Art Unraveled Part 1

Last Wednesday I left Portland for Phoenix where I taught 3 classes at Art Unraveled. My roomie there was Katie and we agreed we could not have had more fun than we did in our 5 days there. I brought back a few photographs.

This is the view toward the east from our sixth floor balcony. My beloved Arizona mountains. (I grew up in Mesa.) So many tearful homecomings. I love this desert where I experienced so many years of joy and sadness. Nothing is ever just one thing. I always have such pangs of memory when I visit.

Stephanie Lee gave us this bouquet of sunflowers for our room. The generous thoughtfulness of friends. It makes all the difference; to be loved and remembered. I'm still learning that lesson.

I didn't get photos of my Business class but we had a wonderful exchange of information there. Then the next day it was on to the class of building collages with paper, encaustic medium, transfers and ingenuity. Yum, don't you love to see the art supplies spread out as we play and experiment?

Today I'll show only the student work from that Encaustic Collage class. The light was very low in the room and while most of these photographs are poor I'll post what I have. We had 21 enrolled attendees (one over a full class) and every single project turned out brilliantly.

Gold foil transfer on the Buddha above and also linen thread woven into the wax.

A strange Frida-bird rising from her strange Frida nest.

A beloved pet, immortalized in wax.

The moon; the beautiful, pensive moon. Mica, twigs, buttons and a bow.

A princess in her private world - a story in the making. Perhaps a legend.

This woman makes her own light as she navigates the darkness.

A sense of peace and stillness.

A woman with sass and style.

She became the mistress of Cortez, the mother of the Mexican people, "La Chingada" (the despised one), a woman who loved a dreadful man. She must have felt torn as she helped to shape present day Mexico.

A beautiful portrait.

Bridget Benton started out with a heart that she painted into an octopus; thank you Bridget for helping me out more than once and for being a great artist and teacher in the Portland area. (sorry for the lousy photo of your divine piece)

The little boy doll is attached to the back side of the board.

A pensive child.

This artist drew the central figure so beautifully; the towel is upholstery fabric.

Photographs, collage elements and more ingenuity here.

These are the photographs that I came away with although I realize I missed a few. Everyone's work was unique to that person and wonderful. I was so happy at the end of the day to see that everyone felt elated and successful.

Closing with a photograph of Doris Arndt and Thomas, celebrating their 30th Anniversary of marriage. Doris is skilled at many things (think book arts but everything else too) and she and Tom met in art school when they were just kids. I've seldom seen a happier couple.

As soon as I got home I saw that the class list is posted here for Artfest 2009. Wow, some great classes this year and I'll be teaching two of them. Heads up folks, this is a great retreat that you won't want to miss.

It's going to take me awhile to get back up to speed with everything. I'm on the job though.