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Well, it’s hot. If you’ve been wondering whether I have given up working in the studio during this heat the answer is…sort of.

finishedfinishedfinishedfinished

I am not welding but there is plenty of other stuff to keep me busy. I finished the second of the seed pods on Friday and managed to get it into the garden on Saturday. I don’t know if it’s going to stay there forever, but I’m not moving it until the temperature goes back down to the mid-80’s. Or lower. Much lower.

So for now, here’s a sneak peek at the pod in its temporary place. We decided maybe it should be called “Pod de Deux” since it is the second in the series.

I have started the third piece, but again, it will have to wait a bit. In the meantime I am busy doing research and thinking and drawing and thinking some more to come up with the next designs that I will be tackling. Stay tuned!

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In other news, my installation, “Pipeline”, is still ensconced at the Delaplaine gallery in Frederick. MD. The opening was well attended. The show is up until Saturday the 30th (I know, not much time left to see it). I was happy to see it up, but I have to admit to some trepidation over this particular installation. I had had to jerry-rig it due to an oversight when I was packing all the tools for the installation. (I forgot to add the special nails I was using and had to make do with regular nails.) So even though I was the only one who knew how fragile it was, I spent some time last Monday fixing it. It is definitely stronger and more stable now.

two visitors at the opening of the sculpture show at the Delaplaine

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And finally…it is official! We are hosting a fundraiser event in September. Creative Alliance is a community arts organization in a cultural dessert in downtown Baltimore. It has grown over the years and now provides an amazing focus for the arts in that community. Every year they offer a group of events that are designed to raise money for the organization. These events, titled “Art to Dine For”, are a combination of art and good food, put on by various local artists and board members. This year, Rich and I will be hosting an event called “Art Camp”. Here is the write up on their website…

Look forward to an afternoon of pure fun and bring the kids, too! Explore the 100-year-old barn Virginia Sperry has converted into her welding studio where she creates life-sized animals and birds out of steel. Wander through Virginia’s six acres where several of her animal sculptures are carefully installed. Enjoy homemade ice cream sandwiches made from fresh cookies and Hoffman’s ice cream and watch your kids play together in rollingdownhill races, creating masterpieces with sidewalk chalk, and riding a handmade rocking llama.

2–4:30pm | Adults $55 | Kids $25 (Call 410-276-1651 Tues – Sat to purchase Kids’ Tickets)
Food: Fun Treats | Attire: Country Comfy | Location: Carroll County

You can find this information and sign up for the event at http://creativealliance.org/calendar/art-dine.

I urge you to check out all the offerings. There are some really fun evenings planned throughout the fall and early winter.

Please note…this is the only other time this year that the sculpture garden will be open to the public. This event is not free but 100% of the money that we make goes to fund community arts education and programs. It is really going to be a lot of fun!

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I thought I would leave you with a photograph that I took recently. There have not been many butterflies in my garden which is too bad, because this has been a wonderful year for flowers. But I did manage to capture this beauty while it was dining on my echinacea.

Stay cool!!!

 

in retrospect…by the numbers

The open studio is over and life has returned to its normal peaceful, ordered state. I spent the day recovering from being super hostess and will resume being an artist tomorrow. For right now, I am content reliving the weekend in all its glory.

As I ponder the weekend, I am struck by how much we as a society are stuck on numbers to qualify our happiness and success. How many home runs did someone get in a season, how many people voted in an election, what score did your child get on the test, what is your IQ. The list is endless as to how we measure ourselves. Endless, but limited. For we don’t always measure the stuff that is really important. How many people dropped popcorn while they cheered for those home runs because they were so excited? How many people were affected by the policies put into place by the elected official? How many times was your child polite to other people? And how many times did you smile today? Perhaps those are the questions we should be finding the answers to.

I am not immune to the numbers game. Throughout my career as an artist, I have avidly counted things. Dollars I made at a craft show, new names on my mailing list, visitors to my gallery, lizards sold…it all added up over the years. But quite honestly, I can’t say that any of it was really important. I continued to make stuff, people continued to buy it and I wasn’t any more or less happy after I had figured out the bottom line. Or if I was, it was fleeting because I always thought the numbers should be higher.

