Oh my goodness, that was fun! This was a very exciting and excited retreat. I am amazed at the energy. I felt like I was surrounded by my people. It was invigorating, inspiring, tiring and wonder full. I would love to do it again!

I took Judy Coates Perez's Tea and Ephemera class, I taught three of my own classes, the Freezer Paper, Paint, Oh my! class got gypped in the video department. But it all went really well.

Check out Pat Gaignat's blog for further tales on our exploits.

And purchase or open your copy of the Sept/Oct issue of Cloth Paper Scissors if you want to know the stamp making technique that Pat taught me! Geez! There are alot of links in this paragraph.

If you were a student and would like to share your art with me and my blog, I would love to post your photos and comments.

So.

Leslie Tucker Jenison is here and I lurve her. She is a special person and we have a special bond. Don't pass go, Leslie posted stories about her collaborative painting class with Jamie Fingal already. A student proudly showed me a piece of her work from that class and said, "the women were really bossy and it was great!".

Today! No teaching. I am joining Jeannie Palmer Moore and going to The Art Institute. Tonight we meet up for a little hotel room party, photos to come.

Ya gotta wonder, a sign with my name on it...

A big empty room?

When it fills up, lots of color, laughter, fun.

(I Believe) this is Ali, working away, applying wax, paint and more wax. This group was great, the energy was good. Great cloth was made. I have been taking a video and will make a montage when I get back.

I see potential here, we see potential (I am talking about Pat again). These five acorns made it into my bag in Pennsylvania. Blind contour drawings? Fun Foam stamps? Hm.

Today's class, Freezer Paper, Paint, Oh My! went really well. It was a small class, intimate. We explored the use of color, composition and design in depth. I do have some photos... but I forgot that cord... the bane of travel with computers and electronic devices.

Good times.

So we packed our bags and hit the road. New Jersey just wants to turn you around and get you lost, Pennsylvania is very big, Ohio may or may not be in the central time zone, the guy behind the counter never figured it out, Indiana zips right by but when you stop at a rest stop there are world war 2 vets who like to gather young women to him with stories and laughter, Illinois is as urban as I am now used to.

At the same rest stop as the WW2 vet we smushed a Chicago penny, That is Pat in Penny action.

The two of us have arrived at the hotel, safe and ready to veg out.

The old part: my camera of the last 6 years is on the kaputt. Poor old pal, I have blogged a long while with it. See those bright lines at the bottom of the photo? hm. Good thing I bought a beautiful new camera last year.

Whenever I teach, and especially in the summer, I want new clothing. A few weeks back I posted about embellishing newly bought t-shirts, here is t-shirt #2. It is photographed on top of a new skirt, ripped off (I copied the pattern of a skirt I currently own and love). Though you cannot see a bit of iof the skirt in this photo. I will make sure I get an action shot because this new T and the skirt are rad.

This next week is going to be a lot of fun!

I know. I went quiet. I am sorry! I am teaching, returning from teaching, preparing to teach and organizing a vacation for my Man and I. Fun, tiring, exciting, and wonderful, all at once. Last week, when we got back from teaching at Art Unraveled and then visiting our house in Flagstaff, I was beat. and I played all week long. But now I have to prepare and pack for Create Retreat, in Chicago.

I will have my laptop and plan to blog as I go. Pat and I will be road tripping. I will make sure to get a good photo like this one and then another, like this one.

In the meantime I prepare some class samples and step outs. All while listening to Joan of Arc.

Stitch Alchemy, Combining Fabric and Paper for Mixed-Media Art by Kelli Perkins is a treasure box of inspiration. Just opening the book at random will help you along your own creative journey! I swear. I opened to page 51, to the section called Clear Resist Embossing. Without reading the text, just looking at the image, an idea sparked within my mind and this is just how this book goes along. Page after page of eye-candy and creative juice stirrers.

Kelli's writing style is permissive, her directions are simple and to the point and make you realize how easy and fantastic it is to mix your medias, play with both stitch and paper and to create something as luscious and layered as Kelli does.

