busy afternoon

Got my studio mojo back. I’ll be listing these over the next couple of days.

Whirlwind Weekend

I’ll be catching up on my Best of 2009 posts on Monday, since I’m spending the weekend at the Laurel School Artisan Bazaar. Last night was the preview party, which went well and was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend.

tidbits: overstuffed turkey edition

Yeah, I’m still working on the entry about how much I love my iPhone. It’s taken off in a direction of its own however, and it will not be rushed. I’ll get to it eventually.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s about the company and the food, without the crazy consumer pressure of Christmas. We had a nice, low-key Thanksgiving yesterday at Mom’s. We hosted the whole extended family gang here last year, which was fun, but we just couldn’t do it this year, what with the mid-renovation state of the house.

Considering how friendly I’ve become with the wild turkeys that wander about our neighborhood, I thought I’d have a very difficult time this year feasting on the bird. I didn’t. I enjoyed my share last night, then had some again this morning with my bacon and toast. I saved the stuffing for lunch.

I’ve got another couple of crazy weekends in front of me. Tomorrow is the Summer Market — for the Holidays at Bar Symon in Avon Lake. Next Friday through Sunday is the Laurel School Artisan Bazaar. The first is a holiday incarnation of my favorite show each year, and the second is a great show that I’ll be doing for the first time. I have high hopes for both.

tidbits: extra tidbit-y edition

I’m giving away a custom stamped and domed sterling silver pendant in this week’s Cleveland Handmade giveaway. Just visit the Cleveland Handmade website for information on how to enter.

Six yards of mulch was delivered on Monday; after four hours Monday afternoon, five hours Tuesday afternoon, and five hours yesterday, it’s all been placed where needed. In truth, I could have used another yard or two for some other spots. But I’m done with mulch for the year.

The leaves have been glorious this week, but today they’re coming down so thick and fast, it’s almost like a blizzard. I’m wondering if there will be any left on the trees at the end of the weekend.

I had a great group for my etching class on Wednesday night. I love it when my students can relax and have fun with each other.

Two more days to iPhone. Two more days to iPhone. Two more days to iPhone.

tidbits: turkey edition

Thanksgiving might be a little difficult for me this year.

I took a little break from a book I’m working on to take some photos of the changing leaves for a friend who lives in Hawaii but misses the fall colors on the mainland. (The colors are just spectacular in the rain.) I was working my way around the back of the house when I turned the corner and found my turkey friends in the herb garden, snacking on some worms or bugs or something in the freshly turned soil. I was almost on top of them before I noticed them (see how they’ve got that sneaky dirt-colored camouflage thing happening?), and one of them actually started to approach me. I snapped a few pictures, then switched to the movie setting and followed them around the yard for a few moments. You can hear the low sounds they make in the video, something between a gurgle and a bark.

They weren’t quite sure what to make of the fence; the other end of the fence by the gazebo isn’t quite so low to the ground, and they’re able to easily duck underneath down there. And it occurs to me with Halloween approaching that the clip of them near the playhouse might make a good horror film — the scale makes them look ten feet tall.

The herb garden is right up against the kitchen window, which now that I think about it explains the mysterious knocks I’ve heard a couple times today when there’s been no one at the door. At the last office job I had, the turkeys would come right up to the window and peck at their reflections, and it sounded like someone knocking. Mystery solved.

In other news, I have a nice stream of projects coming in, a good mix of scholarly and fun, light and bring-on-the-machetes, quick and long term. I really am a project person; I thrive on being able to work on something and then put it away as done. I don’t do so well in environments where you have to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Or I have to work really hard to find some way to make each iteration different somehow.

I had a great time with the Cloth•Paper•Scissors Studio Tour last weekend. I visited every one of the stops on the tour and found something interesting or cool or beautiful or inspiring or otherwise worth my time at every one. And I found some intriguing new blogs in the process, too. (If you didn’t get a chance to take my studio tour, it’s the October 2, 2009, entry.)

And speaking of new blogs, Chris of Copper Leaf Studios is doing a wonderful job with her new-ish blog. She has such a wonderful sense of humor and writing style, and her personality shines right through. Give her a visit if you haven’t yet.

Studio Tour

Welcome! The fine people over at Cloth•Paper•Scissors Studios magazine put out a call for studio tours, so here we are. I love browsing through all the studios in this magazine for storage and organization ideas, and just to see the artists’ personalities shine through in their work spaces.

