Making my "Cabin in the Woods" happen!

In less than 3 short weeks, my "cabin in the woods"project-the smaller art studio-has seen a some changes. Once I committed to the idea and stopped waffling, things began to happen!

First, because the only convenient place originally to set the 12 x 20 shed down was at the 

renovations in progress!

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edge of our dirt/gravel driveway, I knew I had to make another entrance opening.

I also needed more light-a door at the north end or bigger windows!

Bringing in a re-modeler friend who happened to have a spare 6 ft. sliding door, he and his crew made short work of the 10 x 16' deck and door installation!

I hired the neighbor's son to dig the "trench" to lay electrical wire. Our big studio is on a separate meter so it seemed logical to pull power from that. Brent had a lot of help from one of our chickens the afternoon he dug it!

Chickens are fascinated by any "scratching" in the earth.

Digging the trench from the big studio

Our remodeler came out the next day and he and hubby hooked up the power to the small studio and I was in business so to speak! Even the simple ability to turn on lights was inspiring :-)

The changes have been fabulous! Below is from just the day after Christmas when my youngest son and hubby (artist Stephen Filarsky) installed the sheetrock on the ceiling (the hardest part of sheetrocking!) as part of my Christmas present! It's already looking bigger and brighter!

Sheetrocking the ceiling

I'll add a small stoop to the door side-I might just close it off but in the summer I know an amazing crossbreeze can come through there so...still thinking!
In the meantime, my "Cabin in the Woods" is coming to life!

Finding My cabin in the Woods

SO in my last post I talked a bit about my quest. Maybe that's a good word for it.
I spend more and more time thinking about it-a cabin in the woods. 
I'm not sure why that dreaded "If only...." phrase has kept popping up in my mind but it has me daydreaming of a place to relax, unwind, meditate, recharge-every adjective that an artist needs in order to justify her creativity! Silly. I have a studio that is the envy of most artists. We built it 18 years ago from parts of a 1910 home being torn down in the area. It's 24 x 30 feet in size with 10 foot ceilings, beautiful reclaimed pine flooring, the old windows-it is stunning!                                                            

 And I know this! But in reality it is crowded! Oh it started off with SO much space but with 2 working artists that changed quickly
Even the shed we added behind it turned into a storage area. Oh and we have a woodworking shop..the downstairs filled  with tools and the upstairs filled with things we are storing but do not need. (easy with 4 grown kids who move around)

(

At the beginning.......:-)

And we have grown rose clippings from abandoned homesteads and they have grown and matured into a profusion of cascading color enjoyed by painters every spring...so WHY was I searching?

Seven Sisters roses cascading down the tobacco stick fence

Red Seven Sisters brought by mother as a cutting from her family homestead in Mississippi.

What am I looking for?

I lean towards mountain properties- a throwback I am sure of my New England upbringing where we lived in an 18th century farmhouse on 50 acre farm in upstate New York (next to MA and VT) and had unfettered run, on foot, skis and horses, of the mature forests and surrounding streams, farmland and towns. Our freedom included the glorious huge beamed barn with its many outbuildings and the secret hideaways within them all. Ah, such memories!

In my mind, my cabin retreat  has to have a stream, mature trees...and of course-a small cabin.  Again, I recognize this from childhood memories of running through abandoned farm fields and discovering, in the dark recesses of hemlocks and maples that bordered all the forgotten fields, streams that cascaded down rocks into small pools of cold, pristine water.  It was all very magical to a child of ten and I clearly recall the details of discovering Jack in the Pulpits, ripples in the water pools, crawdads under the stones, floating maple leaves and the cool tang of the hemlocks. And other than the delighted sounds of discovery by my twin sister and younger brother, the only other sounds were that of the waterfall.  The sound of gurgling water can quickly transport me to that spot anytime I hear it.

