Fiddle Camp ATC giveaway...

Oh. I feel foolish.

The ATCs that I thought yesterday might have been stolen at Fiddle Camp were in a coat pocket which I found doing the laundry this morning. Oh dear. I am sorry to have gone so quickly to that place.

Well, to completely change the energy of this whole situation I am going to give them all away as gifts to you. I will picture them all below: if you like one just send me an email (robinsunne@robinsunne.com) with your postal address and I will send it to you. (Maybe you had better give me a second choice just in case..) You will see that they have a musical theme going ... in honor of Fiddle Camp ...

I send these with wishes for your happiness:

#1 fiddle-faddle!:

#2 Susannah, don't you cry - the quote reads: "It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry" - !:

#3 The treasure of our passion:#4 Our Bounty:#5 And now I'm found - Amazing Grace is one of my most favorite songs... I can't wait to learn it on my violin:#6 How sweet the sound:#7 Keep Going! - This is encouragement that I heard, and that I think has some merit, and that I heeded at Fiddle Camp:#8 Strong Loving Peace - this is one of the cards that I made while I was teaching the ATC Specialty Workshop at Camp:#9 Come and sit by my side - I enjoyed quite a bit of adult time! (That's a parent joke.) Old and new friends. Oh yay. Also I was in the "Hawk" group, I know, this is a Kestrel/falcon, but not all that far off:#10 Skye Boat Song - Oh! My! I really like this song. It was the only one on the list that I learned before camp, and I learned it a bit off and so had to relearn it, but it is worth it. It is so beautiful. The quote reads: Speed bonny boat like a bird on the wing...:#11 Your Heart's Content - reads: "Fiddle to your Heart's Content":#12 You are the flower of Love #1:#13 You are the flower of Love #2:#14 Banjo Journey:#15 Cello Celebration - You shoulda heard those cellos and basses. Wow! They have such a rich sound. The classes would play for us, only cellos or only basses, and the sound was fantastic!:#16 Contra Dance Band:#17 When She Comes - the quote says: "She'll be coming around the mountain":# 18 'Tis a Gift to be free... - the quote on the front of the card reads: "tis a gift to be simple":

#19 Sing Me Something - guitars are all mixed up in my mind with singing, tho at Camp they often did instrumentals which were lovely: #20 Fiddly-I-Oh:#21 Hot Fiddles! - the caution warning label came from some of our sparklers this past July, and you shoulda heard some of those fiddles at Camp!:#22 Fiddle Travels - the background papers on these last two ATCs came from American Express credit card advertising that looks like luggage and passports!:#23 Don't you cry for me - a fitting end to my Fiddle Camp ATC saga if you take the title another way ... all is well:

Gain and Loss

Well, I am home from camp. I took my children to Maine Fiddle Camp. I was not looking forward to the experience. I am not a strong fiddle player and I tend to crash and burn in the self-esteem department when I try. But, as a few of you may know, parenting beloved children gets you to do the most amazing things ... It's all an opportunity. It's all a Gift.

First of all I began hearing of other adult musicians (there's more than just fiddle there) speak in the same beaten up way - even adults who are WAY better players than I am. We have in common that we started learning within the last 5 years or so.

Then I just kept listening to that voice that kept telling me to keep my heart open - which is what playing the violin makes happen to me. (The rush of huge emotions screaming for attention then drowning out what ever else is happening.) So I moved myself down to the Oh-So-Beginner group where these two fabulous women took us note...by...note through each song (five in all for the week). They were so kind. May the Universe shower them with blessings. By Wednesday I was actually playing the songs so often that even amidst keeping my children dry (its been an unusually rainy August here in Maine), and encouraging them in their endeavors, and hearing the strains of 229 other instruments come winding through the woods: I was able to play the songs with a minimum of mistakes. And guess what. I began to see that it was fun.

I am still processing this. It is huge to be an adult learning at the rate of a child (very fast). And I am learning alot about what love and trust have to do with that. So: a Gift indeed, and I am grateful.

And when the head of camp called for "specialty workshops" (not necessairily musical in nature) I of course brought out my ATC supplies...

