Zombie!

My community college student and friend Ashley, wearing her fabulous zombie jeans!
Isn't she clever!? I bet I could get her to take commissions......

Oxygen

I'm now back from "Adorn Me!" in Houston and what a great time!
Met Janice Berkebile and what FUN we had! Up to all hours yaking.....

I thought I'd share this image. Its creativity coach Jill Badonsky's from her freeing your creativity newsletter. You can subscribe here. The newsletter title this time was "Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard".
The image came with the caption "creativity is my oxygen".
So true.

Cog Love

Happy Valentine's Day!

















The reverse, concave side of this pendant is enameled red:

The Move, Paper Animation

Saw this on Etsy. TOO cool!

Western Tapestry

I love films. Hey, we all do, right? Often I love films others could care less about or even can't stand! And often I stumble upon things way after they've been long forgotten by the rest of the world.
And I really love westerns.
I recently saw True Grit. Enough, I'm sure, has been said about it these days. Fantastic of course, and I plan to see it again. My western obsession needed another fix last night, so Robert and I watched The Missing with Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones, two of my favorite actors. I had no idea what to expect. I'd just gotten into grad school when this movie, directed by Ron Howard, came out. So I was among the missing myself, so to speak! All I can say is WOW. Why did I not hear about this film? Did everyone hate it or something? I found it riveting. Cate performance was astounding. Maybe I'm too easy to please, who knows. I do know I adore being mesmerized by lighting, textures and I get real into art direction,wardrobe, set design and direction and props. Hey lets face it, I'm visually oriented, like you probably are. I was so stimulated by the texture and lighting and wardrobe in this film that I think I dreamed about it all last night.
Cate's wardrobe was late 1800's perfection. The two coats she wore in the film... well now, I must have! I have been thinking all morning about how I could make them. Then again having her figure would be a necessity too and that's not going to happen any time soon! I could go on and on.... the house, Cate Blanchett's hat and belts, the quilt on her lover's bed, the winter light coming through the windows, the little rock structure towards the end of the film, the mocassins Tommy Lee Jone gives her daughter, the necklaces he wears, the silver cross they exchange, the leather saddlebags on his horse, his silver embellished Mexican saddle (made by Mortenson Saddlery), Tommy Lee Jones' shirts and the silver button at the neck in one scene, and the coup de gras the found object chest embellishment on the evil Yaqui shaman! (Who is played by the same actor who plays the beautiful Uncas in Last of the Mohicans, believe it or not!) It's a brutal film, a hard one for a mother to watch, but as Cate's character says in the film you don't know how to stop.

Elbow live, with the BBC Concert Orchestra

"We make the moon our mirrorball....
Everything has changed"
I just can't get enough of this song, so beautiful. It permeated my dreams last night.

The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello

Luscious Steamy animation!

A Warm Embrace - Our Deepest Fear

Nice!

Found this great blog!!! If you live near Wrightsville Bch NC like me you'll love this!
It Starts With Me







photo by Danielle of ItsStartsWithMe.blogspot.com

Rio's Gone Solar

Hey Folks, If you haven't already heard Rio Grande in NM has gone solar! How cool is that?! I have for a long long time wondered why people don't cover everything with solar panels. Especially parking lots! Who wouldn't want their car under shelter from the sun anyway?

Dash of Voodoo

Ya'll seriously.... you've gotta go read Ricë (rhymes with Lisa) Freeman-Zachary's blog
Notes from the Voodoo Cafe.
Cracks me up!

Belle Armoire Jewelry Winter '11

Run out and get yours while they last!
Yep, you saw right! That's my name on the cover!

Photo Magic

Yes he very well may be a magician, Joshua Curry the photographer for my upcoming book Jewelry Lab. We worked all day Saturday our third and second to last shoot. Whew! I'm just so lucky he was onboard with this!

Earth Teach Me

I just heard a choral anthem by Rupert Lang-
"Earth Teach Me"
It is based on a Ute prayer and was stunning... haunting...
stopped me dead in my tracks working in the studio at 11:00pm.
Find it on iTunes.
Here are the words:





"Earth teach me stillness
as the grasses are stilled with light.

