I just had a wonderful 3 weeks in AZ which was just fantastic & warm! I got to stay with my brother Kenny and sister-in-law Anne while working at the CREATIVATION show which was at the Phoenix convention center. I was in the Sizzix booth helping to represent my line of dies and the rest of the new jewelry program they have created. I have been working the CHA shows (now Creativation) for over 20 years and being at the shows are a wonderful time for so many reasons. Seeing old friends and new. It's a non-stop love fest of creative people I adore!
Next it was off to Prescott to visit Katie Hacker at Halstead Beads where she now works. Wow what a great place, both the location and the company. Such good people, great studio, wonderful products! Really a wonderful trip.
On the drive up to Prescott!
I stayed at the Hasayampa Inn which is an historic hotel that was fantastic and had a great restaurant. Loved it and will stay there on my next visit.
Next my wonderful daughter Ashley flew in to visit myself and her Aunt Anne and Uncle Kenny (back in Phoenix) we had a blast going to the Coyotes hockey game together. Which is something we always do with Kenny Anne who have season tickets and two extra excellent seats!
Before Ashley left we got to see the Heard Museum. A premier Native American museum in downtown Phoenix. It was great. Then Ash was off back to GA and back to work.
THEN IT WAS TIME FOR THE TUCSON GEM SHOW! WHOOT! Tammy and I rented a sweet little place right on the river walk and it is always so nice to have a place with a dear friend to come home and make ourselves at home after long days of working. I make it sound grueling, when in fact it is one of my favorite things each and every year that I get to do. I am blessed. So I am just going to barrage you with photos now so you can get a small glimpse of the week in Tucson.
Let's not forget the 2017 Beads of Courage bracelet making event with my favorite jewelry making people. Oh my gosh just writing this out for you to see reminds me of how blessed I am with the work I do and the wonderful relationships I have developed over the years. This was my second time leading one of the round robin tables and it was lots of fun and we raised some good money for this great organization.
I'll leave you with one of the photos from dinner after work with some amazing women, June, Jamie, Kristal and Leslie in the Catina being loud and loving life!
My feature is a 10 page spread! WOW! Thank you Stampington & Company, and Jo Packham! I am so honored as I have always loved this magazine and now I am featured in it! I'm pinching myself.
Me
My studio. So glad this is documented as it will likely never look that clean again!
My friend Mary Pridgen did all the wonderful photography for the feature in the magazine. She's a friend and a local photographer here in Fort Collins and her company's name is Bare Bones Studio. Thank you Mary!
I'm glad they put this photo in. I am holding a photo of my mother when she was 6 years old. For as long as I can remember my grandmother (Mom's mom) had this in her home. When she died it lived in my mother's home and always sat in her living room on a hand embroidered table cloth. Now that my mother is gone I have and cherish this little treasure.
I am very excited to introduce my new line of leather cutting dies and companion findings from Sizzix. It has been a complete joy working with all the good people at Sizzix-Ellison and we have worked hard to bring this new line of quality tools for both the home studio and professional studios. Cutting leather has never been easy...until now!
Combined with two different types of leather cutting dies, and two different thicknesses of leather, it's now super simple to cut leather and make beautiful leather jewelry. Very cool!
There are two kinds of dies. Steel rule dies which are for cutting thicker leather like the cuff of a bracelet (on the left) and thin ornamental dies (on right) for cutting lighter weight leather for layering on top of the heavyweight leather.
Notice that these two dies fit together...
To create this...WOW!
Being able to cut and layer different thicknesses of leather allows you a lot a large variety of creative choices to create unique expensive looking leather jewelry.
We are pretty excited because it is a big deal to bring new tools to the jewelry-making community. New tools that allow you to do something at home that is usually only in the hands of manufacturers. The ability to easily die cut leather at home and is a game changer! Those of you that cut paper will recognize these tools which have been engineered now to cut leather. Brilliant!
We will be showing the line at the Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee in June and cannot wait to see the response from all the jewelry makers there. Our choice of leathers is another thing of note. We have beautiful pastels in pink and blues, and we have soulful metallic colors for a very upscale look. You cannot find these colors available anywhere else. We're bring the complete package!
