In Which Our Intrepid Blogger Goes on a Cruise

Featured below, you see all the reasons why I wanted to go on a Crafty Chica Cruise: Of course, there'd be crafting, a trip to Mexico, and a shot at sunshine in April, but the big draws? Getting to hang out with the Crafty Chica Herself - Kathy Cano-Murillo (right) and the ever-delightful Sister Diane (left). Add sun, surf, and stuffed iguanas, and I was totally in!


Now, it turns out that I'm not much of a cruiser. Seasick? Check. Mildly claustrophobic? Check. So overwhelmed by the possible shore excursions that I actually didn't spend any time in the surf? Check. A little freaked out by the floating Las Vegas casino atmosphere of a Carnival Cruise ship? Double-check.

But I still had a great time! Why? Well, Kathy Cano-Murillo is just as fun, generous, and crazy glitter sweet as her books, blog posts, and awesome craftiness would lead you to believe. Not everyone lives up to their on-line image but the Crafty Chica does it - plus some! (And man, did she score us some serious swag!!) Here she is modeling the amazing apron she decorated during the cruise!



I also had an incredible time being roomies with and generally geeking out with Sister Diane. She was there creating an epic podcast about the Crafty Chica Cruise - I haven't seen sign of it yet, but I'll let you know when I spot it! In the meantime, she chronicled our adventures at the Mexican fabric store and the Mexican paper store in nerd-a-rific technicolor detail! Here's a shot of us heading ashore - with no idea what wonders lay ahead!
But the thing is, vacations are generally made great by the things you don't expect. In my case, it was towel animals.


Yes, towel animals. Finally, I understand why hotel towels are always so darn stiff and scratchy - its because they have to be if you're going to fold them and roll them and twist them into loveable animals!


Apparently, towel folding or towel origami, is popular on cruise lines and tropical resorts. Having spent no time at either before, they were brand new to me!

If you're feeling inspired - and maybe in need of a vacation at an exclusive resort - try venturing into the land of towel-folding with Ian:




Of course, if towel-folding seems too mundane or you're looking to get really fancy, you may just need to hop over to Amazon and order this book:


And no, no-one did anything fancy to our toilet paper on the cruise. But if you want to go on your own crafty cruise, the Crafty Chica is already accepting reservations for an 8-day cruise next spring!

Found: Installation Art in Philadelphia

Ah . . . Back from a lovely trip to Philadelphia, and was delighted by the art I discovered . . . in some unlikely places.

The first was the downtown Anthropologie store . . .

This window display is both inside and outside the windows . . . and wraps around the building.


It's a crazy juxtaposition between the architecture of the old building and the wacky, modern flow of the orange sticks . . .

I love how it pours up and out of the windows and down around the entrance to the store, especially since it's not a traditional consumer building.

I also wandered into the Magic Gardens, a raw mosaic folk art wonderland created by artist Isaiah Zagar. He's done mosaic mural projects all over Philadelphia . . . while he was at it, he also did mosaic over every surface in his studio and transformed the vqcqnt lot next door into a mosaic maze of quotes, drawings on ceramic, and well, junk, cemented together. Like most outsider art, photos don't really do it justice: you've got to be there.









And if you're keen on seeing a huge variety of mosaic art locally, I understand that this years Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts is having an exhibit called Cutting Edges - the largest fine art mosaic exhibit in the U.S. (at least according to their press release).

Saturday at ArtFest: Captured Memory Boxes with Bee Shay

Saturday, I took a class from one of my favorite teachers, Bee Shay. We brought photos from home to incorporate into the piece. I brought several pictures with me, but ended up using this picture that I took in the Cinque Terre in Italy when the Sweetie and I were there in 2007. The trip has fond memories for me, and I love the colors and abstract shapes in the image - I've been wanting to do something with it for a long time!



We mounted the image on a wooden painting support that had a deep 2" cradle - like the one Bee Shay is painting in the picture below. The idea was to mount the photo on the front of the painting board and fill the back with tokens or objects that relate to the image . . . except all the tokens I brought with me related to the beaches of Oregon and Washington.


So I ended up focusing on the image and the quote inscribed around the edge - we did a marvelous series of things to distress the image, applying gesso, acrylic paint, colored pencil and even attacking the surface with sand paper.


I'm still interested in continuing to work the image - bringing more of the color out. I also want to incorporate some of the ephemera from my trip. My quote came out of some free-association writing I did around the image . . . "What we build and the places we call home travel with us, creating a map in our memory."

Here's another shot of the front of the piece and the back as they look now . . .




And here's a link to some images of Bee Shay's sample for the class - just so you can see the potential.

Window on Oaxaca

Time to head home . . . but let me leave you with a few more images of Oaxaca and the surrounding villages . . .

Street in Oaxaca City, near my favorite pizza place.

And a street near my hotel . . . I love the multi-colored buildings.

And a sneak peak into a courtyard . . . I love the way tropical locales build around an open courtyard . . . hidden from the street and full of fountains and color and sun.

And sometimes even red carts full of birdcages and green plants.

And windows with iron work and pretty paint on the walls.

I love the bright colors.

The pretty pastels.

And veggies at the native market . . . it travels from village to village in the Oaxaca valley.

I'll miss the sun and the bright colors.

I'll be glad to be rid of the Montezuma's Revenge, though.

Oaxaca Craft Round-Up: Part Three

Oaxaca is well known for it's black clay pottery - the only places it's found are in Oaxaca State in Mexico and in New Mexico in the States. I got to visit a couple of different workshops where it's made. The pottery is all hand-built without a wheel.

And this guy moved fast, so the pictures are pretty blurry! You can see there are two saucers - it looks like two frisbees set on top of each other curved side to curved side - and the potters use these to spin the pots as they work on them instead of a wheel.

