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Remember when I said I'd be back in January?  

HA!

Well I'm back now.  I can't promise I won't go into hiding again.  Many many many things have happened since my last post.  One of which is a complete denial that I actually have a studio.  You may not be able to tell by the crappy phone photo but my space is a disaster.

Step 1: cleaning and organizing!

Here's a few things that have happened/are happening.

(1)  I moved.  I have 5 roommates, 3 of which are dogs.  I absolutely love it.  I've lived on my own for the past 4 years because I hate (living with) people.  I have no idea why that's suddenly changed.  My new bedroom is smaller than half of my freshman dorm.  It's perfect.

(2) I have a new job as a designer/custom framer at this rad framing shop.  Which means I'm working 3 part-time jobs plus pretending to run this beeswax artsy fartsy business.  I love all of my jobs and hope to actually care about my business again.  Like now.

(3) One of my family's horses had a baby.  I went home to play with it.

(4) Harper had a birthday and I didn't post about it.  I'm a shitty dog mom.

(5) I've decided to plan a road trip.   I don't know where I'm going (south or Canada?).  I don't know how long I'll be gone (I have jobs... can't be too long).  But it's going to happen.

(6) I'm learning how to roller blade.  I have wrist guards.  And knee guards.  It's the most attractive activity I've ever participated in.

online shop

It's high time I get my Etsy site up and running. Last night I put my limited graphic design skills to use creating a banner for the online shop. Not exactly what I envisioned but it'll do for now. Next up is writing a description (not my favorite past-time), photographing (I'm dreading this as well) and posting. No wonder I've been putting this off so long... I just want to make things and have someone else handle the rest.

beeswaxandhorsehair.etsy.com

thread window

I mentioned in an earlier post that Nancy Topolski was going to use some of my work in a window display at Thread.  Well she's finished installing and it looks fabulous - thank you, Nancy!  I'm so excited that she wanted to use my pieces in her gorgeous installation.  I'm especially pleased that the strange pods I made for my thesis work have found another purpose besides sitting awkwardly in my living room.

The white pod shapes with cream and yellow flowers are mine.  I had at least 15 of them in various sizes for my thesis show, including one that grew from the ceiling and was about the size of mini van.  All are made from constructed chicken wire covered in hand-stitched muslin fabric.  Some of the pods are hollow and stitched on the inside as well.  The flowers are made from found paper that I have collected over the years.  Most of the paper was saved from a warehouse I worked in helping my paleontology professor sort through the university's fossil collection!  The flowers were cut, twisted and then individually dipped in beeswax and sewn onto the pods.  The finishing touches are horse hairs (collected from my family's farm) that are threaded through the muslin fabric and left to poke out in tufts at various points on the pod.

The garlands are a more recent production.  Over the past summer a friend of mine who was getting married asked me to create something out of the flowers for her wedding decorations.  Voila, the garlands were born.  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.  I was thinking about trying to sell them on Etsy once they're done looking pretty at Thread...