ART in ATL

Public art in the Atlanta airport
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

We're on our way back from a trip to the Pacific Northwest. We saw lots of cool gardens, and I also made a few creative detours that I'll blog about soon. For now, I wanted to share a few photos of the great art that we stumbled across on our outbound layover in the Atlanta airport.

This shadowbox is the one that first caught my eye. It had a definite Joseph Cornell feel and incorporated two of my favorite materials -- maps and bowling trophies. So cool.

As I looked around, I realized that gate had a number of other pieces by the same artist. I didn't see any information on the artist at the gate, but a Google search revealed that it was the work of Vicki Ragan.

Meet the stars of GLAM!

We've got an all-star cast lined up for GLAM -- Gainesville Local Art Mart -- which will take place on Sunday, Nov. 22 at the Thelma Boltin Center in Gainesville. Let's hope that it becomes Gainesville's most talked-about holiday shopping source.

• 13 Tones
• bullyrocks designs
• Evon's Muse
• GocheMoche
• Hclark Jewelry Designs
• How to Use Art
• Joffe' Creations
• LisaJaydesigns
• Loop de Loop
• love, lindseykaye
• Mandorla Designs
• Mary's Granddaughter
• McCartney Ann
• MegganColleen Designs
• Michala Designs
• Moja Creations
• Ophelia's Swim Team
• Princess Froglips
• Recollections Jewelry
• Sandhill Arts
• Sugar
• Sunfunnels
• The Sassy Crafter (me!)
• The Two Thieves
• Tried and Trued
• Twink Beauty
• Various and Sundry
• Velvet Seahorse
• Waldo Wild Crafts
• Wearing Skirts
• Wendy Starr Handmade

We'll also have tunes from The Terrazzo Four and DJ Phred, and The Original Pizza Palace will be serving up tasty treats.

Want to RSVP or see photos from vendors? Stop by the GLAM Facebook event page.

Be there or be square!

Be a part of GLAM -- Gainesville Local Art Mart!

Be a part of GLAM -- Gainesville Local Art Mart!
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

Some of you may remember the Handmade Holiday Bazaar that I helped organize last holiday season here in Gainesville. Well it's back (albeit with a facelift) and we're looking for artists / crafters / creative types who want to be vendors!

Last year's event was such a success that we're expanding and offering spaces for 30 vendors at a cool new venue. We also gave it a fresh new name that we hope will better reflect the cool factor of the event.

Here are the deets:

Event: GLAM -- Gainesville Local Art Mart

Date: Sunday, November 22, 2009
Time: 2:00pm - 6:00pm
Location: Thelma Boltin Center
Street: 516 NE 2nd Ave
City/Town: Gainesville, FL

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=171190742463&ref=mf

Applications can be downloaded online and should be emailed to me (sassycrafter@gmail.com) or dropped off at Loop de Loop (205 NE 16th Avenue).

Once we receive your application, we'll let you know within a few days whether or not you're in. If you're in, you'll need to send the $35 registration fee via PayPal to sassycrafter@gmail.com by November 9 Monday, November 2. If we don't receive your payment by the due date, we reserve the right to give your spot to someone on the waiting list.

So what are you waiting for? Apply today!

Ah... Savannah

Savannah is my second favorite Southern city. Much like New Orleans, it's a city that is steeped with history but doesn't come off as the least bit stodgy. In fact, it's a hip, contemporary town that isn't worried about taking itself too seriously. Chalk it up to the great art school that continues to bring in creative people who fall in love with Savannah and never get around to leaving.

The New York Times just did a feature on Savannah and gave a shout-out to one of my favorite places for creative inspiration -- shopSCAD.

I stumbled across shopSCAD completely by chance when I visited the city in July 2004 with my friend Jenny. I was totally mesmerized by the amazing things for sale there, all created by current or former SCAD students and/or faculty. Jenny's lucky that she was ever able to drag me out of there!

I was particularly smitten with the wallets, checkbook covers, and passport covers made from vintage papers, made by a company called 11:11, or "eleven eleven." When I went to the site today, I also fell in love with the darling pillows made by Pamela Riley and the chipmunk chest by Katie Runnels which is pictured above.

If you're ever in Savannah, be sure not to miss this little gem. Or, visit the newly opened shopSCAD in Atlanta.

drudgery vs. following your heart

Several days ago a friend sent me a link to an article in Orion Magazine titled "Burgers a la Thomas Jefferson." It's about a guy named Tod Murphy who started a restaurant in Vermont called The Farmer's Diner. The key concepts are that the restaurant only serves food that was raised or grown within 70 miles and that the food must be affordable. I'm a fan of this concept, and I think a lot of other people are, too. The entire article is worth a read, but one part that particularly grabbed me was this anecdote by Murphy:

"They asked me to speak down in Boston at the IDEAS Conference at the Federal Reserve Bank. The hotel that they put me in was six or eight blocks away, so I was hoofing it over in the morning, and I went by a couple of T [subway] stops, and I was watching people huddled under their backpacks, coming out of the T, going to Starbucks, and then they’re going to their jobs. Then I went into the Federal Reserve where they have these displays set up about social history. They have the 1800-whatevers, and there’s a scythe, and reapers, and binders, and pictures of horses and stuff. So I stopped at the scythe to read the sign. It talked about how people used to be on the land, and it was awful, life was so hard, terrible drudgery, they had no teeth, this kind of thing. But 'drudgery' was the word that struck me. I had just walked through a crowd of people who were the epitome of drudgery, people who are pursuing what is held out as 'progress, living life.'”

Wow. Kind of makes you realize that most Americans are plodding along toward some vague notion of a better life. In my mind, Murphy has found that better life. And it doesn't revolve around daily $4 non-fat lattes.

Also along the lines of people following what's in their hearts, tonight I watched "Craft in America: Community" that WUFT-TV aired a few weeks ago (I TiVoed it). This particular quote resonated with me, both because of how I feel about buying the work of other artists and about producing my own work (sadly, I was unable to credit the speaker since it was a voiceover):

"We're making items that no one needs except for the aesthetic reasons. They're buying our objects because someone thought it up, it's their design, and it comes from the hand."

I also enjoyed the other segments of the program, including the one about Penland School. I have long wanted to Penland. I'm on their mailing list and always drool over the classes they offer in printmaking and letterpress, photography, metals, and books and paper. I think of Penland as a summer camp for grown-ups. Hopefully one day I'll be lucky enough to be a camper there.

And finally, my random thought of the day. Is it possible to sell watermelons from the trunk of a car? I saw a woman attempting to do this today. She had a pile of eight of so watermelons piled up behind her car. She was not-so-casually perched on the back seat, legs hanging out through the open door.

Sure, there's no physical reason you can't sell watermelons in this manner, but will people buy them? You see, Southerners can be darn particular about tradition, and tradition states that you sell watermelons from the back of a pick-up truck. That's just the way it is. Maybe I should've stopped and asked her how business was going, just so that I could know whether you truly can sell watermelons from a car. If she's there tomorrow, I'll stop and ask her.