I Like This Dress... A LOT

I'm in love with this dress. I have no particular occasion for it, but I will be saving my pennies to make this purchase! Urban Outfitters never disappoints me.

My Friends Are SO Talented!

This past week at the beach, my friends Chase and David treated us to an impromptu mini-concert! Aside from being extremely talented artistically, I had no idea how musically talented they both are! After they finished playing, I was beaming and told them how proud I was of them- needless to say I caught a lot of crap for it:) Regardless, it was a real treat to hear them play! Here are a few clips from two of my favorite songs- Enjoy! (p.s. I don't know why the videos are grainy, but its the sound that counts)

Goodbye 523 Jackson Avenue

Its official, come Friday (May 22nd), our beloved yellow brick house will no longer be "home". My mom has decided to sell our home and move into a brand new house and give it the charm and character of our past houses. This has all happened so quickly but I understand that it's for the best. Its hard to imagine that Wednesday will be the last time I head home to 523 Jackson Avenue. Its bittersweet. I will miss our house deeply- it's where my mom so bravely let me paint my room neon green, where I had many sleep overs and get-togethers before school dances, where I got my first kiss, where I baked my first cake from scratch, where I used to chase my brothers with golf clubs when they would gang up on me, where so many things happened- it's where I grew up. Its hard to say goodbye to the house that I hated when we moved in, but that we made our own. My sweet Evan has offered the best insight as he has moved something like 9 times- he told me that for him,"home isn't a building, home is a place and the people within that place" I have found much comfort in this thought and I still look forward to returning home to beautiful Lexington, Virginia.

Back to Reality

I've been at the beach since last Saturday afternoon and have taken a hiatus from life. It has been absolutely amazing, I can't think of anything better I could have done for myself this week. I feel rested and recuperated from the semester. Throughout this past week, with a lot of time on my hands and little on my mind, I have found myself appreciating the world and its natural beauty. Okay, okay, so I'm not trying to be all sappy or deep, but- I realized this week how much I miss out on when I am focusing so much on everything else. I have taken special care to pay attention to the little things, such as natural textures and patterns; the woodgrain on a fence, the bark on a tree, the texture of the millions of broken shells in the sand, the veins in leaves of plants, its all so beautiful. I think that my recent piece in which I took photographs of found peeling paint and embroidered over them drew my attention to the small, beautiful things that go unnoticed. I'm curious to see where this new found interest in discreet beauty takes me.

When I took this photo, I was just snapping random shots of the fence around our pool. When I look at this photo I see a face, with quite the personality.

The cracking wood on the walkway- I found this texture appealing.

Just a pile of stuff I encountered on a walk along the beach, the "stuff" became much more interesting up close.

I'm a Senior?

I am finally finished! This round of finals seemed to be the roughest yet- not because they were harder, they just seemed to drag on and on. But now I'm finished and can barely believe that I am a senior! Its amazing how quickly time flies. Tomorrow I am headed to the beach with a bunch of friends. I have been looking forward to this for months- its going to be wonderful to relax for an entire week! I will not have my computer with me for a week, so I will not be posting. However, when I return, I hope to have a nice tan and many great stories!

Flashback

Being in the midst of finals and thinking back about my art work and how it has evolved, some of my favorite pieces are still from AFO. I thought I'd occasionally take a walk down memory lane and post some of my older work. This piece is where I became inspired by textiles, and is a huge reason for why I am studying Crafts and Material studies. For this piece, I dyed all of the fabric, and sewed it together, creating a "map" of the sewing machine. The way the light shines through the sewing holes in many places is beautiful.

Last Piece Of The Semester!

Of my three final textile projects, I am happiest with this one. I was excited about my idea from the beginning but had doubts about my execution- luckily it turned out well! For this project, I used cyanotype fabric, which is a light sensitive fabric (sensitive to UV rays). When you place an opaque object on the fabric in direct sunlight, you get an image transfer onto the fabric. This fabric is great, but a lot of work and you have to be meticulous about the process. For this piece, I drew 5 old houses, then copied each house twice onto transparencies and then placed the transparencies on the fabric out in the sun with a protective layer of glass to keep the drawing in place. After exposing the images, I rinsed the material, bleached the color out, using trisodium phosphate, and then tea stained the fabrics. While I was expecting the tea stain to be more of a sepia tone, I was pleasantly surprised with the coffee brown. After staining them, I embroidered on each house, highlighting details. This piece is a series of five separate houses that are hung in a straight line.





