On Island

I'm away from Lowell, but I am on Martha's Vineyard in my parents' house where I used to live, so it is like being home in another way.

Nothing too profound to report; we go to the beach in the afternoon, we go to the thrift shops, flea market. We get coffee, we visit book stores and sometimes eat dinner or breakfast out. Mom makes great scrambled eggs so we stay home a lot in the mornings :)

Outdoor showers, warm days, cool evenings. The sounds of cicadas in the day, crickets at night, the occasional June bug bouncing off the screen. The wind in the oak trees, the smell of earth. Sand in my pant cuffs. I see old friends, I shop familiar stores. D likes reading on the deck, I like chatting with my mom. Dad goes for a sail.

Last night we went to Illumination Night, the Agricultural fair started today, the fireworks are tomorrow night, yes we come this week every year on purpose :)

I am enjoying myself thoroughly, but I do look forward to getting home to Chester and moving into my new studio. But also, I love to see D relax, I wish I had the power to give him another month off!

The Studio Is Painted!

I did it :) All by myself too. On Monday I wiped the walls down with a damp rag, they were covered in dust from when the drywall guys taped the joints. Then I primed all the surfaces, that took all my energy! I scrubbed a few bricks in the windowsill to see if the dirt would come off, the answer? Yes! And ew. SO dirty. 100 years of dirt. Then I took a day off to save on chiropractic bills and went back today.


I played a Sarah Harmer CD also listened to NPR and it went much faster. Also more satisfying to see the color going on and guess what? I LIKE IT!! Actually, I LOVE IT. Which is good because I bought too much and have decided to put it on the walls in my bedroom as well.

Which one did I choose? The less yellow one, Water Sprout. Amanda and her mom came by to see my progress. Her mom, who it turns out is a color guru, said "It has just enough yellow in it to have the benefits of yellow with none of the drawbacks." Yay!

Also I hope it captures a Martha Stewart vibe (yeah, I like her, don't be a hater!) and at the same time the color of municipal trucks or old post offices. It looks great with the wood and the bricks. I've decided to paint the door a burnt orange And I can't wait to see those colors together! This kind of feeling:

Taggity Tag Tag

I was taggged by Impybat, and though I often ignore the tagging, I thought this one was painless enough and it's been a while. This round of tagging is 4 Things About Yourself:

4 Jobs I Have Had: (only 4?)
T-shirt painter
Porcelain Restoration Specialist
Folk Art Figurine Molder
High-end Wedding Invitation Assembler

4 Films I Can Watch Over & Over:
The Sure Thing
Broadway Danny Rose
Clueless
The Royal Tennenbaums

4 Places I Have Lived:
Newton, MA
Edgartown, MA
Bloomington, IN
Knoxville, TN

4 Favorite TV shows:
Project Runway
The Office
30 Rock
Best Week Ever

4 Favorite Foods:
Strawberries
Melon
Meat
Splenda

4 Websites I Visit Every Day:
Etsy
Flickr
Various Blogs
Etsy (it's a sickness)

4 Places I would Love To Be:
The beach
My new studio
In the car with D, on a road trip
Visiting friends

4 Favorite Colors:
Mint
Light blue
Burnt orange
Certain combinations of two (mint/orange, red/aqua, brown/cream, etc.)

And that's it! I am supposed to tag someone next, which I hate. I wonder if I should let the tag die here...I'll think about it :)

Open Studios Redux

I had my second open studios on Saturday, it was the last in my temp studio. It went really well! The Lowell Quilt Festival is going on this weekend and Western Avenue Studios is a part of that. Ann Lee of Friends Fabric Art hung small art quilts on the wall outside my studio and people came by on walking tours to view them. Buses were shuttling people in from downtown so we had a nice crowd despite the oppressive heat.


I was happy to see a lot of artists in their studios with their doors open. I only wished I could have walked around more and socialized, but I wanted to stay close to my room in case I had visitors. Which I did! I talked with a lot of really nice people and made a few sales. In the afternoon, an Etsian dropped in and surprised me! Dedicated Mill Girl readers will recall I did the South End Open Market with Candace of The Intuitive Garden and Intuitive Designs. I locked up for a minute so I could show her and her husband the new space. On the way we stopped in to see Amanda of Brick Mill Studio, her space is looking excellent and her sparkly jewelry is gorgeous!

At five I closed up shop (so nice not to have to break down the display!) and we headed for Caffé Paradiso in downtown Lowell for a light dinner alfresco.

Today, my sweet husband is taking me to buy paint! If you are like me, you will see this as very romantic :)

A Girl Must Shop!

My felt flowers have been blogged on a A Girl Must Shop! This fun shopping site is run by savvy women in nearby Dracut and Dunstable, Massachusetts. I was thrilled to be involved in something local and jumped at the chance to make them a custom flower to use as a prize for one of their readers.

Thanks A Girl Must Shop!!

The Keys

I got the keys! I had received an email from the building owner (who is not on site) that the keys would be available on Wednesday the 25th at noon. So I went in to my temp studio, dropped off some things and walked down the peeling staircase in the center of the building to the third floor. I checked out Mill A and found the workmen still installing door handles. Not yet, I figured out, and went back upstairs to work. I had gotten a lot done when my friend and neighbor, another Etsy crafter came by to chat. I crossed my fingers and we went back down to check again. This time the door handles were installed and the keys were dangling from them!


I eagerly took possession of A305, had BrickMillStudio snap this pic, locked the door and quickly ran away! It's a bit overwhelming, I've waited so long. The next item on the agenda is wiping down the walls which have been patched and sanded, but not cleaned, and mopping the floor. I also want to scrub the bricks in the windowsill and see if D can pry at least one of the two windows open for me.

I have been carrying easily a dozen paint chips with me for a month and I had narrowed it down to two nearly identical shades of mint (Spirit Whisper has more yellow). Usually with color I am not this indecisive, but I want to get it right. Friday I walked around the room holding the two tiny swatches up against different walls to see which one stood out. I keep coming back to one of them, even though I worry how it will look on a large surface, but I have to go with my instincts, and hey, if it's wrong, I can paint over it! Stay tuned to find out which one I picked :)

PCAGOE July Challenge, Summer Memories

Here is my entry for the July Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy challenge. The theme was summer memories. I collected shells and made molds with polymer clay, then I cast the shells in polymer clay, baked them and sanded the backs flat and drilled a little hole for stringing.



I love shells and collect them on every beach I visit. I remember as a kid on Martha's Vineyard, we would collect large conch shells that had washed up on State Beach. We'd take them home and leave them on the porch railings. We'd use large quahog shells with pretty purple edges for soap dishes. And sea worn half-bricks that washed ashore would get put on top of the old wood stove. On cool evenings we'd take a smooth brick to bed with us to warm our toes.