All The Latest For Cre8tiv Glory

On Easter Sunday, a friend invited me to an amazing Easter service. The pastor's sermon was inspiring and so full of hope. It set the tone for the coming spring season, a hope for new beginnings with opportunities to be creative and...

The next creative cycle for the next new moon begins April 25th, the new moon is on April 28th. I

started the second piece for my long term project during the last creative cycle but this month was full of commitments and I wasn't able to give it a lot of time. I've promised myself three uninterrupted days in this cycle to focus on it alone.

Thank you to the ladies who attended my first Art Doll 101 class of the season. You were a great group to work with. The dolls you made are wonderful and your creative attention during the workshop was awesome. I will get back to you this week with a follow up location so that we can finish your dolls. Thanks also to Jeff Louie and Capsity http://www.capsity.com/ for providing this wonderful workspace and to Jan Hollins who found this location and for letting us share it with her quilt class. If you missed the Art Doll 101 Flying Dancer Doll Workshop, I will be teaching it again in the next few weeks. I have two tentative locations, a day class in  Citrus Heights and an evening class in Folsom. I am also looking for another location in Sacramento. If you would be interested in taking this class at one of these locations please email me your interest and at which location. I need at least four people to sign up in order to hold each space.

The patterns for the Flying Dancers Dolls and for the Sacramento Jack Rabbits: Ebony Rabbit and Brown Sugar Bunny Dolls will be available next week on PayPal for $12.00 each plus $1.50 shipping on the IDAE blog site . See the drop down menu. http://innerdivaalteregodolls.blogspot.com/





                                                                                     

The next Art Doll  workshop at Capsity will be Tribal Energy. 
This is one of my favorite dolls to make. It allows you to step away from traditional doll making and use non traditional cloth doll techniques and materials. The faces are done in mask style using broad strokes and bright colors and the costumes use beads, feathers, African prints and rustic textiles like burlap, batiks, mud cloth and kente cloth. The inspiration for these dolls came from another African American doll artist. She was a guest on an interior design show. She had created these beautiful African dolls that she made with African passport masks.

The dolls were simple with wonderful textures and details. I made my own versions of her dolls by painting mask designs in place of the faces on my doll heads.







Masks are a part of so many cultures, celebrations and ceremonies. They are part of African, Japanese, Aboriginal, Mexican, Brazilian and other Latin and Asian cultures. I've collected photos of a lot of these masks. Ideas and inspiration for masks can be found on my Pinterest page: "Tribal Energy, Masks" http://www.pinterest.com/cre8tivglory/tribal-energy-masks/


The Tribal Energy Doll Workshop will be at Capsity, May 22nd from 5:30 to 8:30. The class are $46.00 and $40.00 for SQC members. I have space available for 6 to 7 people. Registration with PayPal begins on May 1st on the Inner Diva, Alter Ego blog site http://innerdivaalteregodolls.blogspot.com/.  Class description and materials list will also be available on May 1st.

I want to thank everyone for their donations of their scraps and left over fabrics, yarns and trims for my kids class this week. There is enough for their Mother's Day Doll Project and for future projects as well. This is my chance to introduce this form of textile art to the younger generation. There was a great line in a film that I saw that said we have raised a generation of children who are used to buying everything but they don't create anything. We need designers for the future. I think of some of the futuristic movies I've seen where the populations are either robotic or survivalists. The environments were either sterile or in ruins, there was very little beauty or creativity. Our children are the architects, designers and artists of the future.

 

Creative Energy and the New Moon

I have a long term project that I am about to begin for a friend. It will be a series of 36 inch, soft sculpture dolls that will be created over the next several months. After talking to my friend and working out the beginning details I am intrigued and excited to be a part of this creative adventure. One of the special requests that my client had was to begin each new art project on a new moon. I have never had that request asked of me before but I agreed. I looked into information about the new moon's creative energy and read that it is potent and useful for projects that require you to tap into your emotions and subconscious thoughts where the best art is made. It is a time to fuel intuition and connect to your body. This creative period is at its strongest from the three days before the new moon through the three days after the new moon. The next new moon will be March 1st and the creative cycle begins on February 26th and ends on March 4th.

I have always loved and been fascinated by the moon and it has been a key part of a lot of the artwork I've done in the past. One of my favorite things to do is to watch the sky in the evening especially when the moon is full. I lived in the South Bay Area for most of my life and moved to Sacramento about six years ago. There is so much more flat land here with views unobstructed by buildings, trees or hills and the moon seems so much larger and closer. When I'm restless or troubled or trying to work out a problem, I spend a few minutes watching the moon, I have a good view from the window in my room. It always settles and calms me and refreshes my thoughts.

If any of you have had a creative block in your art, business or problem solving lately try approaching it again tomorrow, February 26h on the next new moon cycle.

Stay tuned for my next post. I'll share with you my latest dolls. I created 9 new dolls inspired by the Cirque du Soleil silk acrobats. Any of you who were kind enough and patient enough over the last few months to listen to my story about my car being broken into and 30 of my dolls being 'kidnapped' before Christmas. I had just done a holiday faire a few days before and hadn't had the energy to get my bag up my stairs. After four years of living in my apartment complex without a single incident and I left stuff in my car for months at a time, my luck finally ran out. I grieved about my lost dolls for a few days and then prayed that they were in a good home with someone who would love them and take care of them. My promise to myself was to make 30 new dolls to replace my lost ones although I can never duplicate them. More about my Sky Dancers in my next post.

I was so glad to meet new people and see old and new faces at the Brickhouse  Holiday Faire, the Third Annual Sisters Quilting Collective Quilt Exhibit and Sisters Quilting Collective's Day at the Crocker Art Museum. I will be sending out information about new doll making classes for this spring and summer soon. Thank you for signing my book and coming by to say hi.