Crayon Shaving “stained glass”–Finding Inspiration From Local Artists

Sunday was truly a November day. I woke up and it was grey and rainy with reported temperatures in the 30s. Immediately, I was cranky. I had planned to head out for a walk with my family and then diverge to explore the Roslindale Open Studios, but looking out the window I decided that staying in the house in my PJs was much more appealing.  I put on my grumpy face and prepared to sulk all day.

But then my husband when outside to take out the trash, and of course Morgan insisted on helping. So they put on their shoes and coats over their pajamas and trekked down two flights of stairs to the dismal backyard.  The rain had settled to an oppressive mist. Once the trash was in the bins, Morgan sat down on the stoop.

“Wait here,” he said.

“What for what?” my husband asked.

“What on step for Daddy. Daddy go get dressed. Take walk.” At which point my husband tried to talk our toddler out of a cold, damp walk and failed. Instead he managed to convince Morgan that he couldn’t go out in his pajamas either, so the two of them came inside to get dressed. Faced with the option of staying home by myself and spiraling into a well of weather-inspired self-pity or bundling up and going out with the family, I chose the latter.

So after a quick trip to Dunkin’ Donuts* for hot beverages and a snack, I found myself visiting the Open Studios after all. I hadn’t originally planned to bring Morgan–how much attention span can a two-year-old really have for art?–but with it too cold and damp for the playgrounds we needed somewhere to take the little guy. And it turns out that my two-year-old at least can have a surprisingly long attention span.

The first artist we visited, Kasey Davis Appleman, works in mixed media collage with found objects. I carried Morgan from room to room looking at all the intricate assemblages and taking to him about the objects used to make the art. He wanted to find all the pieces with spoons, then all the sea shells. A few had some tiny cars in them, which made my little guy dimple up and smile from ear to ear.  We went through the place twice before Morgan declared that he was all done and asked to go somewhere else.

So we followed the sidewalk chalk arrows to the displays of balloons until we came to the Roslindale House group exhibit.  Morgan was particularly captivated by the stained glass work of Peter Guilday, specifically his glass stars.  Given that it is now dark early and the day persisted in being seasonably cold, I decided to carry on the art theme after Morgan’s nap. We made our own “stained glass” using crayon shavings, wax paper, and an iron.

Morgan picking colors for his stained glass

Morgan had a lot of fun sprinkling the colors onto the wax paper. We had to send Daddy into another room to shave more crayons for him. I was afraid that Morgan would be upset if he saw us messing up his crayons.

Morgan’s Stained Glass circle

Once Morgan gets started on a craft project, he’ll run with it for an hour or so. We made stained glass in all different shapes and sizes. I saved the off cuts–who knows, maybe I’ll find something fun to do with them later.

 

Construction Paper Fall Leaf Art

When I quit my job as an Assistant Toddler Teacher in a day care classroom to have my son, I imagined taking the structure and lesson planning home with me. I envisioned weekly themes with daily art activities to give my son an enriching, creative, educational experience home with me. And then I had an infant, and then a toddler, and I realized that most of my energy would be spent on getting through the day. The little time I have to myself during the day (i.e. naptime), I want to spend on myself rather than on thinking up educational activities. For a while, I felt mom-guilt about this, but at this point I realize that it is ok. Morgan is hitting all his developmental milestones, can count to 10 reliably, knows the ABC’s, his colors and shapes (including cylinders and arches), and can do basic +1 addition. I think that is pretty good for a kid who just turned two in June. And all of this happened without conscious curricular planning on my part.

That being said, I am a crafty person, and I would like to encourage Morgan to explore his creative side. I am a little embarrassed that I still have the paper Easter baskets we made in March hanging in my window, because I haven’t done organized crafting beyond crayons or sidewalk chalk since. So to celebrate the changing seasons, I decided to do a fall leaf craft.

