If you are looking for an art piece that is nearly technically perfect…my Oddest Goddesses are not for you.

If you want your art doll face to be classically beautiful then my Oddest Goddesses are not for you.

I am not a formally trained artist. I have not had the time nor the money to take classes.  But I am an artist. I have been fortunate in my life to have had some wonderful casual teachers who took the time to teach me techniques. Everything else I have learned on my own.

Therefore, not everything I make is “technically” right. My Oddest Goddess faces are a case in point. They are rough and and filled with cracks and crevasses .

Yet, there is something about them in their imperfection that speaks to us all. They have a soul and a light. They have a beauty in their imperfection. They seem to speak from the heart… that space that is beautiful deep down in us all.

This quote is from Leonard Cohen and I really like it. It describes my philosophy so well.

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.

My two daughters each got a new kitten recently. My youngest daughter’s kitten, Daisy, has already made an appearance on my blog. She is the black kitty who loves my gourd rattles (good taste! *grin*).

But my oldest daughter’s cat is purrfect for the house too. He loves little dollies. He first stole one of my youngest daughters little cloth dolls. I have found him carrying around various other dolls now too. He steals them from the toy box, from her room. Now today he stole the mermaid doll from my daughter’s desk. He steals them and then sleeps with them.

Here is a picture of him sleeping with the mermaid he stole. He is also sleeping with Piggy (one of my son-in-law’s cats who is very old) in a doll bed that was made for my 80 year old mother when she was little.

Seems apropos for an art doll artist’s cat…

I am in a yahoogroups called Goddess Dolls. I am hosting a Round Robin with a twist. For those of you that don’t know what a round robin is…here’s the rules.

The round robin host fills a box with things pertaining to the interests of the group. In our case it is objects that Art Doll artists would use such as beads,stones, feathers,fabric etc. Then the box is sent to the first one on the list. The recipient takes out what they want and replaces with objects of similar value. Then the box is sent to the next person…who does the same.

The twist is: I will be providing one of my Oddest Goddesses in the box. Each person is to put something on the Goddess that signifies healing. When the doll returns to me I will put it up for auction. The money raised will be sent to a charity of the list’s choice.

There are enough people for two groups so I have made two separate boxes to send out to various places in the US and Canada.

Should be fun and I am excited to see what the other artists have planned for the Oddest Goddesses !

Couldn’t sleep this morning (oh, please don’t say it’s because I am old. *grin*) so I got up to do some work. It was still dark.

But look what sight greeted me as the sun rose!

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Etsy is a neat place, online, to buy and sell things that are handmade.

I have opened an Etsy shop (I put up a link on the left for my Etsy shop) and will be putting more of my pieces in the store.

Right now I only have the three Oddest Goddesses left that I can list…they were at the photographers when I did my last two shows, otherwise I think they would have also sold.

I have a few of my higher end one at The Gallery at Frame Ups in Minneapolis, MN otherwise I sold out at my last two shows.

I am currently in production to make more…

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When I was reading my studio post I realized that I mentioned many family members and friends art work.But I didn’t mention the “artwork” of my oldest daughter and son in law.

They are the ones who make it possible for me to be on the computer. I have an in house computer tech to fix my computer when it breaks (or user err “breaks” it *grin*). I have an in house network…we have a server in the house.

My daughter figured out to change the Word Press template for me. The two of them set it up on my website. Oh, and my son in law is the one who takes care of getting me a domain. And there are numerous “tech” related things they do for me.

The two of them are such a luxury for me. I am not the best at computer technology.

I am glad my daughter takes after my husband’s side of the family. *grin*

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For whatever reason, my youngest grandson likes to go to sleep listening to streaming music from my computer, laying his head on my shoulder. He particularly likes “Black horse and the Cherry Tree”by KT Tunstall and the B-52’s “Love Shack”. Now when I put those on and he is tired, he goes right to sleep.

Only problem is that he is getting progressively heavier. He will be a year old soon. But my left arm is getting very strong! I have some serious muscles on that arm now.

I often do my computer work with him on my shoulder. (I am getting good at hunt and peck with one hand).

