Starting...

"Starting isn’t like that. Starting something is not an event; it’s a series of events. You decide to walk to Cleveland. So you take a first step in the right direction. That’s starting. You spend the rest of the day walking toward Cleveland, one step at a time, picking your feet up and putting them down. At the end of the day, twenty miles later, you stop at a hotel. And what happens the next morning? Either you quit the project or you start again, walking to Cleveland. In fact, every step is a new beginning. Sure, you’re closer than you were yesterday or last week, but you’re still..."
— Seth Godin

I'm starting a new mosaic project, a kitchen backsplash for a client in New York. A new project normally takes a great deal of focus and concentration. It has been a very intense last month, to say the least, with the sudden illness and death of my father. I have put starting this off for obvious reasons, but now it is time to get down to it. My head just wasn't in the game when I decided to start with the cardinal. I was playing around with cutting black glass for his eye when I thought about looking through my bead collection; I also have a pretty large junk jewelry bucket. Once I found this old earring, I think my inspiration kicked in. I think he has quite a personality burgeoning. Will keep up the picture log as more gets added. Maybe a new project is good to turn your focus away from grief? We shall see...

Be Yourself

"To be nobody but

yourself in a world 

which is doing its best day and night to make you like

everybody else means to fight the hardest battle 

which any human being can fight and never stop fighting."

— E.E. Cummings

Be Yourself and Re-create your world by using your hands!

Here are some recent mosaic class attendee masterpieces!

Patty's Bat for Sam's Room

                                                           Linda's Cornucopia.

Linda's Triptych~Blue Wave

Here is a recent Watercolor Class with Sue McCarty

Sue McCarty overlooking Deb's Watercolor

Kathy's Working hard!

Participants learned new ways to make backgrounds!

Linda told her daughter about the class, "I am taking the class with Molly and she is just as dumb as me!" (When it comes to watercolor, anyway;) Linda and her daughter and husband had met me the first night of ArtPrize 2010 at the Grand Rapids Civic Theatre; what a shock to meet her at one of my classes!

Linda wasn't as "dumb" as she thought. Here is her second watercolor!

Here is my newest mosaic project (a framed mirror that my husband built for me) which will actually be on hold for a while, I have a commission mosaic backsplash that I am working on for a client in New York. I will add pictures when I have them of that project!

I also just signed up for a cool project for artist's: The Sketchbook Project.

Check it out @http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject/features

or their blog here @http://arthousecoop.tumblr.com/

Lots of classes (Kids and Big Kids!) coming up at the shop. Check them out @http://www.aworkofartstudio.com/http___web.me.com_aworkofartstudio/Studio_Schedule.html

Belly Up!

The last few weeks I had the pleasure of taking part in a Creative Writing Class @http://aworkofartstudio.blogspot.com/2011/03/write-on.html

and was asked to write a 'short story'. I don't know that I achieved that end

but my instructor, Benjamin Lambright (Writing Guru Extraordinaire)

thought it had possibilities as a poem. I will be tweaking it in the next couple

weeks but here is my first draft for your gastronomic enjoyment.

Ode To A Sagging & Musical Mid Section

    It precedes me wherever I go, my protuberant and melodious mid section. 

   Such a sad state of affairs and quite nonsensical to dwell on in the big scheme of things. 

   It seems to be one of the many female concessions to producing offspring and growing older. 

   Imagine releasing the air from a very large balloon and being left with the flaccid remains.

   My children pat my belly like it is their personal fetish and enjoy a good laugh when we settle down after dinner and my gut starts its own rendition of the "Flight of the Bumblebee".

   I always prided myself with the gift of resiliency and good digestion.

   Then welcome baby one, baby two and what all have to deal with eventually, gravity, and the mid section chorus. 

   No amount of exercise or stretching will reshape skin that has been stretched ten times its original size back to Barbie doll tautness. And no amount of food enzymes will keep the intestinal racket from occurring. Eat a bowl of 'Kashi' cereal and let the composition begin.

   Just the other day, I invited an attractive twenty-something male client to be shampooed after his haircut was finished. As he swiveled in the chair he instinctively reached to brush his clippered hair from my protruding belly where it had landed. 

   Awkward.

