Coming Soon...

To an Etsy shop near you. Stay tuned for the grand opening.

THE MOSAIC

Located in the main hall outside the gym, beside the cafeteria, adjacent to the restrooms and sharing a wall with the door to the faculty lunch room.....TA-DA.....

The Maintenance Dept. is building a nice oak frame for it. This is only the temporary frame. Every kid in the school put in a few of the pieces with my help; otherwise, it was just me and my trowel.

Happy Easter

Remember the "Festivus" episode of Seinfeld? What were two of the main Festivus events? Feats of Strength and The Airing of Grievances. ..right?

Sometime around New Year's, my darling Courtney aired her grievances. She felt that she had been cheated out of certain childhood rites of passage. Namely:

1. She had never dyed real Easter Eggs

2. She has never carved her own jack-o-lantern

3. She has never made a real gingerbread house with real gingerbread not graham crackers

Let me defend myself. On the eggs - too messy and who wants to eat egg salad for a week? On the jack-o-lantern..are you kidding? A knife? If my kid gets a blister from a new pair of shoes I convince myself she has MRSA and go to the emergency room, so a knife probably isn't going to happen. I already have plenty to worry about. On the gingerbread - everybody uses graham crackers these days, Court, join us here in the 21st century. You'll like it.

As you can see from the photos, Courtney got her wish. Three dozen eggs and twelve colors of dye.

Come over for lunch tomorrow. Stop by the store and grab a loaf of bread on the way, will ya?

IQF Chicago

It's springtime in the LC - you can tell from the roar of the Harlies and abundace of buzzards in the Salt Creek bottoms - which means I'm getting ready for my trip to the quilt show in Chicago. If you love fabric arts and crafts, the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center is the THE place to be April 17, 18, 19. I will be in CPS Open Studios and teaching at class at
Make It U on Saturday and Sunday. Some of my class samples are pictured above. We'll be making an art doll, but with a special twist in the class.

From One Thing to the Next

I took the day off Friday to help my mom get everything set up for the wedding and reception. That took the best part of the day, then I dashed home to make an emergency painting for a blank wall at the venue. Rehearsal and dinner - don't know exactly how it happened, but the waiter and I collided as he was serving the salad and I wound up with a lap full of sherry vinaigrette. I was madly hoping we did not encounter any stray dogs on the 2-block walk back to the truck.

Saturday - wedding. So far, so good with the marriage. I'll let you know. Above, the bridesmaids - my two girls and my four nieces. Not an ugly one in the bunch. So the bride and groom went on their way and we were left to pick up the pieces and cram them into every car, truck and bike we could find. There are still some candles in the back seat of my car.

Sunday - HEADACHE and soooo tired!!

Monday - all day set up for the annual corp-wide art show - pics later in the week - I promise! So much incredible work. 5 mile workout and back to meet and greet students and parents at the show.

Spring Break next week. Staying home. I'm glad.

Weekly World News

Okay, not really "world", but Lawrence County, Indiana. Did you hear about the tornados? Three of my students lost their entire homes - gone, gone, gone! Here is a link to video where two more of my students tell about being caught outside feeding cattle when the tornado hit. http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/weather/Possible_tornado_strikes_Fayetteville_20090308

It was confirmed on Monday that 2 tornados hit the LC. Thank the Good Lord there were no injuries or deaths.

Saturday, my little sister is getting married. She is 19 years younger than me. Same parents and everything, just one of those things. There is another sister between us, two years younger than me. I have had a devil of a time finding something to wear. Something I like, that is. I may have found a decent - as in, I don't throw up in my mouth when I look in the mirror - dress. This is my normal pattern:

1. Big Event coming up
2. I need to look nice. I want to look nice.
3. I browse catalogs, stores, magazines and the internet months and weeks in advance
4. I do not buy anything
5. The last minute arrives
6. I settle for something "okay" that I DO NOT love
7. I am crabby the day of the event because I KNOW I could look better
8. I tell myself it doesn't really matter and get on with the next thing in my life
9. Repeat at next Big Event

Anyway, big corp wide art show next week, which means over 100 pieces of artwork I need to mount, tag and transport to the venue. We hang the show Monday and it opens Monday at 6:00pm. I really don't have time for both things, but I can't get out of either.

