http://www.theartsupplytoolboxforartists.com

Math and science are important—no one will argue against that—however, an artistic education can foster a sense of humanity and sympathy at an early age, which can be equally important.  Art forces children to use their imagination, therefore making them more able to imagine and understand the feelings of others.  

What people don’t realize is that while math and science encourages critical thought, art encourages empathy.  Literature, theater, music, fine arts and dance are just as important educationally as other subjects in schools.  They promote teamwork, thinking outside the box, and most importantly, culturally sensitivity.

In our fast paced world, many find it difficult to relate and understand each other.  Different cultural groups go to war due to disagreement in lifestyles, and while I’m not saying that arts and crafts can bring world peace (who knows though, really), it can better help individuals to comprehend the values of others.   By fostering creative talent, you offer your children an insight into the experiences of others.

So encourage your children in the arts. Art is born from creative thought, and every child has the ability to be an artist. Help them to foster that creative talent. Give them access to art supplies and let them find the medium the like working with best. After that, don’t let them quit.  Even if they resist you initially, help fine tune their artistic talent.  Trust me, you’ll be doing them a favor.

Artistic talent starts early.  As Pablo Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”  Many children have a strong interest in a music instrument or other art medium while in elementary school, but disregard that interest upon reaching middle or high school. This is the tragedy of our society.  Arts and crafts are stereotyped as being for children primarily, while adults have better things to do with their time.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  Artistic talent can be carried from childhood into adult life.  It is never too late to learn a new craft.  If you think you lack artistic talent, think back onto your childhood years. 

 Remember what hobby you enjoyed the most, and pick it up again. I don’t want to hear any excuses, make time for it and give yourself the opportunity to experiment. You may worry that you lack the skills to be an artist, but artistic expertise, like any other ability, takes practice. Never give up, who knows, someday you might be selling your handcrafts goods on Art Fire!

Just click the link below to get started:

www.artfire.com

My dreams and aspirations for that time and area were common, ordinary dreams for that time and place but by today's standard's here in America, I think the average person would find it hard to believe that an average teenager in America would have had these dreams.

• First, I wanted to live in a commune or start a commune. Me and my friends and like minded people, this is where we would live and help to change the world.
• My generation was going to change the world for the better. We would spread love, kindness and hallucinogenic  drugs that would change people and make them more spiritual.
• We would end war throughout the world.
• We would peacefully take power away from all Governments and turn it over to the people.
• We would make all our own stuff like clothes, candles, art, and even our own transportation.
• We would grow our own food.

Natural Beauty at Peters Valley

The first thing that strikes one when entering the Peters Valley area is the incredible natural beauty of the setting. This place is a true bucolic gem set on the site of the tiny deserted village of Bevans and former farmland in New Jersey's Sussex County. There are bear and deer and all manner of small furry local creatures wandering about, including a group of small-eared rabbits that seem to be a natural mutation, because there are also regular rabbits living along side them. I roomed in a rehabilitated 19th century farmhouse on the grounds that had many stories to tell.

Peters Valley is a craft education center that was started in 1970. There are numerous courses from which to choose in the areas of fine metalworking, fiber arts, blacksmithing, ceramics, photography, woodworking and two dimensional design.

I chose to enroll in Basic Jewelry with Frederick Marshall. I have enjoyed beading for more than twenty years and more recently have become involved with energy balancing jewelry employing semiprecious crystals, shell, polished stones and wood. I also worked briefly on Manhattan's 47th Street for a wonderful jeweler who makes the most beautiful gold antique reproductions. This class focused on copper and silver jewelry with touches of bronze and brass. These are considered the non-ferrous metals (not iron or steel).

Rick Marshall and two students making jewelry

Rick Marshall, our able instructor, assisted by genial Kristin, imparted huge quantities of practical and artistic information to our group of 10 students. He is knowledgeable, humorous and earthy, an all-around regular guy and an easy person with whom to converse. He has a serious job to do because silver and coppersmithing requires the use of very high temperatures, acetylene torches, and potentially dangerous equipment. There is so much to know and digest, I could easily see someone taking this course more than once. Indeed there were two repeaters in the class. The workshop was well appointed with workbenches and tools for everyone to use, along with lots of equipment. That brings me to the only potential downside of this course. If you want to continue doing this at home you must set up an acetylene torch and purchase a significant amount of tools, and possibly, machines such as a flex-shaft.

