A Shop and Some Guilt

First and foremost... Have I mentioned Anna at Today Illustrated here before? She has a fantastic blog with lots of inspiring photos and messages plus she's a super sweet person. A perfect combination. Now I'm excited to say that she has created her own etsy shop called Little Wild Bird. Isn't that a great name? I love Anna's work a lot. Go check out her store and subscribe to her blog if you haven't already. Her blog is the perfect little boost to lift you off your feet.

Do you remember a post I wrote earlier this summer where I longed to be someone who wakes up super early and tries to get a lot accomplished in the early morning? So I think I'm becoming that person. Yesterday I even got up at 6:30 and worked out! Since I got out of school I feel this weird time struggle all the time. I'm hardly ever on the internet anymore, which means I'm never caught up on all my favorite blog reading, because I always feel this intense guilt if I'm not in my studio. During school I would get up and sit on the internet until about ten or eleven. I would catch up on blogs, post my own blog, look around on facebook and flickr and then finally take a shower and get ready for the day. I would then usually spend the rest of the day in the studio. Now that I have a job I feel like any free minute I have should be in the studio. I'm sure that's not a terrible feeling but sometimes the guilt is too much. It makes me not want to be social or even do simple things like read a book. I feel like I should always be in there working. Do any of you have these feelings? How do you cope with balancing out your life?

I did officially finish my first post-grad piece of artwork. I will get prints made of this and post in Etsy. I would like to start applying to art fairs so I'm really trying to build up my inventory. I have finished several of the house-shaped pieces and I plan to mount those to wood as well as get prints made. That's all coming along slowly. I will keep you updated.
Have a good day today. I'm off work today which would normally mean studio time but it's my best friend's birthday so I'm going to try to put those guilt feelings aside and just enjoy a nice day.

Help! haha.

New American Paintings: Midwest

I just got my latest New American Paintings in the mail and it is the Midwest edition. Usually that is my favorite because I feel like there is always a lot of exciting artwork happening in the Midwest. I'm not just saying this because I live in the Midwest. Full disclosure, however, I was rejected from this issue. No big deal though. I'm nothing if not resilient. I will send them new slides this year and hope for the best. Meanwhile I wanted to share with you a few of the artists in this edition who were my favorites.

These first two pieces are by Casey Roberts. These are cyanotypes with gauche painted on them. These two pieces are not in NAP. Aren't they gorgeous? See tons of more beautiful works at his website.

The next three pieces are by Nathan Vernau. Again these are not the actual works in the publication. Nathan has tons of great pieces at his website. They are silly and intense all at the same time. One of his pieces made the cover of NAP!


I also love these quirky pieces by Lee Piechocki. The bottom piece is in NAP but the top two pieces are older. See more of his work here.


New American Paintings is out now. Check your newsstands to see more great work!

My Renegade Trip

I realized I never wrote about my day at the Renegade Art Festival. I had such a wonderful time. I got a shot of the booths but was mostly too shy to ask people if I could take personalized booth photos. I need to get over my shyness I suppose.

Instead I took photos of shadows...

I was not too shy to ask my friend Maranda for a photo and I'm glad I did. She has such beautiful work and just opened a shop on Etsy called Cloud Story Books. Maranda and I went to undergrad together so I was very excited to see her in my current neck of the woods. She's doing amazing things so keep an eye out. Her sketchbooks would make wonderful presents.
Here are a few photos of what is in her shop...


I was on a very tight budget, sadly, so I could not go wild with spending like I would have loved to. I did buy a necklace just like this one from Caitlin's Nice shop. Her store title could not be truer. She was the sweetest, just like last year when I bought a little deer plaque from her. She has lots of beautiful goodies in her shop.
I also fell in love with Arcane Arts. My friend and I were shopping for a birthday gift for my friend and we picked up this gift (we haven't given it our friend yet but I'm sort of pretty sure she only reads my blog every once in a while so hopefully she won't see this...Look away Camerson, Spoiler alert). Check out this store for all kinds of beautiful artwork.
I was very surprised at myself for spending so little on this trip. I'm really starting to gain some willpower because I definitely could have blown my bank account. Renegade is so much fun. If you live near one and haven't gone yet be sure to go to the next one! Start saving now!

