Today my dear friend Caitlin Betsy Bell took some lovely photographs of some of my portfolio work.
We are taking more tomorrow of the rest of my portfolio!
These are my Savannah inspired cloth napkins- the 5 things I’m going to miss most (besides the people of course) about Savannah once I leave in 2 weeks.
So these are the top 5 things I’m going to miss for sure:
1. Biking everywhere.
2. “The Shire” aka: my apartment.
3. All of the beautiful and vintage houses around town.
4. Forsyth Park.
5. Living on a grid system and just being able to say, “I live on ______ st. and ________ st.” and have people know exactly where that is. It’s nice.
Almost finished!
(Oh, and if you want to see the other photos, please go take a look at my Flickr.)
I have been very bad at posting these things lately. Part of that is that my computer is almost broken, and the other part is that I’m not really supposed to because I have a million other things I need to do instead.
I am currently putting off writing an artist bio and statement that was due YESTERDAY. Oops.
Another oops was this weekend, but it was so worth it, because I was not as productive as I wanted to be. I embroidered and worked on my “5 identical objects” for my portfolio– which is going to be 5 sets of napkins, 4 in each set, so that’s 20 napkins, and each set is going to have a different embroidery of something I’m going to miss in Savannah. I have 2 1/2 sets done… I want to finish the other half by Thursday. And I will!
But other than doing that, it was Easter!!! So Saturday night we had an Easter night watch starting at 11.30pm at CSF. It was wonderful as we worshiped and read the Easter story together and celebrated our risen Lord over dancing and pancakes! Then Sunday morning was an excellent service at Canvas Church and then we had a delicious Easter dinner with around 12 of my very good friends upstairs at Megan and Caitlin‘s apartment. Oh it was so fun.
It was my first Easter not being with parents… in past years at SCAD if I wasn’t at home for Easter, Kara‘s mom would come down and we’d have Easter with her. (But this year Kara went home!) But what fun it was! All of us in parentless Savannah got together and had an absolutely delicious meal and fellowship together. It was a truly wonderful easter.
Now I have just finished making a list of all the things I have to do, and when I need to have them done by.
And let me say, I’m not sure how sleep is going to work itself into that schedule… but I’ll make it work. I opened today and yesterday at work, and have to do so tomorrow and Thursday as well, which means I have to wake up around 4.30am. So my days have been very long and therefore exhausting, but it’s because in the midst of all the madness I am determined to have more moments like Easter where I am spending it with the people I have come to love like a family over the past 4 years.
I truly am going to miss Savannah and all of the people here- even some of my customers at Starbucks will be missed!
So there’s a lot of things to do- lots of working on portfolio/marketing things, as well as starbucks work, and lots more fun to be had!
I’m soaking up this last bit of college and am trying to not be too ready to get out because it’s going to be over before I know it!
It’s true, I have been neglecting this blog like crazy. Oops.
I’ve been quite busy with a number of things over the past few weeks.
First update: the quilt is still not totally finished. It is PRACTICALLY finished, as I’m just sewing on the binding, and when that’s done I’ll post some process photos.
Second update: I just finished another project for Working Class Studio. It’s cute, although, I don’t know if they’re really going to go for it because it might not be that “Working Class”… but that’s okay with me. I really like it and may choose to do more of it. (P.S. I’ll post photos of the stuff I’m making for them once I’m allowed to post photos of them.)
Third (and final) update: This update is about Friday, February 12th. This was a crazy day.
Let me give you a little run down of what was happening that day-
Friday mornings is a leadership meeting at CSF (Christian Student Fellowship). Then after this I had to go work for 2 hours at Working Class Studio (just internship hours) and that evening was Fibers Open Studio as well as a Haiti Relief Concert at the CSF building. There was also another little surprise mixed in there that Kara and I mixed up a few weeks earlier that was supposed to be executed the night before, but due to weather problems, it was DELAYED until Friday at 5pm.
Before I get the surprise, I will tell you that I was working my face off the entire week to get my quilt done for Open Studio night. I was working like crazy on that quilt! Perhaps I will leave the explanation of that for when I actually post about the quilt, but I will tell you that it almost didn’t make it in there- and it wasn’t finished. It had been “quilted” (the 3 layers were put together) but it didn’t have binding on it yet. I’ll post a photo of how my dear roommate Kara beautifully displayed it in just a moment.
So, onto the surprise.