About 25, or maybe more, people came and got a whiff of what we already know: can't hardly get enough of this stuff. Yay.

The sad part of my post is that I brought along most of those cards that I had been working on from the last post, adding little pictures of violins and lines of verse from some of the songs that we'd been learning. When I went to work on them this morning I am stunned to say that I cannot find them. While it is still possible that I have misplaced them, I have a bad feeling that they were taken from me.

I also brought along a favorite songbook: Rise Up Singing, for artists to get lines of verse for their cards too. I told everyone not to cut it up, but look: someone did.

Clearly, whoever did that realised their error and at least returned all the cut pages to the tabletop, but she didn't apologise, and it was a surprise this morning to be flipping throught the cut up book and realise what had happened.

So, an open heart, and fun, and maybe some confidence, and some ouchies too. Ain't that just the way.

Sounds like a topic for a country western song...

Camp Art

Well, while we were at camp this week, and while the children were off being ... child-like, I started looking around in my ATC bag. (Some people bring novels for their down time...) I had some sheets of cardstock, and I had a zip-lock bag full of tiny scraps that knew would come in handy eventually! I grouped the bits by color and then glued them to the cardstock.

When I got home I sealed each card with gel medium. This morning I cut them into individual cards - now I have 50!! ATC backers. The last thing that I will do is add words: song lyrics, tea tag sayings, fortune cookie fortunes...
The red/pink sheet has red foil from the inside of a christmas letter from my cousin and odd ends from other crumpled tissue paper ATC backers that I hadn't quite finished.

The greens included some tissue/glue papers, gold doily parts, a teabag envelope and green punch-out strips from a scrapbooking effort.

The pink/purple has torn mulberry paper strips and stars cut from pink scrapbook paper as well as the magazine paper envelope that I got from an enamel artist woman I know, in trade for one of my birthday ATCs back in June.

There is one that has some sparkler packaging mixed in with bits of gold and "go make something" tags from Lisa Volrath's website (tons of freebies there!) (gomakesomething.com I think).

And lastly one in orange and yellow and gold: teabag envelope - gold!, handcarved rubber stamps and Tibetan incence packaging on that page.

AND NOW ALL OF THOSE BACKERS:

Say The Words update

So the books are printed and bound and now comes the embellishment part. This is kinda cool so I thought that I'd show you.

First, here is how the embellishments look on the page: (with some metal behind the book)

And here is the process: metal duct tape (found at hardware and auto stores) covering a sheet of craft foam (for this I used a teal color as it matches the colors on the page), and then doodled with Sharpie extra fine permanent markers. I find that I am having to go over the doodles again to make the marks really black. The foam really holds the "engraving" of the line. You don't get it from these photos, but I painted a layer of pale green nail polish (wasn't my color) over the top. It looks wonderful with the other greens on the page.

Later, then.

At work on the new book

Well, here's a pic of one of the pages for the book:

It is a "skinny book", meaning long and tall. This one is 4" x 8". (Did I already say this?) In internet-art-group land these books are a compilation of the work of many different artists, but this one is all by me. Each page will be a digital print of an original, hand-drawn picture, spiral bound, and then individually embellished with beads and cut-outs and such. These books don't lie flat, but instead are thick and juicy with little intriguements sneaking out from between the pages.

It is called Say The Words.

I will sell them on my etsy page next to Nannee, my hardcover papercut-picture book about a young woman who spends the day with her grandmother who is an herbalist.

I am off to make one of the final cutouts ... see you again soon.

grandparent photo ATCs

Hi, It's been weeks... I started working on my next book, a cut paper picture book, when out of the ethers another book dashed to the front of the queue and demanded first attention. The conversation wasn't too long: I caved and started working on that.

So the current book is a "skinny book". There are lots of specific sizes for skinny books, but in general they are about twice as tall as they are wide, are handmade and spiral bound, and often are embellished with all manner of trinkets and artistic devices. I think that I am going to offer this one in two ways: one just the images - they will be computer copies of the original hand drawn pages - and the second version will be fully embellished. I am thinking that I will offer them on my etsy shop (http://robinsunne.etsy.com/)

And otherwise in life I have been joining in some group swaps at artisttradingcards@yahoogroups.com. I joined a "pink and orange"swap, a sunflowers swap, and have a print swap to work on next week, and a name swap after that. I can't wait to start getting them back!!

