Tales from Studio Mailbox

Pretzel Sighting #7

Here's one shot from the car while idling at a stoplight in a little town named Dallau.  It's not uncommon for Germans to paint directly onto their buildings instead of installing signs.  Lovely colors hey?  Of course it's a bakery...! 

Wouldn't it be cool to paint the outside of your home like this?  Just random symbols or words?  Imagine what the neighbors would say.  Often I've seen windows that I've thought were trimmed with elaborate ornamentation, but once I'd got up close I'd realized I'd been tricked by the magic of a paintbrush.

 

iLove iHanna

If I was trapped on a deserted island and had to choose only one blog to visit, I think I would choose iHanna's blog: Create and Live Happy. 

I daydream of someday bumping into her...

"Hanna??" I exclaim.  "Is it really you?  I visit your blog all the time!  What are you doing in Germany??"

"TJ??" she replies.  "How crazy to bump into you.  Where's the nearest pretzel??" 

Every time I visit her blog I am inspired.  More importantly I am grateful for the time and energy and gorgeous photography she shares with her readers. 

Her directions for paper piecing a patchwork ball were my first introduction to the craft that I actually understood.  People had talked about it before, but I didn't "get it."  Hanna put together a tutorial of not only excellent instructions and photos, but chose a project that's manageable.

Of course one of my balls is waiting for me to translate the world for "stuffing" into German and find out where you can buy it.  The second ball is still laying in pieces because I learned a few mistakes from my first one:

• Mistake #1:  I used upholstery weight fabrics that were much too heavy for a beginner.  I struggled especially at the corners trying to get through multiple layers while stitching by hand.

• Mistake #2:  I used too big of a needle to make my temporary stitches through the pieces and paper (because of the heavy weight fabric, I used a bigger needle not realizing the consequences).  It left noticeable holes after the temporary stitching was pulled out.

In any case, Hanna has been a big creative encouragement in my life here.  I wished she lived in Germany!  But who knows...?  Maybe she will be in Deutschland someday and my dream encounter will come true!!

Visit Hanna's etsy shop for her cool collage packs here, or read about her collage pack giveaway here!  Not to mention, if any of you are dying to buy me a Christmas present, please get me one of her awesome notebooks !!

Behave Doll Comes Undone

This is the doll I'm most frustrated with from my on-line mixed media class.  There's not enough contrast, it's too dark and weird and I liked it better about three layers back.   Oops.  Too late now. 

The hubs looked at it and said, "So what's Be Have?"  And I said, "Babes, it's BEHAVE. I just laid the word out funny to be cool."  He gives me the, "Ok crazy wife" look.  I guess it didn't work.  Maybe I should get all deep say it's the difference between "being" versus society's focus on "having."

Oh well, nothing to do now except keep going.  Failures, flops, frustrations.  Just keep going!

Stay tuned.  I'll probably chuck it in a drawer like everything else and find her again in a few months and let you know what I decide to do with it then.  Maybe chop it up into wooden buttons.  YUCK. 

Maybe she needs dimensional devil horns or something.

 

Negative Energy

  A recent study has found that Germans are the most pessimistic people in all of Europe.  Only 30% of them believe their lives will become better over the course of the next 5 years.  The study is focusing on finances in the face of the predicted recession, but I think it's bigger than just money. It's about the "gloom and doom" culture that's referred to and the irony that despite Germans having a better living standard than many Europeans, they've somehow formed more negative outlooks than people who have far less!  Read more about the study here.

How am I going to cheer up these Germans?

Secret Telling Dolls

The other mixed media piece I was working on was for my cousin Jessica.  I loved how the background on this one turned out, changing from purples at the top to greens at the bottom.  I was also happy about the embellishments; lots of glitter, sequins and gold leaf for maximum *BLING!!*

Here we are, two girls leaning out of our rooms telling one another the latest gossip.  I liked the blonde "Jessica doll" better than the brunette who's supposed to be me... but of course I can always just say it was after one of Jessica's wild afternoons with the scissors and how I would look after emerging from her bathroom.  Gulp.  And what's up with our eye color?  I totally painted it wrong in the begining.  But that's the beauty of acrylics isn't it?  Nothing's permanent!!

One of the lessons that's really been reinforced while making these is that the effects you get are sort of done by trial and error, luck and courage.  This used to happen to me when I would paint graffitti type designs.  How do you know if the next layer you make is actually going too far?  When do you know when to stop?  How do you know when it's done?  Let go, let go, let go.  Practice, practice, practice.  Uebungen, Uebungen, Uebungen!!

And don't even ask about trying to reproduce the same effect... sure...ummm.. ??!!

 

4 Ever Dolls

I made this for my girlfriend Amy while taking Suzi Blu's on-line mixed media course. 

When Amy and I were kids, we used to get "dressed up" and pretend to be country western stars from my mother's record collection.  I had long brown hair and wanted to be Crystal Gayle and Amy often chose to be Janie Fricke although sometimes we argued and insisted to "be" the other person's star.  OOooh the powers of make-believe!  

And yes folks, we were really playing with an authentic record collection.  If you danced too wildly before the stereo, you risked making it "skip" in the middle of your song and no pushing or shoving was allowed while loading the records for fear of scratching them.

And now that Amy has recieved her gift, I can post some photos with the progression of layers.  I'm very grateful to the introduction of wood burning and the foundation it gives you to begin working with... tons of possibilities.

  

  

     

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. 

 

Less is More

I've gone quiet on you.  It's the time of year where I need to get cracking on my Christmas gifts and then assess my year.  To acknowledge what I've accomplished and what I want to try yet to achieve before 2009 sneaks up on me.

So for now, less blogging and more hand work here at Studio Mailbox.  (Not to mention a huge RE-ORG!)  As I dig through endless mounds of collected crap, I wonder about some of these strange things I've begun on a whim and then discarded or neglected. 

This photo you ask?  Those little shims that come slipped behind the shrink-wrap of a new stretched canvas.  Whoever uses them anyway?  And what are you supposed to do with them?  I drilled holes in mine, gesso'd them and think I'm going to art at least one side of them up and then maybe make a par quay-floor type design out of them -- or like my friend Linda introduced me to: tessellations!!

 

Pretzel Sighting #6

This one will be a hard one to top.  Imagine a metal pretzel so huge, it requires it's own stand! 

There is such a thing in a little town named Adelsheim. 

You know you want to walk up to it and see if you can lift it off the pins don't you?