I’ve finally had a few minutes to upload some of my artwork from Art Unraveled. It’s always so fun to take a breath and a step back and then look at the work with new eyes. I could tell you everything I hate about these pieces, but I won’t. I will tell you how they came about and what I do like about them, though! Some of them are finished, some may get a little more work — some detailing, or will become part of another piece of artwork. (Yes, that means I may tear things up. It’s ok, I’m brave!) Some of it is here, and the rest is on my Flickr site. You can click on these to go there and see them larger, with descriptions.

Art Unraveled was great. I had missed it last year, so I tried to make sure I really enjoyed it this year. It was so wonderful to

• see my friends
• take a vacation (mostly — I did do some web work while I was there)
• make art and relax.
• I made new friends, too, which was extra cool.

I didn’t really stretch myself in terms of the classes I took, but it was nice to have the extra time to try new things and keep working on the skills I’m trying to improve.

I stayed at the hotel with Leighanna, with the intention to move to Fran’s house on Sunday. That was thwarted when Fran’s husband got sick with a stomach thing and when my doctor called to inform me that my ankle was fractured (something I wish that she told me before I left for AZ!). So, the trip was a little more expensive than I would have liked, but I really do love staying at hotels. I love the soft sheets, especially. And this hotel has the most comfortable pillow top mattresses and soft pillows, I have never been so happy and willing to go to sleep at night! I also love the happy hour and the little kitchen area in the room, where we had a little version of Trader Joe’s to munch on for lunches and snacks.

Katie Kendrick taught us how to look at other artwork and use it as inspiration. Since I don’t do a lot of faces and people, I was extremely frustrated with my first attempt, The Blessed Mother is Laughing at Me! I ended up doing some intuitive painting and the other two I did in this class were a little more satisfying.

From Alex Shur, I learned how to use tube watercolors and assorted non-traditional techniques I can use with them. This appealed to me greatly, because I don’t ever intend to follow many rules in my art. I’ve used pan watercolors since college, so stepping up to tube colors was really cool. I painted a lot in this class and have a lot of works in progress as well as pieces to use in other work.

From Traci Bautista, I learned her method for developing project ideas. This was extremely reassuring, because I already do a lot of what she showed us. Neat!

Judy Wise‘s class was GREAT — the Bird Lady (above) is from that class. Judy is a very good teacher and she showed us her techniques for using collage, paint and wax to create depth and really interesting compositions. At the last minute, I decided to add one more class, since I didn’t feel stretched.

Monday night, I took a Crafty Chica (Kathy Cano Murillo) class. I had seen my friend Joanne’s bag, which she made after taking a similar class with CC. I sew a little, but still have some fear of sewing through my finger. It’s great to learn from Kathy because she just eyeballs it and doesn’t use a pattern and “figures things out.” I admire her so much!

OH! I got to meet Joanne, who is just wonderful and was so much fun to hang out with. She makes me LAUGH! I’m so happy about how much time she and Fran and I got to spend together.

And on Saturday night, we watched the 1000 Journals movie, and had a Q&A session with Someguy, the dude who got that whole thing in motion. The movie was a little long, but was really interesting. Then we had a chance to put our own marks in a few of the journals he brought with him. I decided it was a good opportunity to connect my Wreck This Journal experience with AU and 1000 Journals and I brought a page from Wreck This Journal, did some stuff to it and pasted it in. If you ever get 1000 Journals book #742, I’m in there.

Unfortunately, my Palm Centro camera isn’t that great and we can’t read this now. But it was stamped in each of the books and shows the journal number	Cover of the book I worked in.	My page that I glued into the book and doodled on.

This past weekend, I took 5 mixed media workshops from Kelly Kilmer, who was the visiting artist at The Artists’ Nook this month. There are no words to describe how much I love Kelly’s classes and how much I get out of her workshops. Every time I take a Kelly class, I am able to play, experiment and I always get new ideas, either from her, or from expanding on something she or another student said.

This weekend’s highlights, not in any particular order:

• Seeing Kelly and learning from her. She is so creative, free and amazingly supportive.
• Getting to know Allyson better, and getting an awesome ego boost from her. *waves and paints Allyson’s hand*
• Learning more about layering and color mixing and composition.
• Realizing that some of the crazy stuff I do in my journals isn’t as crazy as I thought!
• Seeing my old pals, like Susan and Marcy and Karen and Terry, who I haven’t seen in a long time. I really admire the talent of these ladies!
• Meeting new people! Yes, I’m talking about you, you Ladies From Parker!
• Three full days of making art and playing. Heaven.

Last night, I was so amped up, I made 14 of the little paper journals while we watched tv. I love them.

I think my favorite book was the Reclaimed book. I love the idea of taking old books, gutting them, and making new pages for them.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, KELLY!

Clicking on any of the photos below should take you to my Flickr set of photos from this weekend. I should have taken more of the process, but I was too absorbed to even think of that.

