Yesterday after work, I took my own advice...I set out to purposefully notice things about my surroundings. As soon as I get home, I take Jackson ( our canine companion) out for a walk, to his great joy. If you've ever walked a dog, you know that they pull and investigate, sniff everything, and pee all along the way. So I investigated, too. (NO, I didn't pee along the way!)
What I noticed: The black spots and deeply-cut divisions of leaves on yellowing wild plants along the ditch... the 7-foot-tall, feathery spires of our striped zebra grass...and the sudden flurry of two beautiful yellow-and-black finches that were startled out of their hiding places by our approach.
The biggest surprise on the walk, was the snakeskin I found on the potting bench. Of course, I jumped and let out a squeak. I made myself look closely. The skin was about 3 feet long, translucent gray with the delicate scale pattern and underbelly ridges plainly visible. The snake had wound itself around some buckets and tools, and around a couple of metal sunflower shapes I was saving for a project...and rubbed its skin off, and was gone.
Now...I wonder where that snake is. It'd better not have sneaked into the downstairs when the workshop garage door was open!!\
My husband was late for supper, which I used as a stolen moment to work at the dining room table on some windchimes for my upcoming show. It sure was hard for me to clip parts together and wait overnight for the glue to dry. ( I'm including some beadwork in the project, and I like to secure the strands with knots and a dab of jewel-glue.) My enthusiasm and excitement in the creative processes makes me impatient sometimes.
Blessings!--Miss Elainie
necklaces
These are the style of jewelry I make: spiritual, contemplative.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Christmas arrives early!
Last evening I went out in the glow of sunset and gathered a huge bouquet from my garden. It has been such a hot and muggy (and buggy!) summer, that I'm afraid I rather neglected the garden beds, and the plants ran amok. The deep purple morning glories had crawled away from the arched entrance and twined around the basil and pineapple sage. The orange trumpet vine had also gone wandering off , inching along the lavender bed. A tall stand of wild goldenrod had sprung up there, too.
The flowers inspire me with their varied colors and shapes. The fiery red-orange of the Mexican sunflowers is a favorite that I like to wear and to use in my home decor as accents. This summer I took some fiery red-orange glass beads in a big, chunky size, some medium-sized amber glass beads and two antique skeleton keys, with me on vacation. I was visiting my lovely and creative sister, and we made matching window-dangles out of the beads and keys. The openings at the handle-end of the keys looked like hearts, so it was a perfect expression of our connection and love, to hang up in a window and think of each other. Mine hangs gleaming in the light oof the double glass doors to our deck, with the deep greens of the woods beyond.
Looking out at nature is always spiritually lifting...one reason we bought the house we live in was the surrounding woods and the greenspace near the house, where we have gardens and flowers. Another reason we love this house is the unique design; it's sort of a cross between Victorian and ranch. The living room is hexagonal, with a turret-style roof, which is why my art studio below is also hexagonal in shape.
What inspires you? Do you find interest in texture and color, in the place where you live or work? Are you aware of the shapes and forms and surfaces in the city? The curves and cul-de-cacs of your subdivision? Take time soon to notice something new about your surroundings. Take photos or if possible, small souvenirs from nature, and keep them handy. Breathe and enjoy. Treasure the little things as well as the wide vistas of your location. Wonder, joy and inspiration are all around us.
Gosh, while I was waxing poetic, I almost forgot to mention why Christmas came early! My lovely and creative friend from the next acreage came over last night and brought me a tub of funky-scissors, a shopping bag of crafty odds and ends and scrapbooking leftovers, and a collection of old kitchen implements for my latest projects. Wow! What fun! Guess who got the huge bouquet of garden flowers I had gathered earlier!
Blessings!---Miss Elainie
The flowers inspire me with their varied colors and shapes. The fiery red-orange of the Mexican sunflowers is a favorite that I like to wear and to use in my home decor as accents. This summer I took some fiery red-orange glass beads in a big, chunky size, some medium-sized amber glass beads and two antique skeleton keys, with me on vacation. I was visiting my lovely and creative sister, and we made matching window-dangles out of the beads and keys. The openings at the handle-end of the keys looked like hearts, so it was a perfect expression of our connection and love, to hang up in a window and think of each other. Mine hangs gleaming in the light oof the double glass doors to our deck, with the deep greens of the woods beyond.