One of Kara and my dearest friends at SCAD, Joel Boyd, recently got married (November 21st, 2009) to his lovely Christina Muniz-Boyd. The catch is, Christina lives in Arkansas right now as she’s finishing up her degree, and Joel is living in Savannah while he’s finishing up his degree (but he’ll be done in 3 weeks- so it’s just 10 weeks that they are apart total).
Kara and I unfortunately missed their wedding because Kara was still in Europe touring Spain and Italy, and I had JUST gotten back into the US and was broke and exhausted so I didn’t make it out to Arkansas. And because we missed the wedding, we didn’t show up with a present. We were trying to think of what we could give them that they would want, and figured that it was probably frustrating that they got all of the fun gifts newlyweds get- pots and pans, bedding, cool electronics, a kitchen aid, etc- when they weren’t living together just yet to use them all. So we thought of the wonderful idea to buy Christina a plane ticket here to see Joel for either Valentines day weekend or the weekend of his birthday (which is this coming weekend). Then I called Will Mobley, another old dear friend, to see what he thought of the idea, because he too is from Arkansas & goes to SCAD and has been Joel’s bestie for ages. Will thought it was a great idea, but would be fun if we didn’t tell one of them that the other was coming. So we called Christina, told her we wanted to buy her a plane ticket for their wedding present to surprise Joel. And Christina, who always loves surprising Joel (because he’s just so easy to get) was all for it.
So we booked the ticket for her to come here on Thursday February 11th, and to leave on Monday, February 15th. But, when Thursday, February 11th came around, it was very snowy everywhere. Christina had to stop in Houston I believe, but her flight had been delayed in Little Rock for some un-weather related thing, which made her miss her connecting flight and had to spend the night in Houston (which ended up being all paid for which was good). So she was to arrive in Savannah at 5pm on Friday.
So when I went to Working Class Studio that day to work my hours, I was planning on being done around 4, and then would head to the airport to pick Christina up at 5. (And Fibers Open Studio started at 5.)
I sent Joel a text and asked him if he wanted to go to Open Studio with Kara and me when I got home from Working Class. He said he definitely would. Then I drove to the airport to pick up Christina, she and I then stopped by their hotel so she could check in, then went back to my apartment and I texted Joel and told him to come over and meet us (Kara and me).
And here’s how that happened:
They were happy.
Then all 4 of us went over to Fibers Open Studio, and here are some photos I didn’t take, but stole from Kara:
Here’s my quilt- see? No binding. Displayed as “in progress”.
Crazy amazing beaded necklaces. Left is by the amazingly talented Ashley Seghezzi and on the right is Megan Cheney.
Lexi with some of her drawings from Lacoste.
Brenda Aguilar’s beautifully woven place mats from her intro to Weaving final!
(I love that Brenda’s a fibers major now.)
So that’s a little bit of open studio, but really, the place was packed and looked beautiful. There was a lot of really awesome stuff to see.
After this we headed over to the CSF building for the “Love for Haiti” benefit concert with Bill Mallonee. He was good.
But, the highlight of this day was not in any of the activities or things that happened above. No. No way. There was a much better thing that happened, and I still am in awe that it actually did.
Yeah. YEAH!!!!! It snowed in Savannah!!!!!!!!
It was truly incredible, and somewhat made my life complete in a new way. I mean, not really. But I’ve never seen snow in a place that I’ve lived before, and it was completely wonderful.
It only lasted for maybe an hour or so, and was I guess around an inch, but it was so exciting. So so exciting. I’m so glad it happened.
And that was it. It was a wonderful day. Everyone ended very happy and tired from all of the insane things that happened.
So my first project for Working Class is basically done, and we are presenting it Friday morning. I don’t know if I can post photos of it. Probably not. It’s probably super top secret, but I don’t really know.
I am feeling like I am slacking in what is the more important class, which is my Advanced 2 class for Fibers. I have been using time in that class where I should be making things for my portfolio to instead be making things for WCS!
So I need to get my time management straightened out.
Last week I had my first ever experience cooking in the crock-pot (which I believe is a new craze [well, not really NEW, it’s just coming back from when, the 80s?] that is taking this generation by storm, and SHOULD. It was amazing!)
We made this:
It really was delicious and was seriously the easiest thing I have EVER prepared. It’s true, you really do just throw everything in the pot and then just walk away. I loved it.
