Introducing Ruth Krug and Nona Flores

Okay, back again.  Friday's deadline was met, but today was another full day, so it's another crazy-late night for this 8:00 pumpkin.  Oh well, with no ominous deadlines looming tomorrow morning, I can sleep in 'til 6:00 a.m.! :)))  Now, let me tell you about two more of my classmates from this summer's France excursion, Ruth and Nona.  These were the two quietest women in the group, but not for lack of interesting stories.

Ruth was the very quietest, and while some might mistake her quiet ways for shyness, I can tell you she isn't.  People often assume introvert types are shy, but shy comes from fear, and Ruth is not afraid.  She traveled alone to France, and spent time on either side of our week long class exploring Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Castres. Ruth is a keen observer, and a kind soul.  She may not have been as rolicking rowdy as some of us, but she had just as much fun.  Sometimes I wish I could be as quietly observant as Ruth, as I think I'd learn a lot more.  Oh, well, I bound through life with eyes wide open, and mouth open wider (either gulping it all down, or exclaiming on all there is to discover), and that has its good points, too, I know.

Ruth's quiet ways made her welcome wherever she went. 

Ruth claimed to be just an aspiring artist, but she understates her talents.  Unfortunately, the photos I took on our last day, when we all showed off our creations are really bad.  I'm not sure what I had my borrowed camera set on, but most of the photos from that day are beyond tweaking.  This is, sadly, the only one I got of Ruth that's clear enough to print, and it doesn't show much.  Sigh.

Ruth shows off her altered board book

Ruth could teach me a lot about photography, which is certainly one of her artistic talents.  She shared a few pictures with us via email, so I can at least show you some of her artistry outside of class...

Ruins at Albi

Shop window in Toulouse.  I do wonder why it's in English, though.

It just occurred to me that if my memory of a conversation serves me correctly, ultra-quiet Ruth did say she was a university librarian for many years.  Of course she's quiet!

 ************************************

Nona's career has been centered around academia, too.  She did retire, but was later lured back to assist a professor, and it seems she's back to nearly full-time employment.  Still she makes time to create a lot of intricate art.  Nona, like Beverlee (who you met last week) has taken this class more than once, and in fact took two weeks of it, this year.  

This is Nona's photo from her 2011 France visit.  She had intended to make it a tradition of sorts, and get a shot of herself in the sunflowers again, but due to a very late spring, they were about 14 inches tall.  I thought a shot of her ankles in the same sunflower field would be kind of funny, but she wasn't enthusiastic.

One of Nona's projects was this book cover, made with baked polymer tiles mosaiced onto one of those book-shaped boxes.  

Here's the inside...

Nona made a doll both weeks, and this one is Crepe Suzette, from her second week.  The lower body is a vintage tin, picked up for 3 euros from a very young flea market vendor who refused to budge on the price.  It was worth it for the cool factor alone, but the fact that once pried open it revealed a 50 franc and a 100 franc note, both from 1936, added to the thrill of the find..

Crepe Suzette

Those who read this blog regularly may recall that the mouse featured at the top of the right hand column, Madame Lucie Bonnard, came about as a result of a pre-class assignment (to write a paragraph of a biography for an imaginary character) that got out of hand, and turned into a children's book.  Turns out I'm not the only one.  Nona ended up starting an art quilt based on her character, and the story that got away from her.  Turns out, Nona is a serious quilt artist...

I didn't get a shot of those quilt blocks, but Nona sent me this photo.  It's a quilt she made earlier this year, using  floral photos she took and printed to cotton, pieced and then embellished with beads and quilt stitching.

 I once wanted to be a quilt artist, but after sewing one meticulous block, I realized there was no way I was going to have the patience to make umpteen more.  Nona has the patience I often wish I had.  Check out this impressive beauty:

This traditional quilt, pieced by Nona in 2012, was machine quilted by Sue diVarco, and has just been juried into Lark Publication's Showcase 500 Traditional Quilts (to be published).  

 I enjoyed seeing Nona's artistic process and her beautiful creations, but I have to confess that some of my favorite things about Nona are her impressive education and her warm way of sharing it.  Nona knows the history of seemingly everything (I can so hear her telling me to edit that--I said seemingly), so whether we were all talking about a place we wanted to visit, or somebody's great-great-great granddaddy, Nona could put things in historical context.  It was like looking at a snapshot, then being able to lean in and see what was going on outside the frame.

Nona on the steps leading back out of a convent garden that I would have entirely missed on my own.

