Hooray! Art & Life #11 Arrived

I was surpsired on Easter morning to see the envelope containing the magazine Art & Life #11 sitting on the kitchen counter. It had arrived in Saturday night’s mail and my husband hadn’t told me that I’d received stuff in the mail, let alone something as good as this. If I had known I would have spent all of Saturday night reading it. Instead, in between and after Easter celebrations I read the whole issue. Hooray!

I love this art magazine which is published quarterly by Teesha Moore. It is sold through her website. What I like the most is that we are never told WHAT to do but just to make art and do what we want to do. There is no judgment that a person’s creations are good or bad. The focus is not on trendy and being ‘in’ with making whatever is hot at the moment. The overall attitude is to do what you want and make what you want. There is more of a concern with the process of creating and the wonderful flow experience that happens. In other words the focus is on the process not the product.

The publication is so non-judgmental that I love it. There are written articles, by Teesha and other contributors, as well as in the recent issues, full-color reproductions of artwork made by Teesha, her husband Tracy and other artists.

I was so inspired to go make some paper based art that last evening I sat down and did 16 pages of collage work in a blank journal. I plan to continue embellishing these pages and then will use them to write in, in between and on top of the collaged items. My main focus in this last month has been on making fiber based creations and Art & Life inspired me to go play with paper and glue.

In Art & Life #11 Teesha shares photos of some of the handmade things she purchased or saw at Design Festa in Tokyo. She also wrote about the reproductions of her art journals which she made while in Tokyo and is selling on her site. I think I’ll have to go buy Teesha’s Tokyo journals.



Since I am teaching myself metal crafting I was curious about the book review that Teesha did on "Making Connections: a handbook of cold joins for jewelers and mixed-media artists" by Susan Lenart Kazmer. The review is glowing and dubbed a ‘must-have’. I went on Amazon to buy it today, figuring it would cost at Amazon’s price, $15-20 at most (and no tax and I get free shipping). I can’t find it on Amazon. Instead I found it on Kazmer’s website, selling there for $48 plus shipping. YIKES. That is more than I had wanted to spend, especially because I am new to metal crafting, am a beginner and not good at it, and am not sure if I want to put that much money toward a book on it at this point in time. Then again, the book’s cost is cheaper than taking a workshop, so I could look at it that way…

"Making Connections" book description on Kazmer’s site

Preview of Making Connections on Kazmer’s site

I found this book on Amazon which may be a suitable alternative for a beginner like me. It is called "Semiprecious Salvage: Creating Found Art Jewelry" by Stephanie Lee which Amazon is selling for under $16.



In my Amazon surfing I also learned that Giuseppina Cirincione is coming out with a new book this year, available with an Amazon pre-order discount, called "Bent, Bound And Stitched: Collage, Cards And Jewelry With A Twist". I already own her book "Collage Lost & Found" and I enjoyed that.





I see that Teesha reviewed “How to Make Books” by Esther K. Smith which I was interested in and blogged about, and which I purchased last month. I love the book too and plan to review it soon. I laughed when I read that Teesha plans to make the cake box book as that is in my plans too! (Imagine the cover and spine of a book beign made from a cake mix box. That is what it is. I also plan to use little jello boxes and jiffy muffin mix boxes to make miniature books.)



Another book already on my wish list is here too, "Acrylic Revolution" by Nancy Reyner.



I just wanted to share with you how much I love Art & Life magazine! I find it so inspirational.

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