I'M GIVING IT AWAY!

Check out the Art Bead Scene monthly challenge for October. I am sponsoring some of the wonderful prizes for this month.

So Ugly They Are Beautiful

I love the textures and colors of fall. The rough bumps and deep pigments that you find on squash and gourds. The way the green leaves burst into fiery madness.

Everything has an urgency to it. Nature is partying like it knows tomorrow will be bleak and cold.

I have been busy with orders and getting ready for the Great Lakes Bead Bonanza this Sunday Oct 11, in Southfield Michigan.

I'll be there with some super deals. Its going to be my "fall cleaning sale".

There is a reason for this, besides the fact that I like to make people happy. I need to clean up my studio. I'm going to be participating in the Beads Of Clay Open Studio Blog Event on Oct 25.

So I'm thinking its time to tidy up a bit. I'll let you know more about it in the coming days, but I promise it will be fun!

Things Change

Well is suddenly turned cold and wet. I don't know why this always comes as a shock to me. Fall happens every year with regularity.

It happens to be a wonderful season here in Michigan with the beautiful colors. Somehow they always surprise me too with their generosity of golds and crimsons.

I have been thinking about change lately. Its not always easy to embrace the changes you don't plan, but like the seasons they give way to wondrous things.

I have changed some of my sculptural works, specifically my dolls

Here is a link to the process at Watch Me Create

Waiting for something to happen

Fall is here with change all around me, yet I am feeling stuck.  

For the second time in 3 weeks my laptop  is in for repair. There are things I need to do like list a ton of things on Etsy, but it takes time and a computer. Right now I am sharing a computer with my husband & daughter. It  is not an ideal situation & I am hoping my mac book will be home soon.

Yes, its worth it to  buy the Apple Care extended warranty. The  hard drive died 1 week after the original warranty expired. They replaced the hard drive &  just as I started to reorganize my life the screen went blank and it died again. I am very sad, very sad. 

And for the second time in as many weeks I feel like crap again with another nasty respiratory bug. 

I hate to complain, but I feel frustrated and stifled right now. There are things I want to do. 

I will end with a public service announcement: Please back up your files before something goes terribly wrong. Yep i learned the hard way.

Labor Day

The end of summer and the celebration of labor. Time to put away your white shoes and get down to business before the chill of winter sets in.

I am reminded of the story of the grasshopper and the ants.

I also think about my labor. My life is centered around my labor. Like the ants, i know all too well that if I don't work, I don't eat.

My labor from my hands. Everything I do from my own hands. I think about my fathers hands, gnarled from arthritis like some kind of knotty tree branch. He labored hard and worked himself to death by the age of 67. I got a strong work ethic from him but also an awareness of the inequities and injustices of life. I heard him say once that if hard work made you rich we'd all be millionaires.

I am luckier then my father, my work is also my passion and the reason I feel alive.

So today I celebrate the labor of hands the things that are touched and shaped by people, mostly nameless, mostly poor and mostly hard working. Always aware that winter is coming.

Sign up for class

I'm teaching my art journaling class again starting Sept 14. Contact Royal Oak Schools Continuing Education for registration info: 248-588-5050.

Where there is smoke...

I have to catch up on a lot of work. Last week was one of those "if it could go wrong- it does" weeks.

A brief run down:

1) transformer blows

2) power surge

3) brown out

4) smoking lights in bathroom

5) 2 fire engines, 8 firemen

6) fried hard drive

7) wiped out computer

8) defective seat on rental van

9) wrong adhesives used on work

10) 3 days of rain

11) respiratory infection wipes me out

I think thats everything.

On a positive note: Chicago is a great place to visit & The Bucktown Arts Fest was a great time.

I'll post about that a little later. Now I have to get back all the info I lost on my laptop. Yes it does pay to get the extended warranty. This happened 2 days past the first warranty had expired. I'm glad i had purchased the extended warranty the week prior to it.

Now if I could only be a good girl and remember to back up my files...

Random acts of nature

This awesome sunflower came up through a crack in the concrete behind my house.

It was probably planted by a bird or squirrel and this random act of nature provides me with a smile every time I walk out the back door.

It also reminds me that miracles can be small and unassuming, you just have to look in the right places.

There needs to be two of me

I really need a double. I want to be someone who can spend all their time being creative, making art & all together making the world a more funky place.

Too often life intrudes upon art. I have to feed the family and buy more dog food write emails and ship packages. This is more then enough for one person to sanely handle. I need a second "me" to run my life while the real me is busy creating.

Sometimes I wish I did not feel this creative urge and I could concentrate on things like on figuring out which health insurance plan I cannot afford the least. But damn it art calls and art always wins.

I am getting ready for the Bucktown Arts Fest in Chicago this month, and I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about what I will make and what I have to finish.

I don't have time to eat, or eat the right things, sleep enough, or I sleep too much because I have exhausted myself trying to do it all. I blame art. It is like a drug. I only feel good when I am doing it.

I wonder if there is a 12 step program for recovering artists

Looking at the Moon

For some reason, I feel most creative at night. Perhaps it's the quiet, or I have gotten all the mundane tasks out of the way, but I truly feel some kind of energy during the night that I don't have during the daylight hours.

Last night I made my first post to "Watch Me Create". Somehow it didn't feel right to do it in the daylight hours.

Now if I could only figure out a way to get my daughter up for school at 7:30 am after I have been up to 3 am being creative, I would have some harmony in my schedule.