Hanging Art Doll

I have to agree, this does look great hanging on my wall! - I found the perfect wall space between my kitchen and living room. She looks small in the photo but is actually 16" tall.

Something I have failed to do in the past is to keep art that I have made for myself - so I am going to make a few pieces to keep and then get busy filling my etsy store!  I'm so in love with these dolls and the process of making them -  I hope when the time comes I will be able to part with them - or I could always become the Great Art Doll Hoarder!!!

Creative Stride!

I am excited to report that I have captured creativity and I have no plans on letting it go!
It's MINE all MINE!

I worked last night and this afternoon in my studio & I have some
goodies to share!!!!

I like how these three pieces work together & decided to create a new blog header from the group shot.

Next goal......create more and add work to my Etsy shop!

This guy is not finished yet - I wonder what I should do do with him?

coconut curry soup for the creative soul

Another passion of mine is cooking - I love to cook (the cleaning up after myself part - whole other story) How I decided to be creative tonight was to craft a pot of coconut curry soup! I owe my love of cooking with curry and thai ingredients like lemongrass, ginger and kaffir lime leaves to my friend Kara Lynch. Kara introduced me to curry paste and kaffir lime leaves and a whole new world of cooking opened up. Thanks Kara! I would love to share the recipe I used for this soup but to be honest I don't have one. I read a lot of recipes and then take what I like out and create my own. So the best I can do is this phot0 of my ingredients and to tell you that it smells and tastes incredible!

Ah Ha!

For a while now I have really been hard on myself for my lack of creativity. I head down to my studio and rearrange my space. I move this here & move that there (stall tactics - that I am VERY good at). Knowing that I have stalled enough, I sit and grab a canvas or my sketch pad, thinking I'm going to come up with something great....... and within 20 minutes I'm angry with myself and I shut the light off and turn away defeated once again. I beat on myself and send that creative spirit fleeing even further away.
I have been thinking a lot about this lately and I'm working very hard at putting an end to this destructive thought pattern. I have decided to cut myself some slack! When I was creating art full time to support myself and my son I was in the studio every waking minute with my hands dirty working on different projects - The creativity flowed as easy as breathing.

What changed? How did I fall off my path?

Feeling a bit burnt out an opportunity arose and I took a full time graphic design position with a publishing company. That was five years ago. Don't get me wrong I am very thankful that in this economy I have a job. Its just that everyday I'm creating at my job for someone else and then when I get home I have nothing left for me! Its time for some balance in my life.

I've recently had one of those Ah-HA! Moments.

When I go into the studio to create and nothing happens its not because I'm not creative or because I suck as an artist and have no talent. Its because I have put my creative spirit in a different direction. I need to be a whole lot nicer to myself and lighten up! I can't expect myself to creatively preform on command if I haven't been working in my studio in a long time. I am going to turn that creative spirit back in a direction that makes ME happy! Yea!

So here is my plan!

I have been kicking around the idea for a while of taking a class from Paula Walton - I'm lucky enough to only live about an hour away from her. So I did it and signed up! On March 12th I have a private class on spun cotton ornaments!

I also will be taking an online course in June - Painting with Plaster.

I am so excited to be getting my hands dirty again! I will keep you posted on this journey back to creativity!

Christmas 2010

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!

Day With My Dad

I had this past Monday off from work and I spent the day with my Dad. We had a really great day together! My Dad is an extremely talented and gifted furniture refinisher, who for as long as I can remember, has also been an antique dealer. He has recently started selling his antiques through a new shop Antiques on the Farmington in Collinsville, CT. This past Monday was the first chance I've had to see his booth and as usual he work is incredible and looks great set up in his booth. I am so proud of him - I hope he sells all his treasures!



We took the time to wander the floors and check out all the other antiques and of course I found a treasure and had to buy it! A sweet miniature replica of a three draw bureau - I new I had to have it the minute I set eyes on it. So I paid for it and out in my car it went!! We left the shop and walked up the street and ordered yummy sandwiches, sat outside to eat them and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Then it was off another store called The Junk Shop and we poked around inside at all the stuff. We then headed home for the day - back to my parents house where my Dad refinished my newly found treasure. (I'm kicking myself that I didn't take a before-and-after picture of it - I thought about that too late) It was covered in a yucky maroon stain- type finish that he stripped off - he sanded the drawer fronts - waxed it all over and then added these great wooden knobs. It is beautiful! I am so grateful to have such a great dad with such a talent! I'm so excited about this piece, not only is it a very neat unique antique treasure but it now will always be a reminder of the great day I spent with my dad! Thanks Dad I love you!

A New Home

This past November Ralph and I became first-time home owners!

It has been a very exciting and bittersweet time. Much has happened over the past three months that has really challenged & changed me. Days after getting the keys to our new home Ralph's mother, Jean's, battle with cancer intensified and she passed away a few weeks later. She was a great lady and a very special part of our lives. I am very sad for Ralph that he will never be able to share his new home with his mom. I believe she knew that we had closed on it and she had seen real estate pictures of it from back in June when we were interested in purchasing it - but sadly she was never physically able to be here.  The holidays were tough and we have been bumping along on our way back to normal - settling into our new digs - every once in a while it hits you - "I'm a home owner!"

This morning was special. The house was quiet, Ralph was out working, Joel still sleeping and our crazy cats were off entertaining themselves with a nap. So I decided to take advantage of the piece and quiet and tackled a stack of boxes that I have not had time to unpack. Much to my surprise the not-so-fun-dreaded task of unpacking turned into a pretty great journey. In my new living room I have a tall white Ikea bookcase with glass doors that I keep my special pieces in and I had not yet unpacked them. Some people would view these things that I keep in here as trinkets or dust collectors but to me they are treasured memories. 

 I lifted the lid off the first box marked fragile and started taking out the carefully wrapped items inside. The first memory unwrapped was a boy with a duck figurine that Ralph's mother had given him not to long ago - she had been holding onto it for him - as a small child she said that he would spend hours playing with it at his grandmother's home. I placed it on a shelf along with some other memories: A ceramic snowman painted by Jeanie, a glass pitcher she would serve sauce from when I went to her house for dinner (a very funny long running joke), a Hummel figurine she gave me from her collection, a very old brass miners head lamp that belonged to my father's father, a dainty flower painted porcelain vase along with a cute box that has an elf sitting on its lid belonging to my grandmother, and a silver crab that belonged to my great-aunt - I remember sitting on my parents lap playing with it on my great-aunt's table. The top shell of the crab is a lid and they would keep aspirin or some type of medication in it and whenever I played with it it was quickly removed from my hands.

The next box I unpacked contained my son Joel's vintage monkey collection - I'll keep them in the bookcase for safe keeping and pack them up for Joel when he finally has a place of his own and can display them - also in this box -  all the artwork that he made during his four years in prep school. I carefully unwrapped each piece and gave it a special place on the shelf. Once they were all unpacked I stood back and looked at all these pieces and was in awe of his talent, I will always cherish them.

I finished unpacking the boxes, clearing the hallway in our bedroom, happy to say that everything now has its very own special place in the bookcase in our living room. I stood there and looked at all the interesting pieces in the bookcase and was feeling like I was seeing them for the first time and was wondering why - and it occurred to me. Even though Jeanie, my Grandmother & Grandfather, and my great Aunt will never physically enter our new home their memories live on through these pieces and will help to make our house a home.