Curious Elements: The Quest Continues

I spent several hours today working on my Curious Elements, doing everything from staining plaster on boards, to drilling and attaching bits to wood pieces. I also began auditioning elements on boards that will be used to showcase multiple Curious Elements. Here's a glimpse at how things are coming along.

A serrated blade to fray the shore . . .

I spent part of today getting myself packed for a four-day workshop at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. The class is titled Painting Abstract Landscapes and will be taught by Lori Latham (please check out her website - her art is amazing!). I met Lori last year in Judy Vogland's class at Sitka and fell in love with her abstracts then. The class doesn't start until Thursday, but I'm slipping away to the beach tomorrow morning to get myself settled and do a little ambling around Lincoln City.




I packed my notebook for taking notes in class (the covers are photocopies of pages from my visual journal).




I tossed in my little watercolor journal that I created while in Hawaii earlier this year. Some of the pages are landscapey and I thought I could use them for inspiration.



Of course I needed to take supplies for playing in my visual journal in the evening after class is over. What I packed for my personal journal was way more than what I had to take for the class itself!







I'll be doing posts about the class as it unfolds, but for now, packing was the order of business.

Sneak Peek: Curious Elements

I've been playing with several techniques, bringing them all together to create a new line of creations I'm calling: Curious Elements. I'm very excited about the endless creative possibilities and the many directions I can go, but for now, I'm sharing a glimpse into what I'm busily (and happily) working on in my studio. Today was a day of sanding, staining, plastering, and painting . . . as well as gathering from my fabulous selection of metal bits in preparation for assembling the mini assemblages.









The blocks I'm using are an assortment of sizes, each with a personal Curious Element attached. For now I'll show you two:

Save the Cushman

My friend Sam, the proprietress of my favorite vintage clothing store, Lil' Gypsy, acquired a Cushman truck awhile back with the hope of restoring it. Part way into the project, she realized it was going to cost more than she was able to put into it, so she decided to pull the plug. When her daughter Jasmine and I heard about it, we decided we would step in and help Sam to SAVE THE CUSHMAN. We set up a Facebook page, which you can get to and become a friend by going HERE. Of course, we have to show you some photos of the poor little retched truck:





Jump ahead a few months. The decision was made to hold a garage sale to raise funds for renovating the Cushman. A date was set and that date was yesterday. On Saturday night the troops were gathered to set up for our one day mammoth sale.













The sale was held on Sunday and we woke up to grey skies and rain, rain, rain, which didn't let up all day. However, in spite of the rain, people turned out throughout the day, with only two small, brief lulls. In the end, we raised over $1,000 toward the renovation of the little Cushman truck.