Shows!! There Are Shows!

Networking locally and, well, just showing up has netted a few shows for my calendar for the next two weeks. Yay for just showing up!

Thanks to my buddies on the Rochester NY Etsy Street Team (RNEST), I finally made it to a monthly RNEST meeting. One of our members, Chrys from aDifferentView, still needed some folks for b’Zart: a community celebration & art/craft sale to benefit Golisano Children's Hospital.

b’Zart is not going to be a stuffy “black tie” fundraising event. This is a party! I love that when I go to “work” I’m really going to big parties!

Expect an evening of festivities and entertainment, complete with drink specials, skee-ball, and darts. Skee-ball!! They are also offering a raffle with great prize packages; all ticket proceeds to benefit the hospital. I put a domino pendant into the raffle. Really, isn’t that all the incentive you need?

Several of my crafty RNEST pals will be there along with local musicians. It’s going to rock!

Come get your Tiny Works of Awesome from In My Head Studios!

b'Zart

Saturday, May 28, 2011

5 – 11 PM

The Firehouse Saloon

814 S. Clinton Ave (corner of Meigs St)

Rochester, NY 14620

15% of In My Head Studios’s sales will benefit the Golisano Children's Hospital

I'm giving out a secret coupon code for b'Zart on the In My Head Studios Facebook page sometime this week. "Like" me and you'll get it as an update!

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I am humbled and honored to be invited again to be at reHatched: Female Artist Showcase Series on Saturday, June 4th at Tango Café. Amanda has a great line up of female musicians, poets, and artists. I thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment at the last reHatched show I did. It’s well worth the ticket price, which also gets you into another upcoming reHatched event. So it’s two for one!

reHatched: Female Artist Showcase Series

Saturday, June 4, 2011

7 – 10:30 PM

Tango Cafe

389 Gregory Street

Rochester, NY 14620

$10 pre-sold tickets*, $12 at the door*

*Please contact me at inmyheadstudios[at]gmail.com to purchase your pre-sale tickets.*

*Ticket sale includes (1) complimentary glass of house wine (red or white), free admission to (1) additional upcoming reHatched Event (the first Saturday of each month through September), AND a jam packed evening full of live entertainment and art from some of the area's most talented women*

I just might give out another secret coupon code for reHatched on the In My Head Studios Facebook page sometime next week. "Like" me and you'll get it as an update if I do!

Start supporting your community by supporting your fellow local artists, musicians, and poets. It not only helps them keep doing what they love, but it really does bring money to our area by creating small indie businesses and jobs.

I'll see you Saturday!

- Vickie

Where The Magic Might Be Under That Thing Over There

You can ask me where anything is in this mess and I can pinpoint it with amazing accuracy. Click the image and go see it at flickr. I made notes on it so you know what all this junk is. Mostly it is stuff that I just have not put away from the studio having to be downstairs for a while. Mr. M just brought most of it back up here for me today. That is the only reason anything is organized in little containers like this. :)

I'm posting this frightening look into my studio for the Shopping Our Stash (SOS) Challenge.

Clearly I have a stash. A big one. Please do not alert the fire department. The challenge is to start using up the untouched, virgin supplies I have been saving for "that perfect project". You know, that one? Right!

SOS is hosting a weekly challenge starting May 24th. Right now they are kicking it off with a Kick-Off Open House and showing our stash or studio spaces. There's some blog candy giveaway going on for showing us your studio or stash!

My Twitter buddies Leslie, The Crooked Stamper and Lisa from PaperGrace Designs are part of the SOS Crew. They are very talented paper artists and I am humbled to even enter a challenge they are doing as well. So I already know I ain't gonna win (unless they have a messiest award). :)

Click for a bunch of notes on this photo at flickr

Why do I have such a stash? Sometimes the supplies I buy are too pretty to mess up. Little embellishments, sparklies, fancy little doo dads... Oh, shiny! They are too pretty to be used on my trashy work, right?

Do you catch yourself saying that in your head? I do. It's a buzz killer. Let's stoppit. Ok?

Now I give myself permission to mess up create beauty with the fancy doo dads and sparkly things! I'm going to break into the expensive Distress Crackle Paint, the big sheets of expensive handmade paper (gasp!), and the other paper. Oh, the paper. It's a real problem. I have no reason at all to buy any new paper. Or more old paper for that matter.

So off to the stash!! Use it up! Make room for more stash! Er... I mean make room for spaciousness in your studio!

- Vickie

The Mayday Underground Experience

Looky at the happy people talking about Mayday Underground Crafts + Art! Yippee!!

See? Art creates joy. No one looks angry here, do they?

Right now the next Mayday Underground is scheduled for November 5th at The Main Street Armory. They will announce applications probably in June*. Head over to the website and sign up for the mailing list so you'll be notified when applications go up for the best indie show in Rochester, NY.

- Vickie

* Don't quote me on that.

It Got Better... Way Better

Today kind of started off in “meh”-mode. Just could not wake up today and focus. I reserve these days for goofing off.

“How can you tell?”, you ask.

Don’t get smart.

So I answered emails, edited photos, and poked around in the mess on my work table. I tweeted. A lot. Maybe too much. But can you blame me? Today, the local paper listed me as a Rochester Young Professional “Tweep” To Follow (in the slideshow). Yeah. Uh huh. I’m a big deal on Twitter. That’s right. Make way.