And on a bittersweet, yet telling note, the last family vacation I had with my twin sister was in the  NC mountains. Eileen and I were 28 and I had 3 children, the youngest just 4 months old and a too busy life and business when our parents rented a little summer house for us to have a vacation in for our upcoming 29th birthdays :-).  It sat in a valley with a little stream in front of the house. My 6 and 3 year old played for hours on end at the edge of the shallow gurgling water, building and rebuilding little stone houses. There had been no TV, no phone and we had sat on the front porch at night counting stars and waiting for the shooting ones. With my youngest in a backpack (or my mother staying and watching him) we explored caves, pastures, mountains, abandoned farms. We had bought Audubon books and learned the names of the wildflowers we were  discovering. The children were at that age where everything held wonder and my parents and sister enjoyed sharing all the wonders with them.  Something as simple as watermelon seed spitting contests and watching frogs hop held them in rapture. It was a good summer and even better memories. A year later my twin was gone and all that was left us were the memories.

So I sort of know WHY I am looking....maybe it's that I am searching for a bit of those memories I have just described. The point was I had a sort of an epiphany the other day.

After spending inordinate amounts of time on Craigslist, looking at properties that I could not afford, or cheap ones simply too far away (there IS a practical side to me!) and .....daydreaming, wasting an awful lot of time.... I shook myself clear of it. 

I have a small "cabin". I am on a couple of acres of land. I have mature trees. I have deer and wildlife. I have a stone fountain I bought used 3 years ago and never used....hey. I can MAKE my own cabin in the woods and do it right here!

Bought from a friend whose mother had used it first as a pottery studio, then as storage (of course!) it was simply too good an opportunity to pass up!

So $250.00 moving fee later, the 12 x 20 building is finally deposited between our house, studio and pasture. It isn't very lovely but it was insulated, wired and covered inside with many grungy shelves and a linoleum floor. 

We are on 2.5 acres but the back is heavily wooded and alas...there was no way to get the whole shebang back to the back area.

At first the changes were cosmetic: cleaning the sides, painting the door, replacing the screen door with a vintage door......then I cleaned and painted the grungy insides shelves, thinking of paneling or sheetrock but not getting beyond that.  Amazing what a little paint can do. 
But within a few months we were storing frames and paintings in it, stymied by the cost of running electric to the inside panel.

And then the epiphany happened and I made a decision-yep-just like that-
the frames and artwork can go where they belong-into the 8 x 16 ft cargo trailer used just for that purpose. I'll enlist the help of some friends who can make a few things happen....for starters, I want a sliding door off the other end...this one door opens into the driveway-has to not be a major entrance. 
So I reasoned that if I bought property with a similar building on it, I would be facing the same economic and design challenges anyway so....what the heck!

So now I have my brain in gear...how to heat? Maybe a propane fireplace? Small woodstove? Must think this through but  so many shelves to help move my craft and silk work out of the main studio and into a smaller one.....let's see-add a small deck out the side where the sliding door would be, take that long unused stone waterfall..... are you feeling it now? :-)

What WILL the free range chickens think!?  Stay tuned for what starts to happen next!

Stepping back in Time with Art!

So, I will never be able to afford to buy mountain property and build a cabin. But where I am now is beautiful and has what I need to not only live, bu to produce my art in any form I desire! So I will readjust my mental thinking to the present....and you can follow me :-)

But first, true to my nature, I need to catch up on my artsy journey!

I have been diligent all summer and fall-painting, sewing, creating ....thinking about weeding the garden (which looks really good until August)
Hubby Steve and I spent the month of October getting ready to go back in time (so to speak) at the NC State Fair's Village of Yesteryear. Now he went "back" as a sign painter and I went back in the ancient art of silk painting. We had a grand time! Crowds of people, millions of questions, long hours :-)...and we stayed in our camper on the Fair grounds to save back and forth wear and tear. 

Stephen Filarsky in the Art of Hand Lettered Signs

Part of the fun of any art form that demonstrates to crowds is the response of the public. SIgn painting, once common in every town and city-has been replaced by the Internet era. But with people like Stephen Filarsky, it is alive and well!

Here I am in my booth-Steve to my left

So in a paragraph or so I have caught up with the past 6 months. It is of course never that simple but as I grow older I am discovering that it is OK to see that mountain and not climb directly over it...go around it or find an intelligent way to scale it :-)

And of course health. It is easy to take it for granted when young, but as I watch friends fall by the wayside, I realize that it becomes very precious when you hit your 50's-life span should not be measured in length-it should be measured in YOUR success (not someone else's interpretation)  

So my artsy journey is continuing  with my Cabin in the Woods in my next blog. Follow me!

