I've been playing around a new medium - encaustic paints. Encaustic paints are a combination of beeswax and damar resin. Since sometime last year I have been slowing reading up on them and ordering or finding supplies to make my own paint. I love all things bees (minus the stings) so this art form really interested me. You can buy the pre-made and tinted paints from a company or on Etsy but I seem to always take the messy route and wanted to make my own. Plus, it's cheaper.The thing about encaustics is that there is a little bit of danger involved because the fumes can be harmful, and making the paints and using them involves applying the right amount of heat as you lay on and fuse layers of the paints. People use an iron, a heat gun or even a small blow torch. In order to make the paint, I scourged thrift stores for a mini crockpot (which ended up not providing enough heat) and an antique iron without holes on the heat plate to use for fusing layers of the paint (which turned out to be too hot - you can see how the iron melted parts of the photo I mounted in my first piece above). Proper ventilation is really important and kind of a problem for me because we don't have normal windows that would allow me to put in a ventilation fan. After the crockpot failed me, I used the stovetop to melt the wax and even though I used the overhead fan, I think the fumes did bother my lungs a bit for the next week.I also ordered Claudine Hellmuth's DVD on beeswax collage on ebay. She doesn't use the damar resin, just the beeswax, so it technically isn't encaustic but her DVD has some really interesting techniques for layering the wax with photos, craft papers, tissue paper, pen and ink, and oil paint sticks. The bottom piece is a collage I made for Matt. One of his favorite movies is Life Aquatic. Captain Zazzou was pursing a shark but the sentiment is the same. Plus, octopi are beloved by Detroit Red Wings fans. He took the photo at the Detroit Institute of Arts which we both moved. The sea diver and octopus are actually these amazing theatrical puppets made in 1903 by Walter E. Deaves.I really loved the process of making these blocks, so I searched out an art class in encaustics and was really lucky and surprised to find a weekend workshop in the Chicago area with an encaustic artist Sarah Rehmer that was specifically about working with photographs and encaustics. I'm hoping to a learn a bit more about process and how to pursue this art safely. We're making a few pieces over the weekend so I'll share the results when I return.
A friend requested that I make her a photo album for her wedding photos. I was honored to be asked, but also nervous to take on such an important task. I love making small scrapbooks and photo journals but have never taken a class in bookbinding, nor tried my hand at making an album worthy to hold wedding photos for a lifetime. She had plans to print some photos into a book, but wanted some photos to be displayed in a handmade album because it would be more meaningful.
Mirroring the slow food movement, this was my slow craft project for the year. I spent at least 3 months collecting supplies, reading about techniques, and thinking through design aspects. What colors should I use? What size should the page sizes be? What binding technique should I choose? How do I make it special and personalized? Do I have the skill to pull this off? I learned a lot in the process of slowing down and letting this project unfold creatively at its own pace. It tested my patience at times, but it was worth it.
Even before this project was presented to me, I felt the urge to dig deeper creatively. To push myself to do work that required more time and skill. There's definitely a time for crafting quickly, and certainly there are times when life only allows for quick projects. But there's also a lot to be said for digging deeper and creating something of quality that is worthy of investing extra time in so that it has a chance of lasting
I intend for 2011 to be the year of quality over quantity. To process over producing. To find deeper wells of creativity in me. I'm not sure where the urge will take me, but I'm looking forward to the journey.
p.s. If you decide to try your hand at bookbinding, I really recommend using linen thread, not cotton or polyester, and investing in an awl (not just using a paper piercer meant for scrapbooking). It'll save you some time and heartache. There's always PaperSource for supplies, but locally owned and operated Hollander's is a great choice too. The cardstock I used was Opal Stardust 105lb from Bluedot Paper Shop, which has a beautiful sheen and a really sturdy thickness too. Youtube is a good source of tutorials on Japanese stab binding, and of course browsing online through flickr and etsy for inspiration is a great idea too.