To switch the subject of this blog posting again (and not for the last time): This weekend at CSF (http://csfscad.com/ — Erica please teach me how to make this link!) we had a girls sleepover!!!!!!!!
It was so much fun I can’t even tell you. I can’t show you either, because stupidly, I left my camera at home. But it was so party. We had a good turn out too, and I made a lot of new friends (considering I knew zero of the freshman girls that came in during the fall, since I was in France!)
I also learned a new game, so Florida should get excited. It’s called “Signs” and I loved it. We played for 3 hours.
Around 3:30am we put on “Glee” which I had never seen, and I watched the first episode and then decided around 4.30 that even though I wanted to watch the next episode (so sue me, I loved it) I would let myself fall asleep for a little bit. So I did, and woke up 2 hours later to make all of the girls pancakes. (Liz made a video of this on her iPhone, but I don’t know what has happened to it. I was half asleep but kept talking about Bianca and how I was hoping I was making her proud and was trying to make my pancakes awesome, just like she does.)
At 8.30am, after we had cleaned up and eaten, Kara and I headed home and both went to sleep. I had to wake up around 10.45 to be at work by 11.30, and then I worked until 4.30. It was a really fun day at work, and I really didn’t feel that tired. That night I went to Gulf Stream (which is SCAD’s furniture/industrial design building) where I met a friend and she helped me cut some wood into blocks (she did it for me because they wouldn’t let me use the saws because they were afraid I would chop off my fingers and sue scad).
This was for my super secret WCS project. On Sunday I screen printed them.
Screen printing wasn’t as terrible as I remembered. I actually kind of liked it. I think I will screen print some thing for my portfolio.
I have been inspired lately for it, as I have a concept to center everything around, and it is super top secret, so don’t ask me what it is. I could probably be persuaded to tell if I was really pressured (because it’s not that important) but I don’t really want to tell until it’s all done and together, because I am very excited.
I will still be posting photos of the things I’m making along the way. Everything except one item, which will probably be the last thing I make. Maybe not the last thing I make, but will definitely be the last thing I finish.
Here’s what I’m looking at right now:
Gee’s bend quilts! Yeahhh! That’s right, I’m going to make my first official quilt.
I should have started today, but instead, I’m starting tomorrow.
This coming weekend 2 favorites: Aslinn and Kara Savey are coming into town!!!!!!! It’s going to be so fun.
So yesterday morning, I was reading a devotional by one of my all time favorite authors, Charles Spurgeon.
Oh I just love him.
But this year (and last year and I will do it next year too) I have been reading his daily devotional “Morning & Evening”. As I was reading yesterday morning, Saturday, November 28th, I got excited when I read this:
“In us truth must be a living force, an active energy, an indwelling reality, a part of the woof and warp of our being… a Christian can die, but he cannot deny the truth… it is said that the food of certain worms colours the cocoons of silk which they spin: and just so the nutriment upon which a man’s inward nature lives gives a tinge to every word and deed proceeding from him.”
My dear friend Amaris was over at the time, and when she walked in my room I said, “Amaris, Spurgeon was very fibery this morning.” It is amazing how a few simple words spark my interest even more than it was sparked before: woof, weft, color, silk, spin.
Then I went on to think (and said this to Amaris as well) about one of my very favorite passages in the scripture that I often read, think about, and use as an example for how to work and be.
(I actually did a whole series on this in a girls Bible study I have back in Savannah, because even though we aren’t married now, we can’t magically become this amazing woman overnight.)
Proverbs 31: 10-31
A wife of noble character:
10 Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?
She is more precious than rubies. 11 Her husband can trust her,
and she will greatly enrich his life. 12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
13 She finds wool and flax
and busily spins it. 14 She is like a merchant’s ship,
bringing her food from afar. 15 She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household
and plan the day’s work for her servant girls.
16 She goes to inspect a field and buys it;
with her earnings she plants a vineyard. 17 She is energetic and strong,
a hard worker. 18 She makes sure her dealings are profitable;
her lamp burns late into the night.
19 Her hands are busy spinning thread,
her fingers twisting fiber. 20 She extends a helping hand to the poor
and opens her arms to the needy. 21 She has no fear of winter for her household,
for everyone has warm clothes.
22 She makes her own bedspreads.
She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns. 23 Her husband is well known at the city gates,
where he sits with the other civic leaders. 24 She makes belted linen garments
and sashes to sell to the merchants.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future. 26 When she speaks, her words are wise,
and she gives instructions with kindness. 27 She carefully watches everything in her household
and suffers nothing from laziness.
