Exciting News

Early this morning, I just read the press release and the postcard for the International Fiber Arts Festival in Vancouver, Washington. I have already made plans to attend the opening reception for Nature Gathered exhibition as well as Art in the Heart Festival and the Fiber Arts Festival. I can not even imagine how exciting these special events will be for me. Here's the postcard (front and back) as well as the press release from the Sixth Street Gallery.


FIFTH ANNUAL NATIONAL FIBER ARTS FESTIVAL
A Perennial favorite comes to Sixth Street Gallery

Vancouver, WA, July 22, 2009 - Opening August 5, Sixth Street Gallery presents the Fifth Annual Fiber Arts Festival. Also showing is Nature Gathered, a show of twelve artists from across the country. The show runs August 5 - 30, 2009. Opening reception is during the First Friday artwalk on August 7 from 5 - 9:00pm and coincides with the second annual Art in the Heart Festival.

This year's Fiber Arts Festival once again shows the vast diversity of the beloved art and craft medium. From weaving to stitching, from wall art to sculpture, from traditional to contemporary, this show has a little bit of everything. Twenty artists from across the country show work that ranges from playful to somber but is always beautiful.

In July 2008, a group of twelve mixed-media artists from across the United States, entered into a year-long art challenge to celebrate their love for all things in nature. Each month, the group chose a different nature-based subject to interpret and create in a variety of mediums, limited only in creating art that fit on, or within, an 8" by 8" canvas. Finished pieces use photography, paint, fabric, metal and fibers to represent the artists' vision of subjects as diverse as birds, seasons and the heavens. Each piece is a unique glimpse into the world of nature. For additional information, please view their blog.

Sixth Street Gallery is an all-volunteer, cooperative gallery located in the heart of downtown Vancouver. Since 2004, Sixth Street has been a venue for performance, spoken word, and visual arts as well as providing art education classes for all ages. For more information, please visit www.SixthStreetGallery.com.

Nature Gathered Exhibition

Yes, I will be flying from New Jersey to the West Coast next month. I plan to be in three states: Oregon, Washington and California.


Yes, I will be there in Vancouver, Washington (across the river from Portland, Oregon) for the Nature Gathered Group's opening reception (6 pm to 10 pm) at Sixth Street Gallery on Friday August 7th. I am really looking forward to seeing others' work there.

Yes, all of my pieces will be for sale there, however, they are to be sold as one set of 12 pieces together. They look best as a set than as individual pieces. You can contact the gallery for the price of this set.

I hope to see some of you at the reception. Those of you who are unable to come to the reception, you can view the exhibition which runs from Friday, August 7th to Friday, August 28th (Wed-Sun 12pm to 5pm) at:

Sixth Street Gallery
150 West 6th Street
Vancouver, Washington
(360) 693-7340

And if you still are unable to either come to the reception or view the artworks, you still can see them in our Nature Gathered blog.

Book Review: The Uncommon Quilter

The Uncommon Quilter: Small Art Quilts Created with Paper, Plastic, Fiber, and Surface Design

I bought this book (author: Jeanne Williamson) from a museum shop in Jacksonville, Florida after I saw the quilt exhibition, A Survey of Gee's Bend Quilts which I reported in my art travel blog. Before I purchased it, I went through it, and immediately, I felt that I had to buy it right away. I have never done quilting before except that I have sewn square patches of fabric together to form a pillow. Until I saw the Gee's Bend quilts some time ago, I often thought of quilts as nothing more than blankets of repeated patterns. These two exhibitions, one at Whitney Art Museum in New York City some time ago, and one at The Cummer Museum in Jacksonville, FL, made me see the quilts from a different perspective. And this book has already helped me to see the everyday materials in a different light - especially from the produce section of the grocery stores. I have saved the tomatoes or oranges bags that looked like nets, but I was at a loss at to what to do. This book showed me different ways to use them as part of an artwork - in this case, the author used them in her art quilts which were much smaller than blankets. It also showed excellent examples for producing great composition - using textures, colors, and shapes. I have already developed several ideas of my own using the same principles that the author demonstrated in her book. Also, if you look at the cover of this book closely, they were actually cut out from plastic shopping bags (the ones from nice stores)! I highly recommend this book if you need to see the everyday materials from a different perspective, and also how to use them creatively and effectively in your artwork even though you might not want to sew.

