A Short Break in Service

I may disappear for a few days

I'm packing up my supplies

and my inventory

Locking up

Closing up

Getting ready to travel

Over water

by road

Going to fly away

looking forward to getting back to my northern studio

where I can make bangles

and plant a garden

Oh, and I got a haircut today

With a new stylist.

See you all soon!

XOXO Kim

Where Do I Start?

Well I may as well jump right in and give you some tastes of India, Gem Show and my newest creations in one fell swoop.

I've been busy resizing hundreds of photos for Facebook and hope to be sharing some here.

Not all 800 I promise.

I just got this glass pendant kit from CraftFantastic at the gem show in Tucson upon our return. I've about used up all that I bought already!

I made fast work  with the little bits of graphics I picked up on the streets of India and  from some of the children's books I found. I mixed in a few images from my Moroccan morality books too.

Just glue the images to the little glass squares, I can put anraku pendant bails on these if I wish.

These images are from snuff packages, a Bollywood disc cover, a children's book and a 100 year old Tamil script religious book.

I could have gone really crazy in the sari trim shops of Mumbai so I limited myself to a few choice samples.

Even more vivid in person

An assemblage dog I met in Mumbai. Those dogs need to be tough to survive there.

This is some kind of joke for Mumbai, there is non-stop honking.

Some graphics for you

Love the rust and the old name Bombay. Too bad this wouldn't fit in our luggage!

At an art school.

We had a most incredible if not exhausting trip in India. I'll try to share bits and slices with you as I go along. Right now what I really want to be doing is putting my inspiration to work in the studio as well as catching up on blogland. I've been on a bit of a marathon since we came home jumping smack into the gem show. I managed to pick up a few choice goodies even though I swore I didn't need many more supplies. It's too tempting though and I was happy with what I picked up.

All for now...enjoy!

XOXO Kim

Finding Time... Almost Packed

Now that most of my tools are packed and studio is buttoned up I just had to leave myself something to play with for the rest of the week or I would go crazy.

I have just a couple of bags of ephemera left out and have been occupying my spare time with a bit of collaging.

                                 

a bit of winter theme and color scheming

...mostly just playing

Feeding Time

A display for my  lampwork paper clips for my next show

I re-covered a small journal I made. I really didn't like the colors I painted it with before.

here's the back side of the same journal.

Not sure how many more blog posts I'll get out before I leave and I'll most likely have a bit of a break until I get situated back in Bisbee. Meanwhile I have one more two day show up north before I fly and a trip to Phoenix to see my sister hopefully finish her Javelina Jundred 100 mile run on her 48th birthday!

By then David should be caught up to me with his 4000 mile trip in the little truck and we can settle in a bit and enjoy some desert sunshine.
                                                         Until then...XOXO Kim

Playing with Vintage Packaging

My brother Dan gave me the most special stash of images from packaging that he had collected in his travels mostly in the 70's.

I really felt that the collection was sentimental to me as well since I had lived vicariously  through his travels long before I started world travel myself.

He had gone off to art school at Instituto Allende in San Miguel while I was still in high school.

Some of these images are from his South American travels back then.

Then he went to Bali and lived for a year painting back when there was only one restaurant in Ubud.

He was a huge influence in my life in so many ways... travel, art and humor.

I realized that I couldn't really part with most of this ephemera for my art so I decided to combine it all on these stiff place mats that I got at the thrift store.

He told me that he had always meant to put them all together somehow and now I have.

Dan told me that this one was his favorite.

I'm keeping them all!

Returning to Our Desert Home

Newly acquired old distressed Mexican hutch

Perfect for our liquor cabinet

Score at a yard sale ~ entire contents $4

Ink-credible!

And the case ~ $5!

Much too heavy to carry but good for storage.

Picked up some more of these piloncillo molds

used to form Mexican brown sugar into cone shapes.

(not to be confused with pine cones)

The price was right on these vintage baby clothes patterns

(not that I plan on doing any sewing but they were so cute)

The images in these baby crochet and knitting pattern books are choice.

I love vintage catalogs. I recognize quite a few items from our grade school supplies.

Not sure what the year is on this  CRE-ART catalog is.

 Making the big shift moving from our Alaskan home to our Arizona home this last week.

We made it out in the nick of time. There was a rain storm in the forecast hours after our flight out of Fairbanks. I had an Artisan Expo at the Museum of the North in Fairbanks the day before our flight out which meant that I had to pack for a two day show and a 6 month  winter away from our Alaskan home. Both the plane and the Expo were 100 miles from our home so there was not turning back and no room for forgetfulness.