Then the postman rang our doorbell (just once) because he didn’t want to leave a big box on my porch (for once). It was my new digital camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS6. Joy! Alas, I was too excited to open the box. Seriously. I was all thumbs and knew I would either rip one of those thumbs open with the box cutter or drop my new precious the moment I got my sweaty thumbs on it. Trust me, I know all of this from experience. I made Mr. M open it. And oh, it’s so shiny and pretty. I finally own a Leica lens!

The day kept getting better.

My artsy pal Kelly (aka @craftyb) met her Kickstarter funding goal for Once Upon A Time. I adore the work she and Larry Moss do with balloons, photography, and illustration. I donated because I want to see the amazing they are going to make.

I had an awesome phone call with my friend of about 13+ years, Christi (aka Rain). We seem to be on some parallel/crossing/same paths lately in a woo woo, get-out-of-my-head way that I am thoroughly digging. So we pow wow a lot about it. Today was nothing short of a powerful pow wow.

Christi knows everyone in town. You need it, she can find it. Arts, music, poetry… She knows who you need to know or can point you there. She is an extremely talented poet, musician, singer/songwriter, and visual artist. She invited me to her performance Saturday night. Mr. M and I planned to attend and to meet the organizers as Christi thought these events would be a good fit for my art. I wanted to promote Christi so I sent a short Facebook message to the organizer about needing a higher resolution image of their poster to put here on my blog.

Then The Universe stepped in.

One of the female artists they showcase Saturday needed out and they needed someone. I was just in the right place at the right time. Or The Universe shoved me into the right place. I don’t know. But it’s woo woo, right? Luck? Hard work paying off?

I am nothing short of thrilled to be asked to be part of this show! Woo hoo for female artists!

Please come down to the delightfully charming

Tango Café

on

Saturday, May 7, 2011

from

7 – 10:30 PM!
389 Gregory Street
Rochester, NY

I’ll have my Tiny Works of Awesome in case you missed us at Mayday Underground! Your pre-sale $10 ticket ($12 at the door) gets you a glass of wine and admission to another reHatched event (every first Saturday through September) in addition to the rocking awesome music, art, poetry, food, and wine! Tickets can be purchased through local participants, at Tango Cafe, and also through the Local Visionaries website (www.localvisionaries.weebly.com)

If The Universe is bringing me there I think you should pay attention, too! Be there! Bring your molecules where my molecules will be having a fun party!

- Vickie

Mayday Underground Crafts + Art: Spring 2011

Mayday Underground Crafts + Art is my favorite show ever! That’s not hyperbole!

The Main Street Armory, where Mayday Underground Crafts + Art was held, is an enormous and beautiful venue. I, in the 22 years I have lived in Rochester, have not had cause to go there for anything, thus solidifying my hermit status even more. Luckily I trusted my gut about lighting. I was worried it might be dark in a big, vast space like that so I checked off “yes” for electricity on the application just in case, even though I don’t have a light set-up ready to go. Yep, day-of-the-show improvisation. That’s me, much to my mom’s and Mr. M’s chagrin. Of course, I didn’t actually pack the lights or extension cords, and I had to politely ask Mr. M to go home and get them. He politely obliged. He rocks!

We were sort of in that no-man’s land at the far end of an aisle past the point where people would turn to cross over to the next aisle. They would have missed us completely because we were in the dark under the balcony overhang. Amanda so very nicely said we could move out a little on an angle. We were very careful not to take too much advantage of that though, as it wasn’t super fair to the other vendors under the balcony. I think everyone in that aisle should have been moved out about five feet and into the light.

The extra lighting we brought made a huge difference. I believe it contributed greatly to the near-record breaking show total we made. Lighting is definitely on the list for future shows. I hope to find some battery powered halogen lights, if they even exist. (My dad could have made them for me if he was still around, goshdarnnit.)

I still cannot believe the positive responses to my work. I am so lucky to be doing what I do. Art can be a solitary life with little to no feedback on a day-to-day basis. Then you do a show and you get filled up with about six hours of happy dance from customers. It makes the solitary confinement worth it! It gives me an answer to the times I am in the studio asking myself,

“Why am I even bothering with this?! Does anyone even care?!”

So I have to work to hold on to the feelings of show days to remind myself that I’m not just pushing paper and paint around on canvas or dominoes.

I am creating joy.

I lose sight of that until I see smiles when people are looking at and buying my work.

The talent at this show was unbelievable. I think it was the best collection of artists I have ever seen at an indie show. The number of young indie artists was greatly encouraging (I think I have recently aged out of the “young” category, I’m afraid). Nice to see the newbies getting their feet wet! Of course it’s always fun to hang with my Rochester NY Etsy Street Team buddies! I was next to my pals Michelle from The Quilted House and Stefani from Pine Tree Designs!

On a side note: The doors to the stalls in the bathroom at The Armory were gorgeous antique wood doors. Tall and slim and carved with really ornate designs. But they left me feeling more like I was walking into a church confessional than a bathroom stall! It kind of creeped me out and made me laugh at the same time.

"We Are Queens"; original mixed media collage on 6"x"8" gallery wrapped canvas; available for sale

Rochester needs more shows like this. Amanda and Casey and all the Mayday vendors have proven three times now that this city supports indie shows. Let’s have more!

The next Mayday Underground is slated for November! See you there!

- Vickie