One more special little niece entered the world about a week ago and so I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be an aunt. I have five beautiful little girls in my life who bring me tons of joy. A few months ago, I read Elizabeth Gilbert's follow-up book to Eat, Love, Pray. It's called Committed, and it's largely about deciding to marry after a long period of ambivalence. She also writes about the Auntie Brigade, a group of childless women who have enough reserves of energy and time to dote on their nieces and nephews, as well as to be roving aunties to the world. When I read it, I was like, "Hey, that's totally me!"
Over the past ten years, I've had so many special aunt and niece moments, and I can't help but think that some of them never would have happened if I'd been encumbered by children of my own. Recently, for one day during the Thanksgiving weekend, Matt and I went into full gear aunt and uncle mode and spent a full day doting on our three nieces. It was an awesome day.
For those aunties and uncles looking for ways to connect with their nieces and nephews during the holidays, here are the ideas we came up with.
1. Give a music lesson. Beating out rhythms is always great fun. If you don't have practice drum pads, use pots and pans and be prepared to cover your ears. It's even more fun first thing in the morning when everyone is still in their pj's. It totally rocks to have a cool uncle who bangs on drums.
2. Give knitting lessons. Or crocheting, cross stitch or sewing lessons, depending on your hobby of choice. The girls and I have been building up to knitting lessons for over a year. They see me knit at holiday gatherings and have always been curious. Last Christmas they sat on my lap and tried a few stitches with me. This year the two oldest told their mom they wanted to learn to knit at Thanksgiving, so before they came, I picked up some chunky 10.5 knitting needles and yarn.
The lessons went well and they spent a good part of the day knitting. Of course, they needed a lot of technical assistance along the way. The traditional rhyme used to teach kids to knit is, "In through the door, around to the back, peek through the window and off jumps jack". We found that this method had them asking me again and again, "But where's the window!". So instead came up with our own rhyme. "Go down the hole, chase the rabbit behind and through the middle, catch the rabbit, pull it out of the hole. And off jumps jack (rabbit)". Before they left, the oldest said to me, "This is the first year I haven't wanted anything big for Christmas. I just want yarn." We will see if this is just a fade, but either way, for the rest of their lives the girls can now say, "My aunt taught me to knit".
3. Playground Photo Shoot. It was very cold Thanksgiving weekend, but giving the girls time to run around outside was still very necessary for everyone's sanity. We tried to take holiday card photos outside, but it was just too cold so I got one good candid shot instead. Photographing the girls has been a favorite auntie activity over the years.
4. Make a time lapse movie. This was Uncle Matt's big activity for the day, aside from the music lessons. He showed them a couple examples online and then got out the tripod. The girls came up with some ideas, and then they got to work. They took 30 photos for this movie, which required lot of patience for the girls! They did great though and I can see them trying this again during their next visit.
5. Have a night at the museum. Our amazing local art museum has an adult and kid-friendly Friday Night Live event every week with music and special events. Matt and I took the girls for a 'just us' night out on the town.
We started out making finger puppets. The museum staff had a great idea to cut the fingers off of cheap work gloves and then have felt, pipe cleaners, feathers, yarn, fabric, markers and googley eyes on hand.
We got some candid feedback from the girls though that glue sticks are "THE WORST GLUE IN THE WORLD!" for making finger puppets. We had to make some emergency repairs after we got home that night.
After the finger puppets, we almost called it a night. It'd been a very very full day. Still, the girls wanted to move on to the next activity. We headed over to the Africa room, where they had sketching stations set up for the kids. The docent walked us around so the girls could decide what they wanted to draw. They were given a drawing pencil and a gum eraser, and then went right to work. Oh my, they melt my heart.
We had the docent all to ourselves for the first 10 minutes, so he kindly offered to sketch a picture of the birthday girl. I've never seen her sit so still.
After a half an hour of very serious sketching, we headed out. Unfortunately, we missed the music so Matt asked them what they wanted to sing on the way home. The little one yelled, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds!" Yep, these are totally our kind of girls. Pretty sure they learned that one thanks to our Beatles Rock Band contribution to last year's Christmas.
