Papergirl

Although I've never had a paper route (it doesn't count that my brother hired me a few times to help him with his), I fully accept the moniker "Papergirl" given to me by the kind folks at Midwest Home magazine.
They featured me this month in their In Town section, and I've heard from many lovely folks who've stopped in the shop after reading the article. While I have been fortunate enough to have been featured before on numerous blogs and web sites, there's something extra special about being mentioned in print. I guess it's no surprise as I've always had a love for tangibility and paper. ;) I've got my copy saved and stashed away. Thanks again, Midwest Home!

Introducing CrafterAlt!

This has really been a long time coming, and, while I'd thought about waiting until we had a really full lineup, I'm so pleased that we've got the first few things ready for you and I just can't hold it back any longer.

My dear friend, Kendra of No Moniker (formerly Green Post), and I have teamed up to create a new offshoot of Crafterall. Call it a branch, a grafting, an offshoot, a hybrid, or just one heckuva clever collaboration, and know it by its name: CrafterAlt.


CrafterAlt is a new body of work made completely from my paper scraps. The line will include frameable 8 x 10" art pieces, foldover cards, bookmarks, journals, tags, and loads more. Between Kendra and I, we've jotted down close to 50 different items that we could make and market, all of them entirely recycled, entirely handmade, and entirely gorgeous.




We've started with the simple beauty of the silhouette of my home state, Minnesota, and we will work to produce more themes and images as we go along. Stay tuned for more posts about the process we have to produce these pieces, the other ideas we have floating around in our minds, and updates as we continue to roll out more works.


I'm thrilled with the quality and beauty of these pieces so far. Everyone I've shown them to remarks that they look even better in person too. The best part? I get to work with an amazing artist and paper wizard to create something new and beautiful out of what I'd otherwise dump in the recycling bin. How many people can claim that?

Shows & Things to Show!

Whew! It's been a while!

While I'd like to be able to say that my hiatus is due to an extended snorkleing trip in the Fijian islands, I'm even more happy to say that I've been crazy busy with lots of awesome paperwork! I'm not being sarcastic. How can paperwork be awesome? When it's working with paper to churn out some of these pieces:


Above is a massive 4-piece, segmented work depicting the water of and land surrounding Lake Attersee in northwestern Austria. Each piece is 12 x 12" and at the thickest portions, there are 14 layers of cardstock. I would love to see this after it's matted and framed!

I've done quite a few sets lately. Another genius idea was this set of four places that traces four key locations that the buyer and her husband visited or inhabited in their young lives so far, and includes (clockwise from top left): San Francisco, Baja California, Amsterdam, and the Sunderbans of India.


Someone else ordered something akin to a "family pack" with different colors of the same lake:


Other fun custom pieces include Prince of Wales Island at the bottom of Alaska's "tail":


Table Rock Lake in southern Missouri:


And New York's Long Island done up in rich, harvest golds:


I finally worked out my plan for plastic-free packaging for my card sets:


I still have to incorporate them into my listings, and they could endure some more refining, but I like them for their simplicity, practicality, and recycle-ability!

Last month marked my second gallery exhibit, this one as part of a super cool show fronted by the brilliant Mr. Curt Lund. Curt just wrapped up his artist-in-residence term at the charming Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts in Fridley and for his grand finale, invited four other artists to join him in creating Geographies: a multi-media investigation of place. As fun and thrilling as it is to be part of any show, Geographies is so near and dear to my heart and what I do every day, that it is and will always be extra awesome to me. Here are some shots from the show:

Three all-white pieces (from left to right or west to east, if you will): San Francisco Bay, Lake Minnetonka, Manhattan


A bright, extra-dimensional piece called "Buoyancy":


This piece, two 6 x 6" layered "halves" of the same stack, I titled, 'Touched."


I invite people to touch this piece in the hopes that over time, it will begin to show the dirt and grime of a thousand hands. In a way, this reflects how we both connect to and corrode the land around us.

The show is up through the end of April, so if you're in the Twin Cities area, do check it out! There are more of my pieces than what I've shown here, and lots of other amazing pieces by the other artists in the collection.