Vote Now

Which one should I wear to my sister's wedding? Daytime wedding, with a black dress, not too dressy. I am not officially in the wedding. The colors are red, turquoise, black and white.

Time Out for Tie Dye

One of my lovely talented art teaching colleagues hosted a shibori workshop for us after school Monday. Here are the fabrics I made.

Third Grade Art

We're studying warm colors this week. They're my favorites. Last week was the scourge of the cool colors - blue bores me, purple scares me and green? That's for beans. I will use certain flavors of redviolet and yellowgreen. I'm not rigid.

So the point was to identify and use only warm colors in a drawing. Draw with heavy crayon marks first, then paint with watercolor. The crayon is a resist. You can paint right over it and the line emerges. We use the good German watercolors, none of those Prang 8 pan oval sets for my students.

After mine was dry, later in the day, I added some deeper watercolor hues, waited for that to dry and then added the black marker lines. the 12" x 18" size is something I never use in real life. It's for school only.

What's the difference?

What's the difference between good and great?

Fire, passion and soul.

But what about talent? Isn't that important?

The happiest people are the ones with a passion for their talent.

The people who irritate me the most are the ones with loads of talent and no passion.

Color!

These are a couple of pages from that brown paper sack book I showed you a while back. I really like these colors together. Springtime!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Back to normal?

It was sunny and fifty-three degrees here today, so most of the Big Snow & Ice from 2 weeks ago is finally gone. Tomorrow will be the first Monday we have gone to school on time since January 12. Our school corp has a 2-hr delayed start on extremely cold or slightly slick mornings so we can avoid as many outright cancellations as possible. We have not a full 5-day 8 to 3 everyday week since the week of December 8 -12, with bad weather and Christmas break in there. We have had 7 snow days and I hope no more. We have to make them up and I really don't want to be in school in June!

Both Destiny and Jessica are out of the hospital and Destiny is back in school. Jessica will start back sometime this week. It is such a relief to everybody to see them back home.

Art? Do I still do that? yes - here and there. I am nearing completion of my first book of this year's challenge and finding myself asking a lot of questions about what I REALLY think a livre d'artist should be. I talk to myself about the best way to put text into a book ALL THE TIME and I keep coming back to this idea:

What is the benefit of the process? I am trying to get rid of the extraneous, fluffy, show-offy bits and get right to the heart of what the words SAY, not how they are put onto the pages. The way I get the words on the page should only support the message...? What about the overall aesthetic of the piece? See what I mean? never ending

I heart a finished project!

This is not a "real" project. It's a little Valentine made from scraps of paper fabric. The scraps are from a real project. The one I had to start FOUR times before it would cooperate. I don't like to think that my work has a mind and a will of its own, but it seems that sometimes things won't be done until they are good and ready.

JR made these hearts when he left for work this morning. It wasn't a project. It was an accident.

True Colors, OPB and Band Aids

All this, everything that I do and think about doing and am not doing right now because I am writing this, really started in 2002. It started then, but it exploded in 2003 when I had that big fat Lilly grant to study book arts. In early fall of that year, I bought a book called True Colors. Are you familiar with it? It was and remains the definitive book on mixed media art journaling. True Colors introduced me to the work of Teesha Moore, Lynne Perella, Michelle Ward and a small army of other artists. I have continued to follow these ladies over the last 5 years by reading their blogs (OPB - Other People's Blogs)

I was reading Teesha's blog the other day and saw these cool little journals:

http://teeshascircus.blogspot.com/2009/01/having-fun.html

Teesha is the Queen of art journaling. I cannot art journal AT ALL. I try. I determine to do it. I might do a few pages, but then I get caught up in that dreaded J word - JOURNAL - private thoughts and prying eyes - and then I quit. The

little journals on Teesha's blog were too tempting. I made one:

I used an assortment of old boxes, machine stitched together for the cover and a brown paper sack for the pages. I gessoed them before binding to speed up the process. I bound the journal with a simple pamphlet stitch. I started by painting the pages with a coat of acrylic.

It only has 16 pages and it's made out of trash. No pressure. I WILL fill this book.

Maybe.

While I was making the book, I sliced my left index finger with my xacto. My finger slid off the ruler while I was cutting down the pages. I bled on my book.

Ick.

