Hawthorne Hill Art Farm: Vintage Market, September 2014

I just did my first market at Hawthorne Hill Farm last weekend and I loved it! I'll be back for the October market (Harvest and Halloween) and November market (Decorate!), as well.

 The booth!

The view from my cash stand into Jenny's booth (she has some great vintage game items!)

Some of my vintage brooches and two 1950s pearl collars from Japan

 

One of my new pendant designs

My new buddy, Bertha Veenis (acquired from one of the other vendors) is checking out my hair clips to tame her tresses.

Slay-A-Thon

Sending this pendant off to the Slay-A-Thon Benefit happening on June 21st (figured I'd stay in the Whedonverse with my donation). Tumbled and drilled glass with hand aged paper (well sealed with acrylic) on a 20" triple strand of recycled silk with a toggle clasp. Like it? Want it? Come on out to Dave and Buster's In Chicago on June 21st  to benefit the Illinois Make-A-Wish Foundation.

WisCon 2014

I can't believe that I didn't post this earlier! My Battleground sculpture that I had made for WisCon this year won an award at the con!

Pretty spiffy! Unfortunately, I wasn't there when the awards were announced, so I only found out about it when I came to pick up my work when art show was closing on Monday. It would have been nice to have been there.

Bay View Gallery Night, June 6th.

Despite it being  *cough* a few years since I’ve hung out in skater circles, I decided to take Brian from Bigfoot Bike and Skate up on his challenge for this year’s Bay View Gallery Night.  He had some brand new retro 80s style maple skate decks made for the event and asked local artists to decorate them (to be sold to be used as functional boards) in their best 80’s graphic style. Since it wasn’t initially specified that he meant NINETEEN 80’s style…Brian agreed that sure…he’d also accept EIGHTEEN 80’s style, thus opening up the possibility for steampunkery and the like.

  As for me, I couldn’t decide whether to create a homage to late 19^th century imagery or late 20^th century, so I made a bit of a mashup of both esthetics…

 Back in the day, every skatepunk I knew covered their deck with dozens of stickers (of bands…gear and wear…ads…random graphics…beer labels…hazard signs peeled off of other things…et al), often topped off or layered with stenciled spray paint. Considering my fascination with Victorian mourning practices, I decided to apply this concept to the morbid trends of the 1880s. Hence…we have images of funeral cards, mortuary logos, ads for mourning wear, sheet music for popular funeral tunes, and the like, cleaned up digitally before being hand aged and collaged onto the board.  As a further nod to 1980’s skate culture, I cut a skull image to stencil over the clippings. 

Dropped off the board this afternoon and it seemed to go over well. Again, having been out of skate culture for quite a while, I let Brian at Bigfoot set the price for me ($125). It'll be on display at the shop for BVGN this coming Friday. 

In addition to the event at Bigfoot, there are also DOZENS of more exhibitions and other happenings in the Bay View area next Friday for BVGN... a jazz fest, artists' market, even a bike tour of the various sites. Definitely worth checking out...

Battleground

Going off to Wiscon's art show this weekend: Battleground, a female form created from 1200+  individually fused plastic soldiers. She's life sized (and approximately a US size 16) and is able to be wall mounted or free standing.

 

This is a much more political work than my usual fare. She was inspired by the battles of body that we experience as women...from the exploitation of women's bodies as spoils of war to the battles we wage amongst/within ourselves about what it means to be woman-bodied.

Finding Home

  

I created this piece (“Finding Home”) for the annual Milwaukee Habitat For Humanity/ReStore  Recycled Art contest. This year’s theme was “COMMUNITY” and required artists to utilize primarily reclaimed/recycled materials found at the ReStore in their work. The piece features hand-wrought links from scrap steel wire, a chandelier crystal, various hardware components, ephemera (map, snapshot of a family gathering, etc) and other recycled materials, displayed in a salvaged maple drawer repurposed as a shadow box.

 Details of the event, as well as the chance to vote on challenge entries, may be found at  http://milwaukeehabitat.org/shop/recycled-art-contest/.  If you're so inclined, I'd appreciate a vote for #15E. The top 5 artists receive gift certificates for the ReStore and one would go a long way toward adding to my tool bin and scrap supply stash.

As a side note, this piece is also available for purchase via Milwaukee Habitat For Humanity/ReStore and inquiries may be made at the above website. I have it priced at $60 and will be donating the full amount of the sale to Habitat For Humanity.

Bony Rabbit

My take on the RAM's 5th Annual International PEEPs Exhibition . Acrylic on 11x14 canvas, with vintage wood frame. Phosphorescent paint was used on the bones to emit a soft glow in low light and glass bead suspension medium was used as a glaze to mimic a sugar crust, as well as pearlescent medium.

I don't usually do painted canvases, but I decided to step out of my comfort zone since my original idea was vexing me (next. year.). I tried to keep the calaca cute, befitting a marshmallow, but this is probably going to be the darkest entry of the challenge. This is what happens when a diabetic with spooky tastes starts thinking about Easter candy...

Acorn pendant

I didn't have time to make anything new and exciting for my mom's birthday this weekend, so I sent her one of the oak pendants that I'd made for the shows at the farm last fall. 

(I'm SUPER behind on posting new items to my Etsy shop. I did these 6+ months ago and still I haven't managed to take the time to write copy and take photos.)

The Avatrix

I was reviewing some shots of older (and long since sold) pieces in preparation for a juried application and came across The Avatrix

This was done for a steampunk event in 2009 or so. Cast bronze finish focal, with beveled-corner Czech glass cube beads, bronze spacers, glass and freshwater pearls, and a repurposed cloak clasp. I *know" I have another focal like this somewhere in my supply stash and this inspires me to go looking for it.

Milwaukee Casket Company

I spotted this while taking a short cut through an industrial area of Milwaukee (St. Paul Street in the Menominee Valley).

Currently it houses Action Heating and Cooling, but the facade remains. A bit more info on the building (with pictures) is at can be found at Wisconsin Historical Society.

Playing with steel wire

It's been a long winter and while I wish I could say that I've spent the last few months making 8 billion new pieces to show everyone, I'm just not at the "show-off" point. I've done quite a bit...but I just need to get things photographed and posted onto Etsy soon.

In the meantime, I'll show you a work in progress. I'm currently working on a piece for a challenge that requires me to use only reclaimed/recycled materials. Here's a portion of the project, about 17 inches of handmade chain of 16 gauge steel with twisted double strands of 20 gauge steel for jump rings. Annealed...but my hands still ache. I also took steel wool to each link to bring up a bit of shine and applied Renaissance Wax to deter rusting.



Photos of the finished piece to follow (my deadline is 4/1 for the challenge), as well as other endeavors!