I’ve been wanting to play around with mail art for a while and finally created a few pieces this weekend. My step-mom Sharon had been asking for some new pictures of the girls for months, so I figured since it took me so long to send them to her, I’d at least dress up the envelope! This piece was done on a 6"x9" photo mailer. I really had fun creating this, and I can see that it could become addicting! Thanks to Roben-Marie for the inspiration.
I was incredibly productive this weekend! My dad was in town for a visit and he’s always up for a project so I talked him and DH into finally putting up my shelves I’ve been wanting in my studio. Whoo hoo! I’ve filled them with all my rubber stamps. Yes, I could show you a picture, but I didn’t think to take one before I trashed my workshop playing again. I’ll work on that! As for the playing, here’s one of my creations from the weekend. I mentioned Roben-Marie’s altered art tag tutorial in my last post, so here’s my first tag. Click on the photo to enlarge. It took me a couple incarnations to get it like I wanted it, but I’m happy with the finished product! The back (below) actually includes a strip cut from the failed first attempt. Perfect for recycling! I’ve had this phrase in my head for a few weeks from a nursery rhyme challenge I saw somewhere, so I finally put it to good use. I’m finding that I’m definitely a finger-painter. :-)
So what's my wish? My wishes lately have been funneled into my Purple Cottage. Carmen and I are almost ready to release our first program! What are you wishing for?
Yesterday morning I spent some time catching up on Roben-Marie Smith’s video tutorials. Roben-Marie is an excellent teacher! The altered art tags video sent me to the office supply store to pick up some shipping tags. But before I started playing on those, the girls and I spent last night playing around with stencils and punchinella (sequin waste) and spray inks on plain white index cards. We had ink EVERYWHERE. I need to learn a little self control there. These are just a few of our experiments. And yes, the colors truly are that bright and vibrant (you know I’m a color girl!). This stuff is addicting. I must admit after playing with what I had, I went online and ordered 12 colors of the Adirondack color wash ink spray. Like I said, I need to learn a little self control! :-) Got a great price at MisterArt.com though! So today, I spent some time cleaning up and reorganizing my studio!
On the heels on Carmen’s Spill It! online workshop, I’ve started taking Susan Tuttle’s Visual Poetry workshop, in which I’m learning tips and tricks in Photoshop for altering my photographs. I’m about a week behind (as usual, aren’t I always behind?…though this time it’s been because I’m still having too much fun playing with Carmen’s workshop). Thankfully, the first week covered techniques I’m already pretty familiar with. Now I just know how to do on purpose the things I’ve stumbled across on accident! I took this photo about a month ago while on my trip to check out my dream property, diffused the light levels a little bit and added another layer. Click on the photo to really see all the pretty script. Pretty dreamy, huh?
Speaking of dreamy, remember those baby steps I told you about here? We are picking up steam! I’m working Carmen, my fellow dreamer for this first round, to create our first art retreat! Yippee! Carmen will handle the teaching while I handle the logistics. I plan and facilitate leadership retreats and conferences in my day job, so what better way to take what I can already do with my eyes closed and make it artful. Carmen and I are both so excited! I hope to have the website for the program up soon…the first official trip to the Purple Cottage…and Carmen’s program will be Art and Dreams with Carmen Torbus. For now, mark your calendars to take a fun little trip to North Florida April 9-11, 2009. Details to come! Yeah!
Cleaning up my mess of a studio today, I found several requests I’ve been needing to get too. One was a mother’s bracelet that needed to be reworked and another name added, and the second were these earrings. Ms. Lily’s probably forgotten all about them by now! Her request was completely buried in a basket the girls had filled with their stuff (everyone’s stuff ends up in my studio). Ms. Lily purchased these from me at the Bartow Blooming Arts Festival in March 2008 and lost one last Fall (yes, that would be Fall 2008). She mailed the orphan back to me and asked if I could make it a pair again. Well, better late than never, I guess. They are finally on their way. The stones on the bottom are aquamarine, topped with clusters of khaki and lt. Colorado topaz Swarovski crystals with 14K gold-filled findings. Since I’ve been working on so many varied art forms here lately, my studio is in a constant state of undo! Sorry for the glare; getting a little late in the afternoon to be taking pictures! Now if I could just find my special little packaging box….
Free Bling Friday time! Random.org picked number 52 out of 52 entries (two entered via email!) for October’s Free Bling winner, so congrats to Andrea V. from Rock Falls, IL.
