Art Opening

Tomorrow night is the VAST-125 Art Exhibit Opening!

My small fiber collage, Radiant, will be in the show.

Visual Arts Society of Texas - 125 Mile Show
Friday, July 10 from 5:30 to 7:30
Meadows Gallery in the Center for Visual Arts
400 East Hickory St, Denton, TX

(Regular Gallery Hours - Tuesday through Saturday 1 to 5 pm)

I am thrilled to have a piece in this show for the third year in a row. It's a lovely local show. I'll be bringing my famous peanut butter cup cookies. Please come!

Creative Living

I think it's really important to find little bits of creative energy every day. This can take many many forms. Lots of artists keep sketch books and journals -- or even art journals. I've never really been a dedicated journal - keeper, but I like the idea. Recently, I decided to try to combine my love of artists books and book-making with journaling. I created a crazy, mixed-media, multi-page, interactive book and I starting writing in it! Ideas, random hopes, wishes, observations, etc.

The mixed-media arty journal and my thoughts about it are published in the new issue of Somerset Life magazine.


I am honored to be included in this magazine. It's an amazing inspiration and reference for living creatively. My article about a new way to create and keep a journal is just one of many ideas.

I hope you'll check it out. It's got a pink cover and with white roses (ahem... don't let that turn you off, I promise there's lots of good stuff inside that isn't all precious and girly. Was that too snarky?! You know what I mean, right. We all have our own tastes.)

I'm off on an adventure later this week... I plan to do lots of journaling!

Outside

It's been over 100 nearly every day of the past week or so. But, we've still managed to get out and about. Benjamin, one of his friends and I walked down by our neighborhood lake one day last week. We saw so many creatures.

It was so bright, I could hardly tell what kind of pictures I was getting with my iPhone.

Ducks and turtles.Red winged black bird and boys on the walkway in the background.

Lily pads and my reflection.One pink water lily. Most were yellow.
It was cooler today. I try not to complain about the weather. Really, it's just hot. What else is there to say? Here are my thoughts about weather from three summers ago.

Fashion

I've been reading Manolo's Shoe Blog on and off for years. It's witty and focuses on things of beauty (in this case: shoes). It's a guilty pleasure. Every Wednesday Manolo posts a collection of pictures of shoes worn by some famous person. Then readers guess who it is. "Whose Shoes Wednesday." Guess who was the only correct guesser last week?! Here are the original pictures and here is the answer.

While I'm admitting guilty pleasures, I also love ProjectRunGay, especially the critiques of Michelle Obama's clothes.

Pondering

Benjamin and I stopped by a local city park yesterday morning.It was a bit run-down and all the trash cans had been turned over. I assume some hooligans did this as a prank the night before. So not cool. (Also a good description of the weather, "so not cool.")
This one had been righted, but the trash was still all over the ground.
These two blue cans are not the same. There were at least five cans turned over.

I was also dismayed by the number of plastic bottles in the piles of trash. No recycling in sight. What a shame. It seems like it would be so easy to have an additional can for recyclables. I've heard if there is one bit of non-recyclable trash mixed in with the recyclables, the whole can is "contaminated." So, I guess I can see why it becomes just too much trouble for a city to manage. We (the general "we") are just not conditioned to do it right.

I've been thinking of ways to reduce of our own waste and energy use. I've thought of installing a clothes line in the back yard. I wash beach towels every time we go to the pool and it just seems so wasteful to run the dryer for them. I really think I'll try to eliminate paper napkins. (I bet I could find some fun cloth napkins on etsy. Of course, that means more laundry. Back to the clothes line idea.)

I didn't think I'd ever fill a blog post with pictures of trash.

On the fly...

My friend (amazing fiber artist) Melanie Testa made a request. She said, "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours." Studios, that is. In fact, she even showed a piece of my artwork in her studio video. So, I really had to reciprocate. Don't you think?

I didn't clean up ahead of time and I didn't even plan a single thing to show or say, so it's quite improvisational and not too fancy. Worst of all, I ran out of batteries before I finished and I didn't even get to show a piece of Melly's work on my inspiration board. But, I figured I'd share it anyway. Don't laugh. Actually, feel free to laugh!



Check out Melly's video on her blog. And show me YOURS!

I wish I would have mentioned more names, but just know that I am so thankful for each bit of art on my walls and I cherish the friendships I've made in real life and through blogging. Really, you INSPIRE me and I'm grateful.

This and That

Vacation Bible School
I agreed to lead the crafts rotation for our church's VBS this year. So that was every morning last week. I was so totally stressed out about it. Maybe I just had some anxiety that needed a place, because it really wasn't that big a deal. It was fun and everything worked out fine. Some of the crafts were better than others, but the kids seemed to have fun and generally enjoy creating no matter the out come.

Swimming/Soccer/Tae Kwon Do
Yes. Lots of driving the kids here and there.
They are now purple belts. So very proud of them.

Studio
It is such an enormous mess. I haven't created anything in more than a week. But, that's been fine. I think I needed a break. I did organize my embroidery floss. Remember this?

That's my floss in the foreground and my friend Lu's floss in the organized box. I'm not completely organized, but I don't have a messy nest any more.

Art
I'm really looking forward to the Dallas Area Fiber Artists meeting on Monday. The program is "Paper Art by Paper Nerds" with Shannon Phillips and Tish Brewer. I love nerds of all kinds.

Again?!

What is it about pink chalk?Remember?