Looking out at nature is always spiritually lifting...one reason we bought the house we live in was the surrounding woods and the greenspace near the house, where we have gardens and flowers. Another reason we love this house is the unique design; it's sort of a cross between Victorian and ranch. The living room is hexagonal, with a turret-style roof, which is why my art studio below is also hexagonal in shape.
What inspires you? Do you find interest in texture and color, in the place where you live or work? Are you aware of the shapes and forms and surfaces in the city? The curves and cul-de-cacs of your subdivision? Take time soon to notice something new about your surroundings. Take photos or if possible, small souvenirs from nature, and keep them handy. Breathe and enjoy. Treasure the little things as well as the wide vistas of your location. Wonder, joy and inspiration are all around us.
Gosh, while I was waxing poetic, I almost forgot to mention why Christmas came early! My lovely and creative friend from the next acreage came over last night and brought me a tub of funky-scissors, a shopping bag of crafty odds and ends and scrapbooking leftovers, and a collection of old kitchen implements for my latest projects. Wow! What fun! Guess who got the huge bouquet of garden flowers I had gathered earlier!
Blessings!---Miss Elainie
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Day One
Today is the very first blog entry for Miss Elainie. The Emporium consists of crafts, vintage items, and the creative processes that make the projects.
I hope you will laugh along, cringe along, and share the weird and wonderful world of creative thinking!
There actually is a Miss Elainie, and she really is an artist and crafter, and her studio really exists. In her basement. There, that ought to ring a bell with many of you. Oh, and the dining-room table gets plenty of use. To the point where, if we decide to have friends over to dinner, we have to un-earth the table and figure out where to stash the clutter for the duration of the entertaining. I bet you know just what I'm talking about!
Right now, the dining-room table holds the makings for my windchimes, but I am itching to get out my sewing machine and begin working on the aprons I have in my mind.
The basement studio is, well, waiting to exhale, so to speak. It is stacked with boxes and piles of stuff that was moved from another storage project.
But under all the stuff is a hexagonal room with tall windows on three sides. The curtains are pink and orange see-through panels lined with sequins at the seams. Stained glass ornaments hang in the light of the windows.
The walls are a pale peach, the shelves white, and every available surface seems to be covered with inspirational artwork, ideas, supplies, books and
projects. There is a field-easel with watercolors, a workspace for beading and sculpey, a rack of acrylic paints; there are lidded tubs of fabric, and stained glass supplies, a matcutter, colored pencils, oil pastels, caligraphy sets. It's an art-supply heaven.
To the outside eye, and I mean my husband mainly, it's a mess, and begs a bulldozer. NOT!! One of these days I am going to retire from teaching art and submerge myself in there.
The first thing I am doing is reading a wonderful little book by Kari Chapin. Little by little, I'm getting the drift of how to set up my art on line and start selling it. This blog is my first step.
Later!---Miss Elainie
I hope you will laugh along, cringe along, and share the weird and wonderful world of creative thinking!
There actually is a Miss Elainie, and she really is an artist and crafter, and her studio really exists. In her basement. There, that ought to ring a bell with many of you. Oh, and the dining-room table gets plenty of use. To the point where, if we decide to have friends over to dinner, we have to un-earth the table and figure out where to stash the clutter for the duration of the entertaining. I bet you know just what I'm talking about!
Right now, the dining-room table holds the makings for my windchimes, but I am itching to get out my sewing machine and begin working on the aprons I have in my mind.
The basement studio is, well, waiting to exhale, so to speak. It is stacked with boxes and piles of stuff that was moved from another storage project.
But under all the stuff is a hexagonal room with tall windows on three sides. The curtains are pink and orange see-through panels lined with sequins at the seams. Stained glass ornaments hang in the light of the windows.
The walls are a pale peach, the shelves white, and every available surface seems to be covered with inspirational artwork, ideas, supplies, books and
projects. There is a field-easel with watercolors, a workspace for beading and sculpey, a rack of acrylic paints; there are lidded tubs of fabric, and stained glass supplies, a matcutter, colored pencils, oil pastels, caligraphy sets. It's an art-supply heaven.
To the outside eye, and I mean my husband mainly, it's a mess, and begs a bulldozer. NOT!! One of these days I am going to retire from teaching art and submerge myself in there.
The first thing I am doing is reading a wonderful little book by Kari Chapin. Little by little, I'm getting the drift of how to set up my art on line and start selling it. This blog is my first step.
Later!---Miss Elainie
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