Art of Bartering

My girlfriend Gail makes the most exquisite fabric art pieces- she has been published, and has sold these pieces. Best of all like me she likes to make art to gift both to people she loves but also for causes she believes in. Her areas of artistry are in painted, printed and then manipulated art and she has been generously sharing her time, knowledge and talents with me.

Since I mainly work in jewelry making we have had some fun collaboration.
Much to my delight she bartered a beautiful bag for a necklace of my choice just supplying some seed beads and shells that she had collected to start with the rest was up to me. The following necklace resulted, I especially love the metal shells, starfish and the head pins are art-i-cake.

On the day I was picking up the supplies from her art studio she sent me home with several other pieces. They had started as a hand made stamp, then too linen, then to the computer for manipulation I think I should call it computer hocus pocus because it is magical at the end. I could not decide if I liked the matt or the glossy finish so I went home with both.
I ended up making both into pendants one for me and one for Gail. Much of her art especially her print making has a Japanese aesthetic so the shell coins with the blossoms looked terrific together and I was able to tie in the ivory seed beads from the original project. The colors are ones she tends to favor in clothing as well.

In fact the day I delivered the necklace her skirt and rest of the ensemble had all of the above colors in it and it looked terrific with her outfit.

collaboration makes for great art

I have two friends that I love to make art with. We each have strengths that when together we encourage each other to do some fantastic art.
Two weeks ago we ventured up the eastern side of Seneca lake to Gail's house in Hector to play in her art studio. First we had a lovely meal with great food and conversation. Then Gail let us loose in the studio. We ended up carving our own stamps. Of course I could not just settle on one stamp I made my mermaid with fish and octupus friends and used some of Karen's left-over block and did the two dogs. Gail ended up with a rooster and Karens was much more art-deco and minimalist.

We then started to play with the stamps, ink pads to see what needed to be refined and quickly went to screen printing. I ended up with two archival prints on mulberry paper (according to Gail it picks up the paint better). Gail then stamped the mermaid on blue linen and the dogs on beige linen.
Well yesterday back up the lake I went. Again great food- dried salami, cheese from England with apricot bits in it, fresh cherries and strawberries, and some potato and bean chips. Thus fueled up to the studio we went.

What commenced up there was magical. I had brought a watercolor painting I had done 2 years ago at CAJE in North Carolina. Depicting Naomi, Ruth and Boaz in a picasso-style painting, We scanned it manipulated it added Hebrew text to it. I ended up doing a 5x7 print and framed it. Made several smaller pieces to do up into jewelry.The dogs we scanned the linen and use a paint program to put on a USNA dixie plebe cover and for our American Pitbull he got a green USMC cover painted on.The other jewelry pieces I will be working on in the next week or so as I need to wire wrap the pieces before finishing them as necklaces.

I also used the mermaid prints and manipulated it also for jewelry. The mermaid print is on acrylic and made into a necklace.

The linen mermaid Gail started to work on it for more art quilt, she added a tail, finished out the octupus and fish, added seaweed, I embellished with shell, pearls and beads. It is still a work in progress.
Knowing that we print onto linen best I went to Salvation Army and picked up a 100% linen J,Jill dress that I loved the color of but not the shape, very very boxy. We plan to deconstruct it and add the mermaid to the front. I am so excited to continue to work on it.