Last Saturday, I joined Curt again, as well as a dozen other artists as an elite group vending our work at the beautiful Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It was a very simple set-up: we were each allotted a single, simply draped 6-foot table, set in a line along a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. The Walker staff treated us to some morning goodies, a lovely lunch, assistance whenever needed, and a free and amazing selling venue in exchange for half of our earnings that day. The turn out and response far exceeded my expectations and I sold out of a few things. You can see how spotty my card display looked below when my hubby and the kids stopped by in the afternoon:

I didn't intend to take my zip-up hoodie off, or have my hair pulled up, but it was warm and I was busy! It was a great day! One of the personal highlights for me was when an older gentleman asked me if I was from Bemidji. When I told him I was, he said that he knew my Dad. I pressed him for more information and he said he saw my last name on my info card, had a hunch, and then saw my blue eyes and knew I was my father's daughter. I was so chuffed to think that my eyes were the giveaway clue to my identity. I called my Dad after the show to tell him and he thought it was pretty sweet too. :) It was wonderful, too, to hear all the very nice comments people shared about my work. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I love what I do!

What's next? More custom pieces, each one different, each one with a story behind it. I am so lucky to be able to make pieces for people who find these so special. Who knew it would become so huge since my very first custom piece about two years ago?

Also, up next, is the very fun, very crazy, very awesome, St. Paul Craftstravaganza! This year's event is held in the same place as in recent years, the Fine Arts building of the MN State Fair Grounds. The event takes place one day only, on Saturday, April 30th, from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. I'll be in the same place I was last year as well, just off to the right side from the main entrance.

There will be loads of other handmade goodies there from all over the state and region, with some of the most unique and high-quality items you'll find in this area. Please stop by and say "hi!"

Until then, I'm busy, busy, busy prepping more fun stuff for the show, as well as crossing off pieces from my custom to-do list. New orders from my shop will be shipped beginning early May, and my turn-around time on all my work should shorten considerably soon thereafter.

Thanks for reading through this meaty update! I hope to see you soon!

Packaging Tidbits

My post on basic packaging tips is up on the Handmade Minnesota team blog. I invite you to scoot over there, have a read, and please share a bit of your packaging and shipping acumen. Thanks!

Done! For a short while anyway.

Yay! Back to back Saturday Craft fairs are done! The HandmadeMN Spring Market was fun! Everyone's tables looked great and there was a fairly steady stream of shoppers all day. It was neat to have awesome music throughout the day thanks to Kelly of Kellybot and her love of The Current's playlist. A couple of times throughout the show, Kelly and I made eye contact from across the room and exchanged "rock horns" and head bobs in appreciation of the tunes. It was so cool to be there with other team members to represent our talent-filled state. I have to say that we represent very well indeed!

Closest to me were the lovely and genius Regan of Regan's Brain, and the very sweet Lindsay of Skylark Dawn who was kind enough to donate some of her bendy wire and paper hearts for Leah to craft into wearable art.

A special shout out to the gorgeous and wonderful Andrea of Sacred Suds who took this photo of me at my table. Andrea makes delicious smelling soaps with a keen awareness and use of natural ingredients.

If you look carefully at the photo, you can see Leah's head peeking out of the right side of the farthest card display. Once again, she was a good companion, although this time she focused a bit too much on what she might get as a "treat" for working with me rather that be a good sport for the heck of it. She ended up with a smashing little ring from Toni at Wild Dog Studio. Still, it was great to have her company and conversation throughout the show and she was a superb helper as we set up and took down.

What's next? Not sure. Nothing on the horizon for the immediate future, though not for lack of opportunity. I've been invited to some fab events and have my eyes on a few of them for a bit later in the summer. In the meantime, I'll continue to update the shop with some new pieces and hope to add even more custom pieces to my repertoire. So stay tuned, and relax. :)

Next up, Marvelous Minnesotans!

Tomorrow -- YIKES! TOMORROW ALREADY! -- is the first annual HandmadeMN Team Spring Market!


