New Work 3/19/09

Several months ago, while flipping through an old issue of Dwell magazine, I found the photographs of artist Frank Breuer.  His series of telephone phones inspired me to make a necklace with the image of a telephone pole.  My image also has more personal meaning than that, though.  The picture I created is one of the landscape of my home state--Kansas.  One of the things I most vividly remember (and miss) about Kansas is the deep red and orange sunsets.  When I picture "home" in my mind, I picture these sunsets and the things I saw silhouetted against them--including telephone phones.  My mom used to tell me that my great, great grandfather laid some of the first telephone poles across the state.  This bit of family history has probably been a bit romanticized in my mind since I have very little knowledge of my genealogy.  

I still have to think of a name for the necklace, and when I do (any suggestions?  Add comments!), I will be posting it on Etsy.  This may be the start of more telephone pole artwork.

The drawing for the pendant was done in Prismacolor pencils on Shrinky Dink plastic. 

  

Current Projects 3/11/09

Asymmetrical Folds Skirt

I made this skirt for myself in January and received a commission to make one for a friend.  Hers will be navy blue denim with kelly green contrasting fabric and buttons.  The pattern came from Stitch Magazine (a really great magazine--I would have a subscription if they offered them).  Even though it's not my own design, I hope that the experience of creating a difficult piece of clothing from a pattern will help me improve my own designs in the future.

Ceramic Necklaces

At my last job, I dove head first into teaching Clay and Sculpture classes, which is not my area of expertise.  In fact, I've always disliked clay.  Now it's becoming one of my favorite mediums for jewelry design.  Some recent work (for sale on Etsy):

I put this pendant on a ribbon last night, and I'm happy with the color/text

ure combination, but I'm wondering if it needs something more--beads?  Twisting around with beads (I've seen this on a few necklaces in stores lately)?

I also have a few pendants with no necklace yet and I can't decide what they need--a beaded wire, a ribbon, a chain, or a leather cord.  Post your comments and let me know what you think.

Sketchbook/Sketchblog

One of the things I miss about art school is keeping a sketchbook and using it not only as a tool to develop ideas, but to present and discuss them.  My sketchbooks always tend to have more writing and more pasting than sketching.  That's how my ideas get started.  I've been thinking for awhile about putting my writing and pasting into digital form.  This could help me recreate the community of idea presentation and discussion that I so miss from art school.

Like so many other people around the US, I recently lost my job.  While in between jobs, my goal is to try to focus on creating finished products--something I've always struggled with, especially when working full time.  I hope to use this blog to help me develop ideas, present them to others for critique, and hopefully carry them through until I'm actually satisfied with my creations.