Earth teach me suffering
as old stones suffer with memory.

Earth teach me humility
as blossoms are humble with beginning.

Earth teach me caring
as the mother who secures her young.

Earth teach me courage
as the tree which stands alone.

Earth teach me limitation
as the ant which crawls on the ground.

Earth teach me freedom
as the eagle which soars in the sky.

Earth teach me resignation
as the leaves which die in the fall.

Earth teach me regeneration
as the seed which rises in the spring.

Earth teach me
to forget myself as melted snow forgets its life.

Earth teach me
to remember kindness as dry fields weep in the rain."

wow.....

Root lifter

I'm slowly being drained.... little invisible needles extract my life force, drip by drip, through unseen tubes attached to me all over my skin. Each has a label some have students names on them, one says "put code numbers on new images for the book", one says chorus boosters fundraiser Saturday. There are so many I can't read them all. They protrude and catch as I walk, snagging on other people, clothing furniture. I wince, but no one knows. They can't see these things making a hedgehog of me. I feel slow... the tubes drag the ground weighing me down like heavy, molding invisible garden hoses. I procrastinate. I feel like crying. I have so so so many extremely important deadlines! I am over whelmed. I knew this would happen. I sit here typing when I know I should be doing a billion other things, things that people have already called me out on. I am running dry. And I have so little time and it will be done... for a while anyway.... long enough to sleep some, bake something, have a leisurely morning. I tell you this to vent and to preface the glorious feeling I had when I saw this!




I saw it on Artpropelled one of my favorite blogs. I just finished some important stuff and decided to treat myself with some procrastinating there. Her blog is always a visual feast and always quenches my thirst. My breath left me! It is by John Pule! I am now obsessed!







This is what I have been trying to do on enamel!!!These are the patterns I have been doodling! I am so drawn to this! Why?! All summer I googled tapas patterns and Polynesian textile patterns, ancient Mediterranean patterns from Cyprus and such.

replicas of ancient Cyprian ceramic pattern











It's like my dreams have taken form. They're such wonderful drawings!!!
I am madly MADLY in love with John Pule's work!!

I am lifted up by the roots....

Holy Crap!

What a week! Let me explain. I hit the ground running after Portland, mid terms at CFCC, assignments to grade, stuff due for a magazine, deadlines for my upcoming book. Too much on my plate. Anyway, I made it through everything until yesterday. I had a day long photo shoot for the book with the photographer. He rented a larger space for us to work in. I was up til 2 getting everything ready. We were on board. Then mid morning I get this CRASHING headache. Nothing new I get headaches all the time. I pop some sudafed and Ibuprofen and go on. Then I start getting nauseous. I run home to pick up some stuff and eat but its worse! So I made a fruit smoothie with protein powder thinking that was palatable. By mid afternoon I was bad off. I was shaky, guts roiling, dizzy and about to pass out. How humiliating to have the photographer and his assistant lay me down with ice packs as I shook. I managed to call Robert. I could barely walk! It was horrible. Photo shoot ruined, I was driven home and slept most of the night.I won't go further in to detail but whatever it was is gone now.

So with a crashing headache still, we go to pick up my car downtown. Robert turns on NPR there is an interview going on with this brit with an outrageous accent. He was hilarious, brilliant, riveting! I turned it up.
OMG!
If you do anything else today, listen to this interview on the Treatment with Russell Brand. If you know me, you know I don't participate in contemporary pop culture. I just don't have time or itnerest. I'd rather make stuff. I don't watch cable TV and haven't for 7 years. So I had never heard of this guy, and had only vaguely heard Katy Perry's name but had no idea what she looked like, or what she did to claim fame. This interview was AMAZING! I think it fits in perfectly with the "shift" that is subtly happening in the world. Trust me, this is a BLAST to listen to. I wish I had it on CD to give to everyone I know. I'd hand out to random people on the street and say, "here listen to this brilliant, ex-heroin addict spew forth about life, existence,enlightenment and falling in love". CS Lewis is quoted, Ram Dass is mentioned... even Jung, geez, I could go on and on....
Put on your seat belt:
The Treatment interview with Russell Brand
I'm running right out and buying this book!

