objects for vases is next

this summer has been the most productive time for me as far as working on a consistent basis; despite the obstacles and the 'hard' of it all, these vases have been all consuming.  i think part of me knows when fall comes, if it is as rainy as it was last year i wont be able to work so much so do it while i can!  plus it will get dark about 3 hours earlier and most of my work is done after 5pm when all people who work next door at the bank and hair salon leave, the parking lot clears out and i can set up my tools and work in those empty spaces. wont be as easy when its dark by 5pm, i dread it already.

my goal was to have at least 100 vases ( i have made that many but have sold 50? is that possible???? and wanted to have that many on hand for fall markets/etsy holiday shopping).  after i finish this last batch i will have 77 and it dawned on me that 100 isn't any better than 77 so i'm stopping right there.  in all likelihood i will make more in another few weeks....i need to sell some before restocking again.  besides, tod is ahead of me when it comes to making flowers and i'm really itching to begin work on them!  it's funny, tod likes lighter materials and doesn't want to use any kind of adhesives or tools; i on the other hand dont mind using jb weld or other stuff if i have to.  i tend to like working with metal and its heavy so needs to be secure while tod's flowers are lighter.  i still need to haul out my grinder and chop saw and cut rebar and shape it into spears to i can attach 'flowers' to the ends.  we are night and day sometimes but i like that, it keeps our work different.

 i call them flowers but i dont know what they are.  i dont even like flowers.  someone asked me what am i using for petals and i realized i'm not trying to emulate an actual flower.  i like the idea of making an 'object' to place in my vases. period.  actually the further away i can get from a flower the better. we'll see.  i have years of this ahead of me if i am still interested.  so far it feels like a journey that has barely even began.

New Vases!

front and back view of vase

Another beautiful series, 'Cracklin Red' has just been created.  There are actually 4 or 5 pipes of this color/design, a good chance I will get 20 or so vases out of the whole stock.  The end pieces of the pipes are  gnarly with unique patches of black, red and white along with a splattering of gold/rusty/copper colors as well.  I'm thinking this vase will be a hit around the Holidays as I would imagine poinsettias will look amazing in them! Oh and if you hadn't noticed, the 'flowers' are from Tod which are available in his Etsy shop.  He used metal bands for the stem and securely affixed ceramic fence insulators to the ends.  They are stunning in this vase!

Just listed White Birch #9.  The colors are amazing and some of the 'lips' on them are just beyond what I could have ever come up with.  This was the end of the pipe, its jagged and gnarly and needed some smoothing up to make it user friendly. Available in my Etsy shop.

decluttering

I'm in the mood again with fuss with my website.  Etsy has recently changed it's look and I love it.  I find my personal website to be cluttered and more complicated than it should be.  I also find that I rarely if ever sell anything from it. More and more I use it as a portfolio and link my work directly to my etsy listings.  My website isn't e-commerce friendly and lets face it, I'm not going to spend a lot of money on my website when I've got work on Etsy, flickr, blogs, facebook, twitter etc. I've also realized that my work has changed a fair amount in the last year or so and it is my smaller, functional art that seems to sell online the best.  Etsy is all set up for that so why double my workload?

Having learned FrontPage (microsoft) I find I like working on it myself as I can control what is on/when.  It's dated but there are tricks around that and quite frankly even if I had the money I doubt I would pay someone to do a website for me.  I find people like to buy art from me on etsy.  It's trusted, it works well and I actually feel a little safer selling through them than directly from my website.  I've yet to sell a mixed media piece online(large scale) so I'm not so concerned anymore about how that is made available.  The best part is on Etsy people make a lot of treasuries.  A treasury is what you see on the front page of etsy,  it changes every hour on the hour and for the most part etsy uses other people's treasuries to fill the slots on front page.  The beauty in that is, when someone makes a treasury they do not put their own work in the treasury so this fully highlights other people!  It's a pretty awesome marketing strategy if you ask me.  I make treasuries with other people's work and if people like my work they include that in theirs.  There is a social aspect that I like about etsy that I've yet to receive from my lonely website.  Plus on etsy you get to see who 'hearts' your shop, your items and how many visits you have had.  It feels ALIVE.  My website on the other hand feels like a lonely museum that echos when you browse through it.

