Strange Flora & Fauna

Sorry I have been out of the blog country for a while, busy working on this commission and generally working full time at the salon, etc. And looking up quotes too;) 

"There is at the back of every artist’s mind something like a pattern and a type of architecture. The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery. It is a thing like the landscape of his dreams; the sort of world he would like to make or in which he would like to wander, the strange flora and fauna, his own secret planet, the sort of thing he likes to think about. This general atmosphere, and pattern or a structure of growth, governs all his creations, however varied." 

— G.K. Chesterton

Or.... you could just appreciate the little critters and want to copy them somehow.

I do love me some flora and fauna.

Here is the start of the fauna in my commission mosaic:

                           This is the panel behind the client's stove. Must have male and female cardinal. I have a chickadee in this panel and the second little buddy is in the center panel; I have never seen just one chickadee, dee, dee, always two together.

 This is the start of the far left panel behind the client's sink. A luna moth and a hummingbird for starters.

This weekend I will be choosing the flora colors and background glass for the rest. These individual pieces are taking quite some time because they are each so, uh, individual. I have decided the rest will go more quickly since it is all pretty much related in pattern and color.

Thanks for sharing this journey with me.  And have a nice day. Don't forget to smell the flora and appreciate the fauna.

Who You Are Comes in Bits & Pieces

"Leonardo's Mona Lisa is just a thousand thousand smears of

 paint. Michelangelo's David is just a million hits with a

 hammer. We're all of us a million bits put together the right

 way."

— Chuck Palahniuk (Diary)

I finished the Cardinal for my commission kitchen backsplash today! 

Bit by bit, little by little, and a "whole" appears just the right way. 

Amazingly, bit by bit the motivation for your life comes back to you, which is not

easy when you are grieving the loss of a parent. I have my pattern taped 

to one of my Dad's oil paintings to help me think of him as I go on.

"There is never a sudden revelation, a complete and tidy explanation for why it happened, or why it ends, or why or who you are. You want one and I want one, but there isn't one. It comes in bits and pieces, and you stitch them together wherever they fit, and when you are done you hold yourself up, and still there are holes and you are a rag doll, invented, imperfect. And yet you are all that you have, so you must be enough. There is no other way." 
— Marya Hornbacher 
                                                  

Every Day Give Yourself a Little Chance...

"I learned...that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it

 kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and 

quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every

 day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little 

solitude and idleness." 

— Brenda Ueland

More flowing and less idleness would be nice, though I am running a full service hair salon as well as working my mosaic magic (a legend in  my own mind;)

The point of this quote is that every day you add just a little bit more, to your

picture, to your happiness, to your end to grief, and at the end of the project

you have a beautiful masterpiece to admire. Did I say this was a blog about every day nonsense?

In other words: life. Have a peaceful next little journey.

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