This photo is for my brother Doug and sister-in-law Leslie who visited us last Oct when there was very little Fall color. This year is absolutely beautiful.
Below is baby Orlando playing with our Halloween decorations. So cute.
I have been working on the workshop line-up for 2013. So far we have: Keith Lobue Michael deMeng Andrea Matus deMeng Dan Essig Teesha Moore Tracy Moore MaryBeth Shaw and Julie Snidle Carol Owen Ingrid Dijkers
Save up your pennies for a wonderful year.
Students Kathy Herda and Randy Cecil brought in show and tell from Tracy's Saturday workshop. From Kathy:
The little car actually moves along the little leather road! So very clever, Kathy. I love how differently everyone's minds work.
Below a photo of the work of students Carol and Sharon from Canada.
Randy's work:
Randy even added detail to the inside of the leather pieces:
Thank you both for sharing your projects and enthusiasm with me since I could not be at Tracy's workshops.
Don't forget to sign up for Ingrid's Journal workshops on Sept 8th and 9th. We are going to to have a great time creating.
Hmmmm. Tracy's students who live locally have not brought in show and tell as they promised (Isn't that right, RANDY?). I will need to get some photos from Tracy.
Here are some random photos from Teesha's last class: Handstitched Journals.
There are few things that make me happier than having a classroom, in this case two classrooms, filled with students happily creating. I am very lucky to have such excellent instructors come from all over the country (and Canada and Australia) to teach here in Westlake OH. That makes it lucky for you, too. This weekend we had students from OH, PA, VA, MD, TN, IL, MI, WI and Canada. Thank you to every one of you and to Teesha and Tracy for being here.
Next up on Sept 8th and 9th, Ingrid Dijkers. There is still space available in both of her workshops at Small Studio here in Westlake OH.
Sadly, the weekend is over. This has been so much fun. The classes were full. The students were enthusiastic and the teachers inspiring. John and I so enjoyed our time with the Moores. They are such a generous couple sharing ideas, supplies and themselves. The good news is they have agreed to return again next August!
I took photos in the classes at the store and had a few of Tracy's Friday students stop by for show and tell, but I didn't get photos of the Sat/Sun workshops that Tracy taught. Enjoy the photos below from Teesha's classes: The Dayplanner. Tomorrow I will share photos of the Handstitched class.
Thank you to all the students who participated. Such a wonderful group.
Hi Everyone! What fun we are having with Teesha and Tracy here at Small Studio. Teesha's workshop "Paint and Paper" took place at the store with a full and enthusiastic group of students. Teesha taught some great techniques and was very generous with ideas and supplies for her group. Photos of just some of the work done follow. Each student produced quite a few pieces, so this is just a tiny sampling.
Tracy, who taught over at Avon Landings Rec Center in Avon Lake, was equally inspiring to his students. Only a few of his students made it back to the store after class, so I have just a small amount of photos of the awesome metal and leather books.
Great job Teesha and Tracy and excellent job students!
Where shall we put our Halloween goodies in the store? That was the question. All of our surfaces are full. So, I hear "project" reverberating through the air.
This:
sanded and painted, turned into this:
and this:
and this:
Thank you, John!
Just a few days until Teesha and Tracy show up. I can't wait. They are always such fun and between them have enough creativity to burst the universe. Don't forget that all Teesha's workshops at the store and Tracy's are at the Landings Rec center in Avon Lake. Directions are online.
This is what I told Randy when he came in yesterday to see if I was okay since I hadn't blogged in a week. (he shouted). Dailiness had set in around here. We were busy at the store and at home, but not doing anything newsworthy. Launie stopped by Small Studio to drop off her class info for September. She will be doing a beginning Zentangle class. Look at Launie's shoes! Pretty cool doodling.
Teesha has expanded her Handstitched workshop later this month to include "junk journaling" pages.
She is really excited about this addition to the original class agenda and you know what it means when a teacher is super excited: the class is awesome. There are still a few spaces left in this class and The DayPlanner workshop. Tracy's workshops have been moved to The Landings recreation building in Avon Lake where we had our workshop series in 2010. This means that we can take more students in his workshops.
Send those registration forms and checks in fast. The Moores will be here in two weeks!
A group of ladies came to the store on Saturday. It was hot and they needed to keep cool. They lined up their drinks on the front counter and hit the store running. It was great fun having these ladies led by Teri Whidden back again.
