More Moon Musing Altars

May I now introduce you to Gwen Gyldenege, A colorful character whom I have personally known  all of her life She is currently working with her voice to create colorful characters who read the most delightful stories to her many friends who I like to loving call "Short folks". If you get the chance check out her and her gang of puppets along with her kitties' chorus in the background, giggles will escape your face while viewing these, now don't say you haven't been warned,

This year, upon opening a ripe pomelo, I discovered it's delicious floral scent, much like that of walking through an orange grove.  Pleasantly surprised and captivated, I had to have more. I wanted to bottle it up and wear it every day.  The pith is what holds the richest scent.  The pomelo flesh, is also very tasty - like a cross between an orange and a grapefruit and delightfully pink.  When cut in a cross section, the contrast between the bright green rind, the pithy white and the cheerful pink pulp of the flesh segments is so inspiring.  I love how the pomelo segments aren't even in cross section. They remind me of flowers drawn by kids. So inspired to bottle up this scent, I went out and bought mason jars and all different kinds of citrus to make lemoncello, floral waters (via vodka) and vinegar for cleaning (thank you pinterest!). So, now that my counters are stacked with mason jars and the multitude of citrus offerings, the inspiration to draw these wonderful fruits happened. 

Well, it took a while before I was hit with inspiration.  This box, being less than evenly balanced on all sides jarred me so much that I couldn't create. I made that worse by berating myself for not doing anything, then was concerned that my artists block would continue long beyond just this one box into every other box I attempted.  Damn that cut out square!  But, I put the whole project into a drawer while frustrated and took the day off.  I let myself relax, enjoy, and napped. Then, the day after the full moon, I just sat down and started drawing all the citrus that I had brought into my life.  I let it all hang out and anchor near the lower right corner. Let the fruit fall where it may!  Lo and behold, it behaved! I was able to cut a square out and still maintain the integrity of the art I created. Whew!  

My favorite part about this was discovering the cross sections of each fruit.  When I look at it, my heart skips a beat over both the pretty pink & green pomelo flower cross section and how I really captured the pink ripening spot on a grapefruit. I think, "Wow, I did that.... I did!"

Wolf Moon Monday

Onward and forward we go as our big old full moon begins to wane and time marches  along. Isn't it amazing  how quickly time passes when you are in the mist of creating. As well as how slowly time passes  when waiting in line?
Curious how I felt in the beginning of January I had a long month of time as now as I reflect on things as this first moon of  2013 is waning I almost feel cheated by how quickly it has passed.

 My Inspiration began in December when the colors I choose greeted me in several location. As well as pictures of the Luna Moth. Even on the internet on day Bing had a breathtaking photo of the Luna Moth. There is something in the combination of colors  from the twilight teal to the yellow green of Miss Luna that made my moth water. I collected papers,pencils,inks,markers and a most interesting product shrink plastic and waited and waited and wandered around some more. Then thought about it,dreamed about it and finally began to create. That is when time all but disappeared and the magic began. I am inspired by the little bits of magic in everyday life. This is my Little Altar begining

scale

Colored pencil

After firing

luna moon

Howling again

Here is an introduction you will not hear very often in your life, may I introduce Beth Drobney  "small business owner of "The Dirty Hoe".

My altar has to do with my love of nature which I learned from my mother and grandmother, who both had wonderful gardens. I found the angel at a vintage market, she called to me because she has such a gentle face. I gessoed and painted her to make her look older, added the word BEAUTY to her banner and some shine to her wings. The rest of the altar is made up of paper goods, ribbon, moss, brass and a small wooden rabbit given to me by a special friend. The altar reminds me of all the sweetness and joy I find out among my plants.

More Wolf Moon Delights

Finally back to add some more wonderful  Little Altars Work.

 May I introduce Nancy Strahle

Dried orchid blossom, dried leaves, handmade magnet hooks with sterling wire

and buttons, fold forming experiment, copper leaf lei, ruby, branch from

morning walking, shell collected by friend in Mexico, press-formed and

colored experiment on copper, scrap found copper shape embellished with

riveted colored copper circles, all held on by magnets to a covered sheet of

steel.  I'm not sure this is QUITE finished, but it may be.  I reserve the

small option of adding.  And, by nature, each item can be rearranged!