   Good thing a healthy dose of apathy and resignation come with the beginnings of middle age as well as the tendency to say whatever comes to mind. But that is another story altogether.

   I am learning to love my outer innertube.

   I feel a song coming on.

I was trolling the net for pictures of a sagging midsection and came across this amazing artist, Federico Uribe. Give yourself a visual feast and check out his incredible works of art @http://www.federicouribe.com/.

Write On!

"but paper and ink have conjuring abilities of their own. 

arrangements of lines and shapes, of letters and words on a 

series of pages make a world we can dwell and travel in." 

— Lynda Barry (What It Is)

Creative Writing Class started at the Studio

Saturday, March 12 with 

a group of 6 excited participants!

Benjamin Lambright was a worthy

instructor, giving several great exercises

to get the imagination jump started.

                   "The scariest moment is always just before you start." 
— Stephen King (On Writing)

                 I will soon have a short story or poem to share when we get rolling with a few classes.
We still have room next Saturday for some more participants. So, get your writing pens out and start
conjuring some story ideas to share with the rest of us...



                                                                                    "May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself." 
— Neil Gaiman

Life Without Art?

 

---

Life without ART, by Darlene Lewis

Can you ask a baby not to cry?
can you ask a bird not to fly?
can you ask a flower not to bloom?
life without art is  death after doom
life without movement still and content
worthless meaningless time is spent
idle just slumber just plain and bland
no strokes no pens or pencil in hand
no music no prose  no blisters on toes
no broken hearted dancers no shows
only true artists understand and know
how life would be so grey and dark
life without love is life without art
rehearsals and go sees and cattle calls
no models no musicians at all
no mp3s or mov's nor any html
no lyrics lost no cds to sell
no beats no bangs no blues no rock
no jazz no reggatone no not
museum walls crying for frames
artifacts unknown fossil names
markers paint oil and lead
art cannot live if it is dead
Art is a baby waiting to be
nurtured and loved eternally
Art is a Rose in full bloom
Life without art is Death after Doom

New Lino Block Print Artist @

A Work of Art Studio

Welcome to Tillie Bergmeier

Growing up in Pontiac, MI, in an artistic family, Tillie Bergmeier draws inspiration from life in the city, as well as her Christian faith. The subject matter of her prints is often a combination of friends and family members and city scenes. She now studies printmaking at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, where she is experimenting with photo transfer and collage methods.

                                     

Tillie has been most inspired by her father, John Bergmeier, who has a Masters in Print Making.

Check his work out @

                
                                                       http://www.johnbergmeier.com/

Imperfections are Lovable

"The writer must be true to truth." And that's a killer, because the only way you can describe a human being truly is by describing his imperfections. The perfect human being is uninteresting... It is the imperfections in life that are lovable.~ Thomas Mann

Unfortunately, we most of us don't like pictures taken or shown of our "imperfections", but we can all relate with them. Some of my favorite pictures of my family and friends are those taken in full laughter. The older I get the more I love to be reminded of those jovial moments.

I have been doing much reading since ArtPrize ended in October. My brain and schedule needed the rest from such a demanding creative schedule. I have been working on finishing up a few unfinished projects and waiting for some ideas from a client in New York for a mosaic kitchen backsplash. As soon as I start that project I will share the process with y'all.

By the way, this is one of my favorite pictures of my little Sweetie when she first tried bananas.

Here is also the finished mosaic table I had started in my last blog entry.

It is the "imperfect" nature of mosaic that makes it my favorite pastime.

Hooting a Few Hoots!

The man who doesn't relax 

and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, 

now and then, 

is in great danger

 of hooting hoots and standing on his head 

for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse,

 a little later on.

                      ~Elbert Hubbard

Here is my new Streetside Chalkboard advertising art classes.

Otherwise known as my "monster's inc." door.

Here is a mosaic iris I am working on for a small outdoor table. I have applied it to mesh and then will glue it to cement board.

Here are my two grapevine trees for the front of the shop.

And here they are in their pots  with lights.

Vanessa is penciling out a frame for the indoor chalkboard. Soon she will paint it and it will host a salon menu.

These are just a few things I (&Vanessa) have been working on 

since ArtPrize has been done. The Luminary Angel Sculpture is still holding her own at the front of the shop;)

The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it.

~Author Unknown