stuff about artstuff.

Studio Cats.

If you remember Flossie, you know that with whom I share my studio is kind of a big deal. Flossie was no longer with me when I finally renovated my little studio a couple years ago, but many of the details of its configuration had been sketched and planned long ago with her in mind.

The role of Studio Cat these days is played by George and Lily.

George is the extroverted charmer, mischievous yet always seeking approval.

Lily is my sweet introvert. She still has some characteristics typical to rescued feral cats: shy and sometimes skittish, she hates being picked up. But she loves being on top of things, including me.

One or the other is almost always on my desk

or in the other chair

looming over me at the computer
 

or in a box.

Even boxes that aren't at all cat-shaped.

(cute dog break)

It's not always easy to accomplish stuff, like photograph things for my shop or Instagram

Oh, hey, Lily: you're in my light. Would you mind moving?

Um, no, that's not it.

Yeah, no . . . that's not what I needed, either.

But then again, it's exactly what I need.

That, and the Best Dog in the World at my feet.

They make my studio an awesome place to spend my days.

Thanks for visiting!

xoBeth

 

 

 

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Summer Around Here.

And here it is, Labor Day Weekend already. When did that happen? Are you asking yourself that, too? Wow. Life does that these days. You know, goes by super fast. Moments after moments. A whirlwind of them. And in that most recent whirlwind of moments, there was summer.

Looking back I'd say it was full of pretty awesome moments.

Early morning walks around the neighborhood with Molly have been stunning.

Although my little garden got an extremely late start

it's come along nicely

and I've been enjoying favorite foods from my backyard,

and warm evenings with Molly, watching bats, stars, and the moon.

I've woken up in my favorite spot on the face of the planet,

and enjoyed days on my favorite beach;

gourmet meals cooked on a beach fire

and savored by sunset.

There have been other beaches

and impromptu picnics shared with good friends.

Time with family and friends has meant lots of ferry rides,

making new friends,

and time in the woods.

The best ferry rides are always the ones that bring me home

to my favorite city.

Riding bikes around neighborhoods,

soaking in the art,

sights,

sounds,

every little moment a celebration.

My little corner of the world is a pretty amazing place to enjoy summer. I cherish every moment of it, and look forward to all the moments in the new seasons: they're coming fast, I'd better not blink.

I hope your summers have all been full of beautiful moments too!

Thanks for visiting!

xoBeth

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A Few of My Favorite Things, Holiday Edition

Wishing you and everyone you love all the happy sparkly wonderfulness in the entire Universe this holiday season and throughout the new year!

xoBeth

Last Bits of Green.

Leaves are turning colors and falling, the air is crisp and cool. Bright little green moments like this are fewer and farther between, so let's soak them in while we can:

Molly agrees.

Happy in the Studio.

I'm always going on and on about how this is my happy place.

Today I thought I'd share just a few of the things that make me happy when I'm in here:

Supplies and books,

my Granddad's hardware drawers,

and things I can't look at without smiling.

Each little thing has a story, a memory - a reason it makes me happy.

What makes you happy in the space where you work?

Studio Weekend.

I don't often get to show you my works in progress - but that's because I'm often designing specific things for my licensing partners that can't really be shown until they're ready to launch the product in a retail setting.  So in the normal course of creating, my teeny tiny little studio and most of what comes from it is sort of shrouded in mystery.

But when I'm making stuff just for fun, I can show you everything - so that's what I'm doing here: 

This last weekend I stayed in the studio and played.  No plan, no ideas, no projects or assignments.  Just making stuff.

A couple weekends ago I finally got out the fun New Year's present Artstuff bought me: a shiny new set of water soluble oil paints.

