Verklempt Over Exciting News

I'm feeling a bit verklempt, overwhelmed, grateful, blessed, psyched out, and exuberant over two publications I'll be featured in. The first I've known about for awhile, but didn't want to share until I knew for absolute, positive sure that it would happen (what if they changed their mind!?!). The second opportunity happened very quickly and is still in process. Enough cryptic talk. Let's get to the specifics.

My studio will be featured in the Fall, 2010 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors STUDIOS magazine. A couple of months ago, I submitted a few low resolution exploratory photographs -- I heard back from the editor within hours: she wanted more photos, this time high resolution. Knowing I needed a professional, I called my brother-in-law, John Svendsen, of Image Quest Photography to do the photo shoot. We set a date and he took way too many photos, whittled it down, and together we selected 15 to submit. I then set about writing the article. About a month ago I got to see the article for review and editing. I'm finally feeling confident that it will really appear as I went to the website for STUDIOS and saw my name in print! In print, I tell ya. Too see the cover of the fall issue and a listing of artists who will be featured, just click here. As I looked over the list of featured artists, I recognized a name: New York Artist Seth Apter of The Altered Page. We've been blog friends for the past couple of years.

I can't share the photos that John took or what will be included in the publication, but here are a couple of photos of John at my studio photo shoot.



My second piece of news is still in process. I received a call just a couple of days ago from an editor at the Statesman Journal, our local daily newspaper. Marian said they were putting together the Fall issue of Willamette Woman, which will focus on women artists, and they wanted to feature me. Yikes Almighty! So today was the photo shoot. Tim Gonzalez, a Statesman Journal photographer for over 20 years, came to my studio and shot some casual photos. Then I went down to the Statesman Journal offices for some photos of me with a plain background (no plain backgrounds to be found at MY studio!) - I changed my clothes three times for the photo shoot. Here are some photos of Tim getting set up at my studio . . .







. . . and then Tim let me snap a photo of him!


As I was leaving the offices of the Statesman Journal, I took a photo of the magazine I'll be featured in.


Stay tuned for updates as the two publications appear. I've heard that the fall issue of STUDIOS will be out in August, and Willamette Woman will be out in September.

ras el hanoot

I have the coolest friends! One of them is Gretchin Lair, of Scarlet Star Studios. Gretchin also is the woman who guided me through The Artist's Way several years ago and became my Artist's Way mentor. Recently, Gretchin went on a several week photography adventure to Morocco and brought me back some treasures she scavenged on her trip. Holy Moley! Look what she brought me!

Art Buddy: A Jump Start

Sven is an art friend I met through my association with Scarlet Star Studios and because he is also a graduate of Gretchin's Artist's Way Creative Clusters. Sven and I have stayed connected through weekly Artist's Way check-ins with each other, and I so appreciate his feedback and creative encouragement. Sven is a talented artist in many arenas, but one of his favorites is stopmo, stop motion animation. To learn more about Sven and his art, click here. The blog maintained by Sven (and Gretchin) is also a fascinating way to learn more about the many facets of Sven.

Here is what Sven had to say when he submitted his image:

It only seemed natural that I ought to do some animation with my Art Buddy!

Stopmo is famously laborious, what with planning and fabrication…It's so easy to get bogged down.

My animation table's been gathering dust far too long. So: what a treat do some improvisational work again! Thanks for the jump start. :-D