Stay tuned for more about this exciting line from Sizzix!
I spent so much time looking forward to, being with and now looking back on Ashley and Donnie's visit! It was short but wow was it ever sweet! Here they are at my house after the potluck, then we went downtown to New West Fest and listened to bands and then headed to John ans Sara's house to enjoy the end of day at sunset ridge. Then Jake & Katy came back over to my house and we rallied! And that was just day one!
We got up early the next morning (in spite of ourselves!) and headed off to Vern's for cinnamon rolls and breakfast before driving up to Estes Park. We checked in at the famous Stanley Hotel where we had rented one of the haunted rooms! Though we took the tour we didn't see any ghosts, but we did have a BLAST!!!
Ashley snapped this shot of the Stanely on our way to Rocky Mountain National Park and Trailridge Road.
A happy Momma and daughter!
Love, love, love! Thanks for coming for a visit Ashley & Donnie!
Last night a colleague and friend and I went to Laguna Beach to experience the Festival of the Arts, Pageant of the Masters. I really had no idea what to expect, especially after hearing from every person I spoke with RAVED about it! I was not disappointed.
The Pageant of the Masters is an annual festival held every summer. The event is known for its tableaux vivants or "living pictures" in which classical and contemporary works of art are recreated by real people who are made to look nearly identical to the originals through the clever application of costumes, makeup, headdresses, lighting, props, and backdrops.
It was unbelievable the amount of theater skills involved here. Not to mention the theater itself. There were huge scenes that turn and changed on each sides of the crowd. The lighting alone to create the exact look of the paintings was masterful! So much work! Hundreds of volunteers every night all summer long! Plus a serious art market right outside the door of "the Bowl" (the theater). To recreate the paintings they paint the people that are in the tableaux to look like part of the painting. Yo have to work very hard to tell if they are real people or 2D backdrop. They do give you a view of how it works with backstage video. More interest is added by a wonderful dose of art history given about each sculpture or the artist or the model and on.
These are all real people! Just phenomenal! Thank you Susan Spiegel for letting us know about this so we could be in attendance!! AMAZING! Thank you Laguna Beach! What a blast!
My Colorado summer started by moving back to Bellvue which makes me deeply happy. Finally settled in and love, love, love my log cabin. I miss my kiddos and my friend's back east but I love where I live.
Last week my old friend (since I was 15) Colleen came to visit (from Ohio) which was brilliantly good as it is always is a joy to spend time with her. You know those friends that you love so much, for so long that after you haven't seen them for a while and you get together it's like you've never been apart? She's one of my chosen sisters. I have always been so blessed with good friends.
A couple of days after she left I had a bear trying to get in my bedroom window!!! Oh wait that's the one at the convention center in Denver. My visitor looked more like this:
YIKES! Luckily I woke up and pitched a noisey fit and got him to opt for the garbage instead. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep the rest of that night!
Today I went to Loveland for my training to volunteer at the 20th anual International Sculpture show!! I can hardly wait. I will be driving the gators helping the artists move their works into the park, setting up for the show.
There are actually two shows going on at once. It's the largest sculpture show in the world!
This weekend on Friday night a bunch of us are going to hear John Hiatt!
At Mishawaka, up Poudre Canyon (where I lived and worked when I was 20! And where I met my children's father!) It's built right on the river an amazing venue...
Then on Saturday it's the second volleyball party up the street at John and Sara's which is the best pot- luck and fun you could ask for...and then Sunday I'm going down to Lyons to to the closing day of Rocky Grass with Robin, Renee and Andy! Phew!
Not sure I'll live through all the fun. But I am definitely looking forward to it!
I am so happy to announce that I will be designing products for ART CLAY WORLD. It's official all the i's have been dotted and the T's crossed. I met with them at the CHA show while in California in January and am very happy about our collaboration. It was the easiest contract negotiation I have had in sometime. How refreshing. (Thank you Jackie!)