Transcribed	Altered Photos Revisited
Triptych Book	Swatches: Little Paper Books
Reclaimed: An Altered Artist’s Book

I’ve been doing their website for a few years and now and then made some suggestions which have morphed into a position where I could be compensated for doing something I’m really good at. Long story short, they used to be more of a co-op, but now they have decided to create two positions — a marketing person and an operations person and the compensation would be studio space. I have really wanted to get out of the house more lately, as working at home can be a bit of a drag sometimes. I also want to give my art more serious attention; I thought that being in this type of atmosphere might help.

Friday afternoon I met with the artists, at the encouragement of Kat Peters-Midland, to be “interviewed” so the others could decide if I fit in with the existing studio artists. They were all really nice and seemed to like my work, although I felt very amateur and silly in their presence. (I’ll get over that, really.) An hour later, there was an email from Kat saying I’m in.

I’m very excited to have a studio, away from home, to work in. I think I’ll be more focused, as I won’t see my laptop across the room and worry about work that needs to be done, or laundry that needs to go into the dryer, etc. I’m super excited about finding a spot large enough to teach classes, as I’ve been wanting to do that for a while now and have a few workshop ideas bubbling up in the back of my head.

This coming week, i’ll go over to look at the spaces again and select mine, as well as to sign the contract. I think I move in July 1, but I’m hoping it will be a little sooner so I can participate in First Friday that month. I have so many ideas!

In the way of actual art-making, I have a few projects in progress, which I’ll write about soon. I completed a 9-month art therapy group yesterday, which also deserves a nice, thoughtful writeup. The photos in this post are from a swap I just did with Kelly and Venita. These two ladies make my heart sing. clicking on the photos will take you to larger versions, along with short explanations.

I have been doing less and less art lately. Mom visited for a week and then we took her to her sister’s house in Carbondale and spent last weekend there. I’ve also been trying to catch up on work (which exploded) this past week while she was out there. Auntie and cousin and small cousin (once removed) and tiny dog brought mom back yesterday and we had an evening and morning of hilarity. They’ve all headed home and the house is fairly quiet again, but Mom’s still here for a few more days before life gets back to normal. We have a little crafty itinerary, so I’m hoping I will post something yummy here in the next few days. Later today, we’re going to The Artists’ Nook, since mom hasn’t been there yet and I’ll probably teach mom some techniques tomorrow. She’s already collected some fallen leaves from my yard, so we’ll do some prints, I think! yay!

For now, I’ll just post this collage I did the week before last as a part of Collage Play With Crowabout. Clicky to see a larger version.

I also had some fun with gift wrap this weekend. My sister Angela turned 40 and I wrapped up a bunch of little gifts for her. I also wrote her a letter describing my story behind the gifts and stamped corresponding tags for each gift. It was fun to pull out my funny, off color stamps. I’m hoping my sister will enjoy opening her gifts as much as I hope she likes the gifts themselves.

The other revelation of the week is that a sewing machine doesn’t scary me anymore. This is huge, people. I vaguely remember using a tiny sewing machine when I was young. Maybe it was my mom’s old Singer from when she was a kid. I remember sewing tiny pillows and blankets for Barbie and sewing little booklets together. I don’t know just when I started to be completely afraid that I’d sew through my own finger. LOL

Mom wanted a sewing machine for Christmas, so I recommended to my brother to get the Hello Kitty one by Janome since it was highly recommended and inexpensive, but much better quality than that $10 crappy one you can get for paper at the craft store. For some reason, they sent him two, so mom gave me the other one for my birthday.

I received it in February and I looked at the box for months. I took it out of the box after the Lisa Englebrecht classes. I looked at it for a week. Then I took it to the kitchen table and looked at the booklet and learned all of the parts. Then, this weekend, I learned how to fill a bobbin and thread the machine and I played with scrap fabric and stitched what could have been a bean bag, had I had some beans to fill it with.

Upon the advice of Fran, I got a needle to use with metallic thread today and went to town. I started out by using a painted piece I made in Lisa’s class and I stenciled on the swirls with Color Mists. Then I stamped on it with gesso and foam stamps. I wrote the quote with a tough wash pen I bought from Lisa and then sewed on the little dove bead I had lying around for years, waiting for the perfect project.

A chopstick is sewn into the top and I tied cord around the ends. A little handmade bead Andrea sent me is up on the cord, right below where the hanger is. This piece is going to my friend Wendy for her birthday, which is at the end of this month. It isn’t perfect, it’s crooked, and I smudged it a little but I love it and I think she will, too!

Thursday is my self-appointed blog update day, but since yesterday was my birthday (I turned 41), and the day got so crazy with FUN, it never happened. First things first, I want to reflect on what a great day it was. Generally, I find that my birthday can get busy with phone calls and messages, especially since I work from home. Not that I’m complaining, of course. Everyone in my family feels the need to sing “Happy Birthday” to everyone on every birthday, too, so it’s hilarious. I spent a lot of the day laughing. I know, it’s shocking, isn’t it? I know my friends who know me and my state of late will find that very shocking!