On the day we visited the very old town of Albi, I got to hang out with Nona, since she and I both wanted to see the fashion museum.  It was one of my favorite days of the trip.  Albi was gorgeous and old, and perfectly picturesque and interesting, but what made the day especially memorable was seeing it with someone who really knew what we were looking at.  No long dissertations, but interesting commentary on the whens and whys of things.  It gave some substance to all the eye candy, and I enjoyed Albi in a far more memorable way than anywhere else.  Being a passing tourist is not at all my preferred way to experience travel, but if I could travel the world with Nona, I might not mind doing it at tourist speed.

There are three more classmates to share with you, and for those readers who are into polymer clay, they are names you probably know.  Julie Eakes, Judy Belcher, and the blogger who connects us all, Cynthia Tinapple, still to come.  See you back here Friday morning!

Sorry, can't post, having an art-attack.

Tonight's post delayed due to deep absorption in a project due tomorrow.  Next post on another couple of the gals in my France class coming soon...ish.

Introducing Anne Beach and Beverlee Stafford

Art class in France was so much fun, partly because yeah, well, it was in France, but mostly because of the truly kind, generous, wonderfully fun women I got to spend time with.  Something I realized about every one of these women, including Dayle, our instructor, and Nese (pronounced Nesha), our chef, was that each one does/has done something I want(ed) to do, or has a quality I've wished for at some point.  The great thing about making friends like this is that one can vicariously enjoy far more aspects of life than can possibly be crammed into one lifetime.  It's also nice to get an up-close look, to see if any of these long-imagined aspects could be tried on myself, or if they maybe aren't likely to be such a good fit.  This might make more sense as you meet the women...

Two who weren't in last week's photo are Anne Beach and Beverlee Stafford.  Anne is on the left, in front, and Beverlee is the woman in blue standing up (That's me hidden in between them.)

Class at La Cascade, taught by  Dayle Doroshow.

Anne Beach is a mixed media artist from California.  Because she has such a love of collecting fun little bits at flea markets, for use in her art projects, she accumulated an overflow, and this led to opening a shop on Etsy.  Click on over to Beach Flea Market, where you can purchase game pieces, little china dolls, rusty bits...all the great stuff one needs to fill a proper mixed media artist's toy box.

Anne shares the story behind her storybook doll with the class.

It's The Owl and the Pussycat, of course!

Anne slipped out on occasion to sketch some of the local scenery, shown here with a funny little French guy.

Now, I've owned a once-a-month store, with make-and-take projects that used these cool vintage bits, but as much as I loved curating the collections and creating the projects, I gave it up because it was more work than I had time to invest, in order to do it as well as I wanted to do it.  It takes a lot of work to do a brick and mortar storefront, and though I own a house that's situated and zoned for retail, there's still a lot of expense, to boot.  

Checking out Anne's Etsy shop though, has me very tempted to establish one of my own (cause, yeah, I need another business to run, right now).  I mean, this would, in theory, keep the studio from overflowing with those odd bits that nobody but a junk artist would want, and might even make my flea marketing a hobby that pays for itself...or at least costs me a little less.  I knew about selling art on Etsy, and had heard one could sell vintage stuff, too, but until spending time with Anne, I never even considered it for myself.  Maybe my sweet little shopkeeper fantasy could be revived!  See what I mean about checking out imaginary lives?

This picture of Anne is especially sweet, but much of the fun is what's going on that has her chuckling...

Poor woman.  She just wanted a dish of ice cream.

Oh, and speaking of lives I can only imagine, Anne sings like an angel.  Many in the group could carry a tune, but Anne can sing.  With voice lessons, I can probably carry a tune, should we ever get the group back together for another week of (Off Off) Broadway musical follies, but a voice like Anne's?  ...sigh.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Beverlee made several of these completely hand crafted journals, using French fabrics and pretty ephemera.  She's taken the class three times before, so she had  some specific things she wanted to work on.

Beverlee Stafford, who flanked me on the left, is from the Washington D.C. area.  She's a retired civil servant with a love of beading and a penchant for travel.  She doesn't have a website, but has classes listed on starsbeads.com, if you happen to be in the D.C. Metro area.  Here's a button necklace she teaches...

Beverlee is stylish, cosmopolitan in a casual sort of way, and cool as a cucumber behind the wheel, in a country with somewhat different driving customs.  I imagine myself navigating the world like Beverlee, in a life where my nails are neatly manicured, my hairstyle holds up all day, and retirement means collecting a pension while enjoying the pleasures of leisure time I worked so hard to earn.  

Beverlee with her doll.  My apologies for the fuzzy picture, but it's the best I could do with what I had.  You can see her beautiful smile, at least.