Supplies:

• Construction paper
• Elmer’s glue
• paint brushes
• little cups (we save the cups from apple sauce or fruit cups)
• legal size paper
• scissors

While Morgan napped, I cut tree silhouettes out of black construction paper and glued them to white legal size paper. I also cut simple leaf shapes out of red, orange, and yellow construction paper. When he woke up and was ready to do some art, I put some glue in a small cup, watered it down a bit, and gave him a paint brush.

He had so much fun, he ended up making five more when he finished the first. The best part? After I ran out of pre-cut trees and leaves, he wanted to pick the colors. So now I have a colorful forest on my wall– with blue trees, green trees, and orange trees with red, yellow, green, orange, pink, blue, and black leaves.  When I nurture him, I do have a budding little artist on my hands!

Related articles

• Fall Tree Cork Painting Craft (formulamom.com)
• Fall Crafts for Kids (auroramayblog.wordpress.com)
• Leaves (babytoddlerbookclub.wordpress.com)

I gave my best friend a lizard mohawk

Boston Handmade Holiday Gallery 2012

The holidays are fast approaching and once again the artists and craftspeople of Boston Handmade have come together for a holiday gallery exhibition. Located at the Christina Hurley gallery at 554 Washington Street in Canton, Massachusetts, the exhibition includes a wide array of beautiful handmade gifts. I am honored to have my hats and hair accessories included in the show again this year.

My friend Wendy and I model Bird Nest Fascinators at the opening reception

The show officially opened with a reception last Saturday, and the gallery was packed with people looking for unique items for their loved ones. I sold a headband to a nice lady who was looking for a gift for her eight year old niece. She even asked me to write her a little note on a business card. I think this is my first request for an autograph!

My headbands and bobby pins on display

Of course, holiday shopping is just getting into swing this weekend. Instead of heading to Wal-Mart or other large corporate retail chains today, why not head to the Boston Handmade Holiday Gallery tomorrow for Small Business Saturday instead?

A collection of Bird Nest Fascinators waiting for you to take them home

King Richard’s Faire 2012

After three weeks of late nights and finger pricking, my family and I went to King Richard’s Faire in Carver, Massachusetts.  I made my dress from Simplicity pattern 3782, and my husband made matching musketeer outfits for himself and our son. We were excited to find matching man and boy musketeer patterns through McCalls, but failed to realize until I went to buy the pattern that the child pattern started at size 3–much too big for our 16 month old. Fortunately, we are a crafty family through and through. My husband improvised our son’s costume based on his own.

Art Interlude: Postpartum–a self portrait

Postpartum by Celeste Bocchicchio-Chaudhri

For those of us who come to parenting through pregnancy and childbirth, part of making sense of our new role and identity as Mother is confronting the changes to our bodies. Here, in oil pastel on paper, is my tribute to my postpartum body: lopsided breasts, stretch marks and all.

Given the media obsession with celebrity moms who sprout tiny round baby bumps, have their babies, and then sport bikinis in bodies suspiciously unmarked by pregnancy, I think it is important for those of us who don’t have (or want) an army of plastic surgeons at our disposal to celebrate the beauty of our changing bodies.

I think my stretch marks look like flames.

Birds’ nests for your hair

About a year ago, I decided I wanted to include my millinery repertoire to include hats made from sinamay, a woven straw fabric. Sinamay is supposedly very easy to block as its open weave makes it easy to stretch and pull on the bias. When I went to buy some, I fell in love with a novelty textured sinamay called Medley Tuft. Here, instead of a grid, straw fibers in two colors swirl around randomly to make a straw cloth with a funky texture.  I didn’t realize until the sinamay arrived that the unusual weave made it much more difficult to work with, especially blocked on its own without a regular sinamay. So it sat in my supply box for a year while I tried to figure out what to do with it.

Then I started making my Peace Hat collection, and I saw the Medley Tuft sinamay in a new light. Why, all those random bits of straw woven together looked just like a bird’s nest! And so my bird’s nest fascinators were born!