I'm happy to report that the Expo was a success even though sparsely attended and some of my new encaustics and altered pieces sold which was a nice confidence boost. The museum bought some of my higher end jewelry outright at the end of the show which was quite the bonus for me.

 Our late night flight left  the ground just  hours before the rain that turned to ice crippled the city of Fairbanks for days. An inch of ice ( 2.5 cm) coated everything. Schools were closed, people were advised to stay home from work. Impossible to walk on let alone drive on. I saw videos of folks skating on a flat road and careening in their cars on hills with numbers of them in ditches. We were lucky to get out. Then arriving in Seattle before dawn I was thinking it was a foggy day as it got light outside. Then I realized that I was looking at a snowstorm! It snowed like crazy during our 6 hour layover but we were able to take off  for Tucson even though they were down to one open runway. I heard that that close an hour after we took off after a cargo jet slid off of the runway. We were lucky indeed.

 Although temperatures had cooled in the desert when we arrived in Tucson were were happy to see the sunshine and enjoy the dry roads on our 2 hour trip to Bisbee.

I'm still settling in as we had to immediately drive north to Scottsdale for a family Thanksgiving. I'm glad to finally be home now to get back in the groove of exercise and making art. I left my entire inventory of finished pieces  back in Alaska so anything I may want to sell here has to be freshly made. Now I just need to find the key to my workroom!

 I'm pretty sure the gal that looks after our place while we're gone must have it and I need to wait for her return from a Mexican vacation.

We hit our favorite antique store and thrift store right off the bat and a nice yard sale on top of that  because I just can't seem to resist some of the deals here.

My life has changed here as well because I'm overjoyed to have high speed internet after 7 months of dismal dial-up. I feel as though I have some catching up to do now.

It's so much fun to revisit all of my stashes of supplies and ephemera that I've collected down here because as you must imagine I can't pack it with me back and forth each time. 

We have to save that space for coolers full of moose, salmon, blueberries and cranberries for  our southern freezer!

Prep Time for Travel

I had never seen a pomegranate tree until I moved to Arizona. 

They are usually a bit gone by by the time we arrive in early winter, but wow!

It will be nice to look at some different plants again.

It's the countdown month for heading south to our Arizona abode. I've been eyeing all belongings and categorizing them for pack, leave behind, don't freeze and which supplies I absolutely need to bring along knowing that I have a goodly stash on the other end.

I have other decisions as well, one of which is a revamp on my neglected website. It's offline for the time being due to unforeseen circumstances. Now is the time to streamline and make it better. Today was spent looking at other lampworker's websites, color swatches and fonts.

I've been getting advice to keep it more sleek than what you'd find on a blog, no quirky fonts,   and a neutral background. Hard for an artist type such as me to think about scaling back on.

I'm ready to retire my Papyrus font which at the time I thought was so cool but am beginning to find passe. (Why do I always make these decisions after a trip to the print shop for more labels and earring cards?) It will be a phasing out I suppose.

My work has taken a turn anyway since that website was set up and I hope to feature my mixed media work as well.

Our Alaskan winter is in full swing now and I feel as if I'm not quite here and not quite there yet. water is turned off in the Garaj Mahal studio and only one last show before I travel.

Going Out To See the World

Just getting my last things together for our trip to Spain, France and Morocco and suddenly I think of things like bringing business cards. Of course I don't have any of that nice perforated cardstock specifically for business cards on hand so some nice lightweight paper, hand cut will have to do.

Then at the last minute I realize that I haven't thought of a suitable journal to bring. These days I'm thinking a simple wirebound pad isn't good enough after all of the wonderful altered art journals I've been perusing lately.

I've been amassing many weathered tomes but most of them have content that's too good to write over and I'm thinking that one that's more blank will be better. I found a red vinyl covered accounting book that was just a bit too utilitarian looking. If I cut the vinyl off I'd have some nice cardboard pieces to embellish underneath. Unfortunately I cut too much off and the cardboard wanted to fall out. Then I had a choice between red or silver duct tape. So the book regained the red background again but with a tad more funky texture. I found a nice vintage page from a children's book to dress it up.

I know it's fairly simplistic for an art journal but it will do in a pinch. Hopefully the interior will flourish with my entries.

With my husband's new Eee PC that he got for Christmas I won't have to lug my laptop around and hope to be able to blog some on the trip. I should have lots to show and share.!

From My Brother's Travel Collection

Front Side

Back side


My artistic brother recently gifted me with a pile of his own ephemera dating back to the early 70's from his extensive travels. I decided that the fitting first project would be to gift it back to him in the form of a collaged/decoupaged tin. Tickets and stubs, decorative cigarette packages and a couple of his passport photos make up the front and a baggage claim ticket, airline ticket and security fee slip make up the back.