One fascinating technique we learned was cuttlebone casting. You hand-carve the bone of a cuttlefish to make a one of a kind silver or copper casting. Many people will recognize cuttlebone as the white object fastened to birdcages with which the birds sharpen their beaks! In short, we soldered, rolled, filed, tempered and drilled metal for more than eight hours a day and we loved it. I also had the opportunity to see the blacksmithing class in progress under the tutelege of Jim Wyckoff, and that was very impressive.

What I came home with

I came home with seven items, some of which are unfinished. I am in the process of adding crystal beads and chains, so check back at this post later to see a finished product.

Lets start with the dramatics and end with something soft and affirming, ok? Lay all the ugly down on the table, cover it in pretty and hope no one notices the smell.

They said maybe a week. I’m not really processing it- the idea is beyond my grasp.

We picked a wedding date a few weeks ago- May 24th, 2009- it will be Nanny and PawPaw’s 61st anniversary. Or it would have been. Regardless, it will be an auspicious day.

I’m a sucker for a good hug. You can embody all the other things that annoy me and I’ll still love you if you can hug with feeling. (TJ, you know how sometimes you only listen for your chance to talk? Forgiveable because you’re a really good hugger).

Sometimes, I even get hugs without being physically touched. Smoothpebble has sent me more hugs than I could ever properly thank her for.

You don’t know her? Well, you should. She embarrasses easily so I'll only tell you that she's been uncool since before uncool was cool- yea, that's right- she's ice cold and I'm gonna shake her like a polaroid picture- or something.

She’s just started a flickr group and project titled ‘Illuminated phrase”: “You’re reading a book and you come across an interesting string of words, a phrase, or a description that sticks with you. Or maybe you have phrases or random words tucked away in a little notebook. Now you take that phrase or words and you illuminate them in whatever medium you want - paper, printing, embroidery, sewing, photo collage - the list is endless ” (Smoothpebble 2008).
So join and commend Smoothpebble for her creativity and maybe she’ll head more of these projects for us (Hey Smooth? You rock).

In the early 1900s, handmade items were common.  Shopping only provided the basic materials for living, everything else was homemade.  An entirely handmade Christmas was nothing unusual, and gifts received were generally cherished based on the time and effort spent on an item, rather than brand name or cost.

But soon things began to change.  With the emergence of factories, items were being produced quickly and in large qualities.  This gained many men exceptional wealth, but it also cost the customer the quality and affection that comes with a handmade good.

After World War II, mass production skyrocketed.  Suburbs w cookie cooker houses, and the Western World developed a new found love of shopping.  With this love came the need for a greater quantity of products, and a greater demand for bulk production.

But now things are starting to change.  Handmade items are slowly making their way back into mainstream popularity.  People are looking for uniqueness, rather than simplicity.   And this with change, a new breed of store was born: an arts and craft based marketplace.

According to an article from Business Week, more and more customers are willing to spend big bucks to buy handmade.  It doesn’t matter what the product is: home furnishings, jewelry, pottery, structures, even clothing—people want merchandise with favor. People want art.

At the American Craft Council's annual show in Baltimore, revenue from crafts spiked $17 million, more than doubling in the last decade, according to Business Week.  And that’s just one craft show.  The total impact of craft sales annually is somewhere between $12.3 billion and $13.8 billion, according to a survey done by the Craft Organization Directors Association in 2001. The survey also reports that there are between 106,000 and 126,000 crafters living in the United States.

Simply put, the demand for handmade goods is soaring.  The best part of it is that people are making money while doing something that they love.  And they’re transferring that love into a special hand crafted item.

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be involved in this marketplace.  If you have a talent or craft you want to share with the world, now is the time to do so!  And with free online trading sites like Art Fire, selling has never been easier.  So give it a try, list an item for sell, what have you got to lose?

Art Fire is the free online trading website working to abolish the internet tax on creativity by offering artisans a place to buy and sell their handmade goods with absolutely no fees. Their e-newsletter, Art Daily, offers art-related and green news specially tuned for the artisan community.  In addition, there are also daily business tips for managing arts and crafts based business.

Artisans who contribute to Art Daily will have their work posted on Artfire.com and read by the art community.  Columnists can share their tips with other artisans, discuss techniques, or offer opinions on art related issues.

Artfire.com is looking for people to write daily pieces as well as single articles for our member’s board. No matter what your craft, they want to hear from you.

To contribute to Art Daily, click here.  

Enfim, depois de um mês viajando e garimpando arte popular, artesanato e artesanato contemporâneo,  conseguimos abrir a nossa loja hoje.