I'm happy about this work as I will get to draw and sculpt, both of which I love to do. Getting paid to do what you love to do is always a blessing. Beside the products are for Art Clay... what could not be a better fit for me. Art Clay starts out as clay and end up precious metal! Designing molds is an art form unto itself and has always been something I have been very interested in. I can't say what else we will be doing as it is a secret! More when I am able.
For fun...
Last weekend I traveled up and over the continental divide with a couple of wonderful girlfriends. We traveled over Cameron Pass and Rabbit Ears pass and ended up in the Strawberry Park Hot Springs on the edge of Steam Boat Springs. IT WAS A BLAST! There was about 35-40 inches of snow on the ground and people skiing everywhere. Breathtaking views and tremendous comfort soaking the bones in the hot springs.
Lots of steam in the photo below. This is from the upper pool my fave...it's only about 103 degrees where as the main pool can get up to 120 degrees in places! THAT"S HOT! Plus this sits on the hill side is more private and has the river running down the mountainside on one side and the hot spring falls on the other. The sound is incredible.
We stayed in cabin number 5 (for those of you who know) and were thankful for my 4 wheel drive. As it was too slippery to walk down the mountain to the springs with that much snow around. One of my favorite things to do is to get out of the hot springs jump into the snow and then jump back into the springs. It is soooo refreshing. Throwing snowballs that melt fairly instantaneously is fun too. Ahhhhh thank you Robin for making the trip possible.
Next...
Tomorrow is my facilitator training for the Arts Incubator of the Rockies! I am so excited to continue my journey with this wonderful organization. I'm sorry my friend Dr. Brenda Martin won't be able to make it up from NM because of the big snow storm that's supposed to happen. She was going to stay with me Sat night. Though she will be up again as AIR is not the only organization she works with here in the Fort Collins area. She also works with the Discovery Museum.
I have been on the verge of writing another book for about 4 years now. I am courted by publishing houses, and by wonderful editors, yet I have resisted. In the past I have written successful “how to” books for the creative industry and craft world.
I feel a step or two closer to writing a book but the actual writer in me keeps trying to get involved. Something deep inside me wants to discuss life, not just how to make something clever, wants to depart wisdom that arrived the hard way…wants to shed a skin.
I have come to look at books differently now due to the availability of electronic format but also because of my most recent move across the country from PA to Colorado. I moved from a great, big, old charming home to a much smaller funky tiny living space (in an amazing gem of a location). So I had to scale back all the belongings in my life, and one of the major players were all my books. I had a library that any artist would have been thrilled to inherit. Culling them down was like parting with old friends.
I had to decide their fate one by one. It took days. Which book deserved to come with me? Which books deserved physical space in my life? I love books.
I also love libraries, the smell of them, the proximity of space within libraries, they are always housed in very nice buildings.
My favorite libraries have grand marble staircases. I find myself climbing them slowly so I can take in the way the center of each stair has been worn down, from footsteps!
What a gradual process, the soles of souls wearing a hard edge off one of the most durable materials into a softer, thinner center impression of all those who passed before me. Kind of what life itself does to us as we age. Something beautiful there.
Libraries have big windows where the sun streams in and illuminates the dust in the air reminding me of things smaller than myself that make up myself. Rooms full of people all being quiet and respectful moving around in the same room each with some entirely different subject matter going on in their minds. Libraries are beautiful places.
I have an e-reader and love it because my beautiful daughter gifted me with it, and I use it but it does not compare to holding the spine in my palm and turning the delicate pages of a chapter. Life has changed. Now books have to deserve to stand in fleshy pulp on the shelf and take up physical space in my life.
I want to share with you the amazing afternoon I had yesterday. I decided to blow off work and take an adventure, which I do at least once a week now. I did not have to leave the county I live in (Larimer). A 20 mile ride north of Fort Collins is an amazing place that has been a gathering place for humans for over 10 mellinia.
Once called the Lindenmeier Ranch named for the folks that lived there, it then became known as the Lindenmeier Site, an archaeological site run by the Smithsonian Institution, which is now renamed the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area (purchased and preserved by the City of Fort Collins, how smart). This is one of the most important archaeological sites in all of North America! And one of the most sacred sites to Native Americans of many tribes. After going there I feel I better understand why...it is a POWERFUL PLACE.
