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.

ability

almost

of two minds

tea for me

obviously couldnt choose just one to share. i originally discovered jennifer davis‘ work at tiny showcase. her color palette and use of negative spaces are only two reasons i love her work. incredibly inspiring.

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.

a bronze cassette tape.

once temporal….now permanent.

this was created by carving a cassette tape into a block of plaster, then creating a sand mold, and finally casting it in none other than bronze at the generous hank kaminsky’s foundry. exciting.

-fantastic 2010 to you!-

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”….

ezmah likes spaghetti,

raine made shadow puppets,

we had a beautiful thanksgiving at the allen house,

later discovered that turkey really does make you sleepy...

ezmah experienced her first white christmas,

dasien was reminded of her heritage,

now we are simply trying to relax.

i have recently fallen head over heels for the artist ben shahn. his work is spectacularly inspiring.

raine has recently began writing and illustrating her own books and coloring books. i am planning on marketing these real soon….no lie.

something full of meaningless symbols. satisfying nonetheless.

our friend suzanne recently made a limited edition coloring book with crayons and we were fortunate enough to get the artist’s proof. well….raine was lucky enough to get it!

an outdoor installation obviously influenced by the work of the spectacular andy goldsworthy.

i found this while flipping through a book at the library yesterday. i find great comfort and inspiration in this watercolor by charles demuth from 1918.

from the patio.

{today i will be registering for my last semester of classes = chalk & fluff}

raine averi

ezmah jane

hope you all have a great evening!!

wish i could say that i made this, but unfortunately jennifer davis beat me to it! this would have made my christmas wish list had it not already been sold out.

i LOVE these digital prints of collages that brandi strickland has created. 

*note: these are for sale for a very reasonable price at little paper planes.

this year i received some pretty incredible gifts for my birthday. amazing enough that i thought i should share with you and show a bit of appreciation.

included in the photo is a new {much needed and larger} french press from jonathan. he also printed photos and updated the frames around our house as an added gift {hence the framed photo of the girls}, abby made an incredible hardbound book for me {that is blank inside} which probably deserves its own photo, the book and the precious stuffed owl were from both abby and suzanne. raine made a halloween themed triptych to give me, you can only see part of it in the background {it includes a bat (shown), a witch on a broom, and two cats}, also, my incredible inlaws surprised me with a cast iron chimenea, my mother bought me a ton of new clothes, pops sent money, and on top of it all, i was fed mexican and american delicacies for lunch and dinner!!

here are some photos of a project i completed a few weeks ago. i dont have the final piece photographed yet. im hoping to use a documenting station on campus that will allow for some amazing photos. so hopefully you can see that soon! until then, here is a glimpse, which seems to be all i have been showing you lately. sorry about that.

here are a few shots i took before and after our perrodin potluck last saturday. i have been terrible about getting my camera out at our parties lately…..i need to work on that. i thought these were pretty enough to share though. i took a ton of photos with this blanket my mom made from the 70’s….its such a great splash of color!