Card Swap 2013

It's been another great year of card swapping, folks!  Let me show you the results.

First, I thought it would fun to make a visual of how we're all connected. Despite the swap's name, 6 Degrees of HLM International Card Swap, we only got to 4 degrees this year. But I love it!  I bet in another couple years, we'll somehow be able to fit Kevin Bacon in the diagram.

(Remember to click on any images for a closer up view.)

Ambra, who lives in Buffalo, NY, found some old pictures of work that she'd done previously. She photo-shopped this remedy bottle (originally painted on an old BINGO card several years ago) and printed it onto vellum. The words behind the vellum are from a book she never quite got into enough to finish, but out of context, the text inspires curiosity:

Andrea lives in Fort Collins, and she and I designed her card together, using all materials she already had! No trip to the craft store for her! The woven square was something she'd come up with already, and she was particularly hoping to use up some of that soft, earthy, fabric-like paper. (We may see it again in future years!)

Anne S. is from Seattle, and she's lucky enough to travel to India fairly regularly. She is inspired by the geometric designs and details of Islamic architecture. (She studied architecture in college!) Her overall card design is simple and clean to keep the focus on the images.

Anne V. is a busy mom and breadwinner for her family, and she came to the local work party with every intention to start and finish her cards. Snap! She was done in an hour! I was really impressed. She has a neat tool which looks like a make-up kit that allows her to color in her stamps in different ways.

Ashley lives in Portland, OR, and spends lots of time in the St. John's neighborhood. Underneath the St. John's bridge is this idyllic scene. She took this photo with her iPhone and Instagrammed it.  

For her card, she uploaded the photo into a photo-editing program and spent lots of time tweaking it, making certain aspects more defined and changing the color mix. The end result is what ended up on her card. She also printed the photo out on metallic photo paper. The rounded corners of the photo are echoed in the writing space on the back.

Connie lives half the year in Arizona and half the year in Minnesota. She has been experimenting very successfully with a new medium called alcohol ink.  She has even sold some of her work! 

Darlene, from Wisconsin, submitted similar cards to what she made last year, but I found them to be much more refined. She even integrated some Iris folding into some of them (see Sue's cards, below).

Gaye is from Fort Collins, and has been getting back into art. She says that this batik is one that she made awhile ago, as a test run for a bigger piece she made for a wall-hanging in her living room.  She is mostly pleased that she just actually made something!  She actually tried another one for this project, but it flopped. She says it was a good reminder to start early and remember that creating art is often a trial & error process.

Funnily enough, Haley (also from Fort Collins) and Gaye work in the same place and Haley also had an idea that flopped!  These cards are what came of her second idea.

These are my two designs. I've been wanting to experiment with making cards out of the beautiful felt that one of our local shops sells.  I got the ideas for the cute puns online and made the images in felt my own.

The card below, known as a Neverending Card, was a huge challenge. Please come back next week to see more about it, and learn where to find the template that I used!  I loved how it turned out, but it really was a mind-bender.  I had to make envelopes to make sure there would be a place to write your own message.  Watch the movie to see how the card works!

Jenn lives on Long Island in New York and got married last fall. Her wedding colors were a lovely combination of blue, burnt orange, metallic white, and dusty purple. This blue paper is what was leftover from her invitations.

Jennifer, from Santa Rosa, CA, recently had the opportunity to travel to Peru and fulfill a long-standing dream.  She wrote that these cards were made from the gratitude she felt in her heart for everyone's support of her trip (she had to do some intense, short-term fundraising to make it all work out).  She says, "The light shining down the front--and stamped inside--has so many meanings and functions: healing, love, happiness, energy, spirit, growth."

Katie, from Fort Collins, was in Portland, Oregon in March, and she was inspired by the colorful houses in the unique neighborhoods. Feeling that photographing doors was overdone, she focused on windows, then carried on the theme by making the card a window too. She says, "My final design got way simpler than my original thought. Originally, I wanted a window opening into another window and the whole card being one big window. What? Too much. I simplified it and then added in a fill-in-the-blank element inside a few of the windows for people to write (that was an afterthought, but it also had a theme of light and windows in the wording).

Kiara lives in Minneapolis, and has been learning to quilt with batiks this past year. She decided to use her quilt scraps for the cards.  She says Minnesota's winter has been a long one this year, so she decided to make "winter leaves," which she says are the liturgical colors of the winter months, but they're also a shout out to spring soon to come. When she wrote me with this description, she reported, "I am happy to say, as of this week, it finally IS spring in Minnesota!"

Megan is our one new person of the swap this year and she used watercolor pencils to create several different quilt designs.  She lives in Fort Collins.

Mivvy, our international contingency, from Cumbria in the UK, made Christmas cards with small beaded bits attached!  I am excited to give her her cards in person in just a couple of weeks when we fly there to visit!

Nancy, from Portland, OR, says she was inspired this year after attending a papercrafting convention. She recommends looking at her card in all different kinds of light, and to tilt the cards. There's a lot more than initially meets the eye with that metallic paper!

