Paint & Pour

A friend my book club organized an art event at Paint & Pour (http://www.lexingtonpaintpour.com/) this week.  Not only is this a place where you can do paint nite type of paintings with friends but even better is that they cut out giant shapes such as a pumpkin, anchor, elephant, etc... made out of wood and each person can choose want design they want.  You order a head of time and then the night of the event you can all hang out and paint your own piece. 


There ended up being about 20 of us at the event. We brought wine and food (which makes every event better).  I loved the look and feel of the studio space. It spelled great, was beautiful, played great music, and was overall just a wonderful atmosphere to hang out with your friends and paint in.


Of course if you have some OCD traits (like me) you bring your own brushes, mix your colors (instead of using the colors straight from the bottle) and you end up closing the place (being the last person there) because you really focus on the straight edges being perfect.  I created this huge owl for my door and I love it!


This inspired me to try and host a paint and pour night at my place.  I found a site on Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaraMarProducts?ref=l2-shopheader-name) that creates giant wood cut outs so my tentative plan is to invite friends over, have them pick out their design ahead of time and I'll order them. Everyone can bring paints to share and wine/food and we'll have a paint and pour.  Now for the execution....

Crapmus & Galentine Parties

Through my Women's Social Meetup group I met this energetic gal who happens to be from Buffalo, NY. Woot, woot!  She is a crafty creative soul and introduced me to the Crapmus and Galentine Party.  Maybe you too haven't heard of these so I'll tell you all about them in this blog.

A Crapmus party is where you get all of your girlfriends together, have some food and drinks and bring rewrapped gifts that you don't want that you got for Christmas or for some other occasion.  It's a wonderful way to spend a Saturday night.  Made even better by my friend making actual fake poo pile ornaments as take home gifts. This party typically occurs after Christmas into the New Year. In addition, it's a PJ party!

A Galentine party typically takes place around Valentine's Day and is a great way to celebrate all of the wonderful strong women in your life. Again the party consist of great drinks and food but this time you bring with you some arts and crafts projects/supplies and get to create while celebrating your friendships. This too was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday evening.

Important note you can host a Crapmus or Galentine party any ole time. :)

Check out Makerspace

I recently discovered that the Columbia, SC main downtown Richland Library has a Makerspace in it!  I went to the one in Rochester but it was opened by a couple of men who wanted to create a space for artist in the community to create even if you didn't have the space, tools, or knowledge yourself.  This was a great concept and while I visited it a couple of times much of the space focused on technology and not quite what I was looking for. You also had to become a member to use it and pay a monthly fee and I wasn't sure I would utilize it enough.

Well, through a professor at the college I work at I discovered this new local Makerspace right here in my new city.  I went with an art class of students and was given a tour of the space and learn of upcoming events/workshops being held. What's really neat is that this Makerspace takes place right in your traditional library. It is on the second floor of the library and holds a space for sewing, a woodworking shop, a green room, a post production editing room, a 2-3D art studio, a resident artist space and a movie theater.  Everything is state of the art. They also have multiple really cool meeting rooms there and tons of computers. Plus books galore!!!! If you can't find me...now you'll know where I'll be!!!! If you live in Columbia, SC check it out.  http://www.richlandlibrary.com/inform/what-makerspace

New Year New Resolutions

It's a new year and with it comes new resolutions. I had a great New Year's Eve hanging out with my family, reflecting back on the year, playing games and eating food.  We decided that all of us wanted to work on losing 5 lbs this year so we started a little friendly competition with a goal of seeing who can lose 5 lbs and maintain it by 5/5.  I'm hoping to get myself back in shape this year. I logged 665.50 miles last year which is just over half of what I ran the previous year.  I started out fairly strong with an 11 mile run on 1/2. I signed up for a 5k race on 1/23, "The Ronald McDonald Red Shoe" race. I have a couple of others lined up also on top of the Mryle Beach 1/2 Marathon. So we will see what happens!

Other resolutions...to take care of myself by eating healthier and exercising more and creating more art. I'd love to do a weekend getaway with an workshop such as the ones Sweet Repeat host. Stay tuned to see if I can make any of these resolutions happen.

