artsy folk

For the first time in my life, I love being in Philadelphia. On top of being close to my friends and family, there are great real communities of crafters and artists collaborating and helping each other work towards common goals.

On the crafty front, I've joined the Philadelphia Etsy Team. I'm looking forward to spring so we can do a few fairs together. I'll probably leave with more work from other people than profits from selling my own work. If I had all the tea in China...

I'm updating my link bar to include some of the shops and sites of the etsy team members. I love Mattson's paintings. They are are so adorable and funny. They make me smile and I love how he turns anything, from mustard to a teacup, into a character. There are a bunch of jewelers in the group who make great stuff and I'm going to do a bit of an exclusive in the next week or so with Amber Zaraza (fabulous name!), the creator of phea jean. She makes funky fabulous hats and bags.

In the world of fine art, I've been going to more galleries and museums and having more arty discussions. My two new favorite artists to spent time with are Katharine Loxley and Corey Armpriester. Katharine and I have big plans for the future, BIG PLANS. We have a lot of things in common (drinking, obsessions with certain body parts, interests in interactive art and community art projects, and we often have to deal with crazy artists), so we have lots to talk about. And she color coordinates her outfits really well. And she does collage work, some where doves are fucking. Love her!
Corey does great photo work and he's quite an inspiration. He's the older brother I wish I had. Corey's doing a great piece on the Patriot Act. He's wrapping people's heads in the flag and then taking pictures while they leave "a trail" of some sort--either making a phone call, sending a text message, on the internet, etc. He's having some difficultly finding people to sit for his project, which I'm actually quite surprised by, so if you're up for it, send me a message and I'll put you in touch with him. You get a print of your portrait. Love him!

So, things are going well in my universe--it's filled with cultural events, creative meetings, and days filled with making art.

Saturday night we had a benefit at the gallery to help Foyer of Philadelphia raise funds to get their organization started. FOP's mission is to facilitate LGBTQ young adults transition from foster care and/or homelessness to self-sufficiency and independence. My favorite piece in the gallery at the moment sold to a Frenchman named Pascal. Ah well, you can't keep them all.

Today I started working with a group of very cool people on a short film project, and my fiber pieces are coming along nicely. I'm so in love with this new body of work I want to make, it's all I can think about. I can't sleep, I don't want to go out sometimes, eating takes too much time away from being able to use my hands to make things. Next I just need the right venue (a gallery/institution/event or two, or three) to show the work at. Some funding would be nice too.

Here's an update on my big red experiment. I'm going to make the center beaded part light up when you poke it. Most of it is hand sewn. The beading took forever. I still need to sew the back and stuff it. I'm not sure it's flashy enough yet. This is about a week of work--about 5 movies, 3 episodes of Project Runway, and a couple long train rides. For the first one, I'm pretty pleased with it. I haven't sewn anything in years and I'm teaching myself a lot along the way. Stay posted to see what happened when I cut up a couple of pairs of jeans and found my glue gun.