Direct from France, er, California

I received this lovely canvas this week from Kathy Jacobson in our Marie Canvas Swap, hosted by Maria Rodarte. It is 8" x 10" with bits of charm in every square! Can't wait to figure out where to hang it. The photo doesn't do it justice. Other goodies came in the mail this week. I'll have to get them posted. Stay tuned.

Off The Shelf: Check my Latest Review for Vintage Indie

I just read and reviewed this doll of a book for Vintage Indie by my sweet blog friend Rebecca Ramsey of Wonders Never Cease. Click on the hyperlinks to check it and her out!

My Marie Antoinette Craze Continues

When the peach curly feather arrived from Dale of Sea Dream Studio http://www.seadreamstudio.net/, I knew it was finally time to pull out my wire, wood and paper mache dress forms and start creating. I'd already made three Marie Antoinette figures: one for Lisa of The Faerie Zine http://faerieenchantment.blogspot.com/, one for Cyndi http://dragonflysdreamz.blogspot.com/ of FrstyFrlk for The Faerie Zine costume swap,

and one "maybe" for me, which I futilely sent to Somerset Studio http://www.stampington.com/ in hopes of publication.

But, I had tons of brocade, passementerie, ribbon, lace, silk flowers, little birds, vintage jewels and gems, German glass glitter, French text and more, all of which were crying out to be used. Having just finished reading my fourth Marie Antoinette biography this summer, the latest by her lady-in-waiting Madame Campan, written in 1823, I was more than ready for the task. In fact, Caroline Weber's The Queen of Fashion has so much sartorial imagery in it, I don't know how one could help but create after reading it.

So, last night's result was four Maries "quatre Maries, quatre reines," whatever you want to call them; they kept me at it from about 7 p.m. to nearly 4 a.m., but once I got going I was in the mode. French mode that is, and conveniently "mode" means "fashion" in French. Tre's bien!

I just listed three of these in my etsy shop http://www.hpsgsmith.etsy.com/ in case you, too, would like to own a mini Marie. The blue and white toile is headed for the delightful Mary Ann of Follow Your Bliss http://firstborn.wordpress.com/ for our "Marie Swap." I'll be writing an art vs. history article on Marie for Mary Ann's first zine, due out this fall. Bon soir.

By the way, did you know one reason the French treasury was depleted, which brought on the infamous French revolution and The Reign of Terror, was that the French government under Louis XVI, Marie's husband, had sent great amounts of money and munitions to help "our side" in the American Revolution. It wasn't that the French king was so much in favor of revolt, or even democracy, but the French were happy to support any side that was against England. They (the French and English/England) quickly made up, however, and English imports poured into France, which did not help that economy on its collision course with the destiny of the revolution.

If Idle Hands are Bad, I'm Looking Good

It was another one of those weeks that just would not end. Having an overnight meeting in the middle of the week just makes five days last forever. I could not wait for Friday night to get home and organize my studio. A week of mail and art supplies had piled up, as well as a bunch of stuff from vacation. I can't work with a mess about me, so the first order of business was putting everything away (so I could get it back out. I know, I know.)

My first batch of supplies from Hannah Grey had arrived http://shop.hannahgrey.com, and I was ready to see what I could make with the stash. As a Design Team member I have 35 days to make something with each of the materials I receive. So, I used the HG blank tag book, collage sheets, Paris charms and ephemera to make this circa 1947 notebook from Paris Fashion Week. I imagined what kind of notes a young ingenue interning with Mlle. Coco Chanel might be taking, along with fabric swatches and sketches she might be keeping. The good news is you can buy all these supplies and more at http://www.hannahgrey.com.

I was hoping to work on my 28 original pages for the Arte du Blythe fat book I am hosting. I am 1/7th done, which is not much! I have some supplies and art gathered but realized with other deadlines looming, I needed to move on to something else.

As one of six artists asked to be in a Marie Antoinette 8 x 8 round robin, I realized I only had a few days left before I needed to mail my pages due to leaving for Art & Soul http://www.artandsoulretreat.com April 30. I'd had this wire dress from from Stampington sitting around and knew I wanted to use it. Thankfully, the muse kicked in and one of my pages is done, which is 50%, a lot better than 1/7th!

The multi-talented Lisa Kettell http://faerieenchantment.blogspot.com is hosting the Marie book with plans to either submit it for publication to L.K. Ludwig for her book on collaborations or for Lisa's own second book. Either way, the pressure was and is on. Every artist is so talented, and without slighting anyone, least of all Lisa, I must say that Debrina Pratt's http://whimsicalworldoffaeries.blogspot.com artwork makes me crazy with excitement! Knowing my Marie pages would be alongside hers was very intimidating. Debrina's style is just one in a million. I love her colors, her characters, even her use of fonts. See what I mean? I'm just crazy about her. But, baby Marie came out all right, so on to page two and the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say.