Yep – today was a sellout at my first “real” neighborhood craft fair. I gave my last Shard face to my hostess as a thank-you for letting me participate. I met so many great people and learned to use my Square software on the iPad to make transactions reliably.
One thing I learned is that set-up and sales in that venue is hard work. There are lots of times one just sits, and then a customer or two come and then more, and the wind picks that moment to blow over your umbrella and scatter your cards. It’s a crazy way to make a living! But it definitely has appeal – and the feedback is priceless.
Here are some photos of my low-tech treeside set-up.

I haven’t done much of this, but will be participating in a large arts fair called Uptown Art Stroll in the Olmos Park Terrace neighborhood. My friend, knitter and weaver Kathleen Messina, has invited me to share her space. I’ll be taking Scent Shards and cover examples. Here’s a map that shows how extensive a “stroll” it will be. Fortunately for art lovers, there’s going to be a trolley, food booths and music to make strolling more fun.

Just returned from a trip to the Davis Mountains near Big Bend where my band played for a 50th high school reunion. The music was fun, but the landscape was harsh. Places have their own beauty – the light here was very different and made photography difficult because there seemed to be no mid-tones. If a landscape can be bi-polar, this was it! Here are some photos from the Davis Mountains near Ft. Davis State Park. The last two show two shops in the town of Ft. Davis. I really liked the shop called Possibilities, and found some interesting essential oils there, as well as a very interesting shop owner.

I needed some batik print accents for a journal cover I created recently, so I turned to my trusty scanner and laid my 35-year-old Indonesian batik sarong on the flatbed of my scanner.

After the image was scanned, I opened it in Photoshop Elements, my graphic design studio’s best friend.

I kept the original version, but also made a version in blue by adjusting the hue settings. I saved them as separate files, but combined them into one sheet to print. I printed them out on a strong but semi-transparent rice paper meant for InkJet printers. The result is amazing- it even has the satin gloss and soft feel of the original fabric. I can’t wait to use it on my next project. As they say, the possibilities are endless.

Wow.

Aargh! My little cat, Pharaoh, was looking out the window in the studio while I was working. When he jumped down, his front paw landed in a bowl of India Ink and he ran across my work table, the dhurrie rug, the tile floor and on and on. I finally caught him and gave him a footbath in the sink, which he did not care for one bit. Unfortunately, since India ink is permanent, I may have a new pattern on the studio rug.
Pharaoh, the art cat –

I was experimenting with paper towels when I saw some great stain patterns that were left after cleanup yesterday. A blog post on Cloth Paper Scissors prompted me to try some kitchen ingredients for mixed media surface enhancement, so I got some curry powder and some Chinese Five-Spice Powder and sprinkled them on very damp paper towels (white with fiber). It looked good – after it dried a bit, I brushed off the small clumps and painted some gloss acrylic medium over the surface.

Once the paper dried, I adhered the spicepaper to a journal cover frame that I had constructed and covered with Kraft paper. A little gold leaf added to the texture. The results were fun, a cross between aged canvas and distressed leather. And it smells like a spice bazaar!See what you think–too bad you can’t smell it:

Design mode has kicked  in and I went on a font hunt for some letters with a craftsman look. I found some beauties – here’s a sample board with just a few. Fonts are so expressive all by themselves no matter what the words might be.

Behind in my work as usual, I had to do a quick change from a collage and drawing studio to a clay studio in about half an hour today. Actually, I’ve organized my tools so that it’s fairly easy. I keep all of my clay tools, clay press molds and carving tools, and rolling boards stacked in one area behind a kitchen butcher block shelf. And I have baskets for the collage material – here are some pictures which show the transformation. Pretty slick re-purposing in a small space!

I agonized over how to present my work to the Cloth Paper Scissors editors before I packed it to mail it off. I ended up “re-imagining” some of those brown kraft expanding office folders. I put a strip of mat board in the bottom of the two smaller ones to hold them open, then scored and trimmed the flaps to make fold-overs with punched holes and ties. The larger one was done the same basic way, but the iPad cover was too large for flaps, so I skewered it with some bamboo toothpicks.
If *I* were the judge, I’d choose *me* based on the creative packages alone – – too bad I’m not!

Yesterday I received an email from Jenn Mason, editor of the popular national art/crafting magazine, Cloth Paper Scissors published by Interweave Press. I am a finalist for Artisan of the Year 2012!
In this post, I described working for this in the studio – and I’m happy that they liked the work!
Here is another piece from that set of three submissions:

I am pretty amazed, but happy that I seem to be on the right track – good to be validated by a community of incredibly talented people.Stay tuned!