Women of Note

Well, Howdy!
I'm hoping you all had a nice Thanksgiving feast or whatever you might celebrate at this time!

The art show and the craft fair I participate in are over now. I made a modest amount selling my art pieces and greeting cards and my "WOMEN of NOTEbooks."  Women of Note--I chose Eleanor Roosevelt, Annette Kellerman, Sojourner Truth, Madame Sherri, and a couple of Queens of the World.

Annette Kellerman,
Pioneered one piece swim suits.
Arrested for indecency

It started with those cute little versions of the composition books sold at Staples.  They have covers that beg to be decorated.  A little rubber cement or the blue glue (Martha S), trim it neatly, rounding the corners and repeat on the back. I put the portraits on the front and a little blurb about each on on the back, along with my business name.  I didn't take any pictures of the notebooks, but am enclosing some of the women here.

Become Queen of your own World.

Annette and Queens were the first ones I collected and I loved their spunkiness, prompting me to find a few more strong and interesting women:

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent"

Eleanor was one of the most pro-active First Ladies in history. I have always admired her.

"The spirit calls me and I must go."

Sojourner Truth traveled the country speaking against slavery, for women's rights, suffrage,
religious freedom and pacifism.

And then there's Madame Sherri. With a background in Paris and NY theater, Madame Sherri built a castle in Chesterfield, VT in 1931. She and her friends lived a life of parties and scandal. Her castle burned to the ground in 1962 leaving the ruins, including an arched stone staircase in Madame Sherri’s Forest. It appears to be haunted with the remnants of music and party sounds.

Look up their stories in the links above. Seek your own heroes!

Have a great week!
Hugs,
Sherry

More Paintings.

Happy Friday~

Today I taught myself how to do watermarks on Photoshop elements. Why that program is so difficult for me, I'll never know! How do you do watermarks? Is there an easier way?

Year after year, I question the wisdom of doing art shows/craft fairs.  The last few years, it has been SO unprofitable, that I only do it for fun.  I did much better last weekend than I have for a long time. Not a lot of money, but maybe 3x as much as past shows.  I sold two of my old collage prints, many cards and altered notebooks. Of course, what carries me is my note cards.

I enjoy making my own cards, though it can be tedious. Printing, scoring, folding, trimming, stuffing the envelope inside and bagging. I keep thinking of having them printed, but they would look totally different with a white border. I enjoy controlling the colors and sizes and the whole look of them myself.

My next show is next Saturday, after Thanksgiving. It is more craft fair, so I am working on some crafty things that will sell cheaper than art.  BUT I hope I sell some of my art!

My current passion is 10 x 10" canvases. They are recycled from cheap department store art. I spend so much on art supplies, that I'm thrilled to find this great source. Many of them are marked down to just a couple dollars apiece.

I'm still working on this piece. I think it needs more background complexity. The photo color is way off, it is soft green and turquoise, with teal birds.  My computer photo editing program seems to have some trouble with greens. Even in my landscape photography the greens don't process the way I expect them to.

Still enjoying warm, lovely weather here in Massachusetts. Hope you have a great Thanksgiving with family and/or friends!

Hugs!
Sherry

Trusting your heart is where the magic happens... and where destiny starts to unfold.

A New Look!

Well hello, again!  I hope to be a blogger when I grow up! With winter months approaching, I am once again thinking of life inside and connecting with friends on my blog.  I hope you will join me as I expose myself -- that is, revealing my ever-evolving art to you and the world at large!  P.S. I'm no photographer. These are pretty distorted, but a sampling!

One of my first painterly ones

I have been on a quest to grow from a cut and paste collager to an artist who paints on canvas. In 2014, I took a wonderful on-line class by Kelly Rae Roberts. It was such a benefit to see how she lays papers, paints and words onto a canvas and comes up with awesome complex backgrounds, sweet, fun and touching themes and beautiful mantras. One of the best things that came from that class was the community that we created as all 200ish of us shared our evolution. From blatant beginners like me to accomplished artists, each dared to try new things, and bravely posted our pictures on our facebook page. We continue to share and encourage each other as friends do. Sometimes we even meet each other and we already have so much in common that it is just like seeing your bestie after a long time away!

Still stuck on collage, but starting to play with paints. Sold it!

My aim is not to become a landscape or a portrait artist, but to use my intuition and put my feelings out there in a way that others can relate to. I LOVE it when people come to my art show booth and laugh and show my cards, collages and paintings to each other. I LOVE it when people get me.

A bit anal with the rubber stamps!

