Work in progress and...how is it 2017?

Hi there for anyone who has been reading...I have been to Miami, been back, had shingles, given my husband chicken pox, fought with my son's asthma, been making some screen prints and trying to get a lot of my own work done.  So much to report on Miami and all the work I saw, but that will have to be a different post.  Right now, I am just quick trying to get back at this so I am posting one of my new figures.  I have a show in June in Northern Minnesota, and I hope to have a whole family to share.  

This is my new woodpecker.  And I am so in love with him.  I am working on wings and limbs now.  Somehow I need to start planning for these little critters tails though....it would make things so much easier.  I tend to forget they have them.  

Finished work framed and ready for Superfine! Art fair...

So I just posted the progress pics from this last big piece I was working on, but they are from several weeks ago.  I just spent the last eight hours finishing it while watching Stranger Things.  I loved it, but why is Winona Ryder not aging?  Anyway, my husband spent much of my birthday documenting works in frames for Superfine!  All works will be for sale!

All of the pieces above are 8x8 inches in a 10x10 inch frame.

This piece is 18x18 inches in a 20.5x20.5 inch frame.  It is my favorite and I am afraid it is not going!  Not enough wall space.  

Stitching in progress

So I have one piece I am trying to finish for Superfine! in Miami in December.  I have been nervous to open up my color palette on the sewing pattern paper, but finally decided to do it.  I like how the violets, blues and greens are more bruise like.  I am also getting more brave in my thread color mixing which is making for some fabulous opportunities.  Here are some quick pics:

Glennen Doyle Melton, Elizabeth Gilbert, creativity and podcasts....

While baking some birthday goodies this week, I started listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's podcast "Magic Lessons" which is an extension of sorts of her book "Big Magic" which was published in 2015.  She has two seasons of episodes, and I just picked the last episode of this last season.  It was a sort of post mortem on the whole season of guests, and there was so much good stuff.  I had never heard of Glennen Doyle Melton, but she is a blog writer (Momastery.com), an author, a recovering addict and a truth teller.  WHAT A TRUTH TELLER.  I have got to see if I can find a transcript of their conversation.  Elizabeth Gilbert mentioned a quote by John Steinbeck, "and now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."  Elizabeth said that Glennen went one step further with the thought, "but if you don't have to be good, then you can be free."  Isn't that the most beautiful idea?  Isn't that what we all want, to be free?

Superfine! art fair at Miami Art week 2016....

and I am going!  I had been looking at Emerging Fair venues during some of the major art weeks across the US to see if one might be accessible to me.  In my research, I discovered Superfine! and was really excited about the possibility.  Then comes real life in the form of basement water and mold, possible job status changes and coming cat dental bills, and I figured I better hold off.  But with the sale of my grid last week, I decided to go for it.  I applied, have been accepted and am starting to prepare my curatorial plan for the fair.  I am really excited about it!  I know many of the dolls will go, and I have some small framed stitched pieces I would like to include as well.  I am thinking about two bigger stitched pieces, but I don't know that I can get that done.  I am so excited for five days in Miami in December and ALL THE ART!  

The Thyroid is such a beautiful organ....

I finished this drawing recently as well.  You can find it as a print at Forager, or shortly on my etsy site...I am a little behind in getting things listed.  And cleaning.  All the cleaning.  

Skeleton hand drawing finished just in time....

So I have work going up in this beautiful local, Rochester, Minnesota restaurant called Forager this weekend.  I finished the text on the drawing yesterday and got it cleaned up in photoshop just now.  I will be selling this image as a framed print, along with prints of the rest of this anatomical series.  I can't wait to see them in the space.

The reception for the exhibition will be 10/23/16 from 4-6 pm.  Hope to see you there!

Sold!!!!

So excited to share that I sold the piece "Graft" at the Rochester Art Center Artbash 2016 auction!  It sold for $2500, the most I have ever sold a work for, and I am happy to share half with the Art Center for their 70th anniversary.  RAC, thank you so much for this opportunity.  I am looking forward to installing it in it's new home.