Hello Craft!

I just wanted to introduce myself as a new contributor to the Hello Craft blog. I’m Elise Towle Snow and some of you may recognize me as Argyle Whale or as the rotund brown bunny wearing a blue scarf who serves as my mascot.

I live in Salem, Massachusetts and enjoy the company of my husband, two house bunnies and a grumpy hedgehog. I spend most days balancing a part time job at a small artisan bakery and brewing new ideas for my Argyle Whale shop. For the past year, I have enjoyed drawing simple, often animal-related images that incorporate my love for absurd humor and a healthy dose of  anthropomorphism. Then I pump out flurries of limited-edition prints using my Print Gocco.

The Gocco will always have my heart but one of my favorite parts of creating is trying new tools and techniques. I have overflows of enthusiasm for experimenting with all types of media and I hope to share a pinch of my fervor here with you. I usually just write on my own blog but now I’ll be bringing over a couple of my prouder posts and some new tidbits just for Hello Craft readers.

My maiden voyage into these waters is with a review of my experience using a new printing product known as the Yudu. My opinions are a little prickly (what can I say, I spend all day with a hedgehog!) but I promise to make plenty of future posts that are full of positivity!

Thanks for reading. It’s nice to meet you!

Recently the amazing artist Cathy Mclaurin forwarded me information on the artist Samantha Fields.   I was so glad she let me know about Samantha as I am blown away and oh so inspired by the installations she creates.

Samantha creates large scale installations that explore the ideas of home, mother, memory, and the domestic. She does this by embroidering amazing and colorful patterns into the actual walls of the spaces that she builds.

She expertly uses layering, scale, and the element of the unexpected to pull on our emotions and send us toward memories that connect us to her experience.

Samantha states-

“Home is a stage supporting mythic roles. It’s the setting for an everyday spectacle. And when we cross away from the threshold, we inevitably play a different role than the one inside. The walls, the primary objects of a house, function as literal boundaries, space dividers, where public and private are kept at a constant, dueling and commingling. What is revealed when these walls are removed? It is within this question that I place my work.

Most of my materials are found and have been used: indoor/outdoor furniture, building supplies, and fabric - which are then dislocated. Each has a latent, embedded story that is never absent despite my attempt to re-arrange, re-gather, and re-present. I have focused on specific, universal elements (or coded sites), such as curtains, to begin investigating power structures by way of exorbitant, feminine, passive-aggressive excess, or perhaps simply the revealing of a hierarchy –of who gets the mashed potatoes first.”

I am sometimes so overwhelmed by all the amazing young female artists exploring these universal and yet such specific themes of home and the role of the feminine.  Sometimes it make me nervous about my own work and career but mostly it simply inspires me.

Keep inspiring.

Samantha has an excellent website here and if you are near Boston is participating in a show and leading a workshop here.

My house smells bad and my friend, Doug, is coming to visit for the weekend. So I search the house for the smell. For the life of me, I can’t find it. I search everywhere. Finally, it hits me. The refrigerator! Gross. I hate mold. It is ugly and smelly and hard to get rid of.

No one loves mold. No one, except Elinart, that is. Elinart adorns purses, pillows and wall art with some pretty convincing mold. Take a look:

Mouldy wall art, $45

Ok. Now I have to stop messing around and go clean the fridge.

Hello crafty friends!

I am brimming with excitement and inspiration after attending/exhibiting at the Maker Faire and Bazaar Bizarre recently.  The Maker Faire is a place where science and art collide creating an amazing festival of interesting ideas and otherworldly contraptions.  Or as my friend pointed out “It’s like Burning Man without the sandstorms and  naked people.”

This blog post is not about the Maker Faire per se, but I will say that the gift that Maker Faire gave me was that I left there feeling the desire to do more, to think bigger.

Sometimes thinking bigger can mean making smaller.  So I wanted to share a few amazingly tiny or rather, seemingly tiny things.

Above are oil paintings by Amy Bennett.  I love the fact that Amy’s paintings look almost like miniature dioramas.

(via Booooooom)

Michael Samuels is a UK artist who made a series of mixed media miniature sculptures on resin seascapes.

If you are at all like me and have a desire to see absolutely everything in miniature then check out these tilt-shift videos.

(thanks to my brother for the link)

Some of the Hello Craft/Crafty Bastards crew will be in the Etsy Virtual Labs today at 5 p.m. for a workshop on applying to craft fairs. What some extra tips on applying to Crafty Bastards? Join us today, June 25! Just go to the Etsy Virtual Labs and log in.

The Crafty Bastards deadline is approaching! Don’t forget to apply. We wanna see what you’ve been making!

Steampunk jewelry has never been for me, but I still respect people making things in this currently popular style. So I often find myself searching for Steampunk stuffs on Etsy.

I recently found and can’t stop thinking about these awesome converted toy guns by River Wraith.

Can you believe this is a converted Nerf gun, made of plastic? It has been painted, aged, and sealed with a gloss. The gun no longer fires Nerf bullets. It is strictly a prop or costume gun. For just $28.00, this gun makes me want to write and film my own little space opera.

And look at this one!

Seriously, these are amazing. Check out River Wraith for even more.

In my former life, I was a props artisan for a large theatre in DC. As part of my training (both on the job and while in school) I learned (and have forgotten) a lot about safety. So when I see or hear about people melting records in the same oven they cook in, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Now, I know there’s a school of thought out there that says “People have been doing it for years and they’re fine”. Which might be true. However there are also a lot of artists out there with severe and chronic health issues directly related to the materials they have worked with. If you’re a painter or sculptor or even scrap-booker, do you know about the materials you’re working with?

Do you know how you can find out?

The first thing I want to teach you about are Material Safety Data Sheets. If you’re working for a company (I don’t know the rules about self-employed artists but I hope this inspires you to find out) it is required by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) that you have the MSDS reports on the paints, chemicals, adhesives, plastics, solvents, etc you use.

These sheets (not the most fun reading, I know) are important if there are spills, reactions, or on the larger, catastrophic scale — if your warehouse is on fire, so the fire company will want to know what chemicals they’re encountering. Usually you receive them if you’re ordering the chemical from the company or distributor. If you haven’t, call them and ask for it.
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I am mesmerized by the sweet simplicity of the embroidered drawings of artist Megan Ileana.  Megan has created a lovely blog in which she shares quiet intimate moments embroidered.  It reads almost like a visual diary of a young women’s life.

Her stitches are simple and straightforward.  Her simple line drawing technique moves the heart in its sweet loveliness.

She states:

I see embroidery as a lens through which to view the intimate moments of my life.

My art is an exploration of sexuality, gender and bodies.

I could not agree more.  She explores and celebrates femininity, intimacy, and the little moments of life.

Her technique reminding me quite a bit of the lovely work of Orly Cogan and I cannot help but adore the similarities between the  themes in my own work and hers- but Megan has a voice all her own.

I am delighted to have discovered her work.