Accidental Angel

 This assemblage started with this piece of rusted wire I found along with some old rusted metal in the backcountry in Nevada. I did not do anything to the wire, to me it looked like an angel the way it was twisted. This wire "angel" has been hanging in my studio for well over a year. I could never figure out what to do with it.

 Then my friend Lisa sent me a box full of found objects for my art. and this wire piece with the crystal in it seems perfect to hang from the angel as a body. The wire that wrapped around the crystal was a new silver color, so I took it apart and painted it with red and green alcohol inks to dull it down. I then glued an antique button to a vintage round wood piece and glued the wire to that.

When I took it back to my studio after photographing it, I noticed this round piece of wood on my table. The colors of wood were too similar and it all blended together and then I remembered this handmaid doily of my grandmothers that I put between the layers and this seemed to be the missing piece! Before glueing it together I cut a whole in the center of the doily so it would glue more securely and not pull the fabric from the wood.

Boise Weekly Cover Auction and other Holiday 2013 events

The Boise Weekly Cover Auction is this Wednesday Nov. 20 at 6pm at the Visual Arts Collective. This piece of mine that was on the cover last January will be up for Auction.

Next on my agenda is teaching another Mini Masters art class for ages 6-12 at the Garden City Public library from 1-2pm Thanksgiving Week. This is free and open to the public (you don't have to live in Garden City)

I am excited to be taking part in the Boise Open Studios Artist in Residence (AiR) program at 404 S. 8th St. ste. 182 above Cafe Ole for the Month of December. I will be posting regular hours as well as an open house on First Thursday Dec. 5 and First Thursday Jan. 2.

And...if you are interested in purchasing a piece of art please contact me or stop by Green Chutes in Boise to see a selection of my work.

Beauty and the Brush

 Thanks to Kristi at Red Betty's for the space and refreshments. Thanks to Geoff for the illustrations on the poster and to Nancy for designing the poster. Come see us and invite your friends.  We may even have a food truck on site.

Grown in Idaho

 This piece was started with covering an existing thick layer of paint on the 5" x 7" board with joint compound. Joint compound seems to me to react very similarly to plaster when dry and is easier to use as it comes pre-mixed. While it was wet I cut and pressed a potato sack and label to it. When it was dry I painted and carved a potato into it. It sat around for awhile like this until I could figure out what to add.

I had some old toy wagon wheels. The one on the left shows what they looked like, the one on the right was painted with black gesso and then the brown acrylic.

I really wanted a sack of miniature potatoes but could not find one. I did find this potato shaped rock in my stash and the same week I found the miniature hat and rope and bandana at a reuse store. Perfect! This piece fits inside a shadow box with glass and measures 5" x 7"

We Can Go to An Island By Boat...

This piece started with another pre used canvas. This one had rhinestone and wax all over it, so I decided to use the back. I scraped the sides with an exacto knife and then painted them with black gesso.

Next step was coating the back were the canvas overlapped the wood with joint compound.

 I added tissue paper to line the inside, and then used a sharpie to write the words:

We can go to an island by boat... What time should we meet? 

This piece was based on the summer of '84 and my 2 month long adventure of a lifetime in Greece and Europe. This particular piece and the wording on it has to do with flying into Athens from England where I was supposed to take a boat to go meet my friend Marianne in Corfu. I was traveling by myself. And I don't read or speak Greek. Well all those careful plans went awry when I found out there was no boat, instead I could take a bus which would get me in in the middle of the night the night before Marianne was to arrive.  I didn't want to pay for a hotel room for just a few hours so as a naive 24 year old I decided I would just sleep on a park bench and walk to the airport the next day to find my friend. Lucky for me no one bothered me and I got to clean up in the park bathroom like a homeless person. This was in the days before cell phones and we couldn't  find each other at the airport. She was just about to go check at the tourist police when we found each other in the women's restroom. 

I painted and collaged on top of the joint compound and then added 3D foam dots to a watercolor painting I painted of boats in the harbor.

