Friday, September 30, 2011

On the main walking street, Rua Augusta, in the center of Lisbon, are many performers and I took a photo of Joze and Patricia, Mariana's children,  with one who only moves with a contribution....although he gave me a wink without one....
My friend Isabel and her grandchildren wanted to spend the day at the Children's Science Museum at the Expo Center in Lisbon.  The architecture and design was spacious and well done.  The exhibits are on three different floors.  The exhibits are much like the ones at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.  The children interact with things that explain it's properties and how things work.  It also lets the participants use ways of solving ideas.  There is also a Crime Scene exhibit that explain the use of deduction and science to find the criminal.




The photos are of the front, entry, the children riding a bicycle, balanced on a single rope with a weight on its bottom and signage for male, female and wheelchair access to the bathrooms.

The wedding dress turned out beautifully, especially with the beautiful bride wearing it.
Mindy is my second cousin and
she asked me to make it for her.
It was made of Italian silk
peau de soie and a Japanese
obi of gold and silver metallic cranes.  The obi was especially difficult to work with but
somehow I managed to
manipulate and adjust it.
Daniel's vest was made from
the fallout of the obi that did not have the crane motif but with a small overall design.
I was in Lisbon last week and went to the new Design Museum.  It is located in the center of Lisbon on Rua Augusta and Placa Comercio.  It has designs from different eras of clothing to furniture and everything in between.  It was well displayed and had lots of examples.  We were not allowed to photo so I just have the picture of the front of the building.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Friends of Calligraphy and Liesbet Boudens

Liesbet is from Brugge Belgium.  This is her first time in the USA and San Francisco was her second workshop stop. She first taught in LA and went to Monterey for the next before heading home.  A full workshop with an extra..me, who had a last minute change and was kindly allowed in.  It was intense but wonderful and I learned a lot. Everyone did a great job.  Here is a photo of my piece 'Um Tanto Bravo', the name of my farm in Castelo Da Vide, Portugal.  It is photoed with a favorite piece made by my friend Mel Furukawa.  He made this piece so that the horizontal piece balances on the vertical support by its point and with the air currents it rotates: no glue!  I was so fortunate to be given it.  The porcelain monkey was my husband's as well as the wooden X letterpress piece.

Zipper workshop

Here is a photo of all the zipper things made by the workshop participants.  I gave the workshop with the help of Monica Lee at SCRAP San Francisco.  It was a full house and we had a great time.

Center piece

The center piece was made for a fund raiser at Ruth's Table.  Several artists were asked to make a centerpiece to be auctioned to benefit Ruth's Table.  This was my contribution.  It was made with discarded maps and atlases, corrugated paper, flower wire and dried flowers.  It was fun to make. ruthstable.org

California State Fair

My seven small pincushion group was entered in the California State Fair in the "Other creative arts" category.  It won an honorable mention with comments that it was wonderful but needed a display made for it.  It was fun to enter them.  However, someone must have liked the hydranga pincushion, because it disappeared and I did not get it returned.  I guess I will have to make another!

Bookworks

The Bookworks exhibition at the San Francisco Main Library took place this last August 2011.  My book that I made was in it.  I made it for my grandchildren and it is called READ.  I wrote a piece influenced by Aristophanes' By words the mind is winged.   It is the one standing on the right of the photo.  It is a star book with decoupaged pages from discarded books in English, Spanish, German and French with cancelled stamps depicting writers and communication....Dickinson, Shakespeare, Dante, Mailing......etc.

Graduation Leis




My granddaughter Emma graduated from lower form to upper form at the Lycee.  I made her a lei using dollar bills and made two others with candy and dollar bills for her friends, Morgan and JoAnna.

Flower Power Date Change

The Flower Power Workshop at Fabmo in Mt.View will be on October 29 now.  We will be making flowers out of paper, cloth and felted sweaters.  See  fabmo.org