened since then.

June 12th we got to evacuate again - a new fire started on the west side of the peaks and came through the canyon heading northeast.  We saw the smoke, I got bags ready, then we got the "Go" to evacuate.  Back over to my friend Cinde's for 4 days!

I had just set up a shirt to gravity dye, so it sat there for the duration:

If I had been home, I most likely would have rinsed it out the next day, and I don't know if it would have come out like this, but I sure like it!  My love affair with gravity dyeing was sparked, and I've been doing more since we returned!  Here are a couple, including one I custom dyed for a friend:

This one was purchased by a fellow artist at Arts Connection the day I brought it in!

Sold this one to a fellow artist at Sedona Artist Market!  Think I'm on a roll...

And I custom dyed this for another fellow artist, Louise!  Got one in the washer right now as well...

On another note, I recently got a bunch of my bowls back from my friend Jana - we had been collaborating on gift baskets - she's a soap maker - but her business wasn't doing well, so she decided to close up shop.  So I decided to increase my booth space at Arts Connection from a wall display to a large round table, and I got it set up earlier this week:

It's nice to have a space with a 360 degree view, and it's right up in front at the gallery.... first thing people see when they come in!

So what's next?  Well, our annual Flagstaff Open Studios tour will be the last weekend in August, and I will be joining my friend Cinde and 3 other artists at Cinde's home for the event!  And we are bringing back the Prelude Exhibit at Arts Connection - each artist who is participating in Open Studios will have space to show 2 or 3 of their creations so that people can visit the exhibit to see which of the locations they want to visit during the event.  Prior to Covid19, our opening was always well attended, and Cinde's location has had around 100 visitors during the weekend of Open Studios!  We are looking forward to another successful weekend August 27-28, so if you're in the Flagstaff Area, be sure to stop by Arts Connection for more information about the event!  

Meanwhile, back to the dye works I go...

Fun new projects!

I've had several projects I wanted to try and recently decided to dive into my creative "bucket list" and see what I could come up with!  This first is a "wave" bowl which I have seen for ages, and finally had to just try it - not bad for a first try, and I found just the perfect sea shell to adorn the front.

Next, I tried a bowl with swirls on the side - this was a challenge!  I wasn't sure how to space them out when I attached them to the base, and it was pretty wobbly to stitch together. But I do like the results, especially after I sewed on some small wood beads to give it a more finished look!

The bowl below is a cutie, if I say so myself!  I came across this fabric and decided it would make a fun bowl for Independence Day celebrations - made one and posted a photo on my Facebook biz page, and got an inquiry from a friend about buying it!  So I sent it off to her in California!

One of the groups I belong to on facebook does tie-dye color challenges, and I decided to try one with these colors - very different than what I normally use in my dyeing, but I thought it really popped!

Then I decided to try it on one of my rayon dresses:

Yikes!  Did I go too far with the orange?  Guess I'll find out - it's heading to Sedona Artist Market tomorrow.  If it languishes there over the summer, I guess I'll have my answer, lol!

I saved my latest Spirit Doll for last - she is quite different than most of my dolls - mounted on painted canvas that has corrugated cardboard added for texture, I really had fun playing with creating her... took awhile, but I love how she came out.  She's heading to Sedona tomorrow too, but if she doesn't sell, my heart won't be broken... I have had her hanging in the studio for over a month now, and she makes me smile whenever I see her!

So what else has kept me busy of late?  I'm doing a lot of promotional work on social media for Arts Connection!    We have several new artists who have joined us recently, so I've been posting on facebook and Instagram to highlight them and also our other artists - regular posts help keep followers interested, right?  If you're on either Facebook or Instagram you can check it out: https://www.facebook.com/ArtsConnectionAZ and https://www.instagram.com/artsconnectionaz/

I really love seeing our local artists coming in, and our community is very supportive! 

Okay, time to get back to work - I hope you are all enjoying our pre-summer season, wherever you are!