Bluestalking

Happy Thanksgiving ...

... to You and Yours, From Me and Mine.

An Amazing Artist

When I come across an exceptional artist I have to give him/her all the promotion I can, in my own humble forum.

Sarah Wyman is another artists I discovered via Etsy. Her art is  a mix of folk and modern - in a sort of surreal way. I think she's brilliant, and you can see more of her on her blog, Green Weeds.

And, of course, I couldn't quite resist....

Description:

This print is mounted on 3/4" wood, sides and back are painted black, and there is a hole in the back so it's ready to hang.

The back is signed with my name and the year.

Collect several and display as a grouping!

Printed on acid free archival semi-gloss paper with archival inks.

Check her out! Just don't buy the paintings I have my eye on...

A little down time.

Just got back today from three gloriously unstructured days at Christ in the Wilderness, my home away from home. Am already wishing I were back after just a few short hours hearing video games screaming away in the background.

Sigh.

Will be back with a full report soonest, but in the meantime, above is the walking stick I borrowed while I was there. This is the first time I've felt the need, but with a pulled ligament or some such in my right foot it was nice having the extra support.

I still came home with a hugely swollen left knee, though I had no known injury. Explain that, would you?

Had a bit too much fun ...

... making a decoupage/multimedia photo frame today, working alongside dear daughter who was doing the same. Here's my result (the glue hasn't dried, and that will be clear once it is, so you won't be able to see it):

It got a bit wild, I'll admit. But, again, attempt one at the multimedia thing.

Here's a bit of detail:

The big question? Will Paul let me put it on the wall, with our other photos. The bigger question? Can he STOP me? I'm pretty tough.

Photos of the Day

Already Looking Ahead

Photo of the Day

Last of the Color - Hydrangeas

Easing into the paper arts pool.

Here's my first attempt at decoupage. This started out a plain, pine frame. Now it's covered in blue paper (the sort used for scrap booking, etc.), with cut out leaf-like shapes in various colors/patterns. I also added - and I'm not sure if this will stay without tearing - a sort of flower shape on the left, with a piece of mosaic glass in the middle. It has the rough shape of a heart, but I didn't fashion it that way. It's just how it looked coming out of the package.

Ah, packaged craft materials! God love them.

I like this first attempt well enough, but it's not exactly a beauty piece. It's serviceable, and I'll use it, but it's an experimental work. Some of the sites I read recommended starting with a shoe box, so as not to ruin anything. But I thought that was silly. These frames cost all of $ 2.00 at the craft store. If one gets ruined, so what?

I have a couple more frames to do. I also have some acrylic paint I may water down, to make a wash, and use instead of the paper background. I also thought of using leaves, painting them and impressing the images onto the wood. But not everything must be leaf-themed.

I have rubber stamps, beads, mosaic tile, and enough lovely paper to last me a year. There's no lack of ways to play with more decoupage.

Next big project, that scrumptious crocheted journal ... (next post)

 

My first day off in weeks ...

... and I've somehow managed to injure my right foot, making walking painful. No problem, right? I'll stay home with my new Russian stories and read myself into a coma of happiness and joy. Oh, but we're getting our soffits (ironically, spell check recommends I change this word to "Soviets") replaced. The noise of people walking across the roof, using power tools to remove the old in order to install the new, is so annoying. And I can't escape it. It's upstairs, downstairs and all around the town.

Blimey.

I wanted to use part of today to zip over to the art studio in town and ask them what sorts of classes they offer. In high school I was quite the "artiste," breaking my teacher's heart when I told him I was majoring in English, not art. To my 18 year old self I couldn't see what careers lay in the field of art. I didn't know about graphic artists, and my teacher never illuminated me. He just cried, softly, into his oil paints, the gleam of all my first place ribbons for sketches and watercolors blowing softly in the breeze above him, along with all those stupid macrame plant hangers. My prodigy!, he wailed. My life may as well end...