So.  Not that anyone would notice or care, in the next week or so I think I'm going to totally revamp my website once again.  This is easily my fifth time redoing my website...just another thing I loathe but feel needs to be done after a year or so as it all gets so dated and bogged down.  I've had this fear that I need to keep up everything I've ever made so the world can see all that Paula has created.  GOOD GOD HOW EXHAUSTING.  So this time around I'm cutting it down to what I have available now.  No more what has sold...no more plethora of pages and tedious listings/links.  I'm going to attempt to link to my etsy listings as much as possible and duh how easy for someone to then buy right?  And if it isn't for sale on etsy I think I'm going to stop having such detailed pages/info/links for each item.  Minimal.  Thats me.  I no longer feel like I need to impress some gallery that may or may not notice me.  I'm not making that kind of work anymore anyhow.  And what I do have that is showable in a gallery I still think I might slowly start auctioning or finding some other way to sell.  We will see....time to try something different and feel refreshed!

ramble

so yesterday i had a super gross cleaning job to do.  i'm still doing that as i've yet to dig myself out of my hole, still owe money.  still need to make rent and while july was a kick ass month for vase sales that money barely touched my hands.  you know how it is.

so i'm cleaning.  i'm cleaning a refrigerator that was so filthy and moldy i called the office, incredulous that they weren't going to replace this nasty excuse for an appliance.  i'm thinking the health department would shut this fridge down and hire mafia to deposit it in the east river.

i'm cleaning a place that stinks of black mold.  i'm happily cleaning in a sick way because yesterday was monday and monday is the day tod and i go to the scrap yard and monday is the day i spend 70 or 80 bucks on pipes and scrap for vases and flowers.  i think i've lost my mind to tell you the truth.  picking out pipes from a mound and digging through dirt for scrip scraps.  lugging it home and shoving it under our little loft porch which is beginning to feel unstable.  i imagine one day it will just collapse as i run up and down one too many times with too many weight bearing things.  as it is nearly every day i go up and down our steps a zillion times.  i'm carrying my horses, my machines....my tools.  i wait for all the work people to vacate the parking lot and then i set up shop.  god help me if someone ever complains.  i leave black grit and grime in parking spaces as i'm cutting and grinding metal.  i suppose its not any worse than the plethora of cigarette butts our neighbors leave everywhere.  or the plethora of beer cans and excess trash that people defiantly leave in the huge dumpster.  everyone ignores the $250 fine notice on the dumpster.  people drive here just to unload themselves of crap.

it still bugs and amazes me the stuff people throw away.  i'm not an eco freak.  i'm not trying to save the planet by making art out of recycled items.  honeslty i find things that i find on the road or in the dumpster just way more interesting than some store bought shiney new. so good for me that people just toss imperfect useless crap.  all the more for me.  i prefer not perfect.  i prefer a little dirt/grease/grime, dents and dinks. no conscious reason other than that is my want.

the vases and now the flowers are an interesting phenominion to me.  not that long ago i was thinking these are not creative.  i'm not really 'making' anything.  but now i'm seeing it more like a wood carver who sees a pretty piece of wood to use to carve a sculpture or make a bowl.  just so happens i'm seeing a fun 'vessel' to shape into a useful container.  there is something so simple and yet so satisfying about finding a pipe that is squished, bent, beautifully chipped and laying there helplessly in the scrap pile.  i know it will get recycled.  i know it will get melted and reused.  and i know that it will take a lot of energy to do all that. none of that really matters to me.  i'm on a self centered journey to find peace and passion in my life.  it isn't easy.  there are always thoughts dropping in on me trying to dissuade me.  i find it challenging to allow myself to just do what i want to do and not judge it all.  i'm never going to save the planet.  i'm never going to heal the sick.  i'm probably never going to really  make much of a difference.  i haven't 'replaced' myself by having children.  i try to be conscious of not wasting energy but honestly even that isn't about me believing i'm saving the planet.  i'm just a cheapskate and dont want to waste stuff.  even if i lived in a solar house i wouldnt want to use it all up.  i like having choice and not making everything so damn easy and accessible. 

i feel like things are still going to change in ways we cannot imagine.  it's like knowing one day the sun is going to burn out and there is nothing you can do about it.  sometimes i think art, the way we know it, is going to change.  has to change.  most of how the art world is done seems so anitiquated to me:  the galleries, the proposals, everything about how it is set up to be.  i get a feeling of it all just barely hanging on by a thread.  i'm curious and hope i get to be around long enough to see how it all pans out.  maybe i feel like there is just too much art out there.  its overwhelming.  i'm sometimes uncomfortable with being an artist as i STILL am not sure of what use or purpose i have as an artist.  while i can appreciate the joy i get when making something, i dont know if its catholic crap or societal pressure to be 'useful'....i still have a hard time feeling like what i do is valuable as far as the world is concerned.  i hope my journey keeps leading me on.  i know i learn a lot about myself and others through this vehicle of art making.  i like making things....i like learning and doing but i still wonder what else will i be doing, how else will i be using my creativity?  it all boils down to acceptance and being in the moment.  never easy.  least not yet.  the vases are my zen meditation on that subject.

