Back From the 1000 Mile Road Trip

Scrap Box Bracelet Detail

The finished piece

One rivet needs to be redone. Practice, practice!

Our journey to Santa Fe bestowed all kinds of weather. We were lucky to have lodging with friends and family all along the way except for one night in Gallup, New Mexico. We made stops at thrift stores, antique shops, Hobby Lobby and Michael's, Rio Grande Jewelry Supply in Albuquerque and of course the Bead Fest in Santa Fe.

We were treated to drinks at the "Tallyho" in Scottsdale and Whiskey Row in Prescott with cousins. We covered some new ground along the way and enjoyed dinner in a Navajo run restaurant in Chinle. We were served fry bread as big as a plate with homemade stew at "The Junction".

We were surprised to drive into a major snowstorm in Santa Fe which didn't dampen our plans for Dave's skiing and my workshop.

I was happy to have finished my bracelet in the "Scrap Box Bracelet" class by Kim St. Jean.

I managed to find a need for more supplies along the way and now I feel as if I really need to curtail my supply buying.

I'm making a challenge for myself to not buy any more supplies for a good long time (see, I'm afraid to set a deadline for myself)

This last year or so I had decided that I would use some of the money from the sale of my house to set up my two studios in both Alaska and Arizona so that I could play and create to my heart's content. I think that I have a good base of supplies now and need to focus on using what I have at the moment and not expand into other mediums. I've been so inspired by other artists blogs and excited by the techniques I'm seeing that I want to try it all. There's a part of me though that feels that I'm focusing on accumulating stuff at the moment and that now that I've had a good season to play that now I need to get focused on marketing and specific goals. It's been so much fun to have the freedom with my retirement but now I need to get to work for my selling season in Alaska.

I'm even writing a LIST of tasks that I hope to accomplish before we head north at the end of April. With this moratorium of supply buying I've decided to even extend it to my other foodie supply addiction of buying of spices and condiments and sauces. If I can't make it with what I have I'm going to have to get inventive. This includes great deals at thrift store and garage sales too. However, I will still allow myself to pick up rusty bits and pieces on the roadside.

I promise to share my struggle with you if I feel like I'm faltering in my resolution!

*The LIST*

1. Finish two assemblages that I've already started
2. make whorls for wholesale orders
3. make a bunch of hammered metal toggles both copper and silver
4. headpins and other metal embellishments
5. make more of my vintage button earrings.
6. experiment with my new inks (play)
7. finish prepping my art journal
8. finish decoupageing my thrift store bread box
9. Get orders ready to send off to my Alaskan galleries
10. Naturalist Notebook project- showing my inspiration from nature in my creations

Do you ever find yourself making resolutions like this in regards to your creative life?

"Emblage" or Trying to Take the Ass out of Assemblage

Trying out my new patina technique- learned at ACE Hardware

Titled "Skin Circuitry" an Emblage

Detail of an ACEO that I decided to attach.

The woman playing the "organ" ( skin is an organ you know) is a collage that I had made in the 90's and resurrected. Made from an image from an old sterograph, Japanese paper and biology diagram.

So, I'm kind of new at some of these assemblage techniques. I am oh so great at collecting wonderful bits and pieces and even buying the necessary supplies to create any number of wonderful projects. The problem is that I am trying to learn a lot of connection techniques on my own because I seem to want to try things without going to workshops and start on projects before certain skill levels and knowledge are embedded in my brain.

I have always been a hasty worker whether it's cooking or printmaking or gardening. Call it impatience ( but not to my face, I get so defensive) or a glorious lack of perfectionism (I'm saving that for another lifetime) but I have trouble waiting for glue to dry and want to hurry up and get to the next step.

Well I'm finding with this altered art/assemblage and collage that it's necessary to plan out your layers and connections in a logical order or things start to get botched in a hurry.

Then when there's a mistake that messes up my one of a kind beginning of a background it can be so frustrating.

Take rivets for example: I took a silversmithing workshop one day two years ago and learned how to make some nice cold connection rivets. So I had an idea to connect the collaged old book cover to the antique tin ceiling tile with some copper rivets. In order to make the copper tubes for the rivets I had to remember how to load the jewelry saw which I had also learned in the same class two years ago. The saw was picked up at a garage sale so I was hoping it was reasonably functional. It was guesswork really and I sawed three of them before I broke the blade which was looking kind of cattywompus and I was amazed that I was able to cut anything at all.

Did I stop and look in one of my glossy metalsmithing books to see the right way to do it? No, I wanted to GET ON WITH IT! So with some pounding I ended up with three slightly split and bent rivets. So rustic, so primitive. Oh well.

After that was attached I decide to attach a bead which would have been way easier BEFORE I attached the collage.

This is what you call a "learning process" and I know I could benefit by slowing down and PLANNING out my projects. My short attention span has been more suited to lampwork and stringing and making ATC's so far. (and I am a good but messy cook if I do say so myself)

I'm not totally disappointed in the final product but I think I need some more techniques under my belt for that finer final product that I'm seeing so many good artists putting out with their altered art/mixed media /assemblage pieces.

Let me know what you think!