Gifting, New Work

Support Artists With Disabilities! – Happy Disability Pride Month

As Disability Pride month comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the vibrant artists with disabilities I am priviledged to share my life with, and also remind you that we definitely shouldn’t confine our recognition of the talent and worth of those with disabilities to just one month. In fact, I never even knew there was a Disability Pride Month OR that disability rights had been part of the other early civil rights movements until I started working with individuals with disabilities and a disability rights activist informed me of all this.

For a fantastic, concise video on why there may be this disconnect and why it doesn’t make sense since we will all experience disability at least temporarily at some point in our life, check out Sitting Pretty.

I have never met a more innovative, unconditionally loving and accepting, open and expressive group of people than the neurodiverse artists I work with in the Express Yourself Artshop Program.

One of the hardest parts of supporting artists with disabilities is finding their work in the first place. We have an online store where you can purchase original art and handmade wares, as well as a print-on-demand Redbubble Shop that offers all our unique student designs covering wearables, bags, mugs, home decor, and a variety of other high quality products. I absolutely adore Redbubble and own many products from them myself. I feel they are the best value in a POD site. Myself and my team are passionate about discovering our students’ untapped potential, getting their art out into the world, and helping them support themselves through what they love to do.

This idea of inclusion and celebrating difference as something that makes our community better ties right in to my current largescale project: a “mini mural” for Midland’s Neighboring Week. I have 3 vastly different individuals represented: a middle aged white woman with down syndrome, a young black male, and a mid-late 20s-aged Latino woman using a wheelchair. Heart, Mind, and Spirit are represented by graphic elements connected to each individual. This symbolizes the importance of opening our hearts to others’ stories, and the fact that we need all different types of brains working together in order to be the best community we can be.

Every person on earth has value, and every person’s story is important.

Gifting

Don’t Be A Grinch – Give Awesome Gifts!

I feel like with the completion of my ongoing Unlimited series in addition to working with art classes 9-5 for my day job, I got a bit burned out from drawing and painting. I have to be creating something at all times though, so I have changed my focus as of late to crafting just in time for holiday gifting. I have tons of fun handmade wonders available in my Ebay Store, like the hand-sewn ornaments below … These make great stocking stuffers because honestly, you can never have too many ornaments.

If ornaments aren’t your thing, everyone needs to keep their hands warm as it gets chillier outside. I love fingerless gloves because regular gloves and mittens make me feel as if my fingers were in 10 tiny straight jackets, and I feel like they make me clumsier than usual and I drop everything. With these, your fingers can experience sweet freedom!

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Maybe one day I will become better friends with sewing machines, but for now I stick to hand sewing or crocheting as those monsters scare the crap out of me!

When I say I’m going on a crafts binge, I’m not lying – though I guess I did lie earlier about the total painting hiatus. I can’t entirely abandon painting but I switched from paper to wood to create these artsy, modern, geometric designed wooden bead necklaces. I also painted some new wooden dolls in winter wear to fit the season!

As always, in addition to ebay I have a variety of cool, art-covered products in my Redbubble Shop. I’ve been experimenting a lot the end of this year with watercolor patterns. I know paper calendars are kind of old school, but I love them still just for the pictures! I have a calendar of the 12 pieces included in my Unlimited series new for 2018. These calendars are super high quality on thick, art print quality paper so when you are done with it you can even cut the pieces out and frame them.

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It gets so hard to figure out what friends and family want that they don’t already own year after year … I know I have quite a few things from Redbubble on my wish list ;). Definitely hoping Santa brings me a hoodie with this too cool design on it by katepowellart …

Where do you guys like to find unique gifts?

Gifting, New Work

One More Series Reveal + More On Redbubble!

december she is connected to everything

Say hello to December – She Is Connected To Everything. What can I say, I’ve been on a roll lately. I don’t think I’ve ever finished so many different pieces 2 days at a time in my life … Granted, I haven’t been doing much of anything else in my free time, as the pile of dishes in the sink will tell onlookers ;). Though all the pieces in my current series I’ve been working on are similar in style and use of medium, I wanted to keep them different enough that each could stand alone as well. I went a lot softer and less graphic, high contrast with this piece. I even used some leftover dried moss I had purchased for a felt floral arrangement commission earlier this year in the girl’s woodland crown. There is something I never thought in a million years I’d ever use in one of my drawings!

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I have been getting all my series posted to my Redbubble Shop as well, available for print on a variety of gorgeous items. My series also finally has a name … Unlimited. Each individual piece has it’s own title and the works cover a variety of different themes, so coming up with one title to encompass the whole was a struggle. At it’s heart though, this series is about the best of humanity, and about the strength, curiosity, compassion, and vibrancy of women across time, nationality, and ability. It is about the common ground that unites us, and when people come together, they truly become unlimited.

Gifting

No More Boring Gifts!

One of the great things about the internet is that artist made products are literally EVERYWHERE, both original items and printed or graphically designed wares. I actually have a couple shirts I ordered from Threadless in college that I’ve kept for 8 years and can’t part with, though they are now either disintegrating or have super attractive sweat stained armpits. I’m planning to do fabric wrap canvases with them and use them for cool wall art because the designs are so gorgeous, I just can’t abide by throwing them in the trash.

Plenty of artists are out there on ebay and etsy and multitudes of similar platforms willing to customize their work to that special someone you may have in mind. I myself have just finished up an eclectic variety of custom requests, from hand drawn pendants to dolls to an artsy floral arrangement, which was definitely a first.

Basically, there is no excuse for giving a boring gift.

My day job (a pretty cool day job, if I do say so myself :)) is working as Program Coordinator for Express Yourself Artshop, an inclusive arts program geared towards serving all adult students, including those with disabilities. Many of the students are learning how to sell and market their work, and with Spring here we are beginning to prepare for multiple art and craft fairs.

With Mother’s and Father’s day coming up, it’s always best to start early. Creative gift guides are awesome, but oftentimes everything listed is in the 3 figure range … I’ve put together some affordable guides that are a little bit of what I have to offer, a little bit from some of my amazingly artsy aquaintances, and a little bit from artisans I admire throughout the web.