I arrived in Minneapolis yesterday for tomorrow’s GIRL CRUSH workshop with Jennifer Davis. It’s being hosted at Soo Visual Arts Center, and the director, Carolyn Payne, was sweet enough to invite me to stay with her for the weekend. Nice, right? Well, wait until you see what I found when I got into her house…

Gah! My very first question… who did this work? Her husband, American artist Terrence Payne. They are large scale oil pastel drawings. You really have to see them in person – they’re bold, bright, beautiful and really, really big! Oh, and then of course, there’s his new line of wallpaper with Hygge & West:

Yep. I am completely surrounded by amazing stuff!

Ok, I’m off to GIRL CRUSH, and I’ll report back next week with photos! Have a lovely weekend : )

Awwww! These illustrations by Japanese artist Aiko Fukawa are just the sweetest. Come on… that squirrel in his little rainbow shirt? Crazy cute! Those garlands are fantastic too, and do not get me started on that drum playing donkey.

I’m off to Portland for GIRL CRUSH with Lisa Golightly, and I’ll be back with a full report early next week! Happy weekend : )

{via the art cake}

Ya know, you think you know someone… and then they show you these?! I wrote about the paintings of American artist Mark Bradley Shoup at least three years ago. Since then, we’ve become friends, and we’re even working on a few projects together {including an art show in February 2013 in Chattanooga, GIRL CRUSH Chattanooga, and hopefully a chance for me to speak at the University while I’m there!}

Anyway, Mark is known for his muted color palettes, and mundane/beautiful Americana landscapes, which I absolutely love. We started talking about collage the other day, and he said “Oh, I do a bit of collage work – I’ll send a few over”… and this is what showed up in my inbox. Um… LOVE!!! Geesh, I wonder what else he’s hiding from me? I’ll have to raid his studio when I’m there in February!

Happy weekend! I just wanted to pop in to say a few things about the GIRL CRUSH workshops… that you may not know:

1. You do not have to be an artist to come! I didn’t realize that a bunch of people thought that… nope, you don’t have to be an artist to attend. You just have to be someone who is creative, wants to be creative, wants to recharge those creative batteries, has occasional doubts about creativity, and wants to reach out & meet some other amazing women in your city who are feeling exactly the same way!

2. I make a pretty big deal about the cupcakes, pastries, striped straws and fancy sandwiches… all lovely Pinterest-worthy perks, of course, but not the reason for coming to GIRL CRUSH. Even the afternoon of art making {which again, is a lovely/fun/creative perk} is not the main goal of this day. Granted, I wasn’t even sure what to expect going in, but after seeing and hearing what happened in San Francisco {with Lisa Congdon}, and Seattle {with Tif Fussell}, even I’ve realized it really is so much more than cupcakes and art. The conversations we’ve had, the transparency, the willingness to open up and share doubts and insecurities is beyond moving. That’s what I had hoped it would be about – creative breakthroughs, support from like-minded people, and a new group of creative friends to share success {and fears} with… and I can’t believe it’s really happening. It’s a dream come true to be perfectly honest. I am in awe of the first two groups, and cannot wait to see who arrives in doorways of the other artists’ studios over the coming months!

3. Every penny is used to run the event {we have to pay for those cupcakes and striped straws, right!} I don’t see GIRL CRUSH as a revenue stream for myself, I see these workshops as an amazing opportunity to meet interesting, creative people all over the world… and hopefully be a catalyst to a new perspective, for all of us. I have been working on getting more corporate sponsors so that I can bring the fee down even further… stay tuned! {or if you know of anyone I should talk to, please let me know!}

Ok, I think that’s all. If you have any questions, let me know! There are still a few spaces left in the 2012 workshops:

Portland with Lisa Golightly – June 9th

Minneapolis with Jennifer Davis – June 23rd [SOLD OUT]

Austin with Alyson Fox – September 29th

Philly with Shauna Alterio – October 13th [SOLD OUT]

{Boston, Chicago, Chattanooga, Toronto, LA, Vancouver… and hopefully Hawaii… are tentatively on the schedule for 2013}