 I added dots of paint around the edges.

The finishing touches were adding some of my souvenirs from 29 years ago. They include a miniature hand-painted Greek vase,  a cork from a bottle of wine with Greek writing and a miniature Greek house.

The Green Gate

12" x 12" "The Green Gate"

This is the piece I made for the Art For Art VSA Idaho/Creative Access Art Center Fundraiser set for Oct. 3, 2013. The Boardwalk will include the work of local artists using a wide range of media on a consistent substrate which is a 12' x 12" plywood board. 

My assemblage/collage is centered on the theme of an original children's workbook copyright 1947. I have taken certain sentences from the story and illustrated them using things I have found such as a green gate, a goat and colorful flowers.

Come by on First Thursday Oct. 2 for a free public preview. Tickets for the event are $30. each or $50 per couple. The Creative Access Art Center is located at 500 South 8th St., downtown Boise.

Peace

Here is another project where I start out with a project from my friend Miriam who got rid of ALL of her art! She gifted me with many shadow boxes. This was one of them.

This was the perfect piece to show off my encaustic collage. 

Peace 12" x 8" shadow box mixed media 

Reflect on Your Life

 The focus of this mixed media piece is my life after retirement from teaching.  It's about moving out west and at age 50 taking up mountain biking and working through some of my fears of height and speed. 

Exhibit A

The piece of art featured in this blog post also started out from these pieces given to me to re-imagine.

This was the mixed media collage that needed finishing off. I like to use something more original than just a simple frame. If you have been following me for a while you have realized by now that  I never buy anything new for my art, so it's not like I'm going to be going to my local frame shop anytime soon.  I only use things gotten second hand, except for some glues and mediums. I even buy paint at garage sales and thrift stores. 

 

 

I had my mixed media piece cut to fit into the frame. I then sanded the existing paint and glue and took off the glitter and left it at that without painting over the design.

Here I am gluing the piece into the frame with weights to hold it down.

To fill in the space on top and bottom I poured white glue and spread it out with an old credit card. I then added beads and buttons and some old jewelry parts and filled in the spaces around them with sand from glass beach in Kauai that contains more glass, porcelain, coral and pottery than sand.  When that dried I poured Mod Podge Dimensional Magic on top.

Exhibit A 15" x 15" Mixed Media $250

The title to the piece came from the theme of the collage of A's.  Contained within the collage is an image of an Ant, the words Amaze, Adventure, Adore, Africa, an ace of spades and a vintage dictionary page of A's.

Famous Potatoes

This piece started with one of three pieces of art that were given to me by an artist friend who was cleaning out all her art and what she couldn't sell, she was giving away or throwing away. These had colorful loops of hand painted paper glued on top. I hated to destroy her art but she gave me permission and said If I didn't take them they would go in the dumpster. I didn't know what I would do with them and didn't want to just hoard them so I only took 3 of these. I emailed her yesterday if she still had the others and she said they were all thrown away! That makes me sad. Not only for myself but for her, and for the landfill. 

So what did I do with the frames? Below is one of the pieces of art and the process I went through.

I had this encaustic collage hanging around the studio waiting for something to finish it off.  I made it at Karen Bubb's encaustic workshop   It was just a tad too wide to fit inside the frame so I asked a builder friend if he could cut a 1/2" off the side. Now it fit.

 

The next decision was what to do with the frame itself. It had paper and blobs of glue and glitter on it that I sanded off. I liked how it looked sanded and decided not to paint over it.

Next was how to finish off the top and bottom as I was left with an inch or so of space on top and bottom of the collage. I tried vintage children's blocks but they looked too blocky, even if the colors were good.

Next I painted around the edges of the frame with black, so the bright colors of the back ground would not show up.

