Goodbye 2007!

today's afternoon sky
The year grows old and is covered in snow here, the sun is shining brilliantly illuminating my thoughts of the past year.
Two words come to mind.
Thank you.
Thank you for the richness, the friendship, the love, the generosity and the creative goodness you all have imparted to me, to this blog and the lives of it's readers.
Thank you too for your kindness and willingness to jump in and help a cause, such as the Lovely Hearts. Or the Art Aids Art show from Sandy's tip off. There's real heart out there in the 'sphere. There have been so many incredible new bonds this year we have made with artists here at artstream too. Finding them around the corner or across the globe. It's all be possible because of the amazing network of blogging. I won't get too mushy here, but with a real swelling of gladness in my own heart, I thank you, each and every one. I wish you all a wonderful evening tonight too, whatever you do!

I did promise to release the Lovely Hearts form, heart code, and information today. It's live now, ready for your lovely entries. Please spread the word, grab the code for your blog and get involved. We are so very much looking forward to your participation!

The last word for the year is simply: peace. There is true strength in peace. Let's create it.

hot chocolate time

hot chocolate time, originally uploaded by artstreamstudios.

yeah, it's Friday. Hard to know isn't it?
This is just a little post to show my favorite purchase of 2007. At a local thrift store in town I found this little four cup beauty. As we use a coffee press, I designated it to the hot chocolate duty.
It is perfect. Four cups for $5. What a steal. Is everyone enjoying time away? What are you doing?
We had some nice company at the gallery today. Teeni and her husband popped by for a look and went home with some lovely pieces. What a good eye she has! (and really nice person to boot)
Enjoying the snow here with beautiful morning skies and a little extra napping time each day. Very splendid indeed. Enjoy your weekend and start thinking about your Lovely Hearts pieces. Here is a local article on the show last year. Posting the skinny on this year's exhibition on Monday here. Until then, have a wonder filled weekend!

peace and joy

my doves and coffee, originally uploaded by artstreamstudios.

to everyone in 2008...

I will be posting lightly over the next week, with more info on Lovely Hearts and beautiful artwork we find.
Until then, wishing everyone a lovely holiday!

Lovely Hearts 2

Everyone is busy and running about right now and thinking of this and that for the holidays,
We are feeling overloaded, but what better time to stop and ponder next year's charitable giving? Yes, I wanted to give you one more thing to think about. February. Lovely Hearts 2. This coming year we are doing our Lovely Hearts breast cancer research charity exhibition again.

This year it will be in honor of a close friend of ours, Tamara (Tammy) Cogen. Tammy is battling breast cancer right now. She is young and she is strong. We are pulling for her. She and her mother Nancy own The Melting Pot, over in Boreum Hill, Brooklyn and have been handcrafters since the 70's. (ok Tammy was a child then, but Nancy's batik business has been going strong for 30+ years!)

So, we would like to open up the entry process for you all again right after Christmas at artstream. All the proceeds, after fees, will go directly to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. We will have our page set up for the process again at the site right after Christmas for entries, and to answer questions. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions now though!

We ask that the work be:

• small - nothing larger than 10x10 inches
• theme of show is love, not limited to just heart images!
  
• cost of artwork to be $100 or less
• ready to hang
  
• sculpture encouraged! no larger than 10x10x10
  

The opening for the event will be February 1 to coincide with our city's art stroll. Start thinking, planning, and spreading the love. Everything will be in a special section of our online shop.

seagreen/rust orb large

seagreen/rust orb large, originally uploaded by artstreamstudios.

just another lovely orb in the gallery by sarah burns.
i think it is the perfect piece to hide something EXPENSIVE in - as a gift.
of course i would love to have it just sitting on my dresser as well...

Art Goodness

guppies by Ty Williams 11x14x1.5 inches $175

There is so much goodness radiating around right now... it's amazing. We have been going crazy with shipping artsy goodness to lucky holiday gift receivers - (you people are so smart to buy art for your loved ones, thank you!)
I have been so lucky to be part of the great group number 6 for the ornament swap. I have some beauties to show, but first here is the two that came through the door today - from right around the corner in Gonic from Geek+ Nerd and from PA from the lovely Megan of meganauman. I have loved her work from afar for quite awhile now and am so pleased to have her ornament!

