" But Love Goes on Forever"

This is the box that was in my first photo in my last post. Given to me free at a garage sale earlier this summer by an older lady who said she used it for her earrings. She was selling her house and moving...I would love to be able to show her what I did with those frames as well as with this blank box.

The completed box. The topper is from a bird house given to me by a friend that was redecorating her yard. I took the birdhouse and it was in my garden until we moved and by then the whole thing was falling apart but I kept the metal top. 

Detail: little glass jar that I put ribbons in to match the color scheme. 

Small basket I've had for over 50 years! (it was in my original doll house) Music scroll, fairy dust, packet of "secret letters" 

The title of the piece comes from this ceramic shopping bag which is from the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage Missouri. I visited there with my family about 20 years ago. 

Our new neighborhood has held something called "The Sycamore Stroll" for years. I was lucky enough to be in town for this one. It is a neighborhood of garage sales with hotdogs, lots of neighbors on foot or bike going from house to house to find treasures. I was in heaven on my bicycle in the perfect spring air and abundant flowers. I bought a box of the little plastic wine glasses from a woman whose mother used to collect miniatures. I filled it with tiny glass beads and resin.

A friend gave me a roll of hand printed paper of bicycles. I've been cutting them out and using them in projects. I put the little dog that was made hand painted in Scotland, that I also have had for years.  

I hope you enjoyed my little journey with this piece as much as I did making it and telling you about it. 

Unhappy Meal II

So this story starts with stuff. It's hard for me to part with stuff. And then I had two girls who hated to part with stuff. One day about 10 years ago we did a major cleaning out of the girls closets and under their beds. I couldn't part with all that colorful stuff that was a part of their growing up. 

I had the idea to create a huge piece called the "Unhappy Meal" as most of this stuff came from you know where. It was a commentary on children begging their parents for one more toy but in reality all they really want is their parents attention. 

 I moved about 7 years ago and decluttered and got rid of a lot of stuff, I then started my Every Little Thing art business where I use up all this stuff in my art. Well lo and behold this gave me a reason to start collecting little things again, justified by the thought that I'll be using it in my art. And people started sending me their little things. Which I greatly appreciated, but was starting to feel the pressure of STUFF. 

 It was time to create an Unhappy Meal II

My younger daughter asked me, "what ever happened to the Original Unhappy Meal? I said "I left it at the last school I taught at and for all I knew it could be in the trash". She said, "I hope not, that was the defining piece of a defining period of your art." WOW 

The frame was given to me by the same daughter when she moved, it was part of a display at Borders that she bought when they were going out of business. I am using it upside down.

Next step was to find papers to collage the board with so white would not be showing behind the toys... 

...which meant I had to take all the toys off the board.

Laying out the papers.

Then painted the frame.

Then start gluing down the toys.

The finishing touches were adding the mardi gras beads to the groove in the frame and adding the block letters and toys at the top. Then I poured Dimensional Magic all around the toys to give it a nice finished look.
The original UnHappy Meal was also in a rainbow, but it was much larger and it had a crying baby voice box that could be turned on and off.
This one measures 18" x 24" 

Many thanks to my top contributors of stuff: Lisa, Innes, Selina, Leslie, Aunt Jerry, and Millie. If I left you off by accident just leave a comment. And to Rebecca  for the idea of using the alphabet blocks for the title.

Art That Tells a Story- Honoring Zitkala-sa

I heard a story of a Native American girl and a violin. Her name was Zitkala-sa.   I was given this broken violin and Indian doll head and knew they were destined to be a tribute to this remarkable woman's life.

A Native American bead design was recreated with paint. 

She was born in 1876 on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota. As a child she was taken from her family by Quaker missionaries to live at the White's Manual Labor Institute in Indiana.

The edges of the violin I hand beaded with glue and beads, one by one.
This part took over 4 hours. 

While at school she discovered her musical talents and learned to play the violin...eventually even writing "The Sun Dance Opera."

Zitkala-sa translates to "Red Bird",  I drew these with paint pens. 

She went on to further her education beyond the housekeeper training prescribed for all young girls. She obtained her diploma and gave a speech on women's inequality, which received high praise. 

Around the edge of the painted design I added more embellishments. 

