Working the Land

uffta (OOF-tah): interjection: Exclamation of Norwegian origin, popular in strongly Scandinavian settlements in the upper Midwest, used to express surprise, bewilderment, astonishment, pity, pain, and fatigue. Syn. yikes, oh boy, whoa nelly, hoo-wee, good gravy.

I'm happy to report that the custom requests continue to pour into my shop at a nicely steady pace. While many of them remain in the style of my original lake-style bathymetries, the most recent requests have begun to grow legs and climb onto land for a look at the good life. Starting from the simplest, though not necessarily easiest, to the most complex, here's a look at what me and my trusty lil' blade have been up to lately.

The first piece is basically a reverse of my typical pieces. Instead of the land being a single, solid white layer with the water represented in layers of deepening color, the water here is a base layer of white, and the land is layered on top in the shades from light to dark. Abstract veining, or a chunk of Mobjack Bay, near Gloucester, Virgina?


Going with more land-like coloration, another patron requested a 12-layer representation of Little Switzerland, North Carolina. If you notice, there's a handful of little lakes scattered throughout this area as well.


Incorporating the water into the land-based topographies took off from there. Starting small, here is the stunning Plage du Pyla on the southwestern coast of France.


From here, it was an all-out war against my brains and hands to work both the land's topography and the water's depth into a single piece. Here is an artistically isolated Marrowstone Island, from the great state of Washington.

(detail)
(entire piece)
And it didn't get any easier from there. A request for the Rhode Island coastline near Westerly:

(detail)
(entire piece)
And then onto the largest lake in New Hampshire: Lake Winnipesaukee. I counted at least 53 islands here, not including the little hills of land that were islands of another sort.

(detail)

(entire piece)
Finally, the biggest, most time-taxing, brain-busting piece to date was actually a set of pieces. Two pairs of pieces of two different areas of Quebec -- Rouyn-Noranda and Montreal.

(detail)

(both sets)
(detail)
To answer a question that I'm sure many of you have in mind at this point, YES, these take a good, many hours to complete, and cutting the pieces is only a small portion of the process. For many of these, especially those attempting to capture a big area in a much smaller space, it's difficult to find easy-to-read topographic maps that generalize the land's topography enough to be of use. Most of the time, I need to zoom in to see the lines, choose which ones to follow, and then zoom out to work the lines into the piece itself. I feel like I add more wrinkles in my brain by doing this. It is mentally exhausting, and it is totally worth it. The results look way cool to me, and I'm excited to tackle some more. Not all areas seem to translate as well as others, but they all have an artful final look, and, best of all, the recipients get to own an original art map of the place they love.

You can say it with me: Uffta!

Collecting Topography & its Kin

As an artist who's been chest deep in topographies for about two years now, I keep an eye open for other forms of artful topography or topography-like art. I've started a collection and I'm happy to share some of what I've found so far. Today's selections showcase the variety of substances in which artists have worked in some very tasty topographies, intentionally or implied.Paper and wood are children of the same source, more or less, as plant pulp, and so it's equally gratifying for me to find awesome pieces made of either material. Starting close to home, the very talented Charles Clary crafted this beauty and others like it using the same paper I use:

Microbial Triple Diddle InfestationA closer look reveals these achingly awesome details, curves, lines, and depth. LOVE this stuff.
Microbial Triple Diddle Infestation (detail)I've come across these lovely wooden pieces at a nearby mall kiosk and had to stop, ogle, and smile. I'm fairly certain that the brains and skill behind Lakes of Wood and I could have a nice chat with one another about technique and trials.

A while back, a visitor to my shop referred me to this impressive gallery of work done by Chris Yates. My head spins just looking at all those layers!

Eagle-Vail, Colorado
And then there is the medium of fabric. I toyed a bit with this already, having made topography pillows a while ago, but I'm just not good enough yet to make it economical. Instead, I'll drool over these yummies.

Purl (detail) by Amy Honchell
Project Runway alum , Etsy shop owner, and fabric layering guru, Leanne Marshall designed a lovely collection of topography inspired dresses. If I get mega rich and famous for my art, I'm calling Leanne for my red carpet dress.


Perhaps my most favorite find is this A.MA.ZING concrete sink, created by the fine people of Gore Design Co. Their "erosion" sink is clever as all get out concept, and brilliant design. For the record, I have never so nearly swooned for a sink as I have for this. In the rich and famous daydream I mentioned above, I'm walking down that red carpet wielding this sink under one arm. It's that cool.

And while I'm swooning and daydreaming, I'll wrap myself in one of Leah Evan's impossibly gorgeous quilts, like this one:

Shoreline

or this one: Dark Estuary
Eee Gads, they're amazing. I think I would cry if I ever saw one in person. Or laugh joyfully. Or both, like the now infamous Double Rainbow Guy.

I'm fairly certain that I'll compile another list of kick-ass topographic and map-inspired work again, but for now I'll close with a fun flickr find. I hope you enjoyed this little tour as much as I have.

The deranged topography of ice

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!

When you say, "Craftstravaganza," you've said it all!

Last year, I took in my first St. Paul Craftstravaganza as a shopper, in awe of the awesomeness at every single booth (yes! None disappointed!), and taking mental notes for what I might do were I to tackle my own craft fair booth someday.
This year, with a couple of shows under my apron, I will be on the other side of the booth as a vendor, hoping to meet lots of cool folks, hug lots of new friends, and sell lots of my neat-o work! If any of you are in the area, please, please come and check it out. You will not leave empty handed. In addition to all the tempting goodies crafted and otherwise, there will be make & take demos, and I'm giving out free hugs! It's going to rock!

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.