Thursday, October 29, 2009

Pumpkin Flower Arrangement

I recently put together this floral explosion:


The scale is way too large for my tiny pumpkin, and there are a million ways I would do it over, but it's only ever after building something that I realize its flaws.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Governor's Island

Today was a beautiful sunny day, and it reminded me of when I went back to New York and visited Governor's Island on the last day of its season.


































Saturday, October 24, 2009

Text Jewelry!

I've finally posted a piece of recycled paper jewelry that is all about the text. I've been meaning to do this for a long time, so I'm very excited about it. Check it out on Etsy!


Thursday, October 22, 2009

Letter Earrings



I've been putting off posting these on Etsy because honestly, I just want them for myself! I love all the letter beads and how they work together with the green/yellow tones of the others as well as the gold findings. However, I'd love to share them with you here. I will keep working on making interesting beads like these, and I'm sure I will be able to post a similar set for sale soon!

Monday, October 19, 2009

Fort Point Open Studios

The fall slew of open studio events continues at Fort Point, which is apparently the oldest artist's community in the area. There are definitely a lot of fun people, and I would not have expected such an extensive studio community -- it just looked like warehouses and office buildings when I was wandering the area, but I suppose the warehouses were misleading.




The weather today was disgusting, but I managed to get out and ended up connecting with some artists who were especially meaningful to me:
Jesseca Ferguson does wonderful pinhole photography and cyanotype prints. I talked with her for a while about the possibility of doing cyanotype at home, and now I'm excited - I always assumed I had to have full facilities, but apparently that may not be so. She also knew the professor I took alternative processing with at RISD! I suppose there are only a few educators who specialize in that, especially with the prevalence of digital photography. We did learn some great ways to use digital together with alternative, such as printing digital negatives for use in cyanotype printing. I realize this may make little sense to most people, but I'll do an entry on alternative processes at some point. In the meantime, email me or leave a comment if you're interested in hearing more!
Lisa Damtoft (no artist's website) makes absolutely wonderful small things, many out of everyday materials. I enjoyed her other works as well, but I was drawn mostly to those. The link shows one slide of hers, which is slices of text woven with pine needles. It's very small and was undoubtedly incredibly time-consuming. If you like the little, obsessive things I do you should definitely look her up.
Jennifer Chin, who makes beautiful silver jewelry. I actually met her at a preview for the event on Friday, where only a few studios were open. I looked through all of her site but I couldn't decide which pieces I liked best, so you will just have to check it out! I definitely recommend that - her work is beautiful. She was also great to talk to about jewelry design and doing shows.
Lisa Greenfield, whom I also met at the preview on Friday. She had an installation of Slinkys on the bridge near her studio, which I noticed on my way there. She does architectural abstract paintings with interesting texture and was very sweet to talk to.
And of course I can't forget Laura Davidson, who was basically the reason we decided to go to the Open Studios in the first place! I saw her work at a gallery event and loved it. I love how much she draws, even with paint, and her color palette. I had a great conversation with her about maps -- it definitely seems to be something that certain people are just drawn to (pun only vaguely intended).



I also checked out tons of other artists whose work I appreciated, even if I didn't have a common ground to converse with them on:
Dorothea Van Camp -- interesting works involving screenprints of digitally manipulated abstract images.
Kristen Alexandra -- I've seen her work before in other places, but I loved the jewelry she did with twig-like pieces - I hadn't seen those ones before.
Martin Berinstein -- I loved his huge, beautiful photographs of liquids and bubbles. The description doesn't give any idea of their appeal, though, so just check out the site.
Linda Huey -- I love the natural imagery and muted colors in her ceramics. I was originally drawn in by the much larger art pieces, but her small functional objects are just beautiful.
Birch & Willow -- Their twig lampshades are really amazing. I especially liked some wall sconces that were decorated with budded magnolia branches, but I guess I'm just excessively drawn to twigs.


Saturday, October 17, 2009

Embellished Hairbands

I have a new type of product up on Etsy. It's my take on the decorated headbands that have been around for a bit. I like using more realistic fabric flowers and lace as an alternative to the felt flower and leaf headbands that have been everywhere lately.. I really like how they come out. So far I only have two examples on the site, but I've got about six here waiting to go up.





I also recently updated my Etsy banner as well - let me know what you think!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Chelsea Walk

I made a visit to Chelsea on my trip to New York last weekend:






There was a dog chilling in the sun outside one of the galleries. I don't know where he came from.



























Wednesday, October 14, 2009

On RSS

For all of you who check this as an RSS feed, I updated my banner image. It'll be redundant for others, but this is the sketch I used:


I also noticed that the RSS feed format is pretty unattractive. I will work on future posts with that in mind, but for the optimal aesthetic experience I would recommend checking out new posts in the blog format instead of reading them on RSS. The blog background shows off sketches more attractively, and the formatting isn't all weird. Google Reader doesn't have the formatting problem, but in my opinion it's still hard to see light sketches against a white background.

The only downside of not using RSS is that I post pretty much every day, or sometimes twice a day (like today!). I'm pretty busy most of the time so that fact surprises even me, but it's important to me to put out the things I keep making all the time. So in order to avoid missing posts you might enjoy, make sure to check often!

- Emily

Sketch


I had some free time between answering phones last week, and decided to draw my environment.





Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Boutonnieres




I recently designed some boutonnieres with a fall theme for a local florist. I really enjoy working on that small scale. I tried to put so many things together that some of them got too big, but it was lots of fun. I especially liked matching fall leaves with the florals.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Autumn Colors

All but three of these photos were taken from one twenty-minute walk I took around the Harvard area today. There was an absolute rainbow of seasonal color.