He loves it there …as long as the music is playing.

My husband , my youngest daughter (8 yrs) and I moved into my Mom’s house after my Dad passed away. My Mom had the upstairs. We had the downstairs. The only place for my studio was an unfinished back room.

I could work with the unfinished part but the lack of windows got to me after 5 years. I began calling it the dungeon. It got to the point that I had to force myself to work…the oppressiveness of working with no window for 6-8 hours just got to me.

But then we bought this house from my Mom (who moved to a senior place and closer to my older sister). My oldest daughter (25 yrs) and husband are very gainfully employed in the computer and telecommunications fields. They share the mortgage with us. Now they have two kids and live downstairs…while we have the upstairs. The “dungeon” was “deconstructed” along with the small room next to it and they both both became a suite for my daughter and son in law.

I got to move to a lovely room with a view. Now I love working again! Here’s the view I can see from my work table. There is a pond out there under the snow. At this time of the year I can see the kids ice skating.

And here is a picture of my winter garden. In the warm months I have a lovely flower garden but it is cold and snowy a substantial portion of the year here. So I put a colorful display out on the deck right outside my studio window. I have a patio door that leads out to my second floor deck.

I have seen so many artists sharing what their studio’s look like so I thought I would join them and post pictures of my space. My studio is filled with my may materials (much hidden in the large walk in closet), some of my older pieces 0f art, things that inspire me and things I love.

I will start with one wall:

On the wall you will see some pictures made by my daughters when they were young. One painted by my youngest when she was around 2 yrs is entitled “Mama and Baby Fishie” Can you find it? There is the cool photo entitled “Spider in the Woods” taken by my cousin Debra Chard. It was a gift to me because I love spiders.

There are some hats hanging on the hooks. One has a beaded hat band made by me. There is a neat paper bag hat made by my youngest daughter. Then there are some lovely feather hats made by my friend Debra Hathaway at www.DragonWings.net. She is, by the way, a wonderful doll artisan. She and her husband Eric make lovely dolls and puppets that they have been selling on the Renaissance Festival circuit for many years.

On the book shelf is the magic candy dish from my husband’s childhood. Kids all thought it was magic because they could never get the candy in the dish without Mom hearing *grin*.

There is a cut crystal glass mug that I won for coming in third place, in my class, in the Minnesota Finlandia. The Minn Finn use to be a 100 K cross country ski race run over two days. Now it is only a 50 K race.

There is the birch bark basket made by a friend.

So many other things. If you have any questions feel free to ask!

Next wall:

In the corner you will see the plastic containers that hold some of the materials I need for my art dolls. The roll top desk holds my supplies for my precious metal clay work.

On the roll top there is the vintage Barbie box that holds the Betsy Mc Call doll that my Grandmother bought for me when I was 5.  Also there are the many hand made clothes she made for me. I vividly remember receiving cards from her on holidays with a dress made just for the holiday.  I have treasured this doll all my life. It was one of the few things I have from that Grandma. I will have to post some pictures some time in the future.

You also will see my youngest daughter’s and my collection of Disney Pins. When we all go to Disneyland we like collecting and trading pins. My youngest daughter loves to collect Fairies and Pirates. I love to collect Alice in Wonderland.

Next wall:

On the wall you will see a beautiful gypsy mirror made with stain glass, beads and pressed flowers under glass. It was made by my dear friend Jane Thompson of Underglass, who passed away last year. I have always loved this mirror. She was a wonderful artist who said her purpose as an artist was to fill the world with beauty.

I have my vintage sewing machine.

All the wood boxes contain art materials. They sit on the cabinet I use for my “mail center”. I have a horrible time getting things sent out if I don’t have all the supplies all together in one spot. This is one true luxury in my book!

On the tall chest there is a cage with a monster in it. Her name is Mavis. She was adopted from some fellow artisan’s at the Arizona Renaissance Festival, Pat and Suzanne at Bungled Jungle.