I also promised that group that I would post two ancestor ATCs from my new book here.

Here is Hettie:

And here is Madie:Fare Thee Well!

ATC - ROH

Cool news in the local ATC world: Molly, the library director, and I are going to throw a big ATC party to celebrate our ATC Year. We will ATC at the ROH. That is short for "make ATCs all afternoon on Saturday, November 24th, at the Rockport Opera House with your friends and neighbors and have so much fun that you will hardly believe it".
There is a kitchen so we'll have eats. There is a big open space with linoleum floors and so we might go really wild and crazy and use paints!!! (Can't really do that in the carpeted library.) Oh My!!! There are so many ATC painted background ideas that I have been sooooo eager to try. What if we did that there???!!! On that day! You and I! I have to go tell Molly. That's a great idea.
Yaaaay!
(I will have Great Library ATC Swap books to sell and autograph.) (!!!)
We could all get a great start on end of the year presents - I mean what is better than hand-made gifts? Yes? But mostly what a lovely way to wind our way towards winter: making art, telling stories, sipping tea and cocoa...

We will have only two more ATC swaps in 2008 after that: Saturday the 13th and a revised date of Tuesday, December 30th, when we will be making Goals and Resolutions cards. I will keep you up to date as we get closer.

And just to reassure you, Iris and I have been thinking up more fabulous Art-at-the-Library ideas for next year... skinny books and such...

I am also proud to say that my art quilts have been "approved" for possible inclusion at the Maine Crafts Association's new retail location in Gardiner. (!!) I just got the letter yesterday. I really love the work of sewing and I have missed it in this year of paperarts focus. So it will be very good to have another excuse to get back to it.

I wish you a Tuesday full of art and love.

Last night's ATC swap at the library

Well last night, at our local library, we had our fifth Wednesday evening ATC swap. We looked around in our junk drawers and came up with some intriguing design items. Have a look:

This one says "Meditate by emptying yourself and letting the universe fill you." that came from a tea tag, the woman from a Dover clip art book, the gold from a paper doily, and the marigolds from a seed packet.

This next one has a reproduction of an old playing card with my face glued in, some Chinese spirit offerings, and a golden paper skirt.

And this last one from last night has an empty needle case folder (which opens and I want to put something else in there...), two twinkle lights from a Christmas tree string, a paper tea tag reading: It is not what you have that is your greatness, it is what you give." and some Viet Namese spirit money.

The tea tag quote was interesting to find in my stash because I had realised on the way to the library that I was suddenly really nervous about teaching ... "would I be good enough?" and all that. But I remembered that old wisdom about how when we put our selves in the position of giving our gifts - rather trying to gauge other people's evaluation of us - it takes the pressure off. My job is just to give what I have and the rest is up to God/The Universe.

I think that it helped.

And an added treat is that one of my Birthday ATC Recipients came to the swap, gave me an ATC in exchange for the one I had given to her, and ALSO traded two more times with me!!

A good night. Next month we are going to play with portraits of famous people from Maine. July 30th. I will also have some of my new books, The Great Library ATC Swap, to autograph if you would like one. See you then.

The Great Library ATC Swap is HERE!

Yaaaay!!
My latest book is out! It is all ready for you at lulu.com Click HERE to be taken to the page where you can purchase it! Then write to us to swap with the Rockport Library ATC Swap Group!
Here is a bit from the introduction:
***
We have been holding ATC Make and Swaps at the Rockport Public Library for a little while and I’ve been thinking: what if libraries all over the country held Swaps? A person could travel all over during summer vacation visiting Swaps in state after state. Our Library could hold a 10 for 10 swap with your library. We’d all get clearer on our geography. Northerners and southerners, westerners and easterners would be making friends. Folks from blue and red states would be sending little art gifts back and forth to each other. The possibilities are endless. And fabulous. I wanted to share this with you.

