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.

A Ticket, Four Stars and a Smiley Face

Today is one of those good Fall days that you never want to end. The air is a bit crisp, but the sun is shining bright. Chicago-ans are happy for the break in the dreary bad Fall days we have been having. Couple that with it being a Friday and you understand why I am in a great mood!

I am lucky enough to be working from home today and had time to go on a long walk for my exercise. Just as I was enjoying not being connected, I noticed the big orange envelop on my windshield. Street cleaning strikes again. Grr. Another win for the city of Chicago. I hope that $50 ticket replaces a pothole somewhere. Oh well, it's my own fault and still sunny!

Later in the day after some appointments I went to check on my sculpture, Position, and make sure the coating is weathering well with all the rain we've had. It's been a month or so since I've checked on it. It looked to be doing great from my car, but upon closer inspection I noticed four stars and one smiley face scratched in the surface of the coating. It looks like it was done by a child since it was only about four feet from the ground and didn't scratch through all the layers of paint.

At first I felt a little sad, but then I decided I'm lucky it wasn't vandalized in a more hateful way. I don't think the hand that did this was really trying to do a bad thing. I don't think they were trying to make a statement. I think they were just playing and that is OK because I have more paint. I say I want my art to engage the viewer and it moved someone to enough to involve it in their play time, so I can be happy with that. However, if you ever see someone vandalizing public art, please say something and/or alert the city/artist so they can repair it.

If I want my art to be public art then I will no doubt have many more experiences like this. I can only hope that in the future my art will earn four stars and a smiley face!