Changes coming to The Art of Transformation!

I’m making changes to this blog — it’s been the “poor relation” of my art life, receiving occasional recognition, but never serious attention.

I’m going to fix that. It’s time to transform The Art of Transformation!

I intend to use this venue to address some of the issues artists face — especially artists for whom art is a Journey to Discover the Self.

I have been an artist on a Journey of Self-Discovery for a very long time — longer than I even knew I was an artist!

I can’t tell you how to do it — but I can tell you how I’ve done it [and am still doing it!] and share the help I’ve received along the way.

I want to talk about, and share, resources available to you, and tips for making the most of your journey. I want to show you that your Self is not missing — it’s only hidden behind the masques you’ve worn as Self-protection. My Self was hidden for forty years behind protective walls and body armour. Believe me — if I could find my way out, so can you. And you will have guidance, and a compass, to assist you!

So join me, won’t you, on the Self-discovery Trail.

Plastic Bag Art & Couture

Thanks to LoriZ for bringing this transformative art to my attention!

George Pricordeau creates art from plastic bags. Truly. He has a gift for design and colour, transforming what would otherwise become landfill and elevating it to art.

What kind of art, you may ask. George’s art runs from paintings to sculptures to haute couture. I was particularly taken with his gorgeous clothing, handbags, and hats!

We can do this too! Please help save the planet by using sustainable, reuseable bags and transforming our rubbish into art! You’ll be glad you did!

My art-jewelry shop is Launched!

The newest art-jewelry collection online, Funky Body Décor was launched today at http://www.funkybodydecor.com

Your one-stop-shop to Get Décorated, Funky Body Décor offers you an exclusive selection of absolutely unique, fresh, unconventional art jewelry to decorate your body! From surprising charm bracelets that double as necklaces, to eye-catching earrings and brooches, FBD’s clever and unusual offerings are sure to cause comment wherever you wear them.

New items are being added daily, so be sure to check in regularly!

Crafting for Cats leads to online shop!

The University library, where I work a day-job to support my art habit, had two resident cats. Tessa has now gone to the great scratching post in the sky, but she was still in good spirits and supervising the workroom at the time my tale begins.

Library staff regularly donated funds from their meagre wages to keep the cats fed and vetted, but when Sandy was diagnosed with diabetes, the vet bills got out-of-hand. One of my colleagues suggested a craft fair to benefit the cats, and Crafting & Cakes for Cats was born.

I had recently begun making and wearing some rather unusual charm bracelets, which attracted the attention of my co-workers, so I thought that jewellery might sell. Thinking small, I made several dozen pairs of cat-themed earrings, and a bunch of cat-themed brooches, most of which sold the first day! During the following week I was asked for additional pairs of earrings and brooches, bringing my total contribution to the cats to over $300!

I was dead chuffed! My confidence was so boosted that I decided to offer my wild & unique jewellery online!

My new shop, Funky Body Décor, is set to launch on 10 October! You can check out pre-launch happenings at its blog, funkybodydecor.blogspot.

Here are a few of the items I made for Crafting for Cats:

Feeling Great about Art!

Today I finally got around to reading the documents that resulted from the recent panel I participated in, “Mapping the Future of the Arts in Wellington”, and boy am I excited! Participants from all the Arts, including practitioners and members of arts organisations, got together in multiple sessions over the course of a week, to determine the Big Questions that need to be asked and answered in order to effectively grow the Arts in Wellington.

To my surprise, the needs that were identified by visual artists, musicians, writers, performers, and indigenous artists were amazingly Similar!

If artists and arts organisations can work together to create a central hub to disseminate information, offer networking, mentoring, exhibiting, and performing opportunities, and centralise resources and marketing, Wellington City could become, in fact, the arts capital of New Zealand!

Then, while tidying my desktop, I came across a note to watch this video. WOW! I highly recommend that Every artist and artist-wannabe watch it! What a great time this is to be an artist!

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

After a month of daily arting in July, August came as a dreadful shock! I actually had so much paid work in hand, all of it “urgent”, that I made not Scrap One of art until 30 Aug!!

Now September’s nearly gone, with the Promise of Spring at her heels.

