Crocheted Mary Jane Shoes
Posted on | June 24, 2010 | 11 Comments
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Catching up on some saved tv shows with the family. So while watching an episode of “So You Think You Can Dance”, I crocheted a pair of shoes for Rinoa using worsted weight yarn and jute for the sole. (I got the pattern on Etsy.) I made a pair for my 1-year old niece as well and it’s on its way to New York. Mica’s is still in the works – saving that for another episode.
The Great Big Stitched Postcard
Posted on | June 23, 2010 | 1 Comment
It’s nearing the end of the month and I’m scrambling to finish some projects for swaps that are all due this week.
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| “You Are Worth the Time” Altered Postcard |
This altered postcard is for the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap hosted by Beth Nicholls in the UK. I’m sending it to Cat Conidi in Australia.
The inspiration behind this postcard is this video. (If you haven’t seen it yet, please take the time to watch it – it has a very powerful message.) My vision for the design is to compare creativity to a seed which needs time and nourishment to grow. The time it takes to cultivate and nourish it is well worth the fruits that it will bear and flower that it will bloom. (I actually added a flower on the top right corner but I wasn’t able to take another photo.)
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And for that altered tin can I made for my Mixed Media Art group, I wrapped it in music sheet and wax paper as shown above to give the recipient a more delightful surprise. (This idea was inspired by a project in Ruth Rae’s Layered, Tattered, and Stitched.)
Mixed Media Technique: Singed Art + A Very Funny Story
Posted on | June 22, 2010 | 6 Comments
In the cover of my Nostalgia Art Journal, I’ve incorporated some burnt book pages. Burning is an interesting way to add an aged, weathered look to art projects. I like the unpredictable results I get from burning paper.
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The scheduled brownouts in my hometown when I was a child gave lots of opportunities to play with a candle as a creative tool. (Not that I have pyro tendencies or anything.) Until now, I use a candle, placed near the kitchen sink, to burn paper for my projects. So far, I haven’t set off any of our smoke detectors yet – but I do warn my family when I’m doing my burning so they don’t get alarmed when they smell smoke.
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| Bird’s Nest Altered Tin Can |
Here’s another project where I incorporated singed art. It’s an altered tin can for a swap I’m participating in this month. For this project, I experimented with scraps of fabric. It’s fascinating to see how different types of fabric react to burning. I like how most of the fabric I used just curls up and ‘caramelizes’ under heat.
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Speaking of smoke detectors, I have a funny story to tell – of course, at the time this story happened (around 8 or so years ago), it wasn’t quite funny. Here’s what happened in the words of my husband Troy …
Ahh vacation. We were in California, bunking at our Aunt and Uncle’s newly built house in the fabulous Chino Hills area. I had gotten up at the crack of noon as my lovely and talented wife was preparing to bake a fresh batch of homemade cookies. She’s a fantastic baker and wanted to surprise everyone when they returned home from work later that day. There was a constant clattering in the kitchen as Johwey rifled through drawers and cabinets trying to find the necessary utensils and supplies. Suddenly there was a loud, high pitched squeal-like beeping that was so obnoxiously shrill that I nearly gouged out my own ears. I noticed Johwey’s scramble pattern in the kitchen change up a bit, apparently she noticed the beeping too. What a God-awful sound for an oven timer I thought. Were the cookies done? Not quite.
Cousin DJ came rushing down the stairs, dripping wet and wearing nothing but a towel, screaming something about the neighbors house being on fire and all the neighbors were already outside. This is when we realized that the beeping was a fire alarm and that the fire was inside the kitchen. Thick black smoke was rolling out of the sides of the oven door as flames snuck out from the bottom and licked the front of the oven. My 3rd grade fire safety training immediately kicked in and I stopped dropped and rolled my way off the couch and into the kitchen. I slipped my hands through the fire and flames and turned the gas knob of the oven to ‘Off’. Within seconds the flames subsided, but smoke continued to roll from the lower broiler area of the oven. Johwey came running with some oven mitts and opened the broiler, pulling out the smoldering mass of blackness. “You broiled the cookies!?!?”, I thought.
