Happy, happy holidays

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Happy Festivus for the rest of us! Divali is the Hindu festival of lights, Eid al-Milad is the Islamic festival of birth, Solstice is the celebration of the return of light, Chahārshanbe-Sūri the Parsi return of the light. Every culture celebrates!

My very best to all for a healthy, peaceful new year!

Design Style Guide 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway Event

 I’m a member of Design Style Guide, a group with a website of artists’ portfolios to help potential buyers quickly find what they want and connect them directly with online stores.  Since DSG isn’t interested in selling from its site, they’ve focused instead on making it easy for shoppers to find quality handmade items according to style, room, color or material.  There are marvelous items for every part of a home. 

And right now, there’s a holiday giveaway  going on that everyone should check in on.  Each of the twelve days before Christmas, one lucky reader will win a fabulous prize each and every day just for signing in and leaving comments on the DSG website. 

To enter, look at the list of prizes, and read the directions for entry, go to the Design Style Guide blog.   

Two of the many prizes are pictured above: 
Porcelain Thousand Petal Vase by White Earth Studio.
Nature photography by Kenna Foster, The Road Not Taken.

Paper Cutting Treasury of Art

This is just a small sample of the incredibly paper cutting artists on Etsy.  Search paper cutting, kirigami,or scherenschnitte for even more.

It’s here! I’m published!

Well, my advance copy is here . . . although the book won’t be available until January.  It’s called Paper Cuts and it’s a beautiful how-to book with project photos, directions, and patterns for 35 paper cutting projects.  Four of them are mine!
Publisher: Lark
Published: January 2010
128 pages
ISBN: 1-60059-512-X
ISBN13: 9781600595127
$17.95 US, $23.50 Canadian

I’m really humbled to be in the company of these designers, ‘cause all of the projects are beautiful and some of them are just incredible.  My submissions are relatively simple.  Hopefully, they’ll help get beginners started!  Here’s a sample page from the book, showing one of the projects I submitted.

 

I’ve also got lots of Scherenschnitte decorations and ornaments in my Etsy shop if you’re not ready to make your own.

Craftland 2009

If you haven’t been to the Scrap Exchange in Durham, this would be a great time to visit. In addition to all the cool stuff that’s there, you can take in the Craftland Show — all art and crafts made from repurposed, recycled materials.

Craftland 2009

Art from Found Objects

I love using various found objects and repurposing them in my art, especially in my assemblages.  The piece on the right is called Durga, and is composed of a shelf divider from Habitat for Humanity, a broken bowl, old jewelry, fabric miniblind end scraps, found bone and a sand dollar, and bits of wood found on walks.   Right now, it’s on exhibit for the Craftland Show at The Scrap Exchange in Durham. 

I’m lucky to have a Habitat for Humanity store and a place called The Scrap Exchange not far from where I live in Raleigh, NC.  These are both terrific resources for finding good materials that can no longer be used for their original purpose. 

The Scrap Exchange is having an extravaganza of events between now and the first of year, including Craftland, a show celebrating the creations of artists who make art from reusable materials or from materials that have an earth-friendly component.  Craftland will be up until December 31st. 

The Scrap Exchange is visible all over the Triangle area (which includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill) for hosting open craft sessions at various craft venues.  There’s nothing more joyful than watching children parade their headdress creations at First Night, an annual new year’s celebration in Raleigh.

Wordless Wednesday

In love with landscape

My family and I just got back from a week in Lake Tahoe, and feel fresh and new thinking of those beautiful vistas and cool mountain air.  We watched the drama of salmon spawning, hiked up and down and up and up, and sat still and breathed in the scent of vanilla from the Ponderosa and Jeffrey pines.  For two of our days there, we  walked through a hushed wonderland of snow — in shirt sleeves because the sun was so warm.   What a wonderful place.

The natural world centers me spiritually, yet I’m prone to forgetting that fact day to day because of my struggles with the heat and itchiness of my home state.  It’s beautiful, too, but six months of the year it makes me uncomfortable enough to estivate, a word I learned when I moved to North Carolina.

The beautiful landscapes I’ve visited crop up often in my work.  These two are from my travels in the Southwest US:

 

 

 

 

 

This rushing river under the Northern lights is based on a photo from my friend Scotty’s trip to Alaska.

 

 

This is the view from my wide bedroom window (lucky me):

 

 

 

Some of my landscapes are based on fantasies or juxtapositions of places I’ve been.   This large silk scarf includes a view from the courtyard of the Cloisters in New York City,  a tree from my imagination, a woman from Renaissance art, and a dragon from ancient Chinese art. 

 

This tree in the snow with a pink sky is pure fantasy.

 

 

 

This long hanging landscape uses some artistic license, as the landscape is based on walks in North Carolina, but the cranes are Japanese.   It’s a beautiful piece on which to meditate!

I’m grateful for all of the beautiful places in the world I’ve been lucky enough to visit and meditate on.

Winter Essentials

These may not exactly be “essential” and you may not even care to wear them all at once, but what a satisfying set of possibilities you’d have if you owned all these beautiful hand-crafted things! Shop the Wear It Out Market for these and more!

coat by Vigilante Labs
earrings by Metalsgirl
wheel pendant by Mannybeads
handwoven scarf by Banner Mountain Textiles
handbag by Truly Unique by Elise
hat by DreamWoven

Centerfest, Durham, NC, Sept. 19-20

Centerfest is one of the bigger juried shows around North Carolina, and it’s happening this weekend.   That’s one of my scarves in the poster below . . . cool, huh?  I’ll be in booth E13, so come by and say “hi,” or “hey,” if you’re so inclined.