We had another group of ladies show up on Friday. These ladies are pretty laid back and require no hydration. They are hoping to go home with you and just sit around at your house.
John and I finished the last of the birds and they are ready to go to The Summer Market next week at Veteran's Park in Avon Lake. It begins Friday night at 5pm and continues Saturday until 4pm.
Altered Books with Carol Owen is this coming Saturday and Sunday. Don't miss this if books and fun are your thing.
In August we host Teesha and Tracy Moore. We are moving Tracy's workshop to a larger venue to accommodate the wait list people (I will contact you on Tuesday) and a few more lucky souls who may want to sign up. Everyone in these classes will be contacted about directions. There are also a few spaces left in Teesha's Saturday DayPlanner and Sunday's Hand Stitched classes.
In September we have Ingrid Dijkers with 2 one day workshops and Pam Sussman with two one-day workshops. Books, collage, boxes, journals and wonderful fun with both of these ladies. All classes have space in them.
In October, the unique and wonderful Keith Lobue joins us again for three days. Go read all about these workshops on our site and his.
What a glorious morning it is here in Northern Ohio. The view from the deck:
And my Hydrangeas are in bloom:
Doesn't all this renewal make you want to learn and create?
Well, my friends, get your act together and sign up for the following instructors in our workshop series at Small Studio here in the Cleveland area.
July 28-29 Carol Owen teaching Altered Books
Aug 24, 25, 26 Teesha Moore teaching Collage and Journals
Aug 24, 25, 26 Tracy Moore teaching Bookbinding, Jewelry and Journals
Sept 21, 22, 23 Pam Sussman teaching Bookbinding
Oct 5, 6, 7 Keith Lobue teaching Metalworking and Jewelry
What are you waiting for? An invitation? Here it is. We have so much fun at these workshops with a whole weekend and just one or two instructors. Most are multiple one day workshops with a couple of exceptions. All photos, descriptions and other details are online at our website. We would love for you to join us.
The following workshops are sold out:
Teesha's Paint and Paper
Tracy's Hand Forged Journals
Tracy's Full Throttle Journaling
All of our other workshops have openings, but some are close to being sold out. Sign up as soon as possible. Tonight I had to write three people and disappoint them. I so dislike doing that.
Do you have Peeps left over from Easter? Here is a great idea for up-cycling them.
We just received some more puppets. We used to sell them at shows and several customers asked if we had anymore. Well, here they are.
Ever since I started to blog I have neglected my journals. Either I am too busy or I feel that all the big news and daily happenings have been recorded here. The other day I got out some of my old, big, bursting journals and reread some of them, reliving the events all over again. It was so satisfying that I started to journal again. Now I feel as thigh I am really back among you. You do journal, don't you?
We have been having such trouble at the store with our internet conncections, wifi and other related issues. John and I do our best, but we lack the basic understanding needed to make it all work. We need to adopt a 15 year old to fill the lack of computer knowledge. Fortuneately we have a good friend, Chris Pritchard who came to our rescue.
Chris has spent hours figuring out and fixing our problems and today we had a victory. Everything works just the way it should. Hurray! Thank you, Chris. You are the best.
It was a fun day at the store for me. So many interesting people came in and shopped and visited.
It was a letters and numbers kind of day. Our customers were spelling out words and names or putting together numbers for projects. One lady had just installed a screen door in the doorway of her pantry and found her address among the number plaques above. She is going to place it on the pantry door.
Another customer found her birth year, her husband's birth year and their kids' birth years to place on picture frames using our small black and white small number circles (not the ones shown above).
It is so much fun to hear about projects from my customers. I am so happy to be back in this environment.
Lucky me. Thank you all.
Tracy Moore's Full Throttle Journaling workshop is sold out. There is room still in all other workshops, some more than others.
Registrations are coming into the shop on a regular basis for the Small Studio Workshop Series. They are arriving from Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Arizona, New York, Texas and other far away places. They are not coming in the same numbers from Cleveland, lakewood, Rocky River or Westlake. This was a common occurance when I hosted Art Continuum too. I don't understand why. I am happy that people want to travel here to take classes from all these wonderful instructors, but local people who do not have to go to the expense of travel and lodging seem to take the opportunity lightly. Any comments?
