Did you just hear that?! That crazy yelp?! Yeah, that was me opening up my mailbox today. The King of Inspiration has sent me a promo copy of “Working For The Man”. Oh yeah! I get off of work feeling drained and find this in my box, instant energy boost and spirit rejuvenation. You can buy a copy for yourself here and just flipping through it I can tell you it will be well worth the $11 it costs from amazon.
Remember a couple weeks ago on the Office when they were in a staff meeting, and there was a tv with a screensaver setting on, behind Michael? Instead of paying attention, the staff is just focused on the screensaver waiting with bated breath for the logo to go in the corner and when it finally does they all jump up in unison and scream with delight and then promptly walk out of the meeting, leaving michael behind thinking that his speech had moved them enough to deserve such excitement. Well this book is kind of like that.
So yeah, I can’t put into words how awesome Jeffrey Yamaguchi is. Just get the book!
lots of inspiration:
here <-- I ♥ kirsten dunst too and these pics are all great
here <-- lots of great links
here <-- I bought Evan
And this quote that I need plastered to my forehead from Kris Carr. I don’t have canser but I, and everyone I know, can benefit from this quote, just substitute canSer with whatever is holding you back at the time.
Remember that life isn’t greener on the other side. This is it it it, don’t put your happiness AND your livin’ on hold. What if the little chronic hangs out till you’re 90, but since you wanted it gone so bad you wasted all your years in worry and fright. …my choice has been to focus on the abundant QUALITY of my life and to plan for a techincolor future.
edit: I know how to spell cancer, but Kris spells it canser to show disrespect to the cancer and make it mad by misspelling it.
So three members of the Makers Art Group made it to the SOFA (sculptured Objects Functional Art) show this weekend at Navy Pier. We were kind of crunched for time so unfortunately I only made it through about half of the show. It was all so inspiring.
Above is a piece by
Steffan Dam, my favorite artist from the show. Below are several other pieces that really caught my eye as well. Top left Gesine Hackenberg, what you see is a Dutch collectioners plate with sections removed to create a necklace. Next is Karen Halt, and this was the only piece I could find of hers and it wasn’t a very good example, but she created small pieces of clothing and then did drawings and paintings on them and then they were dipped in beezwax and resin. Then there were paintings that incorporated each piece of clothing into it. I really loved her work. Lastly, underneath is work by Melanie Bilenker whose jewelry is created using human hair in resin to make images that look like contour drawings on piano ivory keys.
One thing I took away with me was the idea that I must be the laziest artist ever. Ideas and concepts for pieces come to me like a dime a dozen, but the development on those pieces often ends after the innitial idea. I probably dozens of sketch books filled with ideas, mostly in text format and then I rarely alter the idea, add to it or develop it at all. When I make time to actually work on said pieces, I often try to crank it out as fast as possible so that I can have the finished product in front of me. A lot of time when I am working on pieces I find myself feeling like I am in a race to hurry and get it done. This occurs even when I am spinning wool, I notice so many times that I am cranking it as fast as it can go. I think this occurs because I have a lot of inspirational drive but very little “stick-to-it-ivness”. So if I can’t get a piece out before my interest wanes then it is dead. A lot of times this happens before I even have a chance to begin on a piece. Okay, this is bringing me back to a quote I remember from “Art & Fear” that I quoted several months ago:
“Designer Charles Eames, arguably the quintessential Renaissance Man of the twentieth century, used to complain good-naturedly that he devoted only about one percent of his energy to conceiving a design - and the remaining ninety-nine percent to holding onto it as a project ran its course. Small surprise. After all, your imagination is free to race a hundred works ahead, conceiving pieces you could and perhaps should and maybe one day will execute - but not today, not in the piece at hand. All you can work on today is directly in front of you. Your job is to develop an imagination of the possible.”
Another thing I took away is that I just how much I love small artwork. I knew my own artwork has the tendency to be small, but it had never occured to me until later reflection after walking through SOFA how my eyes glazed over at the galleries with large work and that I was magnetically drawn to the galleries with small intimate work that needs to be viewed at from inches away. That is where I get really excited and inspired. And speaking of small work, I was shocked to find that the above piece by Melanie Bilenker is actually very-very-very miniature. It is actually only 1 1/16″ x 1/2 ” in size, incredible.
The train ride home was fun as well, we day dreamed about when we get a studio space to share. Someday, someday.
Here is a picture of my Found Art Tuesday. It was so late by the time I got to leaving it out, and with the postcard being a time sensitive piece I had to leave it in a place where it would be found quickly. There is a post-it note on front explaining the piece briefly. I haven’t heard if anyone found it yet.
When I was still an Art Education major I had to take a required class in Aesthetics. I LOVED this class and after taking it, felt strongly that it should be a required class of all Art students, of all kinds, at all universities. Anyway, I just ran across a website that linked to this wikipedia page about Aesthetics and thought it was great enough to share. If you don’t have the time to take an entire class in aesthetics this page pretty much sums up the often elusive concept behind aesthetics. It really is a simple idea, that i feel, is part of most everyone’s life, yet many people have no idea what it really means.
I just saw this article and am so excited to see an organization who is actually doing what should have been done ages ago. You might remember my tyrade against Locks of Love. Finally, Pantene is organizing a benefit that collects Hair to make wigs donated for free to women who are going through chemo and have lost their hair.
So my schedule has opened up since the craft show. I no longer feel the guilt trying to work on non-craft show related items. BUT I am still finding that everything I want to do happens on one day.
Tonight I am going out to my sisters to join her and a group of her friends for cropping (collaging and mixed media for me). The Makers Art Group is also having their first weekly session meeting tonight. Matt and I have been trying to schedule a day where we can go out and take pictures with our new cameras, and had settled on Friday. My friends are going out to dinner before Nikki heads back to St. Louis for the surgery. And then I just discovered that Sia is performing at the Metro tonight and there are still tickets available. Just last week I was looking to see if Zero 7 would be playing around here anytime soon, but I didn’t think to look up Sia, oh well.
Saturday is the SOFA show and I think, don’t hold me to it, but, that is my only plan for the whole day, yippeee!