Let’s do it!

In this book I tell our story hoping to inspire you! I have included more than 30 different ATC techniques to bring to your group. All of them, (except a couple that are just too cool to leave out), are simple cut, and paste, and draw ideas that will amaze and delight you when you see the interpretations that blossom from all of the individual ATC artists each month. I hope that many, many folks will try this all over the country. And if your Swap Group would like to swap with our Library Group, (which we would love!), join the fun at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Robinsunne

It is very sweet to make art with your friends.

Hope to hear from you soon!

ATC Birthday Party Success!!

Well, that was So. Much. Fun!

I had birthday wishes from old friends (24 years and counting), newer friends, folks I've only met once, and people I've never met at all from western Maine to Northern Ireland to New Zealand with CO, MS, VA, and GA in between.

WOW!! It was great! A couple of people talked to me about doing it them selves for their own birthdays. I would highly recomend it. I just put my pictures here on my blog and then sent out a couple of notices to two yahoo groups that I am in, (ATCs and unschooling) and a select group from my address book - all folks who appreciate the finer - and smaller - things in life.

I am sending out 20 cards actually. Some friends didn't ask for a card, but I was feeling so happy and full that I just kept addressing envelopes.

Thank you all very much. I had a great day!

Happy Birthday!!

It's my birthday! I am going to give out party favors: I have started my day in the best possible way, lazing around in bed until nearly 5:00 then a couple of hours playing with some of my June ATCs. Now it is time for the presents! I will show you some of my artistic endeavors and then you can write to me - robinsunne@robinsunne.com - and I will send you whichever one you tell me to! I wish you all a great day!

Here is Postage Stamp Landscape:

And: Inner Peace (non-violence):

Sharing Our Gifts has a tiny booklet in its pocket:

Do Your Dream:

Love Poste (also has a tiny pocket with a small card):

We Live In Community (was hand drawn on a brown paper bag):

Lotus (hand drawn on glazed tissue paper):

Friendship (done in the March technique from The Great Library ATC Swap due out this week!!!):

Art Washes Away (from the soul the dust of everyday life. Picasso) (two more little pockets!):

To Invigorate, Stimulate ... Make Joyful (has some candy wrapper faux postage stamps):

Random Act of Art (also hand drawn on glazed tissue paper):

Throw Paint! (Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can. Danny Kaye):Good Morning (is a card within a pocket):

And last and fabulous is Where Are We? (which has a 10 page book in its pocket!):

NOW REMEMBER: Please send me an email with your choice and your mailing address to robinsunne@robinsunne.com, don't comment here as it is both laborious on my slow speed computer to get the messages and also it doesn't protect your private mailing address as much.

Have a lovely, lovely day!

R

Yesterday's Swap at the library

Yesterday at our Library Swap we focused on pockets on our ATCs. Pockets can hold notes, cards, or books (tiny ones) and I think that they could also hold coins, birthday money, small photos, even a tiny toy. We were a small group - the pull of the georgous afternoon was too much, I guess - Well, here are some photos of my progress yesterday:

The pocket on this one, above, is on the upper righthand corner with a small card that has a golden heart drawn on it. The image is from an old stamp book that I photo copied and enlarged.

Below are two that have a different kind of pocket on them. I cut a small slit in the middle of the card, double-stick-taped the back around the pocket area and stuck the card onto a plain cardstock base. Then I slipped the photo or card into place.

Details of how to make regular pockets are in my new book: The Great Library ATC Swap - due out this coming week!!!

My book is on its way!!!

I tell you: I am barely holding it together. (I wonder what that means ... symbolically ... the possibilities beg for some artwork...) I just got an email that The Great Library ATC Swap has just been shipped to me from lulu.com. I am soooo excited!!!!!! Here is the cover:

As soon as I do my final print proof-read I will release it to you!

Y'know, the thing that is kinda magical about this timing is that in 1993 I published Nannee, my first book, and announced it on my birthday: June 16th. If I get the ATC Swap book by Saturday, which I might, as it is being Priority shipped, then I can announce/open publication of this, my second book, on my birthday too. Yay!

