American Craft Council (ACC) shows!

Good evening! I have had the BEST day today! It started with 9.5 hours of sleep last night - wow-o-wow! I awoke early and took the kiddo and myself to our famous Lost Dog Cafe on our little island here. After that the babysitter came and I was able to head out to the studio! Yay! I made quite a bit of progress on one piece and started another while I was waiting for the first one to dry a little. I then took a break and went to the gym for a bit. The kiddo came home, and she was in a fantastic mood and we played, did dinner/bath, played some more and then she went to bed happy. Awesome! And hubby told me today that he was going to come home this weekend - I think he is a little homesick. History: he left on Sunday for a long trip (one month!) to Florida. It sounds crazy, I know, but he's attending Stunt Man School! You know, like for the movies and TV!?!? He is having a blast but missing home a bit, so he will drive up from Florida this weekend to see us. Yay!

The other good thing is that I've been thinking about these ACC shows I got accepted into and I am so excited! The American Craft Council puts on very nice shows; I've been doing them now for 2 years and loving them. The quality of the art is so awesome, that I have to use super duper self-restraint to not blow every dime of the money I make on buying other people's art. At the last show I did in Atlanta, I did have to buy this woman's work - Valerie Bunnell. I LOVE her work! So anyway, you can read about the ACC shows here or here, in some older posts.

So my problem is this: Like the goofball that I am, I applied for the San Francisco show, even though I live on the other side of the country. (I also applied for Atlanta, and that one isn't the problem.) I would LOVE to do the SF show, but I can't figure out how to make it work, financially. It would cost me a bundle to ship my work and fly my body out to California, but it would also cost a lot of TIME to drive across the country, do the show, and then drive back! I guess I applied, thinking that I'd figure it out later... but now I was accepted (yay!!) and need to figure this thing out... Darn! But at least it's a good problem to have. On the flip side of things, I'll be doing the Atlanta show in March 2011 for anybody on the southeast coast. :) So, if anybody has any suggestions, let me know! I'm totally stoked to have gotten in to the show, but now what!?!? If I can't figure it out, I'll have to back out and that will be a bummer. Help! Am I the only one who does this to herself or do you guys have some good stories to tell? Please share!

Hope you all are having a great week!
Kelly

Another Recipe - Turkey Burgers!

Good evening! If you haven't figured it out yet, I am into healthy eating for the most part. Sometimes, I'm a sucker for chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, or a creamy sauce on my pasta, but most of the time, I like to try to eat in a healthful manner. Especially now that I have a daughter and I want her to learn healthy habits. So while we were in San Francisco, my little one decided she didn't really like veggies. She only wanted bread and pasta, and fruit. This irked me beyond belief! I have very strong feelings about kids eating veggies (at least some!) and I was bound and determined to win this battle, like many mothers before me.

So when we returned to home, off to Barnes & Noble I went for cookbooks. After talking to the sales associate, I asked her to take me to the "Expecting Mother" section. A little history: When my daughter was just starting foods, I had made a few of the recipes in the "What to Expect" book and the kiddo found them to be palatable. So this is why I wanted to go back to that section. I ended up buying the "What to Eat When Expecting" even though I am NOT pregnant, just for the recipes. I know, I know, kinda weird, but hey, the recipes were interesting! So the first one that caught my eye was this Turkey or Chicken Burgers with shredded carrots and cheese in the mix. Now my munchkin won't eat carrots... but she ate these burgers! Of course, there was lots of ketchup involved, but oh well, that's okay. You can have your carrots with ketchup if that's what it takes! So for all you moms out there that struggle with this, give this recipe a try and let me know how it goes over in your household!! My apologies to any vegetarians out there... Oh, and last night, I tried the Broccoli Cheese Soup recipe out of that same cookbook, and don't hold your breath on that one - NOT my favorite..

So anyway, if you are feeling adventurous in your culinary ways, try this recipe, and let me know what you think! I have already shared this recipe with one friend and now another blogger/friend is asking about it, so this is why I shared it here. Enjoy!

