Sunday, February 27, 2011

This is the comedic commerical for the Zine and Craft fair

In college as an undergrad.
I actaully took a class in puppet making. I feel in love with it. I used to make puppets for class and when my room mate and I had nothing better to do in college we put on puppet shows for fun and made videos.This video is my "commercial" to promote the upcoming Craft and Zine fair at the Flying Squirrel. Our fliers show this scene and the Rochester city skyline as depicted by artist Dan Jicirtino. I brought this image "to life" via puppetry.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Zine and Craft Flier

Valentines day /Hallmark Holiday

 I have mixed feeling about this day.Sometimes I hate it, I have high hopes and big let downs for the day. I remember all these years in high school when everyone got a flower and balloons except me. Friends would buy me a Carnation and it would be delivered in homeroom it was sweet but not the same.... Everyone wants to feel loved and we should everyday not just the one day. Often I think the holiday was invented by Hallmark to sell cards during a time of year when it would otherwise be slow.

Friday, February 11, 2011

My Art filled weekend- waht I did Superbowl weekend

Their are times in my life that life is really good and times that I find my life very frustrating. I found myself last weekend to be very inspired on Sunday when I drove home from The Hearts and Crafts show at Java's on Gibbs Street. I had just meet some very inspiring artists making awesome creations. I meet three girls taking photos who asked me to jump in and have one taken. The photos were inspired by the paper mustaches on sticks that artists from littlegreenbird were handing out for free. They were really fun and people were all walking around with them. The more people walked around with them the more other people wanted to know from where they were coming.  It was a great idea.

I spoke with several artist at that event. I meet the owners and creators of Evenandoddcreative. They make cuff bracelets and messenger style bags from old sheets of sign vinyl and  bike inner tubes. I talked with them for awhile about the unique materials they use and the complications of those materials...like trying to sew though bike inner tubes and sign vinyl.

I spoke with Lauren Premo who makes enchanting hand thrown mugs and beaded jewelry. She told me a little bit about the resist method she uses when glazing her pieces.She also told about the joy of her new married life.Congrats! Lauren!

I also spoke with fellow RNEST artists" Fawn Brokaw of FawnRayDesigns (wonderful mixed media using natural objects), Kira Sinclair the maker of "Nubbins", and other textile creations and BuenHelena who makes art and finds inspiration in vintage items.

Spoke with many many other talented artists and could not possibly list them all in detail within the limited window of time I have to dedicate to this blog entry. Besides, I am going through my weekend backwards here and this is only Sunday afternoon but a shout out goes to Robert Frank, Alexander BOG, Amy Rau, and Sarah Ortiz.

On Saturday night I performed in a Hafla (belly dance party) put on by the student performance troupe "Rashas Rhinestones" along with other dance sisters at Goddess Hour.



This is me as part of the newly named "Tribal Goddess Collective." We  performed to the song "Minnie the Moocher"

All the performers did a great job!
Just before the meeting literally just before (I had to go in costume). I went to the second meeting for the Warehouse co-op, which is a group of artists trying to create a  artist collective space.

Before that I raced home form work walked my dog, scarfed down some food, and got all gussied up for the performance.

Before that I was working my usual Saturday shift at the art gallery and had a real blast with the kids that day. They had me laughing as we all drew, toured the gallery and told each other stories...We were creating drawings of art galleries and I decided to make your drawing a gallery on art all dedicated to mustaches.

On Friday I came home from  after school care work heated up that frozen food I made the week before in my Crockpot ate that up then Ed and  I went to Anderson Alley art studios near Village Gate. We talked with many talented artists there too. The "Thaw" Rochester theme was in effect. The artist there had created ice sculptures ice art outside their studios in the hallway space the most impressive ice sculpture I saw was outside of Nosferatu art studio.It was large blocks of ice with objects inside them with lighting and their was dry ice underneath to create fog.

 
I  talked with, old friend,  glass and ceramic artist Nancy Valle about her process and how her jewelry items are like "mini sculpture" to her.  I picked out an item from her dollar bin to make a necklace. I also talke to many other artists and found them all talented and intriguing.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

I have a guest spot on the "Faerie Dust Dreams" blog

 This will tell you about Artist trading cards and give you some ideas it will also allow you a chance to win two of mine....

http://faeriedustdreams-michelle.blogspot.com/2011/02/tuesday-tutorial-artist-trading-cards.html

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Chiense New Year

 I am not Chinese and a number of my students do not celebrate Chinese New Year.  I think it is important to discuss holidays that go under recognized in the united states. I also find many of the holidays that we normally do celebrate to be so far removed from were they originally came from that most people do not know where they originate from or why we celebrate them.I like to know these things.I enjoy learning about holidays. So I planned some activities for last week that revolved around Chinese New Year.This was for my before and after school program so we kept it short and sweet.

We made Chinese lanterns one day very similar to the ones we made for Halloween but all red now instead of orange.

We traced the template I used to make artist trading card sleeves to make lucky money envelopes and then we stamped them with rubber stamps on the outside.

I had done Chinese new years activities with me preschool students years before and  I remember how much they had loved this template on the crayola page for making their own parade puppet dragons.

The culminating event was a dragon parade. I still had the one I had made from years before. So I fixed him up a little I gave him some repairs (he is made out of paper after all) and I gave he face a fresh coat of paint. I reattached the body to the paper bag head and then spread him out on the cafe tables in the morning for the kids to add their own decoration to. We cut foam sheets into scales and added gold glitter glue to give it some sparkle. we added more strings to his side to "hide" the kids.We paraded around the school hallways in the morning wishing everyone a  "Happy Chinese New year!"