Trying To Stay Focused

I forgot, I thought today was Tuesday. So this is a Self-Portrait Wednesday. Me, trying to stay focused on me, my life, my son, my art, my job, my skills, my flowers, my photography, my friends, and each minute of my day, which literally feel like they are jetting by in some weird warped speed. I am waiting for Christina, then we are off to Port Townsend! Will report back soon with lots of fun ideas to share. ')

Painted

Cherries and hydrangeas by Cora Ogden. Lake Reflection by Jeffrey Vaughn. More artist found at the Sherry French Gallery.

Rocks Rock

Lots of my favorite thing via Sa Marraine la Fée. Take a walk on the beach with David Hibbard. Rock piles at Rialto Beach.

Jared In The Spotlight

My friend, Jared, has a nice write up about his extraordinay body of work on lines and color. Not only is he very talented, humble, he is the nicest person you could hope to meet.

Trillium

I spent most of yesterday contacting, calling, emailling M's teachers. After a broken collar bone and a week out with a terrible flu, he is very behind in school. ;0

I made some trades yesterday, which I had decided to just blow off due to time. I also got obsessed with making tin charms ... not sure I conquered that. Still can't find the tool to put the rivet on ... for another time, I guess. But I have NO nails lets! I managed to file and chip most of them off yesterday.



My neighbors Trillium are blooming!

Finding Spring

I would love to make beautiful things like these by Karen Nicol.



Look, more butterflies! These woven our of stainless steel (how does she do that?) by Michelle McKinney.



Stuart Haygarth light, color and whimsy.

All of these links found on the delightful blog dear ada, Thank You!

Friday Flickr Fix ;) and the Flickr pool , go have a look, it is very, very fun photo combinations.

Answer Me This

Yesterday I took a little walk at work to breathe in some moist, cold, Seattle air and look at what is blooming on campus. But here is my question: why do the trees and shrubs that bloom in the spring have such a sweet, but delicate scent. Almost undetectable at first but once you catch the slight, fragrant scent, it is complete heaven.



Oregon grape has become one of my favorite sniffs this spring.

Below, a Spring snow magnolia blossom.



I finished my last butterfly canvas last night, made from decorative envelopes and green monopoly money. I am calling it "check is in the mail". It feels so good to use up little bits and pieces of saved papers that hang about my studio in various boxes and bags.



And this entry for the grandparents. M had his big jazz concert last night. He looked so handsome in his suit and tie. Sorry, my photos are so blurry.





So now I am off to get my supply list together today.

JPG Magazine (Online)

JPG Magazine has some incredible photo submissions, now in themes, visual inspiration.

Michele Unger

Rise Up!

Details

Welcome, ghosts.

z shift

2 to 9

cherry blossom mandala (from flickr).

dhlovelife

Daryl Hannah has a video blog about the environment.

Click And Clack

I am addicted to Click and Clack. Their recently hired staff (hysterical). I listen to them at work on Saturday mornings and laugh out loud! A little background about the hosts - Thomas L. Magliozzi and Ray Magliozzi.

Journals

Add to all the things I would love to make, From Prints into Journals from five and a half, via Camilla.

Selected Works

Silja Goetz

Serial Cut™

IIllustration Mundo

Stephanic Wunderlich

3 in a box illustrator's site.

Shinichi Imanaka illustrations.

Buttons And Plaid

I have been considering the option of not going to ArtFest because I have so much to do at work, in my personal like, etc. My family says ... "No! You must go". And in the last couple of nights of forcing myself into the studio to do these little canvases of butterflies, I realize, I do need to go and enjoy a couple of days of creating art without any disruptions. Fill myself up with ideas, get away and just sit at in one place for hours and think about nothing except the process of creating.

More butterflies, I still have a couple drying downstairs. Finally using all of those envelopes, monopoly money, specialities papers, that I have sitting in sacks all around the studio, and that feels good! I attached threads for the grid on the canvas, and I just loved the flow and randomness of them hanging down and can't cut them off. Tonight I added a couple of single butterflies to them. Still having fun.

Planet Earth

I can't wait until Sunday to see this!

"More than five years in the making, PLANET EARTH redefines blue-chip natural history filmmaking and continues the Discovery Channel mission to provide the highest quality programming in the world. The 11-part series will amaze viewers with never-before-seen animal behaviors, startling views of locations captured by cameras for the first time, and unprecedented high-definition production techniques. Award-winning actress and conservationist Sigourney Weaver is the series' narrator""

Extraordinary Kids

This is so cool, art work by CrisVector via kriegsnet blog, Jason Krieger, who has the extraordinary online magazine (and one of my favorites) Phirebrush. Go have a look at Desktopography, Natural Designer Wallpaper Exhibition.

Butterfly Punch Addiction

Now, I am having a little too much fun. ;)

8x8

I almost finished 3 of 4 8x8 art for ArtFest tonight ;) I blame the butterfly punch.

Gentle Rain

Blossoms are soaking up a gentle rain today.

Self-Portrait Challenge - 03.20

I almost forgot it is Tuesday, which means, Self-PortraitTuesday. "Wanted for being a bad photographer" wouldn't fit ;)

Clever Ideas

I completed two of my projects yesterday. And managed to do a little art studio cleaning. I can't talk about my project because it is secret and I signed a confidentiality clause ;)



I love art for housewives, clever, cool and all about the recycling effort! I wish I had hours per day to read and comment of all of these cool blogs. I found many of these links there today.

