The moon has eyelids!

Hello to the morning

First thing in the morning, when the light is soft and the house is quiet, I take my coffee into the studio. I sit and look at what I did the day before and think about what direction today should take. No extra light. No extra sound. It's bliss.

What to do today.

It's a gray, cold (for Florida) morning and I'm looking at the stuff on and around the work table in my studio. I'm not sure what I want to do today; not feeling ambitious.

There are some bits and pieces that were unearthed during the studio overhaul that could turn into something interesting, perhaps today is the day to start looking at them. Or it could be the day to read a good book.......

An Outing!

My friend Cindy and I went to the Mount Dora Arts Festival today. It's been years since I've been to an art fair as an attendee, not an exhibitor. What fun!

It was a beautiful day, although if I had had a booth set up I would have been a bit concerned about the wind. BUT, the sun played hide and seek with the clouds and kept the temperature from climbing too high. The crowds were incredible, it was hard to get through the streets. I don't know if people were buying anything, but it was nice to see so many people out enjoying art and the day. It made me long to do a show again and I plan to jury for one for this fall.

I haven't exhibited in an art fair since 2008, when I did the American Craft Council show in Atlanta and Mainsail in St Petersburg, Florida. Both are wonderful shows, but my sales just didn't cover expenses for either venue and I had to make the decision to get a "real" job. Never an easy choice to make, but sometimes it's necessary. In the past I have found that these times can be a time of growth and change in my art work and I look forward to seeing where this time will take me.

Today confirmed that I do want to do a show this year. I miss the sights, sounds and, yes the smells (who doesn't like the smell of kettle corn?) of an art show.

The Littles

Here, at long last, are the little pieces that rose from the ashes (dust?) of the studio cleaning:

The dish and spoon stayed pretty simple: they're running away on a background drawn with watercolor pencils. Their line from the nursery rhyme, torn from a tattered story book, has been added to the canvas.

The little flower fellow is a bit more complicated: He got a silver crescent moon and a brass #2. I also decided to put a small keyhole on his canvas and I wanted some to be peering through the keyhole. I chose a photo of a very dear friend who has taught me much about the flora and fauna of Florida. I just happened to have a great picture of her taken when she was a child. It seemed appropriate to use Clauda's picture on this piece and when I reduced her to an extremely small size she fit perfectly inside the keyhole! I attached a vintage key to the copper wire on the flower.

I finished both pieces with simple wooden frames, a great technique from Claudine Hellmuth's book, "Collage Discovery Workshop" that I use a lot.

What do you think?

Winter Cleaning

I know, we're supposed to do spring cleaning, not winter cleaning. But since moving to Florida eight years ago winter seems to be a better time to do deep cleaning. It's when the weather's mild - usually - and the windows can be open. It just feels like the right time down here.

I've been doing a bit of winter cleaning in the studio, sorting through shelves and storage bins, weeding out things I can give way or list for sale on etsy.

One happy result of deep cleaning in the studio is rediscovering pieces in various stages of completion that for one reason or another got set aside. Some will pique my interest again and I set them out on my work table. When this happens I rarely finish the piece as I had originally intended; there's a new vision now.

Recently I came across this tiny plate and spoon, along with their equally tiny arms and legs. Originally I had planned on doing a piece depicting the entire "Hey Diddle Diddle" gang, but lately I have been enamoured with small works, so now the dish is going to run away with the spoon alone. I painted the faces and put stripes on the wee arms and legs. Then I wired the extremities to the bodies to give them motion. They'll go on a 3X3" canvas, something else will go on the canvas with them, not sure what yet. I'll have to let you know.

I also ran across this little baby in a hollyhock. He was already painted. In fact the hollyhock was glued to a pinback. Apparently at some point I went though a very strange pin-phase that I'm now blocking...... Anyway, the hollyhock fellow has now been coated with beeswax and attached to a beeswax coated 2.5X3.5" canvas, then wrapped with copper wire. Not sure what else will go on his canvas either, but I'll put both finished pieces in a future post.

In the meantime I'm looking forward to seeing what else I might find in the boxes and bins and what ideas these finds might spark.......

New Books!

Don't you love getting a gift certificate? I do, especially a gift certificate for books or art supplies.

Recently I was given a Barnes & Noble gift certificate. After savoring the thought of it for a few weeks the day finally came when I had time to browse and consider my selections. These books can't be chosen in haste after all, they are gift books, they must be chosen carefully!

