Barb's Weblog

Just a heads up to all the NWCA fans in my world!

The dates and venue for the Fall Best of the NorthWest show are out!
November 14, 15, 16 we will be out in all our glory at the Seattle Center!
The people spoke and the powers that be listened. Qwest Field was a bust!
Unfortunately we cannot YET have the beloved old hangar back, but we can move out of Qwest field and so we are back in the OLD location at Seattle Center. Hope still exists for the hangar in the future, but for fall, Downtown is the place to be!

If you want to keep up on what is going on with the hangar, visit www.h27o.org

I will not be at Edmonds Arts Festival this year! BIG change for me. Instead I will be at Sorticulture, Everett's Garden Arts Festival at Legion Memorial Park on June 20,21,22.
Sorry for the surprise change, but Edmonds has decided to rotate me out after a 15 year run (yes I have been doing it off and on since about 1980, means NOTHING to the organization. Loyalty and appreciation is a rare thing in Arts organizations, sadly enough.
Hopefully I will get a last minute call, but I wouldn't count on it. Sorticulture will be a lot of fun, and anytime I can spend 3 days in a park its a good thing!

Hope to see you there!

Barbara

11:24 AM — e-mail me your comments

Well well well.
Apparently not every piece of art is worth the canvas its 'painted' on!

I tried to get a happy appraisal on an item I own, and find out its not just a fake, but a fake purposely made to decieve buyers. Gosh this guy is dead and its a good thing cause I'd feel forced to kick his butt otherwise.
Boy, this is why artists get shaky reputations. I get it. Lots of us are without conscience, apparently. Its just really sad tho, cause so many more of us take such deep and ardent pleasure in creating the most wonderful imaginative works...then there are those that take them and make copies in china or mexico or indonesia...and who is to know the differnce?!

Oh well, let me recommend a truly experienced and observant woman, Corinne Cain. Her website is full of jewelry and fine arts and other odd items, and I found her knowledgeable and helpful and even generous. If you have art to appraise or research, I recommend www.savvycollector.com as a good first stop. And even if you are just browsing art websites, hers is wonderfully full of beautiful and interesting pieces from indian to japanese...and a world inbetween!


Whidbey weather while nicer than most of the sound, has been cool and disappointing. A few nice days then rain and wind...and again another week speeded past me with an unweeded vaggie garden and unwashed laundry. Guess that means a full weekend for me. Haole bought a new weedwhacker so I think he will be having fun with that. He tried it out today and admitted that it can work a lot harder than he can! Yes we are getting old and weak. A dog walk takes about as much energy as I can muster!

Well, heres to sitting on the deck in the 'sun' with a book and a glass of wine.
Really, what else matters!

5:02 PM — e-mail me your comments

HI!
I have been in a hurry to get home from the dog park and post this image for my friend Steve to see...
Its a very special custom piece designed to fit around a faceted fire opal given to my friend Casey from her husband. He wanted something very special for her Earth Day birthday, and I have been waiting to post it until the special event was past.
It had to be extra pretty, and had to embody springtime in the most joyous way. This is what I came up with!
Enjoy!
Barbara

11:31 AM — e-mail me your comments

Gosh it looks like spring is finally here! It must be all of 50 outside! Tshirt weather!

I had all sorts of good work intentions, buff and stone set, paint silver, maybe even paint the bathroom...but Jack and I are just back from our dog walk at South Whidbey State Park and its just too nice to come inside. Jack needed practice on the leash and in new surroundings. We are trying to help him with some nervous nellie habits and fears. He is NOT the steady old beast Boot was, thats for sure.

Haole had to work, but I am locking up the shop and heading straight to the garden. The yard. The deck...in whichever order seems most natural. There are greenhouses to break down, lettuce and other greens to plant and transplant, and like I said, maybe even paint the bathroom.