And yet I continue to do it. I carefully count the names on the sign in sheet for the open studio trying to figure out how many people came. But as I do so, I wonder exactly what is the magic number? What is the number that means that the weekend was a success? That I can use to tell other people so that they will be impressed? And then I think maybe I need to come up with some different numbers.

So here they are:

Number of people who smiled when they were here: All of them.

Number of people who thanked me for opening up my property to the public: I lost count.

Number of people I thanked for coming out to see my work during the weekend of solid rain: Everyone I talked to. (At least I tried, if I missed anyone, consider yourself thanked).

Number of people who told me my work was amazing/phenomenal/fill in any number of adjectives: I lost count.

Number of kids who rode the rocking llama: over 30.

Number of adults who rode the rocking llama: Probably around 20 but I don’t know for sure, I think there were some who did it when no one was looking.

Number of chocolate chip cookies eaten: 7 dozen.

Number of people reached by my facebook post of the article in the Carroll County Times: 1,770. (This last number is quite ridiculous. It is my first encounter with the power of social media. And it doesn’t count the people who saw the article in the myriad of other places that it was posted or shared. It also reminds me of the still strong power of the press. The newspaper may be a dinosaur, but don’t count it out, especially in the smaller communities.)

Number of kids who stuck their tongues out at the kangaroo: Only one was caught on film, Others may have as well. I will never tell.

Number of tire ruts in our lawn: doesn’t matter.

Number of happy, successful artists living here: One.

Thank you.

 

 

15 minutes

Okay folks, I have racked up another bunch of minutes on my 15 minutes of fame clock. As you may know, I am hosting an open studio and sculpture garden on my property this weekend. The local paper found out about it and asked to do an article. Of course I said yes! It came out online yesterday and it is really a lovely article. Many thanks to the writer, Lois Zymanski, the photographer, Dylan Slagle, and Jim and Susan who said such nice things about me.

To read the article, click here.

In the meantime, I am aware that, like many previous days this spring, it is probably going to rain on Saturday. Ugh. I really wish that the weather were working out differently, but there’s nothing I can do.

So here are ten reasons why you should come out even if it is raining:

1. You can pretend you live in Seattle. Seattle is a nice city. People there do things in the rain all the time. If they didn’t, nothing would get done.
2. It’s a good chance to see if your rain gear is weather proof. Wouldn’t you like to know this before you go on that camping/hiking trip?
3. You will get to meet all sorts of interesting people…including me! You have to figure that anyone who comes out in the rain to see steel animals is going to be interesting.
4. I will have binoculars so you will be able to see some of the sculptures from the dry, warm studio.
5. Wine. I will have wine.
6. This is the only time I will open the gardens to the public for free this year. (Unless I change my mind. I have been known to do that before. I am fickle that way.)
7. I will be bored if you don’t come. Boredom is bad for your health. Keep me healthy.
8. Photographing the sculptures is better when it’s cloudy.
9. I have extra umbrellas.
10. It will give you great joy.

So see, there is no excuse for not coming to see me this weekend. Don’t forget…10 to 5 Saturday and Sunday (May 21/22, 2016). 415 Heath Dr., Eldersburg. I will be waiting.

 

let’s make a date

I wanted to let everyone know what is going on in the studio and beyond. Here’s the calendar for May and June. “Bound” was accepted into the National Juried Show May 7 to June 19 at the Delaplaine Art Center Frederick, MD http://delaplaine.org Opening reception …

busy

Busy.

I am busy trying to forge my way through each day in the best way I can. I am busy watching spring come…slowly. I am busy digging in the dirt outside and planting seeds inside and putting grow lights on top and watering them and watching them sprout and grow and thinking of the beans and peas and tomatoes and flowers that will be adorning my garden in just a few weeks.

I am busy handing out rack cards for my Open Studio and finding creative ways of getting the word out so that it will be a busy weekend on May 21 and 22.

