Mardi Gras and Fine Art: Suddenly an Outsider

Normally at this time of year, I'm finishing up my corset for Flyday. I'd have been working on it since around Thanksgiving and would just be adding the final touches. By the way, Flyday is Friday, February 28 this year, and starts at Tujague's at 2 PM if any of you want to go.

This year is the 75th anniversary of Hermes.  There's a much talked about exhibit celebrating their Diamond Jubilee at the Presbytere.  Checking that out will be the extent of our Mardi Gras festivities this year, and not even during carnival season.  Our one-month-old is way too small to be out a parades, and we are way too tired to do a big field trip like that at this point.  The exhibit is up through December.

Next year, Mardi Gras might be spent trying a few family friendly day parades.  Depending on how that goes, we may try bringing petite bebe to the Bywater Mardi Gras celebration, which is my new favorite way to celebrate the day.  Fiance' and I went last year and had a blast.  Y'all think I'm creative with costuming - I'm just phoning it in compared to most people down there!  

The other day, when I was walking around the house holding my daughter, she seemed to notice a lithograph hanging on the wall that I'd made in college. It's black and white, which infants pick up on easily, and matted in a black frame. Although we like to think she's a genius, our one-month-old can not yet recognize anything that's going on in the lithograph. I realized, however, that doing art like that seemed to take place in another lifetime. Sure, I'm able to make things for her here and there, but to create what I think of as "fine art" is a thing of the past now, and that's okay.

There's an egg painting class happening in two weeks at the St. Tammany Art Association I'd like to try and attend, sleep/baby schedule depending.  Otherwise, I'm working on a felt mobile for baby's room and contemplating onesie embellishments.

Random assortment of costumes from the Bywater last year

Art Events for 2014

I hope you all have been enjoying this holiday season!  It has certainly been a special one for us.

In past posts, I've written about what it means to be an artist, to enter art festivals, markets, and starting my own art business.  Well, here are two goals I'm setting for myself for the new year:

Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum's Nautical Arts Market
April 5th, 2014

10:00 am- 4:00 pm
Deadline: February 28, 2014

The Maritime Museum is accepting applications from artists working in nautical/ maritime or historic craft themes for the ‘Nautical Arts Market’, a component of ‘Show and Tell’, a free event featuring art, a fishing equipment swap meet, a maritime creative writing contest and a ‘Fishing Tales Stage’ for storytellers  to publically stretch the truth about ‘The One that Got Away’.

Selected artists will be showing and selling work ranging from paintings to sculpture to jewelry to handmade lace during the event.

¨The Maritime Museum Arts Market indoor spaces are 10’ x 10’.
¨Booth Rental fee is $50
¨Supplying tables, display fixtures, and/or walls are the responsibility of the artist or vendor.
¨$15 non-refundable application fee will be deducted from rental fee for all selected artists. Do not send booth rental fee until accepted into the Arts Market.
¨Selected artists will be notified via email by March 7, 2014
¨Selected artists and their works will be featured on our website, Facebook, newsletter and in all press related materials for ‘Show and Tell’.
¨Artists are responsible for all sales. LPBMM does not take commission.

And this event at the Pitot House next December.  Hopefully, I don't make excuses and get myself out there this time!  Both events are affordable to enter, so even if I only sell one piece, it will be worth it.  Plus, maybe baby can even come sit with me at each event.  Speaking of baby, check out my other blogging adventures here and here.  Both let me continue to be creative while using a slightly different part of my brain. 

Iron-on fun with onesies this morning!  The bedazzled one is more challenging than you'd think!

Crafty Momma

Hey there!  I hope everyone's enjoying this time of year - nicer temperatures, fairs, and Thanksgiving right around the corner.  We're busy, but excited.  As you've either seen on Facebook or heard in person, the vintage sewing machine that was once my grandmother's doesn't work.  Since we're getting our baby's room ready, which is also my studio, getting it fixed is basically not going to happen for a while.  It's being used as a table at this point to stack things on.  BUT in order to sew and make things for her, I pulled out embroidery thread and felt.  I can sit on the sofa and do that while we enjoy a fire, have LSU or the Saints on, or whatever.  It's actually the perfect craft since it's portable.  So far, I've made a little felt wallet to hold any gift cards in that we get from baby showers.  Later, it will be her first little purse.  I'm also planning to make her a little mobile of some felt friends.  I'm still working on a painting for her, too.

In related news, I did start a mommy blog.  It's a place where I'm sharing parts of my experience as a first time mommy.  Other mommy stories are welcome and encouraged as comments.  I hope that other moms - first time, future, or of multiples - all find it slightly educational, humorous, and helpful....or at least one of those.  Everyone have a great weekend!

Still working on the other side, but it was fun to do the button and flap

My Favorite Time of Year!

I love fall! Obviously, southern Louisiana doesn't get to experience it like other parts of the country, but the idea of cooler, drier air, falling leaves - golds, reds, brown - baking, festivals, scarves, cozy feelings....I could go on and on.

This year, all the holidays mean more to me than they have in a very long time. I'm thinking ahead to making our daughter's Halloween and Mardi Gras costumes, festivals we can take her to, family trips we can take, what her interests will be, and more. Of course, I wonder if she'll like art.

Her nursery will share the room with my studio. My office is going away for now. I want to be sewing things for her so badly, but it seems the sewing machine needs some TLC, possibly in the way of a new belt. This afternoon, I'll attempt figuring things out underneath the carriage.