Final post tonight

WOW AND WOW some more!

Thank YOU so much my dear artsy friends

 I am delighted and inspired and overjoyed at what I have received so far, but my fingers are tired and ready for a long winters nap after my final addition tonight of Lynn Vernon

My first spot is really based on my heart and things that keep me focused on life, family, art, etc.  It incorporates my family, hanging from a copper tree cut out and chased to provide texture.  It is heat patinated and has photos of my immediate family, husband, daughters, dog, and the son-in-law to be who is officially joining our family in April but is really already a family member.  Motivational sayings are part of my daily life and I have included ones that keep me going.  One hidden gem near the LOVE sign is the top view of a glass of red wine – definitely something I love!  =)  The background is a textured paper with hand applied paint in gold and copper to add dimension.  The butterfly ready to fly from the frame with the key-hole represents my artistic desires ready to take flight and the fact that the key is in me, I just need to unlock my potential.

HOW-L-L-LL-L Wolf Moon 5

 Cynthia Bicker is next. and if you happen to hear wee little laughter and giggles , think nothing of it but   keep you eyes peeled for any unusual  objects missing.  Gotta watch out for the wee people. hee-hee

NEED I SAY MORE???

Wolf Moon 4

Kathy Dannerbeck is on board next Take it away dear Kathy,

Altar Project – January 2013

As the full moon approaches…..it is our initial installation for our Alter Project!

My first section sets the stage for inspiration, the trying of new things and using objects that I want to figure out how to incorporate into some type of project.

As I am currently in the Tucson desert – that has been my inspiration.  I have long been intrigued by the patterns of cactus thorns, the pods one finds and other natural objects one an stumble upon in the desert.  I have been taking photos of cactus and their patterns for many years and have been wanting to do something with them!!  There must be a way to incorporate these different objects in my jewelry….so exploring this has been fun.  As I sat thinking and working on my Altar section different images kept popping into my head and emerged as haiku and haiku-like poems – so they too have been included in my section.

Wolf Moon 3

Next is Lynn Brown Hranac

Little Altars Project January 2013

Lynn Brown Hranac

The inspiration for my centerpiece for Little Altars literally came to me in a dream. When I awoke one morning last week I remembered my dreams which were centered on a waterfall and I knew I must include water in my personal Little Altar for our project.

I have always found the beach a place of spiritual healing. I gravitate to the sounds of the surf when I am dealing with especially hard times in my life.  The water, sky, wind and the smells plus the sounds of the beach give me a new start. I am drawn to all water lakes, streams and rivers but especially our Northern Washington  Beaches.  My favorites are Kalaloch and Ruby Beaches north of Ocean Shores, WA.  I also love Lincoln Beach in Oregon because the beach combing is great and I can stay at my sister-in-law’s house as long as I will help in garden or greenhouse when I stay. Twist my arm. I love the beach in all weather, but I think my favorite is when it is storming.

The materials I used for my Altar were all collected on Kalaloch, Ruby and Lincoln Beaches. They include miniature beach rocks, agates, sea glass (some of which I tumbled myself in the cement mixer) and drift wood. My husband always just shakes his head at the many pocketful of these small treasures I haul off the beach each visit. “Ha” I say just think of all the potential!  Today, he remarked “I am glad to see you found a use for all those rocks and sticks!” No comment!!!

My Altar is a work in progress as we go along our journey, who knows what other beach finds I will add to my little altar…….

More Wolf Moon

in the begining

adding glass and wire

TA DA 

Introducing Kimberly Kostal an extraordinary woman works in lamp work,wire (loves wire twirling,wrapping swirling shapes) and more while helping raise twins and assorted other beebees and more 

Here is Kimberly"s original inspiration

    

    

 

Wolf Moon 1/26/13

I am busy finishing off my long to-do list for both corporate and personal agendas while assembling my inspirations for my first little altar spot.

