A Quick One

Another card creation-- obviously a Christmas card.  Thanks you sweet baby Jesus!

I just bought this book as recommended by the owner of Rivulette.  She seems to be doing great at turning her creations into an income so I thought I would take her suggestion.  The book seems quite practical and hip so far.  Thanks Steph!

Happy Wednesday!

Swine Flu and Japenglish

I'm starting to play with cards to be offered in my ETSY shop.  The birthday card above is one I made for someone I know.  In it's beginning stages I showed it to a Brooklyn buddy who gave me great feedback, inspiring the various flower drawings on the card.  I won't be offering this exact card, it's more of a sketch/experiment, but it's all part of product development!
Here's my Mikey at a coffee shop near Prospect Park where we went on a date on Sunday at the end of our fun but insane weekend.  Three guys from Japan who are touring this week with their band (Malegoat) came to stay at our place for two nights and played a rock/hardcore(?) /punk (?) show.  The show was really awesome and the guys were even more awesome.  We spent the weekend speaking Japenglish and doing touristy things (which was really good for me because I'm so new here).  Our buddies from Vermont (who we met in Japan-- mutual friends of Malegoat) also came down to hang out.  It was SUPER fun.  Unfortunately Mikel came down with another deadly virus like the one that attacked us earlier this summer (swine flu the sequel?) so he spent a better part of Friday and Saturday sleeping off a fever.  He woke up in time to eat a homemade veggie burger and see some sweet music before we both passed out from post-fun exhaustion Saturday night.

Anyway, going on dates is on the agenda this week because we are both a bit sad that we will be apart for yet another month starting next week.  I just found out that I got into a residency at Vermont Studio Center for the month of October.  My first residency!  Yay for that! Boo for no Mikey.  At least I will be able to see my parents as the residency is in a town only 7 miles from my parents' house.  Basically I'm going back to where I was a few weeks ago before I moved here.  At least I had a chance to set up our apartment and get my bearings here.  I will miss it but I look forward to being able to see Vermont fall foliage and  drink apple cider, not to mention being able to spend an intense amount of time painting without any other responsibilities like cooking, business planning or cleaning.

Some earrings I'm sending to a cute lady I'm related to for a very belated birthday gift.  

Shhh!  Don't tell her.

I'm not even mad...

"I love lamp"... our newly hung bedside lamp, that is.

I also love compost bin and rainwater collection bin.

(get my nerdy movie reference?)

Banana Bench

So what luck I have!  Remember when I was writing (probably boring you to death) about how I REALLY wanted to find some sort of container that I could start a compost in?  Well, I found TWO this morning!  I was on my way to Tiny Cup for some caffeine enhanced computing and ta-dah!!  Right in someone's trash heap I found a beautifully haggard red and green Sterilite container and a smaller blue Rubbermaid, both with lids!!  Let the rotting begin!

**Apartment collage**

I don't know if this gives you a very good idea of how much I LOVE our apartment, but on my way out of the house for the second time today (after bringing my new found treasures home) I snapped these shots.  The upper left is my studio from the door.  Those are the curtains I made last week out of Kaffe Fassett fabrics my Gram gave me a couple years ago (thanks Gram!!)  The upper right is a view of the "front" where we enter the apartment into the kitchen/breakfast nook.  The bathroom is to the right of the bike.  Mikey rigged up a shelf for us to hang our bikes on.  That's my sweet ride you're looking at.  The lower left is a shot from the kitchen looking at our futon bed/couch.  We're still waiting to get some art on the walls... when we make it :-)  The lower right is obviously the garage ;-)

Why is this not my bench?  

I found this on my ridiculously long walk yesterday.  I was in search of a plate-saturated thrift store or two.  Instead I found a banana bench, signs and a found sculpture:

(I like the structures in this shot, along with the vast space-- well, vast for a city.)

(found sculpture-- I like this about as much as I like saying, "banana bench".)

Forgotten and Remembered

Happy Monday!  

Sometimes productive weekends are just the thing for good Mondays of making bread, shelves, beading tables and plans.  Mikel and I did a lot of walking and finding treasures on the sidewalks of Brooklyn.  We are VERY careful not to bring home bed bugs.  So far we've found an amazing light, pearl-green garbage can for my studio and new-ish shutters that I will turn in to a card rack and various pieces of wood to complete my beading sewing table.  (photos soon!)  I'm searching for a larger tub (like a garbage can or a large rubbermaid) preferably already busted and useless to someone else, that I can use as a compost bin.  I have to drill holes in it anyway so it's totally fine if it has holes already.  Know anyone with something like this?