 She went on to pursue a degree in higher education and played violin with the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. In 1900 she played violin at the Paris Exposition.

Adding to the design....

On the back of the violin I added a photo of Zitkala-sa with her violin from the year 1898. 

A quote from her writings reflecting on the time she was torn from her mother. All the writing was done with a white Signo pigment ink pen, that I got from my friend Marianne.

The entire back of the piece.

Zitakala-sa not only advocated for the rights of Indians but the rights of women as well and was a key figure in the suffrage movement in the 1920's.

At the top of the violin I added this porcelain dolls head which reminded me of Zitkala-sa before her braids were cut off at school.  The "19 crimes" wine cork which comes from an Australian Wine to me, represents the crimes against the Native Americans. 

Here is the piece in its entirety. I added some wind catchers given to me by a friend as well as a hand beaded bracelet on leather, and a piece of violin music, Beethoven's "Hymn of Joy". Because in the end she overcame her suffering and was a beacon of light for women and persons of color.

Thirty Babies

My newest assemblage is based on the truly inspiring story of the Chinese rubbish collector who saved and raised THIRTY babies abandoned at the roadside

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181017/Lou-Xiaoying-Story-Chinese-woman-saved-30-abandoned-babies-dumped-street-trash.html#ixzz2r3VJMd6y 

This piece started with the black plastic candle holder from the popular faux Mediterranean style of homes of the 1970's I purchased it from a junk furniture store a few years ago when I was looking for a desk for my daughter.  Last month I purchased a bunch of plastic babies from a thrift store in Park City Utah. They look like little baby Jesus' with the arms outstretched as seen in Nativity scenes.

 I knew I wanted to use those two items in a piece of art. I  googled "baby legends" and horrible story after horrible story of murder and mayhem and baby ghosts haunting people popped up. So I narrowed my search to "good baby stories" and this article from the daily mail  about this woman and her husband rescuing newborn chinese babies that were abandoned in the rubbish caught my attention. Perfect! Just what I was looking for, and such an inspiring story!

AND (insert serendipity here) I have had these pair of Chinese Cloth Dolls that came from my childhood home that would be perfect to symbolize Lou and Li.  I emailed my three sisters and my mom for details on the dolls. No one knew anything about them other than that they sat in an oversized chair and my younger sister remembered playing with them. I looked them up on ebay and they are vintage '50-'60's cloth dolls that sell for around $10 each. 

First I painted everything with white gesso. Then I got out Michael DeMeng's Book Dusty Diablos for some inspiration and color combinations. 

Then I had to do something to the babies. First I painted them all with gesso.

Then I added a wash of colors to make them look more natural.

The fun part of adding washes on top of the gesso.

I left some area's black. On top of the bright colors I added another wash of Golden Fluid acrylic to tone them down.

I glued the 30 babies down and added rhinestones to each forehead to symbolize each precious life that was a treasure found in the trash.

The dolls would sit but I didn't like how their legs stuck straight out. 

Luckily, I have a friend that makes doll's. She suggested I put a few stitches behind the knee.

I hate to sew but gave it a try. (I had to borrow my husbands sewing kit, as I don't even have a needle and thread to my name!)

Yes, it worked, thanks Micki!

In the center is a small battery operated candle with a lantern shade over it. The lantern shade came from a string of lights I used to have. 

Detail shot of the painted dots and jewels that were added. 

Detail of babies with rhinestones.

As I was working on this piece a call for artists for the new Treasure Valley Art Alliance show "Metamorphosis" came in and I knew this piece would fit the bill! 30 Babies lives transformed from certain death to life because of one woman's commitment to do the right thing.

Thirty Babies 24" high x 12" wide $325

My 350th post is an update on a post

 Investigative Art from April 14, 2010. To refresh your memory this was the piece of art:

It was created to honor the memory of the victims of a fire at the Pioneer Hotel in Tucson, AZ in 1970. The fire was attributed to a 16 year old boy. A panel of arson experts recently found no evidence that the fire had been set intentionally and the young boy who is now 59 years old has been set free. 

After 42 years in prison Louis Taylor is learning how to use a cell phone and says learning how to use a computer is out of the question. If he truly is innocent, I should add another tag to the sculpture to honor the 42 years of his life he gave up. According to trial witnesses, as flames raced toward the top floor, Taylor rushed in and helped save several elderly guests and children. 

