workshop

Yesterday I pulled a letter from my mailbox from Penland School of Crafts saying that I received a full work-study scholarship to attend a workshop this summer.  I applied to take a week long sculptural felting class with Stephanie Metz, which I am REALLY excited about.  Here is some of her work:

In exchange for tuition, housing and meals I have to work a certain amount of hours in the kitchen, dorms, etc.  I hope they have me making desserts or vacuuming.  Making desserts is an obvious one (you get to eat while you're making), but vacuuming, I know it's a little weird.  I am slightly OCD when it comes to cleaning and have had to loosen up now that I live with 3 other people.  When I lived in my own place, I had an obsession with vacuuming every night, otherwise I couldn't sleep.  Probably shouldn't have told you (whoever YOU are) that.  

today's finds

Ok, so I have a problem... If I see a sign for an estate sale, well I go!  So today I found one on my way to feed the Bonser's cats, Norman and June Bug.  (They're real cute).  And here is what I found:

1.  Vintage Rival crock-pot in box, $10.  Can't wait for Dustyn to make chili in this.

2.  Vegetable peeler, $0. 50.  Dustyn is always complaining about the one we have; but hey, at least he cooks.

3.  Baseball, $0. 50.  It's not new, but it looks better than the one we currently play with.

4.  Vintage Alladinware two-tier lazy susan in box, $2.  I've always wanted one of these for our spices because it reminds me of the one I had growing up, and plus it's a beautiful avocado green color.  The box is also pretty fantastic.  

upgrade

I had a nice surprise when I got home from school today...  my boyfriend Dustyn made a animated header for my blog!  I LOVE it.

ok, so i'm not a graphic designer

But I tried...  Here is my attempt at a show card for my upcoming exhibition:

I was fairly pleased with the card design and when I showed my professor Wendy, she also seemed pleased... but quickly paused, thought and then said "looks like a Crate & Barrel advertisement for sheets or something," my studio mate Justin then confirmed, "No, more like CB2." :( 

Haha, guess you can't please everyone!!  Oh well, I'm excited to get the cards in the mail (hopefully tomorrow).

amplification

Amplification is the name of our new assignment which was given to us by our resident artist BA Harrington (her blog here).  We have a few weeks for this assignment but seeing as I have an exhibition in 2 weeks, I have already began construction.  In response to my latest piece, Shingle Sofa (scroll down if you don't know what I'm talking about) I have decided to 'amplify' this concept of outdoor living space and make a few more pieces that would seemingly exist with this sofa.  I wanted to give the sofa a friend, so I have build a matching chair and sheathed it in shingles... almost finished!  Here it is thus far...  

Unfortunately I did not scout out a matching chair in the ally when I found the sofa, so I have had to construct this chair from scratch, which is actually a good thing considering the sofa was built like crap.  (Did I mention that there was a knot in the back support on the sofa which had obviously snapped).  While building this chair I realized that I was framing it out similar to housing construction (or at least what I understand as framing), which got me thinking about the other pieces that will live with this chair and sofa set.  

I am thinking about tables and lamps that will have an exoskeleton of sorts that frame out the already existing item of furniture (which I will build).  I do kind of worry about it becoming to kitschy and to similar to my studio mate, Adam's work (his blog here).  After talking with Adam a bit, I think that this can be avoided by the level of finish that is put into the work, for example not leaving textured band saw marks as he does...  We'll see.

good tip

I learned something tonight:  If you want to hold somebody's baby, do not ask "Can I try to hold the baby?"  That doesn't sit well with the parents.  By saying 'try', I admitted that I might possibly fail.  (Babies scare me).  After a bit of persuasion I held the baby.  Hmm, lets see if Matt will send the photo of proof...

Lara & Matt, I apologize.  I will never TRY to hold Everette again, I WILL do it!!!

And here it is:

Hahaha, I look so awkward.

new toys

Last week while I was completing the fabric portion of a plaster chair (go to earliest blog post if you don't know what I'm talking about), my sewing machine completely pooped out!  Damn that cute dress that I altered the night before.  Well, maybe I should blame it on the substandard sewing machine that I bought 6 years ago due to a lack of friends at my college and in the dorms... (HEY, it was only my first year and I went out of state!)  Though I only had an eensy-weensy bit left to sew, I couldn't do it by hand because the plaster would most certainly find its way through my shoddy stitching and seep out onto the floor.  So I went to my friend Kristin's and used her machine.  IT WAS AMAZING.  The cheap table cloth material slid through the machine like a butter... uhh, did I mention that she has a beautiful, classic 1950's Singer...?  It looks something like this:

As much as a loved using Kristin's quality vintage machine, I decided to order a new machine; a Brother CS6000i.  I didn't even know that sewing machines could be computerized.  My life has officially changed.  The machine does 60 stitches at the press of a button and to be honest, I don't even know what I would use half of the stitches for, but I LOVE them.  While reading the manual I was reminded of a post that my friend Brittany put on her blog: blogdogshit about her new Brother sewing machine, referring to the instruction manual where a woman is sewing in her house slippers.

recent finds

Thrift shops and estate sales: here are some recent finds.

1. A rich, old lady's dress from an estate sale in Point Loma, $10.  Remove 70's collar, shorten skirt, cut puffy sleeves... check!  

2. Never been worn 1985 Swatch Watch, $3

3. Tupperware jello mold, $0.15

4. Strawberries & Cream Jar, $4

5. Already owned, Strawberries & Cream pans... Just really excited to add a new friend to the bunch!

I also don't like to waste things, so I put the dress collar to good use...

Darnel is so handsome.

napkin drawings

Last Wednesday, over 2 pitchers of margaritas, Wendy passed out napkins and fancy new Sharpie's and told us to draw.  Being at the end of the table and probably on my second glass, I did not hear the instructions so clearly... Apparently we were supposed to sketch out ideas for the next few pieces we plan on making; I heard, "draw the first thing that you think of," so I drew a cat riding a bicycle, some palm trees, a sun that got crossed out, a new sun, and an airplane that reads "kitty express." 

Wendy then instructed us to pass the napkin to the person on our left, Poor Adam,  he got my napkin.  I in turn received Jon Bonser's napkin (his blog here).  Part of his napkin below.  There were 2 more sketches on the napkin but this was the only portion that survived the violent expulsion of my boyfriends nose.

She then said that we have to make a piece based off of the napkin sketch, and to do so in a week.  So I chose the dancin' shoe.  In honor of Jon's love of kinetic objects, I am constructing a mechanism that will cause a shoe to tap.  This is certainly something that I am not familiar with, I haven't thought about kinetics since, ummm, high school.  So I devoted Sunday morning to research how in the world I was going to create such a thing.  It's hard to start researching when you don't even have the proper vocabulary of what you are trying to research!  After an hour or two, I finally discovered the words rotational to linear motion, then piston, cam, reciprocal motion, motion converter, and voila, I was making headway.  I eventually found a wonderful animation that made sense to me.  So I took off from there and am about 65% done with the piece, (would probably be further along if I didn't constantly make dumb mistakes), but oh well, ya learn!