A few detail shots...

The Little Things That Make You Smile

After my final critique for my textiles class today, I realized how exhausted and burnt out I am. I went home and got straight into my cozy bed and felt a little sorry for myself. I have gotten in over my head and have agreed to do way too much and its finally getting to me. A little while later, I forced myself to get out of bed and head over to babysit. After the boys ate their dinner, I gave them each half of a chocolate iced donut with sprinkles for dessert. Mosby was so excited about his delicious donut. As I was washing the dishes I couldn't help but giggle to myself at the "yummy!" Mosby was repeatedly squealing. After he "finished" his donut, he brought me his plate with the half donut still on it and all of the sprinkles gone. I asked him if he wanted to eat his donut and he just shook his head and walked away. Sprinkles were all this sweet little boy wanted- I found myself smiling until I finished the dishes. Its funny how such little things can brighten your day.

Another Finished Piece!

I have always loved old things, old furniture, houses, clothes, jewelry, etc. This semester I started incorporating the idea of "old" into my work and have been surprised with some of the ideas I have come up with. For my textile class, our prompt was to create something with a hidden meaning/element of surprise/or something with layers. I decided to photograph peeling paint (i posted those photos in an earlier post) and then transfer them to fabric and embroider over them, and then reverse applique them to hand dyed fabric. I finally finished my piece and am pleased with the outcome! The piece is a series of five, so they are hung in a line spaced equally apart. Here are photos of the series including close ups. (for some reason, the colors on these images aren't quite as vibrant as in real life...)

One Project Complete!

Only one more day of finals! I finished most of my work yesterday and went to the graphics lab this morning to photograph my final pieces. So here's one of my pieces! For this project, we used the fashion department's fabric printer, which prints images directly onto fabric. After the image is printed, the fabric is steamed and then rinsed. Unfortunately, its nearly impossible to avoid all color loss, but this image turned out pretty well. This photograph is one that was taken by my friend Johnny Utterback, he is very talented! He is a graphic design major and spends a lot of his free time photographing anything and everything. He's definitely going places, you should check out his flikr!


For this piece, I used one of Johnny's photos (with his permission) and then added some embroidery. I embroidered the desk and other details that are hard to see in the photo. I hope you enjoy! (you can click on the images to enlarge them)

Interior Decorating

My newly engaged friend and co-worker, Liz, just bought an adorable house! I helped her decorate her amazing apartment and I am so looking forward to helping her decorate her adorable new house that has so much potential! I met with her yesterday to talk about colors, what she's going for, what she can live with and what she really wants to change. We're starting with the kitchen and attached eat-in area. She already has many different red accents, such as a KitchenAid mixer, the classic tea kettle, and other red touches. We're going shopping on Friday for fabric, tiles, etc. I can't wait to see what we come up with!
Here's a "before" picture of her massive kitchen- its a blank canvas, I can't wait to see what we come up with! I'll definitely post after pictures!

A Weekend Away

Last Saturday, Evan's friends Jon and Lisa got married in Virginia Beach. So, we decided to make a weekend of it and stay with Evan's parents. We had a wonderful time and it was nice to get away.

Friday night, we caught up with many of Evan's old friends at Karaoke night at a local bar where many friends work- Greg and Tyler sang Kid Rock's "Bawitdaba", needless to say, it was great.
Evan and I had a few errands to run before the wedding- he's goofing off here in his v-neck undershirt and topsiders.
The wedding was beautiful. It called for rain but luckily, the rain held off until we were headed home. The reception was in a reception hall of a hotel on the beach, it was beautiful- we could see the ocean from our seats. Jon and Lisa were clearly very happy- congrats!
Evan and I on the board walk during the reception- the wind was whipping!