Come and See Me! At the 24th Annual Cottage Street Studios Holiday Open Studios and Sale

December 3, 4, and 5. Friday 12-5, Saturday 10-5, Sunday 12-5. Come and see me and forty-four other artisans, when we open our studio doors for the 24th Annual Cottage Street Studios Holiday Open Studio and Sale! You'll find me in Studio 420 with my quilty items and paintings!

Open Studio & Holiday Sale at Cottage Street Studios

It's the best time of year! It's the busiest time of year. Not only was the Annual Celebration of the Arts Party & Open House on December 4th, but December 5, 6 & 7th mark the 21st anniversary Cottage Street Studios Open Studio & Holiday Sale! It's a busy weekend for me and I'm camped out in the studio for its entirety! Please come by and visit if you are in the area. It's completely worth it if you are into art and handmade fine crafts, etc. Check out the Cottage Street Studios website for directions and a list of the over 30 artisans who have their doors open this weekend.

My studio is #418 on the fourth floor just outside of the passenger elevator. Today was great (Friday, December 5), and I really wanted to count visitors to my studio but just couldn't keep count after a while. I'd say at least 80 people came through in the five hours that we were open today. Tomorrow should be even better given a lot of people were at their jobs today. I ended up selling a lot of my Etsy inventory, and now that I have internet access right in my studio, I was able to inactivate the sold things as they went out the door. Fantastic. I'll be sewing like a mad woman next week to make up for the slack!

See you soon!

reclaimed urban garden - now with soon to be mini mural!!

We've been talking about doing this for two years now! Finally, on this hot and sticky Sunday morning, my hot and sticky boyfriend and I managed to get out there and do some scraping and priming. This mini reclaimed urban area garden has been in the works for three years now (or more?), and the perennials are coming up nicely, the new grass and coneflowers came back after a scary-cold winter. It was a tough spot to get established considering it was full of refuse, brick and mortar dust, rocks, and very very poor soil. But two bags of cow manure and lots of tender loving care the first two years have turned this spot into a nice little oasis.

If you are wondering where it is, it's located behind Mt. Tom's Homemade Ice Cream and Candy Store at 34 Cottage Street, Easthampton, MA. Come in and get a cone and ask Jim (pictured above) to have a look at the garden. Perhaps by the time you come the mural will be already started. Sketches to follow soon. We are thinking it will be a landscape with, what else, but Mt. Tom and Nashawannuk Pond?

I was just thinking I'd keep it

So I'm hanging out during Open Studios, mindlessly eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and staring at one of my paintings thinking "I might just keep that one".

More thinking and eating......"Yah, I'm going to keep it. It's got all of my favorite colors, it would help me decide on a new wall color for my living room, and it's pretty cool. I'll take it home with me tonight."

Presto, someone walks in and says they want to buy it. Later, I find myself thinking about another painting that I might just keep.........maybe it'll work again!

Big Canvas in my studio!

I've been commissioned to recreate a mural panel that was painted for the Bueno in Burlington, VT. Trace Meek had asked me to lend a hand on his project there and I painted the panel with the image of Church Street on it. A patron of the restaurant liked the panel so much that he endeavored to contact me. So....here's the canvas in my studio (finally)! It's pretty huge, 3'x5' and takes up a lot of space. I was thinking that I'd work on it during Open Studios coming up on June 7 &, but I'm not sure I want to hide behind such a large canvas. Maybe, if I get really crazy, I can start it tonight and finish it by the 7th! That would be cool!