Category Archives: art

Friday Freebie: Spirit Box Kit

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To celebrate the publication of my article, Spirit Boxes, in the Sept-Nov issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine, I’m putting together a one-of-a-kind Spirit Box kit for a Shards subscriber. Subscribe before midnight on Sunday and you’ll be in the random drawing. So, YAY! The kit has a shard face, the matboard frame, some decorative paper, and tin to hang the project. Oh, yeah, and directions.

Also, for your weekend viewing pleasure,, I just finished the video of Sherrill Kahn’s workshops at the Studio – what a great time we had! Sherrill and I are fast friends now – that’s the best part of all! Thanks to everyone who came – oh, and don’t forget, there’s a shard face workshop this Sunday with spaces left! Send me an email if you want to make your own Spirit Box faces.

Art teachers and adornments

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I don’t know where Sherrill Kahn gets her energy – after two full days of teaching workshops at the Studio, she lectured to a full house of North East ISD art teachers this morning at the McNay Museum of Art as part of their in-service for back-to-school. My painting pal, Gloria Hill, is the NEISD Visual Arts Director and she arranged for Sherrill to come from California for the occasion. Sherrill shared images of her intricate, colorful work and she gave lots of hints to teachers on how to inspire students even on a teacher’s budget. Did you know, for example, that cheap hair gel from the Dollar Store works beautifully as an extender for acrylic paint? Check our her newest book for lots more cool ideas.

Afterwards, Gloria, Sherrill and I went to my Studio to work on face shard jewelry, but not before several of the art teachers showed up just to visit with Sherrill on a one-on-one basis. We did get back to work on our shard faces, and we spent the rest of the afternoon with Ann Pearce creating our necklaces with her help. If you’d like to make your own clay faces, I have a workshop this Sunday, August 25, on clay adornments, so sign up and join the fun! There’s still space.

neck2 neck4 necklaceanns

 

Shared Spaces report

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What a waste of me being terrified and nervous – the show was fantastic! Thanks to everyone who came out and looked and bought and talked and hugged – and Chef Michael did his usual fine job with the food and drink. Some highlights of the evening:

  • Sherrill Kahn arrived safety from Los Angeles and was able to meet (and charm) everyone, including many who are looking forward to her workshops on Sunday and Monday.
  • Checking out all of the red dots on Gloria’s paintings (and some on mine, too)
  • Seeing friends whom I hadn’t seen in ages
  • Watching Michael making extra wine runs to the HEB across the street – we had more than 150 enthusiastic guests at the opening! Yay!

Here’s a short video of the proceedings. And at the bottom of the post are links to some new workshops at the Studio. Hope to see you soon! Happy dance, happy dance . . .

September Workshops at the Studio
 Sign up for new Adventures and Old Favorites!! Click below for info and printable flyers.

 

 

Gulp – it’s Art Show Eve

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I hit the ground running when I got home Monday night – my fellow artist and co-showee, Gloria, was smart enough to get everything done in advance for our Friday (tomorrow!!) exhibit, but – oh no – not meeeeee. I shared onewas still painting this morning at the Studio. Gulp, for sure. This afternoon, though, we started hanging paintings, and by golly, it’s gonna work! Here’s a sneak preview (see pics) – we need more tags and a list of works, but it’s almost ready.  sharedtwoI know I’ve said this, but it’s amazing how two people working at the same time with the same stuff can end up with such different results. I think you’ll like them 🙂

The exhibit, Shared Spaces, will be up through Labor Day, but if you come to the opening, you can get to tell us what you think! And you might even take home a piece of interesting,original art. The food on the menu looks good, too – so come, relax,  and escape the heat of the Dog Days of summer.

By the way . . . .do you know why the Dog Days are called that? The term dates back to the ancient Romans and is celestial in origin.The brightest star in Canis Major (and in the night sky), is Sirius which is also called the “dog star.” During late July, Sirius rises and sets in conjunction with the sun, and the ancients believed that the heat of Sirius added to the heat of the sun, creating a stretch of hot and sultry weather. My cat, Max, copes by just chilling out – he thinks we should call them the Cat Days of summer. Come chill out at the Studio tomorrow evening from 6-9!

maxnap copy

Blogging from the Watergate

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Hi from DC – I’m visiting my dear friend Victoria (who has a wonderful place at the Watergate on the Potomac) and taking a few days off to fill my artistic well with new inspiration. This city is amazing – so many things to see and do – and eat. One of my favorite places to visit is the Textile Museum – FASA friends, if you want some inspiration, too, check out the pages of the artisans who do work for the gift shop there. Personal favorites are Chris Triola’s Cloud Shawls, which are textile paintings as well as wearable art. Another inspiration – the delightful and super-accomplished Jean Effron, whom I met at dinner last night. She’s the founder of Jean Efron Art Consultants LLC, a Washington, DC, based art advisory firm that provides comprehensive fine art services. Jean finds artists whose work compliments the needs of her corporate clients. I really enjoyed taking with her about what she does, and the some times tough job of finding the right match for both the artist and the client.