Looking SE from Soapstone Prairie Natural Area I traveled there by myself which my friends later discussed over dinner as perhaps not the brightest of ideas, but it is what I wanted. Let me tell you why...when you reach the end of the paved roads...
...where the paved road ends so does Google Maps, and shortly there after so does phone service and you find yourself off-grid and within a far more authentic environment, that gives one a far more realistic perspective of being in relationship to the natural world.
There was not a human being for miles and miles. I didn't even see another vehicle the entire afternoon except when I hit pavement again on the route home. The isolation and openness is magnificent. The sounds...what you can hear without all the man made noises clanging and banging is astonishing. There you feel a sense of the loss of control over the situation somehow. One finds oneself being forced to become flexible with not knowing what will happen next. It is also how I lived years of my life in the past in my late 20's and it feels good down deep to feel this again somehow. It is a juxtaposition of the proximity of space inside and out. Feeling emotionally connected within this huge, open-sky space of the west is important to me. It heightens the senses in an extreme way and arouses the spirit. It is visceral and palpable and very inspirational. It is easy to feel free here.
This site was discovered in 1924 and the bulk of the professional work collecting Folsom points and giant ancient Bison skeletal remains (showing they were over 7 feet tall!) and the very first bead makers were here too! The dig was done by the Smithsonian Institution from 1934-1940. This work carbon dated the site back over 10,000 years!!
Please take a couple of moments and watch this video about this place. You will get a much better feeling and sense of sacredness at this special site. It also explains much of why it is so important. Thank you Brenda for your work on this video produced by the Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science Center, with help from many people including my new friend Dr Brenda Martin.
I am trying to remove my biases, but I find it difficult because Colorado is so much more genuine, so much more laid back, so much more connected to our history and hopefully our future than are the cities of the east. I have been here in NOCO now for almost 2 months and have literally only seen 2 men in starched white shirts and ties. I have not seen any high heels since the airport. I have only seen a handful of people smoking cigarettes. I am still blown away by this.
But more so by the magnitude of grand BEAUTY all around me here.
On County Road 80 coming home heading due west. The sun was out where I was driving while a light snow fell on the home front (the foothills).
A heard of Antelope sunning along side me.
Love how they blend in (sorry for the fence line) aren't they beautiful? I felt like I was in Africa or something seeing decent sized heards moving along.
Unbelievable beauty is very healing and fills your psyche with new color palettes. This was one of the many reservoirs I passed on my way home. The magnificent little Aspen front and center. This is my favorite photo from the day. I stayed here a long time just to take in and feel the color.
Then there was this guy...a very large Red Tail Hawk. With the reddest tail I have ever seen.
It's a beautiful life. Take time to really enjoy it.
Today has been a great day. This afternoon I drove south to Longmont on what was an incredibly sunny fall day, with all my windows down, music blaring and the sun roof open. Driving along the western slope looking at the majestic snow capped Continental divide the entire way. When I arrived in Longmont Harold invited me in to see his nicely equipped studio. Harold's work is unique and incredibly detailed in amazing colors, shapes and patterns, with a huge variety of surface techniques and it is hard to comprehend they are all hand done the patterns are so perfect. Take a second to check him out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/harold.cooney.
Photo: Harold Cooney
I first met Harold a few years back at the Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee, as our booths are back to back. It was instantly tough to stay in my booth because I am so drawn to his work. Extraordinary! I have been buying his " American trade beads" ever since. You can shop at Harold's Etsy store here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/hwcglass
WOW! Gold fumed stunning honecomb like window beads.
Harold sold me what he considered scrap for next to nothing.
They are all different shapes, sizes, colors and patterns.
I wish you could touch and feel they way Harold's borosilicate beads feel. You do not want to put them down. To give you an idea it's like SUPER SUPER smooth beach glass, but a whole lot better. It feels alive to the touch ...and indeed he puts a lot of himself into his work. A true artisan.
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