Happy First Day of Spring! This week, my post for Poetry Friday on my author blog seems just as appropriate, if not more so, here – so, here’s the link! Thanks for reading.
It’s almost here – Dec. 16! How will you celebrate? I’ve been enjoying nods to Jane Austen all year – here’s my post today over at my author blog with links to ways you might get your Jane Austen on, too!
Poetry Friday – Cheers to Jane Austen! – Robyn Hood Black… The Jane Austen House over in England has offered many online gems.
On Instagram (artsylettersgifts) and in my Etsy listing, I have a short video of the making of this glass cabochon ornament. The image is based on the circa 1810 sketch Cassandra Austen made of her beloved sister.
My favorite Jane Austen novel is Pride and Prejudice – what’s yours?
Greetings, Art Lovers!
Today is the release day of “Downton Abbey – The Grand Finale”! For 15 years, from the Masterpiece series on PBS to subsequent movies, the characters living upstairs and downstairs in the grand house have brought us to laughter and tears. My daughter and I will definitely take in this final movie, and I might or might not wear a fascinator hat.
I celebrated by making a couple of small handmade journals featuring 1920s ephemera. I love the sassy/classy attitudes in these black-and-white fashion illustrations from the 1920s. These books feature 50 blank pages for thoughts or sketches. But I’ve also dropped in a tiny calendar page from 1929, and added little cherub children clipped from a 1922 postcard and tucked into a vintage pocket on the inside back cover. A 1920s grocery receipt graces one, and a 1920s film star visage from an ad graces the other.
I do love a lot of the 1920s aesthetics, and I just love finding anything 100 years old and wondering about its past lives. Recently I came across this tiny celluloid blank date book from 1928. These were evidently made into address books and memo books, too – just the size to pop into a steel bead-laden purse, perhaps? I was thrilled to see that it is held together by two celluloid jump rings. I’ve used metal jump rings for years to make tiny journals, but I didn’t know how far back that idea went. Too fun!
Just back from a wonderful few days in Helen, Georgia, at the August Retreat sponsored by Scrappy Shak. Libby Hickson of Pink and Main shared some foiling tips for cardmaking and more, the Scrappy Shak team led some introductory make-and-takes.
The main event and our featured fearless leader was Seth Apter, bringing his mixed media magic and more. I’ve taken several of Seth’s online classes over the years and purchased his book not long after it came out a dozen years ago or so. What a treat to meet him in person! Seth is as generous and down-to-earth as you’d imagine from his online sessions, but toss in a sharp and quick wit in a crowd of live humans sharing the same space. Thanks to Sizzix for sponsoring his participation, and huge thanks to Melanie, Diane, and the whole Scrappy Shak family for a fun and creative long weekend. (Did I mention the Roaring 20s Welcome Party, complete with diamond heist?!)
I enjoyed “Double Jointed” on Sunday – a wonderful 6-hour online workshop by Seth Apter. Here are a few photos of the book I made. You can find a video of my flipping through the whole book on my artsyletters Facebook page. :0) (Some elements include various papers and collage, block prints and stamps from letterpress blocks, fabric, linen thread, transparencies, paints and gelli printed images, an altered wax seal sent with some wax I ordered, and some tiny metal beads from a 1920s (?) purse.)
Greetings! I’ve been out of touch but busy, what with moving across the state and all. My new studio is slowly coming together, and I do love it. I will share a proper tour and pictures soon. In the meantime, here are a couple of clean-slate/new space/before-I-moved-in pics, and several pics of some fast-filling nooks, crannies, and curiosities. Enjoy!
What am I NOT showing you? Um, the remaining boxes and all the little pieces-parts that I’m still walking around and organizing. It seems I’ve accumulated quite the collection of vintage and art supply ‘treasures’ in the past ten years…. (Insert shoulder shrug emoji here.)
More soon! :0)
Thanks for popping in!
I like to participate in the New Year Poem Postcard Project spearheaded by Jone Rush MacCulloch, one of my dear poetry friends. Several of us Poetry Friday folks, or poetry minded folks, swap postcards in the mail to jumpstart the year. These are usually lovely and inspiring. I got a wild hair this year and decided to toss in a chuckle, with this play on “The Tyger” by William Blake (1757 – 1827):
©
Poet Poet, burning bright
In the blue computer light
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful syntax-y?
…
Did he who made Iambs make thee?
©Robyn Hood Black, after, and with apologies to, William Blake
I sketched the tiger in pen and ink, but filled in the fur with snippets from
Blake’s draft of “The Tyger” from one of his notebooks (copied from a reproduction in Peter Ackroyd’s book, BLAKE). Lucky for me, there were lots of heavy black scratch-outs!
To see the poetry postcards I received and for links to and about Blake’s poem, click here for my author blog post.
Wishing you a wild and poetic 2022!
Greetings, Friends! It’s almost Valentine’s Day… I’m busy in the studio conjuring up gifts for the letter-lovers in your life. (Or for yourself!) We can use as much love as we can get these days, right?
Scroll down below this post for the most recent additions.
My physical shop remains closed to the public (except by appointment) until we’re a bit further along the pandemic road, but my Etsy Shop is open 24/7. I’ll be posting lots of heart/love-themed items on Instagram for the next month; feel free to follow along here. And, Thank You! (I DO love my customers and supporters!)
First up: These fun, funky chokers made from 1950s and 1980s ingredients – for those with “questionable” taste, perhaps? :0)
