UPDATE ~ If you are looking for the Vintage Bella Blog Party post it is here.
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News about my book “Inspired Remnants, Curious Dreams” . . . The final gallery selections are being made this week and it’s going fairly well. There were 16 spaces available but I didn’t know there would be that many until just recently. At first I was told there wasn’t going to be a gallery at all. Then that there were only a few spaces. So I really had to scramble to fill those slots.
The funny thing about epoxy clay is that so many artists are using it but hardly anyone mentions anything about it. So after some extensive online sleuthing I was able to uncover the “secret” material that many very well known and incredibly talented artists are using! Consequently I’m pretty sure (OK really sure) the gallery pieces are going to blow people away as well as the realization of exactly WHO is using this stuff!!!
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About Seth’s True Colors series of posts . . . this was yet another truly inspired idea (how does he do it!) to discuss the legendary book project with reflections and insights from the fabulous artists that participated. After he announced that he would be doing a True Colors series I happened to be playing around with an experiment that Charley started– a vial filled with shiny copper nails and sealed with (of course!) epoxy clay.
The epoxy clay is perfect for this since it will not leak. It has held a tight seal very well ever since October so I’m going to make more of these. Anyway back to the True Colors story.
I had some pretty green netted lace laying near the vial and thought that looked nice together so away I went. It was wrapped in darker green silk along with the lighter netting. As I was working I began to realize the True Colors book was very much on my mind. It was shaping up fairly well but I set it aside because I wasn’t exactly happy with it and nothing as coming to me.
That was the day I visited Seth’s blog and saw I had missed SEVENTEEN posts in my RSS reader. If that doesn’t speak to how busy I’ve been nothing does. I usually pounce on his posts right away. : )
Anyway, the most recent post was about Linn Jacobs who selected Yellow Green and Copper as her journal colors. I didn’t know any of the True Colors artists personally and had no idea she had since died.
Anyway, as fate would have it I had been doing some spring cleaning in my closet. I tried on a silk shirt that I hadn’t really worn and it was (of course!) a light spring yellow green. It didn’t exactly fit right which explains why it was shoved way in the back. I didn’t donate it with the majority of the other clothes (can you believe 3 huge black garbage bags were full of cast offs) because I always recycle silk clothing to use in my art and in workshops I teach. I had tossed it on a pile of other silk clothes and as I walked back by that shirt the color grabbed me and I right then knew I’d be able to finish the piece.
As I worked on the finishing touches I felt led to add a small tribute to Linn. I carefully embroidered “To Honor” on the Yellow Green silk to a woman I never knew but who after all these years of seeing her art time and time again as I’d pour over the well worn dog-eared pages has inspired me in ways I’m sure I don’t fully realize.
The image above it the closest to the true colors. No pun intended it’s just that in most of the pics the color is washed out and doesn’t look like it does in person.
Consider these excerpts that Linn’s friends wrote about her on Seth’s blog
From Lynne Perrella ” . . . Always with graceful strands of silky threads and fibers to hold them in place…..Very Linn.”
From Marylinn Kelly ” . . . Looking today at the pages she created for Sunset, I find in her circle/spiral motifs an expression of wholeness, completeness, overlaid by bright tendrils, rays of the sun that eventually reach every corner.”
This piece is called “to honor” and is still not completely finished. When I hang it up it looks too squarish so I’ll be rounding out the corners by adding just a bit more rusty organza and singing it (I don’t mean like the glee club I mean with some fire ~ are those really spelled the same way?!?!?), a little more green netted lace . . . and (of course!) some yellow green beads. : ) And since it actually is suppossed to be worn I think it would be quite practical if I should affix some findings for a closure.
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Workshops I’m Teaching (maybe)
I’m trying for the third year in a row to teach a workshop or two at Artfest, my absko-lootly favorite art retreat. This year I was able to go after missing many years in a row. I forgot how much I really do love it there.
Artfest is a very happy place so I don’t want you to be scared of this pic I took on the way back to my room (all alone in the dark!). I do have lots of pics from the retreat and *some* day soon I will share them. really.
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Here is another blog hop that will be this Friday, May 21. I *LOVE* these!!! Just go to her site and leave a comment that you’ll be participating. The last one I did was sharing pieces made from Susan Lenart Kazmer’s ICE Resin. If you haven’t seen all the pieces made from this go here.
I think it would be just grand to do some blog hop parties on Mixed Media Art. Wooo hoooooo! So I’ll put that in with the list of BIG PLANS for that site.
Bye for now!
