Giddy-Up WWC!

It's Here!

(Well, to us subscribers that is.)

The 3rd Summer Issue of

"Where Women Create"

So jump on the bandwagon and snatch up your own copy.

If you missed the boat for this issues subscription and you are extra nice

you can score a copy through

http://earthangelstoys.com/

or email

Jen@earthangelstoys.com

or at your local Barnes and Noble

oh yes, Did I mention that my studio is featured??!!

As well as a bevy of gawkable, awe inspiring , creative spaces.

milling about, sewing oats

I've heard it said that if you surround yourself with really good looking people you will appear better looking by association. Hmm, I don't know that I want to hang out with a bunch of Amazonian supermodels. I don't see how that would help my cause...or stature.

Ergo, I will opt for hanging around with really talented people.

One in particular is good friend Stephanie Lloyd.

Mostly known for her antique furniture business and hip, cool cat findings.

She is trying on this new hat of designing these "plain-grain" Market Bags.

Fashioned and hand-sewn from well traveled, antique , European grain sacks...trimmed with vintage horse tack....they are the real deal. These bags tell tall tales and long stories much like Stephanie herself! (it's true, sorry Steph)

I can almost hear J. Petermans voice in my head: (ahem... here I go)

"Envision the calloused hands that wove the coarse linen...knowing that the bags would travel to lands they would never themselves see.

Stenciling almost inappropriately fanciful with more care than calligraphers hand.

Filled with golden nuggets of grain or precious seeds of pearls mined from rich German and French soil....and then off to market and farm.

Beguiling, yet befitting that some cultures considered this currency. As some civilizations were known as rich only by what they grew...."

I was thrilled and honored to get one of the first...beautifully stenciled with farm tools , name of a German town and date of origin....I categorize these as wearable art.

Thanks for your talent Stephanie...with one of these slung on my shoulder, you do in fact, make me look better by association!!!

For now Stephanie is just offering these goodies to the wholesale trade...

If you would like to contact her on terms or availability email oldsunnybrook@yahoo.com

or watch for her upcoming website at http://www.StephanieLloyd.com

A few more of Stephanie's upholstery designs...

A+ students

Pick your canvas!

the subject matter

Sheryl and her daughters hard at work

Marcella, Amanda and Zoe in a creative state

So, what's better to do on a rainy Sunday morning?

Learn to paint!

And could there be a better setting than Schuyler Pond Home and Garden?

I had a hard time concentrating surrounded by all the frills and finery's.

Somehow, I powered through.

As you can see the first painting class was a raging success!

These gals came ready, willing and certainly able.

Unbelievably, only one of the girls had taken a painting class before.

hmmm, I do feel a bit nervous that these students may have surpassed the teacher!

have some class

Calling all hidden-artists

A few seats still available for the March 29th painting class...

I will will hold up my right hand , place my left hand on a palette and swear to do my best to instruct!

the details:

Sunday, March 29th 10am-noon

at the bodaciously, bucolic Schuyler Pond Home and Garden

Saratoga Springs , New York

518-581-8422

jdlanne@aol.com

$120/per person

all materials included

as well as a delicious light brunch!

the mission:

to start and complete(fingers crossed) your own floral painting!

Be there or be square!

call or email for further details

California, here I come...

warning: shameless plug

~California won't come to me, so I'm going to California~

Looking forward to meeting all you West-coasters!

shameless

Shameless....a word that describes so many things.

first of all, the name of the song that was played for my husbands and my first wedding dance. Doubly shameless as we didn't pick a song and left it up to the band.

Sadly, they were quite astute.

Shameless, also describing the way I decorate.

I don't know what it's called....hmmm...possibly "farmhouse frilly"...or "barnyard baubles"...or "pasture posh"...or my fav "depression era decorums."

Anything discarded, overly loved and worn....imperfect.

My dream house? With morbid curiosity you may inquire...

Imagine an overgrown abandoned farmhouse...swayback barns, crooked weathervanes, tobacco stained wallpaper, bare light bulbs, fanciful furnishings paired with farm wares.

Like diamonds wrapped in grainsacks.

So thanks To Jen http://www.earthangelstoys.blogspot.com/ for admiring my shameless style.

It's nice to know I'm not alone.......

highly distressed

The wooden crate next to the wood stove at my Father's hunting camp that holds the firewood always makes me snicker.

Scrawled across the front in chicken scratch penmanship is the phrase...or should I say question: "Would Bocks?"

I can't justly say why I get the biggest kick out of this clever quip.

So, when I set out to aptly name my new distressed paintings on board with a kitschy catch phrase I came up short.

I tried names a plenty..attempting to use the same sly play on words...

Not an easy task.

The sad truth is the best I could come up with was "Bored Paintings".

Not quite the verbal aesthetic I was looking for.

So best to call it what it really is I say.

Paintings on wood.

A tad ho hum and Plain Jane....but a fact nonetheless.

I can't tell you the joy I get finding that perfect piece of wood...

Whether an old door panel, wide piece planking with beaded edging, slatted bee box lids, a chunky fraction of moulding... or just an oddly, misshapen slat of wood with worm holes and rough cut nails.

I love the idea of resuscitating some gem that someone in history had made by hand...

Even down to the simplest piece of wood that was hand-planed.

The icing on the cake for me is the final task of distressing the wood and hand waxing it.

I like to think of these new works as truly one of a kind....each with it's own story.