My space is not yet quite so evolved. We’ve been in this house for not quite two years now, and I still keep shuffling things around and experimenting with new arrangements.

(See a larger version of this photo with notes over at Flickr.)

My studio space is a “bonus room” in the middle of the rear of the second floor, nestled between the master bedroom on one side and another bedroom (which we use as an exercise room) on the other. There’s a short hallway that leads to the main hallway, too. This is what you see when you first walk in from the master bedroom. My work table is the L-shaped office desk from our old condo. Eventually I will upgrade it, but for now it works. My everyday tools live within arm’s reach, and I move things around as I need to to handle different projects. I have a worktable in the garage for doing messy things, like drilling metals.

The previous owners used this space as a kind of sitting room/office. I absolutely love the light in here, which comes from two skylights and two sliding doors that face west and overlook the woods that make up the back of our property.

This is basically the view from my desk. In a week or two, most of those leaves will turn a brilliant golden yellow. We have several species of woodpeckers that frequent our woods, in addition to a ton of other birds and wildlife. In good weather, it’s wonderful to work with the doors open and the breeze coming in and the sounds of wildlife (when I haven’t opted to crank the stereo).

For now, in addition to the messy, messy shelves you see in the first picture (I didn’t do any cleanup before I took these photos, so you’re seeing the studio in its natural state), I’m using these shallow plastic drawers for storage of beads, wire, and a few tools I don’t use all the time. Eventually the shelves and these drawer units will be replaced with wooden cabinets; it just hasn’t been a high priority this year. Chris at Copper Leaf Studios and I got the same idea right about the same time that the shallow closet organizer drawers from Ikea would make great studio organizers, but she actually acted on the idea, whereas I’m still dreaming about it. (You can see her studio here. See how much nicer that looks than my piled-up shelf mess?) On top of the organizer, you can see the lower part of the mannequin I use for product shots for my Etsy shop.

I keep my bead drawers sorted by type, then by color. I use more Czech and other glass than any other kind of bead, so a number of drawers are dedicated just to them. This is my green drawer. I have a combination of plastic vials (from Fire Mountain Gems) and plastic jars (from a variety of places) in a few different sizes.

Lately I’ve started working more with gemstones and other natural materials. I like to buy this type of material in person so I can see exactly what I’m getting, so I go to a couple of gem shows every year and also shop my local bead stores. The Rings & Things Wholesale Bead Tour is one that I save up for, and they just came through here last week. This is a closeup of a corner of what I got there. I’ve been really busy since then and haven’t had a chance to play with any of it yet, but hope to this weekend.

Here are a few pieces in progress. I do a bunch of etching all at once to create the background pieces. I don’t usually do any sketches or plan out a piece much beforehand, but simply lay out an assortment of things on my work table and see what works well together until I come up with something like my Garnet Rain necklace, shown here. I’ve been really drawn to mother of pearl lately, so I’ll end up using these buttons somehow in at least one of these pieces.

I work in publishing, and I have a great love of books, so I keep a stash of them and subscribe to a number of art magazines to consult for information and inspiration. This little bookcase shows about half of the selection. A larger bookcase is on my wishlist.

Earlier this week I started working through The Wish Kit from Inspired Home Office, which has been really helpful in guiding my thinking about how to reorganize and personalize my studio space, in addition to my office. (My office, where I do my computer work and my editorial work, is in a different room downstairs.) I’m looking forward to putting the things I’m figuring out into place over the next few months.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my creative world, and I hope you’ll stop back again. If you have some time, check out some of the other studios on the tour. (Shannon Okey of Knitgrrl Studios is listed right above me in the list, and she’s got a great space in an old warehouse here in Cleveland.)

tidbits: blustery edition

[Hi! If you're here looking for the studio tour, head on over to my second October 2 post, or just click on the "virtuallori" banner above to be taken to the main page so you can see all the recent entries, including the tour. Many of the links in the tour list over at Cloth•Paper•Scissors Studios are pointing to the specific entries where people announced they'd be taking part, not the actual studio tours.]

Fall is definitely here. Outside my office window, the trees are bending in the wind, and leaves litter the ground. A few of the trees have already turned — one especially beautiful red maple is in my line of sight if I lean over to the right — and the rest have that anticipatory look, you know, the one that says that by this time next week, or perhaps the week after, I’ll be surrounded by the golden glow of the changed leaves.

