BJP 2010

I have the fabric cut out and ready to go for january's bjp...the largest hand is life-size and the smallest is about 3.5 inches. I'll be beading the smallest hand and doing minimal beading on the larger ones...at least that's the plan now. As most of you know, once you actually start working on a piece, it sometimes goes off in directions you hadn't planned on, lol! That's the fun of it!

Quiet

We're settling back into the quiet of our house, now that mom and son are back home. It was a wonderful visit...probably the best we've had in years, so it's left a lot of good vibes behind and we're still glowing with them.
This week we're going to a couple of movies with friends and I'm preparing for a class I'll be teaching next month and that's about all I have scheduled for this week. Maybe I'll be able to get caught up on some correspondence and blog visitations...yay!

Happy Holidays

Happy Holiday wishes and my gratitude to you all for joining me on my journey this year....I hope you have much joy in your lives...carpe diem!

Harbor Sunset

Sunset last night from the docks to the bridge....

The Day Before the Day Before Xmas

I've just got a bit of tidying up and making up gift bags to finish and I'll be all ready for my mom and son arriving tomorrow afternoon...I'm hoping they have a safe trip; at least the weather is supposed to be sunny and not frozen....pretty good for this time of year.
I've been clearing out some older work that didn't quite get finished or sold and this piece called to me. Rather christmassy, I think...the center piece is vintage german art glass...sparkly.

Winter Solstice

I hope you're all having a lovely solstice...we had a bit of welcome clearing this afternoon and tonight we're having a small gathering at our house...and now we're heading back toward the light.

January Bead Journal Project

I have the patterns (my right hand in two sizes) and the fabric, but I'm going to hold off on assembling the beads and other embellishments until january, otherwise I couldn't hold back my momentum!

I'm thinking I may frame these like I did with the two practice hands I did while trying to figure out what size and shape I'd go with...

Or...I may do something entirely different with the hands...but it's definitely going to be HANDS!

Homage to Hands, in fact...

Last Reminder

Today's the final day to sign up for the Bead Journal Project and I thought I would mention that this will work for mixed media/fiber artists as well since beads do not have to be the main media in your pieces....if you add beads as embellishments to your piece, it will fit within the rules of the BJP...so if beads aren't your primary medium...no problem!
Robin Atkins, who originated the BJP a couple of years ago, has shown a nice range of the kind of work done by this year's participants on her blog, HERE....take a look; you'll see it's not ALL beads, lol!

And it looks like the final number of participants is 287!

Whoo Hoo!

2010 Bead Journal Project Deadline

Just wanted to mention one more time that the deadline to sign up for the 2010 BJP is next Tuesday, the 15th, so if you want to be a part of this incredibly fun and inspiring project just go HERE and sign up!

No bead police will be sent (not even any fingers wagged) if you don't finish your pieces by the end of the year...in fact, all I've ever heard is encouragement and understanding if the (very flexible) deadlines aren't met.

It's not about finishing...it's all about doing and sharing and inspiring each other...and I'm delighted to be doing it for this third year!

I think I've pretty much decided on the hand shape (patterned after my own right hand), but not quite sure yet what to do with them....my latest favorite idea is to bead the hand, applique it to a 4x4 background and sew on a back before putting it into a clear DVD sleeve to hang from a 4 inch bamboo spacer (similar to how I hung my Basho set.)

And a couple of photos of the last two hands I've been working on finished and framed (the one with 4 pushpins is the one I ended up putting in our local open exhibit...) these were my practice pieces to see if I wanted to do another hand series.

Brrrrr

Occasionally around this time of year we get some colder temps than we're used to, here at the beach, and we're having a short string of that now. I know the midwest folks will laugh but temps in the 20's and lower are rare here but they almost always give us clear skies and wonderful sunsets.

The new header is last night's sunset and I snapped it just before heading inside to our local pushpin exhibit reception. This year we had just over 200 entries which is quite down from last year, and I think the major difference is that fewer children and young people participated. I'm wondering if we need to do a better job of letting the schools know about the event or if it's just a reflection of our shrinking school budgets which lead to fewer (if any) art teachers.

We just had our "civil war game" between two oregon colleges and I understand that both the losing and winning team have brought millions of dollars to their schools because of these results.

I sure wish they could spare a little bit of those millions for the arts.

For some light relief.... a couple of sea anemones from the aquarium friday night. Reminds me that it's our 38th anniversary today...we have another art reception to go to this afternoon - this one for a friend of ours who is a photographer...and then we'll probably go out for dinner if it's not too cold or wet. We don't usually fuss a lot on our anniversary...we took a trip to mexico before we got married and the anniversary of that trip means a lot more to us than the actual day we stood before a justice of the peace. We were together 24/7 for six weeks, traveling in a VW van with our siamese cat, chi sai, and we figured surviving that trip (and even having fun!) probably meant we could navigate a marriage as well....and so we have.

Festival of Lights

Sure feels like christmas around here...lots of light shows, holiday shows, gallery shows and cold nights!
I have to work tonight so will miss the lighted boat show, but we did make it to the light show at the aquarium last night...quite lovely...and I got a few photos of the lights and the huge tree they have up in the entry way...

New Month, New Holiday

Here we are at a new month and it seems like it will be a long time until christmas, but I know the time will just fly by! I think that's one of the most surprising things about getting older for me...how fast the time goes by, even while practicing being in the moment!
I didn't get up early on friday but I managed to get to the stores in time to pick up a couple of 4 gig SDHC cards for the new camera and a sweet little Canon selphy photo printer that does dye sublimation prints that are water resistant like "real" photographs. I'm having fun with the printer and thinking about putting some photo cards in my etsy shop or maybe in a local gift shop or two. But then the photography would be "work" and might stop being fun, so I'm not decided yet.