On the coast, a very talented young man has been contacting me for awhile now and I have been lusting after his artwork. Ty Williams has dropped off a few of his last year's paintings with us and some new work as well. As he is trying to make way for new work he is offering his older pieces at crazy prices. We are putting them into the shop today and throughout the week for all of you bargin hunters. His work appeals to me on so many levels. The colorways and black line work are tremendous. His use of 1 and a half inch drawers made from wood give the work a bold placement on the wall. He occasionally uses canvas and a skateboard deck or two, but these are not the norm. Check out "Brothers of the Beard" and "Fine Fish Friends". His wit knows no bounds. Ty will appear in our shop continuously with new work appearing monthly. He will also be featured in a show in 2008, so stay tuned for more of his work!

Turned wooden bowls

Here is a quick shot, (with more to come later) of some bea-uuuuu-tiful turned bowls by artist Sarah Burn's father. They just landed in the gallery ... Each bowl is a different wood, with the name of the wood and the signature of the artist on the bottom. oh my oh my these are so pretty and so functional and so beautifully mastered. Soon in the shop! From $40 to $375

Heather Palmer

Heather Palmer, originally uploaded by artstreamstudios.
Her glass nests have been causing quite a stir...a few of these are left in the shop! Be swift, they are melting away....
Today is a joyous day! I get to leave now to pick up daughter Grace from college. She is finishing up her last final as I type and ready for a nice long winter break. We are looking forward to this time.
Oh! A couple people asked how to make the gumdrop trees - so here goes!
Just purchace a styrofoam cone and a box of toothpicks along with your favorite size gumdrops. We snapped the picks in half and poked them into the trees, spiraling up from the bottom to keep our fingers less sugary. Rainer made the stars on top radiating out from a single drop. After a day or two they toughen up a bit so are very sturdy. They can be kept from year to year in a shoebox in a very dry place. Don't ask what happens if they get "damp". Alternatively, you can pick off the dry gumdrops, eat them if you like that sort of thing ... (heh!) and keep the styrofoam bases from year to year. They work just fine.
Have a wonderful winter day in your part of the world!

Highlights from Mapping the Way

There is so much beauty inside these four walls here at artstream this month - with affordable art works for giving and receiving! There is still plenty of time for shipping, so click away!
First for the under $50 gifts from this exhibit:

There are still a few of the beautiful small art of Heather Smith Jones each mounted on mat board with clear photo corners, wrapped in a tiny clear envelope. Beautiful! $40 - this one is called Ten - Looking up Here for Answers.
Sub-Studio has a grouping of all of their pen and inks called "Seeking Light Series" reproduced in digital prints for only $25. I think these are the perfect gift of art for the modern art lover. They remind me of nights going out and looking through a telescope. Here is Seeking Light #4 in digital print:

For a little more, you can pick up their magenta or black series of their Abyssal silk screen prints - framed all for $80.
For the modern collage lovers - you can look to Stephanie Levy's original beautiful collages mounted on a thick heavy handmade paper which is ready for framing - Madagascar $110.


Or, if you would like to spend a bit more, one of my pieces - entitled: "Communication" is a mixed media painting framed is $175:

For those of you who haven't seen Heather's pinhole work, well here is a foray into the beauty of her meticulous white on white "Pieces of Mama" Each is a gem at $225: Pieces of Mama #4:


Finally - a lovely work of Edibeth Farrington's map series - at $250 matted and framed her "Ship of Fools" would make a great special gift. (psst: we just landed some new unframed work of Edibeth's this week too - coming soon to the shop)

There is much more artwork in the show - the gallery shop has most of it listed, if there is something else which you have a question about, don't hesitate to drop me a line!

Fragiles

Nice little write up that I totally missed over at MoCo Loco
Above: Megan Bogonovich's "Reconnoitering" sculpture which we sent (among other fabulous pieces) to Miami for the Fragiles show.
Doing the catch-up thing here, so bear with me. More to come later today on some highlights of the current show you might have overlooked!

Landscaping

landscaping for the gingerbread house, originally uploaded by artstreamstudios.

A sweet Sunday to you all. Just a little holiday crafting going on over here. Each year we make something fun for our gingerbread house lawn. We had retired these a few years back, but bringing them to the garden area of our house again this year.
Chloe and I made these yesterday. Fun!

House with a View

House with a View 12x12x1 acrylic on canvas
For Illustration Friday - which happens to conincide with this series so very nicely... House with a view third of the four part series of Little houses in the big plants. Laura Ingalls Wilder never had it is like this. Available at our shop.
Won't you come inside and join me for a cup of tea?