28 Her children stand and bless her.
Her husband praises her: 29 “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world,
but you surpass them all!”
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last;
but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised. 31 Reward her for all she has done.
Let her deeds publicly declare her praise.
I absolutely love this passage. Many women do. But I think the reason I love it so much is not just because this woman is incredible and has amazing character and is a trustworthy wife, speaks with wisdom, and is praised by her husband and children, but because she is a hard worker, working on the same things I work on!
She is a spinner, a good cook, a business woman, spends and invests her money wisely, works hard on profitable things, serves her community, provides clothes for her family, is a quilter!, is fashionable!, makes linen clothes!, laughs!, is kind, is never lazy, is wise, and is married to a man with a god reputation.
She is great. I love reading that passage because it inspires me to do better than what I am doing, and to not be satisfied with the things I’ve already done. I also love relating fibers and the Bible. I love that she can not only be a spiritual example to me, but a physical example to me.
Alright alright. You are reading my last post from my France trip.
I figured I needed to stop dragging my feet about it, and to just post it, before things here start picking up and I start making other cool things I want to post photos of.
But Vernissage, our final exhibit, was amazing. It took a lot of work getting it all ready, but everyone was running busily around the village, and was much fun.
I don’t know what I was thinking that weekend, but I only took photos of the fibers studio, and nothing else.
I will explain a bit what Vernissage consisted of, because talking to my mom, she didn’t really understand, and I think that was my lack in explaining what it was.
Basically, “Vernissage” is the French word for “opening” and used in reference to art openings. So that’s all that means, is we put together our own show (which you’d probably figured out anyways). But since there were a few different majors represented at SCAD Lacoste this past quarter (as there always is) and many talented students, we had a lot of things to find places for, and took over Rue du Four. We were in little galleries up and down the street, in back rooms and in our various studio spaces we’d been in all quarter. There was a lot of stuff, and everything (really, everything!) looked GREAT. I really am going to one day be looking through a magazine, see a commercial or billboard, or be reading a design blog, and will see something someone did and be able to truthfully say, “Oh! I lived in France with them for 8 weeks when I was a senior at SCAD.”
I know talented people, for real.
So here is a little bit of what the Fibers room looked like at Vernissage. Please look at Lissa Nancy’s blog, because I know she is the only one that took before and after photos and while they’re not on her blog yet, I’m sure she’ll put the up when she’s back in the states. (She gets home today, so she can finally feast on our long awaited guacamole!!!!!!!!!!!)
Kara and my kitchen display.
Me with the things I made (and a few of Kara’s!)
Megan and Caitlin making a sale of my napkins!
Cute Kara with her wonderful tea towels.
Kara Wentz- tea towels.
My napkins- 6 sets, 4 napkins in each. 3 designs.
Elise Fornell.
Allison White- off loom weavings.
Erica Parker- beautiful aprons and hats.
Whitney Sharpe- exquisite embroidered portraits.
Caitlin Betsy Bell- quilts.
Megan Kiehna- wonderful linen and French things.
Lexi Paladin0- the best Christmas ornaments I have ever seen.
Caitlin Betsy Bell.
Paige Striebig- Incredible handmade lace, dress. She’s insane. And amazing.
And here are some detail photos of my napkins done with my favorite thing: free motion embroidery:
It was a wonderful wonderful show, and we had a lot of fun.
I wish I had photos of the rest of the things that happened, but browse around the blogs on the right, and see what you can find. I have a lot of people from Lacoste on there, so I’m sure you’ll find something.
Thanks so much if you’ve been reading these blogs faithfully while I’ve been in France. I truly did miss home so much while I was away am I am so glad to be back, but I already feel a little bit like it was a dream! It really was such a wonderful quarter and I wouldn’t ever trade it for anything else, despite how much I missed home sometimes. It was such an incredible time, and I did tons of things. I have only touched the surface of my travels on this blog, but I did the best I could without saying too much. (Although I’m sure I did sometimes.)
I will be in Florida for the next month or so, before going back to Savannah, but I plan on making lots of cute things over the break, and continuing to do fun things and take photos, and continue to update this blog, so it’s not ending here, although it won’t be as dependable, that’s for sure.
