Now that the kids are home from school and summer is in high gear, I decided to take a workshop "just for me". Yesterday I went to Marquette to this great bead store "Bella Beads" and took a workshop presented by Beth Millner(.com) on silversmithing. I've always had a love of silver and copper jewelry and wanted to learn how to pound, manipulate and distress it. I loved it!!!! Beth was a wonderful teacher and she does beautiful jewelry - check out her website. I worked all afternoon and completed a pair of earrings - and I can see how my artwork relates to the new work of metals the shapes, texture and colors are repeated in the jewelry just like in my paintings. It was fun to do something just for me and take a little time to play. I also have been busy working in the gardens and all the rain in June has helped to make them glorious, however, my cutting garden/seeds need to be replanted. I've posted photos of the front garden/entry to my studio/gallery - don't you just love the BIG ROOSTER!!!

My husband and I just returned from a long-weekend art fair in Edina, MN. A long trip and a large show AND a lot of rain and cold weather - is it really June? Although my sales were not outstanding the people and fellow artists I met, along with the time alone with my husband, are worth gold to me. I've decided, though, to stay with smaller shows (this show featured over 300 artists) and to me it just got to be too commercialized and not as intimate as smaller shows. I received an award of merit and was thrilled to be one of the few prize winners out of so many artists and was also contacted by a gallery in downtown Minneapolis that is interested in representing my work. I had two fabulous artist/neighbors. You have to check out Dan Wiemer.com - he does watercolors/acrylics and was just a very cool guy! He had a suggestion for my work - to take my smaller pieces and enlarge them - way big - for inspiration for a larger piece - I can see that working and possibly bringing some simplicity to some of my larger pieces, so I am very excited to try that! I should now have a couple quiet weeks to get caught up and just play.