So if you want to get your creative synapsis popping and you need to put a little bit of sparkle in your approach, just buy this book.

Here is a stamp that Kelli's book inspired in me. Opening to page 51 of her book made me question why it never occurred to me to sew through fun foam to create a stamp. She doesn't explain this in her book but the sheer creative verve she has brought forth really does touch your creative core, get you thinking and better yet, making stuff.

and here is a detail shot of the printed stamp. You can see the stitches in the foam, I left some threads to interfere with the printing and it speaks to the image on page 51 because Kelli has no fear of painting over sewn line.

Carole is a Phoenix native and she brought cookies....which went straight to my heart. Carole will forever remain a Most Cherished Student because of it . No! no! I mean she will forever remain a Most Cherished Student because she went home after the Stamping in Depth class and continued making stamps into the wee hours of the night. The stamp pox hit Art Unraveled pretty hard.

Soy Wax Batik with Paint remains my most sought after class and I totally understand that! It is so addictive and easy to use. Beside which you can have a spa like experience if you choose to bury your hand deeply into the soy wax itself.

Leslie (far left), had a neat approach with paint and made quite a few samples that were quite good. She allowed me to iron and wash one of her pieces and I bet she has some lively cloth to use in her art. I would love to see it (and post about it) if you are a reader, Leslie.

Rice Freeman-Zachary came and played for a little bit too. I think she is a really neat person. Whip smart and ready to fully engage. I like that in a person.

I am on the road, we (my Man and I) are sitting in the library in Sedona, cooling off and zoning out. This is my first ever, on the road blog post. That is one of the cool things about having a laptop! Soon we will return home to our nest in Brooklyn, pet and hug Arrow and settle back in (that is) until I am off to Create Retreat with my good friend Pat.

Oh and Jane LaFazio uploaded a photo of she and I at Art Unraveled it is shows the Greater Scaup T-Shirt I worked on last week.

I created this post a few days ago and am just now uploading it.

Sort of.

I didn't want to be creative. I wanted to lounge, read, laze. August is going to be a busy month for me. But I got it into my head that I needed to embellish some t-shirts for my upcoming teaching gigs. I mean, you know?

So I hopped on the train, went shopping. (It is harder than you might think to find t-shirts. They are either sheer, deep necked, inappropriate to the task or they have polyester in them-which I get too hot to wear.) I did find two though.

And I came home and tried, once again, not to get dirty. I did read some. I lounged. Then I got busy.

I am going to be Road Tripping to Chicago in a few short weeks to teach at the Create Retreat and I would love for you to join in one of my classes. My Soy Wax Batik class is just about full (Thursday August 26 from 9 to 4, samples here), so I am going to highlight these two classes:

In this class we will make freezer paper stencils, mix and use color to create our own unique painted cloth. If you would like to see a few more samples of this technique, click here. This class will be offered Wednesday, August 25 from 9 to 4.

I will also be teaching Inspired Journaling, every-single-day! class. In this class we will explore creating backgrounds, layering and collage. It seems I have been heavily into journaling lately, so check out this link to see more samples. This class runs Friday August 27 from 9 to 4.

I have teamed up with Crafter's Workshop to offer this great giveaway. The first 5 people to tell me they will sign up or have signed up will receive one of these great stencils.

Kelli Perkins is a fun, fabulously, inspired mixed media artist, whose book Stitch Alchemy, Combining Fabric and Paper for Mixed Media Art is a treasure trove of technique, approach and creative exuberance. I have had the pleasure of meeting Kelli and know that you will love her art and her personality as much as I do. Kelli is a working mother, in a great and loving relationship, which might suggest that she has her hands full. But it seems she makes time to glue, paint and stitch papers to cloth in fun, whimsical and expressive ways.

Melly T: I would love to know how this approach in materials and style came about, can you tell us about that?

Kelli NP: There has been a long process of accepting my own work. In the beginning I spent a lot of time thinking about what other people considered to be artistic. I am drawn to outsider and lowbrow art, including street art and graffiti. Yet, when I sit down to create, cute, pretty and colorful come out. I used to think something was wrong with me and I needed to push past that. Now I embrace it and create things that make me happy. When it comes to materials, I try new things all the time and when something really speaks to me, I keep working with it. That's what happened with stitchpaper.