And they can make them go very fast!

When the clay is leather hard, it's possible to cut patterns into it. The clay is also polished while it's leather hard, usually with a piece of crystal, and pit fired. If it's fired a long time, the clay can hold water, but it ends up a kind of gray. If it's fired for a shorter time, the clay turns out shiny and black, but is less practical. In the fifties, when plastic came on the scene, it was a lot cheaper than the pottery. But . . . the shiny black pottery was very pretty . . . and it was a big hit with tourists like me!

Here's the pieces I bought . . .

With candles . . . Pretty!

Oaxaca Craft Round-Up: Part Two

Part two - fiber! I got to visit a very cool rug workshop - here's the gigantic loom:

It's so big he has to step from pedal to pedal and work it section by section.

They spin and dye all the wool themselves, and use all natural materials to dye the wool. They use cochineal, a funky parasite that grows on cactus, to get the red color. They use indigo to get the blue colors.

And here's some nifty animal cross stitch from the Oaxaca Textile Museum.

Rows of ducks and geese and birdies. On a cloth.

And here's a blouse with roosters.

I got a couple of cute blouses, too, but none with this kind of detail . . .

Oaxaca Craft Round-Up: Part One

Ok, so I got sick in Mexico. It's almost cliche, really. A lovely touch of Montezuma's Revenge, combined with some sort of bronchial disturbance, which I seem sensitive to ever since a bad run-in with a hazardous mosquito coil in Bali several years ago. If it kills mosquitoes, chances are it's not so good to breathe it. Even if you're not a mosquito. Which I'm not.

I still managed to make it out on a few tours to see some crafty action. Oaxaca is well-known for whimsical little creatures carved out of twisty copal wood, called alebrijes. Apparently the name refers to the fact that they are creatures from the imagination, inspired by the odd shapes the wood naturally grows into . . .What started off a few decades ago as a fun hobby has turned into a full-blown tourist driven industry in Oaxaca.

Here's a carver surrounded by some of his creations. The wood is very wet when it's carved, and it takes it several weeks to dry out . . .

And here's one of his partners painting them with acrylic paints once they've dried.

And here are a few finished critters . . . A crazy happy squirrel surrounded by funny little somewhat threatening monsters . . . but he is so hanging onto that nut . . . You can see why tourists would be charmed. Or at least why I am . . .

And here's a massive peacock. All the little feathers are built as little pegs, and come out for shipping.

Here's a giant dragon!

And here's an imaginary hummingbird-in-flight shot! (Ok, so I didn't use a flash and my hand shook when I was taking the shot, which resulted in this snazzy lo-tech effect.)

And here's one that's not moving . . .

My what big eyes and big ears you have!

Are you feeling queasy?

Art, Politics & Entertainment

Strange how I always seem to be out of town for important events. I was in transit from Bali, Indonesia to Singapore (yes, in an airplane) on September 11th, 2001. And then, on Election Day, 2008, I was in the town of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Fortunately, I had a choice that evening of several locations to watch election results as they happen, surrounded by ex-pats and anxious tourists. One spot has become one of my favorite cafes because 1) it offers free wifi 2) it has really good tortas - hot sandwiches filled with seasoned beef and local cheese and 3) they also sell cereal with banana slices for breakfast, another weird comfort food of mine. They held an electoral countdown monitored on-line and posted on a whiteboard, complete with a George Bush pinata and free shots of mezcal, the local booze, when Obama reached 270 electoral votes! Today, the whiteboard had the words "324! Obamanos!" written on it in a rather booze-happy script.

I ended up watching the results in the bar of a local five star hotel, well, because it wasn't as crowded and had a large screen TV, and was also full of Obama supporters. (Yes, I've been a bit coy about my policital leanings because this is a blog about creativity, not politics, but let us just say I felt very at home, and er, helped the cafe owner hang the Bush pinata - and have been delighted by the crafty support for Obama I've been seeing around the blog-o-sphere). It was an amazing experience, to sit in that bar and feel the cheers pulse through me when the west coast results were announced and CNN declared Obama the winner. There wasn't a dry eye in the house during Obama's acceptance speech, though my waiter did indicate that his tears were because he was going crazy trying to keep the crowd in cervezas - there was barely room to walk in the bar.

In honor of exercising the political (and other) voices of the people, I thought I’d share some posters I’ve been finding around town - In many ways, they're a lot more interesting than some of the art in the local art galleries - especially when you can't quite read what's going on:
For example: Why is that cricket riding in the shopping cart, and where is s/he going? Do crickets have genders? What do they have to do with liberty and resistance?
What is a dog doing at a funeral for artists? Is s/he going to pull the banner off the funeral wreath? Does that count as dramatic tension in the image?


This one appears to have a bit of socialist message, but I still find it mustache-ist that only the guy with the most facial hair actually gets to sit down and read the paper.

She sure looks angry, and I think I would be too, if a caravan of theatrical tourists was about to come to my zocolo. Of course, I could be mis-reading this one.

Band or no band, I love the virgin of guadalupe in the gas mask, complete with flaming tire cape. I think I may need a flaming tire cape. None spotted yet in the markets.

Apparently, the local Luchadores (Mexican pro wrestlers) are now taking their stage names from soul music and American horror flicks. Really, it's embarrassing how pervasive American culture is.
Ok, all I can read on this one is "PreHispanic CoverUps," and maybe something about tattoo portaits, which might be "portraits" or "portents." I think its a little late to cover up the whole pre-hispanic thing, though it does look like someone tried to peel it off the wall. And, actually, The PreHispanic Peel Offs is kind of a cool name for a band. As is Tattoo Portent.

Oh dear. Don't get me started.