Finally, here are some San Antonio connections at the Watergate – ahem. One of my paintings hangs in Victoria’s living room, looking pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself.

cp

And on another wall hangs a wonderfully mysterious figurative painting by Laura Mijangos – if you haven’t seen her work before, there’s an opening tonight at AnArte Gallery featuring her paintings – I’d be there if I weren’t here!

But I will definitely be in San Antonio next Friday for the Shared Spaces opening – hope you can be there too!

 

 

Altar Update: The Guardian of the Golden Bough

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Done and delivered to Celebration Circle! Here is the finished altar for their silent auction during the month of September, and now I know why I needed to use the moss. The figure represents The King of the Wood from Sir James Frazer’s book, The Golden Bough (pub. 1890), which seeks to explain the roots of human religion, science and magic. Being an eccentric spiritual eclectic, it made sense to me to reflect my own private musings through this guy, The Guardian of the Golden Bough.

The completed piece

The completed piece

I had fun constructing him, and when I took him down to the collection place in Blue Star Art Complex, I got to see some of the other altars. They’ll all be photographed soon, so you can see them, too. Hope you can come to the fundraising event on Sept. 30th! Here are some other photos of Mr. Guardian (or maybe it’s Ms. Guardian?) And here’s a tip – if you have a Kindle and want to read The Golden Bough, it’s on Amazon for a free download!

 

Gloria and Lyn (and the golden rooster)

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The Friday Freebie golden rooster pendant goes to blog subscriber Sherrill Kahn! That’s really funny – Sherrill, you can pick it up when you come to visit in August, and I can’t wait for your workshops.

And speaking of August, (nice segue) please please save the date (August 16th) for Shared Spaces, an exhibit of paintings by Gloria Hill and me at my Studio. We’ve been painting together on most Wednesdays since the early spring, and you will see how two weird artistic brains can take the same media (and sometimes the same subject) and end up with totally different results. There will be the usual libations and munchies – here’s you OFFICIAL invitation.

invitation copy

 

Hot Tip and a Friday Freebie on Saturday

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I’ll make this quick – I’ve been working on my website and if I spend any more time at this dang computer, well . .it won’t be pretty. But the site looks better. You can actually find workshop info (and I scheduled another Earthshard session by request on August 25th). Anyway, here’s the Hot Tip from my friend Barb at Ann Pearce’s. If you use Altoid tins for stuff, like I do for Spirit Boxes, you can fire up the barbie and put them on the grill. It burns off the paint and leaves them nice and shiny, kind of a patina black. Works great! Thanks, Barb. Now . . . look carefully at that fine golden rooster pendant on the newly-blackened box – he’s the Friday Freebie! If you are a subscriber to this blog, SHARDS, you’ll be in the drawing for him. Sunday night’s the deadline.

Whoopee – off to the Studio – happiness is this computer in my rear view mirror!

altoids

Experimenting . . .

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I’m doing some experimenting with mixed-media collage for a series of lessons I’m developing for CraftArtEdu, a pretty cool online teaching site for artists and students. It occurs to me that one of my favorite things is to put weird images together . . whether they want it or not. Here’s an acrylic-based collage I finished today called “Sweet Upon the Golden Child.” The doll’s face is a photograph that I took when my friend Ellen called me and said, “Come take pictures of my creepy dolls!” I think the face looks fascinating in the context of the collage. The large stone is an Ammonite. It has wonderful shape and texture. ArtPlay is FUN!

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A litter o’ spirit dolls

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Four of us birthed some Spirit Dolls this afternoon at our workshop – as we wrapped them up to take them home, we decided that they were like puppies from the same litter and would always have a sense of where their sisters were. These little sculptures almost created themselves – everyone seemed to know exactly where their work was headed. And none of them looks like the other. Except one of them kind of looks like me, and it’s not the one I created. Can you tell which one? All kinds of strange and wonderful things happen when Spirit Dolls get birthed! Thanks to everyone for sharing your time, talent, chocolates, hearts, and jewels.