Book Review: The Art of Decorative Paper Stencils 2

Last week while I was working on this blog's renovation, a package containing two books came in the mail. One of them happened to be Kanako Yaguchi's The Art of Decorative Paper Stencils 2: Traveling with Stencils.
I love this book because of the way the "paper stencils" (I prefer to call it "kirigami") was cut as per the patterns found in her travels to various country. This is really great in that she was "cross-breeding" the Japanese paper cutting techniques with the local patterns from different countries. Not only that, she used the same patterns to record the wonderful memories that each trip created. I will have to start looking at brochures & ephemera differently, and then cut the patterns based on the local design motifs. I will then scan them into my computer to create more design possibilities. The other interesting technique that she used in her book is layering. I am familar with the concept of layering from the acrylic painting or mixed media classes, but I never thought of using different paper cut-outs to create layers.

The Art of Decorative Paper Stencils 2: Traveling with Stencils

I do have a copy of the first volume, but it's somewhere in my house and I can't find it to do a review. As soon as I find it, I might do a review. Anyway, two days ago, I was gathering soda bottles for cutting up to reduce storage space, but I always get distracted by several ideas that came up in my head whenever I see anything. You can see what I have learned from this book and what I did with the soda bottles by taking a cybertram to the other blog. I strongly recommend this book as one of the great tools to sharpen observational skills while traveling in another country.

Welcome Back!

Whew! I finally finished the refurbishment of this blog as well as the creation of two new spinoffs. As you can see in the photo above, I was reviewing the progress and checklists for all of the three blogs. Oh, by the way, that blue thingie on my belt is an insect repellent - I was outside reviewing the papers and enjoying the beautiful weather.

I have heard that some of you were very concerned by what it seemed like I was closing my blog out forever. It was temporarily "closed" for safety reasons as I would hate to see you get hurt by the falling debris or slippery floors, or get the stray paint or wallpaper paste on your good clothes. I apologize for causing you to be concerned, but it was nice to know that many of you do enjoy reading my posts.

Anyway, I have given this blog a new "wallpaper", moved its previous one to another blog and gave it a fresh coat of lime green paint. In the third one, I put up the sunprints on the wall. I also moved the furnitures and accessories around, and put in some finishing touches. To make your navigating experience an easier one, I have created the following specific objectives for each of the three blogs:

1. Creative Life: In this new blog I will be sharing the joys and challenges of my life as a creative professional, and also how I meet the challenges of maintaining my own creativity and addressing its needs despite my hearing impairments and other obstacles. Sort of like "The Agony and the Ecstasy" but not quite. You can join me in my creative journey as a fellow colleague by using Google's Followers gadget on the left sidebar.

2. Wanderlusts and Explorations: This blog will focus on travels & my personal observations of various places from a designer's/artist's perspective. This is part of my attempt to be more globally minded - by looking at the various cultures locally and globally. Also it caters to those who are more interested in getting off the beaten path or looking at places with different eyes. Additionally, as I am currently going through my slides and digitizing them, I will be retrospectively writing about my earlier excursions. A new feature has been added to allow you to look for the posts based on locations, i.e. New York City or Seattle. You also will have an opportunity to join me as an "co-explorer" by using the Google's Followers gadget on the left sidebar.

3. Urban Paper Arts (UPA - this blog): This is still in development as I am still working on the development of the product line and unique offerings for sale. It will contain book & product reviews, links to my artworks and publications available for sale, cards & prints, and various kits. It may include my teaching schedule for both in-person and on-line workshops.

Each blog has two links installed just below the large banner and above the first post title - you should see two highlighted links with hyphens in between. This location should make it easier to you to find them much more quickly than the left or right sidebar. All of the three blogs are linked to each other so that you won't get lost. If you do, please holler for help!

The reorganization of the current posts from this blog is not yet completed. They will be either stay here, or moved to other blogs. However, they will be reviewed, and may be either re-edited and re-published in one in the above blogs, and the others will remain in my own archives.

Links will be made between posts as long as they're related. For example, if I visited a museum, my account will be published in the travel blog; if I bought books or anything from its shop, the reviews will be published either in the UPA or Creative Life blog; and if my design/aesthetic sense is influenced or motivated by my visit to that museum, it will be written and published in the Creative Life blog.

I am very pleased and proud with what I have accomplished so far, and I do hope that these three blogs will either inspire or motivate you to produce your own art/design work.

Yours for a creative life,

Navigational Aid

As I was thinking about creating directional signs and possibly new weekly table of content pages, I thought that maybe some of you might got a little bit confused by the new layout. So, those of you who are reading the posts inside one of the three blogs, I have come up with a simple map which might help you understand how they are linked together to form a triad (or a 'megablog'). I have also added the underline to the links above this post so that they become more obvious as links to other two blogs. I hope this will help some of you, but, unfortunately, these map and links may not make sense at all to those of you who are reading the posts in the email subscriptions, Google Reader, iGoogle or anything outside of this blog.