Reality check:  My nails as I type this are encrusted with Black DTM, a paint that could put nail polish companies out of business, if it ever caught on.  My hair is in cahoots with the capricious gods of humidity and chance, and has never in my entire life held a style for more than two hours.  Well, except the spiky punk do, but I'll not be resurrecting that.  And driving in a foreign country with a carful of women singing Broadway show tunes?  Well, let's just say, I'm never gonna be Beverlee!  Lucky for me, my work and play are the same thing, so I won't miss the retirement thing so much.  Lucky for everyone, nobody asked me to drive!

So then, load up on some goodies from Anne's Etsy shop, call in well to work (really, don't even fib about being sick.  Just say you are perfectly fine, and in order to stay that way, you will be staying home in your jammies for 24 hours) and take a well-deserved art therapy day.  Then pop back here on Friday morning to meet a couple more of my inspiring classmates.  Have a great week!

French Flair with Silk Scarves...

In the last post, you got a peek at the classroom, and met Dayle Doroshow, who taught the mixed media journaling class that I took in France.  I promised to start introducing you to my classmates tonight, and since the only group photo we seem to have taken was up the street from La Cascade, at Ann Mason's silk painting studio, I guess I'll start the introductions there.  The class at Ann's was an optional extra, so a couple of the gals missed it.  That's okay, you'll meet Anne Beach and Beverlee Stafford in the next post.  Note:  I didn't take time to clean up and crop the photos, since it's late and I have to be on a job site crazy early in the morning, but I think they'll do.

Ann Mason has a studio a few doors up the street.  Not only does she create beautiful hand painted silk scarves, she teaches others the techniques.   I wish Ann had a website, but alas there isn't any way to show you her beautiful work.  Unless of course you click the link to La Cascade above and go take Dayle's class, or the one Ann and her son, Steve, will be teaching next summer.

Ann with the class, from left to right:
Judy Belcher, Julie Eakes, me in back and Ruth Krug down in front, Nona Flores, Cynthia Tinapple
Some of us just made square samplers, and others went all-out and did scarves.   I want to be a woman who wears scarves, but I don't seem to have the knack, or the flair, or maybe it's just that I rarely wear anything dressier than paint rags, and a colorful scarf would just get lost against the spatters on my shirt.  Sigh.  I made squares.

Judy and Cynthia both worked on precise geometric patterns.  There are little tubes of resist that you can squeeze on first, and then the colors won't bleed into each other.  

Ann was such a gentle teacher.  She guided us as much as we needed, and left us to experiment as much as we liked.

Julie as serious student.

Julie with an impish grin.  This is the real Julie.  

Samplers drying in the sun.  We each started with one to just sort of doodle around on, to see how the dye behaved, and then we made our second project.  I'm not sure which doodle is mine, but my project square is on the far right.  I used black resist, and ended up with a sort of stained glass effect.  I almost didn't take this class, as I wanted to finish something from the journaling class, but I'm glad I changed my mind.  I've occasionally thought about trying silk dyes, but didn't want to invest a lot of money in something I wasn't sure I would really enjoy.  Especially after learning about the resist, which comes in clear, black and metallics, I definitely want to explore this medium more.

Roger and his little dog, Lukie, peeked in on the class, and we caught up with them afterwards.  If you want to know what's going on in town, apparently these two, who are always on patrol, know it all.  Now, if only I spoke either French or Dog, I'd know it, too.

So, that's the merry band I spent my summer vacation singing with.  Really.  We sang.  In the car, in the classroom, at the table.  Even me.  Turns out, most of the class loves musical theater, and most know at least half of the words to all the best songs.  Some of us even knew the tunes.  Even me.  Not that I could carry the tune, but I knew it.  It's probably a good thing we went on most of our field trips with the windows rolled up.  

Next week, I'll share some more information on just who these women are.  All of them are talented, creative artists, and many of them have websites you'll want to know about.  Check back on Tuesday morning for an Etsy shop owner who can supply you with the coolest flea market finds for your art projects (she picked up lots in France, though I'm not sure she's sharing that loot), and a beader who has taken this mixed media class FOUR times.  She said we were the funnest ever.  Actually, she said something like that, but with proper grammar.  

Have a great weekend!  If you need something to read while you kick back and sip your sangria, don't forget the summer issue of 365Being is available at 365being.com.  You can order a hard copy, which will get to you in time to read next weekend, or purchase it in PDF and download it immediately.

Finally, a beginning...

I've been procrastinating on blogging about the class  I took in France, and now that I finally made myself dive in, I realize it was a case of overwhelm.  There are just too many aspects of the class for one blog post, though in my imagination, I had them all as one big story to tell.  Too big a story, judging by the fact I've stalled for three weeks.  Sometimes I am such a ninny, scaring myself before I even look closely at what's scaring me.  Sifting through the photos tonight, categories became obvious, chapters arranged themselves, and without further ado or avoidance, here's the first of a series I'll do over the next couple of weeks.  