The idea of starting a mommy blog keeps crossing my mind. Sewing and writing are where my creative interests lie these days. They seem cozy, too, just like the season. These next few months will be quite busy, though, so I'll let a greater force guide me in what I'm supposed to be doing with my time.

The World of Ideas

Listening to "The River" by Imagine Dragons, and just finished reading an article in Gambit's CUE about artist Valerie Corradetti. She's quoted as saying, "I live in the world of ideas...in noticing the little things we normally pass by".  That's a pretty accurate statement about any artists' frame of mind.  We're all dreamers.  

My parents always told me that I was their dreamer.  The older I get, however, I can definitely see that I've become quite a realist.  Some say I'm negative, but I say that life has taught me to keep a solid grip on my ideas or my expectations never get met.  I also believe that I'm conserving energy for people and projects that really deserve it now instead of wasting it on everyone and everything, like I used to.  The realist has tempered my creativity a good bit, though.  It's been several months since I've felt like creating or completing an art project.  Alas, the idea board has been growing again recently and much, if not most, of my inspiration is from my new family life that is quickly coming together.

May this small wave of inspiration continue, and may all of us remember to visit the world of ideas every now and again to keep ourselves balanced.     

Jillian vs the computer, and other stories

Everything happens at once.  Always.  No matter if it's good or bad.  Thankfully, right now, all the stuff happening in my life is really good.  In the two month hiatus from blogging and posting much of anything on Facebook, I've finally gotten my "big girl job" - I'm truly using my master's degree at this point! - and my spouse and I are having our first child!  Will my art change now that I'm a mother?  Not my style, but the things I actually make likely will.  I've got a painting planned for our baby, and I'd love to make him/her a board book at some point, too.  The sewing machine is waiting for me to learn how to use it to make clothes for myself as I get further along and for baby when s/he arrives, too.

Now to the title of this blog.  Some friends have suggested that because my PC is such a dinosaur and painfully slow that that must be why I don't like technology.  After thinking about it for a bit, however, the ambivalence bordering on dislike started in childhood.  When my family first got a PC, I was 10 years old.  It was interesting and noisy - dot matrix printer.  Then Nintendo came out sometime shortly after, and our neighbors got one.  It was so exciting for my little brother and his friends.  They taught me how to play Mario World and eventually, Mario Kart.  It was fun, but just something I did while babysitting the kids who had the Nintendo.  Otherwise, I was busy playing outside and making art.  In college, email had just come out for the public, so someone had to teach me how to do that.  Once I really got into my coursework at LSU, they were mostly studio classes, so I didn't need a computer for much other than to type an artist statement every few weeks. The friends who did graphic design used Macs, which didn't make any sense to me (still don't), and while I knew they were talented, I discounted the use of computers to aid in art because it seemed less creative to me at the time - the whole handmade vs machine sort of thinking.  Fast forward to now....

My job requires that I know how to help people find things within a database (which is on a computer), learn to use their eReaders, and solve basic IT issues.  All the years of somewhat intentionally avoiding technology are now sort of staring me in the face.  On the one hand, I completely understand the frustration of learning a new device.  Smart phones even trip me up sometimes, although, I do own one.  On the other hand, the excuse of being a certain age and not knowing how to type is really hard for me to believe since typewriters were around in all of our lifetimes.  The keys are in a different order, but they work about the same.

How is any of this related to art?  In the same vein as the likelihood of introducing new materials to my portfolio now that I'm a mom, I'm fairly certain that learning some more tricks and tips with computers at work will also influence what kind of art I get into in the future.  Don't worry, graphic designer friends, you'll always have an edge on me! But I can also more clearly see the value in keeping up with technology now because it affects my livelihood - the one that pays the bills and the one that's a hobby.

Photography

    Just as the Times-Picayune laid off many of their staff and then decided not to sell the newspaper for reasons unknown to most of us, the Chicago Sun Times just laid off all of their photography staff - their reason being that they would train reporters to be photographers and videographers using iPhones and other smaller handheld devices. I can only assume it is for a budget cut.  Even for an amateur photographer, like myself, it's a very sad trend that seems to be happening.
    I remember as a child my own brother was photographed for LIFE Magazine at his elementary school while he was playing the violin. My parents have a copy of this issue at their house.  It's the one with Princess Diana on the front,  in case you're interested.
    My father is who I learned all of my photography skills and interests from. My boyfriend also used to be a professional photographer, but like these other newspaper employees, was laid off from a paper in North Carolina.  To me photography is a way to let everyone else to see what you are seeing.  So many times I have wished that I even had a camera in my eyeball - which sounds very strange I know - just to take a picture or capture an image or a scene for an instant that I caught from something in nature or a cultural experience that I can't even get with a camera lens.
    Certainly the quality of photography that will come from cell phone photographers or cell phone video or whatever tablet  with a built in camera - even though the mega pixels are slowly getting up there, and yes for the medium that it is a cell phone or a tablet it is taking a really nice pictures - however, with all of the types of lenses or settings you can put and use on your camera and the zoom and the macro and all other kinds of focus speed and lighting, etc. you will never get the quality a photograph as you could from an actual camera.  I still have my cameras, my sister-in-law collects old cameras, and my dad has a few, too. It's sad that it's a dying art. Everything is about cutting cost these days but it's also cutting the beauty and the eye of the beholder and the whole art form out of everything.  Everything is getting cheaper and cheaper and less and less valuable to us as a society and I find it quite depressing.