I am really proud of this book. I think that it has great ideas and I am so eager to have you all share them. I can't hardly wait to begin swapping with other groups from around the country - that is one of the most fun options with this book. Sure it teaches how to make ATCs, but also it shows how to make a swap group in your hometown, and then, when you all are ready, to swap with other library swap groups around the country.

I am so aware that nothing happens in a vacuum: Molly Larson, the director of our library, has been so welcoming to me, to this idea, to the hoards of ATC artists who come through her doors each month. She just keeps finding ways to make everything work out. Thank you, Molly!

Jane Babbitt, another librarian here in Rockport, makes great ATCs, proof-read the book, comes to all the swaps, and has been so enthusiastic about art in the library and my book. What a blessing. Thank you, Jane.

And of course, there is Iris. ArtistMamaLibrarianExtrodinaire. Iris and Jane stood at the front desk ohhing and ahhing over the book that I brought to the library to illustrate my Swap idea back in January (1000 Artist Trading Cards, ed. Particia Bolton). And Iris and I have been swapping cards, ideas, art thrill, and even some Swap leadership ever since. Iris also proof read my book twice, and has been a major cheerleader for me all along my way. Thank you too, Iris, very, very much.

Big projects often require big allowances and sacrifices from one's family too and I send out lots of kisses and hugs to my children for taking this all in their stride.

Well, today, just to keep me occupied, (kidding) I am taking some art quilts up to Augusta to have juried for the Maine Crafts Association's new retail shop in Gardner. I love the work that I will be showing to them - both doing it and the finished pieces. I am happy to say that I have been working on a new quilt recently and so glad to be back at it - not that I don't also enjoy the ATCs. It is just that there is something so slow about the quilts, they are small but wonderfully intricate, and I find that I breathe in God while I work ... somehow slowly enough so that I actually notice and can appreciate the company. >sigh< id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211332754198008706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimmNR_ye6NrKmW9lXZzHrHy_Owzy1WpGo86VR5h0kFa2zBJWUck6__2LuJPtwN2MSnuL_lIeFUwtgiul7qrGcgYcsBUaS1lrjFuNUQlF-8OYrE3P-HaahqrMaQySCtStYM1HVvc0MTaFA/s320/Prayers+II+2006.jpg" border="0">

And this is October Bird, here:
The other photos are too big for me to load this morning, but suffice to say: small-ish art quilts with lots of embellishments. Now then, off to the races. Wish me luck.

with and for each other

Oh my! It has been a month. Perhaps all of that April blogging exhausted me. Or maybe I have just had a rather full schedule.

Well, I keep walking along with my book: I hit cross schedules, computer glitches: all manner of details to work out. I am still heading towards a publication very, very soon. I was remembering that I published my first book: Nannee on my birthday in 1993, so I was thinking that I am working to announce this new book on June 16th this year - exactly 15 years later.

The Great Library ATC Swap has more than 30 techniques to keep an ATC group at your hometown library interested and coming back for more. Or maybe just you - but I highly reccomend making art in community. I have lots of ideas on how to start a group and instructions for how to trade with us, here in Rockport! We are looking forward to that!

Here is a treat from Chapter One:

AAAnd, I realised a week or so ago that I miss sewing. So I have started a new embellished reverse applique quilt. Sigh. I am happy.

Oh!

Hi-O

Today is the last day of my nablopomo blog-every-day-for-a-month-marathon!! Yay! This has been fun and very good training for my art-self. Even though there are days when I feel like I have nothing to say, there were always the ATCs. So here you go.

The other thing that is interesting about art is that it gets personal - and sometimes that personal stuff isn't great for the world-wide-web, y'know? So perhaps some of the best of the good art I made this month didn't make it to your eyes. >Sigh<>

Well, it is always good to know that there is more art on the way: we ATC at the Library tonight. Full details at robinsunne.com - the ATC page. 6:00: be there! There are usually about 30 of us and we have some poetry to stimulate our imaginations tonight. I might also bring a special treat ... some kind of art play medium ... You'll have to be there to share the prize with us!

