Life Really Is a Beach!

On Mother's Day the choice was mine. Where should we go and what should we do? I decided I wanted to go for a walk on Grandview Beach to look for sea glass. I wanted to find some nice pieces for a Sea Glass Transfer class I'm taking this month at Art and Soul. The weather was absolutely beautiful and although it's a bit of a hike to get to the beach it's well worth it! I have never been on a beach with such variety of fun stuff to look at and collect. Smooth stones, sea shells, interesting sponges, colorful corals, and of course sea glass.

When you first get to the beach it's a little rough looking. You can't get to the water because of the stumps and growth near the water line. You have to keep walking to get to the good stuff. But really even the stumpy growth was neat to look at, just not to walk on!

We kept walking and got to the part where we could walk down to the water with ease. So the hunt began. Steve and Chris took off at a brisk walk and soon we couldn't see them any more. Meghan and I meandered in a zig zag down the beach. Sometimes at the waters edge and sometimes high up in the soft sand near the sea grass. With our heads down in search of glass. We found beautiful shell linings that look like mica, sheer and gold in color. We found smooth round flat stones great for stacking. And lots of sea glass.

We had the best time just finding things and looking around at the scenery. We saw stone patterns in the sand. This one looked like the wings I draw on my signature! We couldn't figure out if they were man made or if the tide just carried them up and left them in that pattern. I like to think the water left them there.

I was thinking about our day and how Meghan and I took so long to make our way along the beach. Most of the time we were looking straight down, looking at the small details in the sand and focusing on one thing at a time, glass or rocks. We almost walked past a small rock island a short distance off shore without seeing it because we were focused and looking down. I realized a lot of the time that's how I live my life. Always looking at the small details and never taking enough time to look up at the big picture. If we hadn't stopped occasionally to look up and look around, we would have missed some beautiful scenery...the big picture. I really should take more time in my day to reflect on the bigger issues and events in my life. Like most things in life it's all about balance. There is no way to avoid the small details of everyday life. I just need to find a better balance. Take a step back to see the big picture and enjoy the scenery or it will all pass me by.

Sometimes it seems just a blink of an eye between my kids being babies and being teenagers now. The small details fill up each day in a frenzy and before you know it the time is gone. I'm setting a goal for myself to slow it down and enjoy the view. Our day at Grandview was one of those occasions...time with my family, slow it down, soak it up and enjoy the view. Enjoy those conversations in the car and at the dinner table. Because in the next blink they will be gone...adults with families of their own.

As far as a beach walk is concerned, there is something to be said for looking down at what's right in front of you from time to time...there are jewels just waiting to be found.

For more wonderful pictures of Grandview view this Slide file. http://www.slide.com/r/fPqg7am8zz8pNfoYJqmKx385mtSC2u6S?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

All photos on this page were taken by Meghan Garrity.

Beautiful Lampwork

Headed over to d'Art Center, which had moved and with the light rail constuction was a nightmare to find. Anyhoo, on this trip I met a lampwork artist by the name of Cathy Jo Ramsey. Truly one of the loveliest people I have ever met. Her space at d'Art is filled with her beautiful glasswork, thousands of glass rods stored in and on antique furniture pieces and her work station. She worked as a PE teacher for 30 years. Retired now, she is following her artist heart to working with glass. She began as a glass blower and has now moved into lampwork. I have to say she was so much fun to watch and speak with. She demonstrated how she makes her signature piece, a glass oyster on the half shell. Take a look at her work here http://www.glass-imaginings.com/index.html . The way she blends the glass color and curls the edges was truly fascinating. She was very encouraging when I spoke with her about trying lampwork myself. I had to say though I would probably end up with a blob of ugly glass! I guess as with any art it takes a lot of practice to become good at what you do. I told her she would be a great vendor at Art and Soul. I'm sure her items would sell like hotcakes. If you are ever at d'Art Center make sure you stop by to see this wonderful lady and stay awhile to watch and chat.

Not much else was open in the d'Art center on a Sunday afternoon but with all glass fronts you could see the work of other artists. Normally they are there working and sell their art. Apparently, during the week they have lunch events with music. It is definitely a place to visit again, perhaps on a Saturday when more artists are around. Check out their website http://www.d-artcenter.org/splash.html. If you park at MacAuthor mall it's just a two block walk. Directions, hours and parking suggestions are listed on the website.

As usual another art adventure leads to lovely things and lovely people!

An April Ramble

Yesterday I took off to explore. I headed out to Hampton to Queens Way. This shopping/restaurant area consists of small shops all in a row with brick sidewalks and housed in old buildings. Great ambience. I wish there were more stores to peruse because the ones that are there are great! I started off in a cottage store called Shabby Chic (47 E Queens Way). Wonderful paint flaked windows, sea glass, and all other sorts of old stuff. They have these wonderful mermaids cut from old wood then embellished with sea glass and sea shells. One of those would look so nice in my new bathroom!

