Pörrö | August 26, 2010
My first workshop on the site was Women in art history. I’ve studied some history of art when I was young, but the viewpoint in Europe is very much different even when we are talking about women in art. So I was very intriqued by the workshop description when it said
“No dead white guys allowed here; instead a few tantalizing glimpses of artists, from Artemisia Gentileschi to Judy Chicago, that will provide us with a hint of the wealth they didn’t tell us about in that other art history class!”
I love Meta for both her art and her personality. She is a good teacher – I think all her students were really happy and energized after her workshops – so if you have an opportunity to take workshop from her I would highly recomend it.
I was expecting to have good three hours but I did not expect to get so much energized – and I certainly did not think this workshop being a “papers and information” kind of workshop would push me to do ANYTHING really. But it did. Surprisingly since that morning I have been painting. I am still in thick rust and some of the techniques I have been playing with are complately new, but I love this! It was the push I needed, and it was very inspiring to actually get a glimse how much more opportunities women as artists nowadays have – and still they are not seen and heard. Partly it also was seeing Metas work of art – her style is quite different than anyone else I have seen in real life.
Jeanne was on the workshop with me. Women in art is something we have been discussing a lot during the years. Her quild is having a movie night of Who does she think she is at next Saturday. The film has intrigued me since I saw the trailer, and I have read so many people feeling that film changed some of their perspective on woman in art. I would love to see the film. Combining family with art is not easy for anyone but especially for women it is even harder. Women seldomly are fitting neither of the stereotypical roles: womanly or artistical – and that can be really difficult if one wants to please their relatives, friends and neighbors.
Category: Porro |
No Comments »
Tags:
Loading ...
Pörrö | August 20, 2010
It was long trip and as I said, I am a collector 
Some of these are funny just because my native is not English and literal meaning of the signs can be somewhat different than what the sign says.
First some roadwork with shoulder work and gas exits 
Grocery store finds:
Some religion on the road.
Rankin homes = in Finnish Rankin = the hardest (like Chuk Norris!) and Home = mildew.
And few more 
Category: Porro |
No Comments »
Tags:
Loading ...
Pörrö | August 16, 2010
My husbands name is Mauri so naturally this souvenier picture needed to be taken
Some shop names are better than others. Surprisingly this one sells fruit smoothies
Business lessons that I did not quite understand: You could not buy more than two packets of envelopes because “otherwise the customers would buy too many of them”.
Apparently this was only funny to me as I think Wawa sounds (to me) like euphemism of private parts.
They were selling future at JoAnns: Hope was suffering, faith still going strong.
Category: Porro |
No Comments »
Tags:
Loading ...
Pörrö | August 6, 2010
One of the myth that I find facinating is believing that someone you are sharing the moments automatically sees what you are seeing. Even when we try to be objective our life, our dreams and even language adds attitude and explanation on things happening.
I love travelling with Jeanne for many reasons. The best thing is that she is open to hear what I see, is curious and does not assume knowing my thoughts. We have had some really good discussions on the road because our friendship is based on both honest discussion and curiousness about different viewpoints on common things.
So when I saw this tower-like building (maybe some firedepartment thingy?) I saw a future art gallery craftshop kind of artsy place in many levels.
In this deserted building I saw beauty. The colours, textures, all of it. (Click to see the picture in better quality on Flickr). It just was stunning!
Just a sign until you add religious context to the words.
This is lonely Hattifattener from Moomin-characters.
Dance studio? Painters atelier? Haute coture studio? Disco? This building has the possibilities to become anything!
Category: Porro |
1 Comment »
Tags:
Loading ...
Pörrö | August 4, 2010
There are few ccraft shop chains in USA. I think most widely known one is Michaels. I still remember my first visit to Michals years ago. At that time the biggest craftshop I had been was the size of my home. I was not prepared to meet craft shop in the size of IKEA shop. Seriously mind blowing. Jeanne laughet at me (not with me!) as I just stood in awe at doorstep not even fully dearing to step more forward into craftshop this huge. All this – for crafts. And it all smells… fruity. Later I learned that many materials, like stamps and even pens have perfumes added to them. o.O
I still am very impressed of the size of craft shops in USA. But nowadays I have learned to be bit more critical, not all of the selection is that awesome. Some even can be funny, like this “very scary” sign or tampons for different shaped… you know.
Then again one kitsch thing I am SO drawn to are the autumn colored silk flower wines. Every time I visit USA I almost buy one of these. I absolutely hate silk flowers but I would LOVE to have several with this style to my studio. Seriously, autumn is my time of year and the wines just are the only form of yellows and oranges I would like to have around me.
