Illustration Friday…Renewal
It has been such a long time since I had time to participate in an Illustration Friday Design Challenge! However, this week’s topic of “Renewal” is so timely for this time of year as well as for me personally that I had to give it a try. Enjoy!
Handmade Holiday Festival
I am so pleased to have been invited by Crispina ffrench , an incredible texxtile artist and advocate for support of local arts, to join her and a wonderful group of selected artists for her annual holiday show and sale. This year the show will be held December 5th (10am-6pm) & December 6th (12pm-4pm) and will feature a talented array of over 40 artists and craftspeople, homemade food, wandering minstrels, and fun for the kids. New this year will be an upper level of Crispina’s Alchemy Initiative Space with additional vendors and horse drawn carriage rides around the neighborhood. Be sure to join us for the preview party December 4, 5-8pm where you can be among the first to see the work and enjoy a festive holiday party atmosphere.
Rocking Out With The Young @ Heart Chorus
A few months ago my husband Scott and I watched a great documentary film about The Young @ Heart Chorus, a group of talented older performers who sing their hearts out to their own versions of classic rock and roll songs. The group began under the direction of Bob Cilman and Judith Sharpe in 1982 right here in Northampton. Young @ Heart Chorus has toured extensively in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Australia, produced the CD “Mostly Live,” and the afore mentioned film “Young@ Heart” was featured at The Sundance Film Festival in 2006. After learning all this about the group, we were so inspired that we knew we had to see Young at Heart perform live.
I have been keeping an eye out in local papers and such for about 6 months and we finally got the chance to see Young @ Heart do a live show at Chapin Auditorium at Mount Holyoke College last weekend. The group performed a concert, with special guests Unit 7 and Nate Fuller and the Dukes, to benefit Hospice of the Fisher Home, an orgaization providing compassionate end of life care to people in the Pioneer Valley.
The current members of Young @ Heart range in age from 73 to 89; some of them have previous stage experience, but many had never been before an audience until they had turned 80. The show opened with Nate Fuller and the Dukes, a group of young performers who knocked us out with their covers of classic rock tunes and their unbounded energy. After the great warm-up, we were really excited to see Young @ Heart and the group did not disappoint! They came dancing up through the aisle of the auditorium and had the packed house on their feet immediately singing grat songs like Dancin’ in the Dark, Walk on the Wild Side, Road to Nowhere, and I Wanna Be Sedated. Midway through the show Unit 7 played some great tunes, which they describe as “Speakeasy Music for the 21st Century,” then Young @ Heart took the stage again to finish out the night. We had such an amazing time at the concert and came away feeling happy, inspired, and wanting more!
Illustration Friday…Flying
The theme for this week’s Illustration Friday Design Challenge is “Flying.” My illustration for this topic is pictured below and shows a peaceful dragon drifting across the night sky with his precious cargo. Enjoy!
The Sleep Dragon
Ganesh…Remover of Obstacles.
I have always loved tattoos. I love the way a good tattoo fits a person’s body; sometimes so well that it’s hard to believe the tattoo was not present at birth. I love the options tattoos give us for expressing ourselves, and I love that people are willing to commit to wearing a piece of art for life. But, mostly, I just love the idea of the body as an outward display of what is going on in our hearts and minds…an ever evolving work of art.
Last week my husband and I made a trip up to Maine so that I could get a new tattoo from Cyndi Lou at Squid & Whale Tattoo in Portland. I met Cyndi Lou a few months ago while we were in Maine for a few days. Scott and I wandered into the new tattoo shop Cyndi Lou, Kapten Hanna, and Nikki recently opened on Congress St. I spoke with Cyndi Lou for a few minutes, looked at some images of her work, and immediately felt a connection. I have wanted a tattoo of the Hindu God Ganesh for a long time, and after emailing back and forth, we set up an appointment, and I felt confident enough in her skills to allow Cyndi Lou to come up with a design and surprise me with the drawing on the day of my appointment.
This is the stencil Cyndi Lou had made for my Ganesh Tattoo. I could not have been happier with it; it was as if she knew exactly what I had envisioned!
In this photo Cyndi Lou is applying her stencil to my arm. This is a really important step, as the stencil will serve as a guide for the outline of the finished tattoo.
Here, Cyndi Lou is preparing her needle.
The ink is actually being applied in this picture. The tattoo is quite large and intricate, so it took Cyndi Lou a little over 5 hours to complete the outline of the piece.
This is the finished outline for my new Ganesh Tattoo. Since it is such a complicated design, it will take more than one session to complete, and Cyndi Lou will be adding color in a few weeks…I can’t wait!
Illustration Friday…Welcome.
The theme for the Illustration Friday Design Challenge this week is “Welcome.” I to use my work as a way to show that everyone, regardless of race, gender, or belief system, deserves a safe and happy life. This piece is my depiction of a lesbian couple in front of their new home welcoming all the happy days to come!