Oh, and no studio time today. Hubby left for his trip today, and I have just felt a little "off" all day. But tomorrow should be a good studio day!
Hope everyone has a good Monday~
Kelly

Random Thoughts

Its so quiet tonight. The kiddo is in bed, the hubby is out with his friends, and I'm here doing a little blog hopping tonight, trying to visit all of my friends' blogs. I've been absent lately, for no real reason, just trying to do too many things at once. I'm sure you know the feeling! The silence of the house is contrasting big time with the chaos in my head right now. I have all these sculpture ideas rolling around in there (these kept me awake last night at 2:30 am) and now I am also thinking about my e-friends. Bloggers, Twitter folks, and Facebook friends that I am starting to really know and like. Some I have met in person, and others I may never get to see their faces in real life due to distance. But what I have learned is that I value all of you. It may sound strange to some, but all of you, my new iPals, fill up my heart so much. You provide community, when I feel like a loner, and understanding, when I feel like I'm lost. You make me giggle with some of your stories, and I've cried too, with some of the stories that you have shared. This is a powerful thing, this thing called the Internet. And not just for information, or photos, or finding out what ails your little hamster, but for real things, like friendship, and community, and sharing. Things that aren't tangible, but very real, nonetheless.

And on another note, I've spent the last few days sketching like mad, working the chalkboard in my studio, and my little notebook that goes everywhere with me. I am totally hyped up to be back in the studio and I feel like if I don't start at least 4 more pieces immediately, I'll never sleep again. But life has other plans: Hubby leaves town for a month - a month! - and I'm on kid duty full time. So there will be a little schedule re-arranging, but I know we will be fine. I think the worst of it will be trying to convince the dogs to get off the bed when Hubby finally comes home. Oh well. His problem, not mine! :)

Stay tuned, I plan on catching up with blogging, and someday soon, I'll start posting photos of new work. I started a new piece this afternoon, and I can't wait to get back into the studio and get going on it!

Bronze Casting

Okay, I have no idea where to start on this blog post. There is so much I want to say and so much STUFF rolling around in my head! And there's no time to figure it out, as we leave town again tomorrow for Charlotte. Hubby has a triathlon there that he is doing with his good friend, and it will be a nice weekend indeed. But on the bronze side of things, I am so glad I did it. I was really nervous - about so many things! The cost, the potential for mistakes, and all the "what-ifs" too. I was even nervous about the guys at the foundry - what if they think I'm a "screw-ball artist type" who does crappy work?? All these nervous feelings just washed away once we got the ball rolling. I took the sculpture to the foundry in Florida back in June, before we left for San Francisco, so that they could cast it while I was gone. When I got home, a phone call to the foundry scheduled our date for the patina. Once at the foundry, all of the guys were just awesome. Big, burly, strong men who were not gruff or mean at all. They liked art, had a good eye for the work, and cared about doing a good job. They had no issues working with a small-ish female (I'm 5'1"), and made sure to help with anything I needed. I loved how the piece turned out and now I'm stoked to get back in the studio (it will have to be next week) and get to work on some new pieces.

Here is a picture of the sculpture before any patina goes on. It's just bare metal here. You can see that it looks kind of gold before the patina goes on. (All pictures were made with the iPhone, so forgive me if they aren't the best images...)

In this next photo, you can see the side of her wing, and most of the patina is already on this part of the sculpture.. And that's me and the patina guy, Paul, you can see in the reflection..

Next is a close up of her head, prior to the coat of wax.

And her backside..

This last picture shows the base block with the patina on it, again, before the final coat of wax. Really not a good photo, but at least you can get an idea of the color of the patina. It has a nice weathered-look to it, and if you know me, you know it's hard for me to do anything in one solid color... It's difficult to see some of the detail of the block in this shot though, with the less-than-ideal lighting...

And then, last but not least, she's getting her final buffing in this shot, before she is wrapped up and hauled home!

So that's it for now. Next thing to do is get hubby to take some quality shots of her with a nice backdrop and good lighting. I will use the nicer photos on my website and who knows - maybe on some new postcards too!

I want to thank all of you for ALL the support, and all the encouragement you gave me during this time! The emails I have received, and the little comments on Facebook/Twitter have all helped to give me courage to forge ahead in this expensive experiment! And I am so thankful to each and everyone of you, because the experiment was a success (Well, I think so, anyway...) and I probably wouldn't have done it without all of you!! *insert hugs for everyone here* Now I am looking forward to moving ahead in this part of my art journey! But to all of you clayheads, don't worry, I'm still working in good ol' clay too! I have an exhibition coming up in January for clay sculpture, so I'll be working on that too, over the next few months.

Have a great weekend!

XOXO, Kelly

Yummy Recipe!

Mmmmmm.... Doughnuts!!


I put something on Facebook about these doughnuts and I got several requests for the recipe, so I wanted to share it here. I got this cookbook because my little girl suddenly wanted nothing to do with vegetables, and I was determined to get some in her. This book was recommended by the girl at Barnes&Noble, and so far so good!


So these doughnuts are more muffin-like, rather than Krispy Kreme-like, but you should try them! If you wanted to make a glaze for icing, just mix together a little milk with powdered sugar and drizzle on top. I tested these on my kid and two others, ages 2 and 5, and all three kids liked them! Oh- and I had to get donut pans off of Amazon. Not many stores carry those, since most donuts are not baked... Enjoy! And let me know what you think!


Forgive the short post- I'm doing all of this on my iPhone and I'm having Internet connection problems in the hotel... Tomorrow I'm off to the foundry- stay tuned!! Yippee!

Coming Home

We are home now from our trip to San Francisco, and let me just say how SWAMPED I've been! When we started planning this, I knew that there would be some packing/unpacking of the house that would need to happen, as we put away a lot of our personal stuff. We moved most of the original art out of the house and into my studio, as well as special plates/glasses things of that nature. What also had to go, was all the junk that sits around our house, like magazines, cables and cords, and other random bits. All that stuff got thrown in boxes and tossed into my studio. Out of the kiddo's room came all the toys, and all the cute little things that make her room so special to me. Before we left for SF, we went into a frantic state and just started racing to move all this stuff out of the house. It just got chucked into my studio and various closets, and so now that we are home, I am trying to go through everything and get some sort of organization going. Ugh. It's not my strong point and I don't enjoy doing this sort of thing, but oh well. It REALLY needs to be done.

Then today, I started feeling that old familiar feeling that whispers to me. It says "get in the studio and have some creative time!!" I have figured out that when that whisper starts, I better listen. I get super crabby if I don't and my poor family suffers for it. I haven't done anything artsy since I've returned home, with all the unpacking, dental appts, haircuts, and then preschool starting for our kiddo. Preschool, by the way, isn't going terribly well. Little Marley doesn't want to leave Mommy and Daddy to go to school. She's been with us for 8 weeks straight, with hardly any babysitting, and that is the way she likes it. We are hoping that week 2 of preschool goes better and that means less tears for Mommy and Marley. Here is a picture of my little girl on her first day of preschool. Check out that expression - it is so full of uncertainty and distrust!!
So I apologize to you guys, my readers, for being so absent over the past two weeks. Hopefully you understand with all going on, that I had my hands full! I am starting to feel a little better about things, even if it is 3:30 am as I write this... Oh well, I'm glad to be using this time to do something productive since I am awake anyway! But you know what?!? I missed all of you guys during my absence. I feel like I have made a connection with so many of you, and I missed my pals while I was buried under things. I am glad to be back online and look forward to catching up!

I hope that all of you had a safe and happy Labor Day weekend. It is always chaos here at the beach during Labor Day, and all of us residents are looking forward to the return of peace around our little community. Ah, there is no place like home!