Foi bacana. Vendemos algumas peças e fomos elogiados por todos que entraram. Algumas  pessoas perceberam com alegria a importância de adquirir um produto feito à mão de forma organizada e sustentável, com maior valor agregado. Praticar o comércio justo é um dos nossos desafios, assim fomos incentivamos a seguir na empreitada.

As well as the shield I've made an axe and a dagger. The dagger was made from an off cut of foam left over from when I made my sword. Using a sharp blade I carved it to give a flint or stone dagger appearence. The axe came about as I had an old length of pipe from an axe that I'd made a long time ago. I wanted to play around with carving foam a little more and so come up with the dog head design. I'm quite please with the results although my partner says it looks like Snoopy and my son maintains that it looks like a fire-breathing duck.

If you are interested in being on my mailing list email me at Jennfunique@yahoo.com with your Name and email address. Most likely you will only receive between 1 and 4 emails a month, depending on how productive I have been. I will not give out your information to anyone else or anything like that.

Using an actual e-newsletter company will depend on how many people sign up. If it gets crazy busy then I will use a company, but for now it will be me, Illustrator, photoshop, my keyboard, and you. So tell your friends and family!

Email me at Jennfunique@yahoo.com with your Name and email to sign up for my newsletter! Thanks guys!

Art Fire giving away a scooter every ninety days to the member who refers the most Verified Artisans in that time.   They need your help to grow community.  Tell your friends to sign up and enter your name under the referral section on the register page, and They’ll reward you with a chance to win a 150cc scooter.  

Your scooter is EPA and DOT approved to for street use, all you have to do is register with your local Department of Motor Vehicles.  Your scooter gets more than 80 miles to the gallon (bet you’ve never heard of a car that gets that), saving you money at the tank while saving the environment.

Your scooter comes with a 4 stroke 150cc engine and fully automatic transmission.  The comfortable perforated Nylon seats can fit up to two riders, and wouldn’t leave you with a numb behind.  The low profile10-13 inch tires offer a large contract surface, which can be extremely usefully for long rides (plus they look super cool!).

Scooters are equipped with enhanced headlights that have low beam and high beam functionality.  This means they’re are bigger and offer much more light angles than common moped headlights.  They even come with the possibility for electric or kick start, depending on which you want to use.

Your scooter will also help you out in traffic-congested areas.  No more traffic jams, simply navigate around angry drivers to your destination.  And did we mention it’s amazingly easy to find parking?

Recruit Artisans to Art Fire and earn a chance to walk away with a free, gas saving vehicle. It’s as simple as that. New members to Art Fire can pay you back with the ability to win an environmentally friendly vehicle. So get out there and spread the news about Art Fire, your free interactive trading community!

Click here to learn more about our free scooter contest.

SkillShare Austin will be having a free sewing workshop at Treasure City Thrift this Friday starting at 6:00pm. All you Project Runway wannabe's will be learning some basics.

Public Screening of Austin, Texas: East Side Blues at the Victory Grill. This is being organized by DiverseArts Culture works and starts at 7:00pm.

Domy books and Austinnewblog to host Night of the Boho Coco, a poetry reading. It starts at 8:00 and it's FREE, so make sure you get there early.

David de Lara will die one day, but he’s ok with that. In the meantime David returns to Pump Project Art Complex with an event where an art show meets a cabaret with an exhibit of his artwork, songs by Luna Tart, burlesque by The Jigglewatts, and music by Southern Drama

But, Breaking Routine is FUN!!!

Art Fire works closely with the non-profit organization Trees for the Future, an agroforestry resource center known for low administrative overhead costs and dramatic environmental impact. Since 1988, Trees for the Future has planted nearly 50 million trees over 25,000 acres of land in thousands of communities across the globe. It is calculated that these trees remove approximately one million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually.
Trees do more than just enrich our atmosphere. Trees planted in ecologically distressed areas improve the quality of life for people and animals living in the region. Trees minimize erosion, help prevent flooding, supply food for animals, provide shade for farmers, offer fertilizer, give shelter, supply medicine and offer a source of lumber for indigenous people.
When you join Art Fire, you can be a part of this global change. Our Together we Grow Program works to rebuild forests in Honduras, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Senegal, India, and the Philippines. These are some of the places hit hardest by logging companies and climate change. They are also home to many of the last remaining rain forests, which work to clean our atmosphere of carbon dioxide build-up.
Already, more than 6.4 million acres of rainforest have been destroyed. It is estimated that over 50,000 animals are lost to extinction every year due to deforestation. You can be part of undoing years of havoc wrecked by development and pollution.
When you become a member, you choose where your tree is planted. You can even receive a virtual tree and shovel to help actually plant a physical tree in the distressed region you have selected!
By signing up for membership, you can help fight global warming and improve the quality of life for people worldwide. All you have to do is point and click. So what are you waiting for? Join Art Fire’s free artisan community today!