I am busy making sure that my intern has plenty of work to do in the studio. This means I am busy working on two new pieces that are both pods of some sort and will have interesting seeds inside. Here is what one of them looks like. I’m too busy to explain it. You will just have to come back and see it when it is finished. See all those pieces that have been cut and sanded? That is what my intern has been busy preparing so that I can be busy welding them on to the form.

I am busy applying for shows. Busy applying with work that is really still just in my head so I have to find ways to describe it, draw it and explain my meaning, my raison d’être. I am grateful for the ease of applying online, yet I know that it really doesn’t cut down the time because every application has different criteria (72 dpi with file size no larger than…) and each gallery or art center uses a different application program. I am busy making usernames and passwords and signing up for all these programs that are supposed to make my life faster, speedier, less busy.

I am busy with the animals; cats who get into fights with the barn cat next door who wander onto our property with alarming frequency. Busy with cleaning wounds and monitoring abscesses and trying to run off the neighbor cats before there is a fight. Busy with dogs who don’t seem to understand the invisible fence anymore and whose passion for goat by-products entice them to go visiting the neighbor’s barns. (Yes, the same neighbors that send their cats over here.)

Yes, spring is a busy time. I’m okay with that.

 

the sun…it doth shine

This has been a particularly foggy week. Both literally and figuratively. A warm trend for December, making it possible to drive convertibles with the top down, go golfing (both accomplished by my husband…he is happy now) and walk with out shivering. Not typical December weather but, quite frankly, I don’t know what is. What this leads to, of course, is dense fog, both at night and in the morning.

musk ox? what musk ox?

giraffe looks a little fuzzy

even foggy at night

My brain, ever the willing conspirator, went foggy as well. It was a long but happy weekend, lots of people came to my open studio, some I knew and others I met for the first time. People wandered around the grounds, saw the sculptures, ate chocolate chip cookies and asked tons of questions. (The most often asked was “how did you get into this welding thing?”)

Fortunately the fog stayed away, the sun shone and everything was really great. Even the dogs behaved themselves, greeting visitors and making sure that everything was okay.

Ginger, making sure that nobody misbehaved.

Unfortunately, the weekend did not end on a great note. Sunday night, while in the process of getting the signs that I had put out on the street corners to guide people to my studio, I managed to misstep and fall face first into the road. Fortunately, there were no cars to run me over. Unfortunately, I had to drive myself back home while bleeding from abrasions on my face. Long story short, I am fine, other than some cuts and swelling on my upper lip (exacerbated by my braces), a small knee abrasion and a hurt hand that has healed nicely. (I returned to welding yesterday). My dignity and self-confidence were maimed, however, and I have been hiding out and healing physically, mentally and emotionally for the past couple of days. I only emerged from the house occasionally to take pictures of fog and get the studio back in working condition. Here is Ginger who is modeling my preferred position since Sunday night.

Tonight I can confidently say that the sun is back out in my brain. My body has kindly worked hard on healing itself and I can now eat without pain. That is always a bonus. Tomorrow is another day and I am looking forward to it. The sun will shine, the Christmas tree will be picked out and brought home and I will go for a long walk with a friend in the warm weather that is reminiscent of May, not December. Life is good.

the kitchen sink

There are days when I sit down to write a post and it flows like water from a faucet. This is not one of those days. Not because I have nothing to say. Au contraire. I have too much to talk about. All these thoughts are running around in my head and I can’t corral them enough to provide a coherent theme. Sometimes it helps to post a few pix and that starts to visually explain what’s going on in my weird little head. So here are some pix from the studio. Lots of stuff is happening there…of course it doesn’t require that I actually talk or communicate anything verbally. All I have to do is weld or paint…

sneak peek at the beginning of the next sculpture.

sneak peek at the beginning of a rust painting

studio abstract with steel dust, a steel circle and other detritus

Okay, that didn’t help very much.

I’m still having trouble pulling the words together.

Sad to say, I think you’re going to have to wait for another post to read anything edifying.

Sigh.