New Work-In-Progress!

I am very happy to report that I have been back to work in my studio! I'm very excited with what's going on. I found an old stencil with animals on it and I started using that as my muse. I also bought another stencil and am on the look-out for more. I'm thinking my inspiration is airbrushed vacation shirts. How funny is it to have dolphins in everything? Now that I'm not in an "academic" setting anymore I feel like I can draw dolphins all I want. Here are some views of in-progress pieces (click on the photo to see it larger. For whatever reason I cannot get a good translation of my Flickr photos. They always get cropped. Any suggestions??)...

Here is a pic of one of my stencil sets.

Since I can't do that much printmaking I figure a stencil can take it's place for now.

Now for the hard part, finishing everything...

Happy Tuesday!

Weetzie Bat

Have you heard of the book Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block? If you have and you're saying "Duh, that's old news," then I'm sorry to be old news but honestly I always thought I was the only person who knew about this book. I stumbled upon it when I was in high school and fell so achingly hard for it. The imagery in the book was so inspiring. I didn't know if I wanted to write or draw or just dress up like the title's main character, a punky, cool, hip, vulnerable, strong girl named Weetzie Bat (I mean, who has that name and isn't entirely hip?)

I had not thought about Weetzie Bat in a while and then I was looking at Lisa Butterworth's blog Hot Child In the City and she posted these gorgeous photos from a photo shoot by the Wildfox Girls that were advertising a screenplay reading of Weetzie Bat written by Block(!!!).

Aren't these photos gorgeous? It brings back that same rush of creativity and inspiration that the book first brought me all those years ago. So far I have not seen any real word on the movie happening but I will probably die, then come back to life, then die again when it does.

Probably the most exciting thing, however, is realizing that this book is not actually my own little secret. I will gladly share this following with all the amazing Weetzie Bat girls out there. I found several blogs that have written posts and come up with their own inspired collections including this one by the Wildfox Girls...

And I found this one by Dearilou...

There are also Flickr groups dedicated to Weetzie Bat inspired shots such as this one.

Trust me, if you haven't read this book yet check it out as well as other books by Francesca. Keep in mind that most of her books are young adult so curl up with your favorite teenage dream and get to reading!

Fundraiser Results

I wanted to update everyone on my art fundraiser. I just put a check in the mail for $310 for the Gardner family! I really want to thank you all for your support. To those who donated I cannot thank you enough! It's meant a lot to me to see how amazing people can be so, Thank you! Please continue to follow Sarah's story here and keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

Garden

On Saturday I went to Chicago for the Renegade Art Fair and I had a wonderful time! I will post more about that tomorrow. Here is a little sneak peak...

The night before Renegade I went on a date that was a repeat of a date from exactly a year ago. It was almost like a one year anniversary date. My fantastic boyfriend and I went to this beautiful Japanese Garden. I had been having a bad day so it was nice to just stroll around and watch the ducks and fish do their thing. It was very peaceful and relaxing. After we went and had sushi, just like last year!

I sort of felt bad eating sushi after I spent so much time admiring the Koi fish. At least I didn't have koi sushi?


This duck wasn't too happy with me when it realized I didn't have food. He made me a little bit nervous.
I hope you all had a sweet weekend!

Corinne Day

Yesterday my good friend Andy called to tell me about the photographer Corinne Day who passed away after a long fight with cancer. I was not familiar with her work and he thought I should look her up. I'm so glad I did. She was best known for her work in the early nineties when the "heroin chic" look was popular. Not that I'm sad to see that look go, but I really do like her work. Many of the photos here were shot for various European Vogue publications and although they have that slick editorial look, they also have a roughness to them that you don't typically see in fashion magazines. Corinne's work reminds me of a slicker Nan Goldin. The fashion/art world lost a very talented person yesterday.

All of these images were taken from Corinne Day's website found here.