Phuong lives in Boston. She made lovely reuse of magazine cut-outs, combining them with beautiful printed papers and vellum.

Last but not least, Sue's contribution was a whole new set of Iris fold cards. She submitted Iris fold cards last year too, but this year, it was all new designs. I think the cat and chicken were really artistic.

Finally, the big picture of all the cards laying out on my studio floor!  200 cards in total. I love seeing them all  together.

If you'd like to join in the swap, please just email me at the address to the right and I'll be sure to invite you to next year's, which will begin in February. Meanwhile, thank you again to all of this year's swappers. It was a great year.

Year Of The Snake

I've mentioned before the virtual baby shower that my friends here in Fort Collins and I threw for our friend who lives in Boston.  I wanted to share the cute group gift that we made for her.  Earlier in April, we all gathered in Parsley Art Studio and made our own contribution of an 8x8 felt square.
  

Here is my square, to remind our friend that she is part of our Colorado community, despite her distance, and that the snake final product is because the year the baby will be born in is the Year Of The Snake!

Later, Haley and I spent an afternoon sewing everyone's squares together to make a snake out of it.  This is me stuffing it.

Finally, here is the final product, both before it was stuffed and after.  Super cute!! It's final length turned out to be between 5-6 feet.

Our pregnant friend and her husband loved it. :)

April: Cards and Art History

Indeed, this month's big projects: making cards (see the last few years of this blog during the month of April), and finishing up the art history class I've been taking this semester at the university.  I've got numerous card projects going on right now:

1. Card Swap cards - you'll see those soon! The deadline for people to send their cards in has passed and these days it's like Christmas every day at my mailbox!
2. Restocking the card inventory at The Eyes Have It
3. Developing a syllabus for a "felt cards" class, hopefully to be taught at Mama Said Sew in June.

Here is an example of a felt card. I have some other, more complicated examples as well, but cannot reveal them quite yet!  However, this is one I threw together in about 15 minutes for a baptism ceremony I attended last weekend. There is a piece of paper sewn into the card's middle for writing a message. In this case, the B's were noted, for Baby, Baptism, Brats & Burgers (the post-ceremony food offerings), and Big time love!  As an adjustment to the card, I'm trying to work out how my machine can do bolder cursive lines, so the cursive stands out as much as the felt image.

Before I get to the art history conversation, two other art-related things are worth noting:

• I was officially accepted into the Fort Collins Studio Tour!!!!  Please do mark your calendars to stop by sometime between 10-5 on either June 22 or 23 at my studio on W Vine Dr.
• I and five friends are hosting a virtual baby shower for a friend who lives in Boston (for which I made just one invitation, for her! See below.)  At 1:00 her time, we'll all connect on Skype and celebrate her journey into motherhood. It has been a fun challenge to think of executing a baby shower in this new way.

Being in a first-year level art history course this semester has proven to be way more fun than I thought it would be. Plus, it's been challenging--certainly a brain crunch at times. I've got a stellar instructor and feel I have a distinct advantage over many of the students in the class in that I understand how to study and how to make the content relevant to my life.  

History is a fascinating subject if it covers things that I care about: culture, social expectations of the time, women and children, families, the ways of everyday life, work, health. (Oftentimes "history" means talking about government, politics, land ownership, and military might, leaving out all of the above and so much more.) But to approach history from an art perspective, all of a sudden I can relate to those times of yore.

Our current assignment is to write a 3-4 page paper about two similar works of art by different artists.  Below are the two I'll be writing about. The first is known as the Merode Altarpiece (an Annunciation scene), by the Workshop of the Master of Flemalle,  made in 1425 or so in The Netherlands. The Master of Flemalle was likely a man named Robert Campin. The second piece is called Annunciation, by a monk named Fra Angelico in Florence around 1440. 

You can click on both for closer views.

Here is the assignment: 

"Focus on differences in style, media, technique, and the context in which the artworks were made in order to uncover the poignancy of the juxtaposition--why and/or how are these representative of an important shift in the arts?"

What would you say about the two?

Despite the fact that I am making a conscious effort NOT to allow this course take over my life and therefore am not putting as much effort into the course as I know I could, I will admit that the good student in me prevails. Below, my last test and paper.  If you look closely, you'll see the scores I got. I guess being a B student just isn't in the cards for me. Sigh!

Two Katies

One of my dearest friends, Katie, who you've seen on my blog before, had a birthday on Monday!  To celebrate, she organized a birthday party at Fort Collins' Art Center, where six of us sat down to wine, tasty snacks, and a blank canvas.  I thought you'd like to see the in-progress photos, taken by our instructor, Lauren. (Check out Lauren's great website if you'd like to take a class from her--she is really good: gadaboutart.com)

What I loved about the evening (besides the food and drink!) was yes, that I got to learn a little more about painting technique, but more than that: the community.  I love it when people come together and hang out.  Especially in art.  It was brilliant.  There are moments of laughter, silence, furrowed brows, and pride throughout a 2 hour session. And then you end with this!