Happy New Year - a little late

This is my first official blog post of 2009. The first bit of this year has been a bit rocky and I am having a hard time shaking off the gloom. I can't seem to get in any kind of art-making groove. I wonder if I am avoiding being still and quiet.

Perhaps.

My thoughts are in a continual whirl. I cannot settle down. I have started the same stinkin' project three times. It's so bad, I did the unthinkable. I asked my husband for advice. He said not to force anything. Just to let it come naturally.

Gotta get the girls from basketball and then take Courtney to run indoor track at IU. I will finish this nailbiter when I get home.

It's now 9:53 - Home from track club. That's the best hunnerd bucks I've spent in a while. Court gets to run on the University's indoor track, get some good preseason coaching and knock off the rust before outdoor season starts in April AND I can walk or jog for an hour and a half four times a week. Pretty good when it's four whole degrees outside without wind chill. It's about 15 below with the wind right now. Hate it.

That's the little nugget at the heart of my art troubles. Whenever I think a negative thought like:
I hate the cold
or
I'm too tired
or
(when assessing my artwork) That looks awful
I get completely hung up on all the people we've lost in the last few months and I think that I'm lucky to even feel the cold or be around to chase my kids to and from all kinds of sports or to make art and then I feel completely guilty
and stuck.

sigh

Goodbye 2008

I would love to end this year with a happy, forward-looking post or a review of all the good things that happened for the Crane family - we have been greatly blessed with health and success - but I can't. Above is my last 6" quilt of the year. The central image is a photo of a drawing I did in my sketchbook Monday while I was waiting to pick up the girls from basketball.

They didn't have a regular practice Monday; they had a team meeting. With counselors.

Saturday night, two of their teammates, Jessica and Destiny, were involved in a car accident. Both girls are in the hospital in critical condition with extremely serious injuries. This accident took the lives of Destiny's sister Alex and the driver, Cameron. My girls know all four of these kids. My husband was Jessica's first softball coach. Destiny and Alex were one of 5 sets of back-to-back siblings from Parkview School:
Whitley and Courtney
Ian and Evan
JR and Charnelle
Logan and Nick
Destiny and Alex
All Sophomores and Freshman this year

If you would like to read the local paper's coverage of this horrible accident:
http://www.tmnews.com/stories/2008/12/29/news.nw-568520.tms

Please pray for Destiny and Jessica. Cameron was laid to rest today. We will say goodbye to Alex on Saturday.

We will remember you:
Devon Hensley - Whitley's classmate who passed suddenly in April, age 15
Elena Veach - Courtney's soccer coach - left a husband and two very small children
Larry Salmon - JR's uncle - we missed you at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner
Henry Wong - Sarah's husband, Ashley and Alex's dad, our dear friend - I think of you every day
Bruce Hewetson - friend, customer at the store, all around nice guy
Charlie Boone - friend, customer, always wanted to shoot the breeze when he came in the store
Cameron Wright - too young
Alex Chastain - rest in peace, little sister

More Red Shoes

All from Anthropologie.

BOOK SIGNING!!!

At Borders in Bloomington from 7:00 - 9:00pm this Friday, December 19. Sorry, it's just me, no Cheryl. Please come. I want my mom to have somebody to talk to. I will be giving away a little handmade gift with every copy of Mixed Mania purchased that evening.



We had a weather-related school cancellation today, so I spent some time shoe-shopping on the computer. I found a couple of pairs I liked, but didn't buy anything. After spending my whole life avoiding any kind of heel, I have the sudden urge to wear them. I have a couple of pairs of tall wedges that send my 5'8"+ frame perilously close to gianthood and I LOVE these:

Christmas Time Is Here

That's my favorite Christmas music - Vince Guaraldi Trio's version, please. I think it captures the brightness and touch of melancholy this season brings perfectly. Here is a clay ornament my first graders are painting this week. We carved the little houses into clay about a month ago. They have been fired and all of them survived. Thank goodness. But don't worry... I always make extras in case one breaks. I do lots of demos in art class, with my students gathered around my work table. The first graders carry on whole conversations about me during the demo, like I can't hear them. They say things like:

How does she paint so good?

She's so good cause she's been doin this for like 10 years.

Do you think she's a real artist?

Miss Crane is lucky cause she gets to do art all day.

They're so cute and sincere!