For November, how about a little bling for your home? November’s entry is my “Watching Melrose” photo mounted on a 6” x 6” wood block. You can find this photo in my Etsy shop here. These look great sitting in a window sill or on a shelf. To be eligible to win, simply leave a comment in the comment box (be sure you leave me a way to reach you and where you are from!) or email me with the subject line FREE BLING and include where you're from by midnight Thursday, December 3. Want two entries? Tweet, blog or Facebook this giveaway and leave a second comment with the link. The next winner will be drawn via random.org Friday, December 4. Don't want to miss a single Free Bling Friday? Click here to sign up for free weekly email reminders or subscribe in the reader of your choice in the right column over there. Be sure to join my Facebook Fan page over there in the right column as well for Fan specials!
I was catching up with some Facebook friends last week and my blogging and art friend Carmen shared, “Having an article and blog feature in this issue of Artful Blogging is a dream come true! What's on your list of dreams?” I shared with you one of my dreams in my Purple Cottage post. Then I told you I’d be checking out a piece of property I’ve been watching for quite a while in this post. I’ve admitted here before that I haven’t totally bought into the whole “universe bringing you what you desire” concept just yet, but some little things here and there have been leading me more towards believing that, and my little visit to check out this property was a big knock on the head! I’ve known the property since college; it’s been unoccupied for at least 15 years. In that 15 years, it’s also never been for sale. So, guess what? The first time I go over to seriously take a look at it? Yep, big For Sale sign right up front. Here are a few pictures.
Walking around the property, I was able to really think through my dream, standing right there…right where it could actually happen. There are 10 small cottages and two small-house type structures on about 3.5 acres with 700’ waterfront footage and two docks with 16 boat slips, and then another 4 acres of undeveloped land across the street. All the structures, as well as the docks, are in good solid shape; they just need some TLC and cosmetic enhancements. So what would I do with it? The cottages would remain just as they were initially meant to be used, for lodging. They are all about efficiency size, though I’d put double queens in each for bedding to allow for more flexibility. I’d renovate one of the larger buildings into a classroom/workshop space and the other into a café/gallery space with “front office” facilities. I’d use the facility as a whole for all-inclusive art retreats, wellness retreats, and corporate team-building retreats. While the cottages are not being used for retreats, the facility would essentially be a B & B, targeting couples/families and/or corporate big wigs looking for a unique, peaceful getaway. We’d have charter fishing services available for both the retreat attendees (thinking bored husbands/boyfriends here) and B & B guests. We’d subdivide the property across the street so it remains deeded separately from the “business” property since that’s where we’d build our houses.
I have a close friend I’ve been thinking this through with. Kath has been a high level exec with Coca-Cola since we graduated from college and is ready to escape from the corporate world. We are the perfect team for this. I have the retreat planning, leadership, team-building, and art background, and she has the wellness, business and corporate contacts background. Our husbands would handle the excursions, dining and general maintenance aspects. She also has twin boys who would grow up having the hots for my twin redheads. :-)
So back to Madame Universe and her connection to the property and my current employment. As I was driving over to see the property, I got the call to schedule my final interview for my position of choice. Then, boom. The next morning, there’s this big For Sale sign staring me in the face. My dream, right there ready to happen. That was a Friday; my interview was scheduled for first thing Monday morning. Interesting timing, don’t you think? When I didn’t get the offer for the campus I wanted, that For Sale sign popped back into my head. Maybe that was part of my message that a new job was not the right thing for me right now. I’ve always been one to follow my gut, and once my top choice was off the table, I knew I needed to stay where I was.
So what’s next? What’s next is to just keep the dream alive while we work through the possibilities. The property is currently listed for $1.6 million, but given the economy, the amount of time it’s been sitting there, the fact the most others interested in it would probably be knocking down what’s there and starting from scratch, and what I’ve learned from others who have property in the area, I think we could get them down under $1 million. So we’ll see what happens. Initially I hesitated sharing my thoughts with you here, because once you put it out there, it’s out there for anyone to snag, right? But then I realized that if you don’t share your dreams with others, how can they help you get there? This particular piece of property may work out, and it may not, but it’s made me realize that I can do this...if not with this property, then with another. For now, though, baby steps. Still working out the details on my first baby steps, but I’ll share those with you soon! In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on my initial plan.
Sometimes I think it takes almost walking away from something to realize that what you currently have is truly a pretty good thing. That’s the lesson I learned last week. As I’ve shared with you guys here recently, I’d applied for a new job, still with the College but a little different focus than what I’m doing now. The process took a looooonnnnnnggggg time. However, I’m now done. :-) The results? I was one of two finalists for the position at the campus I was most interested in, but the position went to my competition. This Thursday, I’m scheduled to have my final interview for the position here on my campus. But I won’t be having that interview. Why? Well, since this process has taken so long, it’s given me the opportunity to really think things through, and I realized that I’ve got a darn good gig right where I am. I realized that I was far more attracted to the opportunity to once again work with a former colleague and supervisor than I was to the actual position itself, so I have officially pulled my name out of the hat.
