New Everything Kits

Yesterday wasn't a great day -- I've spent a lot of money on my house lately and yesterday I had to replace one of the A/C components. As one friend said, it's only time and money -- no one died. (I try to remember to keep that perspective).

The day got brighter when a package arrived from Gale of Gale's Art. (Here is a link to her ETSY shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/galesart) Gale made some custom hand dyed hankie and roving for me for my new color kits. I'm adding more colors of fabric and some designer wool yarns. Gorgeous things! So here is the first of the kits:

It's amazing how playing with things we love can make us feel better. I know the color just makes me happy! Look for it on my website.

Here's another picture of my new favorite tree:

More work with this soon! Cheers and happy earth day. Let's all join in and try to change just one thing to help the earth.

More on Personal Symbols

I posted an earlier photo of this group of personal symbols -- here is the final version:

Many many thanks to contributing artists Marjorie Nichols, Kimberly Morris and Rhonda Douglass who helped with the mounting. This piece is hanging at the Creative Arts Center at the moment. All three of these woman can be found on Facebook. Kim and Marjorie are at the Main Street Fort Worth Arts Festival this weekend. Booths 352 and 364.

Rhonda helped me create this clever mounting which started with a metal barbecue grill from Home Depot. Each piece was mounted on foam core board and attached with metal tape. The images are interchangeable.

On my walk the other morning I spotted a tree that spoke volumes to me. It was an old tree that had been partially uprooted by the winds. Yet it lives on and is beginning to bloom. That old tree spoke to me about how life can uproot us, but yet we go on. My first pictures did no justice to the tree. I will continue to try to capture the essence of this tree and work with it as a personal symbol. The best picture was of the bare roots -- so torn, yet they continue to support the tree!

Working With Personal Symbols

I have been working lately with creating personal symbols with the smaller everything kit sized pieces. I've had the pleasure of working with others on this concept. It's been fun and I've seen some beautiful things happen. I am teaching a class at the Creative Arts Center next weekend around this concept. (http://www.creativeartscenter.org/schedules.php?type=Workshop#Fiber Arts) Here are the reflections of one of the participants, Camille DeSalme:

"In early February, I worked—okay, played!—with Suzanne Morgan and a couple other friends in a personal symbols felting class. It was fun!

Suzanne laid out all her gorgeous materials, then showed some finished personal symbol feltings that others had done. I didn’t come up with a symbol that I wanted to use until Suzanne said, ”Something that symbolizes your life.”

Ah ha! I have a mental image of a path thru life. Can’t see the whole thing, don’t know where it’s going in the far future. But I can see enough of it for now. That’s what sprang to mind, and what went into my felting. I laid out my wool and silk and cheesecloth with the idea that the path starts outside the piece from the left, and continues off the piece on the right. When I was doing the felting, I was hit with a strong emotional something; yes, that’s not specific, but neither was the feeling. I had been ready to move further along my path, and hoped the felting was making that happen. The feeling passed. I just kept on felting and hoping.

I love my path piece: the colors are so varied and vibrant. It’s on my living room wall.

A few weeks later, I started working with a friend, training for a new career as a copy editor. Shortly thereafter, I drew a simple picture of me enjoying financial security; I’ve been unemployed for a decent while. The drawing is of me sleeping soundly—I’ve lost a lot of sleep worrying about finances. I taped the drawing to the wall a very little bit to the right of my felted path, imagining that I would move from the path, over the gap between the pieces, to financial security. And it started happening! The training is going well, I’m sleeping more soundly, and thank God, I’m happier.

Yippee!"

—Camille DeSalme

Yeah Camille! I think being able to see a symbol sends a powerful message to our subconscious sometimes. We don't always communicate with words! Cheers and I will post more personal symbols pics soon! Camille's picture is posted on my January 3 post titled "Reflections on Starting a Business" and you can find her on facebook @Camille DeSalme.