The photos have begun to arrive from my companions on this shared artful experience. Oh OH OH. You can see that is me howling in delight

You will notice the star in the reverse "L" shape compartment This is the beginning.

Oh the possibilities and brain wracking that is going on right now, can you hear the howling  'OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO How can I pick just one thing? or do I have to .........................brain wheels spinning....

Happy January to  everyone.

 2013 has begun rather nicely for me and it’s time to get back to making Art. Last year is finished and I am one happy woman to see it in the past.

 In late December I was struck by a muse and got another “wild hair” about shared inspiration and I created the “The Little Altars” Art Project 2013 a yearlong exchange with the following  11 artists.

 Lynn Vernon, Lou Hearnesberger, Kathy Dannerbeck, Nancy Strahle,

 Kimberly Kostal, Marilynn Rich ,Gwen Gyldenege, 

Cynthia Bicker, Lynn Hranac, Beth Drobny,  and my self

 I am very inspired by the wee things that make up everyday life. I have been creating little altars from the small bits and pieces I find myself picking up as I am inspired by objects in the driveway, at the beach, in the produce aisle, color combinations  in a heap of laundry or the sun light caressing the fabric of the sofa. Creating the little altars my objects represent  the tiny glimpses of color, form, texture placement and other qualities that can be captured  to lead me on to fresh ideas in my work,

I often find myself making wee altars when I have been out in the garden and come across a dried seed pod or a feather. Gathered together and arranged in a spot that catches my eye as I am performing tasks of daily living these little altars inspire my work and thoughts.

 Also in my studio when “cleaning” and reorganizing I am often waylaid by two or three colors accidently colliding on my put away pile that send me off into the what if??...???...

…So I got to wondering how would other artists inspirations spark and invite each other to dream and play.  I have also been watching the moon and all of her phases and keeping track of myself as well as people around me. Watching and recording energy levels and moods as the moon constantly changes.  A very interesting study indeed if I do say so myself.

So you are invited to sit back and enjoy the process with us as we explore Little Altars.

 We are all starting out with a “7 gypsies  printer drawer with 13 sections. ”(Which we purchased at Joggles.com)

 Each little Altar is due on the full moon of each month. This month January each artist is responsible for creating the home or heart spot altar. The photos are due on Saturday January 26, 2013.

Each artist starting in Feb will be creating an altar in an assigned space for a different artist the spaces are lettered A thru K.  Then these will be mailed to the assigned artist who will install then in the assigned spot.

I have worked long and hard creating a schedule so each artist and each spot are in a random order. It was several days and many sheets of paper to come up with the order that worked. But success at last!

Stay tuned for more information and photos as the project moves forward.

Andrew Thornton's 2012 February Reveal

A few weeks ago late in the evening I was merrily surfing the web when I chanced upon Andrew Thornton's announcement of his February Challenge. Before you could blink 3 times I had purchased one of the 10 surprise bead sets available. Unseen going only by a brief description I found myself the proud owner of one of the mystery beads collections.

Still not sure what possessed me to buy the beads but today I can tell you my muse was twisting my arm and Yelling " Create damn it Create".

I love creating in many different mediums and materials. I have spent the last 12 years in Metals and glass. Bead weaving has always been a great love of my and I had the pleasure and honor of being a part of" The best of Beadwork 2000" and showing my work in The Dairy Barn.

I have quite a collection of seed beads and on a grey day find myself refreshing my soul in the joyful colors of tubes filling a large cabinet. I have tried over the years to challenge myself to use all colors and change the combinations to see what new delights I can create.

When I received my beads in the mail I was very excited and rushed in to open them. I was taken aback there was a pile of pink and white and fuchsia colored beads. This was really going to be a challenge. I grew up in a house that was pink every outfit my mother owned was pink or red and I was always lacking an enthusiastic response in her quest to rosy up my world.

But I pulled on my big girl pants and went to work. I couldn't decide on just one project so here is what I present to you.

The crystals caught my eye first and I happened to have some of the same color in my stash. I wanted to something to wear with jeans or for dressier occasions, while com binding my two favorite metals copper and sterling. Adding the Moon buttons and the black heart balances the bling of the crystals for me.