From the front door I spied a huge book on the history of the circus.....in the sale section!! I love old circus pictures. Several oddities have been inspired by the vintage circus look; in fact there is a circus piece in the studio right now that could use some inspiration.

After looking through the circus book - yes it did look promising, but a decision can't be made that quickly - I headed back to the arts & crafts section. In addition to checking out the books in general, there were a few I wanted to look at in particular: Rice Freeman-Zackery's "Creative Time and Space: Making Room for Making Art". I also wanted to see "Who's Your Dada" by Linda and Opie Obrien and "Image Transfer Workshop" by Darlene Olivia McElroy and Sandra Duran. I was especially interested in Rice Freeman-Zackery's book. I have her "Living the Creative Live: Ideas and Inspiration from Working Artists" and I follow her blog and listen to her podcast, and I enjoy all of it, BUT, her book wasn't in stock. The other two books were available for my perusing pleasure; both looked good, especially "Who's Your Dada?". But, way up on a high shelf I spied "Art Making and Studio Spaces" by Lynne Perrella. Now, when it comes to other artist's working spaces I have to admit, I'm a bit of a voyeur. I must not be alone given the number of magazines on the subject that have cropped up in the last year or two. I generally find the magazines unsatisfying though; the spaces often look too decorated, too pretty for real work.

After finding a ladder I got the book down and thumbed through it and saw true work spaces.....enough to satisfy my voyeuristic tendencies! A book chosen!!

Back to the sale section to look at the Circus book again. It had some great pictures and illustrations - lots of inspiration there - so it had to come with me too.

A quick pass through the magazines; too many possibilities to list, but only one came home with me: "American Style". The article about collectors Jerry Slipman & Chet Robachinski caught my eye. Whenever I'm asked to speculate about what I'd do if I won $100 million in the lottery I say I'd become a collector of art and fine craft. "American Style" showcases collectors whose homes and collections I'm usually thinking of when I say that, like Slipman and Robanchinski's.

My gift certificate was well spent I think, don't you agree?

Blue Moon

There's a Blue Moon tonight. My favorite art work of my own is titled "Blue Moon". It was conceived at the American Craft Council, Sarasota, Florida show, in 2002. My business name was Silver Moon Studio. Across the aisle was a potter who called his business Blue Moon Studio. During the course of the show he explained that he and his wife (and fellow potter) had found their farm in upstate New York, with a pottery studio already built on it, on the day of a blue moon.

I was sitting in my booth thinking about a blue moon being the second full moon in a month when it occurred to me that, no, it would simply be a very sad moon. I did some quick sketches right away and had intended to share them with you, but I have misplaced the sketchbook I was using at the time. Anyway, I did not follow the sketches very closely. I very rarely do. The piece didn't come to fruition right away; I finished him in 2006.

He was sculpted in Creative Paperclay with a wood and wire armature. His clothing was also made of paperclay with acrylic paint and silver leaf. I knew that he would be wear all shades of blue with some purple. I didn't plan on the red tie. It was a last minute decision. It was his choice and it is out of character for him, but he wears it any way because it was a gift from the sun.

"Blue Moon" is living in the Atlanta area. He found a new home when we were there for the American Craft Council Show in March 2008.

Happy New Year!

The book completed!

With silhouettes cut from all of the pages it was time to make the book stand.

This proved to be a bit of a challenge. I had drilled dowels into the base thinking I could simply attach chipboard to the dowels and glue the spine of the book to the chipboard. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I applied the glue and held the book in place........and I held the book in place........and I held the book in place........well anyway, I held it a long time, but it didn't matter, the book had gotten too fragile and the spine was disintegrating. The glue held it to the chipboard at the bottom, but not at the top, so the book slumped.

Yikes! The figure couldn't sit on the book if it was slumping. Heck, the silhouettes couldn't even fan out! Time was running out, I needed to get the piece finished in time for the show and I couldn't sculpt the figure until I had the book standing so I could see how its legs would sit on the book. After a few minutes of panicking I decided I might be able to drill a couple of holes through the book, then wire it to the dowels. If you are ever going to drill through a book I recommend doing it while the book is laying down, it will be much easier I'm sure. It wasn't easy, but it worked!!

I had the head and torso and hands of the figure sculpted, now I was able to sculpt the legs and arms in the position I had in mind.