It's going to be awesome. Our very talented and productive Etsy team has been working very hard to make this one kick-ass craft show. There will be forty vendors selling all sorts of cool things as well as some hands-on demos and a fun contest to enter as well. See a list of all the vendors and read all about the event here, by clicking here, or on our poster!

Again, if you're in the area, please stop by -- it's going to be too cold for anything but shopping!

One down, one to go!

The St. Paul Craftstravaganza was a blast! It was my best show so far and everything went very well. There was a steady stream of shoppers all day, and for every sale I had, I received about 4 or 5 "Wow"s or "Beautiful"s or something sweet along those lines -- how cool!


See that little framed piece lying flat toward to the front of the table? This is a framed piece without the glass, and with a little note that says, "Touch Me!" My second favorite part of the day was watching the expression on people's faces when they read the note and followed the instructions. So many "Oh!"s and "Ooooo"s and smiles too! Too many people easily mistake my colorful work for two-dimensional prints, and it's important for me to show them that each piece is hand cut and layered. I think this small, framed piece does the trick pretty well.


I had other pieces framed (with glass) for sale and to show off how good they look when matted and framed nicely. The indoor show allowed me to hang these pieces without worrying about the wind blowing them around or other weather effects. My banner (hand stenciled and sewn from a window blind remnant) looked far less impressive and has since sparked all sorts of bigger and better ideas in my head for next year or perhaps later this summer. There were so many outstanding booths there this year -- many craft show veterans who really know what they're doing and how to put together a shopper-stopper display. They really put mine to shame, but I'm o.k. with that. I can only get better, right? I have to say that I love my little felt banner hung on the front of my table -- such a happy pop of color. It was made and given to me by the lovely Laura Brown who is an amazing artist here in Minneapolis. Thanks again, Laura!


My favorite part of the day is all about that little monkey standing next to my table in the photo above. My Leah Bear hung out with me for the entire day, keeping me company, entertaining me with stories from school or pointing out interesting photos from her animal encyclopedia she brought along. She refilled sold items before their spot got cold, and kept a steady supply of business cards displayed on the table. She never complained once and fared very well considering we hardly ate anything and it was a very long day. I think she was even more excited than me every time I had a sale. I couldn't imagine a better booth buddy. :)

Next Saturday, The HandmadeMN Spring Market! Yes!

Foot (well, half a foot) in the Door

Thanks to my local Twitter contacts and some artsy friends, I heard about "Foot in the Door 4" with enough time to create and submit a piece for the event. The exhibit is produced and managed by the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program as a subset of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. You can read all about it on their Web site, but basically the once-a-decade exhibit displays any and all submissions so long as each one fits within one square foot. It took me a while to get the play on words.

The whole family joined me on the day I submitted my work and we had to wait in line for about twenty minutes before passing my piece, a 5 x 7 topography in teal, to the capable hands of a curator. While we were waiting in line, a man was interviewing other artists about their work and why they thought this might be their big break. He didn't interview me, but I'm in the background a few times in this video!

We returned a few weeks later after the exhibit had opened and searched among the thousands of pieces for my work. I was bit disappointed that we weren't all entitled a full square or cubic foot, but rather that we were bunched to fit as efficiently on the wall as possible. It would have been nice to make use of that white space, but truthfully, had the curators arranged the pieces that way, the exhibit would have eaten up an entire wing of the institute.

Here are a few photos of our visit.

Entering the second floor of the new wing and being welcomed by the overflowing art!



Finding the wall with my piece on it -- no easy task.



A closer look finds my work just above a photo of "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale at the Grey Gardens estate.



I was quite impressed with the caliber of talent and the variety of media used throughout the exhibit. Perhaps I expected more paint-by-number pieces or attempts at "anti-art" with pages torn from a notebook with the word "art" written on it. Instead, there were loads of fascinating, poignant, and downright beautiful works. I really should go back and take more time to take it all in.

