Some Things To Look At

Yesterday was a day. That's all I can say. There were some ups and downs. One of the ups? My boyfriend made these delicious nachos for dinner. Turkey crumbles, homemade guacamole, salsa, onions, tomatoes, cheese and tons and tons of cilantro, my fave. It was delicious.

One of the downs? All the shelves in my art studio fell off the wall. I don't know why it happened but it took me over an hour to finally go in the room and deal with it. I was too afraid to see all the damage. Luckily and surprisingly most things came out unscathed. A few busted frames but art work was still intact so I had plenty to feel lucky about. But now this is what my studio looks like messier than ever. We are going to hang the shelves again today but I'm still a bit nervous of another disaster...

One bright spot in my studio are these awesome vintage owl pencils. I have had these for forever. My best friend Claudia gave them to me one year for Christmas and I hang them up in every place I live in. They are kind of like my version of the lucky horseshoe.

I have recently acquired some amazing art including this crazy beautiful piece by John Medina. We traded last year for it but he had to hang on to it a little while longer. Once I got it I was pleased as punch. It reminds me of the Mountain Monsters I use to draw. I think I'll keep this guy in my studio for inspiration.Also, when I visited with my friend Cassie recently she gave me this beautiful doily painting. I have always loved theses paintings so I am very excited to have one of my own!

Yay art!

Have a Wonderful Wednesday. I hope your shelves stay intact today and everyday!

Lots of Things

Hello hello! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and really enjoyed Mother's Day. I got to go home for a few days and even though I had to drive back on Mother's Day I still got to spend plenty of time with my Mom. We had lots of fun and did lots of shopping and barely made it back in time to see the Kentucky Derby. Did you watch? I think it's the only sport thing I watch. Probably because it only last a couple of minutes. Any longer and I would be bored bored bored.

Okay, I have several things to show you today. First of all sweet Claire at Nothing Happens Unless We Dream featured me on her blog yesterday in her weekly Monday Etsy Loves roundup. Claire always curates a great page for Etsy stuff. I was honored to be part of such a great collection!

Also yesterday I sponsored Abby from Aesthetic Outburst's latest 20 in 20 project. This necklace is gorgeous and it's not too late to sign up to win it. Just go here.
Last week I did not mention that I went to Art Chicago. I met up with some dear friends, Darren and Cassie, and we explored the whole fair. I had not seen Cassie in about a year and Darren and I don't see each other enough. It was just like the year before when we were constantly going to Chicago to set up for our art show there. It was such a sweet day that I didn't want to end.

But alas it ended and now I have tons of iphone pics and names written down in my sketchbook of artists I love. I want to start sharing these with you here.

The first photo I took at the fair was of Genesis Belanger's sculpture titled Somewhat Stable Indulgence. I love dessert art best of all the art so this piece had me drooling.
Here is a better photo from Genesis's website. Click here to see more work. It was hard finding much info about the artist but I think she is a Brooklyn artists who is currently getting her MFA.

Pretty dreamy stuff.

Last but not least are some photos from my recent trip to a natural history museum. My boyfriend and I were out enjoying a nice summer day when we finally decided to visit the Midwest Museum of Natural History. I have lived here for four years and have never visited this little museum that is right next door to my town. We wondered around and looked at all the taxidermic animals and learned little facts along the way. The basement of the museum is home to many live animals including this huge tortoise! It was such a charming place. If you are near the area consider checking this museum out.








Have a wonderful Tuesday!

The Climatic End to the Anticlimatic Giveaway

I think I just had the saddest giveaway ever! If this were a tv show a horn would go womp woooomp. It's okay, it's all in good fun and there is a winner and that's exciting! Cassie Marie Edwards wins and her book suggestion The Life of Pi is one that's been on my reading list for forever so now this means I really need to read it. Thanks to Anna at Today Illustrated and Claire at Nothing Happens Unless We Dream for playing along. If you two want to send me an address I will get something in the mail for you both as well! All three ladies have fantastic blogs and if you haven't seen them before definitely check them out now.