This same day my husband was called by the elderly neighbor if he could go over and help change out her license plates on the car. He came back with two license plates and said "I thought you could use these for something" now if you know my husband, this is a rarity! He usually throws things away before I can say, "can I have that?"  My initial reaction was no thanks I don't want them but on second thought I said, well what the heck give them to me an I'll see if I can find something to do with them.

Here are 2 of my pieces drying in their frames with all my button and bead jars to help hold them down and glue flat.

Famous Potatoes 15" x 15" $250 Encaustic Collage/Mixed Media

I love serendipity. I had to cut the edges of the license plate off but I love the way it turned out especially with the truck. Can anyone guess what state this license plate is from?

The Wandering Wasp

My Friend Marianne was gracious enough to ask me if I wanted a huge pile of art magazines before she recycled them. Of course I said yes. They are great for helping ideas flow, an example is this little tidbit from my other art friend Seth Apter.

 

As I was looking for something new and fun to do with this board I had AND I have this vintage set of  dictionaries my daughter gave me, this was the perfect project. I followed Seth's directions exactly. 

Then came the dilemma of what to do with the board. I had recently acquired this red frame at a moving sale of the reuse market which resells used donated goods to artists and schools.

The illustration I got off a Google search for a copyright free image of a wasp or bee and traced it onto a piece of transparency. The empty nests I found in my yard, while I was working on this piece while I was trimming my honeysuckle bush. I knew they would have to be added. And I made extra sure no one was home!

I like my pieces of art to have a story if possible. This is a true story.  I have not been bit by a stinging insect since I was a little kid,  but in the past few months I have gotten stung three times! all while mountain biking up at Bogus Basin Ski Resort. The first two stings were in my bra at the same time, not sure how the little buggers got in there. The third was on a second trip and on a different trail and this sting was under my arm and I was wearing short sleeves!

To finish it off, instead of framing it I glued it to a board I painted black and the edges of that board are painted the same red as the frame. I like to use double alliteration titles when possible, this piece is Called The Wandering Wasp. It is 11" x 17"

Mini-Masters

Georgia O'Keefe Inspired Large flower paintings

 The first of August I taught a week long art camp at the Garden City Public Library. It was just 1 hour a day. Ages 6-12, but I did have some well behaved 3 year olds!

More paintings

Other day's we did "ugly" clay faces based on Picasso's cubist period. Matisse inspired collages. "drawing with scissors" and monochromatic found object sculptures based on Louise Nevelson's art.

This boy had a tutor with him and she said she had made more progress with him in this session than she had all summer! 

Collages were on day 1 and I didn't think to take any pictures. Then I asked if it was ok if I took photos and they said yes. The two sculpture days I had a packed room and didn't have time to take photos.

Oil Pastel and Crayon Post-Expressionistic Landscapes inspired by Van Gogh

 I really appreciated how the staff at the library trusted me as a professional to do my job and let me create the curriculum and handle the classes as I saw fit. It was a fun week and I will be back Thanksgiving Break for another 3 day session.

Siren Song

Siren Song 15" x 15"
Mixed Media $125.

This was the first piece of the puzzle for this work of art. This was made a few months ago while taking an encaustic class with Karen Bubb. This is an encaustic collage on a canvas board.

These frames are the second piece of the puzzle.  An artist friend of mine was selling ALL of her art at a garage sale as she was going in a new direction with her art. I arrived at the end of the sale and she insisted I take a lot of stuff that didn't sell and re purpose it into my art. I felt bad about doing that until she said, "well if you don't it's going in the dumpster and going to take up a lot of room and be a lot more work for me"! Enough said I loaded up the car and then brought it in a little at a time so as not to frighten my husband. 


Centering the encaustic and adding coral and sea shells. 

Here I am spreading white glue all over the surface using an old credit card. I then glued pink glass that was given to me  that I assume was run through a rock tumbler. 

Then I used my small glass pieces from glass beach in Kauai, HI and used some Mod Podge Dimensional Magic to give it a shiny glaze and hold them in even better. The finishing touches were some beige, blue and white dots on the frame to tie it all together.