Although we could drive up the street to unload, cars are parked in a little lot about a block away.  The trough in the center of the street was to bring cool water to the many coppersmiths who once inhabited these ateliers.  

Our destination, La Cascade (CLICK here and peek at the website)

Our generous, kind, talented, creative instructor, Dayle Doroshow (CLICK here to see Dayle's website).

A table full of inspiration from Dayle's own hands.  Books, dolls (some with books inside), and jewelry, made in a mix of techniques and materials, including a lot of polymer clay and textiles.

The classroom before the swarm descended. 

Class in session.  There are eight students, though a few are hidden, and one is behind the camera.  Don't worry, you'll meet them all in the next few posts.

The class was titled "Capturing Ancient France", though I'm not sure many of us delved back more than a few centuries.  Still, even if it didn't always show up in our art, the ancient spirit of the place surely seeped into our souls and was captured forever in our hearts.  

In upcoming posts, I'll share photos of my classmates and some of our adventures, both in and out of the classroom, and in so doing, hopefully give you some sense of just how magical a place the little village of Durfort is, nestled in the hills in the south of France.  Warning:  Reading these posts will make you want to go, and letting me hear you say you can't follow that dream is likely to get you an earful of Tenacity Jane.  Return here Friday morning at your own risk!

There.  All blogged, and it didn't kill me, after all.  Like I said, sometimes I am such a ninny.  I mean, really, I'm not overwhelmed at the apparently impossible prospect of finding the means and money to fly off for a class in a country whose language I do not speak, but sorting seven hundred photos and tracking down a handful of websites nearly does me in.  

My only real glitch tonight was that my old computer, which had my familiar photo editing program, has been behaving erratically, and tonight it seems to have gone dark for the final time.  Thus, I've had to face another thing I've procrastinated on, and have just learned the first steps of Photoshop.  (I know, I know, about flamin' time.)  Not to worry -- everything in these pictures was there the day the shots were taken.  The only difference is that my shots have been cropped and brightened, to enhance (enable?) your viewing pleasure.  The three at the bottom of this post were gratefully borrowed from classmates who got better versions than I did, and were kind enough to drop them into a pool we could all access, though I don't know who shot what.

Hope your Monday was fabulous, and that the rest of your week follows suit.  Catch ya back here Friday morning!

Powder and Patina

The best thing about decorating powder rooms is that they are tiny.  The worst thing about them is that they are tiny.  Easy to finish (relatively) quickly, difficult to photograph effectively.  Here's what I worked on much of the week...

Okay, a little dark, but you get the idea of the room, in general.

Tent striped ceiling in a streaky verdigris and copper, rope trim border with tassels, and color meshed walls in the same colors, with a damask stencil

Tassel detail

I also tweaked the Venice mural that I did for these folks last month, but although it took several hours and looks much more finished in person, the size of the photo on here really doesn't show the differences from the last shot I shared.  Ah well, here it is anyway, in case you missed it the first time around.

Venice revisited, now with more balconies, signs, plants, another boat in the boathouse, and some perspective issues straightened out.

Oh, oh, oh!  The other big news is that Cat was on Twin Cities Live this week (click link here), talking about Fruit and Veggies Aplenty, the book she wrote.  Our friend Lisa Fahey shot photos, and I illustrated around them.

The rhyming verse in Fruit and Veggies Aplenty will get fingers snapping and taste buds popping.  You can get it at bridgingtheuniverse.com

I'm still working on collecting photos and info for a post about my classmates in France.  Maybe next week...?  Have a great weekend!

Heavy Metal, European Style...

Yeah, no, I'm not talkin' music.  I'm talking about the lacy eye candy one finds on seemingly every street in France and Belgium (at least in the cities and villages I visited).  Looking at some of this beautiful metal work, I could almost want to make the stuff.  Almost.  Then a trickle of sweat on my temple reminds me that it's 95 humid degrees here in Minnesota, and just walking out the door is more heat than I can handle.  After that thought, I don't even need to worry about the arm muscles required to craft wrought and cast iron.  Guess I'll just borrow the beautiful line work for future paintings and art projects.  Here's a sampling (or maybe it's a whole feast), of what I saw...

Lucie and I both liked the fence around the statue of Mannequin Pis (the little boy peeing in the fountain) more than the statue, itself.  We're kinda fond of the boxes that presents come in, too, so I guess we're just delightfully immature that way.  Ah, well.

The Balconies:

The Doors:

 The Signs:

 The End...

    (For now.  Hopefully by Monday I'll have the class photos from France sorted and I can share some really fun people and their art with you.)