See you there! Thanks for your company this month.

i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-

Sounds like a cheer or a chorus from an exuberant song. Actually: it is an ATC!

And because here at the end of the month I have very little to say other than how much I am liking The Great Library ATC Swap and how eager I am to get it all ready for you. (I really think that you will like it. There are so many ideas for ATCs that give a fabulous effect and I think that you will have at least as much fun as I have had making all the cards that I made for the photos in the book.) Because of that I will show you an ATC that I made for the book yesterday.

So: let's go get you an ATC How-To Book.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Hullo. These vowel ATCs are turning out to be a series: same background, same set of stickers, some variation of decor.
Well, sorry to be brief today, but I have to go arrange my morning and make some space for the final rewrite of The Great Library ATC Swap! I'll see you tomorrow.

Five more letters

Well, we have four more days in April, and I had mulled the idea of Greek letters over in my mind for days, but I couldn't quite get them chosen and ordered in my mind, so I have decided to go back to our alphabet and highlight the vowels - which makes five, I know. We will just have to celebrate May Day with a vowel.

The background for this card is explained on page 66 in The Great Library ATC Swap. :) I just got the final proof-read back from fabulous Iris. (Where would I be without her???) I will pretty up those last bits and then announce publication!

Well, I wish you a merry Sunday. I am off to sew costumes for the Mother Earth Awakens play. See you tomorrow.

Z is for Zeal

Good Morning. Well we are on the last day of the alphabet. I present to you the letter Z.

And I think that zeal is a good word. I was talking with a social worker yesterday about her work and the topic of getting out of family situations that are not helpful to young students came up. We acknowledged that getting out of violence, poor health, poverty, chemical use/abuse, and other chronic stresses takes an enormous amount of energy. Especially if these have been a part of a family system for generations. I was thinking this morning that zeal would be a good quality to have if one were trying such a move.

And again, I have this thought: Is it a passion or enthusiasm to get out of a situation? Or does ardor and spirit work best if we want to move in to a new place?

Y is for yen - as in longing - will you swap with me?

Wow. My ATC notebook is getting really full. I can't wait for the swap next Wednesday. We will be making ATCs with poetry on them to celebrate National Poetry Month. (Go to the ATC page at robinsunne.com for details.) Will you swap with me? Almost all of this alphabet series is available for swapping - scroll down, find one that you like and send me an email at robinsunne@robinsunne.com. I will trade for any type of ATC, any method of construction.

I can't wait!

X is for xyloid

Xyloid???

Have you ever heard of that word? I never had - except that it comes from the same Greek root that xylophone comes from meaning "wood"! Xyloid means "of, relating to, or like wood". So some one could have a xyloid personality, or xyloid paneling on their station wagon, or, of course, a xyloid ATC. Here you go:

This is another lesson in my soon to be published book: The Great Library ATC Swap due out soon!! The book has over 30 lessons to help you and your Library ATC Swap group keep interested all throughout the year. I will tell you when it is ready! (I am excited! The book has turned out so well. It will be a joy and a help to all of you ATC artists and teachers, plus it has ideas which are easily brought into classrooms, and scout troops, and all places where handwork and conversation make good community. (Like libraries.)

One of my favorite quotes from our swaps is from a scout leader who said that this is the only activity that she has brought to her children that has goetten every child engaged!

Well, I am off to my day, but let me just say first that X is also for my best girl!

Welcome

Well, it is very late and I must go back to bed, but here is your ATC for the morning.

Good night. morning.

Valiant

It occurs to me that the ability to be valiant on the outside requires that some stuff be present on the inside. The root of the word courageous is the French word for heart. We have to have love going on inside in order to be able to boldly go where our fears tell us to make a wide circle.

I have just recently figured this out and I am still curiously inspecting it.

You've heard the old adage that courage isn't the absence of fear, but rather feeling fear and going along anyway. Well the "going along" takes love. I was once told that as well as agony being a great motivator ("no pain, no gain") so is desire. I have done some things in my life that have broken all the rules and gotten me, miraculously I first thought, where I had wanted to be. But it isn't so much a miracle I'm thinking now. I knew where I wanted to be and the desire to be there was, in sum, far, far: tons stronger than all the circling voices in my head telling me to "Watch out!"