The Madd Platter

I was excited to find a cool pottery painting place soon upon my arrival in my new city.  Since pretty much none of my belongings were here and I needed to create I asked around and was told of the Madd Platter; http://www.mymadplatter.com. I went after work one day and checked it out.

I fell in love almost immediately. There was only a few people there which made for nice 1on 1 assistance. There was a ton of pieces to choose from to create and a lot more techniques then I was shown in the pottery place in Rochester. I was taught this new technique of silk screen printing on the piece which I loved! It was pretty easy and made for a professional looking piece.

I focused on making a traveling mug for my friend (now boyfriend) who was coming to visit. He is a pilot so I created a piece that was all about traveling and flying and gave it a vintage feel.  If you silk print with a darker color you can then water down a glazes and paint over the print giving it a water color/vintage look to it.  Below you will see the rough draft of the piece. I swear I took finished project pics but can't find them!!! Trust me it turned out awesome and he loved it!

The pen burns off and wasn't seen in the final product.

I ended up signing up to go back for my birthday which was this past week. They were having a breast cancer fundraiser. I showed my sister pics and how easy it was to create and she agreed to come with me and try something new.  At the fundraiser there was food and drinks and raffle prizes. My sister won some SC hot sauce.  I think she had a good time and it was a great night out for me.  I created another travel mug and used the silk prints again. I think I could make a mug for everyone I know I have so many ideas!  I may have to make this a monthly place to go!

Here's the finished products:

Travel Sketchbook

I have actually been creating little by little over the past month. Not as much as I'd like but I'm at least doing some art while traveling this much. Below are some of the pieces I've done in my travel sketchbook that I've been carrying around with some colored pens. I'm starting to find the medium limiting but it's easy to travel with.

A Week of Amazing Friends and Some Art

I've spent the past week in the company of many glorious friends of mine.  We laughed at the ridulousness of watching Pitch Perfect 2 on opening night in a theater full of tweens who actually clapped at the end like it was a world class movie (it was pretty funny though). We've worked out at the gym laughing at all of the lugs grunting and groaning taking themselves way to seriously. We've walked around the Lilac Festival making sure to stop and enjoy the lilacs, gone to yoga and laughed out loud at the horrible poses requested of us (that obviously normal people aren't meant to be able to do), enjoyed the amazing weather by going to stand up paddle boarding at the bay and creek (trying not to anger the geese with their ducklings), and eating a lot of ice cream and chocolate chip cookies!!! What more can a person ask for in life

I've even starting creating some art again. I'm taking my little travel sketchbook and pens with me on my trip. There is going to be a horrific amount of time spent in airports and planes so maybe I'll get some good creating time in. ;)

Inspiration Sandwich

I finally finished all of the pages to my sketchbook for the work sketchbook project. Woohoo! I'm pretty excited how it all turned out.

I liked the umbrella piece. The quote resonated with me and I thought of my one girlfriend who has been asking me why I haven't sent her one of my sketches. I made a copy of this one only bigger and am shipping it out to her. It's great to get mail that isn't bills! :)

Art and Adventure Updates!

This past week was crazy busy but wonderful all the same.  As the end of the academic year winds down and the summer moves forward I find myself wrapping up the old and thinking about the new.  Below are updates on what I've done recently and where I'm heading this summer.

 Work related wrap up and coming adventures:
1.  We had our annual Student Development luncheon this past Friday.  Unexpectedly, I was given the Student Development Staff of the Year Award! This was awesome to receive after a busy adventurous work year.  I few years ago I won the New SD Staff of the Year award and never thought I'd get another award. It was a very pleasant surprise.

• Here's the leftovers from the SD luncheon. I got enough to feed my mom and I. Yummy!!! Oh we had already ate the cannoli's for breakfast!

• My art therapy intern (who was extremely good) surprised me on our last group day and gave me this awesome t-shirt!

2. I finished my grad classes for this semester and next week will start my 3 day a week internship that will go for about 10 weeks this summer. A week after that I will start my summer class which will go for 6 weeks 2 nights a week. yuck! However, it seems like a useful class. I'm looking forward to both.  Even better is that after this summer I will have one class left, my capstone/thesis next spring.