To console himself he continued teaching another 20 years or so, pretending he'd completely gotten over me, the artist who never was... I'll have to tell him I'm finally interested in pursuing art again (muffle, muffle) years later. If he remembers who I am, he may finally be at peace.

At least I have the satisfaction of how well my English degree has served me. That series of administrative assistant positions, oh how they fulfilled me. Wasn't he just so silly suggesting I pursue a degree with so few real career options ...?  My degree looks nice on the wall, though. And my two honor society certificates balance out my husband's. Soon my Masters will fill that last, coveted spot. Then we'll be even - not that it's a competition, of course. Of course.

So, this art studio. I know they offer drawing/sketching, and painting. They have nude models for figure drawing, so I've heard. I'm not sure I could handle that, trusting myself not to point and laugh or turn beet red, drawing a sexless stick figure to avoid my nudity issues. Or one missing the naughty bits, to "fill in later," if the teacher should ask. And I'm sure s/he would. As a last resort I could pull a Picasso, moving parts around, calling it "abstract." Now that has possibilities.

What I'm really interested in now I may not be able to find out here in the suburbs. Yesterday's post will give you a hint. A very strong hint - book and paper arts. I want to not only make my own paper, but also bind it into a journal. I have the book I inter-library loaned yesterday, plus the one that came in the day before:

The work is unbelievably beautiful. Every piece doesn't look like the codex we're accustomed to, but most are recognizable as books. The only one I could attempt without book arts training is made with a crocheted wool cover, the interior resembling the paper I've seen in scrap booking sections at the craft stores. This one appears doable:

The idea of making a journal from crocheted wool would never have occurred to me without this book. But this would be a relative cinch, considering I've known how to crochet since junior high, (muffle) years ago.

For the paper, I'd need to fold it a couple of times to get the right size, then cut the separate sheets. If I get the edges wet I can easily pull them off to make them look  rough and handmade. Then, crochet the rectangle according to the size of the pages.

To attach the pages themselves, that's first done in sections. The pages must be sewn in individual sets of several sheets, then sewn onto the wool, allowing enough overlap to make a flap. They can be decorated with beads, or buttons, and ribbon would be a good method of tying it closed.

And voila! A good gift or journal for my own use. I could even crochet a bag to hold the book, to keep it safely tucked inside. Maybe something with a big, decorative button.

But the others... Many are made from leather, faux bone, wood, and elaborately cut-out heavy stock papers. Interiors are either handmade paper or other materials, such as birch bark. Just stunning.

 
Ah, to have this kind of skill. I suppose one works up to it, usually by taking book arts courses. I'd love to do that, but the expense would probably be above our budget. Maybe a general course wouldn't. Otherwise, I can learn by trial and error, as people do.

At the very least, I can make a crocheted book or two, then try my hand at the art of paper making. I found the "recipe" for that online. Sounds messy but not too tough.

A new hobby for me! One to keep me out of mischief. Because I have so much free time.

M-A-N-I-A. Gotta love it.

Thank you, Knopf!

 

Thank you, thank you to Knopf for the opportunity to read the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of The Death of Ivan Ilyich & Other Stories by Tolstoy. All else will be taking a back seat - save Water for Elephants, which I'm officially listening to in the car - until I read the almost 500 pp. in this brand new translation.I'm absolutely thrilled!

An official SWOON.

I don't want to rush, but I do want to get through it while it's still so young and fresh. The feel of it! Such heft in the hand; creamy, pristine pages. It's a beauty. And soon it'll have my notes and underlinings all over the interior.

Yes, I'm a librarian who writes in her books... But in this one, only pencil. I promise.

Pinky swear.

And this book ...

That sounds wonderful! I'm borrowing a copy via interlibrary loan:

 

Title: Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books From Recycled and Repurposed Materials - by Jeannine Styles

Shorty review from Amazon:

Product Description

Re-Bound is a beautiful book on bookbinding with a fun green twist-all the projects use recycled and upcycled materials. This book shows you how to take everyday materials from around the house, flea markets, thrift stores, and hardware stores and turn them into clever and eye-catching hand-made books.