Who knows where the time goes?

the last of the darling zinnias a few weeks ago - uuupps! two months!
I missed my two year blog-o-versary back in November, but it's never too late to celebrate a bit and to be thankful a bit and to hopefully inspire a bit tonight. I thought it was appropriate to link a bit as well. (And make references to beautiful really old Sandy Denny song...)
First and foremost -
Thank you all, for such wonderful support of this blog. By reading, commenting, emailing and sending me links to your work we have connected. So many friends all over the planet! it makes me feel quite warm inside. Thank you!

Heather Smith Jones, Leaf and its pattern, pinholes on paper, image size 6 in. x 13 in., framed size 15 5/8 in. x 22 5/8 in., available at our gallery
Secondly for inspiration- there are just so many good things being made and happening out there in the world.
It's a time of sparkle and wonder and a little too much everything, but there are also places which have just the right amount of just the right thing.

Through Heather's beautiful blog I peered into a Göteborg, Sweden window of Bibbi's. It is other worldly. It moved me.

A few blogs have had lasting power for me these past two years. I find myself going back again and again to Cally Creates. A place where art is truly in the everyday and eye of the beholder. On the same island, Milla, a little further south, leads another artful life. I enjoy her own work and writings about artists she finds. It's real. It's Milla. I love it. Ulla (hey wait a minute, do all my daily stops have a double LL in their names?!) has a visual feast for the eyes most every time I pop in there. Her creative spirit is everywhere she is. Sandy - from the same coast - is not only one of the nicest people I have ever met - ever, but has an engaging style all her own filled with honest, funny, whimsical writing and artwork. Art Tea Life is full of fun and great recipes!

Speaking of recipes, I am currently baking a wonderful smelling cake for a special someone. Guess where this fabulous recipe came from? Three Layer Cake. The ever sassy, well written, certainly one of the smartest women I have ever come to know, Kristina can cook. Check out her new look at 3LC. Grace at the ever evolving, completely creative design*sponge has been a joy to know and a daily delight to read. She is a true original, with a heart of gold. But you know that already, you read her daily too! One of my daily reads is always filled with more inspiration that you can shake a knitting needle at is Whip up. I have been part of that writing community for a year and a half now and have enjoyed each and every day of it. Kathreen is an endless idea woman and well, that is a priceless talent. Another talent and fabulous read is Andrea from Vancouver. Her recent meme is a hoot and her artwork, I really really really love her earth paintings, are lovely.

There are many more places to go and people to see in the side bar - Kathy's new shop with her amazingly crafted fabric creations, the ever-artist Regina, at Monster Crochet, and Jan who blows me away with her oh let's knit complex patterns whilst whipping up a fabulous quilt during my down time of the socks I should finish -- be*mused gal. Talk about your trio of talent. Yes, that would be them. Their is Moe, the swampgrrl, Susanna the photographer, dear friend Angie, and the rest of my sidebar... so much talent.

Over the past year I have become quite a flickr addict (oh you too?) while trying to spend less time at the computer and more time at the easel is a little bit more difficult with diversions like these and this and these, not to mention this and that and those.

The hour grows late, the cake is out of the pan and well, what can I say except thank you friends!

The word for the day has been at rest for a long time, to revive it a bit - today's word is fragrant. Like the baking of holiday treats, the scent of a special place and the soft, icy, wonderful way the first snow smells.

Night walking

nightwalking II 5x7 inches $40 original watercolor

I enjoyed making the really tiny (2x3 inches)watercolors based around "drudgery" and "chores" this past year, so I thought I would revisit them with some new 5x7 inch ones. Here's the first - Night Walking 2. In our neighborhood, so many people have pets and are out with them when the moon is up. I like to think it's a very social time, for both pet and owner. Of course when the temps dip down low as they are now, there is a small piece of drudgery added.
Where do you walk your dog? Who do you meet? Any interesting stories?

the peony house

the peony house, originally uploaded by artstreamstudios.

A part of my new painting series based on my "story of small" book I made earlier this year. it's 12x12 inches and is acrylic on canvas. it also fits the illustration friday theme, I believe with the "excessive leaves"... It's up at our shop.

Thank you

Thanks to all who have written, called and came by yesterday and today. All is well after yesterday's ordeal.
Today we even did a little holiday window dressing to offest the media oppression (and endless phone calls) which has taken over our little city. ... Thank you for your concern -it's so good to know that people are thinking of you. We are hiding out this afternoon, but will be open again on Monday. Happy weekend!