Merry! Happy!

This is the holiday ecard I drew this year. I know how I like to be remembered at the holidays and so I sent this to all of my contacts and now here it is for you!

Merry! Happy! to you and yours! Cheers to a wonderful 2010!

Scotty the Snowman

On a routine checkup of my sculpture yesterday morning, I found perhaps the best addition to it ever! If you read this log, you know about a month ago, I found that a child had scratched four stars and a smiley face into the coating of it. No big deal. I'm glad the kid felt comfortable around it. We had our first real snow yesterday and this time I found a little snowman on the base of it. Complete with a carrot nose!

This made me happy for two reasons. First, it was someone in a nearby home since they had a carrot to use for a nose. Second, two of my friends happened upon Scotty that morning as well and they sent me the below photographs. Thank you Jim & Kate!!!

CSI Business Twmeeting

Last night we had our business meeting for CSI an affiliate group of the International Sculpture Center. We had a speaker Elizabeth Castro from O'Malley Hansen Communications talk to us about her experience with social media and gave concrete examples of how it has helped her work at her PR firm.

I am a tweeter, but now I have renewed approach to it because of Elizabeth's comparison to it and a cocktail party. Just as you navigate a room and talk to those who interest you, so do you navigate twitter. 'She urged us to micro-target our audience for the best results and to listen first, then participate. A lot of the other sculptors are quite skeptical and what to spend their daytime in the studio, but I think social media can be just as important of a tool as my welder (whom I fondly call Elmer).

If you are on twitter please tweet with me! My name is dustyfolwarczny.

Cheers!

Treasure Hunt

I had a lovely break in the action for Thanksgiving and was able to slow down a bit and spend time with my family and old friends from home. It was refreshing.

On Monday, I went into scavenger mode and found a bunch of scrap at Victor Pipe & Steel that I will use to make art. All the rain we have had in the Midwest over the last month or so happened to uncover some more of my favorite kind of rings I use for my Rising series. These end pieces that are cut off the pipe transform and become more interesting with time. They have a more textured and pitted surface from rusting and reacting to the limestone gravel and weather over time.

These pieces to the left, I found in container near the shed that houses the giant band saw. The more silver pieces are galvanized, which is a zinc coating that keeps the steel from rusting. You can weld them together, but you must be very careful and use a respirator because the zinc releases into the air and reek heavy metal havoc on your body. "Zinc chills" is what they call it. Not sure I'll be able to use them anytime soon, but they are pretty!

I also found a bunch of end pieces that I don't think can be sold anymore and if they are up for grabs, I am there for the taking! I feel like I am on a treasure hunt with I am looking for stuff. The guys in the steel yard just look at me like, "What's she doing?" or "What does she want now?"

Today I am unloading and organizing it in my studio for future use. I have two sculptures in my mind that want to materialize, but I am putting them off until I get more work done on reaching out to galleries etc. I have another one that I want to make,  but it needs more time in my subconscious. Next week I will be cleaning and grinding and welding.