Sunday, April 13, 2008

Artfest! Day Two

I've been home from Artfest for about a week now, and I'm still integrating all that happened there . . . it was truly a wonderful event! And integrating has taken long enough that I haven't been blogging . . . though I have been spending time in the studio, and even working in the yard! Yummy . . . I had forgotten that yardwork really can be enjoyable, especially with mild sunshine and a double-dosing of effective non-drowsy allergy medication!

My class the second day was with yet another teacher that I had never heard of but came to love, Melissa Manley. She is a jeweler and sculptor, and our class was called Paper Ruins. It combined something I am familiar with - shrines - with something that was a stretch - working small - and a new skill - casting Paperclay. Perfect! We created our own molds, molded our Paperclay, and constructed our tiny shrines using matchboxes as a focus. (I kept thinking about Dayna and her upcoming Matchbox Shrine class!) Here are two that I worked on as they appeared at the end of class:


And, on the way back to the hotel that night, one of the wings broke off of the shrine on the right . . . Realizing how tough it would be to reattach it convincingly, I improvised:

It was a great problem-solving exercise: how do I take an accident and make it work in my favor? I ended up adding the orange elements, including the funny plastic chicken feet, and I think the whole piece actually ended up being more interesting.

I also ended up making a few minor changes to the other one:

At home this past week, I've been working on a cigar box to hold the second one - it's encrusted with little bees and honeycomb . . . This coming week, I've got to get back to work on a pay-the-bills kind of project, and it's going to be tough to get my head back into it.

5 comments:

fingerstothebone said...

Those are lovely! I particularly like the broken and then reattached wing.

gl. said...

ooo, very nice! and yes, the broken wing on one side is an inspired revision.

iHanna said...

Lucky girl who has been to that artfest thingie! Your shrines are both fun and beautiful - I really like them!

Michael5000 said...

Those are fabulous! It's hard to tell their size at first, and I was surprised to see that one can fit in a cigar box; I was picturing them a bit more monumental.

claudia said...

wow, you are very productive. Super nice and original :)

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