“Oh DAAAYYYYYUMMMMMMM!”, DJ exclaimed in his best LA Club Kid voice, which was how he sounded anyway at the time. “My mom keeps all of the kitchen towels in the oven, you didn’t take them out??”
In a kitchen with dozens of cabinets, the towels were stored in the broiler pan. Needless to say, Johwey never finished her cookies, and we spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the smoke stains off the never-before-used oven.
Friday Art: Zentangles
Posted on | June 18, 2010 | 5 Comments
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| Zentangles by Mica Redington (13 years old) |
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| Zentangles by Rinoa Redington (5 years old) |
Both Mica and Rinoa did a great job with their zentangles. Rinoa gave up coloring in the middle of her project, complaining that her hand was tired. I think it looks great just partly colored.
A Superstar is Born
Posted on | June 16, 2010 | 9 Comments
This is the culmination of Rinoa’s yearlong dance lessons – her very first dance recital. I’m so proud of her. She did really well. And she was smiling the whole time. (It’s funny, you know how you watch kids perform and you see them mess up but through a parent’s eyes, the child undeniably shines like a star.)
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| “Send It On” Ballet |
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| “Ever Ever After” Jazz |
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| “This is My Time” Tap Dance |
You Are Worth the Time
Posted on | June 16, 2010 | 5 Comments
I’ve been having computer problems since Monday and instead of getting frustrated about it, I’ve taken it as a cue to spend more time with my projects and recently-purchased books. In the meanwhile that Troy is making sure that my computer doesn’t mess with me anymore anytime soon, I’d like to share this very inspirational video about ‘creating’ which is also transcribed below. Enjoy!
“It’s not easy these days making time for our creative work. Voices call us from everywhere demanding our attention, our energy, our time. And many of us, somewhere along the path, got the message that making art was self-indulgent so we relegate it to the bottom of our list. It becomes the thing we get to when the laundry is done, the kids asleep, the groceries bought and put away. We get so caught up in the flurry of our lives that we forget the essential thing about art – that the act of creating is a healing gesture, as sacred as prayer, as essential to our spirit as food to our body. It is our creative work that reveals us to ourselves, allows us to transform our experience and imagination into new forms – forms that sing back to us in a language of symbol – who we are, what we are becoming, what it is we have loved and feared. This is the alchemy of creation that as my energy fuses with the source of energy, a newness rises up in the shape of who I am and I myself am altered in the course of its release. I am never the same in the wake of this work. As I create, I come into my power and wisdom, into my deeper knowing, into that newness which becomes the gift which I share with the world. As a result of the time I spend at my work, there is more of me to give, more awareness, more joy, more depth. I become centered in the process, focused on the interior, attuned to the inner voice. Life is no longer about time, and demands, and errands. It is about the extraordinary metamorphosis of one thing into another. What begins as cocoon emerges a butterfly. What once was sorrow may now be a song.
As I am changed by the art that passes through me in the process of becoming, so am I changed by the creations of others. Having felt the truth of your cobalt blue, my red will remember and its voice will be clearer. In the turn of your phrase, the tenor of your voice, the pulse of your poem, I find fragments of myself I have long forgotten. It is to you I look to find myself. In your words I find the courage to write my own.
Making time for creative work is like making time for prayer. It is a healing act, a leave-taking from the chaos as we move from the choppy surface towards the stillness of the center. To be an artist it is not necessary to make a living from our creations, nor is it necessary to have work hanging in fine museums, or the praise of critics. It is not necessary that we are published or that famous people own our work. To be an artist, it is necessary to live with our eyes wide open, to breathe in colors of mountain and sky, to know the sound of leaves rustling, the smell of snow, the texture of bark. It is necessary to rub our hands all over life, to sing when and where we want, to take in every detail, and to jump when we get to the edge of a cliff. To be an artist is to notice every beautiful and tragic thing, to cry freely, to collect experience, and shape it into forms that others can use. It is not to whine about not having time but to be creative with every moment. To be an artist is not to wait for others to define us but to define ourselves, to claim our lives. Our cities and towns are full of poets, playwrights, composers, and painters who drive buses, work in offices, wait on tables to pay the rent. Few of us are paid much for our creative work so we squeeze it into the hours we have left after working other jobs. We write our novels in the wee hours of the morning, work in our darkrooms through the night, write poetry on subway cars, finish essays in waiting rooms and parking lots. We rarely think of ourselves as artists, though it is our creative work that brings us to life, feeds our spirits, and sees us through the dark. We may feel alone but we are not alone. There are hundreds, thousands in the night doing as we do, trading this sacred time for the bliss of creating. There are a lot of things we don’t have in life but time is not one of them. Time is all we have, one lifetime under this name to produce a body of work that says, “This is how I saw the world.” Your work is worthy of whatever time it takes.”
