6.25.09

ED RUSCHA...it hit me hard to see these words today. 

so simple, and yet a relief flooded me to read it....

Ed Ruscha, That Was Then This Is Now #1, 1989

Ed Ruscha, Lion in Oil, 2002

do you see it? (its a palindrome.)  i loved that moment of realization when i realized what i was seeing.  i got to see this piece at LACMA's Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images which was an inspiring show. it also featured one of my all time favorite images ever:

John Baldessari Wrong, 1966-68

Why not break the rules?!

csa= better eats

thank you crown heights csa (community supported agriculture)! we have eaten better this whole week than i can remember in a long, long time. seeing these beautiful, fresh, foods inspires me to not only eat better but live better. knowing where my food comes from is so rewarding. also you don't get to pick what you get so it forces you to be creative in what you make. jeremy has been of late my kitchen witch...

the spreadjust imagine how good the basil smells...

06.22.09

i was request to make larger constellations. done and did here it is. usually its such a labor of love to document pieces, but tonight i really enjoyed photographing. maybe it's because i didn't have a plan and maybe i'm just excited to have a new piece in the shop...

hello 5" Orion constellations....

for father's day....

this is my pops back in the day....
this image kills me! that little suit, the way his head is tilted back, his small hand up like the horse is bucking for reals. this is probable one of my favorite old photos of my dad. i'm so lucky that my grandparents took lots of photographs....

mail love and other stuff...

these past few weeks have brought me some amazing mail- one of my favorite things. so many, many thanks to these kind friends..

Chad ~ Mon Petit Fantome...

mr. Mon Petit Fantome, (who jeremy calls the Kevin Bacon of the etsy world because there seems to be three degrees between him and any etsy shop- he's just that nice!) sent me some mix CD's and this lovely little print he used for a note..

Alyssa ~ BrooklynRehab

I got a set of Alyssa's Uninvited Guests Doilies that came awhile back in the smartest packaging. these little doilies were wrapped in a gingham paper, like a table cloth. so good. i put them up in a little corner and you can see Chad's bear there close by in the second picture too...

Nicola,
is one of my great friends from school. she makes a-ma-zing baklava from an old family recipe. It's seriously delicious and insanely good. how amazing is it to get fresh, homemade baklava in the mail?!! **i'm pushing her to make an etsy store and pretty soon there should be one up.
any one interested?!**

she also sent me these tiny, vintage books which upon seeing i literally screamed in delight...

toni,
also a friend from school, sent me a curious new friend, but how the hell did she get the rhino in that little box? ha! so fun to receive. the package also had a vintage embroidery hoop, and a small, vintage glass bottle. the bug liked it too...

other wise this weekend has been spent lazily working. heres what i've been making of late:
new little/big constellations. here's a 5" Orion...chad, alyssa, nicola and toni thanks for all the mail love!!!

lots of color....

i'm loving 100 Layer Cake's inspiration color boards. i so needed these when i was struggling to make my color schemes for my custom hearts (as confessed in my post below this one). these are so good- perfect for not just wedding planning, which 100 Layer Cake specializes in, but for graphic design, color schemes for the home, outfits even. their blog is filled with great images and ideas, but these really got me excited for my next round of color scheming....

all images via 100 Layer Cake

making and listening....

the weekend flew by! when doesn't it i guess? i was busy photographing, updating my esty shop with new things, cleaning and taking a brief break from the nfl (no fun league) to see a movie, land of the lost. i'm a sucker for will ferrel.

this is one of the new color schemes for the custom heart samplers. i tried to make themes for the colors to make them more interesting. the red and navy of this one create a nautical theme, so it's called Hold Fast. choosing the colors was a challenge, but i like the way they turned out and the themes that go with each one, like Plum Tree on the top left.
when i was choosing these sample names to illustrate the colors i went with a theme too. all but one set of names adhere to this theme. can you guess it? ***i should do a give away or something, like if you can guess the theme/connection you get a free heart. hmmmm... who wants to play?!*** 

if you do want to guess send me an email here: miniaturerhino@gmail.com  instead of commenting so the answer isn't revealed to anyone who wants to guess.

i also added some photo encaustics of my favorite vintage images i collect. right now only the horses are in the shop, but i have a few other images to add like the one below, which has to be my all time favorite found image.  the horse image has a tee pee like structure in the background which makes the image for me. 
 the original of this image is really small, maybe a little larger than a quarter. its a tin type too. the reproduction came out so well and i love all the little cracks that you can see from the emulsion of the tin type and their clothes are amazing. she's wearing a polka dot blouse! 

while i worked i was listening to podcasts. i like music, but sometimes i want a story or just to hear someone talk. i listened this craft sanity podcast about Jenna Woginrich's book "Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life." she becomes a homesteader, living off the land. i daydreaming every day of moving to a small town, in the middle of nowhere so this really appealed to me. 

later, Tobias Wolf read me short stories on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. it was nice.... 

do you know of any good podcasts that i should try?

fiber arctic inspiration....

...yesterday i sent this piece off to Schmancy in Seattle for the Fiber Arctic show.

i thought it would be nice to share my inspiration, which came from the image below, which is from the exhibition catalogue, The Marvelous Album of Madame B:Being the Handiwork of a Victorian Lady of Considerable Talent. How good is that title!? This image is from a family album- its a hand drawn butterfly with tipped in photographs. I used a luna moth and images of polar bears printed on cotton fabric.

Artist Unknown. Untitled, 1860-80. Mary and Leigh Block Endowment.
via the Art Institute of Chicago

i've always looked toward photography, especially vernacular imagery, very inspiring. i love Victorian memorial works and decorated family albums. one of my favorite books is Forget Me Not by Geoffrey Batchen. He talks about images, combined with tactile objects become memorials, relics and how through these objects we long to remember and be remembered. Most of the images are images in the book come from the George Eastman House (rochester do you miss me?) and the examples are a-ma-zing, really beautiful. You should own this book!

kristen rask, the force behind Schmancy and Plush You has a nice blog and did a short and 

sweet interview with me you can find the blog here and the interview here

renegade

where to start?! so my first craft fair is done and did! and for all my worry and stress it went well and it was really nice to see that ReadyMade blog picked me among three others for their renegade highlights!

renegade was an overwhelming experience, so many booths and lots of people. i'm so gratefully to everyone who stopped by and many thanks to those who spent their hard earned dollars with me! the positive response is really encouraging.

the biggest highlight for me was finally getting to meet some of my etsy friends in the flesh, like Alyssa of Brooklyn Rehab, Marichelle of Heart Handmade, and Nicole of Astulabee, and some etsy crushes Alice of forest bound- her booth was amazing! and Margaux of The Black Spot Books. 

i got really sick the week before renegade (and still am now a bit too) so i was really worried that i would 

have enough to sell and i was stressed about making a nice display. can you believe it all this fit in here....

i thought, "that's it?" 

but it think the display worked out nicely. everyone liked the hanging stars...

and peeking in on the curiosity cabinets.....

we picked up goodies from folded pigs (a cockroach and anatomical heart plate), a anatomical heart

lavender sachet  from black spot books to go over my bed and! our friend ananda got jeremy bookends from kindling....

more pictures from renegade are on my flickr