Minding the Business: Be Inspired. Be Brave. Digital Art Pep Talk

This is a digital collage I made using PhotoShop Elements 8, a Wacom Bamboo tablet and Digital Expressions.  It's a visual peptalk to encourage me to step forward and do something of the things I've been dreaming and talking about for a long time. The colors are strong and saturated like a stiff cup of coffee to get me going. A self portrait is paired with one of my favorite glass beads to remind me of my creative self. Text phrases are bent into crowns so I can wear who I am proudly. The entire collage brings together phrases that encourage me to live and work in my own skin. 

 

I know I'm not the only one. You probably feel like this at least sometimes. You might want to make  Peptalk Collage for the days when you can't reach your best girlfriend to talk. Making the collage made me think, made me create, made me smile and made me brave.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver puts into words what I need to tell myself when I step out with fear:

Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.

 

Let me be brave and I wish all of you to be brave but most of all, I want us all to win our dreams.

New Work: A Surprise on Christmas Morning...

I'm a tactile kinesthetic learner, a doer. I work with my hands everyday either in sign language interpreting or in art. I experiment with different media to find the right one to express the concept I have in mind. Glass beadmaking is done by hand but you don't actually touch the media (hot glass) when you're sculpting it. Sometimes, I just want to get my hands on the media and lately, it's been polymer clay.

Christmas morning, I was surprised by a creative burst that felt new but was really an evolution. I started this polymer journey with the faux carved wood hearts.

I kept along that path exploring the texture, poking dots into the clay to make it look like aged wood. Where would it go next? I was following the texture and then I made this...

...a folk style bird. I made several of the birds and really liked how together with the hearts, it was a logical series.

Then, on Christmas morning, it evolved yet again and in an unexpected direction. I got up and knew I had to make lotus pods...

...why lotus pods? I'm not sure. I love the lotus as a symbol and incorporate it into my personal jewelry. According to the website, Exotic India Art, the red lotus signifies:

...the original nature and purity of the heart (hrdya). It is the lotus of love, compassion, passion and all other qualities of the heart. It is the flower of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.

I made the red lotus pods with a passion that morning, furiously handcrafting a dozen before anyone else woke up. A special gift that's particularly appropriate to today's auspicious date of 1/11/11!

Creative Re-Energizing: Flame of Mind

It's back to Corning. Today I start a three day class with Sage Holland and her son Beaux at Hands On Glass in Corning, New York. It's part of Flame of Mind - classes before and after the Glass Art Society Conference in Corning.

I've wanted to take a class with Sage since I first started making beads. I never had the funds or wasn't able to travel to Arkansas to take a class. So I'm thrilled to be going. I've been feeling burned out on life lately and hoping this might re-energize the entire me and not just beadmaking me.

Let's all knock wood together right now so that a repeat of last week's trip to Corning won't be repeated! Smile! Knock knock knock!

Inspiration in New Wave

I'm obsessed lately with singing one of my old favs - The Romantics - What I Like About You. It's still a great song with lots of edge. The Romantics were considered "new wave" which according to Wikipedia is:

New Wave is an inexact term for a rock genre that originated in 1976. The term started as applying to punk rock music. It evolved to cover punk based acts that mixed in other elements.


I've been searching around to see if I can find a few good examples of jewelry worn by the "New Wavers" (of which I was one). Skinny ties, sneakers with a suit for guys but been having trouble with the girls. I found this one - How to Look Punk: The New Wave of Sound and Style



Looks like a chain belt and/or some charms hanging from a chain - aren't those back in style now?

Anyhoo - it may or may not lead to any inspired beadmaking on my part but I have The Romantics blaring in my studio and I still remember when to clap and yell, "Hey!"

Got a harmonica anyone?

Experimenting with new media to mix with my glass

I'm jumping with both feet into different media to mix with my glass this week in anticipation of next week's trip to the Glass Art Society's conference. I know lots of you are into the scrapbooking phenomenon. It wasn't a craft I jumped into. Love all the stuff but a packrat like me can't start accumulating paper - it's just an reason never to clean! But I have a few things here and there - like the alcohol inks I used for the post "Glue is not my BFF" and the stamps I used on my packaging DIY style.