And what have I to show for it? Well, I learned InDesign by my usual method: Trial by Fire. I had a bookcover to design for one client, and a manuscript to typeset for another, and both were required “Instanter”. The bookcover was relatively straightforward, but the manuscript used more than a dozen non-Latin typefaces!

Then I bought an online shop. I had decided to offer my unusual art jewellery for sale, and fell for the “Only Seven Easy Steps” line. Six frustrating weeks later, the site is still not live, and I have serious doubts I will be able to configure an American shopping cart to charge New Zealand dollars. Of course, while setting up the shop, I wasn’t making more art.

That was when I allowed myself to be strong-armed into co-moderating a Yahoo group. About Art. It’s a great group! don’t get me wrong! I just am a bit stressed with other issues.

Like, I need an electrician! There are now Four places in my house where the electric does not work! I also need an arborist! The holly I sawed down and poisoned ten years ago has reached two meters tall, and the sycamore definitely needs desexing. But my neighbours want to chop down the pohutukawa trees on Our property that provide the sole bit of summer shade to the deck and hold the front garden from falling into Their property. Oh, and I need a woodchipper! I have four square meters of brush spread across the deck, which I’d like to clear for sitting on.

Fortunately, it’s time to walk down the hill in the waning sunshine to my Pilates class. There, the tension and frustration will drain from me, and by 6pm I will be a New Woman!

And, with the bus drivers on strike, I will then be free to take the waewae express back up the hill to home, and call it exercise ;-)

Woohoo!! I MADE it!!

I DID it!! I made art every day in July! In fact, I'm still making art!

Making More Art (my 2008 Resolution) appears to lead to more art-making! Experimentation, playing, the eternal “what if …” of trying something new and completely different, all lead to further investment in arting. I suppose I could have deduced this without experiencing it, but Experience is a more thorough teacher than Reason :-)

I read somewhere that it takes 28 days to create a habit. I hadn’t given this any consideration when I accepted Karen’s challenge. But I do seem to have gotten in the Habit, now, of making art. I’ll post some of July’s creations soon.

Got 15 minutes? That’s plenty of time to go make some art!

Art Every Day

It’s 25 July, and so far I have made art every day this month! Whether making cards welcoming, farewelling, or celebrating work colleagues, magnetic poetry inchies for swaps, or jewelery to benefit the library cats, I have spent part of every day in July making art.

It’s been enlivening, gratifying, and FUN!

It’s amazing how much time I can find for arting, when I’m truly committed. Oh, I’ve moaned and groaned about how terribly busy I am, and I am! But this one small commitment has changed my life, and so much for the better!

There’s less than a week left to my commitment to make art every day, but I sincerely hope that it has now become a habit, and that I will find myself continuing without the contract!

My July committment

OMG! What have I done??

At Alteredbooks I replied to Karen Campbell’s challenge: OK Karen, you're on! I accept the challenge, principally because tonight I assured someone who is “too busy” to do what she “wants” that she could Choose to make time, if it truly were her priority.

I am fully prepared to put my Time where my Mouth is: For the month of July, I commit to making a little art everyday.
(Signed)
Nona

Long time . . .

I have too many projects going at once, per usual. The good news is I have actually been arting; the bad news is I’ve made more time for art by neglecting the computer ;-)

I hope to post some of the results of my arting soon.

Next . . .

Well, it's been a while! Life has intervened, slowing posting.

Since then I've given a paper in the 3 Books 3 Scholars series in the Beaglehole Room at VUW and have reduced my work hours to half-time.

I hope to spend a good deal more time on art-making.

It's gonna be a Great 2008!

I am eagerly anticipating another Transformational year! The new thoughts that I nurtured last year have now matured, dramatically changing the way I experience my life. This year I will sow the thoughts that will have me experience artistic success and a generally comfortable and relaxed lifestyle.

We may feel that we have little control over the circumstances of our lives, but we have total control of how we choose to think about them. To choose to alter our thoughts is to wield the greatest power available to humankind.

Let us choose to escape our conditioning. Let us choose to experience our world with new eyes and a clean slate. For What We Think truly is Who We Are. The choice is ours to make.