Yesterday I I felt like I was thisclose to getting a good job and now it sounds like it may not happen. I'm going to remain positive. Fingers crossed on both hands and toes crossed for good measure. Hopefully I'll hear something today.

Here's something for you to hear. Have you seen the blog Run With Scissors? Run's blogger Janel is absolutely sweet and charming and posts the best pictures. She and her husband want to adopt a baby in the near future but it's so crazy expensive, but Janel came up with a great way to raise money. If you want to sign up to help she will send you a baby bottle for you to throw your spare change into. The bottle is a nice reminder of how important this fundraiser is. After reading just a few posts of her blog you will want to sign right up and do what you can to help. Go here to read more about it. Even if you don't sign up this is definitely a blog to add to your favorites!

Tonight is our closing in Chicago. If you are in the are stop by between 5-8 at 230 W. Superior in the River North area. It's going to be a lot more relaxed tonight. We'll have some bottles of wine and good company. If you can't make it I will certainly do my best to take better pictures!
As long as the weather holds up Cassie and I are going to hit a bunch of yard sales today. I'm trying to find a couch. I want a green couch. Like a grandma green couch. ( :

Home

Lately over at the blog Fine Little Day, Elisabeth has ben posting gorgeous dollhouse photos. Like this stove shelf she's working on...

And this absolutley amazing dollhouse that her children are decorating.
Also, she posted about these amazing shoebox dioramas made by a bunch of children in the UK. Click on the link to see the boxes up close and read a description about each room. They are really charming.
My friend Cassie is remodeling a dollhouse and it's absolutely lovely.

I'm a little house crazy these days. I want to decorate a home and bake things in it and live happily ever after in it. That's my plan for the future.

pom pom

Yesterday's crafting was a success! For those of you wondering about the yarn wreath it's really easy. I had been seeing wreaths like this all over the place lately including the cover of Readymade. I also found this tutorial on Urban Outfitters by Yokoo on how to make a pom pom wreath that is gorgeous!

For our wreaths we just used a bit of glue and lot of yarn. We wrapped the yard around a foam wreath until the foam was gone. Cassie, on the left, crocheted doilies and made pom poms to decorate hers. Mine is in the middle, I striped mine with green and blue and made a couple of pom poms as well. Courtney on the right made a string going from side to side and she plans on hanging letters from it. So crafty!

Here's one more close up of mine. I'm thinking of getting some wooden letters to glue to it. I'm going to give it as a Christmas gift and hopefully make some more before Christmas.
This was the best afternoon I've had in a while. Very fun. Today I have to spend the day running all over trying to finish up in-town business because tomorrow I fly home for the holiday. So much to do!

Not long ago I got to attend my friend Cassie's husband's thesis recital. For his show he made a video for one of his pieces. It was a great performance and I love the video. Here is the video by Nathan Edwards. Click on his name to hear more, learn more, and see more.

Nowhere. from Nathan Edwards on Vimeo.

The Usual Freak Out

So you know how much I love a beautiful party and now Urban Outfitters has provided the decorations for that. I love it. Unfortunately their a little out of my price range but a girl can dream, right?

I just finished my last week of school this semester. Finals are next week. All I have to do is go to one class and meet with my students to give them their grades. Oh! And make tons of art and have my final printmaking crit Tuesday night. This I'm very excited about. I plan on working in the studio so much this weekend. I'm going to take a little break Sunday and go to Ikea with Cassie which I'm looking forward to. I haven't been there all semester and it's long overdue.

It's snowing here and I hate it. I wonder where I'll be this time next year... Wherever it is I hope I'm not freezing like I am now. I'm still sort of stuck in this identity crisis feeling. With school ending I don't know what to do with myself, who will I be? Ick, too much to think about. I have so many great friends and I wish I could be near them somewhere. That would be fabulous. It's weird how much my life has changed in the past year. In the next year it's only going to change that much more. One thing that will stay the same, I'm not dying my hair again. ( ;

Have a great weekend. I'm out...