When we got home from the museum, it was straight to bed, after some quick finger puppet repairs.
6. Watercolor paper for snowflakes. The next morning I woke up with a little girl in my face, "Aunt Sara, when are we going to do our project?" I had promised the little one that I'd do a special project with her since the older two spent a lot of time with me learning to knit.
Quickly, before the parents had to load the three girls into the minivan for the next family gathering, I got out some big pieces of drawing paper and some watercolor paints. She worked her magic with water and paint, and then went home with a few sheets of lovely paper to make snowflakes from. The transition from harvest to winter was underway!
I have to say, even though it's not something you hear very often, that I love being a childless auntie. We should celebrate them more.
This past month has been mostly about gaining my bearings in this new place. Figuring out what's around. Exploring shops and places. Finding my favorites. Soaking it all in. My creative energy has been gradually coming back and ideas are starting to percolate again as I take in what others are doing.
As expected, there is a lot of inspiration here. Historically Michigan is a place where people grow things and make things. Because the recession has stripped away a lot of the excess, some people are digging deeper and findings ways to focus on making again. I admit I have moments where the bad news here has made my eyes well up with tears. This place has been beat up in the national media for years. I taught an intro sociology class outside of Boston and one of the 18 year old students said that no one wants their city to end up like Detroit. He'd never been here. I felt defensive but understood where he got that idea. Still, there's so much more that's not shown or written about.
Now the media is picking up on the growing "creative class" here. That's good. But, there's more than just hipsters here. People from every social background are trying to create for a new storyline. The creative class narrative tends to leave out those who have been here and stayed here and createdorganizationsandprojects to promote the artsandcommunity development over many years. It frames the newcomers (like me) as those who will revive Detroit, and it's unfair to residents who've spent their whole lives here. But the new storyline is a start. At least it's hopeful. That narrative is partly what attracted us back home, to watch the creative process of recreating this place unfold. To be a part of it.
Overall, there's just a lot of good stuff here. Good people. And good opportunities to be creative and to be inspired.
There's good thrifting.
An amazing farmer's market that's too big to even describe. Look at these photos and quadruple the size of this place in your mind.
I'm working on my craft space this weekend. We have a basement now so it'll be in the basement. That means I have to make it super inspiring, so that I'll want to venture into the basement to craft.
I'm a little overwhelmed by this task and with needing to decorate our new place overall. We've put some paint on the walls in the main level and that's a start, but we need to hang art. Which means I need to make some art because we don't have the budget to start art collecting.
My mom is a great decorator. Actually both of my parents are great at decorating, so I'm trying to take a little inspiration from their house. Here's some photos (that she doesn't know I took ;) ) of her sweet little sewing space, which is tucked into a guest room. The room is seriously cuter than the average bed and breakfast room. She could go into business decorating bed and breakfasts, if there was a demand for that kind of thing.
I think her secret is a good sense of color and an eclectic but well organized collection of vintage, handcrafted items, repurposed furniture, and mementos. The Ragedy Ann doll was mine. The dresser she thrifted and painted. The shells on the shelf have been around for may years and used to be in a bathroom. She stenciled the hat boxes on the bottom shelf and added little painted animals. She made the mosaic mirror herself! I'll say that again, she made that mosaic mirror herself from broken vintage plates and tea cups. There are a lot of cute little details when you look closely, like a little memento from my mom's nursing days. My dad's name is Matt too. Weird, huh?
There are a lot of cute little details when you look closely, like a little memento from my mom's nursing days. My dad's name is Matt too. Weird, huh?
I didn't show the painted wrought iron bed and the handmade quilt on the bed. It's a lot of talent and care for one room.
You want to stay here for a night now, don't you? Yeah, I thought so.