I am doing it again: walking towards something that I love wanting every day to heed the desires for those joys rather than the earth shattering fears I have always attended until now.

So I wish this for you and I as we wend our way to the end of the alphabet: that we may have a powerful love inside each of us enabling all of the necessary journeys that we need - or even want - to make.

What gives you joy?

For the good of all, to harm none.

Unprecedented

I had to look up untoward - it means unruly. I think that I might get a little unruly.

I really love the creative process. I think that we should study it more, and certainly as a practice we should all just DO it more. Where we have to go to get the information in our brains, in our hearts, in our souls, and then assimilate it all to present a cohesive, meaningful piece:this journey not only brings us results, but the journey itself makes our brains smarter.

Now, if I was a brain scientist I could tell you this in a bunch of impressive language that might convince you how I was correct - but you know I am telling you a true thing. Art makes connections in our brains - blending color, and texture, and media, with thought and with emotion,: say "red yarn, and gold tinsel, and black pen line with a memory of the city when I was five". Those things don't necessarily go together until the pathways in my brain have the memory and bring that feeling out onto the paper. And once the synapses have fired along this new path my brain has grown stronger and more able. If I do it again tomorrow, I will be even stronger, even smarter.

There are some learning practices which only use one part of the brain - but art uses it all. And when I know how to connect right brain color with left brain words for a picture that I am sewing, when my right hand is very used to co-ordinating with my left hand, then I also have the brain pathways made for when I want a solution to a business problem or something else.

Being creative, artistic, musical is pretty unruly work. And that chaos makes us smarter.

Funny how that goes.

T is for Triangle

Machine stitched fabric bits under tulle, with dimensional paint edging, on tissue paper "parchment", the directions for which you will find in The Great Library ATC Swap, due out on May 1st.

Triangles.

Made me think of those books that talk about the sacred feminine (downward triangle) and the sacred masculine (upward triangle).

I keep wondering what it would be like to live in a country where the sacred is a lifestyle lived by everybody. In Thailand, for example, 96% of the people are Buddhist. Religious service is compulsory for a year when a boy reaches manhood. Buddhism teaches, among other things how to live without practicing violence and with the practice of service. Imagine living like that.

Of course Thailand has a world famous sex trade and that is not a life without violence, so it isn't like anyone has it figured out. But anyway, I keep wondering.

My plan is for Universal Art Practice. That each one of us would be able to make a little art everyday, all throughout our lives.

Well, see ya tomorrow.

SUNNESPOT!

Today, S is for sunnespot! Now a sunspot is a vortex of elements and magnetic activity on the surface of the sun. But a sunnespot is a vortex of art and fine craft activity on the coast of Maine, the web, and soon: on your bookshelf!

The Great Library ATC Swap has had its final draft, and has gone out for its final proofread. Yay! So this is what it is:

Revel with Robinsunne and the Rockport Public Library ATC Swap group as we meet throughout the year to construct the tiny paper confections and the powerful visual statements that are Artist Trading Cards. Packed with pointers, and possibilities, and over 30 projects to help any hometown create their own ATC Swap Group!

Public libraries are both the perfect resource and common ground for any community, where you can gather and experience what the Rockportians have: the joy of making art with old and brand new friends!

I will have the publication news for you on or about May 1st.

Be Fabulous.
Have a terrific day!

R is for Robinsunne

Today I am taking for me. (I don't mean to imply that all that laundry that has been piling up while I have been doing rewrite won't get done today, or that I won't sweep the living room which has needed it for a while, or that a few meals won't get made for some of my favorite people) I just mean to tell you that writing this book, The Great Library ATC Swap has put my heart where I have wanted it to be for decades. I am feeling some joy here. The little shrinky-dink up in the lefthand corner of today's ATC says "LOVE" which is what I feel. I love writing books. I love my kids. I love my friends. I love being an artist. I am pretty much crazy about the folks at the Rockport Public Library, I adore and am fabulously grateful to Iris for her help with this book, and there is more. I am glad and appreciative that there is more. Makes a woman feel the way she ought.

