Claiming the Art

The Midnight Necklace. Make that the 4 am necklace...

What do you think? I have been wanting to do something around the idea of connecting pieces to create more involved necklaces. So this is my first foray... and it was fun. A fun foray. You can see it better if you come by tomorrow. (I tried to model it, but its darn hard to get a good photo of your own neck!)

I spent yesterday making room for my Underground buddies to put their work for tomorrow's Open Studio, and creating spaces for my own. Oddly enough, I really enjoyed the aspect of displaying MY work in MY space. I never thought I had a good handle on display, but I'm learning. I learned alot from the women of Riverside Studios in Truckee; very innovative. Inspired by them, I took a branch that had been part of an old piece I recently took apart, and hung it from the ceiling with my necklaces draped over it. I really like the way it looks. I was thinking of Carole Sesko, who I mentioned yesterday... in her studio space, her art is always out, visible; when you walk in there you really get a sense of who works there, what she's about. It radiates her vision.

I haven't done that in my studio yet. (It's been almost a year in this new space.) Partly because the space is fairly small. (Can I also blame the dust?) But maybe it's mostly that I haven't fully claimed the work as my own. So maybe that's why hanging the earrings and necklaces yesterday felt so satisfying: I get to start inhabiting my space in different way. I think I'm going to leave it out.

Rearranged, or Deranged?

I had a nice time at 4:00 am, tossing and turning and designing necklaces and making mental notes of changes to the Underground Artist blog...

Good ideas, all. And all written down on the pad next to my bed. Surprisingly legibly, I might add. I even sketched the necklace design in complete darkness, with all the parts in the right place. Hopefully the piece will look as nice as the sketch. In the middle of the night it also occurred to me that I need to mention that this Sunday's Open Studio involves all three Underground Artists (Kristen Schwartz, Barbara Wesson, and myself).

In order for all of us to fit our work into my small studio, I re-arranged earlier this week. Allow me to describe this deranged process to you...it began simply enough:

I had move my comfy chair into the house. But let me be more specific; this involved an ENTIRE day, beginning with: moving the comfy chair out of the studio, taking apart the computer that was on the oak desk, moving the entire studio around to make room for the oak desk (in order to provide a place to put said chair in house), moving the computer into our new "computer room" (aka laundry room), putting the computer back together, and finally moving the chair into the corner just in time to run out the door for Gordie's aikido class. There was extensive dusting and vacuuming involved, and I didn't get to shower before running out the door, but the studio cleaned up nicely and there's more room with this new arrangement.

I heard from my North Shore artist friend, Carole Sesko, yesterday; she's got her second Open Studio scheduled for Saturday, and sounded so excited about her decorations that she actually inspired me to string up some lights, at least. I love her work, and if I've got myself all set for Sunday, I may just head up to Truckee to check it out. If you can't make it, at least take a look at her website if you have time.

I was going to pop another earring shot in here, but for some reason Blogger has decided I can't. Maybe later....

Moonshine Ink Link

Sara Zimmerman, an artist and friend who works for Moonshine Ink (a great community newspaper in Truckee, CA) told me awhile back that I was going to be included in an upcoming issue. The new issue is out, and here's the link:
http://www.moonshineink.com/

Carole Sesko's article on confidence and fear in the process of making art is here. Thanks, Carole, for some great advice.

Oops, I Did It Again

No, I'm not going to write about Britney Spears' MTV Video Awards performance here... everyone else is doing that...
But I DID do it again; I spent an hour on the computer, instead of going directly into my studio this morning.
Damn.

So, rather than take any more time by writing, here's a link to Carole Sesko's website...
I went to an opening there on Friday night. Great energy, great people, great art. Nice to see a vibrant art event up here in the Sierras. I also stopped by the Riverside Studios First Friday event in Truckee. Same goes... a good time was had by all.

North Shore Inspiration

I'm a blogging fool. I am also procrastinating heavily... (see my other blog post for today at the Underground Artists page...)

Anyway, I spent this past weekend looking around the area at some of the shops and galleries to see if any might be right for my work. (They're not.) It was somewhat discouraging, but two things made up for it:

1. I got to visit with my North Shore artist friends, Carole Sesko, Eve Werner, and Sara Zimmerman, who are all incredibly talented and cool and nice.

2. I met one of the three artist/owners of Riverside Studios, a beautiful shop/studio in Truckee. This was inspiring to me, not only because of the great works in leather, pottery and jewelry, but because these people weren't finding what they needed, so they created it. And also because of how that led to the next things in a very organic way: the potter became involved with some Sunset magazine projects and local eateries, creating pieces for them. She's very busy!

I envision a path like that for myself, which is hard, because when you don't really know what it is, how can you imagine it? What I do see is a career/life path that follows that general pattern: following my instincts and moving forward with a certain amount of trust. Events following organically, not forced or even planned, really...it SEEMS hard, but it should be easy, really.

Yikes.