Well enough about me, already...How about my studio?  Older posts tell about moving into Dad's very dusty old carpentry shop. He's been gone for 11 years already and the 3 brothers had ravaged the shop and filled the corners with their own stuff, spare pianos (the piano tuner brother), big carpentry machinery and lots of sawdust (the carpenter brother) and old lawnmowers and icky old gadgets and gazillions of recycled screws, nails, and broken old stuff that my old Yankee Dad didn't throw away. Ever.

Playing with drippies and stencils. 12" square. Sold this one!

After all those years of sawdust, grease, spiders, mouse residue, old nasty chemicals and scary old liquids in cans and bottles...well you can imagine how daunting that room was. The good things were:   the size, a large L shape with some oddly angled walls, plumbing for a sink, lots of electrical outlets and high ceilings.

I love how this came out. It is a big one, too.

I hired Jim (the welder brother looking for work). His first project was to build an addition to the garage to house the stuff that no one could get rid of. Then after lots of cleaning and insulating, the room was boarded in with bead board paneling, the fluorescent lights taken down and replaced by overhead LED directional lights, I painted and painted it all white and Jim installed a kitchenette (donated cabinets with sink along a short wall). I put down a vinyl stick-down tile floor over the concrete and moved in.  The wall over the sink and one stretch in the middle of the longest wall became soft turquoise. In came lots of storage-wall shelves and Ikea cubicle shelving units. I dragged Dad's old metal workshop bench in, which he had painted turquoise years ago (industrial chic!) and filled up with my art supplies. The room is now kitchenette, studio, office and sitting area with a back door overlooking a small yard and acres of woods. I love it!

My favorite so far. The layering effect I learned from Kelly Rae Roberts.

Mom and I live in harmony, each with our own living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom.  We use separate entrances and driveways, but our spaces are open to each other.  I work one mile down the road at the Senior Center 15 hours a week and do freelance desktop publishing. I am starting to really feel balance in my life!

Art Show this weekend, Old and new things

I hope you will visit me here soon and often. I can't wait to hear "what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" (Mary Oliver)

Hugs,
Sherry

Ummm, revised!

Hello from Lalaland!

I have been a bad blogger. I don't know how I've managed to get so busy that blogging is nearly impossible, but I am and it seems to be!

Floating in a birch forest

One of the engineers of the submerged forest-beaver!

I am the epitome of the person of a certain age who lost her job a few years ago and now has a portfolio of part time options:  two office jobs totaling 25 hours a week; LOTS of pet-sitting jobs, in which I am away from home from overnight to 3 weeks at a time; free-lance work in desktop publishing; volunteer work with the senior center; a home to establish in Mom's house, which consists of converting an old workshop into a studio/kitchenette--yes, I'm actually finally getting started on that project.

Playing with Magic setting on new camera

I have been in limbo with that project, as getting brothers motivated is almost impossible without the moola to pay them, and thanks to a recent financial benefit, we are moving forward. I went on a scouting mission to Home Depot this weekend, looking at flooring, paneling, paint colors. I should be in there by Thanksgiving....HOPEFULLY!

Breaking up housekeeping...

One of the coolest things I've done this spring/summer is take an e-class by Kelly Rae Roberts! She is one of my favorite mixed media artists, and this class was just a blast. The best part was meeting so many like-minded artists and learning to be fearless and express myself with paint. When I get my studio back together, I hope to plunge back in and do lots of artistic stuff. I miss it. I had a great start early this year when I set up a temporary studio space, but that is gone now and everything is moving into the garage for the remodel.

So I hope to reconnect this fall and reestablish myself as a blogger once again!

Meanwhile, enjoy this lovely time of year!

Hugs,

Sherry

P.S. Thanks, Tammy, for noticing me here!

Ummm

A Simple Twist of Fate

Hi Folks,
Well, Another month has passed, and it's a cold bleak day in New England. A simple twist of fate (circumstance, karma) has me stranded in my favorite home in the "wilds of Worthington" with 3 dogs and a yard full of birds.

 

The twist was that after staying in all day on Saturday watching it snow, I decided to drive to the Old Creamery and pick up some food, including a nice hot container of clam chowder. After driving a few miles, I regretted my plan, but carefully continued on. Coming back, I slid into a tree and smashed in the front of my car. Luckily I wasn't hurt! I gathered my wallet, my groceries and walked to the nearest house. Some very nice people took me in and called 911 to get help.

Their house was warm and cozy. I was invited to eat with them, but decided to eat my clam chowder, which had popped open and squirted most of the groceries with goo. I cleaned up the tote bag and the groceries and ate the remaining soup.

Meanwhile, the fire dept. came and checked me all over, then the State Police came and asked me questions and called the ambulance. They checked me all over too and advised me to go to the hospital, which I refused, as I didn't feel any pain. Eventually, the tow truck came and towed my little Subaru away and these kind people drove me "home" to the dogs. I ended up with bruises on my shin and my breast (from the seatbelt).

