Arts Patrons

Capt. Sweetie and I went to the St. Paul Art Crawl this weekend. We intended to go commission a stained glass piece to replace our front door window. There is a stained glass artist we had seen a year ago and we finally decided that was what we wanted to do. But she wasn't open until 2, and we were ready to go at 1, so we went down to the Tilsner building where a friend of ours was showing her work, along with another friend.

And we fell in love. I fell in love with this piece first, by Katie Clymer. It's not very big, only about 10"x10" including the frame. But I love the color and the motion in it, and Capt. Sweetie, living up to his name, was fine with my buying it.
















I know, the picture is quite dark, but there is glass over it, and at least you can see what's going on. It looks like water and clouds to me, and I'm really excited to have it.

Then we looked at our friend Kate Pearce's work and I saw this one and my eye kept coming back again and again to it. The verticality is wonderful--it's about four feet tall and two wide (guestimating). Our house has a little footprint, but a lot of tall walls, and this shape was just right.




















It had a twin--a second canvas that made up a diptych, and Capt. Sweetie easily persuaded me that we needed both of them. Here is the second canvas, clumsily photographed leaning against a book case.




















There is method in that madness, as we have contemplated moving that bookshelf and hanging that canvas in its place. That would place the twin paintings on either side of the door into the TV room, actually hanging in the dining room.

After making those purchases, and getting a reputation for supporting local artists (sounds so cosmopolitan, doesn't it? As if we routinely fly around the world buying art.) we went off to the glass artist's studio and that is a work in progress for now.

The next day, I went to pick something up in my studio, and saw there was an artist showing right above me who did fused glass and fine silver--both of which I am very interested in. She was showing with two other women, one of whom specialized in jewelry made from vintage buttons, and the other who used recycled materials. I ended up buying presents for my girls, and deciding to see what else was happening in my building.

I ended up buying this tile from a woman who did wonderful watercolor and abstract work. She had a bunch of pieces that Capt. Sweetie would have liked too, but I felt we had done enough artistic patronage for one weekend.

This is a reduced copy of one of her watercolors on a 6"x6" tile, which I hung on the backsplash of my kitchen. I liked the colors, of course, and the process of putting the image on the tile gave it a very polished finish.
















And, as I wrote on my other blog, it got me excited about doing art and craft again, so I went back into my studio today and made some new designs for earrings. It's been a long, cold, dark winter, and going to the studio sounded much less appealing than staying in front of the fireplace. But now the sun is out, the sky is blue, the grass is green, and I'm heading back again.