i see found object flowers

consumed would be a good word to describe how i'm feeling these days.  consumed in a good way.  short of working on my wood assemblages earlier this year, the vases have been a journey that feels like it has only just begun. the vases are leading me to found object flower making; it only makes sense that i would want to put my own pieces into the vases right?  for as much as i love the metal flowers that i bought from an etsy friend i can't afford to keep buying them and i suppose even if i could i would still feel like i should be making my own flowers.

it's a scary thing for me.  FLOWERS. ironically i'm not really a flower person, maybe that is why i'm trying to make my own.  i love searching for things and here in texas with a heat index of 110 lately it isn't too hard to find bottle cap tops.  my personal favorites are the ones that have been tossed onto the blacktop and then run over and squished.  i also like automobile plastic so i walk around the auto shops and find interesting objects there as well.  i know i have a ways to go.  i'm still in vase mode and typically i prefer to have one thing i'm working on at a time.  true the vases don't take up as much creative power but they do take up space, time and energy.  my goal is to have at least 100+ vases ready for fall markets and holiday online shopping.  i'm almost half way there soon as the ones in the queue get finished.  the white ones in the picture below are DONE!  now i'm working on those cool crackly red and white ones.  the others have been cut but not cleaned/ground/painted or readied for affixing vase bottoms.  i've got a lot of work ahead of me.  i've still got a few hundred pounds of pipe sitting under the porch ready to cut....i'm gonna be a busy noisy neighbor in the coming weeks.

the best part of all of this is that Tod is also into making found object flowers!  he has been working on them all week and will post them in his new etsy shop today/tonight.  to celebrate we are going to have a give-away which i will post on my etsy blog.  tod will be giving away one of his newly designed flowers to be included FREE when you purchase the accompanying vase.  be sure and check in on my etsy blog later today to get the scoop!

this is just too cool that tod is into making flowers.  he is way ahead of me i think on design ideas and right now we are having a blast looking for materials to work with.  i found small pieces of rebar at the scrap yard last week which i used in the flowers shown at the top of this post. they are an obvious choice for stems.  we also got a ton of green strapping to be used as stems for lighter flowers. the possibilities feel endless right now.  yeah it's a little daunting, i've made some bottle cap flowers with cut cork that i really like but not so sure they are strong enough to put on etsy.  they are really simple and fun so i'm gonna keep working with them and see what happens.  not everything has to be some grand masterpiece right?  its supposed to be fun sometimes or else why bother!

e-conservation published my clock!

My Vermont Bauble Clock was published in the July issue of  e-conservation online magazine! E-conservation is a magazine for conservation of cultural heritage and they wanted my clock to be used for part of their ad campaign.  They bought the rights to publish four images, three of which have yet to be determined for future publications.


This clock is one of my most popular etsy clocks, I think that clock has been put into more treasuries than I can shake a stick at.  It has more hearts than a pulmonary clinic.  Glad it got a little more attention, thanks e-conservation!  Here is the photo from the online magazine:

Big Reds

I've finished my batch of Big Red vases.  Twelve in all with two already sold to a friend.  These are from the old fire house down the street.  I managed to 'save' one before everything got hauled away. It's rare to find a pipe out there without having to dig through the scrap yard.  Half of these are not waterproof, case in point the photo above.  It does have a bottom to it, just that slit keeps it from holding water unless you know something I dont. 

Loving the Big Reds.  Next are flakey whites.  Have 8 of them ready to finish today and photos coming soon.  After that I have crinkly Christmas Reds and then I will have over 30 vases done and ready for whatever!  I think I will list them all on etsy now but indeed these will be taken to an outdoor market in September. The Gallery I have work at in Spring Texas plans to have outdoor markets on Saturday.  Can't beat the price:  $25 plus they have a tent.  I'm hoping by then to have my own floral/stem arrangements made.  Not sure I can pull it off, but between Tod and I one of us has got to come up with something interesting!  My biggest challenge still is not having room to open boxes and find goodies, let alone lay it all out and put things together in a mock set up.  I do what i can...the vases are easy, relatively speaking.  I dont have to lay them out and decide what to do with them, they are honest hard work mostly done outdoors and nothing else is needed to put them together.