This article was in the August 12, 2013 People Magazine

What if she's an Axe Murderer?

Rebeca in her studio

 Don't you just love it when men half listen? So let me start at the beginning. I was to accompany my husband to San Francisco where he would be working all day.  I contacted a blog friend of mine, Rebeca whom I seemed to have a lot in common with and I knew lived in the area, she was free and invited me to come see her and her art and gallery and studio and artist friends! The only problem was I didn't have a car and the bus takes 3 hours because of all the stops, and the last bus returning to the city leaves at 4:15 which leaves not much time to see and do everything. So I asked my husband and Rebeca asked hers and it was decided that if we ran out of time or were just having too much fun, I would spend the night.

So now back to the 1/2 listening part. As I am getting ready to fall asleep the night before I am to catch the bus, my husband says to me...well I hope your friend is still as nice as you remember her in high school and I say, what are you talking about? and he says, you know your friend that you are going to visit and I say what? I've never met her before! and he says What!? you are spending the night with someone you met on the internet! What if she's an ax murderer? Well then after that conversation, I didn't get much sleep. But Rebeca and her husband turned out to be as nice and gracious as I had expected!

And what a wonderful whirlwind 24 hours we had! She picked me up at the bus stop at 9:40 am and we went straight for a tour of the studio, as the thrift stores do not open until 10.

lot's and lot's of goodies but all very organized

Clear spice jars hold all kinds of small buttons, beads and baubles

part of her collection of doll heads, we had a tutorial on how to pull the heads off dolls.

We had the tutorial because I told her about my squeamishness to tear anything apart and how I mostly just use the item as is. I also told her the story about Nancy's Nightmare.

Finished Assemblage pieces

A piece in progress with interactive parts

Rebeca calls her art  Obtainium Art(click for link to website) Materials used for paintings or sculpture, not bought new, but obtained in other ways, such as second-hand, dumpster diving, chance findings or donations.


After several quick stops to her favorite thrift stores we were off to visit SOFA, the art district and meet some other artists and their wonderful studio's and work.

Cat Kaufman's studio

Cat and her quirky world of assemblage

Fascinating mixed media assemblage

 To see Cat's website visit: http://www.catkaufman.com/
Cat and Mary and a few other artists share a building were they have studios in the back and their own gallery up front. The current show is Mary's acrylic paintings. Some are on canvas and others are on old washboards or board games. Then over the pieces she pours resin. I really like her work. Mary's website is http://www.maryvaughan.com

This is Mary Linnea Vaughan and her current exhibit at the gallery.

Next we popped in and said hello to Jack Jones.

 Jack is quite the character and a great painter, he had my ear for a while and when I found out he was recently written up in the paper I had to google it, it explains more about his 88 years as an artist and designer than I could ever tell. click here: Jack Jones for the article.

From there it was off to the Sebastopol Gallery to see Rebeca's work on display and to drop off a new piece as she had just sold one. Yeah!

Next was a tour of Rebeca's house...

Artsy entrance to Rebeca's home...

...and wonderful backyard

We decided I needed to spend the night so we could go to garage sales in the morning and had a wonderful evening attending an end of the school year party, drinking good Sonoma wine and walking around town.

Assemblage loot- thrift store, garage sale and items given to me

picture frames 10 cents each!

I didn't really want these but the lady at the garage sale kept going down on the price because she really wanted someone to take them. I didn't take them because they were inexpensive I took them because her mother had made them and she had passed away a few years and she was trying to let go of her mothers things that she was hanging on to. I could tell she was a little upset about this so I said I would take them and honor them in some way and she said, I know you will.

some tchotchkes given to me  from Walt's office. When I walked in and saw all the knickknacks and mobiles in his small office I said, NOW I know why you two are married. 

 When we spied a box marked FREE on the side of the road Walt did a u-turn so Rebeca could see what was in it. I know Bill loves me but he would have stepped on the gas!!

It was a fitting way to end our 24 hours of non-stop fun and Rebeca dropped me off at the bus stop with a street taco to go and I was on my way back to the city! What fun! Thank you Rebeca and Walt!