So this is what's on my dining room table (what? you don't think I'd eat meals at a perfectly good craft table do you?!). What do you think I'm going to make with it?

In need of a little break but....

Ok, so I've been less than bloggiful lately. My backyard has been dug up for 3 weeks, not a little dug up but completely dug up with a backhoe sitting there and everything.



All right, so maybe it's not as big as THIS backhoe but after three weeks it FEELS like it! Every morning when I open the curtains in the dining room, there it is, looming larger and larger. I think it had designs on the house!

I'm feeling burned out. Time for a little mental refreshment. So even though the economy is bad, I'm going to spend a little of that money I've been saving for the past year and go to the Glass Art Society Conference in Corning, NY.

Originally, I wanted to go for the full conference but cut it down to one day to save on cash. I've got the day packed full though. I'll watch some demonstrations in the morning, go on a tour of Steuben Glass then to the vendors section to take a look at a new torch. Corning is about a 2.5 hour drive from my home so the day will be packed in between a longer than normal drive - but I've been planning to go since 2007 - can't miss it!

Inspiration found while wandering a bazaar

On the annual trek to Anime North, it was expected that the parents would stay away. So The Bean Counter and myself set out to explore. This exploration lead to a surprising bit of inspiration in a very unexpected place - the flea market. No, not a flea market full of garage sale finds but a flea market like the five and dime or the dollar store.

There's a flea market/five and dime near my home but the mix of cultures in the one we ventured into in Ontario near Toronto made the trip almost like walking through a bazaar - spices, clothing, jewelry, electronics, dvds - everything you could want to buy. Among the booths of saris and salwar-kameez I found stalls of Indian jewelry sparkling Indian jewelry this one below:



You know I find inspiration in rhinestones and include them in beads with abandon. So I was happy to be among so many rhinestones.

The jewelry was beautiful in the stalls but when worn, it's even more lovely! The picture below is courtesy of The Style of India Blog.



I walked out of the flea market/bazaar with a big happy rhinestone smile on my face!

Spark Your Imagination: The Purple Doorknob

Went to my niece's graduation and afterwards we went to dinner. Next to the restaurant was this huge purple doorknob - a curiosity to draw you into the "Purple Doorknob Antiques Shop." I had to take a picture - afterall, it must be some kind of record- I've never seen a doorknob THAT big!

Inspiration - Walk Around the Albright Knox

Did you guess yesterday's photo? I know, it was hard to figure out what it could be - there's so many possibilities! But that's a good thing - a source of inspiration should be potentially so many things. Here's another shot of the same thing but from a slightly different angle.


What is inspiring about the above picture? Is it the texture? Is it the color? It is the groupings of color? Maybe even the reflection is interesting to you.

Ok, so here's the same sculpture but from standing further away.





The bars of contrasting color make me feel as if there's movement or excitement. My eyes want to follow the colors outward and maybe even jump around the piece.

The sculpture on it's own is very modern and contemporary. As part of the outdoor sculpture at the Albright Knox, this piece sits in a larger context of the grounds. The Albright Knox is housed in a very classical style building - so take a look at the context for this very modern piece of sculpture.






Interesting, huh? I'm running out of adjectives for the contrast between the old and new. But instead of the old and new contrast I'm thinking more about the color contrasts - how the blue, yellow and orange of the sculpture make movement and vibrancy and how I may or may not be creating that in my work.

What about you? Do you use color contrasts intentionally to create movement? Or are you creating more subtle work?

Walk Around the Albright Knox: Classical contrasts with contemporary

Around the corner from The Blue Spikes, the classical design of the main building reveals itself - as a part of the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901, the Albright Knox was a centerpiece of cutting edge design.

I love the contrast between the classical and the contemporary. The sculptures around The Knox are modern while most of the gallery was built during the Victorian Era.



The folds of the robes are so life like, it looks as if the wind could blow through them! What do you think?

Walk around the 'Knox: Blue

This is my favorite outdoor sculpture at The Knox. It's huge and it's the prettiest deep blue! I think it would make a cool bead if I could figure out how to do it. Have any suggestions on how I could do it?

