Oh Happy Day!!!

 

I’m so excited!  I have found a studio space in my new home town!

I dithered about what to do when I moved – I thought that perhaps the thing to do was to work from my home.  I don’t have the space for a dedicated studio room, but I thought maybe I could store the glass in the garage and work at the dining table.  After two days I knew that I could NEVER live with this mess on a continuing basis, so I set about searching for something cheap, local, and in the company of other artists.

Jonesborough is not a large town, so I thought it might be more promising to try Johnson City, which is a 15 – 25 minute drive, depending on which side of town you’re headed for.  They also do First Friday every month, which I would really like to participate in, and have an active Arts Council.  However, finding space wasn’t easy, and finding space in the company of other artists was impossible.  Discouraged, I set off for home.

On the way, I drove by Jonesborough Fine Art, a gallery I had been meaning to visit since I got here, but hadn’t managed to stop in yet.  I thought they might be a good resource – maybe they would know of a space for rent suitable for an art studio in the vicinity. As it happens, they are a brand new non-profit co-op gallery (July 2011) and have two studios in the back of the gallery, both of which were available and affordable!  They both need a little work, and the one I chose is currently being used as a catch-all for DIY supplies, but it has a closet and the other does not.  At approximately 12’ X 12’, I could use a little more elbow room, but it’s convenient, affordable and way better than my dining room!  Besides, I’d rather be in a smaller space and around other artists, than in a huge studio with no one to talk to!

The nice thing is that it will serve both as work space and display space.  And the very best part?  It’s 5 minutes from my house. Awesome sauce.

Before pics:

 

 

 

From the hallway leading to the studio – the stairs lead to space upstairs that will eventually be used as classroom space (at no additional cost!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The closet looks small because the doorway is skinnier than normal, but it is about 3 feet deep and goes back all the way under the stairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking in from the doorway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A peek in the window.

 

 

 

 

They started cleaning it out for me this past Saturday, and I’ll be able to get in there next week to paint and begin moving in.  I still have most of my studio stuffed in a storage shed in Indiana, so I will be organizing a trip to collect it in a couple of weeks (weather permitting).

I’m so excited!

 

Technorati Tags: studio space,Jonesborough Fine Art

Do as I say, not as I do….

 

I am nothing if not a rule breaker. Rule flaunter, even. The key to doing this successfully is to: 1) understand the risks you take, and 2) be at peace with the potential consequences.

So here is today’s situation…I have an end table that I picked up at a garage sale a couple of years ago.  I didn’t like it, but I needed another one and it was solid wood and cheap.  I thought it might grow on me, but it never really did.  It’s just a bit too large for the space, and it has no shelves or drawers.

We have just moved into a new house and it has a wonderful deck, part of which is under a large overhang of the roof.  I have an old rocking chair that I have been intending to refurbish and set outside, and this end table would be a perfect accompaniment.  The chair is the one my grandmother used to rock me in when I was a baby (aw!!) so even though it was badly in need of a new paint job and had no seat, the sentimental value meant I would willingly put the work into it rather than find another.

I chose a periwinkle blue for the chair, and as you can see I have started reweaving a seat for it.  I have done this on some old ladder back chairs from years ago using natural jute.  I loved the look, but they didn’t last as long as I would like.  So this time I’m using poly twine (also because it will stay outside). I will put an outdoor cushion on it too.

I decided that since the table will be under the large overhang and likely not get wet (it is also leeward – the rain generally comes from the other direction) I would paint it to match and mosaic the top. Yes, even though you should NEVER mosaic wood for use outdoors.  (As per the first paragraph: 1) I risk the wood swelling and popping off the tiles, and 2) I expect to get several years of use out of it first, and when it’s a goner I’ll accept that.) 

I do want to point out that if I were making this table for sale I would ABSOLUTELY NOT use wood.

As for design, I’m using a rug I snagged at the Dollar Store as inspiration.  It looks very 70s to me.  I’ll probably keep the same color scheme as the rug.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the drawing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: mosaic table,70s design,rule breaking,mosaicing on wood

Totally phoning it in.

 

I have internet again! Real internet – not that fake crap you get on a smart phone. The kind that allows me to find my photos, type like a bat out of hell, and post meaningless stuff all over the interwebs.

However, you can thank the brilliant mosaic artist Linda Smith for saving you from meaningless stuff today, because she shared her secrets for shading grout on a mosaic piece.  I couldn’t describe it any better, and besides, she’s done all the hard work for me. 

Click on the picture to fly on over to her blog and see her process for grouting this lovely piece.

I’m now settling in to my new home in Tennessee, and hopefully I’ll have some new work of my own to share with you very soon.

 

© Linda Pieroth Smith

Let me apologize in advance….

 

There’s a fine line between copying someone else’s artwork, and making your own interpretation of a theme.  And I don’t mean to imply that I have walked that fine line this time.  I totally copied.  And I’m sorry.  Really.

My son is 24, and still a kid at heart.  Always will be, and that’s a big part of his charm.  One of the things that tickles him is the Homestar Runner cartoons.  Homestar, his girlfriend Marzipan, a Mexican wrestler named Strong Bad, The Cheat, Coach Z – they are all ridiculous, but they make me giggle.  I can’t actually recommend you go waste your day on these cartoons, but if you appreciate utter silliness as I do, go check them out here.

Anyway, one of the characters is Trogdor (aka ‘The Burninator’)– a dragon with one arm.  A couple of months ago, my son found this online, and posted it on my Facebook wall with the caption “DO WANT!”:

I have searched for the name of the maker, and would love to give full credit for it, but I haven’t had any luck.  If you happen to know who made this, leave a comment here and I’ll update it.