Here is the line-up. Registration is open and simple. Links to their blogs/websites are on the left of this post.
May 4-6th, Leighanna Light
June 1-3rd, Michael DeMeng and Andrea Matus
July 28-29th, Carol Owen
Aug 24-26th, Teesha and Tracy Moore
Sept 21-23rd, Pam Sussman
Oct 5-7th, Keith Lobue
All workshops have openings although some are getting close to being full.
I have been working on store classes too and I am excited to offer you in the coming months classes beginning in April by Barbe Saint John who will be a regular Small Studio instructor.
And Ingrid Dijkers is coming in April, who I also hope to entice to be a regular visiting instructor at Small Studio. Info for both instructors will be online in the next day or two.
My local customers are so lucky to have all this talent available so close by.
You guys are pretty funny. Tracey: John is not laying new flooring although looking back at the photo from yesterday, one could think that. No, John is measuring and measuring and measuring.
Because....
We signed a lease today on a new store! Small Studio will be a brick and mortar store. I am over the top excited and so is John. We have not stopped talking about what we will do with the new space.
We will have a classroom in about half of the space. We already have Keith Lobue, Michael DeMeng, Andrea Matus, Pam Sussman, Teesha and Tracy Moore lined up for the summer. John has strong opinions on how the classroom should be designed since he taught high school art for many, many years.
We will sell paper goods and artsy goods and vintage goods and gifty goods. You know, all the stuff we like and want.
Stay tuned for updates. It will take us awhile to change what appears to be some sort of carpeted race track into a viable fun and creative store space.
We can't wait for you to come visit.
Teesha and Tracy that is....
I received a few more pages from students of Teesha's workshop:
I apologize for not knowing who did all these pages, but the class was large and the books were all layed out on a few tables for show and tell, except we didn't tell names. All of the books were colorful and fun. Thanks you again to all the students and to Teesha and Tracy.
Tracy has a wonderful group of photos (with names and pictures of the artists) of the art books created in his workshop. You can see them on his blog.
Shaun sent me photos from the Tracy workshop, of her two projects she completed. The first is her metal covered book and the second is her book ring. Great work, Shaun!
Hmmm...I don't know why Shaun's book is sideways when it was oriented correctly when I loaded it.
Here is Mike with his "Spy" book. He inserted a camera lens into his cover.
Coming up at Small Studio Productions Workshop is Ingrid Dijkers, Keith Lo Bue and Lynne Perrella.
After we played with our covers in Day one of the Teesha workshop, we worked on our pages. My camera died half way through the picture taking, so enjoy what I have.
These pages today were all done by students using magazines and lots of pen work.
The pictures were taken right after lunch on the last day, so more work was done on the pages later that afternoon.
I didn't get photos of Tracy's student work. If you were in his workshop and took some photos, send them to me so I can share them. In the meantime here is John's in-progress book from Tracy's class:
Next workshop: Ingrid Dijkers
Today the students will start arriving for this month's workshop. If you didn't sign up, you really are missing something special. Teesha Moore and Tracy Moore will be here. They do not often teach outside of their home state, Washington. They haven't been here in five years!
In Teesha's workshop we will be making these:
Which close-up look like this:
My supplies are all packed. I find it so much fun and also stressful to pack supplies for a workshop. I hover between being excited to imagine what I will accomplish with the supplies and worrying about having just the right thing.
Tracy will be teaching this:
and this:
John has packed up his whole art studio for this workshop. Even though we will be able to come home each night and pick up anything extra for the workshops, he wants to have every possibility at hand.
The workshops are full, so you have definitely missed out for this weekend, but we have coming up Ingrid Dijkers, Keith Lobue and Lynne Perrella. There are spaces in all of them still. Don't miss out on these excellent instructors. You can see the schedule and descriptions here on our website.
Clown theater available in our Small Studio Emporium
Life is sometimes just a circus.
This is one of those times.
We laugh.
We are amazed.
We go in circles.
Yes, life is just sometimes a circus.
And we are the clowns.
I pride myself on being pretty organized and in charge of making sure the chaos is held to a minimum. Somehow it has all piled up on me. It has piled up all at once.
Memorial weekend was filled with family BBQs, kids baseball and a run to the airport to pick up John's daughter, Kate, who has just left after visiting for a few days. It was a great weekend and has been a really nice visit with Kate. Kate just completed her second masters program. We are all very proud of her.