But that is all for now. Happy Thanksgiving (tomorrow) and welcome home to my fellow France loving friends.
After 81 days, 5 flights, 4 train rides, 5 countries, 1345 photos, 39 youtube video uploads, 28 blog posts, 4 times of crying out of sadness, 2 times of crying tears of joy, and an uncountable number of tears while laughing; 15,000 dance parties, 5 birthdays, 21 embroideries, 30+ field trips, 4 times of eating sushi, 80 songs purchased on itunes, 2 internships set up (Melissa & me), 2 failed attempts at guacamole, 3,000 rants with Lexi, more sweet & meaningful conversations with Kara, a few days of homesickness and despair, but more days of utter joy and amazement, seeing fall change for the first time, 40 sent postcards, dozens of markets and countless vendors, tons of cute dogs, mastery of the Thriller dance, 1 night of karaoke, 1 stolen spoon, lots of coffee & chocolate, an uncountable number of emails, 24 napkins, 6 sales, tons of new and amazing friendships, and I’m finally home.
I have yet to sit and look over my pictures, journal, and blog and to absorb what in the world I just did. It was fun and exciting and I loved it. I am so happy to be home though, although it has been a weird past few days adjusting again to being here.
It is odd that the French culture is so slow paced, but I feel like my life sped up over the time I was there, and now that I’m back in America, where things are supposed to be faster and crazier, I have no idea what to do with myself!
Day 3 was October, 23, which also happens to be Kara’s birthday!
She turned 22 in Paris!
For one of our Fibers Paris assignments, we had been put into groups to different vintage stores that we picked out of these lovely lovely books about handmade things in Paris. I was in a group with Erica, Cali, and Whitney. We all picked 1 place out of the book to go, but we only needed to go to 3. (But we were going to do all 4 anyways, because they were all going to be awesome stores anyway.)
So we first walked to Cali’s, but it was closed. We were bummed.
Then we went to Erica’s store, which was open.
after this we went to this cool weaving store next door which subbed for Cali’s closed store because it was also in the book. I snuck some photos and was also SO CLOSE to buying a 30 euro hand woven scarf, but I didn’t because I didn’t like the edges. Oh well, I’ll just weave my own scarf sometime.
Then, we walked to Whitney’s store, which happened to be my #2 choice, so I was very excited to go.
It is called Images et Portraits, and I would suggest anyone going to Paris to go here. It was amazing.
I bought 2 photos. One is for me. It will hang on my wall in my home one day when I have my very own home. I know exactly what it will be like.
After this, we got something to eat, and then realized that my store was closed. I was really bummed, but oh well…. I guess I’ll just have to go back to Paris someday. Shoot! (ha.)
So we then went to FIAC, which stands for “Foire d’art contemporain” aka: modern/contemporary art… awesome. (I’m being slightly sarcastic in my tone because while modern art is cool… a lot of it makes me really dislike art.)
But it was a really amazing opportunity for us to be able to do this, so I was trying to make the most of it. And while in line to enter, I ran into Melissa and Kara! They were happy to be at FIAC.
And we saw a lot of modern art.
Some was cool:
and some really annoyed me:
Wow. That’s all I’ll say.
After looking through the Louvre’s FIAC (there were 2 places FIAC was being held in Paris, one was at the Louvre, and the other was at the Grand Palais), Melissa, Kara and I walked down Champs-Elysees to see the fancy shops and the Arc de Triomphe (and we also stopped in the Grand Palais to the other part of FIAC on the way).
We saw some fall…
The Grand Palais…
Champs-Elysees
and saw the Arc!
By this time, we were all ridiculously sore and aching from all the walking that day. I had basically sat down only when I went to lunch that afternoon.
So we took the metro to Home Latin, rested for a minute and I gave Kara her birthday card and made her cry:
Then we met the rest of the girls and went to dinner!
Because Kara and I missed it so much (who are we?) we got sushi! (We had decided when we were in London so long ago, that we would have sushi for Kara’s birthday while in Paris.) It was delicious.
Mmmmm.
I also, naturally, bought my mustaches all the way to Europe from home (but purchased for me by Madeleine Glascock in D.C.) so after dinner we were outside just being silly with our staches on before we headed to The Long Hop, and Irish pub, for cider. (I believe in the states it’s called “hard cider”? But I don’t know.)
It was really fun and we were exhausted from our day, so we went back after that to the hotel and got a bit of rest before our next day began!
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