WasteNothing - Use everything and waste nothing!

One/Change – Making one change at a time.

Harriete Estel Berman's sculpture, square yard of grass made from pre-printed steel, copper base.

Michele Brody, Land-Scaping. "Three walls of windows covered with lace curtains hung from CPVC pipes overlooking an herb garden. 7 curtains sewn together with pockets in which 7 different culinary herbs were planted and watered by a drip irrigation system." "Garden Lace" seen below, isn't that fabulous? You must go look at her incredible installations!



Heritage Salvage via a wonderful blog recycle-ryoanji.

Making art from plastic bags.

Tamar Mogendorff via Happy Cavalier via another wonderful blog this is love forever. So many great blogs out there ... I wonder why I keep doing it myself. I should just become a viewer.

I have mentioned Angie Lewin before but her work is so stunning, This Island Teasels reminds me of this alien seed pod I found on an old dirt road.

The cutest closets by Kast van een Huis via Bloesem.

What a clever idea, paperback swap.

Art Close Up

Thankfully I looked up while I was cleaning the studio to see an Art Close Up segment on PBS and caught Pat Keck's work! Wonderful stuff. She hand carves all of her pieces and does all the mechanical work. Brilliant. I had a little tear fall from my eye while watching it.



And the photographer, Arno Minkkinen, made me smile. Please, do yourself a favor andh check out his work!

Panic Mode

I am so behind on everything in my life and today I am feeling the weight of that pressure like a ton of bricks. Getting ready for ArtFest, making trades. Not even sure I will have time to do that. The theme of trades this year will be charms. And I did make a charm bracelet of Monopoly houses for a real estate friend. So I was thinking maybe I could pull that off. Also I have been collecting and cutting up old tin for a year now to make one of these very cute bracelets. Not sure I have time to cut and sand a bunch of little tin charms?







I also started the 8x8 canvas of butterflies that I would like to finish to participate in the gallery show at ArtFest.

Need to get my suppy list together for the Keith Lo Bue class I have for two days.

Not to mention a prototype I am putting together for a friend, must finish that today! And a little freelance job I worked on all day yesterday. Of course, this does not include of the real work I have due at my job and the on-the-job-training that I have brought home and need to finish up one of the courses online.

So, I am having a little mental breakdown this morning ;) Wish me luck.

Feeling Scared

Dominque Browning, Editor of House & Garden magazine, has an excellent editorial in the April 2007 issue on "Our Planet, Ourselves".

National Geographic has a special report in the April 2007 issue on "Saving the Sea's Bounty". As a side note, this is piece was shot by Randy Olson (and his wife, Melissa Farlow, also a wonderful photographer) that D and I have the privileged to know. I have been feeling guilty for sometime when I eat fish. The idea that of over-fishing takes the pleasure out of eating crab, lobster or any fish for that matter. I hardly ever do. I have not been to one of those steak and lobster restaurants in over 20 years. And I am thinking my neighbor Laura has the right idea, go vegetarian.

2005 was one of the hottest years ever recorded.

We all know something is running amuck in our world. We read the news and see the evidence. I am in constant discussion with my friends about the subject. I do my little bit, turning off lights, combining driving trips to the stores, recycling. But I know these things are not enough and I keep wondering ... what are we to do? What does an individual do to help out our world in crisis? What can the blogging community do? Have you guys heard of anything extraordinary that we can do? I mean really DO. I am feeling very helpless, frustrated, worried and SCARED.

Over A Barrel

Ran across Stanker site tonight looking for instructions on how to make recycled tin charms (an artfest endeavor -- we will see if that really happens).

Stanker

Daniel Depoutot

Stefan Lehner

5.5 Designers

No Art

Free People

Self-Portrait Challenge - 03.27

Big Hairy Deal

Hair Raising is an exhibition designed and hand-sewn by Sandy Suffield via 30gms.



Hair wreath found at the Victorian HairWork Society. A hair museum?




A wall of pseudo-english, chinese, hindi, arabic and world ethnical maps made of human hair with african shorn hair on the ground.

Mee Ping Leung's hand-made shoes of human hair.

Birdhouses

My S-I-L sent me this most excellent link."They get artists to make them every year and auction them off for a girls' group home."

Museum Of Glass

Museum Of Glass, Tacoma. A great place to visit.

Photo Friday - Addiction

My addiction smells good, is a visual treat and a little gift from nature, Flowers! Addiction for Photo Friday. More of my addiction here and here.

Vacation Day 3

Museum of Glass, Tacoma.





Here and here for larger views of the glass ceiling.

Swung through the Arboretum to see what was blooming.



And some of the group headed to the mountains to ski.

Hyacinth

Vacation

My best friend from college, Faith, and her posse, Mackenzie, Ian and Nita came to visit! Yesterday we did Pike Place Market, Bodies Exhibit, driving around Seattle. Today we headed out to Fort Casey, Deception Pass, La Conner (and a couple of daffodils fields) and Mt. Baker. Tomorrow skiing (for some) and the Glass Museum for some of us! And today I turned 51 :) where did the year go?



Pike Place Market





Going into the Bodies Exhibit



Fort Casey



Something found on the beach.





I was there, at Fort Casey



Daffodils at La Conner



Are we there yet?



Driving to Mt. Baker, trying to see the Ice Caves.