Once upon a time long, long ago, oil paint was my #1 medium: the feel of it, the smell, the soul - it was what I loved the most in the whole world: to paint with oils on a big piece of wood.  But as my art became what I did for a living, more practical "immediate gratification" mediums eventually overtook slow-drying, messy, impractical oil paints.  I was curious when I saw that these water soluble oils existed, and decided to indulge myself, just for fun.  Call it an End of Year Bonus for a Job Well Done.  I thought I'd start small with this experiment and raided my brother-in-law's scrap bin for little pieces of wood.

I fell in love as soon as I opened the first tube: whatever molecular mojo they do to this stuff does not have any adverse affect on the amazing smell of the linseed oil.  A deep breath brought me back to a happy place I hadn't been in decades.

I started swishing it around and scrubbing it into the wood - it all started coming back to me.  I'm in love with these paints!  Wet, sticky, and workable for weeks - but I can clean my brushes (and my hands - and lips, and nose, and eyelids, under my nails, my hair...) with soap and water.  When I think of all the turpentine I must have ingested in my 20s . . . well, that may explain a lot.  Never mind.

The first layers on the first few boards were dry when I got them back out this weekend, and I started playing again.

Remember that scrap of screen I shared about on Facebook last week?  Part of it is now a wing.

I experimented more with some of the vintage and antique ephemera my dear friend Sue shared with my last month when I visited her studio

layering backgrounds

with bits of this and pieces of that.

The lumber stamp on this little piece of Douglas Fir became the inspiration for the tiny painting yet to come.

Others are still inventing themselves from the background up.

When I ran out of small scraps to paint on, or space on my desk (I'm not sure which happened first) I pulled out the Paperclay and played with it for the rest of the day.

Now it's time to set this all aside to dry in anticipation of some future weekend, as the Artstuff Studio returns to its normal, focused, more practical and businesslike self.  Except, of course, for that heavenly smell of oil paint that lingers as the first few layers of these little guys dry.  Aaaaaaahhh.

May.

May.

I really should give May more credit.  I mean, out of all of the months, May is the prettiest shade of green.  It's when the garden begins to come alive.  When birds hatch and sing all day.  When lilacs bloom.

May smells good.

May is good.

But I can't help feeling a huge sigh of relief when May is finally over.  And this particular May, yeah.  That.  As most of you know, May started in this house with a profoundly empty feeling.  I found a sort of comfort pouring myself into my annual extreme crazy busy freakout that is the final countdown to Surtex.

There were little reminders along the way to be happy . . . smiles in unexpected places.

I'd like to think a little friend sent them.

Another great comfort has been the fact that She-Who-is-Afraid-of-Cameras has now taken on the role of Studio Pal.  Used to be, I couldn't get her to stay more than a couple minutes at a time in here, even when she had a big cozy bed taking up the entire floor.  The bed went elsewhere a long time ago, but when I laid her blankie on the studio floor at the beginning of the month, she decided this is where she should spend her days . . . she's here right now.

And that makes me happy.

Then suddenly, I was in New York.

I'm not kidding - the second I typed that, this song came on in a random iTunes shuffle.  How crazy is that?! So maybe you should listen to it with me.

After the gorgeous sunrise that greeted me Saturday morning,

there was the ever comforting sight of my little green box waiting for me in my booth.

I've told you before what a relief that is every single year, seeing that the displays I worked so hard on made it across the country safely and on time.

The show was great - I had super productive meetings with some of my favorite clients and met some new folks that, hopefully, will someday fall into that category.

When we found out sort of last-minute that Husband Guy would be staying at home, the Amazing and Adorable Amber Alvarez dropped everything and hopped a cab from Brooklyn to come help out in my booth.

By the way, will someone please tell me how much a cab from Brooklyn to Javits costs, she refuses to discuss this with me.

I so enjoyed some time catching up with dear friends while there, but for the most part I laid low in the evenings, getting a jump-start on my show follow-up

and quietly enjoying the view from my little suite.

Then,

just like that,

I was saying goodbye to the city

and before I knew it,

I was cuddling on my own couch with Molly and Husband Guy.