Mom was going to join me again this morning to continue our assault on the evil, invasive chameleon plant that is creating such havoc on the slope next to the driveway, but it is just too wet out there to make any progress. I tried digging some on my own yesterday, but couldn’t do much since the soil wouldn’t crumble away, and we’ve had another inch or so of rain since then. It’s going to be years before we’re able to get rid of it all, but it’s choking other stuff out and getting into the grass, so it’s got to go.

I’ll be participating in the Cloth•Paper•Scissors Open Studio event on October 3; join me here for a little peek inside my studio.

tidbits: extra blanket edition

It’s started to get really chilly in the evenings here in Northeast Ohio. I’ve dragged out the extra blankets, and I have to admit that I really enjoy sleeping with the windows open to the chill as long as I have all those weighty blankets on me. It really does make it even more difficult to get out of bed in the morning, though.

I’ve been accepted to the Rocky River Fall Arts Festival, which will be happening two weeks from tomorrow in the Old Detroit Road shopping district. This is a brand new show, and I’m hoping it ends up being a good one for everyone. A number of Cleveland Handmade artists will be there, and there are some really good restaurants within a couple of blocks; check it out if you’re in the area.

Work has been incredibly busy. I had hoped to coast through August, but a long-awaited BIG project finally came in and morphed into a super-rush project. I’ve been nose-to-grindstone for the past two weeks, and will probably be so into next week. Thankfully, we have a very low-key holiday weekend ahead with no major plans, so I’ll be able to make some progress over the weekend and take next weekend as my very own holiday.

Earlier this week I got notice that the Cat Lover’s Daily Companion has had such strong orders that it’s going into a second printing before it’s even out in the stores. That makes me happy. And Kristen and I talked about doing some local signings before the holidays; I’ll post info here if we get something together.

tidbits: back-to-school edition

This time of year always makes me nostalgic for the return to school. Yes, I was one of those uber-geeky kids who loved school so much that I begged to go to summer school. I was a little sad to learn that my elementary school is in the process of being torn down. It was built in the forties and just two blocks from the house I grew up in. They’re replacing it with one large elementary school that will serve the entire town. Kind of a weird concept for me to wrap my head around, as someone who walked to school most of her life.

So, anyway, back to school. I have the urge to buy new pens and notebooks and other supplies. Which I did this past week, stocking up on my beloved multicolored Uni-Ball Vision Elite Micros and my new favorite, Sasquatch Ideal Books. I broke down and bought a new laser printer to replace my rapidly failing HP LaserJet 1200; it’s supposed to be here next week. I was briefly tempted to splurge on a color laser or one that would automatically duplex, but I just couldn’t justify the extra $250 or more. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the 2010 Moleskine Weekly Notebooks (my calendar of choice) at the bookstore. Yes, I am one of those uber-geeky adults who is already scheduling stuff into 2010.

I still indulge my love for school with taking classes and workshops. Sunday I’ll be taking a class in stone drilling, something I’ve been wanting to learn for a long time. I just heard that Keith Lo Bue will be teaching here in Cleveland sometime next year, so I asked to be added to the info list for that so I can sign up when it’s officially announced. I’m stalking the Bead Paradise site, waiting for their fall class listings, and I’m still on the search for enameling classes.

What are you looking forward to learning?

tidbits: less melty edition

Ah, coolness. I’m so happy to have the windows open again after a few days of blasting the air conditioning. I’m not a big fan of the A/C most of the time — I much prefer fresh air, and my body is happier just acclimating to whatever the temp is than being super hot one minute and super cold the next — but wow, we needed it the past few days.

Of course Sunday, the hottest and humidest and nastiest day of the year, I had an outdoor show. Now I can’t complain too much, since the show before that had rain in the morning and the one before that one was unseasonably cold, but I’m sure the heat kept quite a few people away. Still, those who were there were buyers, and I had a couple of nice sales and even more compliments, all of which I am grateful for. I was even a little surprised when I got back home and counted up my earnings, and it was more than I thought it would be.

This week I’m the Spotlight feature over at Lillyella; go check it out. (Pssst: You can enter to win one of my etched pendants!) I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, so it was an honor to be invited to be featured. I love the feedback and inspiration I’m getting over there.

To prepare for the feature, I listed a TON of new stuff on my Etsy shop this past Saturday. There’s still more to come, too. I’d love to hear what you think in the comments.