Fiberart For A Cause Collage Mania preview

You can now preview the 383 art pieces donated for Collage Mania 2009, the Fiberarts for a Cause fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. These collages will be sold on-line May 5-7, 2009, with all proceeds going to ACS. This year the artists will be shipping directly to the people who bought their art.

Many fiber and mixed media artists are participating in the event including Patricia "Pokey" Bolton, editor of Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors magazines and Lesley Riley, author of Quilted Memories and Fabric Memory Books. Pictured here is my donated art quilt, "Spring to Summer" (blogged here), which is on page 4 of the Collage Mania entries. This is my first year to participate, and I'm glad I got the chance because this is apparently going to be the last year for the event.

Participating in Fiber Arts Friday!

One Out of Three Ain't Bad

Finally got over to the Uihlein Peters Gallery today to pick up my art and see which one of my three submissions actually made it into the show Good Things...Small Packages. (I missed the opening because I was out of town last weekend.)

Fair Tomorrow (above) was the lucky contestant! I made it in Michael deMeng's Matchbook Reliquary workshop at Raevn's Nest Art Retreat last October. In fact, it's one of my few assemblage projects that actually got finished on the day instead of languishing for months.

The other two pieces I had submitted were Neglected Memories (below, which DID languish for months after I started it in Michael's Morpheus Box class in Oct.) and Internal Affairs already discussed in a previous blog post. In fact, the main reason I pushed myself to submit to this show was because I needed a deadline to force myself to stop fiddling and finish Neglected Memories!

Off to see the Wizard

Actually, I'm off for a long weekend to take part in my friend's wedding, and so will have limited internet access April 16-19 (plus busy packing, etc for the surrounding dates). Pictured here are my dyed-to-match bridesmaid shoes, which everyone compares to the Ruby Slippers for some reason...

Hope to have some fun wedding pix when I get back (if anyone's interested in that sort of thing :o)

Be good while I'm gone (and if you can't be good, be creative!)

Artwork in search of a title

Anyone have any suggestions? Sometime before the end of the day today I have to decide on a title for this piece so I can fill in my paperwork to submit it for a show tomorrow. It's an 8x10" canvas with a dollhouse window inserted in the center and a spinner lodged between the canvas and back that rotates the images in the window, all vintage photos from my collection.

I suppose some artists actually know what their artwork is about when they make it, but I'm often left to mull over the meaning after the fact. This was originally going to be a window looking outside with perhaps a birdie in a tree and a person looking in, but it evolved into an exterior window looking in with a tangle of interlocked women and men, which made me think of elicit affairs and secrets glimpsed through the neighbors' window. So I'm weighing something like "Neighborhood Affairs" or "Internal Affairs" but I'm sure there's some other clever phrase that would fit better! If you can think of something more exciting, please let me know :D

(This was sort of a spin-off of an altered book layout I did last year called "The Crazy People Next Door" :o)

Some blog bling

Cathy was kind enough to give me this creative blogging award, so go check out her artwork! I'm supposed to direct you towards 7 other crafty bloggers and tell you 7 random things about myself, so I'm going to try to do both simultaneously.
1) Michele at A House Called Nut blogs about life in Finland. She just did a great post about craftivism (craft activism). We both grew up in Northern Virginia, and I was a friend of her big sister in high school (though we didn't even go to the same school :o)
2) Kathi recently started her blog fiberdance. I met her because we each sent in ATCs for the Quilting Arts magazine's trading event at the International Quilt Festival in Chicago a few years back, and I got one of her cards, and she only lives the next county over from me! (And because we sent in those ATCs, we're both published in Patricia Bolton's 1000 ATCs book.)
3) Mel doesn't blog but she has a fabulous Flickr photostream, which is just as good. We share a love of retro fonts and goofy ephemera.
4) Jan at Red Rubber Paper & Ink runs her own stamping business, plus teaches at Artist & Display in Milwaukee, which is how I met her. (I think - I have a fuzzy memory for these things sometimes!)
5) Lynne, aka Gypsy Art, drives up from Illinois to trade ATCs with the Milwaukee ATC group, which I nominally organize (because organizing artists is like herding cats).
6) Nina, aka Obsessive Creative, also drives up from Illinois to trade ATCs with us in Milwaukee. I'm obsessed with her vintage button flower bouquet :D
7) I have never met Max of Made By Max, though we both live in the Milwaukee area but I love his daily comics on Flickr, esp. his cat-themed ones because I live in a house ruled by 2.5 cats (the Outdoor Cat only gets half the power of the indoor ones).

Make It Mondays - Hats

Put on your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it....

Life has been busy, and I'm running a week behind on Make It Mondays - Last week's theme was Hats, and I actually made these ATCs last weekend but haven't had a chance to scan them until now.

The Milwaukee ATC group's April theme is "Altered Photographs," so I used vintage photos from the Ten Two Studios Octavia collage set and embellished with acrylic paint, ink and these colorful flourishes cut from some fancy-schmancy wrapping paper. The two ladies above went the most over the top. The lady and gentleman below are a bit more subdued in their approach to fashion.

Crafting 365, Days 92 & 95 and some others

Fiber Art for a Cause

April 1 is the deadline for sending in jpg submissions for "Collage Mania 2009" a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. This is my first time participating in Fiberarts For A Cause, but I understand that the donated collages will go into an on-line exhibit and then be available for purchase at specified times at the beginning of May. (Here are the details.) You can see last year's gallery here.

My donation "Spring to Summer" is an 8x10" fantasy floral art quilt. The background is hand-painted cotton layered with parts of faux silk flowers held in place by a layer of tulle and free-motion quilting. I have a photo walkthrough for this technique on Flickr. I used kunin felt as the support/backing. This was donated in memory of my mom's older sister Flo whom we lost to cancer in 1997.

Participating in Fiber Arts Fridays