I had planned on posting an image of a wonderful big Writing Rock piece I have...but strngely enough I cant locate the piece. Clearly it got put away somewhere weird after the last show in March, so after I find it I will post a picture for you, but for today, its just too nice out to worry about it!

Next friday we are heading to town to see Apocalyptica! I just love those guys, Finnish cello players extraordinaire! It will be wonderful to get out and see some real music, too. Life is not all dvds and youtube performances...and this could be a once in a lifetime chance for me to see this band. You never know.I adore the music this band produces, I simply sink into it, its the most amazing thing for me to hear a cello like this...truly creative and original playing.
Its at El Corazon...I am probably too old to get into a hip spot like that but maybe they will take pity on an old woman and let me in. Haole driving me in and Carrie coming with us.

Off to the garden now!
Barbara

11:10 AM — e-mail me your comments

Springtime on Whidbey! Its cold but lovely! All the daffodils and crocuses and early tulips are out, the cherry trees blooming, the earliest scotch broom in flower. I love it. We have pots full of flowers all over the place. Dodging the hail and rain and wind leaves plenty of time to clean up deadfall and broken plants, brown salal twigs are my bane so I am tackiling those first. Cleaned out woodsy areas, looking pretty now. I have a LOT to do out there to have it cleaned up and planted by the Ohana Gathering in August.

I want to offer an enormous and heartfelt thanks to those loyal patrons of the arts that came to see us in our (hopefully temporary) new venue of Qwest Field Event Center for the Spring Best of the Northwest. Its hard to get used to it after the ease of load in/out and free parking of the old Hangar at Magnusen Park, but with the hangar's future uncertain, its the best we have to offer for now. Keep writing your city council and arts councils and other local polititians whenever you can to tell them YOU LOVE the old hangar and it needs to be repaired and to get us back into it asap! The NWCA found that its patrons definitely came to prefer the hangar to all the other venues we have tried in the past 20 years. If you have info on arts funding, grants and gifts, please contact the Northwest Crafts Alliance or
www.h270.org and pass your help on, we desperately need funding and help to get this great old structure up and running again.

But like I was saying, thank you SO much for coming to Qwest Field and buying art and fine crafts and for making what was potentially a disastrous weekend into something fun and filled with art. We understand you all do not love the place, neither do the artists...but please come see us there in the fall again, and maybe after that we can get moved back into the hangar...We promise to have our best, most wonderful pieces ready for your holiday buying.

Out here on the rock its pretty and green wherever its not muddy and filled with dogs laying in the mud-puddles...the dog park for instance. Dogs rejoice in icy mud puddles and each morning Jack and his friends run and roll and chase in their elaborate games of tag, all of which end with happy grins and laying in ice cold mud-water. When the holes are too shallow, Tui likes to dig them out a bit so they all can get even dirtier. Today there were Hawks and Crows and a Raven, Deer and Geese everywhere. Eagles by the half dozen swooping along the bluff, songbirds absolutely shouting at the sunshine, inspite of it being 37* outside! Sunny and beautiful.

Cathi found a muskrat on the highway and claimed it..sure enough when Jack and I headed north back up the island its little incredibly soft little body was gone from the road. She found a beaver on the highway recently too, a rare sighting. They generally stick pretty close to the ponds and lakes. Only on whidbey do the girls call "DIBS!" on roadkill.....and dress in the best foul weather gear on the nicest days! We are not a girley-girl lot.

OK I have many orders to fill and much work to do so I am outa here.
Barb!

11:29 AM — e-mail me your comments

Hey!

YOU WANT TO COME TO THE NWCA's SPRING B$ST OF THE NORTHWEST SHOW AT QWEST FIELD?
Of course you do, why wouldn't you!?

Email me for a 50% discount printable coupon!
Barbara at Shadowfax
workshop@shadowfaxjewelry.com

3:09 PM — e-mail me your comments

Did I say I had no show until June?
I lied.

9:28 AM — e-mail me your comments