I am excited about the prospect of creating accessories for these vases.  While I love the look of dried or living flowers there is something wonderful about using metal flowers or wood as an alternative accessory.  And for you painters, your foot long paint brushes will go perfectly in here in case you are still resorting to nasty yogurt containers or pickle jars.  I'm just sayin.....

New Art Find: Louis Pons

 Louis Pons, 1991

Dock

Assemblage

Louis Pons, 1981

Fils à papa

Assemblage

 Louis Pons, 1974

Trésor no. II

Relief 

 Louis Pons, 1972

Safari bleu

Relief 

 Louis Pons, 2003

The Recluse

Mixed Technique 

Friday New Art Finds.  ha.  I'm posting it early because my blog needs something on it other than ME.  

I present to you Louis Pons.  Born in Marseilles, France in 1927 and apparently still going strong.  I have little to no information on this artist, he appears to be elusive on the net.  I recently watched a strange little movie called 'The Gleaners and I' by Agnus Varda.  She had a blip on him and I set to searching for images or information online only to come up with a small wikipedia blip and a few sites containing his work.

No matter, it's enough just to see his work.  This site if you translate it, appears to have the most information of any:

Primary studies at Marseilles, school of the Carthusian monks.
School of the Trades, Endoume, Marseilles. He learns the trade from fitter but will never exert it.
Small trades: draughtsman of press to the Release in the newspapers resulting from Resistance, Marseilles.
He was also briefly accountant, labour for grape harvest, agricultural work, house painting.

1948-49, sanatorium with Hauteville. Patient, it lives in the countryside in various villages of the South of France: Montfroc, Simiane-the-Rotunda, Vence, Piole, Saint-Paul-of-Vence, Aix-en-Provence, Antibes, Sillans-the-Cascade.

Important meetings: the work of Joe Bousquet, drawings of Louis Soutter, aphorisms of Lichtenberg. It carries out approximately 2000 drawings with the Indian ink for this period.
1966, it is victim of eye trouble. It publishes reflexions in the form of aphorisms on “the Drawing”, published at Robert Morel.

1959, first assemblies of Louis Pons.
He lives in Paris since 1973. He travels here and there, but no trace of his tours.
He received the Price Bill Copley, the United States.

I enjoy how contained everything is and yet how messy.  This isn't gratuitous and it isn't totally insane.  It is methodical but it feels free.  It's strange and ugly and creepy and beautiful.  Dark and sad.  I am intrigued by the how's.  How he put this stuff together.  How these can look so painterly and so sculpture-like and be neither and both.  It's fascinating work and perhaps even more so because of his proclivity towards 'rubbish', that combined with his age make for an intriguing body of work in my mind.  Its raw and rough and yet refined and mature.  Enjoy!

do you do repetition

not been doing much in the way of online stuff lately.  in fact, i haven't been doing much of anything but making vases, sleeping, and cleaning apartments.  my dremel tool broke so i had to ship that off this morning to the service center in Wisconsin.  that oughta slow me down a little bit.  it got real hot out too, that definitely is gonna slow down outside vase making.  the vase thing is curious, i know that i cannot sustain this and it will come to and end after another 7 batches or so.  i will indeed run out of galvanized steel which is what i use for the bottoms of these vessels. been looking for something used or new and not seeing what i want.  maybe it's good to only make so many and then be done.  someone suggested using soup can lids, which is a pretty cool idea but i don't eat soup and not sure how to get that in bulk.  in a way, i think i will need a break from the vases in another month.  it really is a lot of work, fun as these things are unless i have help i can't keep this pace up. 

i  do have new plans for another functional pipe product but that will take a bit of time/experimentation and finding the correct sized pipe.  i need something very specific and so far not finding much of it.  it's interesting to be making pieces that are basically the same thing over and over.  it doesn't take up any creative energy and it is satisfying but it does leave me wanting to get creative again.  it's endless what you can come up with, endless what there is to learn.  endless the tools and space and materials to get.  it's good and its bad.  it's easy and it's hard.  i  know i need to constantly keep challenging myself and doubt i will ever make the same thing for very long.  all i think about is VASES.  i'm itching to make something else soon and with this small studio area it's either OR. 

what about you guys?  have you ever been in a situation where you were making the same thing over and over?  what was that like for you?  if it was a bread winner did you let your creative side dwindle and go for the money or put your foot down and say its time to get back to creating something new.  i know most people would think they should do something if that is what makes money, i guess i'd rather do something i love and when i'm ready to move on i move on regardless of demand.  maybe i've got poor business sense....