Saturday, July 26, 2008

Art is Glamorous...





...or, rather, working for an artist is glamorous.
We get to sit around all day and create pretty things
and eat bon-bons. What? You don't believe me?
And are not the above photos evidence enough?
On Thursday morning we met at 8am sharp to set up
Melinda's booth at the Bellevue ArtsFair. I must admit
I was fairly amazed that we produced enough work
in the past six weeks to fill these shelves. (Granted,
I was gone for four of those weeks but let's not talk
about that here.) The show opened Friday morning
with a bang and M. had customers lined up with dollars
bulging from their wallets. When Paul and I stopped by
Friday afternoon, I couldn't even get into the booth.
There is nothing even remotely resembling her work
anywhere else at that show -- lots of paintings, lots of
blown glass, lots of textiles, jewelry -- but no other
functional vessels which have been painted, masked,
blasted, peeled, dremeled, dotted, baked and polished.
Phew! (Is that really what I do every day?!)

6 comments:

  1. As part of yesterday's anniversary activities we were at a small, lovely museum in Newark, New Jersey.

    Our reason for going there was this exhibit of Yoruba art. But as all the galleries are small, we had time to look into other ones as well.

    Among the exhibits was one on glass beads of Ghana, with very high quality accompanying video that shows how various beads are made. The foundation is shattering the colored glass of abandoned bottles, and then melting that glass, which will be used to make glass beads.

    We also looked into the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman gallery -- commonly titled the Ancient Mediterranean World (this is a small museum). Much of the contents, ranging in age from 1500 hundred B.C. to about 200 A.D. are cosmetic and perfume glass containers, and various glass implements that go with them.

    Again there were very high quality videos that showed how the glass was made, and how ancient the art of making glass is.

    Maybe some of these beautiful items you are making will survive as long as those lovely Egyptian glass perfume containers from 1500 B.C.

    What a marvelous medium glass is.

    Love, C.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Every time I see glass --intact vessels -- in a museum display that is two, three thousand
    years old, I am in awe -- especially considering I've broken my share of pieces which by all rights should still be whole!

    One of my co-workers recycles broken and "unusable" glass to make her jewelry line. Great stuff!

    ReplyDelete
  3. These are stunning.....price list, please? Really, I buy my Xmas gifts this time of the year.

    Oh, and the little girl in the fabric has the wonder of being a "princess" in her eyes, lost in a fantasy world, pleased and OH, so happy! You captured that special moment we once experienced.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I share those shivers that are provoked by anything, particularly smaller objects, that are that ancient.

    Some summers back a good friend participated in the work of re-opening the Ancient Egyptian galleries at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. There was a special seminar for the Friends of the Brooklyn Museum around this, that he ran. So he invited me to participate as his guest. One of the parts of the seminar was that each of us got to handle objects like ebony turtles, and so on that were 5,000 years old, before the Dynasties. I nearly swooned.

    Love, C.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Foxessa: lucky you!!

    Pw: e'mail me at carrowhollygirl@gmail.com and I'll send you Melinda's email address. Her website is not currently up.

    ReplyDelete
  6. uh, yeah. But don't tell everyone that we manage to fit all that in between the bon bons and naps and manicures and fish pedicures and more naps and oh yeah the pool boys who double as massage boys. In between all that we make some shit. Exotic, really.

    ReplyDelete