Back to my funny little garden and the heavenly goodies that are starting to come from it.

The last days of May were filled with show follow-up and starting new projects discussed at meetings, but I did finally finish unpacking and put away my suitcase day before yesterday.

And with that familiar sigh of relief, I'll say goodbye to another May.

Happy June, everyone.  It's almost summer!

xo

Music.

Congratulations Dorothy and Debbie for winning the soft-book panels!  Watch your mailboxes later this week...!

 

I'm a real geek about my Christmas music, and have it playing in the background more often than not all through the month of December.

The decorations seem to be singing along:

there are singing angels,

weird little carolers,

very old and slightly melted caroling candles

and of course your standard, run-of-the-mill feather-dress wearing angels.
Hey, this must be why I was drawn to that dress in NY...

If the angels aren't singing,

they seem to be playing backup.

What's your favorite holiday music?

 

Santa, Elves, & a Giveaway!

Yes, I realize that a month ago I promised weekly giveaways here on the blog.  So I haven't been very organized about that, sorry.  But to make up for it, I'm going to cram as many as I can muster between now and Christmas, ok?

To get back on track, this one is a double!

Santa Claus is well-represented in our home this time of year.

Many of my Santas are very old,

and most of those were inherited.

Quite a few are from Granddad's fleet of DIY mechanized goodies.

My dear Aunt Peek collected Santas as well - I now have quite a few that belonged to her.

Some were gifts, a few I couldn't resist when I saw them.  And always part of the display is one of my favorite pictures of Husband Guy.

Artsy-craftsy handmade projects, cool folk-art, plastic trinkets, very dear antiques, dime-store kitsch, and a few that will scare children if given the chance: they all make me happy, lined up on their shelves - a sea of red wonderfulness as far as I'm concerned.

Ho ho ho.

So.  Where's the giveaway, you ask?

Right here:

The most fun part of designing One Crazy Christmas Eve was the soft-book.  The amazingly talented Harriet at Henry Glass wrote the clever little rhyming story (about working together!) especially for the elves I had drawn, and it was so fun illustrating the pages and putting it all together.

Even if your sewing skills are, well, like mine, or if (again, like me) you are instructionally-challenged, this is a quick, doable project you can put together in plenty of time for thoughtful gift-giving: fancy it up with trims or extra stitching or just sew the pages together (super simple!) it's a fun little storybook for those quiet situations when little hands and minds need something to keep them busy but page-turning can be distracting, or just a nice and sturdy little book for those whose little fingers tend to tear paper a little too easily.

There's also a neato free PDF pattern on the Henry Glass website for a quilt using each 8" page as a square; you can find the pattern here and I've got the other yardage available in my Etsy shop.

So.  I'm giving away a 1-yard book panel with instructions to 2 lucky winners this weekend. 

To enter, in a comment on this post tell me who's your favorite version or depiction of Santa.  Is it the classic Father Christmas in old storybooks?  An animated puppet from one of those old TV specials?  Good old-fashioned Coca Cola Santa?  Someone you love who dresses up for the kids every year?  Maybe you prefer the Grinch in his little red suit or even the mean old "You'll shoot your eye out, kid" guy with the big boot?  Just mention any Santa that's dear to your heart and you're entered to win the soft-book pattern.

You have until Saturday night (December 15) to enter, and I'll draw 2 names on Sunday!

Thanks for visiting and good luck!

 

Glowy.

This time of year, everything's glowy.

When we take our evening dog-walks, the whole neighborhood is glowy.

Houses are glowy.

Little corners of the garden are glowy.

Inside the tiny, cozy house, pretty much everything is glowy.

Glowy mantel,

glowy fireplace-fountain

and a glowy tree
(yes, we bought the crookedest tree on the lot on purpose).

Glowy ornaments on the tree

glowy decorations throughout the house

even glowy Santas.

I hope you are enjoying the holiday glow wherever you are!