A Special Dedication

Percy secretly called during my little hiatus a couple weeks back and I quietly mounted up for a ride. Sometimes deadlines for other work must be put off for things of the heart. I created these as a gift for my parents, who have been tremendously supportive to my husband and I recently.

The Harpist

My mother is a wonderful pianist, runs her own piano studio, occasionally composes sweetly yearning pieces, AND owns a lovely Andean folk harp she acquired while we lived in Ecuador. She only had a few lessons on it before the rest of life took over and the harp was put to slumber prettily in our living room corner. I hope that someday she will take it up again. The harp in this silhouette is modeled - loosely - after hers.

The Harpmaker

My father tunes pianos for a little extra income. As the provider of my mother's pianos, and mechanic to them, he inspired me to create a harpmaker. This piece was quite a challenge to compose. I decided to use an ancient Egyptian harp as the basis for the composition so that I could keep everything oriented horizontally - the Egyptian harp lends itself to horizontal lines because it is visually heavier at the bottom, unlike more contemporary harp shapes. Every time I sketched in a contemporary harp on it's side the composition felt awkward and overly complicated. I also like that it is in keeping with the general theme of ancient art that inspires most of my silhouettes.

I have plans for a new take on my silhouettes when I create a piece inspired by my Grandmother. But these will have to wait until I get back to and meet my current deadlines for commissions, etc.

Thanks for peeping in again! Have a lovely week!

Naming the Muse: An Embossing Give-Away!

I would like to invite you to participate in a very important decision: a name for my muse. To honor this sacred event (a little snickering as I type that) I'm going to do my first give-away. The prize will be a 4"x4" embossing which I will create for the winner.

To participate, please make your name suggestion by commenting on this post. A little exposition on meaning or why you think it's the perfect name would be welcome.

*Gentle Facebook Readers, please go directly to the blog to comment if you would like to be entered in the drawing. (Click on the title and you should be taken directly to this post.) Facebook comments will not be entered in the drawing for the prize but the names suggested will certainly be considered for the muse.

The winner of the personalized embossing will be randomly selected from all comments that suggest a new name. So the more new and original recommendations you make, the better your chance of winning. Comments about an already suggested name will not be counted. Comments must be received by 5:00 am EST, Monday, June 15th. The contest winner will be announced later that day. Whoever wins must then contact me about your embossing within 48 hours. If I do not hear from the first winner, another name will be drawn. Instructions for contacting me will be on the post announcing the winner.

As to the name I actually choose for my muse . . . wait on. I see another give-away in my future.

Now, for your consideration - this muse's characteristics:
Willful, deeply loyal and oddly fearless but very slothful, insanely fun to ride, wiry, aloof, illusive, distracted, mercurial, original but not witty, vaguely annoying but deeply endearing

Making an impression . . .

How to make a striking and memorable impression with my first blog post? Hmmm. How about taking that a little more literally?


I'm currently in the throws of remaking my store front on Etsy and attempting to actually execute a few art projects I've had on my heart for some time now. It has me in a very happy-hap-hazard way. Despite the erratic way in which I've been working, there are a few results and I've posted the beginnings here for you.


So, back to literal impressions - these are paper embossings I've been doing by hand on light-weight, cotton-rag paper, using tin-embossing tools. I'm loving the way these turn out! However, I cannot use my right hand for the rest of the day after completing one. This is a bit inconvenient. I'm going to try an even lighter weight paper on the next one. If this does not solve the hand-ache problem, I'm hoping that practice will strengthen my hand muscles. (I'm a notoriously light-touch when drawing - art profs used to yell at me to "press down".) Either way I don't intend to stop doing them.

As to what these embossings are - initially, I was going to name my shop "Efemera". That didn't really work; somehow it brings up visions of libraries. I love libraries, but that's not what my art is all about. And the lettering style is a bit more "Ren Faire" than I intended. I'm not a very focused artist. My creative productivity manifests itself rather inconsistently and my inspirations tend to be incoherent. Simply put, my "muse" suffers from attention deficit disorder. She needs therapy. "House of Trouble" surfaced while I was looking at old carnival and sanatorium images on Google. And there it is.

The centauress is what I imagine my muse would look like if she appeared in bodily form. Mythical, strong, and a little, well, bizarre, but not unfriendly. I intend to Photoshop her into the "House of Trouble" lettering to create a banner/logo for my store. We'll see how that goes.

Other plans include creating a stamp or embosser with the logo for creating hangtags, letterhead, and other such nonsense. I will be impressed if any of those materialize - maybe your watching my progress on this blog will inspire me to more responsible execution. Please keep an eye on me!

Cheers,
Catherine