I truly do enjoy my job (College-wide Coordinator of Student Life and Leadership Development for those of you wondering). Sure, there are the occasional rough spots, as all jobs have, but I know that I have a positive impact on the students that I work with, and I know that when they take the time to really listen, I’m teaching them very important life skills, while oftentimes having a darn good time in the process. More importantly, I have a heck of a lot of freedom and flexibility in my current role. That freedom and flexibility gives me the opportunity to do what’s most important when necessary: spend time with my girls. I can go on field trips with them, visit them at school for special programs, take a day off with them when needed without the world coming to an end. Moments after I met with my Campus President to tell her my decision, I felt the weight of the world lift off my shoulders. That’s when you know you’ve done the right thing.
All that said, I received another little knock from the universe here recently that also helped steer my path. Stay tuned. I’ll tell you what that was a little later this week. So, give it some thought. Maybe you are right where you need to be at this moment too.
In the spirit of full disclosure, here’s the last of what I’ve done with my two Spill It! canvases for Carmen’s class, at least for the transfer technique. The house came out better than the flower, but safe to say both of them will be collaged over for other projects. (First look at the house here.) I added some paint around the edges and a few more dabs here and there on the house, but there really was no hope for my flowers! I’ve been trying to figure out what went wrong here, and best I can tell, I, um we, scrubbed too much and got all the way back down to the canvas, which you can really see on the left side (below). I say “we” because I let Sarah and Olivia have their way with rubbing the paper off this one.
So what would I have done differently? First, I wouldn’t have tackled such a large canvas (11 x 14) for my first efforts. Smaller probably would have been better in this case. Second, I wouldn’t have had my friend Melissa, who owns a print shop, print the photo copies for me. I neglected to tell her what I was doing so she printed them out on nice, high quality glossy paper, assuming I was going to use them as they were…as photographs! When I asked Carmen about this, she agreed that the higher quality paper probably did make the rubbing off more difficult. Overall though, I learned a ton and Carmen is incredibly encouraging. I learned that I love making backgrounds the way Carmen demonstrated (here) and that I’m not crazy about image transfers. Still working through the basic collage and drip writing lessons so I’ll share those with you soon.
The girls had the day off yesterday for a county-wide teacher’s planning day, so I took the day off with them. We went into my campus first thing to put up the ribbons and flyers in remembrance of Somer Thompson. We have nearly 75 brick columns like the one you see here, and more than 50 of them are adorned like this (you can click on the photo to enlarge). Our campus president has already offered to waive Somer’s mother’s fees for her classes this term and provide her a presidential scholarship for next term. This morning I met with our Foundation representatives, and we are moving forward with establishing the Somer Thompson Memorial Scholarship Fund. The support from our Board of Trustees and Cabinet has been overwhelming. We’ll start raising seed funds at our regularly-scheduled Fall Fest event tomorrow and then once Somer’s mom has had a chance to get through this initial time, we’ll meet with her about the details of the scholarship. I really want her to have input into the requirements for the scholarship. If you’d like to contribute to the scholarship seed fund, please email me and I’ll send you the details.
While the girls were helping my students and I put the ribbons and flyers up, as six-year-olds will, they asked a lot of questions about the little girl on the flyers and why we were putting up the ribbons. I told them more about Somer and how important it was to remember her and celebrate her life. Each night when we put the girls to bed, I ask them what their favorite part of their day was. When I started our nightly ritual last night and asked Sarah about her favorite part of the day, she said, “Mama, first I want to tell you about the saddest part of the day.” “Okay,” I said, guessing where this was going, “what was the saddest part of the day?” She continued, “I’m really sad that that little girl was killed. I know her Mama must be really, really, really sad. Can we make her a card?” The sweetness of children… I told her that certainly we could, and then asked her what her favorite part of the day was. She replied, “Smoothing out the ribbons on the columns.” “Wow,” I said, “even more than the pumpkin patch!?” “Oh! I forgot about the pumpkin patch! Okay, that was a tie.”
In my line of work, we talk about “teachable moments,” experiences my students go through that provide valuable teaching lessons. Those teachable moments work for little ones, too. It’s sad to teach the lesson of Somer Thompson, but the opportunity to bring recognition to one child’s life to protect another’s is the most valuable lesson of all.
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