Taking Care of Business

This week I’m working hard to take care of the business side of my art making. I’m on deadline to submit the catalog ad for Karen Sobolesky and Company, my sales rep. Hard to believe that the orders are already starting to come in for Spring and Summer sales! I also needed to develop a wholesale price list and print, package and finalize the art prints I’ll be offering. For added information “about the artist” for the customer I printed a small  label that will go on the back of each print, and the custom embossed, gold foil label appears on the front. 

All this business made it necessary for me to still make time to play. I made another small art quilt after being inspired by the last heart-themed piece.  The Artist Transfer Paper worked better than expected by being able to add line color using my colored pencils. I also had fun using some glass beads for added texture and details. The black bird in the lower left was also a transfer but I used metallic blue paint to highlight the wing area. The transfer didn't take too well to the seam so I filled it in with a black Sharpie. I hand painted gold metallic tree branches, rays and spirals for a little added pizazz. 

BIG Art on Small Business Saturday

My friend Wendy Gingel gets a big congratulations for having
her work accepted in the Anchorage Museum's Earth, Fire and Fiber XXVIII show this year (3 PIECES!!). She also has an impressive schedule lined up including: New Works in Tile, The International Contemporary Gallery -Anchorage, December 1 -31, 2011 and the Smithsonian Craft Show, Smithsonian National Building Museum, Washington DC April 19-22, 2012.

The Gingell Ceramics booth today at the Anchorage Museum Craft Weekend. We were only able to visit briefly as Wendy was busy bubble wrapping all sizes of her SOLD original ceramic ware! Her booth looked great and customers were purchasing not only the smaller works but the large, impressive platters and bowls. I can't wait to see her large wall tiles at the upcoming First Friday show next week!

Small Business Saturday may have been celebrated across the country but BIG ART was being sold at the Anchorage Museum Craft Weekend! I was fortunate to be able to shop "local" yesterday and today and saw many of my talented artist friends and their inspiring booths. I also enjoyed visiting all of the authors at the Read Alaska Book Fair that happened on the upper level of the Museum during the juried Craft Fair.

"The Lindas!" Artists Linda Weatherwax and Linda Smith
at their ever lovely booth today at Museum Craft Weekend.
The "Lindas" are normally my Bad Girls of the North neighbors and
I missed seeing them this year because of our big move.

Terri Atwell with Beadwitched. Daddy-O purchased
me a pair of Pearl, Iolite and Sterling Silver earrings from Terri. Cool how
he shopped while he was skiing today at Alyeska, huh?!

Original, hand fabricated jewelry by Susan Serna.

Susan Serna of Flora de la Luna who creates
jewelry in silver, gold and fine gemstones.

Elise Strauss' booth with her beautiful
lamp work beads.
My favorite was an incredible "Ringed Seal" necklace.
Customers were lining up
to have a chance to purchase her limited
edition Dancing Bear glass ornaments and
her one of a kind feature beads! 

Elise Strauss of Koi Creek Beads

As If Moving Wasn't Enough

Spoiler alert –if you don’t like to read Blogs that have TMI (especially girly TMI), just look at the pictures today. I should also share that I feel by reading other people’s Blogs I usually learn something or by reading about similar life situations of other people I find comfort in knowing we're not so alone in this crazy world –which prompted me to share the events of the last couple weeks completely unrelated to the big move.

This is Speedy-Carve rubber blocks that
I carved into with the tools. I then used
metallic acrylic paints to "stamp"
onto the fabric.

First off, before I launch into my mammogram story everything is fine. In October I went to get my annual mammogram (which I hadn’t managed to make time for in the last three years…) and got a call back that they wanted to “take a closer look(!!)” at something in my right breast. Well, as you can imagine this threw me into a total panic –especially since we were right in the middle of the house sale/purchase. I don’t do cancer threats very well and was at times paralyzed by fear and finding that I had to “talk myself down” on several occasions. I went back to the imaging center for my “closer look” scan, then got ANOTHER CALL that they now wanted to do a biopsy, B-I-O-P-S-Y…holy crap. What a horrible word, B-I-O-P-S-Y, not crap. I wasn’t able to schedule the biopsy until last last week because after the procedure you aren’t supposed to move your arm, lift anything heavier that a gallon of milk etc. Yeah right! Like I would be able to sit still while my house was FULL of boxes needing to get unpacked. Soooo, I finally was able to have the B-I-O-P-S-Y early last week and at the end of last week and got word that all was fine –just some “calcifications” which are perfectly normal for a woman “of my age.” I don’t mind saying that it hurt like hell and is still really tender. I did get some good “medicine” to help me through the procedure and my sister was with me, both of which helped a lot. I also don’t mind saying that I wasn’t real quick to answer the phone the last couple of weeks either. I did make this cool mini art quilt though. I used ink jet printer transfers, stamping, hand beading and free motion sewing. It doesn’t have any booby art (sorry guys) but I did use imagery that expressed how I’ve been feeling.

The finished quilted fiber art piece is about 9" wide x 16" tall.
I used colored pencils to hand color and embellish the heart, body, moon and butterflies because the transfers had enough "tooth" to take the coloring. 

Take the Challenge!

A shout out and CHALLENGE to my artist friends (Duke, Katie, Wendy, Steve, Mary, Gina, Amanda, Linda, Joyce, Jamie, Ann, Lance, Chris, Sheila, Marieke, Kim, Jana... just to name a few) 

I'm inspired and want to enter the "Eye of the Beholder Wearable Art Show" and I want you to enter too! These events are always better with new, diverse and abundant entries.

 

The event is scheduled for Friday, March 9, 2012 in Anchorage and is open to artists of ALL MEDIA (I'm thinking maybe METAL, wood, fiber, plastics/vinyl, recycle items, canvas, Tyvek...??)

Application deadline is Friday, February 3, 2012 (plenty of time for you to plan, design and enter your creation!) And the best part... there is $2,000 in prize money!

For entry form and rules go to www.alaskafiberfestival.org

For a wonderful dose of COLOR and inspiration check out the AK Fiber Fest link above and the photos from the 2010 show -it's just FAB!

Now where was I...

This whole moving thing really threw a monkey wrench into my daily life and definitely into my art making. It’s taken much longer than I expected to get settled and up and running art-wise. We’re still not settled. Then throw in some major NECESSARY house repairs -including a leaking roof, plumbing issues and a few other items that were not even on our immediate “to-do” list… Add to those old house issues a record snow, unseasonable high winds, freezing temps and winter that blew in with a vengeance from day one AND STAYED. Despite my best attempts I’ve been finding it hard to dive right into my new studio space and start happily creating. It’s taking me more time than I’d like to admit to get things “just so.” I’m learning a lot more about the way I work and what I “need” to be creative and how sacred my space is to me. I need clutter put away, material and supplies to be organized, laundry, house keeping etc. -if not completely done at least underway. Yeah, right like that's going to happen on a regular basis with a studio in the home!  The good news is, my new studio is full of sunshine (when it’s not snowing) and by diving right into a few fiber projects I’m getting the space a bit more to my liking and while searching for fabric I unloaded another 4 storage tubs! Oh, and speaking of moving, I'm not going to move my Blog to my web site, it's just not as fun. I miss the comments, I miss the process and it's not any easier. Thanks for hangin' with me while I chase my tail!

Miss Olive needed to get a new fleece doggie jacket and booties with all the new snow and cold temps! 

Follow Me!

There is a new Blog post on my web site...

http://www.cindyshakedesign.com/p/blog.html

Sneak a peek into my new studio area!