Incredible website for lovers of paper, books and journals.

Ever thought of creating your own journal? How about crafting a handmade book, either as a gift for someone else or to yourself? How about finding ideas on interesting topics to blog or journal, how to create journals based on a specific premise, etc.?

Then you SO must look at this site!

Again, no money changing hands. I love pointing out wonderful sites, and this is one of the most wonderful I've ever come across. I found this site and fell in love. Hope you will, too.

I've started getting into the paper arts lately. Last evening I tried decoupage on a photo frame. It seems to have turned out pretty nicely. Nicely enough I'm charge up to try it again. And I've always wanted to try my hand at making handmade journals. Turns out it's not as difficult as I'd imagined it to be.

I also want to make paper... Ditto on it not being as difficult as I'd thought, but it's definitely as messy. Still, how gratifying to make your own paper, use it to make a handmade journal, and either give that as a gift or keep the wonderful thing.

Oh, and by the way, this DIY site accepts writing contributions. Can't beat that.

Enjoy!

National Book Award Winners

Awards: National Book Awards

Last night, the National Book Awards were presented at a black-tie dinner at Cipriani Wall Street in Manhattan. The winners:

• Fiction: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (Random House)
• Nonfiction: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles (Knopf)
• Young people's literature: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose (FSG)
• Poetry: Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy by Keith Waldrop (University of California Press)

Courtesy of Shelf Life.

Photo of the Day

 

Lighter Shade of Pale

Chuck Palan... Pa.. That one dude.

Alright, I did get along fine with Chuck Palahniuk (copy/paste) for the first disc or two of Haunted. Around disc three I started to waver, and disc four never made it into the player in my car.

I don't dislike him as a writer. I enjoyed his imagination, his descriptions, his humor.Things just got a bit confused. I had to wrack my brain to figure out who was who, which character had which quirks, that sort of thing. I certainly didn't feel that same urge to get the next CD in the player before the last one had cooled off like I did with The Photograph. No comparison.

I loved Lively's story, and kind of liked Palahniuk's. At times I even really liked it. For those who have no experience with it, it's like a modern retelling of the Canterbury Tales, only very disturbing. And no one goes anywhere. Literally. Each person has a story to tell along the way to nowhere. And I'm not telling anything else. If you want to read it, you go on ahead. Tell me all about it.

I've decided I need something more linear in a CD book. Something I can listen to and still drive relatively safely. An  A + B = C work that goes straight to Z without too much looking backward. Not to say I don't like complex books. I do, just not in the car.

I'm contemplating Water for Elephants as my next in the car listen. I've heard nothing but raves about it. I have a feeling it's a little more linear, and a whole lot less bizarre.

For the record, I still don't hate Chuck Palahniuk. I've just decided we need to see other people. Maybe he is a little too masculine in his writing style, a little too concerned with sex. Dunno. I'm glad I tried him, and appreciative of his skill as a craftsman. Maybe next time I'll have a better experience. Just maybe.

Photo of the Day

Reflections on the Bean - July 2007

No matter how many times I visit, I love seeing tourists beholding the "Bean" sculpture in Millennium Park for the first time. Look! It's reflective! I can SEE MYSELF!

I love it.

It's just thin sheets of metal, shined to a high gloss, riveted together in a shape sort of resembling a kidney bean. But somehow it turns adults of every age and nationality into children again. When you see their reaction you can't help smiling. It's become obligatory for tourists visiting Chicago to head to Millennium Park, just as it's been all but mandatory for tourists in Pisa to see the Leaning Tower.

You have to visit The Bean! You must take a photo of yourself reflected in The Bean! Just as you have to risk feeling like a complete and utter moron pretending to hold up the tower. It's a photo op you have to go for, hoping no one you knows sees you. And if he or she does, it's just as likely you'll catch him or her taking the same damn photo. If that's consolation.

Do visit The Bean if you come to Chicago, and just try not taking a picture of your own reflection. I dare you...