Making Marks

Etsy Shop

Yes! I opened an Etsy shop and have clocks, jewelry and collages listed for sale. While I do very much enjoy being a part of the Lunaria Gallery, the market in Silverton (population almost 9000) is - well - small. The upside is that our down town parking meters accept pennies and we got our first traffic signal last year. But for selling art, this is a limited venue.

I've been working on a plan to open this shop for almost 6 weeks. One challenge is figuring out how to economically ship items, and one of my solutions is making smaller, flat collages that will ship easily. Another option is smaller, less fragile pieces such as the jewelry I've made out of polymer clay. These are in bright, cheerful colors with a retro feel.

Oh, I also have items for sale at Lunaria, and I try to keep this page updated. If you see something here that you want, let me know. I'll check the gallery to see if it's still available. I can ship these items, too.

February Shows

I'm delighted to participate in two group shows in February. One show is at  Wallflowers in Canby, Oregon. Several artists from the Lunaria Gallery are participating. This is a terrific venue, as you can see on the website. I made three new pieces for this show. One piece I'll be showing is on the left, and the others are in a similar style. They all contain a heart element since the show is in February.   

The second show is at Lunaria, where we are focusing on love and romance. I made three pieces for this show, too, and they are in the same style as the work above.  

I've been having fun using my collection of natural materials. A trick I discovered is to paint medium onto the feathers and let them dry before attaching them to the painted background. That makes the results a lot more predictable versus applying them directly to the background.

Kaleidoscope

                          Kaleidoscope is Suz Simanaitis' new book, and I'm excited to be a part of this project! The art I have involves dipping fabric strips in beeswax, weaving them together and . . . well, you'll just have to get a copy. One piece I sent in is called Alice and Jean.

This is my first book publication, so it's particularly exciting. The images used are of family members (my grandma and her sister), so that makes it special, too. On the return trip, the make-shift frame on one piece took a beating, and I had it re-framed. It's now back from the shop and I'll be returning it to its rightful owner, my mom. While Mom is very supportive of my artistic endeavors, she isn't exactly fond of every piece I make. However, "Alice and Jean" was one she really wanted. I gave it to her as a gift last December for her birthday. Right after that, I asked for it back to submit for this book project. She may not have liked lending it back to me for almost an entire year, but absence made the heart grow fonder. She's delighted to have it on the wall.

Jewelry for fun

We went on vacation and I decided to make some polymer clay jewelry to take along. I mixed up colors to coordinate with the tops I took and played around with the clay to make these shapes. I wore them while we were gone and to see how I liked them. I found some things I liked (the banana/crescent shapes and the colors) and some things I'll change (the thickness of the puff beads and lack of focal points) on the next set of prototypes. I appreciated having a low-risk audience to try these out on and I received some good feedback.

One of my "to do" items is to make some custom jewelry to wear with my flight jacket. I just love the pattern in the fabric and would like something that coordinates. Right now I am very into all kinds of dots. They are showing up in different forms in my work. I'm planning a series around large circles in a square field and I'll see how long my fascination with dots and circles develops.