Tomorrow I leave for a few days in Indiana while John holds down the fort here. Coffee break Design is having their annual warehouse sale Saturday morning (1227 Indy Way, Indianapolis). It is always a great bargain hunt. Come and join in.
Michael deMeng arrives mid-week for his workshops here. We can add a few more if you want to come be inspired and play with us.
Right after Michael leaves John and I begin our new endeavor. We have rented a small room in an antique mall. We will be moving in the third week of June. More details and photos then. I am really excited about this.
July Teesha and Tracy Moore will be here for their workshops and then in August we welcome Ingrid Dijkers and we will also have a booth at Stampaway in Cincinnati. And on it goes.
This is all going to be great fun and a lot of work and a lot of excitement. We hope all of our friends will join us at these different events and venues. That means you, of course.
I was just doing a little blog hopping among those on my own blogroll and was really loving Michael deMeng's recent post called "Artistic Timeline". Michael gives his views on how ideas grow and evolve in the artistic community. It is refreshing and thought provoking.
As you know Michael is soon coming to Avon Lake OH to teach. He will be here June 11-13th. There are still openings in his workshops. Come join us.
The other blog entries that I have been following are Tracy Moore's. He has an ongoing "Self-Portrait" series he has been doing with a number of his artist friends. There are a ton of photos of artful self-portraits done by artists who have been at the forefront in Mixed Media.
Tracy will be here in Avon Lake OH July 16-18 teaching Handforged Books and Jewelry.
Sign up for Tracy's workshops now, too. Don't be intimidated by these instructors, or any instructor for that matter. They are both easy-going, fun, patient and excellent instructors. There will be others in the workshop who may also be new to doing these techniques and projects. I know this because I am one of those students! It will be fun, inspiring and productive. These instructors have not taught in Ohio for years and may not again soon. Please join us. By the way, Avon Lake is about 15 miles West of Downtown Cleveland.
SMALL STUDIO WORKSHOP SERIES: I have a friend who celebrates her birthday all month. I love that idea and being one who likes to go one step further I decided to celebrate my birthday all year this year. It happens to be not only one of those landmark birthdays for me but also marks our 5 year wedding anniversary. What do I want for my birthday, you ask? What do we want to do to celebrate our anniversary? We talked it over and decided that we want to learn stuff. We started with learning how to solder (Kathy Herda, thank you again) this month. Then we decided we want to take classes from as many of my favorite instructors as possible: Pam Sussman, Michael deMeng, Teesha and Tracy Moore, Ingrid Dijkers, Linda and Opie O'Brien, Keith Lobue and Lynne Perrella. So I invited them over to play. Good News! They all said yes! Better News! You get to come too! Each month from May to November we will be hosting one of the instructors, or two as in the case of Teesha and Tracy. For three days each month we can learn and play from one of these greats. Come join us. Read through the workshop descriptions. Pick the ones you want. Fill out the registration form and mail it. Then sit back and gather your supplies and anticipate the fun. We are really looking forward to not only taking the workshops but also sitting next to you in class.
Here is the link to get to the workshops.
Links to instructors websites are on the left column of this blog.
Logo designed by David Simon. David is a Cleveland Graphic artist who has illustrated a number of books, book jackets and numerous ad campaigns for large companies. He taught at Creative Block and Art Continuum. David designed over 150 Stampers Anonymous stamps when I owned that company. He is an all around talented and great guy and I am proud to call him a friend.
This just in! Teesha Moore and Tracy Moore will be teaching in July! We have two rooms, so Tracy will be teaching in one and Teesha in the other. What fun. They do not teach as often as most instructors so this is a rare opportunity.
Linda and Opie O'Brien have added their names to our 2010 workshop series. They will be teaching in September. John and I are looking forward to playing with tin with them. We hope you join us.
Here are the dates of our complete roster of incredible instructors. I am so excited! I hope you are too.
May 14-16 Pam Sussman
June 11-13 Michael deMeng
July 16-18 Teesha Moore
July 16-18 Tracy Moore
Aug 27-29 Ingrid Dijkers
Sept 10-12 Linda & Opie O'Brien
Oct 18-18 Keith Lobue
Nov 5-7 Lynne Perrella
Full details and sign up info in January here and on our Small Studio website.