Before leaving, my daughter requested I snap a photo of the gorgeous Chihuly piece hanging in the main lobby. She has affectionately dubbed it, the "flaming mac & cheese ball." It works for me.

Custom Pieces for Awesome People

The requests for custom pieces continue to roll in and have been my "bread and butter" lately. Each one is a new challenge that helps me to learn about places on the map as well as new techniques to render those places. Here's a look at some of the latest custom pieces I've created.



I was thrilled to recreate the lakes I lived nearly for nearly 9 years: Mendota, Monona, and Wingra in Madison, Wisconsin. The heart of the city of Madison, the state's capital, sits in the middle of the isthmus between these two sister lakes. Just before we moved back to Minnesota, Madison adopted the tag line "Madison: Lake, City, Lake." Clever, huh?



Two big trends have emerged in my latest batch of custom requests: islands & Canada! The close up above and the piece beside it is my version of the Lake of Bays in Ontario, not too far from where my hubby I honeymooned. What a gorgeous area!

Only an hour and half away lies the equally "Swiss-cheese" like body of water known as Lake Joseph



Man, do those prehistoric glaciers know how to tear it up, or what? :)

Taking the cake for "most timely" request is one of the Vancouver area. It was neat to work on this piece while the Olympics were taking place.



Not quite into Canada, but following a similar shape pattern is the lovely and historic Lake Champlain that sits between eastern New York and western Vermont.



This request came with a color set I haven't used in my own topographies but looks stunning none the less. Yes, you can order a topography to match your walls, or get close anyway.

I made another piece in this color set about a week prior and the colors were specifically chosen to pay homage to the vineyards on Martha's Vineyard:



I worked on my first couple of 8-layer custom requests. One for the very real and beautiful island of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands:



And one for the very surreal and lovely Never Neverland from Peter Pan!



Another island I conquered is that of Mumbai, India. I had no idea it was an island as it's barely cut off from the mainland by a river. Per the patron's request, I didn't feature any of the nearby land to accent the specific island region, and I added a star next to her hometown.



Below is a piece representing Samish Island in northwestern Washington. This island used to be an actual island, but after dikes were erected the land bridge emerged turning the island into more of a peninsula. The buyer of this piece described the area's lush flora and fauna to me in her request and it made my lust to visit Washington even greater.



The most complicated custom piece I've created so far is the piece I made of the Savannah, Georgia delta area, as part of a three-piece, custom-color set. Once I wrapped my mind around the idea that I was cutting out islands rather than trying to cut out the inlets, the process somehow became easier. Well, a little bit. It was a labor of love and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.


The other two pieces in the set were one of Chicago, seated at the southwestern corner of Lake Michigan, and Manhattan, with it's famed bridges connecting everyone to "where it's at." I'm not certain, but I think the Manhattan piece might be the first piece I've made where I've included bridges.



There's a three-way tie for my favorite custom pieces of the last two months. In no particular order the first one is this 12 x 12" piece of the chain of lakes near Fairmont in southern Minnesota.


Because I was taking in such a good chunk of land as my subject, the scale of the lakes was quite small and it was tricky moving the blade in such tight little curves. Overall, I really like the abstract look of it. It's the sort of piece that, when framed and on display, someone might say, "My, what a unique piece of art," whereupon the owner of this piece proudly exclaims,"It's a hand cut recreation of the chain of lakes near where I grew up." And to this the first person gasps excitedly and is left speechless at the wonder of it all. *cheese* ;) In short, I like it because, to me, it is both cool art and cool geography.

Second is this piece of Cape Neddick in southeastern Maine. This may be the first coastal-centered piece I've made and I really like the overall composition of this piece and the high contrast between the stark white on the left and the deep aqua on the right. And the cut of the ocean into the land is killer.



Finally, there's this piece. A piece made of custom colors chosen to represent striations of land as from erosion. I don't think I would have thought of this on my own, and the colors together seem to brighter and stronger than the sum of their parts. Yet another reason why I love making custom pieces.



As my work and techniques continue to evolve, I hope you'll see some of the details in these custom pieces in my non-custom work as well. I love my job!