Thursday, November 20, 2014

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Uprooted 3: Growth

I started Uprooted 3: Growth while at Blueberry View Artist's Retreat, and I have just finished it last week.  I love making the beaded tendrils and parts of the woodworking, but the sanding and finish work I tend to procrastinate on.  Lucky for me, Luke of Luke Anthony Photography could squeeze me in this week for professional photos of a few of my pieces.  This is the first of posting his awesome photos:



It's secondary name is "growth" because that word really represents my artwork from 3 years ago to now, lots of growth, in my work, as an artist and within myself.  I have had things come up in my life recently that have caused me extreme amounts of stress.  In the past few weeks I have had a lot of personal growth and it feels like a wave has washed over me.  I am calmer than I have been and I am getting my focus and excitement back and centered around my art.



The next two photos I took, because I thought it was unfair to do this post without showing that this piece can also hang on the wall.  When I had finished Uprooted 2: Big Ugly, I had wished that I could hang it on the wall.  I like it fine as a free-standing sculpture, but I always like options.  Uprooted 3 easily lent itself to hanging on the wall with it's flat bottom, so it wasn't a lot of extra work to consider making a small nail-hole.  



This particular piece wasn't growing on me very quickly at first, but I have to say, there was an immediate sense of satisfaction when I put it up on my living-room wall this morning.  I think I will be admiring it from here for a little bit.  It really comes out at you.

I need to thank everyone for their love and encouragement recently.  I know that sometimes posting to social media makes you feel like images and daily progress can go unnoticed, but between Instagram, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter I've had many lovely comments and encouragement to keep going and finish this (among other) pieces. Also a huge thanks to Luke for getting photos so quickly, my next few blog posts are going to be more beautiful with his eye behind the camera rather than mine.

Playing with Fire (Small Weaving)

I doodled these matches back in 2015. I had gotten divorced, I was out a lot and "playing with fire" was feeling like the best des...