Artist Date 9 Make an Idea Line
Artist Date 8: Color Hunt
1+1=1 Gallery is Moving – and having a Big Sale
Thank you to everyone who has become a collector of our art, who has come in to 1+1=1 Gallery to look, appreciate, help, buy, and just visit, get/give hugs. We couldn’t have done 11 months without you!
Now we are asking for your help and support again. This time we need cash flow to remodel our new gallery down the street.
Imagine one of my framed prints on a wall in your house … above the fireplace, in your dining room, or on a wall in your bedroom. Somewhere you can see it often, experience the symbolism and the personal meaning that only you get from living with a piece of art. Can you visualize it? Are you interested?
- Now you can purchase one of my prints — for the month of September only — at a big discount. All of the framed numbered prints we have at our gallery (see thumbnails or Flickr album link below) are on sale — 20% off just through September 30, 2014.
- The black stained all-wood frames are made by Tim Carney and professionally assembled by a local framer with glass, hanging hardware and archival mats.
- We are moving at the end of September to a bigger, better space at 434 North Last Chance Gulch. After we move, prices have to go up because our rent and all of our expenses are increasing.
- We take credit cards through Square and are willing to ship.
- Link to the album of available prints, with poetic descriptions, print and frame sizes.
- Come see the prints in person, at 1+1=1 Gallery, 335 North Last Chance Gulch.
Below are the available prints. We only have one of each on hand, so hurry! Please visit the above link to see more details.
Here are some pre-remodeling views of our new space:
1+1=1 will be open our usual hours until September 19th. After the 19th, we’ll have odd hours because I’ll be working with Tim (and whoever shows up to help) to remodel the new space. I can be reached by phone (431-9931) if you want to come shop at the gallery at 335 North Last Chance Gulch. I’d love to see you at either place. Or email me if you want to buy one of the prints. Thanks again for all of your support!
Love, Maureen
Girls Art Night was a Smash Hit
Smash. Smoosh. Squish. Mash. Moosh. Mush. Stuff … Oh, the things you can do with an old book!
At our monthly Girls Art Night on March 27th, we altered vintage hardback books into Smoosh Books (my take on the official Smash Journals.) There were eleven of us mooshing, drilling, gluing, smooshing and stuffing away at 1+1=1 Gallery. We enjoyed tea, wine, and yummy finger foods. It was a great group of women friends — lots of comraderie and chemistry, laughter and concentration.
If you want to try a Smoosh Book yourself, and you live in Helena, let me know in the comments and maybe we can get together in a smaller group sometime soon to make more smoosh books. Otherwise there is a How-To towards the bottom of this post. 🙂
I have a few vintage books left (I’ve already cut the spines off.) And lots of stuff to stuff into them. I will bring the “ingredients” to our Girls Go gathering in October. What do you think of that idea, my sisters?
Maybe one of these will be a diary of your journey to health. Or a baby book. A collection of family recipes. A book of quotes or a “commonplace book.” A trip journal. A wedding planner, a place to record things your kids say … Whatever you use your smoosh book for, it will be wonderful once you smash it full of your stuff.
Here’s my mom’s Smoosh Book: I love that she picked the old children’s story collection, “Looking Ahead.” She is going to fill it with stories of her life. Cool!
Your Smoosh Book doesn’t have to be perfect. Or finished. It’s a work in progress. This kind of “journal” or scrapbook is great if you’re like me and don’t have the time or personality to do elaborate scrapbooking. The way scrapbooking has changed, it’s the last thing I want to do … I remember when a scrapbook was an album of plain pages you glued things onto — like photos, birthday cards, autographs, paper dolls, ticket stubs, pressed corsages, leaves and flowers. Remember photo-corners? Or LePage’s glue with the red rubber tip? (I know. I know. I’m dating myself. Oh well.)