So I bought some Premo (I did not bring any) and inks & stuff to take with me to Sheperdstown. Later in the week I went to Michaels many times in many different cities…
I did not take much pictures of all the other chain craft stores we went to. Just mentioning theese to non-US readers in case it is helpful. The other big chain is called A.C. Moore. Their selection is very similar and so are the prices. They also take coupons from eachother – you can get them with your purchaces or from magazines or websites. The typical coupon is 30-50% off from one single selected items.
Also JoAnn fabric stores have some craft materials in them. They also have some knitting accessories and good cotton fabrics for quilting.
Category: Porro |
No Comments »
Tags: Shopping
Loading ...
Pörrö | August 2, 2010
The scrap exchange definately was something that I wanted to visit. The shop sells leftover craft materials and “stuff” suitable for crafting with bargain prices. Its a combination of craft store and recycling center – just the kind of place that one really can loose their mind and reality and hoard way too much stuff because it costs nothing.
I had a plan, though: I was shopping materials for Pccmmretreat week as I needed some stuff to work on there. They have both grab bag items and items to sell. For grab bags I selected the smallest one and started to fill it from the blue (and sometimes gray) bins. Some items had limits how many of them could be stuffed into a bag, some did not. The price for small grab bag was somewhere around 5 dollars so it was not expencive at all to fill it.
They also had some craft shop leftovers there. I bought several rolls of both organza and silk threads for jewelery making. I also bought two metal tins (that I had to leave behind to us, boohoo!) and fabric sample book that I plan to alter. Some of the scrap that I found I used at pccmmretreat, some gave away as I did not want to travel with them and some I managed to pack to my second suitcase. I traveled to US with one luggage but inside nested the smaller one. Hah!
Category: Porro |
No Comments »
Tags: Shopping
Loading ...
Pörrö | August 2, 2010
We also went to Yarns etc..
Shop was small and most of the selection of yarns is available in either Finland or Tallin (Tallin is at Estonia, our neighbor country where we go to shop for yarn). As I only use vegan yarns (with the exception of sometimes using silk) lot’s of shops selection was too woolly for me. How ever there were still some yarns that simply were too good to resist. Especially have to mention Berrocco Seduce: a yarn that I never had bought from internet but a yarn that IRL is just the right one for crocheted necklaces. I mostly bought yarn for necklace making, not knitting, this time. I also bought some more clover accesories.
Category: Porro |
No Comments »
Tags: Shopping
Loading ...
Pörrö | August 2, 2010
Jeanne’s Mixed media guild was having a small outdoors craft show by Ornamentea. It was really interesting to me as I have been doing craftshows in Finland few decades. Out of courtecy to fellow crafters I did not take pictures of their booths for internet. How ever there was knitted graphiti outside the shop:
To my surprise both materials and designs of the craft/art works were quite similar than in here. The only really new-to-me item was Pamor designs who sold orange peel jewellery. Otherwise the people sell quite similar things in here too: jewellery with glass, stone and recycled materials, small decorative items made from old china/ boxes/dolls, shopping bags sewn from bright fabrics etc. Of course the colours vary a bit and the actual materials are bit different, but if you just look at the ideas or styles there are way more similarities than differences.
Ornamentea sells jewellery suplies + stuff for altered arts + paper arts. Compared to some other shops it is not exactly cheap but it has selection that I have not seen anywhere before. We went there twice on this trip (the shop pictures are from later time) and I got some really interesting items for Mixed media from there. The shop has nice feeling – lots of light and visible price tags near merchandise.
Category: Porro |
No Comments »
Tags: Shopping
Loading ...
Pörrö | July 31, 2010
I know many people whose pictures from travels could be made by some tourist information center. My pictures quite rarely are those – I seldomly even get a picture of myself on the trip. I’ve mastered forgotting to take pictures from that tourist attraction I have been visited thousand miles to see while still being able to have hundreds of pictures of broken glass, concrete, walls etc. on camera.
I truly believe that I can find pictures of Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal from internet and books. But the moments are mine to catch, mine to record and notice. Theese five pictures in gray tones were taken outside my friends house while waiting for her to come. It was warm – borderline hot – and we were leaving to go to yarn and craftshopping. I had slept some – it was morning although due time difference between Finland and USA my body tought it was late afternoon. I just was there, in that moment. Totally there.
Category: Porro |
No Comments »
Tags:
Loading ...
