CREATE workshops

It’s that time of year when I’m starting to gear up for the next round of teaching and workshops across the country. It’s been nice to be home working in my studio since March, but I find myself getting a little itchy as the days tick by and the retreats draw near. In just a few weeks, I will be in Orange County, California for the Cloth, Paper, Scissors CREATE art retreat. I do love this event, as my fellow instructors are so darn inspiring with their class offerings and the students are radiate with positive energy as they are learning and creating. Talk about being in the flow!

I’m teaching 4 workshops — 2 all day ones and then 2 evening classes. Like always, I’ve packed a lot of instruction into them. We always end the day with a completed project, but I structure my workshops so we begin with basic techniques and build on them as the minutes and hours progress. We work up to things logically, but so quickly, that my students will often say halfway through “Wow, I had no idea we’d be doing so much!” I love it when that happens.

So for all you West Coasters with a little bit of time on your hands and who want to make art, check out the CREATE website and all the incredible class offerings. Not just mine, but also my dear friends Kristen Robinson, Ruth Rae, Elena Lai Etcheverry, Pam Carriker, Kari McKnight Holbrook, and Joanne Sharpe. You can see all their bios here. Remember if you are looking for unique art supplies, handmade art from some of your favorite instructors and unique mixed-media jewelry to wear, the Artist Faire is free and open to the public. I’m working on some pieces from my book to sell, specifically metalwork bangles, rings and earrings.

Here are pics of my classes:

Resin clay, painting, texture, hand building, fiber jewelry, cold connection attachment, making clasps and findings

Cold enamels, texturizing, forging, dapping, doming, disc cutter, cold connection – lots of fundamental metalwork.

Heart’s Desire journal. Resin, resin paper, fabric flowers, doodling, stamping, surface texture, forged wirework. Lots of technique packed into one workshop!

Cold-Enameled Heart Necklace class. Learn all new enameling techniques for adding color to metal and also advanced resin techniques as well, plus metalworking of making forged neck collars and handmade findings.

The CHA Bra

I realized I never did post pics of the bra I made for Charity Wings that was auctioned off at Winter CHA. Here’s a bit of background. Charity Wings did a very successful Crafty Flash Mob at Winter CHA 2012. About 100 folks took over the convention center lobby before the show opened. It was my first and only flash mob and I had soooo much fun.

Elena being Elena, she had to up the ante this year. A very dear friend of ours in the industry was diagnosed with breast cancer and we were devastated. Elena and some folks cooked up an idea to do a mob flash where all the crafty peeps created altered bras and then “flashed” them before  Winter CHA 2013 show opening. No worries, the ladies wore pink T-shirts with their altered bras on top of the shirts. Because this show was a big one for us with our new releases, there was no way I could sneak out this year and participate in the fun. (sad face here).

As you all know by now, I pretty much support Elena in just about anything she does to raise money for the charities Charity Wings supports. I told her I would make an altered ICE Resin paper bra. I wanted to show the world how cool and transparent tissue paper becomes when a layer of ICE is applied to it, and well, I thought the breast area was the best possible canvas to get my point across. I bought a tiny little bra at the Goodwill, washed it up and then proceeded to cut the cups out of it, keeping the underwire, and attaching resin paper. I also made some wire leaves (a technique Susan created and taught me and a bunch of others how to do in her workshops) and added an Iced Enamels bezel and some German Glass glitter  to it. Just for the fun of it, I created an asymmetrical headband to go with the bra. When I finished the whole thing it seemed to me that I somehow channeled a modern-day Moulin Rouge costume inspired by our summer workshop in France.

The one thing I forgot to do was add extra “material” (resin paper) to the cups so the bra will need to be worn by one tiny little flat chested woman. Oops! I wasn’t exactly thinking of functional art now was I? The cool part of that all of the bras were auctioned off at a Westcott sponsored party with all the money going toward breast cancer awareness.  I have no idea how much money my bra raised,  but I do know that it raised a few eyebrows and was the object of a some scandalous jokes. Of course I love that, as art is supposed to inspire, stimulate and elicit emotion!

And to let you in on a little insider joke, when I finished making the bra I held it up for my husband to see. I asked him what else it needed, as in did it need any further crafty embellishments? Being the straight man he definitely is, his response was simply a sly smile, a quick sideways shake of his head and two words; “Just breasts.” I had to laugh. I really love my man!

On another non-bra related note, I’m off to Tucson Friday night for the To Bead True Blue show and more workshops and our booth. I doubt I will have time to update while I’m gone. I’ll try to take lots of pics and post them when I return.