Smiles, satisfaction, tiredness, and relief. Yes, we all actually made something we'd hang on our wall!  (Katie is in the top row, second from right.)

As you know, I sure like to make cards, and I go all out for those who I know will appreciate them, as Katie always does.  I saw a drawing of a mason jar on Etsy and thought I could do something with that thematically.  Why not try to capture all the aspects of a perfect day and keep them in a jar on the shelf, to remind you of all you hold dear?  Voila! A card was born!

Thanks for a great time, and for being my lovely friend, dear Katie.  :)

One of the perks of working at a university is the beauty of developing a long term relationship with a student over several years and then watching them walk across the stage at graduation.  On a much more somber note, on Monday I also got word that one of my students, also named Katie and a senior in our department, will not have the chance to walk across that stage.  I got a call from an official that afternoon that Katie died the day before.

Katie was the type of person who made it impossible to forget who she was--even with my caseload of over 500 students! She was always very organized and let's-get-down-to-business when she came in for an appointment with me.  She listened intently. She really wanted what she did to matter, not just to her and her family, but to the world. She had to take time away from college for a semester here and there due to health issues, but she always stayed in touch.  She'd email or call me with updates and always, always a question about how to continue forward with her slow-moving plan.

I knew Katie well enough to feel a heaviness in my heart that she won't live the life she was so eager to lead.  She was so persistent and determined that her health wouldn't keep her back forever.  I met her in 2007 and last talked to her in January.  Just this month she turned 24.

For students like her, who don't have it easy on the path to attaining that bachelor's degree, I've been known to make them a "Congratulations, Graduate" card and send it to them with a special note of job well done from someone who has seen them through all the ups and downs.  I am sure Katie would have received such a note from me.  Today, I thought about her and her family as I made this card instead, for those of us in the department who knew her to sign.  It will be included in a package to the family with a letter from the president of the university and a flag that will be flown at half mast next week.  I have no idea how Katie died, but no matter how she went, I can't imagine what it is for a family to lose one of their young. To think of the range of emotion that a person can feel just by living and loving someone, these words came to mind, and for me, to have those feelings are what it is to truly be alive:

"To know love is to laugh and cry, smile and frown, to hope, to agonize, to feel content, to feel frustrated.  It is to delight and to despair.  To know love is truly to have lived."

Two related videos I'd love to share with you along this theme:

First, a California-based mortician named Caitlin Doughty has started a YouTube video series called "Ask a Mortician." Episodes are about 5 minutes long and she answers questions from all over about death."  She is so comfortable with the topic that she makes it funny, while still being incredibly appropriate.  I have learned a lot from her and really appreciate that someone is talking about this topic.  Recently I watched this episode about what to say to people who have lost someone.  It is such a good reminder to just be yourself and to be genuine.  Don't be awkward, and don't say stupid stuff (see the video), but don't not say something.

Second, a lovely animated Story Corps video about an old couple, "Danny and Annie."  I watched it today and it made me cry, it was so amazingly sweet. (You might want to make sure you're not at work when you watch this, just in case you find yourself welling up.) The art is wonderful, especially the last scene, a cartoon against a painted landscape.  The video's timing in my life is nice, as it serves as a reminder to tell the people we love that we love them, that we like them, that we're proud of them, that they are worthy of happiness, love and belonging, that we're so glad they're in our lives.

I am so grateful to be alive, and to share my life (and art) with you.  Thank you.

Trying Out Something New

I've noticed that proper Etsy etiquette is to send along a free little something anytime you get an order. The idea is to get your new customer to come back.  I have yet to have a repeat customer, but that doesn't keep me from giving everyone a little something as a "thank you for your order" gift.  However, I have just run out of what I've been giving, so have to come up with something else.  With that in mind, I made the below collages out of some of my fave papers just a few weeks ago:

There was no other motivation than to make something for that giveaway, however meanwhile I am working on a design for my 2013 Card Swap card and also I've been asked for more cards at The Eyes Have It.  Add that to the fact that I've been wanting to try out color-copying my work, to see what the quality would be.  So I color copied one of the above collages.  29 cents at the UPS store!  (Thank goodness the price of color copies has gone down--when I worked at Kinko's in 1995, they were a dollar a pop.)  I was very pleased at the outcome, and so will use this technique for completing my card swap idea.  However, I thought I should do something with these color copies in the meanwhile.  So I cut them up into squares and started painting on them.  I did this while Skyping with my best friend in New York state, who was also arting at her house!  You can see her and her project in this photo too.

Here is a close up of one of the sets. These four pieces will be glued together in a creative way and turned into a card.  I like that you can hardly tell this is not the original collage!

Thank you to all of you who voted and provided input for my Studio Tour application!  Your feedback was EXTREMELY valuable!  I ended up going with 4*, 9, 1 and submitted my application right on time. I hope you'll plan on stopping by Parsley Art Studio on June 22-23!