New color ~ new studio!

Seemingly out of the blue I found I needed new colors (and they weren't blue!) around me in my studio (located in the Northrup King Building). And of course, once I determined this, I then proclaimed to have this transformation completed in time for the infamous annual fall art event, Art Attack. Really, why would I consider waiting once I decided new colors were on the horizon? So for a couple of days these last couple of weeks I have spent making over the walls inside and out. Oh, it felt soooo good! Now I'm quite excited to hang the paintings (oil and encaustic), my mixed medium pieces, not to mention my textile pieces onto/with this new backdrop. The color on my exterior wall of my studio (a portion of it shown here) is named "spring dust". What a delightful tie-in to my never-ending source of inspirations, the organic world.....

More Ellie Sodaphant jounals underway

 

It's that time to replenish my supply. And so it starts with ordering more recycled soda bottle fabric (printed with my organic digital designs) followed by cutting this and the elephant dung paper to size. Sewing the covers and binding the pages to the covers with a silk ribbon ties my favorite product all together.

A process it is and one that can't be rushed in the details (as are most things in life); I make a point to try to savor the time spent at each step and not get caught up and worry about keeping the time to minimum in the production costs. A challenge indeed!

Univeral Designs - studio day!

What a delightful day it was! I spent a good portion of the day at Liz's Universal Pants studio. I brought with me 14 inspiring yards of organic cotton knit (a new fabric for me to use! one that is available through spoonflower.com) featuring 7 of my organic digital designs. She mocked up a few of our ideas (what we fondly call our "winter lovelies") with alternate materials for us to try out. So exciting! Stay tuned ~ upcoming events where these will be available are soon to come!

An amazing creation to behold

Romanesco is also known as coral broccoli and I saw it for the first time today at the farm. As it is with nearly all things found in the natural world, it's hard to believe such a thing grows without any direction from the farmer or gardener on hand. It is absolutely amazing in all of it's details and glorious being. Truly inspired, I immediately purchased a head of it to sit on my desk where I could study all of it's intricacies. At the end of the day I moved it home to rest by the kitchen sink where the studies of it's plentiful characteristics continue.
I'm told it has a really good flavor.....  Perhaps one day I'll purchase another for another type of sensory experience.......

Glorious Milkweed

"The milkweed pods are breaking,
and the bits of silken down
float off upon the autumn breeze
across the meadows brown."

- by Cecil Carendish, The Milkweed


I came across this poem the other day and thought it was delightful in its verse and image. Especially since I had just picked a fair number of pods that day (from my own front yard milkweed grove). So that I could  appreciate them just a while longer, I arranged them in a glass bowl. It is here, indoors, that I can regularly observe their green-turning-to-brown hollows and ridges - I find the exterior so appealing in pattern and texture.  And certainly so different from the inner silken down.....