new fun things hooray

The art fair season is officially under way, and I'm having fun with some new additions to my booth... mostly these! --->

I've only made a few, but as soon as my next order of glass tiles arrives, I'll be playing in the studio and making more of these pendants, using various images from my photographs.

I LOVE THEM.

They're fun to make~ very gratifying. And I really enjoy the process of playing around with different images. Some photos I'd planned on using turned out to look pretty dumb, and others surprised me in a very happy kind of way.

(A few are up in my Etsy shop! And I can make custom ones with kid pictures, pet pictures, etc. Snazzy!)

Let the games begin!

As of right this minute, I'm officially jumping into the art fair season with both feet! So far, I have seven art fairs in the next seven months. Hot diggity.

First up, Luna Festival~ this one is a women's art and business fair and will be held on Sunday, April 26th from 11am-4pm in the Showers Building.

And then, A Fair of the Arts! Whitney and I have been accepted for ALL SIX SHOWS. We are thrilled. We just started putting our work out there last year, and we did three FotA shows last season. This time around, I think we both kind of expected to be offered the same number of dates, but we're in every single show. Did I mention the part about us being thrilled? Because we ARE.

A Fair of the Arts takes place alongside the Farmer's Market in Showers Plaza, on the second Saturday of the month, from May through October. (Hooray for local food and local art!)

We'll be doing things a little bit differently, but will still be sharing a booth~ she makes amazing jewelry; I sell my greeting cards and prints of my photography, as well as a few other goodies. And there's a lot to do to get ready in the next few weeks!

Please stop in and say howdy! It's going to be super fantastic.

creative epiphany

Ok, this may not sound like epiphany material, but to me it was.

Well, let me start by explaining something you may or may not already know about me:

I have to make stuff. I have to. Some people need to garden or run or cook or whatever, but for me, doing creative projects has always been one of the necessities in life. I'm one of those master of none folks. I like to try things and play and I'm not terribly interested in following patterns and instructions that require math and precision and expertise.

The problem, though, is that I tend to believe that I want to try everything, and even though I don't want to follow rules, there's a part of me that wants to Do Things Correctly. It can be boggling and prohibitive.

The other day, though, I realized that just because I want to try everything doesn't mean that I have to love everything. And more importantly, if I don't love something that I expected to love... I don't have to do it ever again!

This was a marvelous realization. And if I acquire supplies for something that I decide to never do again, someone else will be happy to take those supplies off my hands. Which means (bonus realization) that I don't have to worry so much about being wasteful!

This, along with the wonderful book, Wreck This Journal, by Keri Smith, has freed up some creative energy that had been kind of unfortunately stuck for some time.

Some of the many things I do love: photography, writing, crocheting, playing with raw wool (including dying it, as seen above, and carding it and needle-felting), drawing sketchily, unconventional watercoloring, paper-making, soap-making, baking alone, cooking with friends, sewing badly, mosaics, mixed media collage/painting, container gardening...

A few things it turns out I do not love: rolling felted wool beads, following knitting or crocheting patterns, trying to paint things that look real, being yelled at while baking cookies.

Now I'm really looking forward to finding out what else I do and don't want to do some more of!

(Starting tomorrow. It's past my bedtime.)