Studio Scenes #001
A weekly digest of things I’m up to creatively.
Friday, October 28, 2022
On Friday my coworker Brooke and I made this awesome display of Yayoi Kusama pumpkins at Webster Elementary school. It always makes me happy to see my students’ work hung up. This display would be for their Halloween parade which was happening later that day.
Later that evening I went with my other coworker Anna to a gallery fundraiser even for ArtReach. Max Roemer was the artist and he was donating the sales of his artwork to ArtReach which the gallery, BFree Studio, was generously matching. The sculptures were created with found natural objects from around Max’s home and they all had a personality and I kind of symbolism of their own. The gallery actually hosted an event where a Jungian psychologist discussed the symbolism in the sculptures. I was really bummed I missed that! It was a fun event and really nice to talk to Max about his work. He was so cool about everything and I found out that play and chance were major factors in his artistic process. I loved when he told me he didn’t really go into any of the work with a plan but later found meaning in the work upon reflection. I have the exact same process when I set out to make a collage, so it was great to hear another artist have a similar process!
Saturday/Sunday, October 29/30, 2022
The weekend was full of checking off activities on our Fall Bucket List and getting ready for Halloween. We went to Old Town for a tour of the Whaley House which is infinitely interesting and checked out all of the Dia de Los Muertos festivities. I also got the rest of what I needed for my Coupon costume. At night we hung out with Anthony and walked around the neighborhood checking out Halloween decorations and watched music videos which I haven’t done in forever.
On Sunday we went over to Leandra’s house and carved pumpkins which is a Halloween tradition. Our pumpkins were ready for the big night.
Monday, Halloween
On Monday I wore my Coupon costume to work and obviously it was too niche for anyone to really get it but it made me happy. I took a half day at work, got some film developed, and picked up tons of marigolds for my ofrenda. I built my ofrenda with pictures of my ancestors on both my mom’s and dad’s sides. It was so fun to go through the photos and learn a little more about my personal history. I have been thinking about that a lot lately.
We took a walk around the neighborhood to see the decorations on Maryland and the sunset was amazing. I love it when the whole sky turns pink, it never ever gets old. Also I FINALLY saw this shadow outline with the shadow inside of it. This was a momentous occasion for me and if you’ve been a reader of Stardust Gazette, you’ll know why.
Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Wednesdays are my Creative Quarantine nights with Sydney. We're working through the Artist’s Way and do something creative together. One of the prompts from the book was to list your favorite things in certain categories. I based an art journaling exercise around this prompt, as I’m gearing up for my workshop on the weekend. Here’s my illustration of a sunset orange Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.
Thursday, November 3, 2022
I picked up my film from the developer and it was fun to see all the photos, especially since one of the cameras was almost two years old. Check out Christian’s long hair! I’m going to incorporate these into some upcoming projects, including some art journals. I have one more disposable camera to play with and I learned so much about disposable film photography with this experiment, so I’m excited to apply what I learned to the next roll.
Here’s my desk currently and I think it sums up my creative life right now. I’ve been doing a lot of art journal spreads which I’ll share here, and I’ll share some photos from my workshop. You can see all kinds of things cut out and in progress. You can see my Artist’s Way book which I’m in the middle of. You can see my SoulCollage deck. I am so excited to be starting SoulCollage Facilitator Training next week! I’m happy with my creative pace, it feels abundant with projects just for me and that’s how I like it. On Thursday we made a late night stop at Uncle Biff’s Cookies and I can tell you, it was most necessary to my creative process.
