Tales from Studio Mailbox

Chores Done

If only our yard were really this dreamy! 

Yet every year, no matter where I've lived, I've made the effort to continually improve the state of our outdoor space.

It wasn't all work though... there was a little "play" too on the last warm day of autumn. 

My 2yo spontaneously changed from painting outside on paper to painting the landscaping rock instead.  I started contemplating how I would explain the fact that once it rained, the watercolor would no longer be on his little masterpieces. 

He solved the problem himself by thrusting his painted rocks into the brush water screaming "car wash!!" while developing a very complicated system of applying and then subsequently removing paint from rocks. 

In hindsight I realize that's creativity in it's true form - a process, not an outcome.  The only thing different about his rocks from the start of his project to the end was that they were wet. 

He would pick a particular rock, painstakingly apply paint to it and then dip it in the rinse water swirl it around and undo his work.

He was like a monk who spends years on a Mandala and then burns it.   Weird, yet captivating.

Cross Your Fingers

I finally had the nerve to send off a letter of intent to Artful Blogging.  I've been meaning to since my Blogeburtstag but just never sat down to do it.  Since there's a 9-hour time difference between California and myself, I could never reach anybody during business hours.  Because of this I addressed the letter with a name that I'm not even sure belongs to the managing editor!  

I had about 56 reasons NOT to send the letter and satisfy the self-sabotaging part of my artist self. So I stamped an envelope using postage that's been in my wallet forever anyway.  I had no clue if the vintage football stamp would cover it so I stuck on an additional flower stamp that I know ships a postcard.  

In true "mail art" style I stamped the envelope with some hand-carved creations as well as children's play stamps that say, "Warenprobe, Drucksache and Banhof."  (That's "Investigation, Printed Goods, and Train Station" respectfully).  I enclosed my letter inside a card on beautiful paper with pretzel prints.  Surely all my quirky German wierdness will give me a chance won't it...???

Queen of Green ATC

Not this Queen in Green, but instead an ATC for my girlfriend who's spinach lasagna is seriously good! 

Although I don't want to make a habit of posting every personal handmade present, I really want more of the lasagna and therefore decided this particular card is quite newsworthy and brings an important message to the world.

Does anyone else want to spell the word "lasagna" this way; l-a-s-a-g-a-n-a?  I nearly stamped it wrong but then decided to look it up.  But now that I'm sitting here I wonder why I simply don't coin the new word "lasagana" and formulate it's meaning and definition myself.

The Germans use the plural, "Lasagne" which unlike that whole Miracel Whip thing, actually makes a lot of sense. 

You say lasagna, they say Lasagne, I say lasagana.

Additional Brayer Information

For those of you not using brayers to apply layers of paint to your collages, you can always use one as a bulldozer.  Your mother's filthy paint tray can also be a boat as long as you're small enough to fit on it...

Lavender Bathtub

I've got a whole crop of lavender drying in the studio bathtub.  It smells like a French field around here.  I've started wearing berets and gnawing baguettes.

I'm totally lying.  It does smell great  but I haven't been pretending I'm French.  I've been wiped out flat. Last week, while gardening,  I've had a reaction to something that's swelled up my wrists like elephant trunks.  This has not only been extremely attractive, but really comfortable too.

I'm like a freaking anti-itch cream poster child.  Anyway, just contemplating all the Christmas sachets I should stuff with these beautiful herbs. 

My neighbor told me to compost this.  If you want to save lavender apparently you're supposed to do it in the late summer before the shoots are already dried on the plant. 

Well I'm clueless and it looks like the exact stuff I buy every year at the market so I'm going to be a rebel and use it anyway. 

 

Inspired or Stolen? That is the Question.

I want to talk about where we get our ideas from.  Let's discuss looking at something that attracts us and then turning around and creating something ourselves from those sensations.  I'm going to use photos from my recent creations merely for examples.  (I'm not going to mention with every post that I'm not a lawyer.  I'm no expert on Intellectual Property.  But if you know someone, send them over here to consult us!)

I needed to make some ATCs for a swap.  An ATC is a trading card.  Emphasis on trading.  You can use whatever you want to make a trading card because you're not making prints from them and re-selling them.  This is why it's OK to use whatever you want to make them.  Maybe you're practicing your sketching or shading, maybe you're playing with collage or sewing.  Perhaps you're paying tribute to a favorite artist or style.  You're having fun making a 89x64mm card for cripes sake.  Anything goes.

Peeking through old magazines, I saw a photo that I loved.  (Speaking of ethics... is it OK to post photos from magazines on a blog?  I've mentioned the magazine, date and page so I hope I'm OK).  This groovy ghost popping out of a black hole painted onto the side of a pumpkin made me smile.  I thought, I'll try this on an ATC!  I sketched one out, changed the face a little, introduced my own colors, made my hole ragged instead of smooth and then sewed it to an ATC card.  Done and dusted.  Sweet little ATC.

But would it be ethical to take my image and design Halloween cards intended for sale? I would say no.  I blatantly looked at something that wasn't mine to begin with and then basically copied it.  So if I'm exercising good artist ethics, I'm not going to make something so close to the original source.  Not to mention the fact that it would be double-crappy to create another Halloween product for sale competing with the one already created by somebody else.  If I had made the original ghost-in-a-hole, I'd be pissed off.  Think about it. 

