PeAcE of mind . . . .

I have been busy with school performances this month . . . only four more to go!! I love my job. This past winter the children of Santa Fe almost lost their art and music programs in the public schools. Lots of support from the community came forth to make a plea to keep the arts alive and their voices were heard. Have you ever wanted to make a plea for a worthy cause and then didn't make or find the time to do so? It felt good for me to make my voice heard for my music students. Not so much for the sake of keeping my job, but for my students who I love and have so much I want to share with them to open their minds and hearts to music.

After all this stress it is great to have my art to come home to and feed my soul. It gives me true peace of mind to have this outlet to express myself and clear out the cobwebs in my mind.

I hope you have found some time to express yourself today!
Namaste.

The Colors of PeAcE

I have been finishing these peace signs for a while now and then it took me a while to photograph them! These are pendants . . . suncatchers . . . . or charms to hand on your rear-view mirror. We all need reminders to be peace-filled. Got PeAcE?
Namaste

fLowEr pOweR!!

Since we moved to beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico we have so enjoyed the four seasons that mother nature provides. Each one has it's own beauty and feeling. All seasons in northern New Mexico are glorious and beautiful. This winter in particular has been lovely with abundant snowfall and excellent photo opportunities! I am however anxious for the flowers of spring to arrive. I have been lusting over seed catalogs!!
These magnets are newly listed in my ETSY shop. I am pleased with their cheery color and hope they will brighten somebody's kitchen very soon! In the meantime I will continue to enjoy the charms of winter here in Santa Fe.
I hope you are well.
Namaste.

heART felt

I have been having such fun experimenting with wool whether it is lambs wool or an old wool sweater. I've been making scarves and pot holders. Now being a environmentally conscious kind of guy I had to use as much of the the wool as possible! Therefore I have created two heart wall hangings that are for sale in my ETSY shop.
I am having such fun finding new things to create and have made such marvelous connections through ETSY, Facebook and the blogging world . . . . wonderful creative souls and special people. I have enjoyed this cyber relationship and hope one day to meet many of my cyber friends. They are true friends nonetheless and I cherish their spirit, creative input and inspiration.
Namate.

Wooly Booly!

I have fallen into the world of felting sweaters . . . and I can't stop!! I am finding it fascinating and fun! It is such fun to stick a perfectly good merino wool sweater into the washer with soap and hot water then toss it into a hot dryer!! An old baggy wool sweater that has seen it's better days is now toddler size!! Here are a few beginning projects I've made for family and friends. I got the needle felting bug too . . . been buying wool at Oodles here in Santa Fe.
Hope everyone is well, staying warm, loving life and finding peace in your studio.
Namaste.

Peace in the year ahead

I have been away from the world of blogging for a bit. I've changed the name of my blog and am going to be sharing some new things. Not sure if I'll keep up and post daily but I am hoping to share some of my new addictions (aka sweet tooth) to several art mediums new to me and my experience in the later part of 2009. I am still keeping my hands a bit muddy with clay projects but now I find myself washing paint brushes and picking up bits of fabric and thread off the floor. I've discovered that painting can be fun, messy, frustrating, challenging and quite satisfying. I've been messing about with painting on fabric and adding other mixed media. I have found mixed media collage to be fascinating and beautiful. I've been collecting a increasingly growing stack of books on this medium. See my Shelfari selections for some of the most recent books I've been reading and loving.
The two little pieces I've pictured here are my experiments with mixed media. They measure only 2 X 2 1/2" (not including the hangers). I began with a scrap of canvas and after some paint, magazine ephemera, rusty wire and beads . . . here's what I ended up with. Some tiny peace canvases.
I hope all of you can find time to satisfy your artistic sweet tooth. I am so fortunate to have a supportive partner who encourages me to have a go at whatever might artistic eye candy I might be drooling over. I hope this New Year brings peace and great art experiences and experimentation into your life.
Namaste.

peace and unique found treasures

I am the finder of lost pennies, rusty bottle caps, unique sticks, rocks and other assorted treasures.  As a child I was always looking down at the ground to find these cast off treasures.  My mom said that someday I'd run into a pole . . . I did once on a family vacation!  

I am enjoying the process of using these fun, funky things in my art, along with my ever growing fabric collection!  However, that is another story and another blog post.

Above is a little piece I created out of a twig that I found on a hike in the Sangre de Christo mountains a few miles from our home here in Santa Fe.  It is a glorious peace-filled place that we love to frequent as often as we can.

The beads are salvaged from another piece of art that met its demise due to our strong spring winds and the peace sign was handcrafted by myself from terra cotta clay.

This work is for sale in my ETSY shop!

Namaste.