Sunday, May 31, 2009

Beauty in Growth: Part 2

The growing season is here and I am joyfully watching as our yard is turning into a very interesting little ecosystem. These pictures are of a few of my favorite things that are growing without much attention from us at all.

This is one of the baby apples that is growing on our tree. We do not have very many of them, but I am excited to see how the ones we do have turn out later this season

Here is a baby strawberry that I found. Adam thought there were only weeds in our back garden until I found these. Who knows what else is secretly growing all around us.
According to other people, roses are really hard to grow. But according to our yard, all they need is some sun, rain, and neglect. I am very happy to have them since they are so beautiful and I hope they continue to grow and be happy without us having to do too much.

I still have to plant my tomatoes and other annuals that we got at the store. Hopefully all of my plants will like it here as much the old ones and we do.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Remodeling

Here are a few pictures of us and our friends remodeling our new house. It still has quite a bit of work left to do, especially with all the boxes everywhere from moving. We will get it done eventually. People keep telling us that home ownership is a never ending project but hopefully we will get the number of projects down to a reasonable level by the end of the summer.
Me scrapping wallpaper in the kitchen to reveal an ugly orange wall.

Sean scrapping wallpaper in the infamous airplane/guest room. The background of the airplane wallpaper used to be white.

Jack helping to clean off the walls in the airplane room. Jack has been an immense help throughout this whole process and I am very grateful for his help.

Amy licking the paint instead of putting it on the trim. Amy has helped provide a lot of comic relief as well as help. We are very happy we have reconnected with her.

Adam giving me his ever cheesy smile while painting the closet sized master bathroom.

John putting spackle on the places where the evil airplane wallpaper ripped off the wall covering.

Tyler helping rip out and carry away stained and nasty old carpet.

Skillet also helping rip out carpet. I think some days Skillet was more enthusiastic about working on our house than we were.

Buddy sleeping in his new backyard. Too many things to do, he wore himself out.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Beauty in Growth: Part 1

Spring has come and gone. Although summer has unofficially started I wanted to share these spring pictures of the apple blossoms from the tree in my new back yard. I need to get out there and take images of the baby apples that have started to form. I will have to keep taking pictures as the season goes on to show the transformation of growth over time. But for now I just hope you enjoy these beautiful blossoms.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Morning

So it is 6:15 in the morning and I cannot go back to sleep. Buddy is whining, Adam is sleeping, and the cats are exploring. Yesterday we moved into our new house. This house has been the biggest project I and Adam have ever worked on. I wish it was done but, as people keep telling me, home ownership is a never ending process. We need to unpack and settle in but we also need to finish painting walls and trim, packing and cleaning up the old apartment, and getting the 1001 other details done. Hopefully we are able to stay under budget and get all the things done that we would like to do. Unfortunately right now I am just exhausted, physically and mentally. I just want to take a mini vacation where I do not have to worry about all the things that should have already been done. Maybe I can find time today to do that since today is Memorial Day and thus a holiday off of work. Maybe i just need to take the time to watch a movie on our new big TV and forget about the boxes surrounding me. Wish me luck in de-stressing.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Su Blackwell

More beautiful things.

Altered books by Su Blackwell

This last one is not exactly in book form but it is still amazing and looks like it could be made of paper.

Hina Aoyama

Here are some of the most beautiful things I have seen lately.

Works of paper by Hina Aoyama
She also has a lot of butterflies but the words were what caught my attention.


Friday, January 30, 2009

Happy Dance Time

So I wanted to share two things. One: my application is officially submitted to the Graduate School and I handed in my CD of images and text documents to the secretary at the art department. *Happy Dance* Here is another one of my pieces that I submitted in my portfolio. The head of this poor birdie fell off but I was able to glue it back on for the shot before it fell off again. Adam spent several minutes trying to get the bow just perfect and the birdie going the correct direction. I am glad that he has his obsessive complusive behaviors sometimes, especially when it comes to my art.

Two: After who knows how many sketches and ideas, I finally figured out what I am going to do for my wearable art project that will not kill me over the next week and a half. I am going to make the dress on the Vogue Pattern on the far right. I love that dress and how it has a pointed train like a bird tail. I am going to use inspiration from the black Beth Teshome dress named Raven. I love how the entire skirt is covered in fabric feathers. I am going to use similar fabric feathers on the train of my dress to emphasize the bird tail idea. The colors I am using are based off of a bluebird. I am dying raw silk in a deep national blue for the outside of the dress. I am dying silk habotai, which is so smooth and wonderful against your skin, a golden yellow for the lining. I am not sure if I am going to use the silk habotai or silk organdy in the national blue for the feathers. I am going to have to do some tests. I am really excited that I will have a handmade, 100% silk dress, that will fit me perfectly, even if I do not currently have a place to wear it. I hope it turns out as beautiful as it looks in my head. I still have some reservations about how much time the feathers will take me. Wish me luck!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Today is a nasty day.


I am sitting here with my puppy sleeping next to me hoping that nothing else goes wrong today. In the realm of bad days it has not been the worst but it still has not been fun. I may finally break out the bee journal I made or one of the many other journals I have laying about and write and draw randomly for a while. I love journals and looking at other people's journals but I am not disciplined when it comes to my own writing.

But back to the subject: this nasty day. This morning, as I was walking Buddy, I found out that one of my good friends lost her job. She seemed to really enjoy it and be getting along really well there. Stupid economy. I hope Obama can actually get the economy back in order before it gets much worse.