At the back of the store you walk through an open area and up some stairs and find yourself in another store, Modernlux. Great retro stuff! Loved the kitschy zippered pouches and shopping bags. A bonus for the green me, they are made from 90% reclaimed materials. If you are lookinig for something mid-century this store is the place to hit. You can become a fan/friend on their Facebook page, Modernlux Hampton.

My next stop was Something Different (19 E Queens Way). Great combination of architectural elements, signs, and garden items interspersed with antiques. I saw several architectural elements I would have loved to hang in my studio. I'll be back for another visit once I get my studio reorganized and figure out what to do with my walls that aren't being used for storage!

Just walking through this area on a beautiful Spring day was a joy. I cut through to W. Queens Way, passing by one of the best tea rooms in the area, The Grey Goose. The menu offers a lot of variety. For those of you not vegetarian, this is one of the places you can get a bowl of Brunswick Stew and Virginia Ham biscuits...two VA treats. Not only great food, but they offer music and dinner theater events which they have dubbed Dinnertainment. One of my favorite director/actors Roxanne Whitmore Kohlman performs at the Grey Goose. By eating here you would also support 3/50 Projects "Eat down the street" initative! (More on this later.)

As I looped back around to my car I meandered through the Blue Skies Gallery. This art gallery contains work from many local artists all for sale. A couple of my favorite picks: The pottery by David Fletcher which is fired in an actual open flame fire instead of a kiln. The markings on the pieces are gorgeous. The assemblage art by Susan Bastinelli. I'm usually not an assemblage fan, due to the fact it often frightens me in a Sid Phillips tortured toys sort of way. However, the piece she has at the Blue Sky Galleries is great. Normal everyday objects and a clock casing used to create a quirky and fun face with a tuft of broom hair. And of course all of the jewelry! I love art jewelry and have gotten to the point where that's about all I wear anymore. I could have dropped big dollars on jewelry here but I was really trying to be good!

Speaking of spending money, if you aren't aware of the 3/50 project click on the link to the right on my blog and find out more. In a nutshell it's about spending your money locally to save the small privately owned business in your community. You pick three and spend a total of $50 dollars each month. Something you might not know is that for every $100 dollars spent at locally owned independent stores $68 stays in the community through taxes, wages and other expenditures. If you spend it at a national chain only $43 stays here. They have created another promotion on their site called "Eat down the street." It's the same kind of concept only it involves eating once a week at one of the local, privately owned restaurants instead of a big chain restaurants. One of my favorite locally owned restaurants is Papou George's. The food is great and the atmosphere is fun. If you go get the homemade potato chips! So, if you are planning to spend the day shopping and maybe stop for a bite to eat...support our local businesses!

Spring is Here!

Spring has arrived. She came to my studio just this week. Yes, I know Spring started on March 20th. But her representative, also named Spring, found me at Tuesday Morning and came home with me. She looks great with one of my background pieces behind her, doesn't she? She now resides on my desk and reminds me of all things spring-ish.

This is my favorite season. I love the weather and the feeling of new beginnings. It's like everything is in a refresh mode. Trees are greening, flowers are blooming, and everyone is sprucing up their homes. The only thing I don't like is the pollen. It's on everything, in my eyes and making my sinuses go crazy. It rises from the streets in plums as cars drive by.

I'm excited to say I have completed a piece for a friend who just moved into a new place. I was inspired by an article in Cloth, Paper, Scissors by Jenn Mason (she is also a CPS editor). So I went to work yesterday and completed it today. I'm happy to have my hands in the paint again. It's been a long dry spell with little creativity except for the theater sort. I was one of the chairwomen for the Dinner Theater production held by the Junior Women's Club of Hilton Village. So I got to reconnect with my theater background which was a lot of fun. But I really found I was missing my art and working in my studio to create. I have been so busy with all the other things in my life and have made little time for my art. But it's Spring Break and I found the time! Yay!

I was so busy I missed an issue of CPS! I can't believe it, I never do that! Also, in this current issue of CPS is a reader challenge called "Fly Your Creative Flag". I will definitely be participating in that challenge!

I'm also in the count down stage for Art and Soul which is May 20-24. I haven't even started making trades. I have some ideas and may have to scale back some in order to get them done. The theme this year is Wonderland so the trades will be fun I'm sure. I'm not taking as many classes, I wish I could take more. But the ones I'm taking sound so good.

I hope this re-birth of art in my life stays around for longer than just Spring!

There is art in everything...

