Moved to Willow's Dream

Since I frequently give out my art-business cards as a means to keep in contact with clients, thought I should update that I am now at Willow's Dream Salon and would love, love, love to see you there!
I still work Tuesday-Saturday, and I still use Framesi color and still strive to create hair as art. In fact, it's my new motto.
If you would like to schedule an appointment the number is (828) 225-5922 and just ask for Tina Ford-Cox.
This business change will afford me more time with my artwork and more time for art blog posts and more time to think and engage myself creatively with my clients and with myself. Beautiful. See you soon.

"And yet when I am soft, I am careless..."

Well it's been a minute since the last update, been really busy -- going through some transitions here in the first quarter of 2011. Change is doing me good, but is also very time consuming.

Where to start, well the photography course ended -- probably the mo

st beneficial element I gained from that course is the degree to which I learned to look, to really see. I had forgotten that, being so long since college and all the darkroom courses I took then. The benefits of really looking at the world around you are innumerable, and in the end, I believe, help you to really see yourself. I think through artwork an artist best gets to reveal themselves, but the introspective study has to be there for any work to have soul... well, in my opinion. There is a lot of soul-less artwork out there that people really love, so c'est la vie. I like the knowledge I've gained, the perspective you could say, of my exterior and interior world. My mother gifted me a Nikon d3100 when the class was over and I took it to California. Next week some photos will be up, for sure. My next big photo date is hopefully going to be some experimental night

photography up on the Parkway.

The Artist Way course ended as well, and this course was much more labor intensive than the photography course. To be honest, as much as the discipline and routine of meeting once a week was good for me, I looked forward more to reading the book on my own and doing the homework on my own. I liked that time to journal and plan and create. Having the weekly discipline to do the chapter work, have an artist's date and set creative goals have started to sink in and today was probably the most successful artist's date I've had since the course ended. I try to set aside 1-2 nights a week to work on art and writing, starting to get the routine down.

One of those nights is always Wednesday night. The other one is more flexible. I like to have one night dedicated to creating visual art, and one to writing -- the title of this blog is actually from a poem I am in the midst of. I have been hesitant to publish poetry on here, but I have been reading the poetry blog of James Nave and if he can do it, well it's definitely a consideration... now I just have to push the inner critic aside...

I have also entered the LAAFF poster art contest, I just sent them my at-hand portfolio and of course the link to this blog. Will see what happens, fingers crossed!

The above photos are of a painting I am currently working on, a work-in-progress but I am really digging where it is going and where it is taking me. Nice.

Perspective and the repetition of time

Beware of the Ides of March.

My photography course has begun the gradual wind-down, we had our first of 4 critiques? Maybe it's 3? I should look at the syllabus. We had our first critique tonight, and although I was not particularly wild about any of my photos submitted, I got some great feedback and some hearty compliments. A boost to the ego never hurts, right? I got major props on this photo.

My goals for this month mainly include staying out of trouble, and having some legitimate work to show for all this art space I have made for myself on an emotional/spiritual/physical level. Making headway on some poetry, that I would post here but somehow think it's weird to post uncopyrighted material on a blog? Maybe I am blowing this out of proportion? I might be catatonically tired right now, Wednesday is my photo class, it's the 2nd day in a row of 12 hours non-stop... Updated photo album!

You were like the fiction of water on the desert sand. . .

The deadline is here, tomorrow I am sending off my submission for the Penland School Studio Assistant Program.  I have applied for Session 6 & 7, but I really want Session 7 with this Kyu Yamamoto guy, I just looked at his website and I am even more pumped about his class - based on his artwork etc.

As far as my Artist's Way class, totally rocking. My goal this week is to write a poem, which I think I am going to submit to this Mountain Xpress poetry contest-- for funskees, see what happens you know? So far I think it is about heartbreak (overdone much?) but in the context of this visceral sub-Saharan lioness devouring prey but then it ends up being a mirage, yeah basically awesome.

I am a little behind on the repetition, texture Photo assignment, so far I have one photo, as seen here. Been over focusing on getting this Penland stuff together -- looking forward to all the 'free time' I will have when that is in the mail tomorrow. I will find out March 31st what the real deal is. 

I think the next big thing is revisiting some portraiture I have been neglecting in the basement. I've been having a lot of dreams about lotus flowers, interested to see where I go with that. Very zen.

Internal Frames and other points of view

So I have been taking a digital photo class, among other things for the last several weeks.  It's been good, and combined with "The Artist's Way" workshop I have been keeping pretty busy and making some personal break throughs on an emotional as well as creative level -- also good.

This photo album is the direct result of my first assignment in the Intermediate Digital Photography class, the assignment being "Internal Frame".

 As we all know, we are our own harshest judge and of the 120 pictures I took, only 3 made the cut, only two are truly internal frame in my opinion and I put the last two in because they are rad photos but I did not take them in class -- one is in Santa Cruz from last March and the other is from a long time ago trip to DC where there was this amazing water fountain in the Cincinnati airport.

Here is another photo that didn't make the cut (too blurry) but I have a soft spot for it anyway. Cheers. 

Craft Explosion and how 2011 is gonna be heaven....

Long overdue! The craft show was a good experience, got some exposure, saw how the craft scene works around here. Also won a prize in the raffle and overdosed on sweets. All in all, not a bad gig.

Unfortunately the fine craft work of decoupage is a little mystifying. Read as: some of the drawings didn't stick but were very sticky. I don't really understand how the universe works obviously.

 I have to admit I haven't been really pumped to revisit any decoupaging over the Christmas or New Year time and 2011 has got my attention focused elsewhere -- some photography and revamping some paintings, applying to some gig at Penland maybe or at the very least taking a class or two.  Right now I am in a photography class at AB Tech, pretty sweet...

Here is a link to some recent paintings.

The painting here on the right I think I have finally finished after oh, two years. I'm not completely satisfied with it, I am just a bit tired of looking at it.

In the link you'll see two paintings that are in this surrealist portrait series I have been working on since last spring. I have had some hiccups, and I am not sure where I am going with them. One of my goals in 2011 is to get away from the macabre and see if I can get my work in a more emotive, positive direction?  The surrealist portrait series is in their very nature dark and about betrayal and other gruesome topics, so they don't really fit into the whole 2011 positive spiel.  Also I can't find the sketch book with my preliminary sketches and notes. Is the universe telling me something? We'll see. 

Vance Craft Explosion

Waitlisted for the Big Crafty, now am turning to the Vance Elementary "Craft Explosion" this Sunday November, 21st from 12pm-5pm for some exposure in the local craft world.

Things are turning out, have completed 2o pieces for the show! As of last night things seemed to be adhering -- I have switched from rubber cement to spray matte varnish in endeavor to not have the final pieces overly tacky to the touch and not have any gloss on the surface.  However on some pieces the paper was already lifting when I left them to dry last night and some were just fine -- I don't really know any good technique besides spraying...and spraying again? The more I messed with the paper the more it stuck to my hand and yeah, it quickly became a comedy of errors. 

But there are a few days yet till the show to work out and fine tune any problems.

Above and below are two drawings who made it into the final cut.  Hope to see you at Vance this Sunday!