Photos above by: Melanie Biehle and Taylor Rae; Hand-lettering artwork found in Lisa Congdon’s studio by Mary Kate McDevitt

Yes, that is exactly how you start talking after you’ve spent a lovely, inspiring, creative day with Tif Fussell {aka Dottie Angel}

Sigh. What an amazing day we had at GIRL CRUSH Seattle this past Saturday, and it all started right here:

I had never been to Assemble Gallery in Seattle before this weekend, and I absolutely loved it! Emily and Andie, the lovely ladies behind Assemble, were amazing and made sure that everything was just right! It was beyond perfect for an art workshop & tea party… so airy, so pretty, and filled with artwork, design objects, & stacks of gorgeous books… including Uppercase Magazine! Thank you so much to Janine from Uppercase for giving each of us the latest issue… so peachy {as Tif would say!} Once we had everything in just the right spot, it was time to say hello…

What an amazing group of women. Lots of locals, and a few that weren’t so local. People came from LA, Boston, and Vancouver! We spent the morning talking… and talking, and talking. I was completely in awe of the transparency, and willingness to share. Tif’s story of her creative journey was so inspiring, and I was totally caught up in the reasons each of the women gave for being there. Painters, photographers, writers, performers, knitters. What we had in common was a passion to create… not to mention a few niggly doubts about what/how we create that have been slowing us down… well, no more!

I have a set of artist block crushing exercises that we spend the morning working through, and I am quite sure that all of us came away from them slightly changed. {There are already a few posts out there if you’d like to see what I mean… Here, here, and here.} We laughed, we cried, and so of course, by mid-afternoon we all desperately needed this:

So good! We had a lovely lunch catered by Macrina Bakery, followed by an afternoon of Dottie Angel inspired deer-adorned treats by Trophy Cupcakes… and our vintage teacups were constantly filled by the generous folks next door at Caffe Vita! Again, I am totally overwhelmed by the generosity that went into making this event happen.

So, after I finished my insanely delicious cupcake, it was time to lick the butter-cream icing off of Bambi’s hooves, and get to work!

Oh my word – I could have snipped, and glued, and painted until midnight! After a morning filled with amazing conversation, things went very quiet, very quickly. We listened to La Vie en Rose, and collaged like there was no tomorrow. It was heaven… and just like that it was over. I have to say, I felt a little sad to say goodbye to all of the beautiful women who I now call “friend”… oh well, at least we have Twitter!

Thank you so much to everyone involved in GIRL CRUSH Seattle… and to my lovely friend Tif ~ you truly are peachy, spiffy, and not at all ‘pants’ xo

ps. GIRL CRUSH Portland is only a few weeks away… if you’d like to come and spend a creative Saturday with me and Lisa Golightly {aka Kiki & Polly} you can sign up right here! If you’re thinking about it, please do come… we can’t make these events happen without you!

*Pants: adjective; British slang. Not good; total crap; nonsense; rubbish; bad; used quite a bit by the lovely Tif Fussell!

………………………………………..

These photographs were all taken by the ladies at the event… what talent! Thanks to Andie, Sandra, and Melanie xo

I just spent the entire weekend in tea party mode {GIRL CRUSH Seattle with Tif Fussell was amazing… post/photos coming soon!}, so these drawings of delicate, girly, vintage clothes are exactly what I feel like looking at today. Canadian born, Portland based artist Anja Verdugo has a huge photography collection of vintage clothing, but it’s this handful of lovely drawings she’s done that make me want to spend the day treasure hunting in my local thrift shop… after all, there are many more tea parties in my future, and I need to be prepared, right?!

I’m off to Seattle this weekend for GIRL CRUSH {with the lovely Tif Fussell}, so I thought it only fitting to leave you with another girl that I have a crush on… New York based artist Jenny Morgan has grabbed my heart with these hauntingly beautiful portraits. I wish I knew more about them, but alas, I can’t find anything anywhere. Oh well, we’ll just have to enjoy them for their gorgeous detail, their stunning color palettes, and their slightly {or majorly} disturbing beauty… and those hands! I love those hands!!!