The book is looking good, let me tell you. It goes out for it's final proof-read this afternoon. After that, because I have chosen the astounding thrill of self publishing, it will get it's final polish and be sent out for publication at lulu.com. I am hoping to have the announcement for you by May 1st!

This is my second book. The first was Nannee, about my pretend grandmother. (I didn't have grandmothers growing up: one had died long before I was born and the other lived very far away, so I made one up.) Nannee is an herbalist, and the story is about an afternoon spent in her company. It is a picture book with the pictures and the text cut from paper. The book comes with a free greeting card of one of the images in the book printed in "thermography" or raised printing. I couldn't print the book with papercuts but the feeling of a page of paper lace is wonderous. I wanted you to feel that amazing texture and thermography does it. Nannee was also self-published and is available at http://robinsunne.etsy.com.

Well, I am off to rewrite-land now. See you tomorrow. Have a very good day.

Q is for Question

Well, now, the first question I want to ask myself is why did I forget to publish Tuesday's post?? I bumped it to "draft" when my computer hiccuped and meant to come back to it - but I forgot!! Now I am not eligible for the Nablopomo prize. Phooey. Well, I will finish out the alphabet. So we are at Q.

I really like how this ATC worked out. The colors, everything. Well, listen: I am off to work on the book. I will see you tomorrow with an "R" ATC.

Oh yay.

P is for Paper

Paper: background paper! In my new book, The Great Library ATC Swap, due out in just a couple of weeks (want instant notification? Join us at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Robinsunne and you will get notices for the books, the swaps and all the fun in the SunneSpot world)

Anyway, back to today's topic: Paper. In the book I talk about how much I love to make a big piece of background paper to cut up later for Artist Trading Card backgrounds. I like it so much that at the end of the How-To chapter I have included a few of my favorite techniques. Today's card comes from one of the big papers.

To begin with I took a piece of cardstock and painted it all over with gel medium. Then I lay a piece of crinkled colored tissue paper over the top and pressed it flat with just my hand. The next morning I stamped it with some of my handmade rubber stamps and Voila! lots of backers, ready to go! Here is today's ATC:I had some gold! tissue paper in my stash - cool, eh? I found, however that the shiny-ness of the paper didn't let it take the rubber stamping as well. I could try one of those stamping pads that are for metal and glass and that might work. The regular tissue tho prints just fine. I love all the crinkles. And that is a chocolate coin wrapper there. And publishing is on my mind these days...

So tell me: will you try this technique?

O is for Once upon a time...

Isn't that a beautiful way to begin a story? A woman I know used to begin stories like that. I have begun some with those words too. Once upon a time, when was it? When was it not? There was a little girl who loved to cut paper into the tiny, necessary items for the folk of her doll houses. They had pots and pans made of black construction paper made shiny with a layer of white glue, miniature newspapers to read, and even a bureau in the bedroom to hold their tiny handkercheifs.

Just kinda gets you in the mood to make a story, doesn't it?

So, yesterday I made 8 ATCs for my book (which I am working to get into your hands by about May Day) and this morning I am looking at them and realizing that I LOVE to make the cards in a series. All the same background, or all the same theme, or, in this case, all the same construction technique. All of yesterday's cards are to illustrate the project that we will have at the library in August: Favorite Places. In August I figure that we might have some visitors from away come to join us at the Swap and that taking pictures of various Rockport locales will be on their agenda anyway, so I thought that we'd use those photos to make 3-D ATCs.

Want a peek?

Here you go: This is Andre the seal. He lived with a family here in Rockport back in the 60's. One of his human sisters wrote his story and you can find it at your library if you would like to read a very sweet story about a dad who was interested in all the folks in his harbor. Andre lives on in his granite likeness in the Rockport Harbor Park, and he loves to have visitors drop in for a group shot.

Will you come visit us Rockportians this summer? We will be at the library on June 14th and 25th, July 12th and 30th, and August 9th and 27th. We will show you how to make ATCs of your stories, Once upon a time. When was it? When was it not?