Orange bird nest fascinator

Blue bird’s nest fascinator

Celebrating Womanhood–UWIB April Blog Hop

I have been thinking a lot lately about about womanhood–how to interpret it and what it means to me. In about a month I will be entering a new kind of life as a woman. My first baby is due on May 27 and from his birth forward I will be not only a woman, but also a mother. Having spent two years in a PhD program in Women’s Studies, I am wary of essentialist definitions of womanhood, and particularly any definition of Woman that revolves around her role as a mother. Yet I agree with Dr. Sarah J. Buckley, author of Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering, that “birth is a women’s issue, birth is a power issue; therefore birth is a feminist issue” (page 8). Yet it is an issue that American feminists have largely ignored. I am fortunate to live in a place with multiple options for birth and prenatal care, to be able to work with midwives who celebrate womanhood by trusting  women’s bodies to be strong enough to birth babies without unnecessary medical intervention, and trusting women’s brains to be smart enough to decide which medical interventions are necessary for her.

And while I’ve been ruminating over the political implications of my transformations–both the physical transformations of pregnancy, and the social transformation of motherhood–I’ve been getting back into some of my non-millinery related art practices to help me celebrate my womanhood:

Pregnancy, by Celeste Bocchicchio-Chaudhri

This was a spontaneous self-portrait painted in acrylics on handmade paper left over from making my wedding invitations.

For more musings on Celebrating Womanhood, be sure to check out the other participants in the April Unique Women in Business Blog Hop!

Rita Wetzel: www.RitasCreativeNest.com
Audrey Fetterhoff: www.AudreyGardenLady.blogspot.com
Linda Stranger: www.capecodjewel.blogspot.com
Judy Woodley: www.WellspringCreations.blogspot.com
Janet Bocciardi: http://honeyfromthebee.com
Ann Rinkenberger: www.harvestmoonbyhand.blogspot.com
Celeste Bocchicchio-Chaudhri: www.ElephunksTrunk.blogspot.com
Wendy Kelly: http://blog.vintageday.com
Cory Trusty: www.aquarianbath.blogspot.com
Karen Terry/McDuffie: www.jmjcreations.blogspot.com

Fabric Origami–an experiment

Ever since I started my peace crane line of hair accessories, people have asked me if I have plans to make origami cranes out of fabric instead of paper. After all, common wisdom says that fabric is more durable than paper, especially if unexpectedly caught in the rain. This is, generally speaking, true. The problem is, when you try to make a paper crane out of a square of fabric,  you get something that looks like this:

It looks kind of…..flaccid. Fabric just doesn’t do crisp folds the way paper does, even when the creases are ironed. Unless, of course, you can stiffen the fabric so that it has the feel of paper. So I hunted around the internet for options to stiffen fabric. I tried one home-made recipe: equal parts water and white glue, and one “professional” version: gelatin millinery stiffener (the stuff I use when blocking hats). Both made much nicer cranes:

glue and water stiffener

Gelatin hat stiffener

However, neither solved the initial problem. I put the stiffened fabric cranes, along with a paper crane, in the bathtub and ran the shower on them to simulate a rain storm. Because both glue and gelatin are water soluble, the shower caused the stiffener to unstiffen.

glue and water

gelatin

When the cranes dried, they restiffened and I am sure the careful application of an iron would have them looking great again. But I don’t want you to have to iron your cranes every time they get wet!  The paper crane, on the other hand, held up surprisingly well:

There are some commercially available fabric stiffeners that claim to be water resistant. I’ll try those next.

Work in Progress–Ancient Greek Inspiration

I draw the inspiration for my hats from all sorts of places, but I find historical head wear to be one of the richest sources of ideas. I would like, at some point, to start making historically accurate reproductions. Right now, however, I am enjoying taking inspiration from historical fashions and making something entirely new.

Currently I am working on a hat inspired by head pieces worn by women in Ancient Greece, like this one:

 I imagine from this picture that this is more like a head band or a bandana than a hat with a firm structure, and I have experimented with the style in that form for my personal collection. You can see me wearing in this picture of my enormously pregnant belly:

 

I thought it would be interesting to make a similar design with a buckram and wire interior structure. The end result will probably not look Greek at all, but that is fine by me. So far I have completed the buckram base. I plan to cover it with brocade fabric and millinery flowers.