My insurance doesn't cover rentals, and I really can't afford to rent a 4WD car.  Plenty of people have offered help, but with 6 miles of dirt roads and winter conditions, I haven't taken them up on it yet.  My office sent me work to do, and I have a couple of consulting jobs on the computer too, so here I am!

Please excuse the poor indoor photography!

Another twist--Since I moved in with Mom in October, I haven't had any place to play with art. The room that will be my studio was all full of tools, wood, sawdust and cobwebs. Big stuff like Dad's old workbench and Richard's grand piano (for sale cheap) littered the room, not to mention tons of nails, screws, washers bolts, hammers, screwdrivers, etc!

So a few weeks ago I started condensing and cleaning the room. If I couldn't get rid of the workbench, I could use it for my own work table. I found a couple of pieces of plywood to cover the holes and dirt and put it in a corner of the room. I cleaned and de-cobwebbed till I was sneezing and coughing. Then I stapled up some sheets over the bare 2x6's and hung a couple of corkboards. I brought in a cubicle cabinet with red containers in each cube. I laid a couple of old rugs on the cement floor and set up a couple of card tables to work on. (Everything else is pushed to the other side of the room for the moment.) I dug out lots of supplies and bought a few more.

On Jan 11, I invited Emily to come and do some art, thinking company would help me get creative. Em didn't make it, so I did a piece of art anyway. She didn't show up the next day either, so I did another one.  I determined to create one piece of art every day. Not only to expand my artistic mind, but to help me be in happy mode during this difficult time of the year.  I can easily become depressed when it is cold and gloomy, so I need to keep myself creative.  It is so uplifting to be playing with my art supplies!

Collage is my main genre, but I want to get more and more original. I also want my new art to be affirmative and to encourage people. I like to use recycled materials when I can. Eventually, I will get some painting lessons and mix things up.

I packed a pile of art supplies and brought them here to the "dog house" and kept working (playing). Today is day 11 and I'm still doing it!  For now I can say that being stranded with the dogs is, in a strange way, my own art retreat!

 You can see my daily artwork and follow me on Facebook.

Meanwhile I hope your twists of fate are all good ones!

Hugs,

Sherry

Another Beautiful Day with my Best Friend

It has been a lovely day. After 2 or 3 long weeks of cold winter weather, we had a break today in the 40's with two more even warmer, though rainy, days coming up. A reprieve, as it were, on the solstice. When I lived in Colorado, we had these reprieves off and on all winter. Here, not so much!

Colorado snow!

I worked late last night on a computer consulting project, so I got to sleep in till 10!  Trisha called at 11 and said, "lets go!" and we went shopping. We stayed away from the weekend-before-Christmas crowds and headed for a little country town called Conway. We'd heard of a "pop-up shop" selling woven, felted and other lovely hand crafted items. This woman's studio and shop were beautiful. I envied her the organized, beautifully furnished space filled with weaving looms, a sewing machine, and tons of yarn and felting supplies.

After that we explored the Field Memorial Library in Conway. It is a wonderful green patina-domed rotunda with wings on 3 sides. It's ceiling is held up below the dome with marble pillars. Very patterned and veined marble. It also trims the doors and covers the walls. The floors are mosaics. This building was donated to the people of Conway by Marshall Field about the time of the industrial revolution when Andrew Carnegie was also building libraries around the country. What a wonderful sound our voices made echoing around under the dome. I think the librarian was happy to have us there, as we were the only guests. She never even hushed us. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten my camera!

Loot

But where I was really anxious to go was "Loot", a newish store in Turners Falls which carries all kinds of factory, school, office and other old building cast-offs. Being a mixed media artist, this was right up my alley, so to speak! We must have poured over that stuff for an hour! There were typeface letters, and all kinds of other lettered signage, there were old newspaper ad plates, skeleton keys, little tiny things, big industrial things, some new and crafty things and many tiny succulent plants. There were big nail bins filled with amazing little vintagy things: old matches, ephemera, tags of many colors, old photos, die cut metal hearts, onionskin and other magical papers and things...

More loot

Turners Falls is an old factory town on the Connecticut River. There are still lots of working mills, but most of them are either empty or repurposed. Imagine the loot you could find in the attics and cellars of these old buildings! Evidently the owners of Loot did just that. Now, instead of running off to Homegoods, I think I'll be visiting Loot regularly!

Then the Loot folks sent us around the corner to Funkshun, which was fun too! They had aprons, potholders, various other stitched wonders made with these MAN fabrics. Trisha got an apron and a doll for Christmas presents. How fun is that!?!  They had WOMAN things too, Wonder Women and cowgirls...

We had a late lunch at the deli of the local co-op and watched the people walk by. A woman set up a guitar outside and sang her heart out.  "Halleluiah" by Leonard Cohen was the first one I heard and what a great voice!