Click the link below to get started:

www.artfire.com

We just bought our first place and the first thing that we learned was that Ikea and West Elm will always and forever own us. We are addicted to everything Apartment Therapy related and all of our money goes into buying furniture, painting, and magazine subscriptions. We are also big fans of Etsy. If you don't know what it is, it's an online shop where artist and designers can put up their work and art for sale to the general public. We actually found a really amazing table by Gezellig Print for sale on Etsy the other day. The best part about is that it features art inspired by East Austin. It comes in two color schemes and it goes for only $375. We asked the designer, Jennifer James Wright, why she choose East Austin as the inspiration for this table and she was nice enough to respond.

Jennifer James Wright - "I just find East Austin visually stimulating and inspiring. It all began with that little yard full of old campers (blanking on where it is right now). I stumbled across it and loved the visual, the collection. I spurred a little camper series and from there I built off of that inspiration using other beautiful things in East Austin. My physical surroundings have a big influence on my life, naturally, and I suppose that influence manifested in this form"

Inspired by Austin, Texas's endearing East neighborhoods and the unique organic structure of succulents that are rather common in the region.

Table top is printed on both sides and will easily lift and flip. Table and screen-printing is all hand-crafted and hand-printed.

39 in. x 18 in. x 19 in.
Birch plywood with protective finish
Limited Edition

If you are an Etsy designer, and you live in East Austin, we would love to hear from you so that we can feature your products on our little blog.

This startling Gothic wallpaper design was produced in the 1840s. Today we would find it hard to contemplate living with such a definite design statement on our walls, but this wallpaper was produced to make that statement, which is true of any era, including our own.

This is a fairly early Gothic design. Most of the popular inspired wallpapers were about ten years away and so this piece is more faithful to the original concept of the Gothic Revival, later designs were softened and the architectural references were relaxed in order to appeal to the mass markets.

The design was probably produced for a library, or possibly dining room, two areas of a Nineteenth century house that were traditionally considered to be mainly male domains. The statement that the wallpaper was supposed to be making was that the occupier of the house had scholarly leanings and was to be considered to be of a serious, if somewhat traditional intellect. However, as this is such an early wallpaper design in the Gothic style, it should also be seen as cutting edge, if not vaguely revolutionary - in decorative terms.

The Gothic style of decoration was by no means staid and formulaic in the 1840s. It was considered new, bold and daring. The accepted style of the age was still considered to be Classically inspired, particularly within interiors. France still set the trends in interior furnishings, but Britain was beginning to flex its new found economic strength and individuality and was wanting an interior style that could be called its own. This inevitably was to be Gothic. A style that was to be a catalyst for more than half a century of British design inspiration that would include within its sphere: William Morris; the Arts & Crafts movement; Liberty; and a whole host of designers that were to inspire and energise individuals and movements around the world.

Knit on size 8 needles, in Rowan's Kidsilk Haze (70% super kid mohair/30% silk), colorway Majestic. However, I thought that the yarn was the color of dove feathers, and I've included a feather from an Inca Dove in the photo. It knits up very soft, and will make a wonderful evening wrap for the mild autumn temperatures here. I don't think the stole will need to be blocked, once it's finished (I'm about halfway there).

The Austin Texas Maker Faire is being held this year from October 18th and 19th (the San Francisco one occured in May. The deadline for submissions is September 4th (a little over a week from now!). Anyone who is interested in submitting or just going should definitely check it out.

I have unfortunately never been able to make it to one, but have had several friends attend or present at these fairs, and aside from some parking issues have always heard good things.

Not only does the Pork Festival have food and shopping but there is a big parade to open it up on Saturday at 12:30 and it will go from the Eaton middle school to the Preble County fairgrounds.  A lot of the local businesses and the county bands participate in the parade. The Pork Festival always elects a worthy king and queen every year and they are featured in the parade also.

The Pork Festival has been around for a long time starting in 1971 and is one of the largest pork promotional events in the world. It is a non-profit corporation formed to promote pork production and consumption. No matter what the Preble County Pork Festival is held the 3rd Weekend in September.