3.  I'll be teaching an ACS class (freshman seminar) in the fall and am looking forward to this new adventure.

4. I'm working with a professor of mine to develop a research paper on creating a creative arts therapy program within a counseling center in higher education. Specifically I'll be taking a look at my data on the art therapy groups I offer to reduce stress and tying them into the self-authorship theory of student development. My goal is to publish the paper in a higher edu. related journal and put out a proposal this fall to present at the AATA conference on my program next summer.


Updates from this past week on art and other adventures and upcoming adventures.
1.  I received my 10th and 11th zendoodles from the Art Community Swap. These came from Mexico and Bolivia. Just waiting on one more.  I signed up for the next swap so stay tuned to see what I create and what I receive.

2.  I was a juror for the Mental Health Association Creative Wellness Coalition annual art show "Serendipity" this past Friday night.  The art work chosen will be presented at the Memorial Art Gallery on May 13th in conjunction with the opening of the Reel Mind movie series.  This is my 2nd year being a juror and I love the opportunity. The Creative Wellness Coalition is an amazing free resource in the Rochester community for those struggling with the affects of mental illness. This event and the Reel Mind series shows the public that people are more than their illness. http://www.mharochester.org/Default.aspx?RD=1801

3. My mom came up for a girls pamper weekend. We had a very busy awesome weekend.  Here was our line up of great things that we participated in:

• 50 min. Massages at Onondaga School of Massage (mine was amazing and I signed up for my first 100 min. massage at the end of the month with this person because she was so amazing.) http://www.ostm.edu/
• We unexpectedly came across the Mayday! An underground Crafts + Art festival. This was it's 9th semiannual show and yet it's the first time I've heard of or been to this show.  It was held at the Village Gate which is a perfect venue for the show. There was around 60 different venders exhibiting all handmade arts and crafts. You can check them out at; MaydayUnderground.Wordpress.com. Highly recommend.

• We then went to my neighborhood's biannual yard sales.  Of course we have yet to experience spring here in Rochester so it was a cold and rainy day. Because of this there was only about a quarter of the amount of yard sales that there normally is. However, my mom and I still got some great finds! See future art adventures for further info. on what I found.
• Saturday we found ourselves at Veritas Wine bar; http://www.yelp.com/biz/veritas-wine-bar-rochester.  I had purchased a groupon a while back with the intention of it being a neat new place for my mom and I to check out.  So we went and had our glass of wine, chocolates and macaroons.  It's a quaint little place with a front room, and a comfy back room.  While we were there a huge thunder and lightening storm occurred. When we left we were shocked to see huge hail balls all over the place. Global warming anyone?

• Sunday we woke up and got pedicures at TK Salon. I love the woman who manages the place and provides most of the services.  My feet were a hot mess from all of the months of distance running while training for the half marathon. She worked miracles on my feet. She did mention they were pretty beaten up and I should get a pedicure like every 2 weeks in order to regain my cute feet. Something tells me that won't happen.  Well, at least my feet loved the attention!  I even talked by mom into getting a chic haircut there. Even my dad noticed and complimented her when she got home. http://www.yelp.com/biz/tk-salon-monroe-county

Before: 5 black and blue toenails. The picture doesn't do it justice. I also had lost one of the toenail's Christmas Day.

After: Amazing!!!

4. So, adventures for this summer include: 

• I purchased a ton of patio pavers from someone off of craigslist a week ago and I started to dig last night. My goal is to expand my brick patio I built last summer. Boy, with all of the rain I thought it would be easy digging, unfortunately being wet makes the soil very heavy. This is going to be a process.
• At some yard sales I picked up a cute little kids bench and a sturdy little wooden stool.The total was 5 bucks. I'm going to repaint them both and put them out at my Little Free Library.  My homemade bench and stool are a little wobbly. ;)
• I'll be heading to Ann Arbor, MI in July to visit my new friends. I'll be there during the huge Arts Festival they have annually and we may go sky diving. http://theguild.org/art-fairs/ann-arbor-art-fair/
• I'll also be heading to SC for a couple of weeks to hang with my nephew and to be there for my nieces birth. This is a highlight to my summer!
• I've mentioned in a previous blog entry that I'll be at least partaking in a few fun runs this summer. I'm sure more will be added as the summer progresses. 
• I also have plans to attend some art related classes at The Brainery and the Arts and Crafts meetup group. Just have to find some classes that match my free time.