Gallery show in NYC!

My artwork in an actual New York City gallery -- whoo-hoo!

But since I'm all the way out on the Left Coast, my favorite New Yorkers (my college friend Robert and my cousins Tim, Simone and Jackson) attended the show for me.  

The Artful Scriptorium exhibit of artist books wrapped up this weekend at climate gallery in conjunction with an exhibition of small works called NEVER THINK Small: Redux! displayed on the walls.

All sorts of artist books: star books, pop-ups...

... and my submission, "Someday." It's a meditation on my parents, inspired by the Sugar Ray song.

The space is just what I was hoping for: industrial-turned-artsy area (in Queens) within sight of a famous landmark -- you can see the Chrysler building from the window.

Simone (we should all look so cute during pregnancy)...

and Tim brought Jackson from Brooklyn, and they crossed paths with Robert...

who came in from Hoboken. Robert later confirmed it was a full house for the exhibitions. Pretty cool! You can see more of "Someday" on my Flickr page.

"Represented by..."

I can now say that I'm represented by a gallery. How 'bout that?!

The Art & Soul Gallery is displaying two of my latest pieces near the big front window.

The gallery owner, Susan, fell in love with Mixed-Media Dollhouses ...

 ... and emailed me through a friend that she was interested in selling my work.

[doing a double-take] Well, all right then!

I'd been harboring a desire to have my work in a gallery since I ventured to think of myself as an artist as well as a writer. I kinda crept up on the idea to make it happen during my 40th year on this planet. So when Susan emailed me, I jumped at the email -- and then jumped back from the keyboard. Maybe it's just some sort of spam or something. Maybe a virus will kill my computer once I open the email.

Gaaah! Open the email already!

The gallery represents mostly local mixed-media and jewelry artists, with a few artworks from nationally-known mixed-media artists: Misty Mawn...

... and Pam Carriker, who's coming out with her own book soon.

The gallery will soon have some copies of Mixed-Media Dollhouses available, and at some point will also offer some of my dollhouse rooms that appear in the book. Yes, the dollhouse rooms. I'll let you know as soon as that happens.

If you're near Bothell, Washington, the gallery is at 817 238th St SE Ste A, Bothell, WA.

Artfest-day three of classes + Show & Tell

Day three dawned with a deer nibbling at a tree outside our window... relaxed but focused. Kinda like the pace of this day's class.

Things went a lot easier for me on day three, in LK Ludwig's "Open the Doors" journal-making class. And yes, it was partly because I remembered to take notes! Plus this is what, the third class I've taken with her? I think her techniques are so marvelously inventive.

First time with the stencils -- and boy, were there some cool ones.

LK and a few others in class had some of MaryBeth Shaw's stencils: a river rock pattern in the blue pages, a webby pattern in the photo above, bare trees... very cool stuff, as well as the more ordinary ones found at any craft store.

We scraped and smooshed paint (that's my buddy Maya McCauley here)...

 ... sprayed pages, and eventually bound them with waxed linen thread and twill tape.

Barely got mine done, but it did get done so I could run and meet Tally for dinner in Port Townsend. We had a few moments to take a couple pics with Catherine, Grace in her kitten-ear hat, and Ricë in her cat-head recycled-plastic hat.

Then we headed off to a quick dinner at Sirens, and rushed back to put some of our artwork out for Show & Tell. The rushing part: bad idea. I got pulled over for speeding. The officer gently reminded me that there are "a grand total of two streets in Port Townsend that have a speed limit over 25 miles per hour." He also pointed out that most of them have no street lights, which could lead to me hitting...

No, I didn't hit a deer. Because I drove at fifteen miles per hour after that traffic stop.

We made it back just fine, and I put down my card next to my (mostly) finished journal.

 So many fabulous pieces, but I'm running out of time and your attention span, so I'll leave you with Tally's girly peacock fish (a Traci Bautista class)...

 ... and some others I really like. (Michael de Meng's classes -- what can I say? I'm a fan girl.)

Sigh... not enough hours in the day, or days in Artfest, to take all the classes.