Another overdue post (*sigh*). Sunday before last I had the pleasure of hanging out with a fellow Chicago transplant and artist, Bridgette Guerzon Mills. I met her at The Bleeding Heart Bakery, which serves Metropolis Coffee – my all time favorite brew. This is the second time that I’ve met an artist in person who I’d initially met online. I have to say, I really enjoy this experience. Getting to know someone online first makes the “real life” meeting just a formality. I think I understand now why so many people turn to online dating. You can really get to know someone remotely. I felt like Bridgette & I were already old friends just catching up on the past 20 or so years. Bridgette probably put it better when she said “It’s like we were separated at birth!”.
After enjoying the delights of the Bleeding Heart we walked over to her home studio, which is a treasure trove of her small but sublime encaustic, mixed-media paintings and artists books. The whole morning was one inspiration after another.
Afterwards, I headed home to prep for a small encaustic demonstration I’d planned on giving to one of my best friends. Watching someone experience encaustic for the first time is a very rewarding and motivating experience. Almost akin to that look of wonder you see in the twinkling eyes of a kid during the first time they pick up a really engrossing book. Wax is entirely seductive.
Below are samples from the encaustic demo. Mine is very “a-la-Bridgette”. Though I was tempted, I managed to restrain myself from incorporating birds, trees and window elements in the spirit of Mrs. Guerzon Mills.
Why didn’t I think of doing this first? I swear, I’ve got to figure out the video making thing. (Yes, I know, being adept at photography, encaustic, painting, drawing, Wordpress, WP Plugins, Twitter, Facebook, Etsy, HTML, Photoshop, Illustrator, graphic design, SEO, Mac, PC, tiling, grouting, social networking, knitting, crocheting, bookbinding and printmaking isn’t enough for me. I must master yet another medium).
Please enjoy this interview with the fabulous Joyce Polance. I simply love her work, as you may remember from a number of my previous posts. Don’t forget, if you are looking for encaustic workshops in the Chicago area, Joyce is the person to contact.
Watch the video and I think you’ll find some great insights into her art and the deeper meaning behind the images. Be sure to catch Joyce live on Chicago Arts (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chicagoarts) on Monday, June 15th from 7:30-8:30 pm CST, where she will be answering your questions and responding to viewer comments.
Because I have home remodeling on the brain, I’m sharing with you some more “before” pictures of my new place. Unlike the professional photographs from my last post, in these you can see the true grimy nature of the unit. Why am I showing you this? I suppose so that you will be all the more impressed upon seeing the transformation it has undergone from my fix-up efforts. (Not to toot my own horn or anything).
At the moment, life is nothing more than unpacking and cleaning our new home. I found a great unit up in northeast Rogers Park: a 2 bedroom, plus sunroom, plus formal dining room for only $850 a month. Those of you who know Chicago, know this is a great deal. What’s the catch? The place had been vacant for more than a year and needs some major sprucing up. On the flipside, all the original fixtures are still in place on this gorgeous vintage unit from the 1900s. With a little elbow grease, we could be calling this place home permanently. After 5 moves in 5 years, I can’t tell you how much I dream of just staying in one place for a while…
Here’s a preview of what the place looked like before we moved in. The pictures were taken by the realtor’s professional photographer and they paint the place in a nice light. You can’t see it, but I can assure you the place needs a lot of work. For example, I found a New York Times from 1985 in the dining room built in! However, the building did agree to fix a couple of things (replace the bathroom medicine cabinet, redo the walls around the shower, fix broken window panes and replace the fridge and stove). However, any cosmetic fixes are up to me & Z. So we’ve spent the last week and a half replacing the kitchen linoleum and plastic baseboards, re-tiling parts of the kitchen where the tiles had fallen off, scrubbing things till we bled, measuring and installing dowel rods in all the closets, building IKEA kitchen butcher blocks, replacing the PINK bathroom sink, PINK bathroom toilet and re-enameling the PINK bathroom tub, sweeping, mopping, dusting, windexing, wiping, and the list could go on and on!)
I’ll be sure to post some more detailed shots of the “before” stages before I unveil the “after” stages. Now you know why I’ve been so busy and why the art production this month has been slow!
