Olive as a china doll

Mt very best friend Tanya Nagahiro came to visit for the holiday weekend.  Her parents live in Hawaii and visit China and Japan often.  This visit hey gave Olive the mos precious outfit ever,  i had a top shoes and pans.  Olive pi on the shoes and said"these are my official my dancing shoes!!!" She is 2!!! according to her she is 28!  I thought you might like to see my multicultural baby

here she is "resting..not sleeping, : with brain." those shoes really can wear you out dancing! no worries, she will be back up dancing in no time!

Tiny art is on is way home

I was fortunate enough to have Janne Robbersand as one of my 3 fantastic room mates at Ar fest.  As any of you artfesters know, it is very difficult to spend time with everyone you meet.  Janne was one of those people who I knew we were kindred spirits but we were just both so very busy we were unable to spend time together.  We did develop a deep bond over the temperature of our dorm!!

At the end of Artfes Janne approached me and said "you are now part of our group"  She gifted me a lovely blank journal with manta ray skin binding. as all he other "members" had here books throughout Artfest, most left home with these wonderful books filled with small original pieces of art.  Jenne send me a lovely giraffe and I placed him in the firs page of my book.  I have made her 2 small pieces  to include in hers

If you received one of Jennes beautiful books and sill have blank pages, I would love to swap with you.  Just get in touch with either myse or janne to work out he logistical,  Now that I have done 2, I have all kinds of  ideas for mini works if art,  (even if you are not par of this group and would like to swap art, IM up for it.  they look much beer in person than photo,  

Hope they have a safe travel!

XOXO

Sandy

1206 N orchard 

Farmington MN 87401 USA

 

finde Janne here

Fight Like a Girl

Im sending off my bras for the "supportive arts" challenge for Cloth Paper Scissors.  I was selected as one of the finalists!  Im very excited at the possibilities that they may be printed.

But more than that, participating in the challenge gave me some time to reflect.  Breast cancer awareness is all around us, but some times I feel like we are so inundated with it, we may not really stop to ponder what this may mean to someone.  pink lids on my yogurt, pink ribbons on all my socks, and adds in many magazines.  Spending time on this art project gave me time to really reflect on how my life has been altered by Breast Cancer.  Both my grandmothers passed from breast cancer.  My paternal grandmother died at age 42 from a very aggressive form and my maternal grandmother passed at 70.  

As a hospice nurse, I have seen far to many young women, in the prime of there life, die a very painful death.  The last Hospice patient I had with breast cancer was a 23 year old woman with a 2 and 5 year old. 

I could go on and on about the horrible, sad stories I have personally witnessed, but that's not what I what to focus on.  I want to remind all you chickadees to get your mammograms!  If you have any history of breast cancer in your family, begin getting annual mammograms much earlier.  The American Cancer Society is no longer recommending doing self breast exams.  The now say that self breast exams are not effective and give women a false sense of security.   

As a Nurse, I continue to teach self breast exams.  It may not be effective in detecting lumps, but what it does do, is make you more familiar with how your breast feel and makes it more likely that you will notice small changes like change in size, shape or density.  So while you may not detect a lump, you may notice small changes that alert you to something bigger.

  My grandmother did discover her cancer with a self breast exam.  She had her annual mammogram with clear results and 3 months later she found a large lump while preforming a self breast exam. So start feeling your self up girlies!!! You can find more info on  early detection here.

Old find

While cleaning my dining room. I came across a stack of old paintings.  I had forgot about this.  When I turned it over it was dated 1988 and I had filled out a submission slip to be part of a juried art show in Colorado.  It was NOT accepted.  I remember being heart broken.  I had used so many "new" techniques!  I took a picture of snow white and painted it with about 20 layers of Elmers glue. {waiting for each layer to dry}  After it dried, I soaked it in warm water and the paper came off.  I was left with a fairly transparent  image of snow white!  I was so amazed I could transfer an image onto a transparent "sheet" of glue.  of course now there are 20 different ways to get an image transferred and to look transparent. I painted part of the canvas with that Iron pain and then rusted it (I could have just painted rust color) I sewed on individual sequins and beads.   I used plaster from the hardware store to get texture. (we did not have a Home Depo back then) I thought I was so clever using the plaster  and was so disappointed that the jury did not see the effort and creativity that went into making this piece!  It took weeks to make.  Now with all the new products and how to books, I could do it in a night.  

It was nice to revisit this piece and remember what I was willing to do to get a single transparent image that no one even noticed

Sorry about the quality of the images.  Back then my motto was the more gloss the better! This baby has some high gloss finish. I think Ill hang it up as a reminder that short cuts are not always the best.  I would not call this a good piece of art but its a good study in a lot of technique!

new work space

I have been using my dining room as an encaustic/sewing room.  It has not worked very well and my family has not been able to use the table in months.  So I spent the last 2 days working very hard to transform the space into a workspace.

Here is how it started:

  I know I should be humiliated; and I am!  Ive been fearful of A&E  Hoarders showing up at any time

Here is the progress

And here is the finished project

I love having my Artfest banner in the center of the room to inspire me.  The room still needs some work, but at least I can sew and my son and I can do encaustic work in a designate area.  No I just need to tackle my silversmith/enamel studio!

Olive got her toes painted

Olive is such a girly girl sometimes.  When it to nail polish and lip gloss, shes all yours!  I just want to eat those little sweet toes!

New Cast Resin