One more thing I had to do was go to Trader Joe's and buy Pecans for my Mom's Christmas pie. (This year's requests were Pecan and Mincemeat pies.)  What a zoo that was! The pecan shelf was naked! There were no pecans in the store. I grabbed a bag of raw cashews for myself and got out of there. Another back road to our little town and we were home in time for supper!

I love a good weekend adventure with Trisha!

Hugs,

Sherry

A New Look

Hi Folks,
Well, the old pink background and header didn't call out to me, if you know what I mean, so I got a new look. Somewhere on the way to vintage Christmas, I came upon this nice fresh look and I decided to go with it. (I just love ShabbyBlogs.com!) I am pretty inept at photoshop, but I managed to resize the header so it would work well in the space.

My old garden

It is a good time for me to be thinking about new looks! I've moved out of my old digs and into Mom's. My space is limited here, so I have been bringing only what works in the two rooms. I sold my purple couches and lots of other things. My new living room has dark foresty green tweedy berber carpeting and the walls are off-white.

Humble Abode

In keeping with my wish to have sea glass colors in here, I'm gradually adding some color. I bought sheer curtains in a dusty blueish sage color, and white panels for the center. I really wanted nice turquoise drapes, but couldn't find enough matchy ones for the room, so the colored sheers will be the side colors, covering up the unfinished window frames. The next thing is to paint a lower half wall that has concrete blocks. It was going to be tiled, but for now, I think I'll just paint it a light tealish color.

Pinterest

Dad had plenty of work that never got done before his health failed him. Window and door frames and crown molding and floor trim in my living room and some upstairs trim work all need to be done. My 3 brothers are not so inclined, though at least one of them can be bribed with cash.  So I'm saving my money, cause the honey-do list is growing.

Pinterest

The last room of the house is Dad's carpentry shop, which has been used by a couple of brothers off and on over the 9 years since dad passed away. It will be my office and studio space. It is large with windows looking out the front and back of the house (woods all around). It is far enough away from Mom's loud TV, so I'll be able to shut the door, curl up in the old recliner with a good book, a cup of coffee with lots of cream, and daydream about my next project while listening to music--cozying up!

Pinterest

 A timely series of events must happen for me to get into that room:  First the 2 brothers who still live around here need to enclose a roofed in space beside the garage; then they have to move all the tools and things into that space. It will become Richard's workshop. (He wanted it before the snow flies, but oops, it did already!) Then, I get to insulate the walls between the 2x6's and get Jim to put up some paneling or beadboard. Then I'll paint the cement floor and bring in the storage and work units from the old house and set up my space. I can't wait...

Well, I can, I have to!

Pinterest

And we have to close off one downstairs furnace vent and open the wall in the stairwell for another one up there. And... Mom has been cleaning out the closet and art studio she had in "MY" room and cleaning out centuries (50 years) of clothes from her own closet. Today we cleaned out a lot of kitchen cabinet space for me to use. We took 3 boxes and 6 bags to Goodwill today. More to come!

I'm dreaming of a soft turquoise mid-century modern sofa from Thrive. Maybe I'll settle for something cheaper, but for now I have a futon for a sofa, so my niece can come and stay over when she wants. She's 18 and driving already!  I remember when she was four or five, I bought a recliner chair-and-a- half, so we could sit together and read and tell stories with the cats. I love that chair, but it is too big for my current living room. I do have a cozy spot picked out in the studio/office for a reading/music nook. That chair will be perfect there. Meanwhile I got a used recliner from my aunt. It's green and pretty comfy.

Snuggles

One sad thing, though, is that I had to put Snuggles the cat down. She was getting old and sickly and I couldn't bring her here. It was sad, but I had the vet, Dr. Joanne, come to the house and do it with Snuggles on my lap.  Very peaceful, and Jim, bless his little heart, took her away. I miss her and Fluffy so much, and I am sure that I see them out of the corner of my eye at least once a day!

Pinterest

Isn't this just the time for nesting and cozying up the home? I've been making lots of soup to share with Mom and getting all domestic here. Not wanting to leave messes, I've learned to clean up the kitchen instantly and not leave things in her living room.

Pinterest

I've taken my walking poles out for a trial run in my new neighborhood, and it's good walking here. My new neighborhood, indeed! I grew up in the house next door. But I haven't lived here since the early 70's. My friend Trisha built a house next door to her old homestead too, so we both live back where we came from. She's just up the road from me and our phone numbers are the same with two numbers switched.  It's The Circle of Life!

Dawn of A Feathered Nest or Graphics Fairy...

 

Hope you all have your nests feathered for the winter--Stay warm and cozy!

Hugs,

Sherry