- Jan Phillips
Inside the Nostalgia Art Journal
Posted on | June 9, 2010 | 28 Comments
Here’s a peek inside my Nostalgia Art Journal. The pages are made from old books and magazines, brown paper bags, recycled mail envelopes, maps, and other found paper. This journal is very close to my heart because it’s very representative of me – from the pages that I used to how I put them and the cover together.
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| The journal has an inside pocket and the first page includes a quote that reads “Savor the quiet moments and know how very much you matter in this world.” – a nice inspiration every time you open the journal. |
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| Some pages feature handpainted backgrounds using mixed media. |
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Check out my previous post to see what the cover looks like. And this journal (made with so much love) is for sale on Etsy here. Sold!
Tags: altered art > art journal > handmade books > mixed media collage > stitched pages > upcycled projects
Shabby Chic Art Journal – Nostalgia #1
Posted on | June 9, 2010 | 21 Comments
The past month or so, I’ve been working on creating more ‘junk’ journals in between my other projects. This week, I’ve gone full blast – working on the covers and taking over the dining table in the process. I grouped my signatures in themes and this one I just finished is the first of three in my Nostalgia series.
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| This journal has a magnetic enclosure and the cover is made of stiff, padded board enclosed in a satin-like fabric and burnt book pages under an embroidered organza. The satin-like fabric (which I’m not exactly sure what it is) is from a bedding collection I bought in Linens-n-Things when they were closing a few years ago. It’s very nice material but apparently not very comfortable for sleeping. So here I am repurposing it. |
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| I chose to bind my signatures to the cover using long cross-stitches. And I’m really happy with how it turned out. |
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| The journal has 60 pages and here’s a peek at what’s inside. |
I made two of this journal – one to keep and one to be enjoyed by someone special. (Of course, the pages won’t be exactly the same.) It is for sale on Etsy here. Sold!
Tags: altered art > art journal > handmade books > mixed media collage > stitched pages > upcycled projects
What You’re Doing Matters
Posted on | June 9, 2010 | No Comments
Powerful words from a brilliant author …
“What I would tell her if I knew what to say …
You are a miracle and I have to love you this fiercely. So that you can feel it even after you leave for school. Or even while you’re asleep. Or even after your childhood becomes a memory. You’ll forget all these when you grow up. But it’s ok. Being a mother means having your heart broken. And it means loving and losing and falling apart and coming back together. And it’s the best there is. And also sometimes the worst. Sometimes you won’t have anyone to talk to. Sometimes you’ll wonder if you’ve forgotten who you are. But you must always remember this:
| What you’re doing matters and you have to be brave with your life so that others can be brave with theirs. |
The truth is being a woman is a gift. Tenderness is a gift. Intimacy is a gift. And nurturing the good in this world is nothing short of a privilege. That’s why I have to love you this way. So I can give what I have to you. So that you can carry it in your body and pass it on. I’ve watched you sleep. I’ve kissed you a million times. And I know something that you don’t yet. You are writing the story of your only life every single minute of every day. And my greatest hope for you, sweet child, is that I can teach you how to write a good one.”
| - Katherine Center |
| {To my two lovely girls who changed my life forever.} |
Guest Blogging
Posted on | June 8, 2010 | 2 Comments
Hop over to Heavenly Savings to check out my first guest blog post – a tutorial on how to alter switch plates. Let me know what you think.
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© 2006-2010 Johwey Redington.
Please don't steal my text or images, it's disrespectful and you'll be subjet to karma! If you want to use any of the images, please email me for a written permission. Thank you.
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