The piece made it to Still Life in G Gallery in the Village of the Arts in Bradenton, Florida in time for the show. I wasn't completely happy with it when I finished, but I ran out of time and I had to stop working on it. It's the base I'm not happy with. I asked people to give me the names of characters they remember from books they've read and I wrote the names, along with the quote on the base, but it's all too pale I think. There's no contrast. Deb McKeever, the owner of the gallery is going to invite visitors to the show to add names to the base. If I'm still unhappy with it when it comes home I can always work on it some more!

Does Santa have to be dressed in traditional colors?

Blue Santa? Turquoise Santa? Acid green Santa? What do you think, can it really be Santa dressed in these non-traditional colors? After seeing these colors in the stores and in the Christmas issues of several magazines I was inspired to dress this year's troop of Santas in bright, non-traditional colors (you can see how they started life in the July 28th post, "in the studio (at last)"). I listed this group of cheery fellows in my shop on etsy - http://www.olivamoon.etsy.com/ . Only the red one has sold, and it was sold before they were listed on etsy. Now, I admit that I did finish them late, I didn't list them until December 2nd, so I'm unsure if they haven't sold because of the late listing, or if the bright colors don't appeal to people.

So, what do you think, does Santa have to be dressed in traditional colors?

Cutting, Cutting, Cutting (the book continues)

I looked for faces with interesting profiles everywhere. Cutting the silhouettes took three weeks. I went through almost 100 #11 x-acto knife blades. The pages that were cut away left wonderful negative spaces giving me a great collection of reverse silhouettes (a future project?).

No matter how often I changed the blade I ended up with some fuzzy edges. I realized that it didn't matter because while we do remember the people from the books we read when we are young, the memories fade and the edges become fuzzy. So the piece will read: The people in the books we read, especially when we are young, become a part of us. The memories may fade and the edges become soft, but they are with us forever.

The book continues

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written! Time has been flying, I must be having fun.

The sculptural book piece is finished; I'll share it in a later post. It took a lot longer to finish it than I had anticipated, as things often do. While I had the book standing up on end it looked like it wanted a figure to sit on top, that would look down into the pages. I still wanted to do some kind of faces ....SO....I decided to cut silhouettes from the pages of the book.

At this point the question was whether to cut many different silhouettes, or do one silhouette 1200 times (there are 1200 pages in the book). As I was pondering this I thought how many of the characters from the books I read when I was young had stayed with me, I still think of them, some had helped to shape me. I decided to cut many different faces in the book. All 1200 pages. It took a long time. A very long time.

The book will stand

I've been playing with the book, it seems to want to stand. It's a bit fragile, so it's going to need some support and a base. So far I'm seeing more of what's going on around the book than what's going on in it.

Sculptural Book Art Revisited

Having committed to participating in the sculptural book show I have until November 20th to finish my piece. It's my first work of this kind and I was unsure of which direction to go in. Research showed both sculptural books created from exsiting books, like the ones pictured in the previous blog and books created entirely by the artist; a great book on this type is "The Penland Book of Handmake Books". I'm going to work on an existing book.

I looked through my books and after narrowing it down to two, finally decided to use an old Lino Typefaces book because the finished piece will probably have faces in it. What do you think? Too obvious?

more work in progress

This morning I opened the drawer of the flat file to hunt for photos and ephemera to add to the assemblages and the drawer exploded. It was bond to happen sooner or later; it was overstuffed with, well, stuff. I long to be organized, I work to get everything in order, fully intending to keep it that way (I actually believe that I will), but of course it never lasts. In a hurry looking for something I'll riffle through, or coming home from a successful hunt I'll toss new finds in; whatever the cause chaos inevitably returns. Today is the day to reclaim the drawer. I'll let you know what treasures I rediscover.

in the studio (at last)

In the studio today after a long (too long) dry spell. Well, not a dry spell really, it was more a matter of not having my priorities straight. So, now I'm trying to keep those priorities in order and make studio time the top one every day (when possible of course). The problem this morning was what to work on; new inspiration, or old project? The answer seems to be a bit of both. I often work with Creative Paperclay and it's best built up in layers, so I added layers to some already-in-progress work. I also started some backgrounds for some small assemblage pieces. This afternoon I'm going to search through my treasure trove of the bits and pieces that have followed me home and see what wants to be part of the assemblages. I think I'm also going to get out the sea glass that we found on the beach in Grand Turk and think about making some souvenirs from our family vacation. I guess that's part of the problem too isn't it? So much inspiration, so little time!

Anne Ross Oliva

olivamoon.etsy.com