Next, while I was driving home from class, my car got in a boo boo with a telephone pole because of the nasty, stupid road conditions. Bad snow! I don't like you! Thankfully I wasn't hurt and only the pole and I were involved. But it is still something that I wished wouldn't have happened, plus if I would have made the right call might not have happened. But I don't have much experience driving on crappy roads, and I have to learn somehow at somepoint.

I can't call it a no good day because there have been some things that have gone well. I made it too class fine, found a parking spot, and did not get a ticket. I got some interesting results from dying my fabric. Jo seems to like my project idea, even if she may thing I am crazy for attempting it. I think it is going to be an okay day overall. I am especially glad that I am not in a horrible mood after my little crash.

Well I hope your day is not a nasty one. Stay warm and away from the snow.

Monday, January 26, 2009

So Close!

I feel like I am so close to having something on two projects that I am working on.

First is my graduate school application. I finally got my images shot of the new and some old work last night. Now I just have to finish my digital assets sheet and get everything on the website and on the CD. Adam was a great help with shooting the images. He was the one who actually took the pictures while I set up the work and ran about doing random last minute things that had to be done (like gluing the head back on a birdie). He did a good job. He doesn't crop things the same way I would, but that is one of the many things Photoshop can fix. He also doesn't take as much time messing around as I do which is a great benefit. Here are a few of the shots we took last night.

These are two of the newest pieces that I have worked on recently. The top one is titled Nesting Pillow and the bottom one is Spring.


The second project I feel so close on is my wearable art project for my fibers class. I had started with two different ideas for pieces and now I have narrowed it down to one, a bluebird corset. I have also thought about how it is going to go together and what it will be made from. I think it will be made from a base layer corset with probably fabric feathers arranged on top. I am still thinking about a set of wearable wings, but I am not sure if they will be as "wearable" as the profs are wanting. I have gone away from my crazy Bibian Blue style outfit (bibianblue.net), which would have been absolutely gorgeous, to wanting to do something that will actually weave in with my other work. I am at a roadblock figuring out exactly how I want the project to end up. Maybe I will dream about it tonight. That has happened occasionally.

Well it is time to get back to being productive. Have to get a few more things done tonight before I head off to bed. Goodnight snowy world.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Rambling letter of intent

Good morning world! Today is going to be a good day.

My list of things I need to do for my MFA application is getting shorter. I still have a lot of work to do and wish I would have started getting on the ball sooner, but I will get it done in time. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I also start a fibers class today, which I am very excited about. I am sitting in on the Intermediate/Advanced Fibers course. It should help me transition from the knowledge I have from Beginning Fibers and practical experience working with different materials to the knowledge I will need to start my MFA program as a Fibers student.

Writing all these documents about why I want to be a MFA student in Fibers has made me really analyze and question myself. I know I want to get my MFA. I have a passion for learning that I hope is never fully quenched. I desire to push my work and myself as an artist to the next level, and I see that graduate school is a good place to do that. I know I am really enjoying working with fiber materials. The sheen of silk, the comfort of cotton, and the versatility of paper excite me with the potential they have in my work. But who is to say that I was meant for fibers? Who is to say that me moving from one three-dimensional media area to another will not stop with fibers? All I know is what I feel right now. I feel drawn towards the potential of the materials. I can still get my hands deep in the sometimes smelly muck and come out with something beautiful. I wander around the fabric store with a smile on my face, dreaming of all the possibilities. I feel like the themes that are floating around in my head like intimate relationships, femininity, flight, family tradition, and home, can best be released though mediums like surface design, knitting, and paper making. By building up my portfolio, I have been looking though images of my favorite works. Although there are a few pieces that stand out as favorites in various other materials, the pieces that draw me in with their sweet intimacy are the works made with fiber materials.

I think I just wrote most of my cover letter of intent by rambling. That is nice.

Well I shall stop rambling now and go play with the puppy or finish my cover letter. Hope all of you are having a wonderful day as well.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Wallpaper

Adam is in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronic Show. Although I miss him greatly, these days without him are a great opportunity to get some art done. Since the deadline for my graduate application and portfolio are due soon, it is a great time to get last minute projects completed. I am applying for the graduate program in Fibers which is a fairly new media for me, so I do not have a large collection of pieces to feature in my portfolio. I hope that my work ethic and willingness to learn will out weigh my small amount of experience in the medium. We shall see how the next few months go. I am not sure what the path ahead entails. It could be grad school, a new job, staying where I am, or something completely different.

In my pursuit to make new art I pulled out my wallpaper books from the black hole that is our second bedroom and started flipping through them again. I found some really great floral and bird prints that I have started to cut up and am on the edge of knowing what to do with them. I am planning on going to the fabric store in a little while to find some fabric that coordinates with the wallpaper. I think I will be working with the wallpaper, fabric, wall hanging pillow forms, and stitching. I think I may include some words as well but I am not sure what they will be yet. I hope it all comes together in time and creates something I am proud of. We shall see.

Hopefully I will be taking images of my work from the end of the fall semester soon so that I can put it in my portfolio, on my website, and on this blog. Oh, speaking of the website, Adam got me a new web address for Christmas. It is www.BeeSimmonsArt.com . Adam is working on revising it so check back often to see what changes we will be making and the new art that will be going up.