Yesterday Was a Good Saturday

Yesterday, Ann and her husband Rod, accompanied me to the ARTery show (put on by Western Mass. Artisans) at the Yankee Candle Employees' gym (well, former gym at least).  The point was to demonstrate process.

 Above (bottom, left) you can see my favorite purple cow.  These are quilts with much "stitchery painting" by Betzi Sylvan.

Here is Betzi (above and below) showing art enthusiasts how she places tiny pieces of fabric while creating a piece.  Lately, she has been using the gold foil from chocolate coins for the "sun" in her compositions.  Her son gets to eat the chocolate and she recycles the foil!

These earrings are not only veggies, but also crafted from glass!  Apparently, my other pictures of her work did not come out.  I was so entranced, I bought a "ball" that contains an ocean vortex.  (I'm trying to figure out how to get a picture that does it justice.)

(Above and below)  These journal covers are made from recycled jeans and other fabrics.  They fit the old fashioned black and white composition book and can be used on another book when you fill the first one.  The artist's daughter was there busily drawing manga in one of the composition books.  The kid's talented.

Here's a long shot of one side of the room (there was a center aisle as well).

How cute -- and labor intensive -- are these?! The woman said it wasn't hard to sew the baby shoes because, 'You punch the holes first.'  I'm guessing using what looked like a paper punch on leather is not easy.  (Maybe it was a leather punch, but it still didn't look easy.)

 Below are Tamia Designs which are all folded paper (earrings, boxes, dodads, etc.)

Fabric crazy quilt bracelets, headbands from Frisky.

Frisky work is below.

This chair fascinated me.  The woman paints the canvas for the seat, then embroidered the flowers.

A beautiful Frisky composition.  The colors are paint on canvas; the wave design is hand embroidered.  Not easy to do -- much more hand strength needed than hand quilting.  She uses titanium needles.  (I have no idea what that means; maybe it pierces canvas better.)

This water colorist (above) was working on an incredibly detailed painting which looked to be about two feet wide by three feet long.  Really.  I'm guessing that will take her at least a month to finish.

 Below you see the beginning of a place mat.  The artist also made really handsome floor coverings.  She begins by shrinking the canvas and painting Kilz all over.  Then she hand paints her design and coats it with four coats of polyurethane when done.  Of course, I have left out many hours of drying, painting, labor, and deciding if the edge will be hemmed or not ...

Ah ... back to my favorite: glass.   

 Above, you see the beginning of stencil painting on hand dyed silk.

The next five pictures are Lou's Upcycled goods.  She is literally making a purse or bag from potato chip bags, and other normally discarded snack food bags.  You can probably tell, I'm a big fan of her work, but I don't really NEED any of these items.  Maybe for gifts?

The lady with the baskets offered to let me make a basket, but I figure I'll save my basket weaving for when I am actually retired.

Amy Love puts beads around a stone.  Really!  (There's a piece of felt bigger than the stone that the strung beads sit on.)

So that's it for the ARTery.  Next, we were off across the parking lot to the Yankee Candle mother ship.  That's going to have to be another post because I've got other things that need doing right now ...