News: Bronze Clay class; The Garlic Press; Washington Art Festival

This Saturday afternoon I'll be giving a Bronze Clay class at the Bead Parlor, 318 N. Main, Bloomington, 827-7708. Register with Di or Jeff at the shop or at http://www.thebeadparlor.com/. Starts at 1:30 pm, goes till we finish off the clay packet, which could run til 4p or even 4:30. Time passes quickly as we go over the fundamentals of working with metal clay, rolling it out, texturing, sanding, adding embellishments, discussion of kiln firing (which I will do in my kilns at home), and how to polish the fired pieces. I will return the fired pieces to the Bead Parlor on Monday, for you to drop by and pick them up. Cost is very reasonable: $40 class fee, $10 kit (clay) fee.

A few weeks ago, during the Sugar Creek Arts festival in Normal, I met Sarah McManus, a co-owner of The Garlic Press, a wonderful long established shop of all things good in uptown Normal. She is the buyer for jewelry and clothing, and is now carrying my work! I have been asked numerous times during my shows in and around Blm/Normal if I had work in The Garlic Press...finally I can say Yes! Please stop in soon...

Next weekend, 8/13 & 14, we will be taking part in the 4th Annual Washington Arts Festival. Following are the directions to Washington Park:

From the Square go North on North Main, turn Left on W. Jefferson, at the stop sign turn right on Lincoln and proceed to just beyond Lincoln School. Park is on the left. Here's the google map: http://www.washingtonfinearts.org/News_and_Events.html

The layout appears to be different this year, in that the booths will be more "together", and not scattered all around the park. Which is bound to be better, as it was difficult last year in the heat wave, which hopefully is over with now.

My eye surgery went very well, the stitches are out, and the bruising is decreasing. I still have some eye "issues", but all in all, it (I) looks much better. Thanks to everyone for their good wishes.

The images above are not of my work: these are Ancient Bronze pieces from the Middle East. I love them, and hope mine look like this thousands of years later!

See you at a festival soon......!

Scorching Market

It promises to be a scorcher this Saturday. I imagine the shoppers will be mostly gone by 10am, since temps will be zooming up to the mid nineties. I wish we could also leave then, but by 11:30, I'm pretty sure we'll be packing it all up!! CVS down the street will most likely be my "go to" spot of the day!

I considered not taking part again this weekend. The reconstructive eyelid surgery that was done last week is doing fine, but leaves me with 2 nasty looking eyes, one with a nice black suture taped to my forehead. In my late 20's, I contracted Graves Disease, a thyroid disorder that does a number on the muscles surrounding the eyeball. This actually was what first drew attention to the disorder, in that my left eye was protruding much more than normal. Rumors started that I had a brain tumor, and yes that was certainly checked out, but a thyroid scan showed a very overactive thyroid, and I was treated with I-131, which eventually slowed the thyroid to a sluggish underactive gland, and I now have to take replacement thyroid meds. But, the eye never really returned to normal, and it has been a huge bane in my life, and I've finally attempted to get it fixed. Wasn't planning on surgery on the other eye too, but the docs say the brain is attempting to "even out" the lids, and while the left eyelid has been "wide open" (to say the least), the right eyelid has dropped.

So if you visit my booth, be aware I'll be a hot old woman with bruised eyes.

Recently I've been fascinated with the history of the ancient Middle Eastern cultures and the formation of the first script invented by the peoples of the Mesopotamian area. I've made texture plates for use on the bronze clay of the Cunieform script, which looks like "chicken scratches". Very interesting look when the bronze is fired. We discovered a museum in Chicago, The Oriental Museum of the University of Chicago, http://oi.uchicago.edu/museum/meso/, and have spent quite a lot of time browsing their website. Hoping to visit there this fall. The images above are from using texture plates I made using photos I took of my sisters collection of African fabric designs. Worked much better that I thought.

Stay cool!!!!!

This Saturday is the 3rd year for the Lincoln Celebration in downtown Bloomington, and at the David Davis Mansion. It has always been fun, very interesting and educational. Last year's activities had some reenactors portraying the medical community of the Civil War, and had some very interesting tools of the trade to see and handle (carefully!).

I will have to miss it this year. Having had some eye surgery, I'll be staying home, but definitely plan to be there July 23rd.

Sugar Creek was profitable, great turnout, and very hot. Apparently, those temps are returning tomorrow, so please be careful out there....

Sugar Creek Art Fair

Yesterday I found out that our space has been changed to B16, located on Beaufort Street near the Children's Discovery Museum and Firehouse Pizza. We also are on the corner of the alley access to the railroad parking behind the buildings. It seems to be a nice open area, not closed in by other booths, so more air movement that will be desperately needed on the very HOT weekend coming up!

Hoping to see lots of familiar faces from all my market friends and customers!

More Good News!!

The Danville Arts in the Park judges awarded us with our 2nd Best of Show award this year! How cool is that! We got a nice purple ribbon and nice check! It was fun too to have a couple of great friendly women in my booth when the award was announced, and helped me celebrate...so much fun.

This weekend is the annual uptown Normal Sugar Creek Art Fair.

http://www.mcaart.org/mcac/html/sugarcreek.html

Our booth is just East of the Normal theatre, second booth down the row, in front of the Coffee Hound and Jimmy Johns. A great spot.

We've got some really cool new pieces. Please come by and see them!!!

Arts in the Park

We've not been to the Arts in the Park, Danville, IL. It appears that we should have. This is held in historic Lincoln Park in the SW corner of Danville. http://artsinthepark.us/location.htm

This nice fair will have 60 artists in amongst the trees. It looks like a great weekend weather-wise!

Sadly, I am not able to take part in the art festival at the Shakespeare festival, due to unforseen circumstances.

Next weekend we'll be back at the Downtown Farmers Market and Artist Alley. Then, the wonderful Sugar Creek Art festival will take place in Uptown Normal the following weekend. More about that later.

Computer Issues

Last weekend my computer suffered an unknown problem and all my photos, documents, favorites, even the icons on the desktop...disappeared! I was able to restore it to a previous date and most of the icons came back, but nothing else. I found that I could mark "show hidden files" and most of the pictures and documents appeared, but the picture icons have a hazy grayish look, even though they open and appear normal. The Windows photo gallery at first looked ok with normal appearing icons, but suddenly they began to disappear before my eyes! It is empty now. What a pain...

At the market last Saturday I met Dick Folse, Managing Director of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. He has invited me to take part in the Art Fair Sundays at the Festival, which starts on June 26th. As I'll still be in Peoria at the Luthy Botanical Gardens (see the show schedule), I won't start there until July 3rd. I'll also have a few pieces in the Ewing Manor gift shop through the summer. http://thefestival.org/.

The Bead Parlor in downtown Bloomington has had some changes recently. The bead sales have moved to the mezzanine, and Mary Lynn's Yarn Garden has moved into the shop with the Off The Wall Gallery of local jewelry artists, including Artjools!. http://www.thebeadparlor.com/.

I'll be having a class on working with Bronzclay on June 18th, after the market, there at the shop. Contact me or Di at the Bead Parlor.