Also there is a Faerie House attached to my lamp. It is made by my friends Belle and Frank Barr. They are the neatest people …personally and professionally. Some day I will post pictures of their house…complete with a fully functional Hobbit Hole in the back yard! Their lovely work can be found at www.FaerieHouse.com

Also up on the cabinet you will see my youngest daughter’s new kitten, Daisy. She loves playing with the beads and felt scraps that fall to the floor . And she is an art lover too.

Now, Daisy is sitting on the drawer unit right inside the door to my studio. It houses my spider collection.

There are the spider earrings I made with size 22 hexes. I have the two spider gourd rattles I made with bead weaving, brain tan leather and paint. There is the spider goblet, a gift from a friend filled with my spider and bug pin collection. The little green painted wooden box was made by my youngest daughter. A lovely little puzzle box…a gift from my Mom. A couple of bead woven snakes of my design. A beaded spider and a spider bracelet received as gifts.

And oh, can’t forget my daughter’s little Japanese Good luck Neko bead. You got to pass her on your way into my studio…got to get that good luck!

Last wall: This is the wall over my computer. These are pictures painted by the many generations of artists in my Mom’s family.  My favorite picture is the one painted by my Mom of the Boundary Waters Canoe area. I love being reminded that I am descended from a long line of artists! Also a picture painted by my husband. I like the road sign “be prepared to stop”…it has a lot of spiritual meaning to it for me.

To the left of my computer is my work table.

I have the pleasure of working on a great big work table made by my Dad, for me. I treasure even more now that he has passed away. He was a man who got many things done in his life and the table reminds me that I can achieve my dreams too.

On my table is a little altar with some sacred items I have.

There is the ivory Buddha my parents bought on a trip to Hong Kong in the 1950’s. I had in my room as a child (even though I was raised Christian). It makes me smile now because I married a man who was ordained a Soto Zen Buddhist monk.

The little picture is one my husband, Fudo Michael Koppang painted. He probably will be embarrassed that I have put it up here but I love the little picture. Also on the little altar is a beautiful Avaloketisvara , the Boddhisatva of Compassion. I had never seen one holding a baby when I found this one. Also there are some neat stones that I found on a beach in South Carolina. One of the stones makes a natural little bowl for the Buddha. One of the other stones looks like a mother holding a baby. I found her when I found myself pregnant unexpectedly at 40.

The cloth under it all was a gift from some Japanese monk friends. And the little box that he sits on used to contain powdered Japanese incense.

And that is my studio! Thanks for joining me on the studio tour.

May I offer you a cup of tea ?

Happy New Years everyone. I am starting the year out with a new business blog.

Over the years I have supported my family with my art. For a variety of reasons, I have never made an over abundance of money but we always have gotten by.

We owned a cabin in the woods with no running water, no phone, no electricity (though we did have some solar panels that gave us a couple of hours of light a night) . We had a nice out house and we heated our Minnesota cabin with a small wood stove. We lived on 5 acres of woods and had lots of animals around us…raccoons, deer, bear, wolves, skunks, chipmunks, squirrels etc.

We lived there for 10 years or so until we moved to the city to help care for my dying Dad.

We never had lots of money so I found ways to stretch what we had.

I learned to buy things at thrift stores and garage sales. This certainly helped us get by. And my daughters were always dressed nice with garage sale finds!

But still we struggled. I have never had much for investing in materials.

So now, when I create my art dolls I like to use recycled goods. I love using sweaters that I find at the thrift store. Often they are ones that few people would want because they are not in good condition. But that makes them perfect for me! I find wool scraps from making blankets at the woolen mills near my home. Anything, that I can find that would be eventually going to the trash heap.

I also like to use all the “orphan” beads from my years of jewelry design. They are the ones that I find on the floor after I have put the beads away. Or a single leftover bead from a project. I throw them all into a box. Over the years, I have collected quite a stash.

I have bits and pieces of many “useless” things. But often those things, even though they may be broken or damaged, still have an attraction for me. I hate to waste them.

When I use the wool for my dolls, I use up every scrap. I cut out dolls until there are small pieces left. Then I use the small pieces for smaller pins and such. Then I use the tiny scraps to stuff my dolls. I waste nothing.

I love making art from leftovers.

I also like making new food dishes from refrigerator leftovers. *smile*