Now I just so happened to also be taking an on-line class making dolls.  Teacher Suzi Blu had us focus on heads only in the begining.  My brain goes back to the ghost-in-a-hole.  I think how can I make dolls without bodies?  I'll make doll heads popping out of holes!!  And why stop with a round hole?  What about ovals or squares or maybe popping out of picture frames?  So, the ghost-in-a-hole inspired me to use the concept of the original composition for something completely different.  Could I take these dollies and make cards?  I think so.  And with a clear conscience.

What do you think?  In any case, I just want to encourage mixed media artists to start thinking about the difference between being inspired and stealing.  Heavy stuff.  But I think it's important.

Knitting and Grinning

The other weekend I joined my girlfriends Petra and Alex for a half day workshop introducing us to what we thought was going to be stitching with beads.  Once we arrived and got a little more information it turns out the course was for knitting with beads. 

(GULP).

That's right.  Knitting.  With beads. 

Gang I don't knit.  But what were we supposed to do?  I patiently threaded a couple hundred beads onto what I think is the German equivalent to crochet-cotton.  Then I started knitting with a pair of barbeque skewers or some other imposter needle set, provided to me by one of Petra's generous girlfriends.  And there I worked, pulling the cotton through that long line of beads. 

The instructor was a lovely woman.  She was teaching us to make traditional wrist bands for Bavarian tracht called "Puls Warmers."  She was wearing a magnificent pair that she had made with 1,200 seed beads.  One-thousand, two hundred of them.

Right.

I remember how to "knit" as well as how to "purl" which confusingly, the Germans refer to as "links" and "rechts" (right and left) whether they're working the backside or the frontside of the piece.  Just to make it interesting, the German word for "bead" is "perl."  Perl sounds just like purl so you can imagine the confusion.  Despite being in a historical building where we were constantly interrupted by tourists, I also for some insane reason decided to work with white on white.

The needles were sharp on all four ends and I kept puncturing myself as I'd lean forward trying to concentrate on the bead pattern.   

So far, at home in the evenings I get approximately 4 rows done per night.  I bent one of the skewers rather horribly but it doesn't seem to affect the stitches.  At this pace, I might get a pair of wristbands done by Christmas!!! 

Can I Sit by You?

Okay.  I've signed up for this on-line course.  After trying to use PayPal which decided to speak German to me and refused to accept my credit card, I almost gave up before I even got started.  As always, Hubby came to my rescue and made everything better.

I hadn't realized that I was also signing up for some other cyber-universe under world.  It looks fascinating... a huge melting pot of people on their assorted creative journeys. 

There are a couple more messages in my in-box about administrative stuff that I'll have to figure out as well as an invitation to already become friends with another member!

Just when I was really feeling like the new girl who doesn't know where to sit during lunch...

Foam Brush Hell

Studio Mailbox is experiencing foam brush hell.  The Germans who are renowned for being excellent environmentalists do not seem to have multi-packs of disposable wood-handled foam brushes as I know and love them.

Instead, it seems to be a "system" approach where the foam portion is replaceable and a plastic handle is retained after use. 

My initial response was; "Cool...what a great way to save the planet."  And I bought a couple of different sized plastic handles and their respective foam replacement parts.

Then I went home and tried to use my new Lux Tool. 

Everything seemed to be going along just fine until I had to change out a sponge.  Because the plastic isn't perfectly smooth and because sponges by nature are holey, the odds for a Nascar-style pit stop are pretty unlikely.  Don't forget your hands are full of paint from yanking off the old one that's worn out.  You pull and tug and try to get it on straight and pray that you don't tear it or stab through it's side.  The only thing I can think of as a comparison is maybe trying to put a pair of nylons on a prickly-pear cactus. 

The second catch (no pun intended) is that anytime you're dealing with a two-part system, BOTH parts need to be available in order for it to be a useful tool!  If your local home improvement store decides not to restock the sponge replacements, you're pretty much left with a useless plastic handle.  Of course the store probably has sponges, but not the size you need.  What do you do... do you buy another plastic handle to accomodate the sponges that actually are in stock? Will the insanity ever end??? 

The lady at the hardware store actually knows me now.  Last time she said, "Oh, it's only you."  There really wasn't anything to discuss about the empty racks where sponges were supposed to be. 

Yep. Just me.  Scheming about what the heck to do wtih empty plastic brush handles. 

Cupcake Inchie Bling

I think it's time I try to reach out and link up with other creative people.  So here is my first attempt at participating in a challenge and then posting about it.  I had gone in search of inchie goodness and fell in love with this wonderful blog; Small World of Inchies where the current challenge is 'CUPCAKE.' 

Since I just recently unpacked the world's biggest cupboard and have about a dozen jars full of inchies laying around (not to mention my ninchies), I thought I'd take a few minutes and compose some blingy baked goodness.

Using sequins partially layered over one another reminded me of gradeschool art projects where we had to use a single hole punch and then take the dots and glue them onto paper using the eraser end of a pencil.

A few sprinkles of glitter, a couple tiny jewels and a few drawn lines with a glitter pen and I was finished.  This was the first official art project completed inside the new and improved Studio Mailbox.  Yeah!! 

Thank you Doreen for your inspiring fun site, reminding me that in only a short amount of time we can create something wonderful that re-energizes us!