Heart of America- Broken Heart- the story

I have a friend that has dreams. She dreams about designs, for me!
I love this.
She "saw" this sacred heart I did.
This one...

This is one of my favorite pieces.

My friend will send me a message and maybe a small description, but what comes across to me though is a feeling and a light in my mind's eye of the beginning of a design starting to come to life. You can read the story of the sacred heart and see the prototype of this necklace here http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/01/little-reminder-about-giveaway-and.html

Well... my friend is very tuned in and she had another dream quite a while ago, only a month or two after the sacred heart dream I think.

She wrote me a note with a small description and quick doodle to go along with it.  

I loved it and I said I would get right on it.

Sometimes, though, my brain doesn't cooperate with my plans and I have learned over time that somethings can not be rushed, ever. If I do rush it will only be a part or a piece of the full manifestation of what could be something truly wonderful if left to incubate for a while and cook!

I didn't say anything to my friend and kept up with everything else that was going on and pretty much let go of making the dream a reality right away.

Last week though, that dream was resurrected with a flash of a picture and the idea in my mind flashing in neon and would not give up until I went and made it.

This is the result of this collaboration my friend and I have.

Heart of America- Broken heart



Heart of America- Broken Heart
Listed in my Etsy Store now.

 I am in love with this piece also and adore that I had been gifted a gift of insight in the process.
Thank you, Donna, from the bottom of my heart.
Maybe someday I will be able to reciprocate with dreams of pieces for you. One can only hope!
I believe these are special pieces, there is just something about them that speaks. Maybe it is the gift of collaboration, listening to another speak their dreams and being able to bring them to reality.

I love this! How could it get any better? I am so grateful.

Taking shape-changing ideas and altered directions- part 17

I think that one of the most wonderful things to make is light switch plates. It is like a small canvas to me or similar to an ATC. They are fun to do, not a huge commitment, and flat like a canvas, that could possibly change the mood of a whole room the moment you walk in and flip that switch.

I can just see this in a room, with leather like looking walls a mellow ochre color, dark wood half way up the walls, dark bookcases, library lamps, huge overstuffed and wood chairs, and a huge desk. It would be dark and cozy with a small brick fireplace and the smell of many tomes floating through the air and I in one of those chairs with my cat on the back and a blankie over my legs, brandy snifter full and a lit candle in a dark cranberry color at the side table, reading away in to the night. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

 The outlet plates could be a little simpler yet with the same theme to tie the whole room together.

I also love that the screws that hold the plate in place are an integral part of the design.

Oh yeah, I planned that!

I love when things work out better than I could have planned them!

Dream a little dream...

Pulling up the past

Jodi Creager at Creager Studios http://creagerstudios.blogspot.com/ got me to thinking about revisiting my past. Jodi said...

I look at 'older' work as a kick start on the new...it always feeds my artistic direction...just the battery cables I need to jump start my drive...

I loved that, it resonated. Got me to thinking, I need a little jump start.

So I pulled out one of my paintings from 1972, yes 1972! I started oil painting in 1966, I was 10. I like the colors.
What was I thinking here?? Another one of those... "what the hell is that?" I am sure I made up some artsy- fartsy story about why I did it though. About seeing with my nose because I was blinded by the colors and the evolution of the chrysalis, and about how the yellow in my skin is the bile in my mind. Sometimes art is such a crock. After all I was 15 and wanted so badly to be an artist, to fit in with the cool kids.
Probably dreamt this up at night!
Just do it!

I have no idea.
Jodi, some people should just leave the past right where it is. LOL!!!

Playing with my food

My friend Jodi and I played with our food a couple of weeks ago. That’s right; I skipped clay that day and went straight for the food.
Jodi is a dear friend and quite a artisan herself. She has a good eye, is quite intuitive, and a quick learner. She likes to play with food, beads, and scrap booking. When she gets in to something she goes all the way. She will take classes, peruses the stores looking for unusual items, and does this with a vengeance. She gathers many things to her, inquires about a lot of others, and then starts to experiment with all of the goodies she has stock piled.
Needless to say when I go to see her, I love to go through all of her stuff. It is organized, categorized, and itemized. She knows exactly where everything is. This in itself is an unusual experience for me. My space is a collage of everything. If I put things away I can’t find them. Having never been trained in filing or categorizing, I don’t even know where or how to start. So going to her house and playing with her toys is fun. I put things back too, it is easy, it is all ready figured out for me.

She had just bought this fun book...
Hello, Cupcake! By Karen Tack and Alan Richardson

They even have a blog.
We looked through it and Jodi said “Let’s make something”.
OMG!!! Those words get me every time.

Here is this cute book; it is a New York Times Bestseller, with irresistibly playful creations, and then it said...





“That ANYONE can make”.

<--samples from the book.

Jodi basically has her own cake decorating store, because Jodi is in to it. Almost everything you could ever want. She just so happens to have a cake mix and frosting in the color we need, but we need a few things from the store, we send the “boys” as we call them, Howard and Jimmy to the store with a list. Howard dislikes shopping strongly. Jimmy will go to every store in their city to find what Jodi needs, and he is like a blood hound on the trail. With many calls and conferencing we finally get all of the ingredients that we need to do a pretty good job of making Garden Party Cupcakes. Well ,sort of. The stores don’t have the candy that comes apart in strings for the peas (see how nice the vines look on those peas in the picture on the left) and they don’t have the right Jolly Rancher soft chewy things for right color of green and the right color of orange that we need for the carrots and peas.

I say “hey let’s fake it”, because that is what I do well and I am feeling just a little sorry for “the boys”, because this is the 10th call and the 3rd store. I can feel Howard sizzling. LOL!!!

So we tell them “never mind come home!”

And then we start. We do work well together in the kitchen, it is like a dance of friendship and sharing and it gives me a warm feeling in my heart, that I have a wonderful friend like her. I enjoy it; it takes my mind off of the turmoil and everyday bull sh*t of life.

This is something that I dream regularly about doing, I know that I can cake decorate and I have dreams where I make cakes and cookies and desserts. Silly, I know, but I do. So here is chance for me to do it. FUN! And a dream come true, how many times can one really say that? We had to make some changes to the great instructions and they still worked. These really are fairly easy and if you can find all of the stuff and candies to do this right, I bet they'll look a lot better, but you know what? I am proud of those little cakes, my friend and I made, they look like a garden and it was big fun.

These are mine and Jodi’s, not bad right???

And would you look at that lettuce?It called for several cornflakes covered with green chocolate and put together around a M (that is what my family calls M&M’s, after all there is only one M on them… M’s). I rolled up that fruit roll up in variegated green color and started kneading it. It worked and then I made flat petals to put around the green M. See all this playing with clay is paying off in playing with my food. TA DAH! Garden Party Cupcakes…perfect for Earth day!