Bring On the Monks!

Monks! The Drepung Gomang Monks are in town! 

All the way from India and exile from Tibet. 

Right here, in Rochester, NY ... my hometown ... where I am lucky and thankful to not live in exile from my people, my culture, and my choice of religion. 

They are here to pray for healing and compassion. They are here to celebrate life and the amazing, wondrousness of it all. 

Most of all they are here to let us know our suffering does not go unheeded or without love and empathy. Unconditionally. From all four corners of the earth and beyond.

I'm over-the-top excited about this. Not only because I get a chance to see them make a sand mandala and hear them chant three chords at once, but because the Drepung Gomang monks are visiting a place near and very dear to my heart - The Creative Wellness Coalition. 

From 2000 - 2007, I worked there as the Impressions Gallery Curator (at what was then called the Mental Health Coalition, lovingly known as "The Coalition"). Now known as the Creative Wellness Coalition (CWC), the CWC is a non-profit, peer-run organization (meaning all staff has a personal experience with mental health issues) dedicated to helping people with mental illness live full lives. 

The gallery I curated exclusively exhibited and sold the artwork of individuals with mental health issues. That gallery was my heart and soul, and the artists I was blessed to represent are all amazing people with amazing stories of triumph through and over suffering. 

I cannot imagine a better place in town to have a giant celebration of healing, understanding, and most of all, compassion towards ourselves, each other, and this place in which we all must live together. 

Several of the events of this amazing visit have already occurred. I'm not on the ball with this post (or much else this past week with all the migraines). I guess I need some healing compassion of my own.

Today, Sunday, and Monday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM the Drepung Gomang Monks will be building a sand mandala at the Creative Wellness Coalition. 

Click here for the schedule. 

Tibetan handcrafted merchandise from the Himalayas will be available for purchase. Bring a T-shirt and have it personalized with your name in Tibetan Sanskrit!

At 2:00 PM on Monday, August 6, 2012, the closing ceremony will begin. The monks will walk the sand from the mandala to the Genesee River in the middle of downtown Rochester. To symbolize the impermanence of all that exists, the colored sands are swept up and poured into a nearby river or stream where the waters carry the healing energies throughout the world. 

On Tuesday, August 7, 2012, there will be a Traditional Tibetan Soup Dinner at the Danforth Community Center, 200 West Avenue, Rochester, NY 14611. Monks and teen leaders will prepare soup in the afternoon and serve to the community beginning at 5:00.  Seating is first-come basis.

That's right! The Creative Wellness Coalition has everything from soup to monks! (Sorry. I couldn't resist.)

With that horrible pun (that will be making me giggle for a few hours at least), I leave you to cross everything else off your calendar for the next few days and go hang out with the monks. Yeah, I know Park Ave Fest is going on. The CWC is just a few blocks up N Goodman St from there! Anyway, it's over 95 degrees today. Go to the CWC where it's cool inside!

I'm hoping to spend much of Sunday there! Join me and let's share some loving kindness. And lots of hugs!

Drepung Gomang Monks

Creative Wellness Coalition

320 N Goodman St

Rochester, NY 14607
--> THE SCHEDULE <--

For more information call 585-325-3145 x 144

- Vickie

Midsummer Mini Mayday Craft + Art Show

Did you hear?! It's time for a Midsummer Mini Mayday Craft + Art Show! Yippee!

The creators of the now famous Mayday Underground Craft + Art shows here in Rochester decided November was waaaay too long to wait to bring you more indie crafty goodness. 

Say "Yay for Midsummer Mini Mayday!" 

No, really. Say it. It rhymes. :)

If you are one of the 20 first shoppers through the door you get a FREE swag bag filled with goodies from the fantastic vendors! 

There is swag from me at In My Head Studios! I made handmade, tiny, original paper collage domino keychains! How cute are these?!

They are truly one-of-a-kind and Tiny Works of Awesome! I made them with my own handmade stamps, handpainted paper, and words from books. Right now only 20 of these exist so snagging some swag from me will be special!

Here are the details:
Midsummer Mini Mayday!Saturday, July 28, 201210 AM - 4 PMThe Decibel Lounge45 Euclid StreetRochester, NY 14604Plenty of free parking!!
Just over 20 of the most creative, indie artists and designers in Rochester will be there! I'm excited to see my crafty pals! 
I better see YOU there, too! 
Happy Saturday! 

- Vickie

LOVE: Index-Card-A-Day 2012: 6/28/12

For so long I have been blown away by some scrapbook pages - the kind with the sort of minimalist use of space with a lot of design and embellishment in one area around the photo. Particularly the work of Finnabair makes my brain pop. It's amazing, and I would love to speak to this artist about her work. 

After several attempts at this type of collage, I had kind of given up on getting it how I wanted. But I am not one to give up that easily. So I studied her work and the work of her peers. I studied the composition, layers, and colors. I deconstructed the pieces in my head and put them back together.