Waiting for Spring

It has been a long winter for areas unused to long winters. Spring has peeped out enough times to give us hope but then tucks her head back inside and the temperatures plunge (again!)

 Even the art studio struggles to get warm and with propane at record highs, we try to conserve and not have to buy a tank right before spring!

So my solution to the cold, the ice, the snow and the dark days was to create my own spring and I did that by bringing out my silk dues and creating my "Ode to Spring" scarf :-).

SO I have brought my as yet, non-blooming daffodils in my yard to full bloom in my silk piece-a nice place to be while waiting for spring :-)

A Woman and her Beagle shared

  A Woman and her Beagle

 {I'm sharing this from my other blog www.mtheresabrown.blogspot.com simply because it is part of my artsy journey. Portraits are who I am. But art in all it's forms is where I like to be!)

I'm shipping out a pastel portrait this week and I must confess that I love it :-)

Now as you can see, it is of a beautiful woman and her equally charming beagle! Wow-the memories....my very first dog, my buddy, my confidant...was a beagle. I was just 7 years old and she occupied a time in my life that no other dog ever will. At 20, I honestly thought my world was going to end when "Tippy" passed. It was serious grief.

Ah but years later, and many four legged best friends later, I know of course that wasn't true :-). So I totally understood the bond between this woman and her dog!

Her mother commissioned it and sent me a huge pile of photos and ideas! After looking through them, I said what I say to everyone "Got it. Now just leave it up to me to choose!" So she did.:-)

The result is this pastel portrait-about 14 x 18 of Sarah and Bella and it will be the family's treasure for many years to come!

Of course, no one ever says it better than a happy client:

 Theresa....I have just had to retrieve the Kleenex box.....this is absolutely perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am blown away....

Inspiration in creating your own designs

Creating your own designs

Adding my designs to a silk/wool blend shawl

I have always carved. Mainly wood and even earlier-block prints on linoleum blocks. Both are time consuming and labor intensive-not problem normally to an artist but sometimes I just don't have the patience!
So with a "softer than linoleum" product on the market (for years apparently!) by Speedball, I started carving my own stamps to use on my scarves. To say it was fun was an understatement-it went fast, I was impressed and most of all I was enthused! My own designs-not mass produced ones from the craft stores....what's not to love? :-)

Using Speedball tools to carve away my design

A few carved in just a day (and used!)

I realize with the exception of the heart, these are all horses but that's where my passion lies when I am trying new ideas. Plenty of time to come up with other designs as I become more proficient!

Using the stamps with textile paint was a blast! I have a new batch of scarves to play with so I can't wait to try them but in the meantime I have two collages of what I worked on so far!

Our frigid temperatures have kept me off the hiking trails until today but the cold is coming back around and I'll be ready!

Prototypes!

 

 

 

 

Overlapping the design in layers

Working with kids in the Arts

Everyone has ideas about how to work with children in the arts.  No other subject, like ART, has so many different opinions and ideas and confusion as to "what it is."How can something so fun be so confusing?

Artsy Journeys is more about art exploration than disciplined art yet they go hand in hand.The two work together. For instance, it takes discipline to sit down and create something in a journal or on paper. It takes discipline to go to the shop or read a "how to" book or article. It takes discipline to put away your tools, try something different or work till you feel you have completed your project.

Working with clay and armatures

Working with children is often about creativity coupled with "directional" discipline. Kids need and want direction. The ones that jump into a project without waiting for direction are usually the ones that soon start complaining about not being able to "do it." That can have a bit of a negative impact on those kids who are creatively following directions so when the kids start new projects, they get the best results by ...yep...paying attention to me before we start!

There's no secret to it-I keep it short and sweet. "Look into my eyes, let's go over the tools, now we'll look at the examples.......tell me what I just said."

3D sculpture with marshmallows and toothpicks

This works SO well-just as I did with my own children. I love the kids-love to work with them. They love to learn, But too much initial freedom  in the arts is confusing to them and actually gives them mind blank! In art we call it the "blank canvas" syndrom. Writers love to talk about "writer's block." It's all the same thing. We ALL need a direction to start!
 
When the child is given the required tools/materials for an Art project and pointed in a particular direction with a few guidelines, THAT is when the enthusiastic creativity begins to happen!

One of my "grown up" students with her Sculpey sculpture!