Astarte’s Mega-Zine
It’s been a wonderful week. A week of serious work, laying out issue 2 of Astarte’s Mega-Zine. It is the “Law of Attraction” issue and I am blown away by the quality and diversity of the 20 articles that made their way into this zine. WOW. It is a good one, if I do say so myself. It gets released May 1st.
There is a set of affirmation cards you can download as one of two bonuses with this issue. Felicity Smart (Happiness-Studio) was one of the authors of the cards - she’s a wiz with affirmations! My own article for issue two involves polymer clay. I designed three different types of card holders. One is pictured here, along with a card I decorated with watercolors. The cards are the same size as Artist Trading Cards - 2.5 inches x 3.5 inches.
I got so excited by this project. I want to make a set of cards and a card holder as a gift for each of my sisters. This project reminds me of what I like best about art and craft - the transformative potential. When we make art that is about making a better life, well, it is akin to sorcery. Maybe I was a sorceress in a previous life. (Or maybe I’m just drunk on creativity.)
Just before Easter, my dear friend Jane came to our house for a three day stay. She lives in Sydney normally, and she is a patchworker. Her daughter was also in Melbourne, performing in a band competition, so we attended a couple of concerts.
Still using the blanket as a background, I began experimenting with fabric collage. The fabrics are from my vintage scraps collection. Most - maybe all - of these scraps were from my grandparents’ home in Southern Indiana.
Here is a small piece I created at Horsham last week. It is meant to embellish on the story I was telling in my larger self-portrait fabric collage shown in my previous post.
I’m back from Horsham Textile Fibre Forum. One of my fave weeks of the year. Don’t get me wrong - I had a fantastic time - but the class itself was disappointing. The tutor - a very talented artist from the UK - gave us just one morning’s worth of instruction on Day 1. Afterwards, it was just a matter of working on a big embroidered project for the rest of the week. The tutor checked with each student’s progress a few times each day and made suggestions. But I paid for a five-day workshop - I wanted to do samples and studies and learn new techniques! The only thing I really learned from this tutor was to draw a self-portrait with pen and ink, and shading in with a paintbrush.
Had a play in Photoshop with the photo I showed in my previous post.
I leave for Horsham Textile Fibre Forum on Sunday for a week. (I will tell you all about it when I get back.)