Inspiration: Sculpture Walk at the Albright Knox

The Albright Knox Art Gallery is in my hometown and is across the street from a sign language interpreting assignment. On the first bright sunny day of spring, I walked around the outside of the gallery to look at the sculpture. The Albright Knox specializes in modern art so most of my walk was to see modern sculpture.



This piece is at the entrance to the gallery. I usually think of a gallery as smaller than the Abright Knox because this is huge. The outdoor sculptures are large and set against the backdrop of the classical style building.

The silver set against the blue, white and green is eye catching. You could gain color inspiration from this or maybe incorporate a shape.

What about this sculpture inspires you?

Inspiration Wins! Yellow Inspires

Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll. I had asked readers what kind of topics they'd like to see more of on the blog. If you didn't take a look at the results, the Inspiration/Background/Research topic got the highest number of votes followed by jewelry projects. Personal stories and Glass beadmaking tutorials tied for third place and in last place was Beadmaker tip alerts.

Here's a quick bit of inspiration - the macro picture of the forsythia bush. It seems like over night the Bradford Pears and forsythia has burst forth into bloom. I took this picture 10 days ago - just before the weather warmed up enough for the blooms to open.



I love yellow this time of year - well, I love yellow all the time but almost everyone else loves yellow this time of year too. After the white of winter, people are happy to see a bit of green and lots of yellow.

Transparent yellow glass is difficult not to over heat and make cloudy. Once I mastered how to do it, I shared it on here and started incorporating it into the spirals like the Three Colored Spiral below:

You may not love yellow except in the spring - leave me a comment and let me know if you love yellow, hate yellow or only love it in the spring after a very lonnnnnggg winter.

Inspiration Media: Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard

YouTube is the people's channel and it is full of junk and beauty. The Teen spends alot of time on YouTube but I go over occasionally. Last week, I went over and found this gem.



Are music videos inspiring to you? What's your favorite? Leave a comment and I'll put your name in a hat for a drawing for FREE BEADS! I'll announce Monday's and today's bead drawing winner tomorrow.

Here are the free giveaway beads for today:

A Week of Inspiration: Where I find it and get it and oh yeah, FREE BEADS!!

Officially it's spring. If you saw the countdown clock on the Today Show on Friday, you know it's here. Or maybe you don't need Matt and Meredith to tell you it's spring - you just know it.

Me, come March 1st, I decide it's spring. I know, I know, it may not look like spring outside come March 1st but I have to switch. Enough with the winter already, I have to have spring. So I do. I decided long ago March 1st was spring and so be it.

I'm looking around at the remnants of winter in my studio and things need freshening up. It's time for some inspiration. So this week, I'm going to show you where I find inspiration and give away some free beads. But let's start with a definition of inspiration.

Dictionary.com defines Inspiration as "stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity."

Bland definition don't you think? A definition for inspiration should be more flowery, more descriptive. Let me take a whack at how I'd describe it....

Inspiration is the feeling that comes over you when you visit the Grand Canyon where the colors are so vibrant they seem to pulse. You feel your heart pound and the air seems thick with ideas and jump from you drawing pencils to your sketchbook.

Whaddaya think? I'm not sure I've made alot of sense but that's how inspiration feels to me. Now, dear readers, I want you to try your hand at describing how you feel when you're inspired. It doesn't have to make sense, just write what you feel.

I'll take all the comment-ers names and put them in a hat for a drawing for free beads. Yes FREE BEADS! I'll post today's winner on Wednesday. Here are today's giveaway beads



Write your definition of inspiration and win free beads - can't get much better than that!

I look forward to reading your definition of inspiration!

(Photo credit: Me!)

Seeing the Mundane

Inspiration can come from many places - like seeing the mundane in a new way. Today's inspiration is from The Teen, who saw this everyday object in a new way. Textural isn't it?

What mundane thing have you seen in a new way lately?

Junk Collector

Not only do I keep junk, I collect junk too. Every Sunday, I go to the local outdoor flea market to look through the junk to gain a little inspiration. A couple of years ago, I picked up this religious pendant. Nice patina and color picture. It'll be a good addition to a mixed media piece.

Do you collect junk as inspiration?