New Print: Generations

Finally! A new limited edition, 18 x 24 giclee print in my shop, titled "Generations". 

This one has been a long time in the making, and I'm so happy to finally see it on paper! The idea sprang from a photo that my step-dad took of my grandma (96 years young!) my mom, myself and my little girl when she was about 3 months old. In the photo our heads are all very close and after looking at it many times, this image popped into my head. Four generations of people stacked kind of like an ice cream cone (yes, it really does all come back to food for me, doesn't it).

At first, I created it using shapes on the computer but it just never felt 'done' to me. So it sat on ye olde hard drive for many months. Then my arty breakthrough happened and I redrew the entire thing by hand, scanned the pieces back into the computer and played around. The flowers were very exciting to work on as well - allowing myself to get lost in some fun little details. I really love the result and hope you will too!

The fine print:
Generations is an 18 x 24 inch giclee (pronounced zhee-klay) print. Limited, signed edition of 50. Professionally printed in the US of A, on Legion Entrada Rag Bright 290 (a fine art, 100% cotton paper) and with Vivera Archival Inks, giving it an archival rating of 150 years. It will fit easily into any 18 x 24 inch frame (not included) but I like the Ribba frames at Ikea, or the frames sold at Aaron Brothers.

moving on, maybe

Sorry about going missing there for a few days, folks. It seems I kind of over scheduled myself last week and I was running to and fro like a mad-lady.

Things are going well for the most part, but a few conversations of late have me thinking I may be moving out of my studio space in the near-ish future. I am having mixed feelings about it really. On the down side it would mean working from home for the next year - not all bad, but man, there is really something to just getting the heck out of my house. And I'd likely be working in a dark corner of my basement or in a modified closet. Not the most glamorous.

On the super-excited side we plan on building something like the studio above in a sort of forest area of our yard. Excited doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about it. It would mean waiting a year, and saving up what I spend on one year's rent to build it - but I am really beginning to think it is totally, 100% worth it. 

The MD100  was designed by Edgar Blazona, and was featured in ReadyMade magazine a few years ago. You can find the plans here. 

Hello.

Hi readers. I'm just having one of those days today. Spilled coffee on my only clean shirt, found out a project I've been working on got killed Anne Boleyn style, realized that most of my clean socks have holes in them, and other stuff like that. Nothing that is going to break me - but it has me feeling a bit glazed. I was having the nicest dream about being in Paris this morning. I think I should have stayed asleep.

So yeah, no Wall Wednesday today. Instead you get a random doodle I grabbed out of a pile and some grumpy grumbling on the side.

Better things on the horizon tomorrow - a new print, and hopefully I'll tackle that laundry pile that is looking like it might consume my house.

Mr. Rogers (remixed)

Happy Friday everyone and thanks for checking in over here this week!

I heard this song onthe radio the other day, it felt summer-ish and totally reminded me of my love for Fred Rogers (RIP). I wonder what he would have thought of this song. I think he would have rocked it, in his Keds - don't you?

See you next week, friends - happy weekend.

Studio Times

I took this photo at my studio the other day. I love this little window and all the angles of the wall. And yes, those walls are still white and will stay that way for a long time. I've set a new goal to get the space all decorated by August 1, my one year anniversary of being in this space. It really doesn't need much - just a little time set aside to actually paint and install flooring, etc.

I've been working in sort of an 'emergency' mode - missing a bunch of days due to family illness and then working super hard to catch up. So naturally studio decor is kinda last on my list. But I do want it to feel welcoming when I open the door - not so much like a plain white box. 

Here's a shot of my desk, and something I was working on the other day. I'm working on letting go a bit with my style and content - trying not to think too hard about what I think will sell, and focusing a bit more on just letting stuff flow. We'll see what comes of it!

I'm still really enjoying busting out the traditional media - pens, pencils, paint. It feels good to get my hands dirty again.

Etsy Wall Wednesday #8: Orange

Red Tulip Fields $40 3" x 7"  { Original Oil Painting by Erin Spencer }

Dancing Elves  $35  8.5" x 11"  { Limited Edition Print by Matte Stephens }

Kooky Birds $19  8" x 10" { Fine Art Archival Print  by PetitReve }

My Place $20  8.5" x 11"  { Fine art Print by Shira }

I love the color orange. It is not an inherited love, because my grandma actually hates the color and has confessed to once removing all of the orange crayons from her kid's crayon boxes. For real! Anyhow, orange love must skip a generation because I can't get enough. 

Here are four loverly Etsy finds for a long, long, long overdue Wall Wednesday that I found by typing "orange" into the search box in the Art category on Etsy. I bought Kooky Birds a few months ago and love it - it is hanging on my great wall of Etsy in my house.  Please check out these and all the other wonderful artists on Etsy and join me in declaring "No More Boring Walls" in your home!

Favorite Things Friday - old cassettes

I'm doing a major purge of 'stuff' this month in my house. With a little kiddo and all of her toys, plus two parents who have lots of toys of their own, it's getting crowed in here. And frankly - we get all edgy with so much crap around. I was cleaning out a box of old tapes, and decided it was time to get rid of my stack of most treasured preteen music. * sigh * You can see I didn't branch too much (besides my strange and serious 5th grade obsession with surf music). Every one of these tapes holds a story for me. But, the tape I'm going to have the hardest time parting with is my dogeared copy of New Edition.

Christmas, 1984 - I was in fourth grade. My then 20s something, adventuresome aunt, who was living all the way across the country in Maine had come home for Christmas. To me it was like she had been to the moon. I couldn't even comprehend how far away Maine was, as I'd only ever been to California and Oregon. Before coming home she'd gone on a Christmas shopping trip to New York City and brought home exotic trinkets for all of us from the Big Apple.

My gift from her was this tape. My aunt told me that she'd never heard of this "New Edition" group, but this was what the kids in New York City were listening to (she'd asked a clerk in a record shop for their advice). I was thrilled - and felt so special. I was pretty sure I was the only kid with a New Edition tape on the West Coast and I am pretty sure I was the only person with one in my small hometown. I busted that thing open, and within minutes my cousin and I were dancing around to it in grandma's pink guest room. It was so different than anything I had ever heard; being raised on a steady diet of classical music and 60s rock. And I think it was this tape that somehow let me know it was ok to listen to music other that what my parents were listening to.

Here's a little compilation of my favorite tunes from this stack just incase any of you need a dose of 80s nostalgia of your own! Bye-bye stack of old tapes, thanks for all the memories!