A Smoosh Book can be kinda funky and alotta fun. When you first make the book, you can sort through the old book’s pages and keep the ones you like, recycling the rest. Try incorporating comic book pages, other special papers, translucent papers, seed packets, tiny bags, cellophane bags, glassine envelopes, ribbons, stickers, cards, and any other kind of envelope or pocket.
To use your Smoosh Book, add written passages, poetry, quotes … lists of stuff you’re doing/planning/wishing, recipes, pressed flowers and leaves, feathers, seeds, labels, photos, doodles, menus, tickets, found lists, anything you can think of.
Use ribbons or binder rings to tie the book together so you can add pages as you find cool stuff (like envelopes.) Your book will grow as you use it. Eventually it becomes stuffed with stuff. And looks like it’s exploding and that’s totally okay. You can add bigger binder rings if it gets hard to turn the pages because you’re adding so much stuff.
Here’s what you need to make your own Smoosh Book:
- Old hardback book from thrift store
- band saw to cut off the spines
- power sander to sand the edges where you cut
- drill to drill holes through the entire book
- clamp to hold the book covers and pages together while you drill
- paper punch for miscellaneous papers — use one you can line up to match the holes you drilled
- envelopes, extra blank papers, etc to fill the book
- ring binders (preferably large) or ribbons, twine, leather cords, shoelaces
- duct tape (for your new spine)
- spray adhesive or dry-mount glue to attach pockets and envelopes that are not bound in to the book
- washi tape, other tapes
- white acrylic paint or gesso to paint over text where you want to be able to write
- flat wide brushes, either bristle or foam, for painting
- bits and pieces from the list below, or whatever you have around
Basic Instructions to Make Your Own Smoosh Book:
- Cut off the spine of your hardback book with a band saw. Watch out for metal staples. If the spine has staples, just cut a little more off to avoid the metal.
- Sand off the edges to make them nice and even.
- Separate the pile of book pages from the front and back covers.
- Make a new “spine” using duct tape attached to just the two covers. This will keep all the loose stuff inside your book.
- Go through the pages of the book and pull out all the pages except the ones you want to keep. This will make your book much “thinner” at this point.
- Decide what other papers you are going to add to your book. This can include large envelopes, flat bags, pockets, other types of papers …
- Cut the extra papers to size and put them where you want them in the book.
- Add the other papers such as envelopes where you want them. Don’t worry about everything lining up perfectly. It’s okay to have some things sticking out. These act like “tabs” later.
- Clamp everything together on a work table, and using your power drill, drill 3 holes through the whole mess.
- Put it all together with ribbons, ring binders or whatever you have decided to use to attach.
- Now you’re ready to start gluing things into your Smoosh Book, then adding your words.
- Above all else, have fun!
Below is a list of ideas and inspiration: things you might want to stuff in your Smoosh Book as it grows …
- lunch box notes
- love letters
- wine labels
- restaurant menus
- chopstick papers
- flattened match boxes
- any kind of food label
- receipts
- concert and theater tickets
- travel tickets
- baggage claims
- old photos
- autographs
- ribbons
- scraps of special fabric
- doilies
- valentines
- rick-rack
- trim, ribbons
- twine
- business cards
- postcards
- seed packets
- glassine envelopes
- packaging of any kind
- feathers
- leaves, flower petals
- drawings, doodles
- airmail envelopes
- buttons
- lace
- pet photos
- manilla envelopes
- tassels
- recipes
- poetry
- old calendar pages
- those square slide holders
- tiny brown bags
- cd protectors
- singles record covers (remember those?)
- quotes
- shoelaces
- patches
- bookmarks
- found papers
- grocery lists
- clear photo pages
- report cards
- paper clips
- bandaids
- washi tape
- masking tape
- any kind of tape
- vintage advertisements
- certificates
- luggage tags
- sheet music
- Monopoly money
- playing cards
- postage stamps
- ledger book papers
- I could go on forever … please add your own ideas in the comments below the post. I’d love to hear what you’re thinking of and making.