I love glass ornaments. The old fashion, molded, hand painted kind. For awhile they were hard to find but now I see them everywhere. One of our Christmas traditions is to purchase a glass ornament that represents something about each person's life for that year. I still have all of mine from my childhood. My favorite is the lady with the violin. I got that one when I was 4 or 5 and was learning to play the violin. There is something about the shine, the delicacy of the glass, the sound they make when they brush against the needles of the tree, that just means Christmas like nothing else.

Last week I went through my mom's Chrismas decorations that had been left up in the attic. Something I wasn't ready to do, until this year. She has been physically gone for 17 years, but she lives on every day in my heart. I miss her so, especially at Christmas, which was her favorite holiday. Going through those boxes was more than I could handle, until this year. For some reason I felt ready this time...and what treasures I found! Lovely old glass ball ornaments and lots of felt! My mom was the queen of felt! She made her own tree skirt out of felt. She decorated the decoys all over our house with felt hats and scarves, they looked as if they belonged on a Charles Dickens pond! Our advent calendar...made out of felt of course. I had forgotten about the felt. So many memories. It also made me think about where I get my need to create, my ability to look at something and and see many uses for it, my eye for design...I definitely owe her my gratitude for showing me how to think outside of the box, that there is art in everything and that everything we do with a loving heart is art. She was never published, never had an art show with her name on it...but she was an artist in so many ways. She decorated our lives with drawings on lunch bags, dapper felt hats on geese, and daily laughter. I think I will include some felt in my next mixed media piece and my swan decoy is currently wearing her felt hat and scarf...it's good to carry on traditions!

It'a been too long

I'm actually embarrassed by the amount of time that has passed since my last post. Everyday life has taken over and there is little time for the creative pursuits. I continue to work on my soul journal when I have snipets of time, but I haven't worked on my else lately. A couple of weeks ago I did get up early on a Saturday and got a piece done an framed. That is the most I have accomplished. Now that soccer is done for the season I may be able to have some time to do some art!

Since I haven't had much time to go anywhere to experience any new art, I have been depending on the internet for my art fixes! This site it awesome, not only for drawing but for the sketches done by other artists. I really like one artist Julie in the Wild. She does some spectaclar drawings especially of birds. The site is really nice because you see how the artist drew the pictures from start to finish. For someone like me who doesn't have a lot of experience with drawing it's like a lesson in every piece! Check it out at http://sketch.odopod.com/.

This one is a lot of fun! It makes symmetrical lines for the ones you draw. Becareful it can be addictive! http://www.myoats.com. Check out some of the art work done by other people, it's truly incredible.

I was able to enroll in two classes this year at Art and Soul and I'm really looking forward to it! Hope to see some of you there!

The Exuburant Chaos of Art Journaling

Art and Soul has been awesome again this year. My classes have been wonderful. I'll have to write whole other post just to talk about them all! I just have to talk about the journal gathering hosted by the wonderful Diana Trout in this post.

Diana sent an email out several weeks before the retreat and invited anyone who journals to meet her to talk and share ideas about art journals. Maria the owner of collage, another wonderful person, offered the Make and Take space for meeting. I immediately wrote back and said I would be there. Now, I have to say this was not without trepidation. This would mean taking my art journal with me and showing it to other people! Scary!

So I sat down at a table of 12 strangers, with the exception of Takeabreak :), and began to talk and share ideas. Diana demonstrated a bubble blowing technique using ink and bubble liquid. Everyone got to share (except for the straws ;) and try the technique. We shared journals and looked for ideas within each others pages. Everyone was very supportive and complementary of my journal. But I have to say I was blown away by everyones journals! Diana even passed hers around for us to see. Wow, here were the original pages I had only seen pictured in publications! Very exciting!

We shared sources for supplies, ideas for how to journal with time constraints, we each journaled a page using a prompt we picked out of a basket, and talked about making space in our homes for a studio. Diana gave us some quotes to use with our journals. People who were in classes stopped by to visit and share. A gentleman shared with us a site his fiance, Sarah Whitmore, has called Soul Journaling. At one point someone asked if anyone had trades and everyone started pulling out trades and started swapping. It was loud, chaotic and so much fun! It reminded me of a Thanksgiving dinner with family all around the table passing stuff back and forth, everyone talking and having a good time.

Before I knew it everyone was packing up to leave. The table of 12 strangers had become a table of 12 new friends and I hated for the evening to end. I felt energized and full of new ideas for journaling. Once again I had taken a chance to step to the edge of my comfort zone with positive results. I hope that I will be able to stay in touch with these new friends because the connections with other artists are so important to me.

I saw Diana at Vendor Night and thanked her again for a wonderful evening. I asked her to please do another gathering next year! So just 360 some days to go until the next Art and Soul!