I recently made a cookbook for my boyfriend filled with all the recipes we've done together. I have been making many things recently, but I can't post as most of them were gifts and I'm unsure if they've been received yet. Without further ado:
Here are some screen shots of the pages as I was designing them, so that there's no yellow light and you can actually see what I made!
Although I think the screenshots turned out quite pretty, the book itself is really great and probably one of my best yet. Quote: my boyfriend. Yay!
So I had a show! I'm sorry I didn't post about it on here, it was a bit last minute. It was entitled Art Without Ego and was held here in Philadelphia in the Kensington area. We had over 30 artists exhibiting in an amazing old warehouse. But here are some pictures of my work and I. There are more pictures to come!
I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to the lovely Rachel Kinback, who I shared my space with. I think our work really compliments each others. Although I'm biased, I'd say our room felt the most cohesive out of all the rooms in the warehouse. Hooray for good work!
And finally, though there were many cool pieces of work here, I need to share this string installation by Lukas Weidner and Keristin Gaber (of Fox and Doe Photography). It was amazing.
All photos unless otherwise noted taken by Betty Breznay. Please visit bettyphotog.com to see more of her work.
Thank you for coming out, all that could make it! If you didn't come I feel bad for you. Tons of live music, a huge space, more food and drinks than I could ever imagine, great art, and even greater people. Thank you Caliper Guild, LLC for hosting us in your space, and thank you to all of the artists who came together and made our event a great success!
I am still alive. I have a new job at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia! For those who don't know what that is, it's an educational foundation with one of the greatest art collections in the US. This includes the largest collections of Renoirs in the world. I'm so surprised that isn't in France!
Can't believe I work in this beautiful building.
Anyway, while I am enjoying working full time, it has certainly left me with less time to pursue artistic endeavors. I made something recently, but am giving it as a present, so I have to wait until after I give it to post pictures. Sorry everyone! I promise it's well worth the wait.
I'll leave you with some links to what I've been fascinated by recently.
There might be two Mona Lisas. What do you think? I feel that this video makes a pretty convincing argument through primary source documentation, that strange Raphael sketch, and the mathematics of these two portraits
Finally, Motoi Yamamoto is amazing. Please check out this video to see how these are created. I think the transient quality of these really reminds me of mandalas drawn i the sand. The salt and its shape is so ephemeral. As an artist, he cannot feel attached to it, or must do his best to maintain a distance from it. I know I have extreme difficulty parting with my best work (which I must do in order to make a living), I cannot imagine creating work of such a transient nature that it will undoubtedly be destroyed. Also, it reminds me of freshly fallen snow, so beautiful that you don't want to disturb it, yet there's something in you that is begging to run out and make a mess.
This book by Tauba Auerbach is one of the most beautiful objects I can imagine. First of all, it's a cube. Offset printing and airbrushed to show every conceivable color in the spectrum. Daniel E. Kelm designed the binding. How on earth does one bind a cube like that. It's amazing. Honestly was considering how on earth I could buy one for a while...
This was a big undertaking. Made a box for the parcheesi board. I'll explain the details as we move on with the pictures. This was my first box ever!
This is the box closed. I used an Indian paper, made from recycled saris for the cover. Parcheesi is mounted on a contrasting Indian paper, also made from recycled saris, which matches the boxe's interior. "Parcheesi" is printed on Luxe Cream. The Indian Paper is because Parcheesi is based on the traditional Indian game of Pachisi, also known as Ludo in Britain.
The box top has a border, and "Parcheesi" is sunk into the box. This detail photo helps to show it.
The box open looks like this. It's a drop spine box, so the spine flattens out, like a book. I inserted a ribbon to hel with lifting the board out, since it is quite heavy. I also created six compartments - four for the pieces of Parcheesi, one for the die, and one for the chalk (if you guys remember the other side of this is a chalk board).
View of the box without the board in it. Half of the ribbon is attached to the box, so its primary purpose really is just to lift the game.
Detail view of the compartments. I inserted ribbon to help list the die out, since they do kind of sink into their compartment. I did the same for the chalk. I may have tiny hands that are able to get these things out, but I know not everyone does.
Hi guys. Remember that boyfriend birthday beer bottle banner I made a few weeks ago? Wow, that was alliterative. Anyway, today I just randomly pulled out some strawberry paper to show a customer how the silhouette machine at Paper Source works, and pulled up the beer template. Once I saw the cut outs, I knew I was inspired! The flowers are just recycled Cavallini calendars that I cut out using a scissors. The lettering is hand done by me!
I'm thinking these would make some great mother's day gifts. Let me know if you want one!
I just think the practice pages look so nice! At this rate I'll never move on to full work. But I wanted to show you guys that I really am trying to learn. Really.
So I found these old book covers at an antique shop and couldn't help but think how they'd make a great book. This has been a project I've been putting off for a while. It just felt so good to finally get it done. Coptic bound with rose and cream Ingres papers, this is a really nice journal. Hope everyone likes it!
So I decided to throw a surprise belated birthday party for Matt. His real birthday coincides with Easter weekend, so no one could make it and it had to be the next weekend. For decorations I made a baner that looks like beer bottles (since he brews his own beer).
I used the silhouette machine at my work to create each bottle, so all the sizing was correct. They are cut out of Paper Source Chocolate Cover weight 8 1/2 x 11". I then colored the bottles with white (for the glass glares) and gold (for the caps) pens to give them some cute, realistic details. The final touch was adding the labels, which are Paper Bag 2.5" circles. The original Tennyson Alice in Wonderland illustration of the late rabbit ties together the belated theme. Sorry my wall is kind of boring if not for the bottles.
Now wouldn't you like to have a present like this? Wrapped for the ever so handsome Matt. Happy Birthday! Blurred out some words so he/I won't be embarrassed.