More photos. Click to see them larger:
Kids’ Arts Festival from the Perspective of a Docent
Last Saturday, the Holter Museum of Art held KidWorks! — it’s 23rd annual arts festival for kids. What a blast!! I had an amazing opportunity to help put on this fun event and boy was it alot of work. Yet, when we opened the doors of the museum at 10:00 am, just like Connie, Judy, Sondra and Hannah told me, the festival took care of itself. A gigantic bulldozer of little kids and and their significant adults moved through the museum playing, delighting, learning, appreciating, thoroughly enjoying themselves and getting a messy education in the wonderment of art.
For me — as a docent — it was incredibly fun (I hardly stopped smiling except when I was concentrating,) extremely exhausting (the tables were set to little kid height and my back hurt like hell at the end of the day) but so, so fulfilling to share my enthusiasm about art with this many kids and their peeps.
I absolutely loved witnessing the diversity of approaches. Every child, has a unique way of seeing the world and expressing what they see! As docents, we have to Let Go of Results and Outcomes. Allow Mess. Delight in Oops. Multi-task-yet-Focus. Smile. Laugh. Make Eye Contact. Then. Clean. Up.
Well … it seems at the Holter, “docent” is a fancy word for a volunteer who:
- works really hard
- has lots of fun with peers and with the public
- stays longer than expected to clean up the mess
- knows how to laugh and goof
- loves to share his/her passion for the arts
- gets training to use Visual Thinking Strategy in educational museum tours
- has a lot of energy (enough to keep up with kids of all ages!)
- has an awesome opportunity to guide kids, teens and adults in appreciating art through tours and hands-on activities
- can think on her/his feet, improvising when necessary
- doesn’t mind getting down and messy
- knows that every individual’s experience and ideas are valid
- helps organize and put on the biggest and best kids’ arts festival anywhere around
- then watches the magic happen as our doors open to over 800 participants
that’s alot to pack into one 6-letter word!
The Holter docents I have the privilege to work with, are a diverse group: outgoing, intelligent, friendly and helpful to new members of the team. We are all willing to learn from our mistakes and educate ourselves continuously so we are the best “art guides” the Holter could possibly have. It helps that we have some docents who are great leaders — super organized and experienced. It also helps that the educational staff (Sondra, Aubrey and Hannah) are so enthusiastic about their jobs. I have about half of the skills I need, to be an amazing docent. I’m working on the rest. But boy, was it fun, fun fun to help make KidWorks! happen.
Sorry about the photo-intensive post today. I just couldn’t resist! There were so many sweet moments and precious connections made during KidWorks! that I can’t resist posting these. Below is a gallery with a few more images from the festival.
If you attended KidWorks, or volunteered at the festival, won’t you write a short (or long) comment to say how you experienced it? Thank you!
Artist Talks and Reception at 1+1=1 Gallery
Please be our guest at Helena’s unique 1+1=1 gallery this coming Friday night. Maureen and Tim will answer questions and talk about their inspirations and art media beginning at 6:30. Reception follows the talks, around 7:00 pm. Please enjoy wine, sushi and Thai appetizers after the talks.
The gallery will be closed Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving. We will open the gallery doors at 6:15 Friday evening. We’d love to see you there!
Wood, Trees and the Spirit of Nature Opens at 1+1=1
Street Musicians and Other Farmers Market Characters
The Helena Farmers Market is a hoppin’ place in August when the harvest is rich and our days are warm. People bring their shopping bags and market baskets, their strollers and dogs, and their dollar bills to give to our entertaining street musicians. Today was a special market day because the Lake Helena Watershed Festival was also going on at Women’s Park adjacent to the market, lending an extra excitement. (There was a bounce house, live music, face painting, science learning activities for all ages, wetlands & xeriscape booths, and an ice cream aquifer)
Here is a gallery of shots I took this morning. Hope you find it almost as entertaining as being there.