So obviously, what’s a mother to do?  I had to make him one. 

I made the decision to do this just before packing up my studio and putting it in storage, so I held out only the things I would need for this project.  Because I had no studio to work in, I decided to use only stained glass and polymer clay.  My thinking was that a few sheets of stained glass would give me a range of hues without having hundreds of jars of glass to choose from.  After researching the character a little more I decided to make the background from shades of white, which would also make the dragon stand out more.  The letters, feet, eyes and smoke swirl are polymer clay, the rest is Van Gogh glass and stained glass:

Waaay outside of my normal style, but fun.  And a surprising Christmas present for my son, who, at his age, isn’t easy to surprise.

Technorati Tags: Homestar Runner,Trogdor,mosaic,dragon,Christmas

Happy Holidays!

 

Did you get a copy of my holiday newsletter?  If not, why aren’t you subscribed?!?  Run right over there on the right side of this page and scroll down and sign up before you miss any more!  I’ll wait – go on.

 

Done?  Ok, click the ornament to see what you missed this time around:

 

Technorati Tags: holiday newsletter,happy holidays,merry christmas

A monkey in the pudding

 

There is not a lot of art being made here these days.  I’m sure everyone is finding that the holidays slow them down a bit too.  But in addition to the holiday hub-bub keeping me busy, my husband and I are getting ready to move to Tennessee, and most of you will know how a move (or even just the prospect of one) can throw a monkey in the pudding (my husband’s new phrase, thank you very much!).

We will be moving to Kingsport, TN (or very near) within the next month or so.  On Wednesday of this week we’ll travel there to find a new home and check out all that the area has to offer.  From the limited view I’ve had through the internet it looks like a wonderful area.  I hope very much that there is a lively art scene, but I don’t think you can get a sense of it until you go see. 

In the meantime, the best I could do is an unfinished study of a sycamore tree.  It will likely never be finished, because…..well…. I just don’t care.  But it was something to do, and it felt good to have an image develop from my scribbles again.

 

 

 

 

Sycamore study
Conte crayon on Bristol paper

 

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Drawing,sycamore,conte crayons,Tennessee,moving

My creativity has severe limits.

 

See what happens when I have to channel my creativity into other areas of my life?

Ok, I realize it doesn’t look that bad.  But here’s the thing – the Old Bay seasoning was the ONLY thing that made it palatable.

Maybe you need a little backstory here:  I hate cooking.  No, that’s not quite it –

 

I loathe cooking.  I hate kitchens and everything in them.  Except the water tap.  That I can handle.

But I have been left to my own devices now for 4 days and counting.  I’m hungry.

All of the food that I could just take out of the fridge and put in my mouth is gone, so I had to cook today.  Chicken breasts seemed like the easiest thing to prepare, but I like the one dish kinda thing – put your protein, your vegetables and starches all in the same dish, grab a fork and off you go.

But I wasn’t in the mood to hike off to the grocery, so we use what we have, right?

I had chicken, eggs, avocado, celery and

 

I hate to admit it

 

spaghetti.

 

Yeah. 

 

That might have been creative, but it was barely edible. 

 

I need a studio soon.

 

Technorati Tags: food,yuk,creative cooking

Stealing souls and stacking rocks

 

Not much to talk about these days, at least in the art department.  Don’t yet have access to a studio, so although I could just pull out the watercolors and set up on the dining table, I’m not yet in the frame of mind for that.  With all the confusion over the move and my husband’s job offers (which is still not settled yet), and the news this morning that my mother fell and broke both of her elbows, I’m out of sorts.  I feel so restless that I can’t really cope with having to drag everything out and put it all away each time I want to mess with it.

So instead I took Gracie to the lake on this gorgeous day (even though I should be doing laundry).  I had a hard time convincing her that the camera phone wouldn’t steal her soul, wrangling her around to look forward.  She finally decided that maybe having her soul stolen was less onerous than dealing with me.

And no trip to the lakeshore is complete without a stack of rocks on the driftwood -

 

Technorati Tags: rock stack,Zen,Lake Ontario,stress

Now what?

 

It’s a process, this adaptation.  I know that.  However, when you don’t know what to do next to facilitate it, you can really benefit from being the patient type.  I am not the patient type.  Although I am a much more patient driver than my mother-in-law.  But that’s a story for another day.

I moved last weekend and am now 500 miles away from my life of the last year, but now I seem to be in a limbo of sorts.  The majority of my studio is in a storage shed in Indiana for several reasons.  The biggest reason is that it’s possible that job opportunities might necessitate another move.  How many times do I really want to move several hundred pounds of glass?  And yet, how will I know when this period of uncertainty is over?

For now I will look for the creativity in everyday things.  And I will knit a lot.  The repetitive nature of knitting calms me.  I begin to seem like an obsessive troll to those around me – hunched over clacking knitting needles in a dark corner, ignoring the dog’s whimpers for a walk – but I tell them it’s cheaper than therapy.

Technorati Tags: adaptation,therapy,creativity,moving

Stunning portraits by Atsuko Laskaris

 

I am usually most captivated by mosaics by other artists that approximate what I am striving for in my own.  There is one hearty exception, and that is Atsuko Laskaris.  I have the utmost respect for her portraiture work, even though I haven’t the slightest interest in ever creating a portrait myself.  The depth and beautiful light play are really astounding in her works.  The one below, Soloist, is my favorite.

See a close up and in progress shot of this on the Mosaic Art Now blog.  There are several more astounding pieces as well as a short bio of the artist on that post as well.  Go check it out!

 

Technorati Tags: stained glass,Atsuko Laskaris,Mosaic Art Now,Soloist