Roadtrip 2011 - ArtPrize

ArtPrize - what an incredible experience!!!

It's over for 2011, but I can't wait for next year - ArtPrize is about art obviously, but it's also an experiment designed to engage every aspect of society in participating in art - as an artist, as a viewer, as a critic, as a participant.

Grand Rapids, Michigan is the location for venues as diverse as the Grand Rapids Art Museum to a beauty salon, a great location for this painting of Barbie

Some pieces require viewer participation, like this one that can be viewed as is or through hanging prisms:

This one is literally a puzzle:

Here, you are building the exhibit:

Some artists have a statement to share, whether regarding the environment, such as this piece constructed of discarded junk:

The whale leaping from a sea of plastic bottles was quite impressive!


As, was this field of sunflowers, which represents a mere 4.5 seconds of plastic water bottles usage in the US:

These gigantic birds, formed of tires picked up off the highway, were visually stunning - both in their forms and material.

Many artists chose to work with unusual materials - how about Post-it notes?

Or drywall?

Or Lego's?

Some pieces just make you smile!

Some make you think or wonder:

The most unique part of ArtPrize is the method of choosing the winners - we, the public, decide.

And the top prize is $250, 000!!!

We spent two full days and while we saw close to 1,000 pieces, we missed nearly 600. We saw work that made us think, made us smile, made us laugh out loud - and as a result we definitely plan on attending next year. I hope you do too!

Indian Summer on Mackinac

I would have loved to have spent most every afternoon for the last week or so just lounging in the sun - we've been having some spectacular weather lately!

There's just been so much to see and enjoy - seeds are flying:

and a few butterflies are still flitting about:


The geese flocks definitely like to stop and take a break here as the head south:

We've had some fog, but that's good too:

It just makes the bright colors even more outstanding:

A few road apples are just to be expected:

(Sorry!!!!! Bad Mackinac humor)

The woods are at near peak color:

And the views seem to go one forever:

The seasonal employees are heading off, to winter pastures:

It's fall on Mackinac!

Round the Bend - Part 2

Just a quick update: I finished the bracelet!

Roadtrip 2011 - Bread and Butter Farm

Our road trip agenda included some family visits and that meant going to the farm - Bread and Butter Farm.

I was quite jealous of the abundant greens, due to my ongoing war with the rabbits:

The cows are quite content out in the pasture:

and cows mean milk:


But the farm store has much more than milk:

Fresh picked vegetables:

and BREAD!

Eggs, and pastured raised meat, and did I mention the BREAD!!!!



It's probably good we don't live too close, I'd weigh a bazillion pounds due to my love affair with the bread!

We had a great visit, enjoyed incredibly fresh delicious food and hope it won't be too long before we can visit again.

Roadtrip 2011 - Shelburne Museum

We spent a couple weeks on the road and saw some amazing places - but we didn't carry quite this much luggage!!!

We've wanted to visit the Shelburne Museum, in Vermont for a very long time and it was quite worth the wait.

The Shelburne is renowned for its collection of American folk art and quilts. The Museum is also home to holdings of decorative arts, design, decoys, and carriages. The paintings collection includes French Impressionists as well as over 400 18th - 20th century American works.

There was one very special exhibit that just blew us away: The Ticonderoga.

She's the last walking beam side-wheel passenger steamer in existence and a National Historic landmark. Built in Shelburne in 1906, it operated as a day boat on Lake Champlain serving ports along the New York and Vermont shores until 1953. In 1955, she was moved two miles overland from the lake to the museum.

Nearly the entire ship is open to explore and it's like stepping back to the 1920's.

The purser's office:

The dining room:

and the kitchen:


The main stairway:

A guest stateroom:

and the crews:

I can so visualize this steamer "in the day", full of ladies and gentlemen with the means to travel, the clothes, the food, the music - I truly felt transported in time.

Plan to spend a least a full day at the Shelburne, here's just a handful of what you'll see and experience.

Around the Bend

"Around the Bend" is my submission for the September Art Bead Scene monthly challenge.

I love this months inspiration piece, a quilt entitled "Housetop", created by Lillie Mae Pettway, a Gee's Bend quilter.

Gee’s Bend is a small rural community nestled into a curve in the Alabama River southwest of Selma, Alabama. Founded in antebellum times, it was the site of cotton plantations, primarily the lands of Joseph Gee and his relative Mark Pettway, who bought the Gee estate in 1850.

After the Civil War, the freed slaves took the name Pettway, became tenant farmers for the Pettway family, and founded an all-black community nearly isolated from the surrounding world. During the Great Depression, the federal government stepped in to purchase land and homes for the community, bringing strange renown — as an "Alabama Africa" — to this sleepy hamlet.

The town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present. In 2002, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in partnership with the nonprofit Tinwood Alliance, of Atlanta, presented an exhibition of seventy quilt masterpieces from the Bend. The exhibition, entitled "The Quilts of Gee’s Bend," is accompanied by two companion books, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, and the larger Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts, both published by Tinwood Media, as well as a documentary video on the Gee’s Bend quilters and a double-CD of Gee’s Bend gospel music from 1941 and 2002.

For my piece, I drafted several rectangles and squares using the colors and proportions from the quilt.

I formed the "banners" using square stitch and size 11/0 seed beads. The spacers are formed of peyote stitch bands and it's all strung together on a freeform base.

I'm especially pleased with my clasp, a art bead created by Etsy artist, blueseraphim. It's design mimics the shape of a log cabin quilt block and in addition, red is the color of the center block of a traditional log cabin block.

I'm currently working on a bracelet to accompany this necklace and have an idea for an additional necklace utilizing the "banners" in a completely different way - more to come!

Medieval Twist

"Medieval Twist" was intended to be my submission for the July Art Bead Scene monthly challenge - obviously, I'm a bit late!

The inspiration piece was this beautiful painting, Morning in the Garden at Vaucresson, by Edouard Vuillard.

I choose to emphasize the cool blue/grey and the brilliant chartreuse present in the painting.

The pendent bead is from my stash and pulls in the blue sky just barely visible amongst the garden abundance.

I tried a new technique - twisted tubular herringbone - and it was a great choice, the tube is completely self supporting and quite strong.

The bangle bracelet is form I've not tried before, not my favorite style to wear personally, but works nicely as a part of this pair.

Finally finished - yeah!!!