Those who know me know that my life has been hard lately: Great disappointments, sad events, big health scares and broken friendships. In other words: LIFE. I do know things could be worse and I do know that God would never give me more than I can handle, but there have been times in the past 18 months where I didn’t think I could handle any of it.

But yesterday…yesterday was such a great day that I remembered the young, happy, optimistic Tracey and I even FELT like her, which was unusual and rare. All of the calls and cards and IMs and texts and emails and gifts reminded me that in spite of the bad stuff, I am so loved. And I am so blessed to have so many amazing people in my life. Even if a lot of them live inside my computer!

So, I’m working really hard on keeping that in my head and my heart. Today was a good day, especially because the cards are still pouring in. Crazy!! It’s also encouraged me to do more RAKs and other random notes/cards/art/communication for my friends and family, and not just my arty friends. How awesome does it feel when you know that so-and-so spent a few minutes picking out the perfect card to let you know you’re loved? My friend Shanna in Georgia sent me this amazing fruit bouquet yesterday and it really made me feel amazingly happy and loved. There was fruit and chocolate! WOW…Life can’t get any better right now.

Saturday, I flew into Phoenix and Andrea (of SunSpirit Studio fame!) picked me up. We headed over to a restaurant to meet Fran and Angie for a late dinner. Andrea and I then went to Fran’s house to stay overnight. The four of us shared artwork and chatted and hung out until we were all too tired to stand anymore. Andrea and I went to bed, but talked until we fell asleep. This proved to be a pattern for the rest of the week!

Sunday, Fran, Andrea and I went to lunch at Pick Up Stix where I had the best chicken bowl ever. We didn’t hang out a ton because Andrea and needed to head to the hotel to check in and get Andrea’s vehicle unloaded. Boy, she had a lot of stuff for her fabulous booth and make and takes.

Sunday evening was the Meet The Artists event, as well as the opening talk. I had a table and that went pretty well. I was happy to meet all of those people. I almost had a few extra signups as a result, but it never happened. It was ok, though, because I already had 13 signups!

My first class was with Marney, who runs Artella. It was called Blissness Plan Journal and it was a day of taking a more creative approach to a business plan. It was pretty cool and had me thinking about what steps I want to take next in my art and in my web design business.

Monday night, I taught my Websites 101 for Artists class. Boy, was I nervous! But, as my dear friends pointed out repeatedly as I was having small panic attacks, I really know the material and it was all going to be fine. A few students didn’t show up, but the class went great otherwise. The students were awesome, interested and attentive. I am toying with offering the class again next year.

Tuesday was a free day. We went shopping at Apache Reclamation for junk, then met Fran for sushi, then went to Creative Quest in Glendale. What a great store! You should definitely visit it when you’re in the area. We did a tiny bit of grocery shopping, too, and then headed back to the hotel. I had a class that evening with Kathy Cano Murillo, who was awesome. There is no photo here because I’m finishing up the project this weekend and giving it to my husband as his “souvenir”. I will post a photo later.

Wednesday, I took Let’s Face it, Be Fearless with Katie Kendrick. WOW! What a great instructor. I didn’t know what to expect, but basically it was intuitive collage and painting where we did these whimsical face paintings with Katie’s guidance. I was having such a hard time with it for a while there, but Katie really was encouraging and helpful. I feel great about my paintings now. Here they are (click image to see larger version in Flickr):

Happy McHapster	Babushka	I’ll Pout if I Want To

Thursday, I took Profound Secrets of the Burnt and Bound with Bernie Berlin. I learned a few techniques and got to play with Luna Lights paints, which was pretty neat. It was fun to play around with stamps and learn to get more use out of them. Her class featured Michael deMeng stamps. Here’s what I did:

Friday, I took an Architectural Structures class with Jane Wynn, who is the most enthusiastic happy lady I have met in a long time. She was lovely and helped me with the power tools and we built a box for our shrines and she gave us lots of great feedback and ideas for our shrines. I also learned to cut glass! It was really cool. She has a book coming out in the fall, which I will definitely be getting my hands on. I’d also take another class from her in the future. She was swell. Here is my shrine from that class. This was another project where I was miserable for a period of time until it started coming together. I call it “Birdhouse in Your Soul.” The focal point is a non-functioning night light I got years ago when I was really really into They Might Be Giants. I can’t remember exactly who gave it to me…one of the record company reps I worked with at the time. Anyway, I love that nightlight and now that it’s a bit flighty, it was time to retire it and this was the perfect way to do it. I may add a bit more at some point, like a little blue bird in the “attic.” Yay!

Friday night, I took a class called Resist This, which was based on a technique in Bernie’ book. It was a quickie and we left class early because we were so tired. I don’t have photos now, but will update later with them when I finish the pages we started.

Saturday was the Shopping Extravaganza! It was even better than last year, and last year was pretty good! I had fun all day, shopping, and checking in on Andrea at her booth.

I’m pretty sure I’ll go again next year, if I can afford it. I think it’s a good way to rejuvenate one’s creativity. I look forward to the day when I can focus more on art than anything else and Art Unraveled is a taste of what that would be like (minus the 400 other women milling around, of course!)