Wishcasting Wednesday

Today is Wishcasting Wednesday again on Jamie Ridley's blog!

"How do you wish to spend some time?"




Reading












Exploring my beautiful city


















Hanging out with my eldest daughter













Making jewelry

Making beads, too!














Riding my scooter!










Spending fun time with my little ones



Being with my family....spending some time alone with my husband (a desperately rare commodity these days!)....creating....that's how I wish to spend some time.

So Excited!!

It's ON, people!

On Thursday evening, a package showed up on my doorstep addressed to me. I almost never get exciting packages in the mail, unless I order something, so this was unexpected. The return address gave it away, though -- Northridge Publishing, the publisher of Bead Trends magazine!

In the box was my necklace, "Gaslights", and two copies of the September 2010 issue of Bead Trends!
On pages 86 and 87, you will find a far more beautiful photograph of my necklace than I could ever take, and the tutorial for making it.

Oh, THIS is the necklace, as photographed by me:

I talked about it last fall, in this post here, having worn it to a local art show and gotten lots of compliments and comments on it. (The post I am referencing is one in my 'personal' blog, mostly about my life and my friends and family)

This was the first necklace I have submitted to bead Trends, and the second piece I submitted to any magazine, following encouragement by my friends Cindy Wimmer and Kerry Bogert.

What's really awesome is that I will have five pieces of my work shown in five different magazine issues between now and probably January. It's an accomplishment for me, and I am hoping that next year I can at least do that many, or maybe more.

I'm certainly going to try!

Anyway, I really wants to say thanks for Cindy and Kerry for all of their support, always, and their encouragement, and for giving me the little push I needed to be confident and send my work out into the world on this level. Thank you, ladies, so very much!

This necklace should be in my Etsy shop later today, if anyone is interested. I'll post the link later on!

Have an inspired day!

Cruelest Month?

I actually think April is not so much the cruelest month, as August is. Or, maybe this particular August. It's too hot, the summer holidays are over, and school doesn't start for a month yet (around here, anyway). We have no real vacation planned, and the things there are on the schedule to look forward to don't come til the very end of the month.

I don't much feel like melting glass, and even the knowledge that I have a fairly large outdoor show coming up in six weeks isn't enough to motivate me. I *am* occasionally the Queen of Procrastination, though, so you can bet I'll be all in a tizzy come September, trying to get work made. Hopefully then it will be a lot less than 100 degrees so I can be really productive.

It's interesting to me that the older I get, the more I learn about myself and the way I work. I guess that is the point, right? To learn as we grow, even into adulthood? Good thing I'm at least paying *some* attention.

My Muse seems to be encouraging me to try different things lately. Right now, I am on a run of mixed-media work....painting, altering books, stamping, collage. I don't really know what the heck I am doing, which is fine, but I have some interesting visions in my head and I am trying to make them come alive. So far, so good.

I gessoed over a previous painting last night (just like the old Masters used to do!), and I am deciding how best to go about turning it into my vision for a 3-D mixed media work. Trees and women, and goddess symbols and mythology have been swimming around in my brain for some time, and I am slowly, slowly starting to turn the visions into actual work.

Oh, a picture would be nice, wouldn't it? Here is the start of my recent altered book. It has no title as yet.
The trees and star will all have a cover of paint and glitter (probably) to tone down some of their obvious plasticness.

Here's one of my favorite parts, in the beginning stages....a niche cut into a stack of glued-together pages:
I'll post some more pics after I get a few more pages done. I think this will be an ongoing project, like a journal, instead of an all-at-once thing. I'm finding, with painting, there's a lot of standing around waiting for stuff to dry, so it's really easy to get started on another project while you're waiting. I already did that. My next project-in-process is a set of altered tarot cards. They have been sanded (to rough up the plastic coating), and gessoed and had their backgrounds painted. I already know the plan for these, but I think I'll share when I have something to show.

Anyway, that is what I have been up to lately. I expect that the month of August will be a little light on blog posts -- well, maybe -- so I'll see you all soon!

*I'm so SO looking forward to ArtBliss in September! Gonna meet so many of my favorite online art jewelry buddies!

Make a Wish....

Today is Wishcasting Wednesday, over on Jamie Ridley's blog.

We could all use the power of good wishes in our life. Not only for our art and our creative leanings, but for our families, our friends and our life. Does us, as people, wishing all together *really* make them come true? I don't know. Does the power of positive thinking -- which is really what wishing is --really work? I think it does.

And anyway, it certainly doesn't hurt anything.

Today's Wishcasting prompt is....What do you wish for your creativity?

Wow. I have actually been thinking about this a lot recently. Especially as I find out just how unfocused and scattered I can be in general, not to mention in my creative life.

I wish.......that I had more ability to focus, REALLY focus, on my creative work....spend the time, the mental, emotional, and metaphysical energy, and the physical effort on all the things that swirl around in my brain all day and all night long. I feel like I get distracted, and bored, and wander around creatively too much.

I wish.....that I could feel as though I have found my voice in my art-making, whatever the medium. I know that whatever art that comes from me *is* me, but I don't feel like my message is carrying through the work.

I wish...... that the work I make in my head would transfer to the physical world more easily. What I see in my mind's eye is so very often not what ends up on the page, or in the kiln, or on my worktable.

I wish.....that I could learn to work more efficiently and effectively in the small chunks of time I DO have for creative work. It is so rare that I can spend hours immersed in art-making of any kind, and I really wish that I could accept my current creating parameters, and feel accomplished and satisfied with what I can do in the time I have.

Four wishes is already probably a lot, especially if I were to find a genie in a bottle, but one more wish I would make is this:

I wish that I could find a way to make my creativity my livelihood. Truly. More so than just making my art self-supporting, more than just being able to buy my silver wire and glass and paint and paper and fabrics, I wish that I could turn my creativity into my career.

I wish I could figure out exactly what the heck that means.

What do YOU wish for?