My next project the twigs bracelet was inspired but the bare branches in my garden. I sorted out a collection of beads from the original group and picked out several tubes of seed beads to see what would pull everything together. I found the perfect color and set to work, I let my muse guide me and meandered my way from one end to the other, adding this taking out something else and switching from one bead stitch to another, a bit of peyote, some right angle weave and a dash of brick stitch. I am over the moon with the finished piece. I love the wee bits surrounded strands of  woven  seed beads.

I hope you enjoy my work please leave a comment.
 I would love to hear from you

Below you will find the rest of the gang who participated  in Andrew Thornton's Bead Challenge
Here are links to each artists blog as well as Andrew's http://andrew-thornton.blogspot.com/
   be sure to check them all out.

Shannon Chomanczuk

Kari Asburty 

Suzette Bentley

Peg Gyldenege

Therese Frank

Patti Vanderbloemen

Kari Wilson

Shannon Chomanczuk http://www.formysweetdaughter.blogspot.com

Kari Asburty http://hippiechickdesign.blogspot.com

Suzette Bentley http://elliesbijoux.blogspot.com/

Peg Gyldenege http://wildhairstudio.blogspot.com/

Therese Frank http://www.theresestreasures59.blogspot.com

Patti Vanderbloemen http://myaddictionshandcrafted.blogspot.com/

Kari Wilson http://creationsbykari.blogspot.com/

The Art of Business

Seattle Metals Guild workshop committee is offering a series of 3 classes for developing your online presence. Here is an interview with the workshop instruct

rThe Business of Art with Gwen Gyldenege

A three-workshop series. Learn to increase your online visibility, share your art, and find new customer bases.

to register go to Tickets: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/224489.

Are you pondering how your business is going and what you might do to increase sales or just understand a bit more of the internet hubbub. SMG workshop committee has received many requests in the past to offer workshops to help understand and As an Artist be recognized on the internet. It is a great mystery to many of us and "WHY DO I NEED TO DO THIS"' so in that vein of thought we present

The Art of Business interview with Gwen Gyldenege February 2012

Why get online?

Having a professional presence as an artist online is not about sharing what you ate for lunch or how angry you are at the customer who jilted you. It's about sharing your art, what inspires you and connecting to your patrons. It's a way to catalog your work into a portfolio and to make it easy for people to find you and learn about, then buy your work.

Let's say you create jewelry that has a distinctly modern aesthetic and is inspired by the Texas Hill Country. Many people today will search online for things they like first, before they even consider going to a store. Then, there are other patrons who, after seeing your work in a gallery, want to be able to look at all the other amazing works of art you create online and extend the joy of browsing and discovering your art. Because of examples like the previous two, it is becoming increasingly more important for artists to have at least a simple presence online. You can keep it as small as a brief, single page website or a facebook business page. Or, you can be as ellaborate as existing on a website, blog, facebook, twitter, pinterest, email newsletter and more.

If there are so many people online. How do potential patrons people find me?

Let's continue with the same example of aesthetically modern, Texas Hill country inspired jewelry. When someone is searching on Google for "modern hill country jewelry" you want them to be able to find you, look at what you have to offer, and then decide that they want to buy a piece of your work. In the past, they had to stumble upon you at a gallery, a show or festival, through a friend or another patron. It was very heavily dependent upon who knew about you.

Think of being online like listing yourself in those printed phone books still arriving at your doorstep. You make a website and then enable it to be found by search engines. This is like putting up an ad in the yellow pages. Then, search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo allow people to search everywhere on the web for whatever they want. This is like when you flip through the yellow pages in the "jewelers" section or "art galleries" in "Seattle" and scour the pages for something that looks "modern" to your eye. This scouring action is what search engines do - they are smart enough to match words on your website page to words that someone is searching. Then, the search engine presents them with a list of pages to view.

The closest way a printed phone book could give you a custom tailored list of results is with an index, and even that leaves something to be desired if you're seeking to find "Texas Hill Modern" jewelry. In printed media, it's up to the the person reading the phone book to interpret the results. Now, with search engines, we can describe what we are so that we are more easily found. People can now search on your name, where you sell, what you sell, a description of the piece, etc. It all depends on how descriptive you get and how well you know your customers interests and their buying process (what, why & when do they buy).

