Stephanie's Studio

Something’s afoot in the studio and outside.  It’s still cold outside, snowy even but I can feel the quickening of conception, growth and the birth of new ideas and new life germinating beneath the frozen surface of the earth.  For many months I have worked hard on a few different series of ATCs.  Now it is time to trade those and put aside the making of the cards.  The cards have stirred many ideas for other media and formats.  I may even be teaching it in an afterschool enrichment program for children.  ATCs are a way of working I hold dear and I know I will soon return to them.  I have blogged about how they remind me of working with metals and how that similarity makes me yearn to return to cloisonné. That is one of the new mediums it has spurned—something I am eager to explore in 2012.  I also want to return to one foot square patterned mandalas. This time though I am going to use some of the ideas I learned about in a workshop on aqueous...

Today I’ve lit two red candles, for the blood of our people in honor of the two Nguzo Sabo considered so far.  Today’s red candle is for Kujichagalia or self –determination.  In many aspects of my life I have instilled and considered self-determination, especially during this past year. I visited self-determination during my extensive job search.  As all of you know, this is no kind of economy to be on a job search but eventually with some intense perseverance I did find a few jobs. The first job really stretched me.  It was with an internet up Start-up Company.  My job was to help build a metasearch engine, specifically related to the topic of health.  I was stretched at this job because it did not feed my artistic self.  Working 40 hours per week,  I found myself too tired to draw or write when I was off from work and relatively obsessed with ways to integrate artmaking and writing back in my life when I was at work.  It was comforting ...