It Takes a Village

Every time I come across a great idea in a magazine that I want to try, I set it aside for a "rainy day". The other day, I was down in my studio and the house was all torn apart from renovating, the weather was terrible, and there wasn't a darn thing going on and I just decided to pull out some of those rainy day ideas. I came across one from Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine. A printmaker was looking for inspiration and got the idea to make these little houses. Hey, I'm a printmaker, my house renovations are creating lots of 2 x 4" scraps..this could work! A few quick cuts with a miter saw and some rough sanding later, and I had made myself a little wooden village. I then stained each little house with some water based stains. The next step was to take out old linoleum blocks and some wood engravings, and make a few new patterned blocks from EZ cut. I was ready to print. I found some lightweight Japanese printing paper and had a heyday printing all sorts of things on each page. These had to dry overnight. (Luckily, it rained for four days straight! Who'd have thought that would be a good thing?) When the prints dried, I painted them with watercolors and then began the fun part - cutting out pieces and gluing them onto the blocks with matte medium. The process was kind of like decoupage, only quicker. The final step was to seal all the little houses with an acrylic varnish. This project was so much fun that I ended up making a whole little village of houses. Now if anyone can think of a use for a whole village of printed houses, could you please let me know before the next rainy day?

Memory Palaces

I just entered my first show in Asheville. Asheville Bookworks is having its wonderful Bookopolis event this weekend. The theme this year is "Memory Palaces" and I entered my print "Quitting Time". It made it into the extended show and will be displayed until December.

For those of you not familiar with Asheville Bookworks, it is a community studio, school and gallery that is a gathering place for people interested in book arts, letterpress, printmaking, and papermaking. Bookopolis includes an exhibit with 100+ handmade books and prints from artists all over the country, plus letterpress and printing demonstrations. Anyone with an interest in things printed, bound, or otherwise book related should check out this event and this great resource.

New Beginnings

It's a new season (my favorite of the year!) and I'm in a new city, in a new (old) house, and looking for some new inspiration. Between moving (ourselves!) and a daughter and two grandkids into the house, my time for creative outlets has been limited these last few months. Hopefully, that is about to change.

My first opportunity to make something just for fun came this summer when my friend Linda and I decided to make some mosaic birdbaths. I have so much old glass, tile and assorted doo dads to work with that there was no shortage of materials. This project is not for the weak backed person, though, as those birdbaths are heavy and get even heavier when you add ten pounds of glass, tile and cement. The finished products were worth the heavy lifting!

P.S. The glass I used in my birdbath has a reflective quality when filled with water. Birds flee in terror when they get near it. I guess it makes a lovely garden decoration.