Book Signing

So then after walking for 5-1/2 hours my feet were DONE! I realized I was so close to the Museum of Contemporary Craft so I HAD to take a quick look. Wish my feet could have stood more. They have a great sales gallery with LOTS of gorgeous metal work.


Ah well, it was back on the MAX line train to get to Traci Bunker's book signing!
Her work is great!!! I adore her Print & Stamp Lab book with Quarry and she has a new one coming out very very soon! Traci's journals are an inspiration. Her new book The Art Journal Workshop will be a must have! Even her stamps that she brought to personalize her books were so cool! She just has such creative ideas churning away in that brain of hers!

Cargo!

All right, while I'm on a roll... CARGO! in the Pearl District of downtown Portland,OR. OMG!
I had a little pamphlet and was walking around thinking "oooo, that looks interesting lets go there...." When I see brightly colored things fluttering in the wind from the side of a big building. I decide to investigate and was SOOOOOOOO rewarded.


I wandered SPEECHLESS and dumbfounded. There were imported delights from all over the globe, weird, kooky fodder as far as the eye could see, Mexican Day of the Dead stuff, Chinese goorah, Japanese chotchkies, antiques, silk, Middle Eastern rugs, African beads, quirky tidbits and baubles, and treasures, EVERYWHERE! You could hardly walk for cool mesmerizing stuff. Needless to say I bought my dad one of those head tingler scalp massagers, everyone needs those right? And I got a little paper mache black background globe, again quite a necessity, a cut out banner of a mermaid playing a ukelele from Mexico, some cool Day of the Dead postcards, a BIG black tin of watch part tins (that the airline crushed ;-( wah!)

Feast your eyes! yeah I know! right?!

McMenamin's Boiler Room Bar

Okay, place #2 that I have to rave about (now that my #@%&*! internet is back, however temporary....) is the McMenamin's Boiler Room Bar in Kennedy High School (click here for their gallery images). If you don't know who the McMenamins are then, well.... get to know! Because they have a talent for taking forgotten, dilapidated buildings and working magic on them! The Boiler Room was just that, a boiler room, now it's an over-the-top cool bar that will make your clockwork little heart go click, click, hissssss! One of the coolest artists on the planet, in my book is Tracy Moore and he took me to the Boiler Room. Yes, its all his fault. Actually, I count myself lucky that he lets me shadow around! Back to the Boiler Room. the railings are constructed of old pieces of radiator and sprinkler pipe. Just too fantastic.... I'm not a hop fiend like Robert is so I asked Tracy to recommend a beer. I had the Concordia "Ruby" a raspberry ale that they brew. It was wonderful not too sweet very refreshing. Fantastic place, wonderful night with amazing artists, chatting and sipping. Won't be forgotten....

Oblation Papers in Portland, OR!

So now that I am home (whew! took long enough! two days?! really?), I have to rave about a couple of places in Portland. Yeah, I know, I could go on and on about Portland in general but first....
Oblation Papers!
I usually go a day early for my workshops because I have to buy things at hardware stores that I can't ship. I have to pad my errand time with factoring in distances, shop hours, and whether or not I have to walk or there's a shuttle. So I had finished my buying gas tanks and such, and thought I'd explore the city a bit before I had to get ready for my next days class. People at the hotel told me to check out the Pearl District so I picked up a pamphlet and trekked out to conquer the MAX line to get into town. After sifting through some misinformation that was fed me, and quizzing people waiting at the station (like a dork), I was on the train into Chinatown and the Pearl district. I picked out a few interesting things on the pamphlet some of which appeared closed now. I decided to search for Oblation Papers since they might have things we could roll through the roll mill in my class the next day. I knew nothing about the shop other than they had paper. WOW! I walked in and BAM they were printing and paper making and it was a paperproduct orgy! Here are some pics: