i recently designed these halloween cards. super cute and available for purchase in my shop!
this is rather addictive, expect more to come!
Archive for the 'handmade' Category
{a play on words}
this doily has a story. but i’m not sure if you’ll ever know it. regardless, its not important. but isnt it super cute and tiny?
{dont feel left out. no one really knows the story but me.}
one of my newest etchings. i am quite fond of this piece because of the time and energy that it took to make it. I colored the children’s clothing with chine colle paper….5 pieces to be exact and then editioned it to 10! I have been holding out on showing this until the right moment….which i guess is now? hm
a recent linoleum cut. a play on relation{ships}.
here is a drawing I completed several months ago. thanks to my husband introducing me to this about 5 years ago, I now appreciate and prefer the delicious taste of french press coffee.
OH, and if you haven’t noticed. I now have a “shop” tab here on my webpage.
I recently fell in love with photograms and the capability to create delicate lines and features with shadows. Here is one of my favorites. Available for purchase at my new ETSY shop!
a new collagraph series i recently completed. after these were printed (and dried), i watercolored onto them and sewed onto a few.
{one of these is on its way to the UK right now!}
ive had this grand idea brewing for some time now about how to apply my own contemporary spin on the Lord’s Supper. so….what you see here is my solution on progress. i have 12 porcelain chairs and one bronze that will be installed together on a very small narrow table. you’ll see….
here are 6 of my recent press-mold porcelain doilies I’ve been so determined to make happen. with many mishaps involving cracks and shattering…I finally developed a technique that lets me put these beauties on the wall.
another artist whom you should meet. nicole pietrantoni. shes a phenomenal artist working in fibers, printmedia, videos and plenty of other mediums. her work is like the music of tom waits {if that makes any sense}.
by far mary's most famous work to date. accepted into multiple well-known exhibitions. so beautiful.
"extension of a womans self." installation of slip cast crocheted houses;homes. {proud to own one of these!}
organizing imaginary space (in progress)
this is merely a "sketch" by mary for a larger more complete project. beautiful nonetheless.
crocheted brick wall (growing project)
chair made of movie tickets (current work in process)
meet my good friend mary. this girl is incredible. currently working on her masters at virginia commonwealth, she works primarily with clay and fibers {sometimes simultaneously}.
i have fallen in love with this process of dipping anything that burns into slip (wet clay) and then firing it out. Here is my latest concoction. quite beautiful just how they are. if these turn out half as beautiful as i anticipate, you should look forward to seeing them in my soon to be etsy shop!
a few weeks ago, I woke up at 3 in the morning with an undying urge to tie strings into knots simulating the appearance of a doilie. well…needless to say, i got out of bed and did it. here is the result…but not the end product. I plan to dip these in paper clay and fire them in a kiln. the strings will burn out leaving a delicate hollow porcelain doilie.
pin the beard on the president. designed by raine.
cake made by mimi {& raine}. table cloth made from 25cent bandanas found at a thrift store.
raine wanted to have pies thrown in her face.
the donkeys, elephants, and independents all showed up to celebrate Raine’s seventh year of life! Raine picked the theme of “president party” {not sure where it came from} for her birthday, it was fun making this happen for her.
a small zinc plate that I plan to run a large edition of. large meaning probably 25 or so. you will soon discover that I have gone doilie crazy.
the enjoyably tedious process
this is the back of the book. i pasted most of the pieces back together that i had cut from the book to recreate the church.
i recently participated in the art house coop‘s sketchbook project and this was my entry. heres how it worked, i signed up to participate, they mailed me a moleskine sketchbook with my name and a bar code printed in it, and a topic. i was then to fill up this sketchbook with anything pertaining to this said topic. after receiving everyone’s sketchbook, they will collectively be placed into a library that acts as an exhibition. this exhibition will then travel to various galleries across the nation allowing people to participate and “check” the books out for a short time so that they may be handled and viewed.
my topic was “the end of the world”. after much brain-work, i decided to not add to my sketchbook, but to instead take away from it. this to me encompasses the world’s end because things will no longer be added, but subtracted from existence. I also chose to do a church building dimensioning with each turn of a page further alluding to the world’s disintegration as well as the heavy implications of the church and people using it in a time of distress and need (like for instance….the end of the world).
unfortunately, this is a permanent collection and i will never get this book back. i hope to catch one of the exhibitions so i can see it in its intended context.
jonathan thought that making a coffee cup out of bronze was a much better idea than a cassette tape. i disagreed, but made him a coffee cup anyway and surprised him for christmas.
this is a starbucks cup cast in bronze. it weighs around 15 pounds.
i know its well into january now, but i have yet to show you all of our handmade christmas. this was raine’s gift to jonathan, her own version of a prayer book. she wrote three prayers for each day. i helped with the cover design, its a mock up of a page from the book of kells. jonathan says that this was his favorite gift.
here is a clay remnant of my portrait bust. i couldnt bring myself to simply trash my face along with the rest of the clay that it took to make myself.
a bust of myself. now what to do with it?
here it is! raine’s first published book, including 4 stories written and illustrated by herself.
this turned out fantastic. shes says that she would like to make more. so perhaps this is merely the beginning. im proud of her and inspired by her stamina…she worked diligently to make this book happen.
and of course, a special thank you to the papa that spent endless nights making this book happen!
a gift for jonathan.
he recently attended a performance (if you will) by michigan-based pastor, rob bell called “drops like stars”. at the end of the night, they passed out bars of soap encouraging individuals to essentially create a work of art with the soap.
so for christmas, i carved jonathan a tiny olive branch out of the soap he received, loaded with christian symbolism. the scroll beside it explains some of the connotations often sited with the branch.
kiki, ezmah's doll, is on the left {named after the incredible artist kiki smith b/c her hair reminded me of hers}, and libby on the right, was made for raine {jonathan named her}.
front
back
these toys were not only made with tons of love, and no money whatsoever, but with 100% recycled materials as well.
all the fabric, rick-rack, and ribbons were hand-me-down scraps from a gracious soul {probably circa 1980ish}, the dowel rods were simply found, the dolls are stuffed with plastic grocery bags (they remain really soft and you can’t hear the bags), the inside of the wands are supported by 6 circle cardboard pieces cut from the bottom of my canned chicken broth package (this was really nice because the perfect cirlces were already made by the indentions that the cans left).
and to boot, the girls love them, though raine has renamed her doll “sam”….
raine has recently began writing and illustrating her own books and coloring books. i am planning on marketing these real soon….no lie.