MT: Knowing that your plate is full, having a full time job and a family, can you please talk about how you make time for art, how you think about your studio and what it gives you in return?

KNP: Art in the small spaces is my motto. There is no bridge of time too small to contain creation. I keep at the very least a sketchbook and pens with me at all times. I bring a bag of sewing to work and stitch during my lunch hour. I always collage, bead, embroider or do other handwork while watching a movie. In five minutes waiting in the dentist's office, I can accomplish a lot! All of these little bits add up at the end of the day. What it gives me in return is joy. There is no other expression for it than that.

MT:As an artist working in different mediums/medias, if you took one thing out of the mix would that stifle your process?

KNP: Oh absolutely. I need touchy-feely and combining paper and cloth with stitch is just the thing. I am not much of a museum person because you can't touch. What good is that? This is why I'll always be drawn to functional forms like books, quilts, dolls etc.

MT: What do you do when you are feeling creatively dull?

KNP: That's the time to whip out my notebooks and files of creativity scraps. I get ideas all the time, so I jot them down for further exploration. I could use several lifetimes exploring all of the things that have popped into my head in the middle of the night.

MT: What are your fears as an artist and how do you face/overcome/talk yourself out of or USE them?

KNP: I gave my inner critic a name, so when the voice in my head tells me my art is not good enough, I can pin it on her. It's just this one crazy person living inside my head, so why should I listen to her? If she showed up at my door and said those things in person, I would dismiss her as a lunatic. So why should I give the voice more credence because I can't see it? My fears are the same as yours. Are we ever good enough?

MT: You will be doing some teaching soon. Is there anything you would like to say about that? Times, dates and places?

KNP: Yes! I'll be at CREATE with Cloth Paper Scissors in Rosemont IL in August, with a full slate of ridiculously colorful classes, including; Stitchpaper Alchemy, Paper Bead Alchemy, Stitched Imagery and a Trinket Journal class. I'll also be selling some stitchpaper packs, paper beads and artwork. It's been a long time since I've had a vendor table and I've missed it. I used to be a soapmaker.

MT: Tell us about a piece of art that you made that you espcially like and why.

Since I make more functional art than stand alone pieces, let me praise the merits of paper beads. Have you ever stood on the beach and sifted through sand for rocks or shells? Each one is more beautiful than the one before. When we visit Lake Superior I can't come back without pocketfuls of rocks. Paper beads are like that. Each one is completely unique and you have to hold it in your hand and spin it about to appreciate its full beauty.

Next week I will do a full review of Kelli's book here on my site. Until then, please go check out Kelli's blog, her book and the possibility of taking a class from Kelli at the Create Retreat. Ay the very least I hope you enjoy the luscious showing of Kelli's work.

I have been wanting to do a mass open of Mail Art for a couple of weeks and now is the time. Follows are a bunch of student works driven by my recent Let's Exchange Some Art class through Joggles. We made papers, ATC's and Tags and then made envelopes out of our papers and mailed them off to one another. It was great fun.

Here is some of my mailed artistic wealth!

Lisa sent me some work by her 13 year old daughter too! Get 'em young!Debra tells me this class did wonders to encourage her as an artist and that makes me happy.

Debra tells me this class did wonders to encourage her as an artist and that makes me happy.

Carol C did a great job too.

Suzanne thinks she made mistakes but I can't see them.

Carol L says she caught the pox big time. It really is hard to resist. Sadly, there is no immune booster for this condition.

Jeannie busted some bold moves! Look at that red! Yums.

Terri used some scrumptious colors.

Michele did some super fun work too. I love the red dots and the numbers and the....

The Mistress of Longears was quite timely in getting her Mail Art out, you would think some bunnies were rushing her out the door.

It was alot of fun, great fun to get real mail too.

And hey. If I put the wrong name to your work, pipe up! It is hard to do long pictorial posts like this.