Making with Heart

The Rebel Craft Rumble is happening tonight - it's a big fundraiser for SCRAP. I'm one of only four contestants competing for the chance to go up against last year's Craft Master, Sister Diane. It's quite an honor - and quite a challenge. One of my competitors, Miss Demeanor of Criminal Craft fame, has been talking some trash on Twitter about me . . . in a friendly, may-the-best-crafter-win, get-my-goat kind of a way. (To be fair, so has Sister Diane. And I haven't exactly been a shy flower). So, now I'm just gonna make it official and throw down the glue gun gauntlet right now.

What the heck makes me think I've got what it takes to compete with the top crafters Portland has to offer? Well, besides an incredible amount of hubris . . . perseverance and a willingness to try a lot of crazy stuff until something works.

A few months ago, I was working on an installation for Mad/50 with the theme "The Commons." I struggled with this thing. I was working with the idea of common space, the spaces and places that we share and hold in common. National parks, sidewalks, monuments, and even churches. I started off with this.


I like the trees and the background maps of Mt. Hood. They set the tone for the kind of common space I was looking for . . .


But it just wasn't workin' for me. The two women talking over the fence? Nope . . . too literal. Cheesy. The big church window? I liked the idea of it and set it aside. What the piece needed was heart, soul, some kind of center.

So I tried to make a heart - home is where the heart is, and that's the real common space. I really went for it . . . I went dimensional, used plaster, paint, cord . . . the whole nine yards.


Yeah. It looks like . . . well. Some kind of dead squid thing. From a bad horror movie. Needless to say, it didn't make it into the final version. I kept trying to work with the church window . . . but it was just too big. In frustration, I went in a completely different direction. Circles, connected.


By a slightly less frightening, but still symbolically open, heart.


And here I am with the final piece where it was installed at SE Madison and 50th in Portland. Yup. I kept at it - through the crazy squid heart phase and all the things that didn't work. I kept at it. So look out, Miss Demeanor. It's you and me in the first round, and I am Gonna. Keep. At. It.

And if I'm lucky, I'll make it work! May the best crafter win.

Meltdown, or Working with Reclaimed Materials

I love working with recycled stuff. Right after encaustics, it's my very favorite thing. I have a show up this month at 100th Monkey Studio Gallery - I'm the featured artist in their Recycle Reuse show this month.

Of course, the thing with reclaimed materials is that they are, by their very nature, unpredictable. Take this assemblage I made, for instance. I used a cigar box, an old plastic trophy part, dowels, wire, some old maps, a craft store cardinal - all pretty standard, right? And I used two of my favorite glues to put it together - E6000 (a glue recommended for use with plastics) and Mod Podge.


Now, you may notice something a bit odd. Something that led to the phone call I got yesterday. From the gallery. "Ahem, Bridget, your assemblage is melting." My first thought was that the E6000 and the styrofoam in the middle of the craft store cardinal were not getting along well. But no. The stem of the trophy was collapsing.


Now, this is something every encaustic artist dreads hearing. It's rare for a well-made encaustic piece to melt under normal circumstances, but in direct sunlight in a car window in Arizona while you go have lunch, well, things can happen.

It is, however, a phone call that one doesn't expect to get about an assemblage that doesn't include any wax.

I went over to the gallery today, marked the piece as "Not for Sale", examined the way the E6000 was dissolving the plastic of the trophy into a melty goo, decided I actually like it better with the trophy dipping at an angle, did a quick fix with hot glue, and walked away thinking "Lesson learned."

Then, I remembered that I had found two of those used trophy parts at SCRAP when I bought them years ago, and had used one of those trophy parts in a piece I'd completed back in 2007 or 2008.

A piece for a different show at the SAME GALLERY.

A piece on which I had used the SAME GLUE (E6000) to glue the SAME TROPHY PART to a wooden box. A piece, you will notice, that has remained distinctly UN-MELTED.


Next time, I'll try putting it together with rivets.

Thursday at ArtFest: Nested Visions

I started this year's ArtFest experience with another mouthwatering breakfast at James House, "my" bed and breakfast here in Port Townsend (was that poached fruit in yogurt and berry sauce? with an individual quiche in a light-as-air pastry shell? Eeek!).

Then I moved on to a class called "Nested Visions" with mother-in-law/daughter-in-law art teaching team Marylin and Tracie Lyn Huskamp - two teachers who really need their own comedy show. Once again, I was blown away by how warm, relaxed and personable the teachers at ArtFest are . . . generally, the teachers who work the mixed media art retreat circuit are positive, supportive, and talented, but there is something about ArtFest (salt air?) that really seems to bring out the best in the instructors . . .

I didn't get a great shot of Marylin or Tracie Lyn, but I did get some good shots of my nests, made with horsehair, twigs, dog hair (brought by another participant), assorted foliage, and glue. Want details on how to make your own? I understand the ladies have a book coming out this fall called "Nature Inspired" that will give all the details . . . You know Ms. Crafty Manners doesn't like it when I kiss and tell on the blog.*

Don't they look real?!

I haven't had a chance to fully glue down the assemblage compositions yet, but am very excited about the juxtaposition of indoors/outdoors, security envelope window/house window, branch/bone, topo map/stamps . . . different ways we view the world, different ways we find security, different ways we navigate . . .


And this one is a heart and a feather and a nest perched on the cover of a dictionary . . . along with a little text. Who is it that weighs your heart against a feather to see which is lighter? The Egyptian god Ma'at? I'm definitely feeling a bit of weight lift . . .

*Note: While Ms. Crafty Manners is a big fan of sharing information and offering up free info on how to make things, she is not so keen on me sharing things taught by others as part of how they make their living . . . One of the ways that artists survive is by sharing their knowledge and receiving some kind of compensation for it. When I've paid for a class from a professional artist or crafter, I don't want to re-share information on a technique they've developed in such a way that it can be published or redistributed without their permission. Like, say, on a blog. I did find some cool things, though, when I entered "make bird nest" into Google search . . . including this quickie tutorial on making nests with plaster and hay and another set of tutorials on making a birds nest with bark-covered wire.

It's Really the Holidays Now!

It really starts to feel like the holidays for me right after Thanksgiving. My grandmother always used to take the turkey carcass and make turkey soup, and it's a tradition I carry on - right down to the Tabasco! Something about the soup bubbling on the stove says, "Yup. It's really the Holidays now!"

Of course, the thing I do that my grandmother never did is save the bones and use them in art.

In a previous post, someone asked about preparing the bones. I'm still in the process of perfecting my technique - and I have to admit that I would love to have a box of flesh eating beetles (like they use on Bones) for Christmas! But, for now, I'll just give you a quick description of how I do it . . . and if you've got any suggestions, let me know!

1. Boil the turkey - this helps get the flesh off the bones, and gives you a great broth. Be careful not to boil it for too long, though, as this can bring the yellow fats in bone to the surface and leave you with greasy bones - usually, I bring it to a boil, then let it simmer.
2. Run cool water over the bones and clean the last of the meat and flesh off with your fingers.
3. Mix about a cup of bleach in one or two gallons of water and let the bones soak in it for a few hours. Remove, rinse, and let the bones air dry. Again, I'm still working this out . . . if there's too much bleach, or you leave it in too long, it can make the bone brittle and powdery.
4. Once the bones are dry, I seal them with a matte gel medium or a matte spray sealant. Then, they go in the art. Fun!