Bad Dog Gallery, Fibers Show

This week's Bad Dog Gallery show was one of my favorites. The Fibers department always has a show each year and it's the one I look forward to the most. I think the Fibers program here is so great and innovative. I always wish I had more time in grad school so I can take advantage of this wonderful program. Christine Lofaso is a great teacher in this department. So, here is her class's show.

Some names and artists I'm not sure of. Hopefully Cassie will come to my rescue soon and identify the artist. Like this piece, awesome weavings on lite brights!
These are drawings by Cassie Marie Edwards.

Not sure who this belongs to...

These screenprinted images are by my friend Kristine Chisamore. I wish I had some detailed photos of this collection. They are photo screenprints Kristine took of the old fibers building being torn down.

I love this piece but unfortunately I don't think my camera did it justice. There are l.c.d. lights in this piece that don't show up. This is by metals grad Lindsey Shranz.

I wish I would have gotten a better installation view of this. The artist is grad student Brikena Boci. This was really creepy and beautiful at the same time.

These next couple of photos are simply amazing. Some of the students made a huge tent in one of the gallery rooms. It felt like my dream home. I've always wanted to have an outdoor tent hideaway.

Since Cassie was part of this show she got some great photos of the installation process. Go check them out for behind the scenes shots.

Little Houses

Winter is starting early here. I had a dream last night that it snowed and I wouldn't be surprised if that dream came true soon. I'm being too cheap to turn the heat on in my apartment so I'm sort of freezing a bit. My fingers are the coldest. I hope this is my last hard winter and next winter I'll be somewhere in the south. But, you never know where life will take you. I may have more hard winters in my future. Who knows...

So I wanted to post these adorable photos of houses made by a group of children. Our Art Ed program here is really awesome and they seem to do a lot of work with children on the weekends. I came into school Tuesday and saw these awesome paper houses hanging up and was glad I thought to grab my camera that morning. Since I've been working a lot with the house image in my work I was completely smitten for these. I love how honest they are. I would live in everyone of those houses.

Just thought this would brighten up your Saturday!

Oh, and a big Happy Birthday shout out to Cassie! Go send her happy birthday messages on her blog!

Bad Dog Gallery, New Night New Show

Last Thursday night at the Bad Dog Gallery one of the painting professors at NIU, Frank Trankina, curated a show called AbstWACKtion. Besides the silly title the show was really great.

These first two pieces are by Nina Rizzo, another painting professors at NIU. I love Nina's work. Check out her website for more great work.

(I like when people show pics of opening nights and no one is looking at the art.)

Sometimes at Bad Dog Gallery the PBR bin gets as much attention as the art.
This is by Paul Nudd. His work is really grossly beautiful. He had a video playing that made everyone stop and wonder just what the hell they were looking at. Look through his website for more beautiful gross outs.
Ben Stone made this piece. You may remember his piece from the last Bad Dog show of Calvin on praying Calvin. Ben's work is always really humorous.
The rest of the work is unidentified but I really love it all.

The show was really neat. Thursday night the Fibers department is having a show called Homebodies. My good friend Cassie is going to be in that show. I hear she and some friends are making a tent house. I can't wait to see this.

I've been nursing a cold since yesterday. Lots of emergen-C, vitamins, tea, water, whining and allergy pills have been involved in making me better. I'm going to go out to my studio and try to ignore it. I'm really really pleased with what's happening in my studio these days. Tomorrow I'll write a blog all about it. And then I will go teach my class Softground... eek!

Teaching them hardground went really well. I'm so pleased with what an amazing class I have. They are all so attentive and even though I talk their heads off and probably driving them crazy with my sometimes ditziness they seem to like me and I like them, too. Lets just hope that by the time I get through this intaglio stuff we are all still liking each other. Fingers crossed!