{via Booooooom}

When I was in San Francisco for GIRL CRUSH, Lisa Congdon took us on a little gallery tour in the Mission, which ended at the very inspiring Gallery Hijinks. It’s a great gallery that manages to hang amazing show after amazing show. Well, this might be your chance to be in one of those amazing shows! They’ve put out a call for submissions and the deadline is June 1st… so quick like a bunny, and get your stuff in! Here is absolutely everything you need to know:

Gallery Hijinks is proud to announce its first juried exhibition, “Visions of Yore”. Along with the gallery director, Tanya Gayer, Gallery Hijinks has invited guest juror Emily Lakin of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to be a part of the selection process. The exhibition will occur July 7th, 2012, and include live performance and artists lectures during the month, as well as an auction at the close of the exhibition.

Submissions are open to a range of work including sculpture, painting, printmaking, sound, video, installation, and mixed media work. The exhibiting artists should demonstrate the  quality of their work and relevance to the exhibition concept. The exhibition is open to all artists aged 18 and over. Artists must be willing to take on personal responsibility for their artwork if unsold after the exhibition closes. Entries should be completed within 2 years prior to the deadline. The exhibit is open to the public.

Visions of Yore:

Katharine Harmon, the author of The Map as Art, notes that to ‘orientate’ is to, “hop back and forth between landscape and time, geography and emotion, knowledge and behavior. Associations often happen with this idea of orienting because of memory springing from these categories.” To translate memory is to recall the sensory and time sensitive elements of a memory.

Memories coexist with time and space neither in the present or past, nor in one location at one time, but in fact exist and apply aspects from different places and people at all times. The process of remembering takes place in such an instant that memories only have concrete form by way of specific documentation.

Gallery Hijinks seeks works that  come from our beliefs of memory. At times memory cannot be pinned down, but only felt as a means of consciousness vying for a state of attention. Cues encountered in everyday life evoke past recollections without effort, while sometimes we deliberately try to piece together the past. Artists are encouraged to submit work in homage to memory and how it is recognized in regards to the visual and formulated.

Exhibition Details:
Deadline for submissions: June 1st, 2012
Submission Fee: $20
Artists accepted for the exhibition will be notified by June 4th. Works must be delivered to Gallery Hijinks no later than June 27th, 2012.

To submit please visit:
http://www.galleryhijinks.com/about/juried-exhibition

When I was in San Francisco, for GIRL CRUSH with Lisa Congdon, I also had a chance to visit with the crew at Chronicle Books. I’d met one of their editors {the lovely Kate Woodrow to be exact!} in January at Alt Summit. She came to my panel on the first day, and the next day I went to hear her speak… on a panel that just happened to be called, From Blog to Book. Can you guess where I’m going with this?

Yep, it’s true… The Jealous Curator is going from blog to book! Seriously. I am working on a book that will be published by Chronicle?! I have to tell you, this is at the very top of my life list, and I am beyond thrilled that I get to cross it off! I can’t believe that I’m going to be along side all of these gorgeous art books on Chronicle’s shelves – I own half of them, and have written about the others. I can’t tell you exactly what my book is about just yet, but as we move the process, I’ll tell you as much as I can {ooh, mysterious!}

I just wanted to take a second to say thank you to Chronicle for believing in me, and even more so… thanks to all of you for actually reading every day. If someone had told me this was going to happen, three years ago when I started my blog, I wouldn’t have believed it. I feel very, very blessed.

Ok… I guess I better start writing! Wish me luck!

{1. Little Paper Planes 2. Obsessive Consumption 3. Stencil 201 4. The Exquisite Book 5. Paper Cutting 6. 100 GIRLS ON CHEAP PAPER}

As most of you probably know, I spent the weekend in San Francisco! I was there for Lisa Congdon’s Girl Crush workshop & tea party {which was ah-mazing, and I’ll tell you about as soon as I have photos}. One of the ah-mazing things we did as part of the workshop was visit Gallery Hijinks in the Mission… and that’s where I saw these. I loved them immediately and almost felt panicked to find out, as fast as I possibly could, who made them. Jillian, the director/owner of the gallery informed me that it was the mixed media work {pencil and collage on found paper} of New York based artist Matthew Craven… um hello, boy crush.