Kimberlee’s Bikes for Kids
A few weeks ago I was contacted by a gentelman from California named Dan Gindling. Dan had seen my work on Etsy, and asked me to donate one of my collages to an upcoming auction of bicycle themed art to benefit his organization, Kimberlee’s Bikes for Kids. In March of 2008, Dan lost his wife, Kimberlee Caledonia, to brain cancer. Seeking to honor his late wife, who was an avid cyclist, Dan founded Kimberlee’s Bikes for Kids, and has been working ever since to turn his personal tragedy into a new begining for underprivlidged children.
In order to help Kimberlee’s Bikes for Kids goals of providing new bikes free of charge to as many 2nd and 3rd graders as possible, Dan has organized a very special auction of bicycle themed art. Artists from around the country have donated original, bicycle themed art, and the gala-event will be held in San Diego on November 7th, with a separate e-bay charity auction of any remaining work to be held later. After doing a little research on Kimberlee’s Bikes for Kids, I decided to jump onboard, and have donated my original collage, entitled “Speedy Bicycle,” for sale at the auction.
I strongly believe that it is our duty as citizens of the world to find ways in which we can give back, and contribute to our greater community. As artists, we often represent the term “sporadic income,” however, it is possible to use our work or our skills to help others, without digging to deep into our pockets.
Illustration Friday: Caution
It has been a few months since I have had a chance to participate in a weekly Illustration Friday design challenge, so I decided to take some time and have a go at this week’s topic. You will find my cut-paper collage illustration of “CAUTION” below.
Uncovered…
Me and my pony “Lady,” age 4 or 5.
Where does our selfconscious nature come from? As children we are able to present ourselves to the world without shame or fear of judgement; we dance, laugh, sing, and create unabashedly. But at some point we begin to lose this freedom, and we start to consider how others might view us. At what age do we realize that “someone may be looking?”
A few weeks ago, I saw a spot on The Today Show about New York photographer Jordan Matter. Over a period of six years, Mr. Matter took hundreds of photographs of women in a wide range of situations, all topless and bare breasted. (A quirk in New York State Law allows that it is legal for women to go topless in public; afterall, men certainly have this provilidge.) He then combined these wonderful photographs with essays and interviews from the women into a book titled Uncovered: Women In Word and Image.
Beautifully portrayed in these photographs, women of all shapes, ages, and sizes bare their breasts in conditions ranging from a blinding city snowstorm to The St. Patrick’s Day Parade to the back of a motorcycle. These women seem so free, so liberated, so unselfconscious in these pictures, one has to wonder what it would be like to be in such a situation. And since Mr. Matter said in his Today Show interview that many of the women were reluctant to cover up immediately once the photo shoot was over, I have to believe it must have felt pretty darn good!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, in this world of criticsm, self-doubt, and fear, we could take just a little piece of that freedom, that pure joy in existence we had as children and apply it to our everyday lives?
Wife of Bath
One of my favorite things about the internet is the convoluted way in which it brings people together and creates a true global community. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace offer such a wealth of opportunities to make connections and get a glimpse into the lives of others that they have become an integral part of both our personal and professional lives. Simply by recognizing our common bonds, and including someone in our network of friends, we can open up entirely new and unexpected avenues for friendship, advice, and promoting our work.
Raye Tibbits, editor of “Wife of Bath”
Photo: Michelle McDougal
Case in point: A few months ago I was friended on Facebook by a wonderful lady from my previous town of Bath, Maine named Raye Tibbits. Raye had seen my pottery work at a local show, and thought we might share some common interests. As it turns out, Raye publishes a monthly literary journal called “Wife of Bath,” which she describes as “…an independent publication evoking a sense of connection, location, and reflection relative to the city of Bath, Maine, or any landscape, real or imagined, that calls to you.” The journal features stories, quotes, photographs, poetry, and other artwork, loosely related to a monthly theme of Raye’s choosing. For the August issue of “Wife of Bath” Raye chose “Dog Days” as her theme, and posted a call for submissions on Facebook.
Being quite the dog person myself, my interest was piqued by Raye’s post, and I decided to submit my “Morning Stroll to the Bowl” collage for inclusion in “Wife of Bath.” Raye loved the piece and decided to use it as her color image for the center of the August issue! I was so pleased at how the piece turned out when I received my copy in the mail; and even more so when I took the time to read through some of the wonderful stories and poems in “Wife of Bath.”
“Morning Stroll to the Bowl”
So, through the magic of my ever widening circle of online friends, I was presented with a unique, and entirely unexpected opportunity to see one of my collages in print, and add to my audience of viewers. Thanks Raye!!
To find out more about “Wife of Bath,” or to order your own copy, please email Raye Tibbits at editor@wifeofbath.net or read this posting on “Wife of Bath” from Raye’s Facebook page.
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