I was feeling very overwhelmed about this whole "starting a business" thing and realized once again that I need to make sure I paint regularly.  Painting makes be feel balanced, energized and inspired.  Usually when I don't take the time to paint it's because I feel like I have work to do and shouldn't give myself such an amazing and luxurious treat as painting.

(a dead disco ball...)

As I've been hoping, things have been floating my way in terms of business.  I am catching bits and pieces in the airwaves about different craft fairs.  Do I have the guts to do one?  Yes and no :-)  I need to visit them first as a customer but then I think it is a great opportunity for me to get my stuff out there in Brooklyn.  I am a bit clunky when it comes to craft shows due to lack of experience.  What better way to get a more smooth system down!  I get comments about my earrings almost every day (and not just the, "oh, those are weird" comments that  I also get-- I actually get great comments from ladies who are also wearing awesome earrings but who didn't make them.)  

I'm sorry that my photos today are a bit, um... unrelated to what I'm writing about.  I not only forgot my cord to connect the camera to the computer but I also forgot to bring my little screws with me that I need to find little nuts for at Home Depot.  Now I'm off to find a Salvation Army or the likes to add to our collection of two plates.  

(found abstraction.)

Getting Around

Three ways to get around in this sweet magical land of adventures:

On the blue cart of an ancient and tired pony.

On a secret elephant ride.

On a stolen bike, dripping with bad Karma, straight into the path of a monster truck.

Shirds verses Nooks

This is a view into my sculpture at Firehouse Gallery.  It's up and running!  

From the outside it looks like this:

(who is that weirdo?)

One of the "windows" into the wall which I think looks awesome with the next image:

This is a "found abstraction" that I photographed last week in Chelsea on a walk between many many closed galleries (this week's and next week's openings are highly anticipated in our household!)  I know I've only been here for a week but this is what I've noticed about New York City compared to Tokyo.  NY is what I like to call (at least for now) the city of texture.  NY hides its pop-sass colors that Tokyo wears like a costume.  There are colors and graphic pizazz for sure (I believe more and more each day that NY has everything in the universe within it's city limits), it's just much more subtle and sneaky here.  Instead I find myself looking at cracked paint on fire escapes, infinite brick-shaped brown hues, and faded, patched awnings.  I guess I'm still in love with more pop color so I've been eyeing religious statuary like it's the next cool thing.  I can't help but see torn posters as abstract paintings (here's another):

But I also can't help but long for less-abstract imagery like this sweet poster:

Is that not the cutest shark bird (shird?) in sneakers?   

More photos from my walks to come.  

For now:

Welcome to our "breakfast nook."  It's actually our general dining nook.  This is the first picture I'm posting of our amazing new apartment in Brooklyn.  I totally love it.  Mikel scored when he found this one.  We've been unpacking and doing various things to fix the joint up like making tables for our studio and curtains.  I'll post more pictures soon (once it's more presentable).  

I just can't believe how lucky I am that I don't have to have a job outside our apartment (at least for now, fingers crossed!) and I realized that this is the best time for me to really dig in and get Beaded Weeds rockin'.  This is sort of a declaration e-mail:  I declare that I will work "full-time" to make a living with my hands on my own clock and I'll let you know, blog entry by blog entry, how I do it.  Today, I have Handmade for Profit! by Barbara Brabec, a notebook, a cup of coffee, a pen , a napkin (excellent for making lists on while I sit here at Tiny Cup using their Wifi) and good energy.  Here I go!

A brief note about daily battle plans before I end this ridiculously long blog entry:

My friend, Brooklyn neighbor and craft buddy, Alison, asked me last night if I have a sort of battle plan for my days.  This is a very important question for anyone thinking of being a full-time artist.  My immediate answer was no, but a couple seconds later I totally changed my mind.  I realized that I totally have a game plan each day, it just usually fits with my day's natural flow so I don't notice that I am working hard.  My game plan usually goes something like this:

-breakfast with Mikey until he leaves for work.

-take my coffee to the studio and get crackin' on whatever I left off on the day before (today I finished our curtains and painted my new beading/sewing table we made from found materials) (BTW, I am once again listening to the Twilight series for a little audio candy and fun.  Twilight fans, check out Midnight Sun-- trust me on this.)

-Lunch.

-yoga 

-Walk to Tiny Cup coffee shop an get down to business.

** The rest of the day is still open.  I'll probably be here until Mikel is off work and then new adventures begin.  

I also have short-term battle plans (post new earrings asapple, make new business cards, finish beading/sewing table, etc.)

And longer-term battle plans (Rock out on the business side of Beaded Weeds and non-Beaded Weeds art- apply for grants, write a business plan, etc.)

I'm sure my daily schedule will change as I get more settled in here.  I'll let you know how that goes!  Happy Tuesday :-)