Sidney, My Solace. Merry Christmas to Annie C.!

I discovered over the summer, while chatting with several other artists in various mediums, that I am an artistic anomaly. I LOVE CUSTOM WORK! I would rather make special pieces for special people for the rest of my life than sit around manufacturing stuff on spec that I think will appeal to prospective buyers. I've got plenty of that in my etsy store gathering dust. Go look! -------->

I have a calm confidence in my creative instincts, I trust my (normally spot on when I don't get in the way) intuitions, I delight in deadlines, and I love me some an inspiring muse. That said....

I had the joy of doing a Christmas commission for a friend who wanted to memorialize his youngest sister's deceased cat, Sid. Said friend had commissioned me a year and a half ago to make a memorial frame for his other sister's deceased dog, Irie, as a birthday gift for her. Apparently youngest sister saw older sister's frame and loved it and what's a peace-loving big brother to do but keep the favoritism scales balanced as best he can?

I had access to a few photos of Sid via my friend's blog, and being the super cyber stalker that I am, it was easy to find Annie on FaceBook and quickly see that she adored Sid and he was most certainly her "solace" during a very painful time in her life.



As synchronicity would have it, I happened to have a rather chubby, black and white cat brooch in my personal stash that resembled Sid perfectly.

From what little I could glean about Annie from her FaceBook page, it was clear she loves all animals, so the birds, bunnies and elephants all clamored for inclusion.

The tiny unicorn next to the "y" in "my" was an inside political joke for her big brother I could not resist.

And here is the earlier tribute to Irie, Devon's beloved:







Next up:
Frames for the still-living pets!

Lima & Prissy - Merry Christmas To Cary!

One of my very special clients (Ms. Tally) asked me to make a custom Christmas frame for her best friend, Cary, who shares her life with Lima, a black Pug, and Prissy, a brown Dachshund. Tally wished me "good luck" in finding black Pug chotskies and I thought: "I am The Queen of Cool Vintage Jewelry. How hard can it be?" Ha. "Very hard" was the answer. After weeks of searching for black Pug charms and brooches (do you know how many fawn-colored Pug items there are in the world?) I surrendered.

Fortunately, my good pal and fellow Cashiers Village Hillside Shops artist, Evie Auerbach, specializes in porcelain dogs! Here she is, skillfully crafting two faces for us:


The tongue was the most important part, of course.


My photos don't do Evie's work justice.





Thank you for another very fulfilling and fun commission, Tally!

PETS PETS and MORE PETS!

Now that the Cashiers Village Hillside Shops are closed for the season it's time to retreat into the studio bunker and start the Potting Table Project. (As soon as the builder finishes it and delivers it!!) In the meantime, I've got custom projects for two of my favorite clients to occupy me.

These pet frames were my most popular items over the summer but now that my Cashiers cottage is dark, they are listed for sale in my etsy store. (Use sidebar on right, please.) One of my custom pieces in progress is a 4x6 frame for a black Pug and a Dachshund. More on that project soon!

Garden Room Potting Table Project

I am about to start the massive Garden Room project for Suzan Z!
I first talked about it here last April.
You can see that the details are getting further refined. I have no idea what any of it means at this point.

Monty the LabDoodle was bored with the whole thing but enjoyed the cool floor.

Likewise, Ralph.



Suzan and I decided that the legs of the table would be all flowers and the backsplash-like panels would be solid Fiesta pottery with some interesting 3-D pieces mixed in. I chose all contemporary colors so that additional plates would be easy to reorder. Tangerine, Lemongrass, Scarlet, Peacock, Plum and Shamrock.

The Shamrock green on the bottom will be the solid I combine with the flowers on the legs.

Two 65-pound boxes of Fiesta were delivered to my porch. Thanks UPS! They were quite dusty, but not a one was broken. Not that it would have mattered anyway.


The black, white and vintage Chartreuse bread plates (splurge buy!) are tentatively scheduled to be used alone on the narrow shelves to the right of the potting table, which is, apparently, a seperate (sic) piece in theme sort of.

Here they are, down in my studio, awaiting the nippers of death. Or nippers of reincarnation, depending upon your interpretation. The contractor who built the Cashiers Village Hillside Shops is constructing the table in workable pieces so I can create at home and he can transport and attach to the walls at the Z. house. Stay tuned. Should be a very interesting project!

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer

Proud Grama Field B. came to the Hillside Shops in early July with her daughter Kelly B. Field loved my pique assiette work, and was especially fond of the mirror below (available for sale in my etsy store!) Her son had just sent her a professionally shot 8x10 photo of granddaughter, Eleanor, at her first ballet recital and Field wanted to commission a frame for it. An hour later, she was back with hubby John and the photo. (I shot a photo of the photo for inspiration, of course!)

Field loved the porcelain rose on my heart mirror and as serendipity would have it, I had one left that I'd been saving for years. I got a sense of the color scheme in their mountain home and Field gave me ideas on which patterns she favored that I'd used on other pieces.

As always, the lazy art interns were ever-present in the studio. Creative Director Annie likes to think "inside the box" when we work. Leah mostly pants.


I was happy with the frame and while Field and John are out of town for a couple of weeks, daughter Kelly picked it up for them last weekend and assured me that it matches their decor perfectly and that Field would love it. Couldn't resist the ballet slipper broach from eBay!

Or the ballerina one.

These gorgeous white flowers are two of close to 50 that I scored when a friend's lamp fell over and shattered. I got the entire lamp base, which is nothing but wall-to-wall white flower clusters!

After a creatively rewarding day in the studio the lazy interns retreated to the office, exhausted.

Thank you for this most wonderful custom opportunity, Field! I'd love to post a photo of the original photo in the frame on its easel in your home.

Love My Big Cat Furs!

I had so many wonderful Big Cat brooches and charms to inspire this 5x7 frame.



"Love My Furs" came about when a couple visited my cottage at the Hillside Shops last year and bemoaned the fact that I did not have a dog/cat combo frame as they had lost both in the previous year. This one sold just yesterday to a super lovely couple, Terri and Mike, who love cats as much as I do. We swapped stories about consulting pet psychics for quite a while. Annie's hypnotic gaze is pretty hard to resist.



Resistance is futile.


UPDATE 9/1:
Terri just sent me two photos of darling Sister, the lucky kitty for whom this frame was purchased. That is one content and confident cattitude!




There are still a few pet frames in my etsy store.