Why do I have to share my story?

You share to create interest. You share photos of your work or links to things that interest you to build connections and build relationships with your patrons. You give things, like knowledge, away so that people begin to recognize you as an expert in your field.

When you are working away in your studio and you have an Einstein discovery moment, where you come upon an amazing new technique, aren't you excited by that? Haven't you then shown a friend or shared it with another artist who got just as excited? By using things like Facebook, twitter, or a blog post to share this exciting new thing, you are now putting the word out for others who share in the same interests to find you.

What kind of guidelines would you suggest for sharing?

Personally, I only write or share things I would feel comfortable saying to someone in-person. When we don't have someone in front of us as we write, post, tweet, etc. we have a tendency to over share or get very unpleasant. If you wouldn't want your kids, employer, archenemy, or friends to know your thoughts, techniques, or art, then don't share it. Moral of the story: Be polite, be considerate and be wise.

Why do you need to "know your customers"?

In the past, we all had marketing people who would understand what drives consumers to buy and they wrote ads that targeted those types of people. Unless you are writing books or you have work in a gallery (and even then), very rarely does an artist ever have someone who just goes out and advertises or talks up their work.

Why? Because it hasn't been affordable for a small business. Often, by the time an artist pays for all the services they need, they have very little profit left over. Now, we have the power to do it ourselves. We can augment our fantastic in-person presence with an online presence and now begin to learn about how to build our sales and increase our customers.

There's a Fire Burning in my Crystals

 Can you tell I have been enjoying Adele's 21, her newest release? Love it love it love it.
Meanwhile back to my life.. and my precious vintage crystals.

I have loved the sparkle of crystal since I was a wee child snooping in my Mother's jewelry box. I love the glamour of old Hollywood Jean Harlow, Mae West, Cary Grant (He was great as an arm ornament  without sparkle) Well you get the idea. I loved black and white movies with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and many more I adore.

The crystals I have been collecting for the last dozen years or so started out with just a few beauties I found at different antique fairs. I would hold them in my hand and drool slightly without damaging my outer worldly cool exterior and just manage to say " How much?"  Then one or two were not enough.  Soon I had to have the whole box, and then the box they were in became a set of drawers. The drawers became 2 sets of drawers. Crystals were spilling out into all the rooms of my house. I suspect they were having wild parties in the night while I was sleeping and perhaps reproducing. Of course I have no proof of this.  No teeny tiny liquor bottles flung about, or other signs of orgies. But they keep increasing in volume.

At last I made the decision that I could part with them and needed to find good creative folks to adopt their wee points and death defing sparkling color.  And so they can now become a complete new design in this century.

I spent some time combinding colors to create some unique  crystal collections. And I am shameless plugging my new Etsy Store open right now!!!  http://etsy.com/shop/wildhairstudio  If you see my ad on facebook there is a code for a 20% discount for a limited time. 

When you purchase a collection if you comment you saw my this blog post I will add another 10% off (please reference the title of this post "There's a Fire Burning in my Crystals"). After you submit your order on Etsy and send your paypal payment, I will adjust your invoice and send you a revised PayPal invoice with the new lower price. 

But you best get to gettin, because this offer only lasts until August 12th and only as long as supplies last.

Cheers Peg

 http://etsy.com/shop/wildhairstudio

And the winners are

The winners are drumroll please..............
Cynthia Bicker
Esse Lyle,
Julz Either,
Kathy Jansen-Bellamy
Lavinia Kaleleiki,
Heidi Schuler

Thanks so much for your participation in my glass pin giveaway.
 I hope you have as much fun  wearing them as I did creating them.
And thanks for taking the time to be a part of my social media group. I appreciate your friendship. It is so cool to connect with people from all over through the magic of the internet.
 Cheers

Cyn Bicker

Esse Lyle

Lavinia Kaleleiki



Julz Either




Heidi Schuler



Kathy Jensen-Bellamy