Last weekend when we were in the North End, we stopped into a pastry shop for a cannoli. After I put my order in I spotted a cupcake with strawberry frosting and ended up thinking about it all week. And then I stumbled on this recipe. We were invited to a friend's bbq on Sunday, hosted by the same friend who popped into the pastry shop with me. So it was fate. These had to be made and eaten.
I wasn't thrilled with the way the frosting came out, because, well, I didn't follow the recipe. I overdid it with the strawberry puree and ran out of powdered sugar, so the texture was a bit off. The taste definitely wasn't though. Someone actually said, "These are um...kind of amazing." So, that means you should definitely make them. Specifically, the frosting. Just follow the recipe.
This weekend I also continued to organize my craft supplies (it's a really long process) and I finally made use of a bag of soap making supplies I got as a Christmas gift ages ago. Turns out that making soap this way was extremely easy and fast (like 20 minutes fast).
I had a standard issue craft store white soap block, which you melt in the microwave. I added chamomile and apricot seed as an exfoliant, and then the clear purple soap beads. I also added a few drops of lavender fragrance (I should have added more) and several drops of orange soap dye in order to arrive at this cream color.
The melted soap hardens up fairly quickly so you have to work fast. After I filled the molds, I still had a lot of melted soap left so I had to think fast. I grabbed a loaf pan and poured the rest in. I then tried to add the purple beads but the soap was already hardening so I ended up taking the it out of the mold (it was rectangle shaped) and I rolled it into a log shape so that the purple was in the middle. I actually stood the log on end and poured some liquid soap into the middle to fill in the gaps. A couple hours later, I cut the log into disks.
This made a ton of soap! I think we'll be using it for a very long time! Next time I definitely want to read up on different techniques and maybe make some oatmeal soap or citrus scented soap.
My sister-in-law made really cool snow globe soaps with her girls for Christmas and they were a big hit! If anyone else has had success with soap making and has some tips, I'd love to hear.
I've been playing around a new medium - encaustic paints. Encaustic paints are a combination of beeswax and damar resin. Since sometime last year I have been slowing reading up on them and ordering or finding supplies to make my own paint. I love all things bees (minus the stings) so this art form really interested me. You can buy the pre-made and tinted paints from a company or on Etsy but I seem to always take the messy route and wanted to make my own. Plus, it's cheaper.The thing about encaustics is that there is a little bit of danger involved because the fumes can be harmful, and making the paints and using them involves applying the right amount of heat as you lay on and fuse layers of the paints. People use an iron, a heat gun or even a small blow torch. In order to make the paint, I scourged thrift stores for a mini crockpot (which ended up not providing enough heat) and an antique iron without holes on the heat plate to use for fusing layers of the paint (which turned out to be too hot - you can see how the iron melted parts of the photo I mounted in my first piece above). Proper ventilation is really important and kind of a problem for me because we don't have normal windows that would allow me to put in a ventilation fan. After the crockpot failed me, I used the stovetop to melt the wax and even though I used the overhead fan, I think the fumes did bother my lungs a bit for the next week.I also ordered Claudine Hellmuth's DVD on beeswax collage on ebay. She doesn't use the damar resin, just the beeswax, so it technically isn't encaustic but her DVD has some really interesting techniques for layering the wax with photos, craft papers, tissue paper, pen and ink, and oil paint sticks. The bottom piece is a collage I made for Matt. One of his favorite movies is Life Aquatic. Captain Zazzou was pursing a shark but the sentiment is the same. Plus, octopi are beloved by Detroit Red Wings fans. He took the photo at the Detroit Institute of Arts which we both moved. The sea diver and octopus are actually these amazing theatrical puppets made in 1903 by Walter E. Deaves.I really loved the process of making these blocks, so I searched out an art class in encaustics and was really lucky and surprised to find a weekend workshop in the Chicago area with an encaustic artist Sarah Rehmer that was specifically about working with photographs and encaustics. I'm hoping to a learn a bit more about process and how to pursue this art safely. We're making a few pieces over the weekend so I'll share the results when I return.
