I've Been Examined by The Examiner

You can’t make art in a vacuum. I firmly believe it takes community. Rochester, NY has one of the finest art communities in the nation. Having made the foray into doing local art and craft shows, I have had the opportunity to meet many fellow local artists. I find this group of people to be excellent networkers, sharers, and cheerleaders. I can’t believe some of the opportunities that have come up for me as a result of all this art love here.

Today I am especially grateful for a local connection I made with a reporter named Kathleen Landers from The Examiner at the MayDay Underground Arts + Crafts show in May. Kathleen has written a deeply humbling story about my artwork and me. She really took the time through phone calls and many emails to get to know me and what fuels my artistic passions. I could not be happier with how her article turned out. Click the screenshot of the article above to go read it.

“Kathleen is a Rochester native who owns her own decorative painting business and displays her work in local shops and art shows. Inspiration is fostered when seeking out area talent and she loves sharing concepts she's learned.” - Kathleen’s Bio on The Examiner

The Examiner consists of local news, events and attractions, real estate, shopping, and more where you can find local top breaking news and perspectives by trusted local experts. The Examiner serves 240 markets in the United States and Canada. The site is broken down into local pages, such as the Rochester, NY Examiner. There is probably a local Examiner for your area.

To keep the celebration going the Rochester NY Etsy Street Team (RNEST) is holding a giveaway on their blog for one of my new domino pendants (pictured below). Check out the post on Wednesday, June 16th for details and a chance to win! Many thanks go out to Michelle of The Quilted House for organizing the RNEST giveaway and blog post!

"Sophisticated Squares" Altered Domino Pendant you could win. The contest starts on Wednesday, June 16th on the RNEST blog.

This domino pendant was created from a larger original work of art I made especially for my line of domino pendants. It is printed on high quality photo paper and ink. This process allows me to create stunning detail on a small scale.

So hop on over to The Examiner post and get to know me better! And don't forget to enter the RNEST giveaway on Wednesday! I'll post about that again so you don't miss it!

Have a happy day!

Red Hat Domino Pendant

At the last craft show we did at St. Rita’s School I got several custom order requests. This was the first time this happened at a craft show so, as you can imagine, I was thrilled. I adore doing custom work. I love the challenge of figuring out exactly what my customer wants and making it happen.

One very kind lady said she plays dominoes with her friends. And one of her friends is into the Red Hat Society. So she asked me if I could make a Red Hat domino pendant. It’s interesting to say, “Yes, I can do that!” before I actually have a plan of how to do it. But if I stood there and thought about it for too long the customer would walk away. So I say “yes” to these things without really knowing what I’m going to do. I have to tease information out of the customer. More often they know what they don’t want more than they know what they do want. I like sifting through that information to form an idea. So I quickly came up with thoughts about feathers and rhinestones. She agreed to the design and I went from there. This is the finished product.

I let the light hit the extreme shininess of this one to show you just how glossy these end up if all goes well. This has two layers of sealer on it. It looks like it is encased in glass!

I used white ink to stamp on the purple and red cardstocks. I made a little template of a hat so I can reproduce this design later. Then I made little fake feathers out of lilac paper. Real feathers would have ended up looking wet under the sealer so I had to improvise. I added a tiny rhinestone for some additional shine. I tied red and purple beads onto the black waxed cotton cord.

Now it’s off in the post for this one. I hope my customer likes it! And I hope her friend likes it, too!

This would be a really good time to contact me at inmyheadstudios@gmail.com about custom orders. The earlier the better as I have quite the busy schedule coming up with shows and the holidays and the Etsy Twitter Team. You dream it… I can do it! Let’s work on something together!