Ispirato

Here’s a recent work. This symbol has many names but I like the Islamic name, Hamsa. It’s a sign of protection, warding off the evil eye. I’ve written an article about the symbology of the eye in the hand and provided project instructions for making this wall-hanging in the upcoming issue of Astarte’s Mega-Zine. The zine theme is Eye of the Soul. This is issue four and gets released Thursday.

This piece involves free machine embroidery with raggedy, raw edges. I love working this way. Sure, I have great respect for the quilters who measure, cut and stitch precisely. It just isn’t my personal style.

On a separate note, today the Embroiderers Guild of Victoria newsletter arrived in the mail and I was very excited to see my work on the front cover. It was sort of an, ‘At last, I’ve made it to the Big League’ moment, to see my work there. Then it occurred to me that being publisher of an international online zine probably carries more kudos than getting on the cover of a state guild newsletter. And writing a blog that’s read by one or two thousand people each week, that’s pretty cool, too.

When all’s said and done, does it really matter how big or small a fish I am in whatever size pond? The fish is happy. The fish is healthy. The pond is a good place to be.

Growing up as a kid in Indiana, the carving of the jack-o-lantern each October was a tradition I really looked forward to. Generally, though, the event turned into a disappointment. I was relegated to scooping and scraping the pumpkin interior. Let’s face it - that part is a yucky job. Akin to cleaning out toilets. What I REALLY wanted to do was to carve the face. Of course, that involves a big, sharp knife and is too dangerous a task for a child.

Even when I was allowed to draw the design on with a marker before an adult did the carving … well, that just wasn’t the same. I wanted to wield the knife. Of course.

When I was a teenager and was finally allowed to do the carving myself, the whole mystic of the experience had diminished. No big deal. My older siblings had left home. There was no one to share the excitement with.

Then I grew-up and married an Australian and moved to Melbourne. Australian pumpkins, I soon learned, are utilitarian. They are designed for eating. The flesh is really, really thick and HARD. So even though there’s been a recent push here in Oz to embrace Halloween, there are no pumpkins on doorsteps.

Until this afternoon.

Lookie what I found in my supermarket: A proper orange, carvable pumpkin. Woo-hoo!

So I brought it home. I scooped out the yucky bits and I carved the face. I hadn’t done this in over 25 years.

I felt a little guilty doing it all by myself. Perhaps I should have involved my son. But he was over at his friend’s house today. At 14, he probably wouldn’t have been interested in this project.

Okay, okay, he might have been a little interested, but not in the scooping and scraping. He would have wanted to do the carving …

Not that I don’t trust him with a knife when I’m there to supervise!

Okay, the truth is that I wanted to do the carving. It’s the best part. You know?

Oh, I fell in love with these little papier-mache dresses when I first saw this photo from artist Jacqueline Myers-Cho. I begged her to develop an eClass around them for Go-Make-Art. She did and we finally launched it this week.

‘Seems I’m not the only one who loves them!

There’s another new class, too, called ‘Shrines!’ It’s from Canadian artist, Violette. In four lessons you make a triptych, round wall shrine, altoid tin shrine and a wearable reliquary with matching earrings. Violette’s style is bright and fun. The class is such excellent value.

Interested? The classes are listed at Go-Make-Art.

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I know and accept that I can’t please everybody.
I know and accept that I can’t please everybody.
I know and accept that I can’t please everybody.

On Thursday afternoon I overdosed on chocolate and Turkish Delight and felt MISERABLE - really tired and depressed. On reflection that evening, I could see that the world wasn’t truly out to get me - I’d done it to myself.

Sugar doesn’t hype me up; it has quite the opposite effect, really. When I feed my body with nourishing food and plenty of water, I feel great. I have energy, I think clearly and creatively.

What drove me to over-indulge in the sweets?

True confession time: I’ve copped a lot of flack this past week. More people than ever before emailed me after the Melbourne Paperific Expo (which I’ve organized for 8 years now) to complain.

The venue was hard to find, there were too many people at the expo, we had to wait in line at the Starbucks next door for 20 minutes, then couldn’t find a table. Why don’t you give the exhibitors bigger stands so we can move around inside them? There are too many scrapbooking exhibitors and not enough stamping. You should ban strollers and prams at your expo. It smelled weird in there.

I’m genuinely sorry for those people who were so disappointed by the experience that they felt the need to write to me about it. I answered every single email. I felt your pain and responded apologetically.

Yes, I noticed the weird smell in the afternoon, too. Yes, I’d like more stamping exhibitors, too. There just aren’t so many around any more. Yes, I agree the lighting was poor. We will be using different venues next year and they are much brighter.

As the expo organizer, it is my responsibility to hear and respond to the complaints. It comes with the job. It comes with being grown-up.

It was easier in the old days when the happy, congratulatory emails far outweighted the complaints.  The crowds weren’t so big back then. People were just plain grateful that I put on a papercraft show. I felt high on life after an expo in those days.

I will not eat too much sugar.
I know and accept that I can’t please everybody.

I have two businesses: Go-Make-Art.com on the web and Paperific Expos in real-world Australia. I’ve been running expos for 8 years. This year I chose to run just one expo right here in Melbourne and it was this past weekend. We had record numbers through the door: Nearly 3,600 paying customers across three days. It was a new venue (temporary for this year) - a bit cramped with other shortcomings - but for the most part customers and exhibitors were happy. Half the exhibitors booked in for 2008 before the end of trading on Sunday. That’s a good sign, yes?!

 I’ve set myself up for extra work now, announcing TWO Melbourne Expos in 2008. There’s one in March and another in October - both in separate venues on different sides of town.

So I’ve got what I call ‘Paperific Brain’ right now. This obsessive state of mind starts in the days leading up to an expo and lasts for several days after it ends. Paperific Brain means pretty much all I can think about is the expo.

Normally Paperific is a part-time business. But when I’m experiencing Paperific Brain, it is constant.

It’s time to shake it off. Let it go. Let it go!

Pamela McLure is going to send me some photos of the expo. When I get them I’ll share some here on the blog.

In the meantime - yes - I’m letting go.

Hey - I conducted a phone interview with Laurie Mika, author of Mixed-Media Mosaics! I love this new book. I have a passion for stamping in polymer clay, and Laurie’s approach is colorful, transformative and very “now”.

In our interview, Laurie touches on how she instills personal meaning in her work and getting into the creative zone. If you’ve got 15 minutes to listen to the audio playback, check it out on Go-Make-Art.com.

My friend Arrigo Dorissa sent me these images of greeting cards he made last week after seeing my two most recent blog entries. Inspired by the fact that I’d made 16 cards in less than an hour, he decided to try it himself. He made ten in an hour on his first attempt. Arrigo calls this his “Alfresco-Anatomy” card series (and he’s even taking orders at alfrescodesigns@hotmail.com)!

About these cards, Arrigo wrote: “I have others planned and part of my enjoyment is churning them out in a set block of time - ‘achievable gratification’ since everything else with work, etc. takes ages!”

Yeah, in this busy world I love the bite-size creative projects, too. I think “achievable gratification” is a wonderful term.

We artistic types have such high expectations of ourselves. We dream up projects that are increasingly complex and time-demanding. THEN we get caught up in evaluating the result - is it finished? Is it good enough? Could I have done better?
But there’s a thrill in creative efficiency. It takes the pressure off the outcome when, for a short time, we repeat a successful design idea with slight variation.

Art IS meant to be fun, after all.

Thanks for sharing, Arrigo! (This is my friend, btw, who first encouraged me to start blogging!)