Retirement: Online Art Workshops

These are examples of my "Avant Garde" journal class. I'm teaching it this Sunday in San Diego at The Stamp Addict. It's one of my most favorite classes as the completed ones that I've seen students bring back and show me have been AMAZING. Each journal "speaks" volumes of it's creator. We turn trash into treasure in this class...


I haven't been as faithful posting stuff lately. Too much on my plate, I guess :)
I'm going to back track a bit and post about some stuff people have asked me to post, so here goes:
Colorado-
Mom, Tristan and I went to Fort Collins, CO early April. We left Wednesday, April 5th about 9:30 in the morning. It was the longest part of our trip. We had to drive "the long way" through AZ and NM instead of going over the Rockies as snow was supposed to be extremely heavy. We even were going to cut across route 40 but after listening to my Dad tell us how he lost control of the car on black ice and drove off the road on route 40 and then calling the highway patrol who told us that he got off of work at 6 so he could be home before it was dark to avoid the ice on the road, then we figured we'd drive the longggggggg way. We rolled into Albuquerque at about 3 in the morning. We found a brand new Best Western right off route 25 and stayed there (it felt like an Embassy Suites-two rooms-it was awesome!!) We left at about noon the next day and arrived in Fort Collins around 8 that night, I think it was. The scenery driving (during the day, of course) is amazing. Who knew that the desert could have so many colors???
Luckily, we managed not to kill each other this trip. I learned that the best way to NOT get into an argument with my Mom is to basically avoid confrontation, turn the radio station QUICKLY when something comes on that will "set her off", etc... I thought she was only going to kill me once when I made a crack about her wanting to go to mass on Palm Sunday to get the "free palm" (oops...thought it was a funny...she didn't. *sigh*)
Any ways, teaching at the Artists Nook is ALWAYS awesome. http://www.theartistsnook.net/
Christine always has an unusual "stash" of stuff. I love the look and "feel" of the new store. You get hit with "art" before you are even inside the front door. There are photos and all sorts of amazing eye candy pieces in the front window. Laurie Zuckerman was having an amazing altar and photo show that weekend. I drooled over several of her pieces. I am hoping that she does a coffee table type book some time as her work is just glorious.
I love the group at the Artists Nook. The students are just too cool-they have a wonderful sense of humor (right, Marcie, gel medium does come out of your hair...*ahem*), great color sense (hey, Bev!), and just the right attitude of "let's sit down, make stuff, laugh and be creative" (Right Venita in, what, 3 hours you churned out cool stuff before you hopped on a plane to England?)...I had pretty much full classes (it seemed like that the whole weekend. Lots of people Art everywhere. Art supplies everywhere.) When I wasn't teaching, I was shopping the store and throwing my "finds" at Christine (she's so good about that-"Christine, add this to my tab please? But please let me go home with some money left..." LOL) She had amazing "Found" stuff like a vintage baby doll dress (WITH THE BLOOMERS!), old (and I mean OLD) "vintage" rubber stamps...what else did I buy? I came home with a BOX of stuff. OH! a "vintage" artists supply box" -I loveeee this "find". It even came with lots of "paint" rubbed into it already (LOL)
I was bummed when classes ended on Sunday. Tristan, Mom & I drove to Christine's home where Tristan got to hang out with Christine's boys. He LOVED it. He kept talking about what they have, and what they did, and video game this and fort that...all the way home. It was really cute. Plus Christine's hubby knows how to cook a mean dinner (YUM!) We ended up staying later then we had expected but it was sooo much fun!
Monday morning we got up at the crack of dawn (well, actually before dawn. It was 4 am.) We were on the road by about 5 ish. We actually had time to stop at "that coffee house" before we left and imagine my dismay when they had "run out of black iced tea". WHAT!??! We managed to beat the snow that was expected in the Rockies that day. The drive over them was AMAZING. You could tell that getting stuck in THAT snow wouldn't have been fun as there was snow "crud" piled up along side the highway that was bigger then our (rental) car! EEK! We stopped in Vale, CO to stretch our legs, take photos, get more iced tea (LOL) and pick out a traveling companion that I dubbed "Rocky". LOL it's a "pound puppy" toy that is now sitting in the window of my Toyota Tercel. We pretty much drove as much as we could (Mom did the driving through the Rockies). I was just exhausted from teaching and when I'm not driving and I feel tired, the car just wipes me out so I tried to sleep. We stopped in Utah-ummmm I can't remember the city but there wasn't anything there :( We walked around an antique store and another store and then said "let's get outta here!"
Mom and Tristan had conspired against me to stay in Vegas that night at Circus Circus. So we rolled into Circus Circus at about 7 pm. OMG. The place was crawling with kids. I love kids...but not tons of people packed into one spot and totally unsupervised. We looked at the registration line...then we walked around upstairs and said "FORGET IT. Let's drive to Los Angeles."
One interesting fact: did you know that there are signs on the bathrooms outside of Circus Circus (the women's rest room) that says no male children under the age of (I think it was) 5 allowed in the women's bathroom. "F" that I said!! My kid is NOT going into the men's bathroom in THIS joint by himself. So ponder that thought!
We stopped at one of our favorite pizza places-Metro in Vegas and relaxed for an hour with a delicious pizza before we got back on the road. It truly is one of my favorite pizza places and we always have dinner there when we are in Vegas. It's on Tropicana.
I drove home and tried to stay awake by listening to old radio shows, loud music, etc... Mom and Tristan were sleeping the ride. We lucked out as the traffic on the other side of the road was icky, horribly backed up for miles and miles. Thank God we weren't in THAT!!! I noticed the "change" in driving the closer we got to Los Angeles. It really is noticeable. People passing me nine million miles an hour on the right, on the left...I swear they'd go OVER me if they could and I was going at least 5 mls about the speed limit. Crazy people.
We unloaded the car (what we thought most valuable) at 1 am...At 1:30 I was in bed but my body felt like it was still driving LOL
I am booked for Mother's Day weekend in 2007 at Artists Nook and I honestly can Not wait!!! I LOVE that store and YES I would drive there again in a heartbeat. The drive over the Rockies and through UT, NV and AZ (for like 10 minutes LOL) home was amazing. It's definetly one of the prettiest areas of the country.

More to come about the Brothers Quay and some other stuff...