here knitty,knitty

the weather is turning a bit to the fall direction...wet, cool, cloudy...i bet i'll be able to see my breath tonight...so i've pulled out my knitting...a co-worker is having a baby in october so i've started on this...

the yarn is a baby-soft, champagne colored acrylic i got at hobby lobby for 99 cents a skein... once i knit all the funny twists and turns it will turn into a tiny version of this...

it's an orgami teddy bear pattern that is knit up flat, and then folded in such a way as to, all of a sudden like, look like a bear...i gleaned from one of the many mags and books i copied when i first got into knitting... the multi-colored one above is for a bear auction in november to benefit the children's harmony house in fort collins...

here's a very warm lion wearing the scarf i'm knitting for my mom...

she (my mom, not the lion) picked out the nubby grey and white yarn and i am cruising through it while we watch the hbo series "Rome." great entertainment that fall of an empire is..

new art soon to be posted... i got commissioned by emily and marc to create some art for the wall space above their bed...i have been in quite a flow and can soon reveal it ... it is an interesting process to make art that fits with another's vision...more later...caio (yes, pirates can speak italian as well as say aaarr!)

TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!

... AAARRR mateys, i can't believe it's here again. ...my blasted favorite day of the year next to thanksgiving, ( montana's birthday...my birthday, grant's, dates with friends...) well, ok it's up there with my favortite days....i've got pirate-tude, how 'bout you, you scurvey landlubber???

festerin' boils! it's cold as a witch's tit this mornin'... well, i hyperbolize a bit here but it's a cold 'un...so i sit at the computer with tea in hand (i'm certain pirates can drink tea...should i get some grog and splash a shot in it?) and see just how many of us pirates are about... there's this one...and here's one that you must take some time to ckeck out...

so pull on your boots, grab your sword, but most of all get your pirate on and have fun searching for buried treasure today... you might be suprised...

AAARRRR!

to market, to market, to buy a ....

i invited grant to come with me to the Ballpark market in denver saturday...i've been wanting to go all summer and i finally made it happen...it turned out to be a flea market that is a bit more focused and doable in a morning than milehigh fleamarket ... look at the first booth i saw and just know i was in heaven...

i saw vintage and new aprons wafting in the morning breeze at the just picked vintage booth...

and just look at the plethora of vintage clothing...

and here's just one of many boxes of rusty things i picked over...

grant initially really didn't want to come, but decided to join me in my junkers world...he ended up spending way more money than i did...he bought an oak sideboard we will use in the office... here he is wheeling and dealing with steve the funiture guy...

what a great way to spend a gorgeous fall day...



...home again, home again, jiggity jig!

art benefits many

"art simply keeps me sane..."was i ever crazy? Maybe...or maybe life is. Crazy isn't being broken, or swallowing the dark secret. It's you or me--amplified." from the movie "Girl, Interrupted"

for the hand up charitable art show and exhibition, each participant was asked to write a little something regarding how art has given us a hand up in our lives as artists. this was my "little something." the soiree was aparently a success with all the red sold stickers ...but before i leap ahead, some fasion news...

before:

and.....

after:

back to my short do...melissa, at cost cutters, did such a great job i tipped her big-time... i love it...so i was ready to go to the art show...

there was soo much great art on the walls....

and these:

fabulous friends:

mark and emily

jette, as she saw all the art and my hair

my clinical director and the oncology social worker, Katherine and Janet

kelly and her family and her art were there:

fab husband, grant

and the best picture i have of my piece,

"bird in the hand: 2 & 6"

in all of its off-centered, poor lighting glory

i'm so glad it sold ( love ya' kelly!) more than half the price goes to charity...what fun and yes i will do this again...

so, today, it's cold here in fort collins. oh so cold. high of 67 but it ain't close to that yet. slippers and sweat shirt pulled out of hiding...

ok, so this doesn't look cold with all the greenery in the front of the house..how's this:

doesn't it just make a chill climb up your back looking at all that cold steel on the white-loaf-of-bread volkswagen bus next to the steel grey sky???

have a warm day...

there's 2 things that money can't buy, that's true love and homegrown tamaters

yesterday my across-the-street neighbors, the Brunson-Williams' , brought me a sieve full of garden harvests....

mister kite obviously had to give it a sniff...

this is the garden goodness they brought just a few days ago...

now they can't give their tomatoes away fast enough...is your garden as fecund as theirs?

now, i have never paid attention to those in the art circles gush about going to Artfest but i happened to be cruising around the cyberhood yesterday when, lo and behold, i came across the site for Artfest 2008...the more i investigated the more excited i became... i downloaded the registration form and filled it in, thinking, ok, maybe i can make this happen....i got really excited when i thought about telling my friend, lisabeth, and begging her to consider the notion of meeting me down in washington state.... she only hesitated for a quick few hours and then shot me an email saying yes!!!!! she would get in her application... here's mine...just a bit of mailart ( i overnighted it today)...

i am excited to have the potential to hang with some high caliber artist and LB...more as we go along...

i spent way more time on this mailart for my sis in sacramento...

the gal at scotchies, the dry cleaner/mail place, thought i was wacked to be taking pictures of my mail...you can't see it well but there is a section of steaming romance novel up where my address should be... i hope she reads all about Teal and Chase's love life... a surprise gift for her...can't tell...shhhhh...

do you do mail art? i would love to get links to it or even better, receive some from you.... there are blogs dedicated to mail art....more on this later....

this place

having art assignments that give me a deadline help me get into my "studio" more often...having been in academics (read: being dazed and confused in higher education for 9 years) so long i work best with homework being due...so i join altered book clubs, art swaps ....people depend on me to get my contributions in....well, now i am scaling this back and want to focus more on my own art... i want to eventually hang an instillation in a local coffee cafe, where they are infinitely generous to local artist...

so every artist has their space, their nook, their studio... i have half of a 15 x 10 room...studio tour?...

i walk in and look left.... chaos corner...i use a lot of vertical space for all things rusty, unused and full of potential...


coming around the white shelving you get a look at....


look right and you see my desk...and the filing system i like to call "piles"... shining in the flash is this computer...
turn 180 degrees and here is where all things art and craft happen...


shelves that grant hung are bowing with schtuff...

and that ends the studio tour...some folks have an outbuilding dedicated to creativity...(sorry you had to go and move away from yours, l.b.) some have a basement or whole, entire room.. and some simply have a corner desk... but it just is another example of "it's not the size of a thing but what you do with it"...

so i will attempt personal bench marks in art/craft, imposing regular time in this chaos corner...

here's a book that i am loving right now called living the creative life in which the author has a running conversation with 15 different artists, some of whom are my current faves... in it they talk of what they have in common and one of those is that creativity is natural but channeling this into your interpretation manifest is a matter of getting into your studio space and simply sitting with your media whether it be beads, clay, rusty detris, or paints...having a disciplined time, even it it just one time a week, puts you in a place of increased possibility....

so here i go...

lisabeth won the very competitive game of guess the lyric ( although montana gave an impressive answer naming the band given that she doesn't even like them) ...the lyric is from katy lied album by steeley dan and the song title is "gold teeth II" expect a package in about 10 weeks alaska time....