Of course this made for a good Index-Card-A-Day 2012 challenge. I'm trying NEW things for #icad2 and using up supplies I haven't even touched or have been saving forever. Time to open the scrap box...

... and pull everything out but the kitchen sink! Here we have random book pages, tickets, a cardboard coffee sleeve, tags, baker's twine, staples, stars, old paper from books and ledgers, sheet music, a paper clip, envelopes, a money band, washi tape, canvas, embroidery trim, a star brad, hangtag packaging, and stitching. 

I literally spent hours and hours fiddling, and that turned into about three days of pushing bits and bobs around to get this done. I simply had to walk away from it several times to clear my head. At one point, all of it finally "clicked into place" - the layers, the arrangement, colors, and textures. 

A lot of this was experimentation. Not knowing where I'm going with something can be very freeing to me. I asked things of my paper punches that only a mad scientist would try. I added some collage. Then went to the sewing machine. Then to the paint, and on and on until basically I made a tour of my studio in supplies and paper ephemera. 

My goal was to use these things in an "as is" condition as much as possible. I love how the ledger paper holes look as a design element. The letters for "LOVE" are stamped on the edge of a vintage dictionary page; I wanted to preserve the red edges as well as take advantage of the natural patina of the old paper.  

I'm happy with the result. Even more though, I am happy that I TRIED this. Even if it had turned out to be a total FAIL, I still faced the edges of my comfort zone with courage and smashed those barriers to smithereens. I cannot recommend anything more highly than getting off your duff and doing that thing which scares you most in your art. 

Just. Do. It.

It's just paper, after all. Right? 

Right.  

- Vickie

"Home Sweet Home" ICAD2 for 6/21/12

Ok, I might be making the Index-Card-A-Day Challenge a little more challenging than I hoped and/or planned. I've just been so inspired! I didn't realize my brain needed a little discipline to work on something everyday, and now I am hungry, hungry, hungry for art all the time. I LOVE this!
This card is from June 21, 2012. It definitely took me more than one day to do this. I'm not getting a card a day done -  and I gave myself permission to do that at the start. However, I do believe I am still benefitting from this challenge like crazy. If I'm not getting one card a day done then I am at least working on one (or two or three at a time) each day. AND THAT COUNTS.


This house, bird, and nest image is something I've worked on before in different formats - for domino pendants and ATCs. Now I felt it needed an ICAD2 work-up. 
I started by making a house shaped template that fit the index card. I cut the house out of another index card, pasted scrapbook paper over it, and added the tissue tape. Then I stitched around the edges on my sewing machine.  
The sky is layered torn dictionary pages secured with matte medium. I added some watered down blue paint then splattered really watery gesso over it. I left the torn edges because they reminded me of deckled edges on handmade paper. The edge was then shaded with a darker blue Copic marker. 
The lettering is hand stamped in red pigment ink - which I had to stamp a billion times because I always mess up the last letter and ruin it. It's matted with dark red cardstock. The edges are inked to "age" and soften them. 


The bird and nest images are from flickr's collage images group. I love the detail and texture in these pieces. My printer went light on the ink for this printing - not sure why. I went back over the pictures with colored pencils to bring out the color more. The gleaming highlight in the bird's eye is a dot of white gel pen. I also highlighted the eggs with white gel pen. 


After I adhered the bird and nest to the background it all looked very flat. I used colored pencils to shade around the bird and nest for some dimension. It really perked the piece up. I also ran a thin line of dark brown pencil to the very edges of the paper of the collage images to bring them out more. 


Oh, how I love using foreign postage stamps in my collage! I have about 20 pounds of old stamps (anyone need any?). I chose this one for the color and the country of origin - France - so it would tie in with the tissue tape behind it that has French on it.  


The back of the index card has the stitching I did with my sewing machine. I love sewing on paper. I'm stamping the date the card is finished on the back. I should go back and add some more details to the information of the piece. 

"home sweet home" Index-Card-A-Day2
Mixed media & paper collage on index card
3"x 5"
© 2012 Victoria Porter/In My Head Studios

This ICAD2 looks adorable on a tiny easel I found at the craft store! 

I am a bit behind on posting more ICADs that I have finished. There's much more to come!

- Vickie

What's On My Worktable? : Wednesday

It's Wednesday! Time to peek at my work table for "What's On Your Worktable Wednesday" over at The Stamping Ground blog! 

Today I am working on another Index-Card-A-Day (ICAD2). I'm going to use the red thread to sew around the house shape - which is my ICAD for today. The postage stamp, bird, and nest will be going on the house. For the buttons, I am still undecided. They sure do look good with the colors in the ICAD. Might have to get them into the design somehow.  

The paper covered spool is part of a gift for my bestie so I cannot say more about it just yet. :)

I just noticed in the photo that you can see the back of my scrap paper - an old unused coupon from my favorite craft store! Seriously folks, I recycle everything. 

Also of interest, the amount of space on my table shown here is pretty much all that is cleared off enough to work in. Hello, Six Inch Square Club! 

- Vickie