Life in Utah - First Stop

We both got what we wanted in Utah. Rocks!

Our first stop was in St. George where we rented a furnished space for four months. It did not take long for us to immerse ourselves in our surroundings, the most spellbinding expanses we had only begun to realize were ours within minutes of our place.  Snow Canyon was particularly fascinating with great expanses on which to crawl up and scramble on. It was like having a dessert you couldn’t get enough of. 

Nathan, ever the adventurer, would walk about the property daily and soon discovered the nearby stream where he harvested river smoothed stones that he could not resist.  Neither could I.  Within our first thirty days there, my raw stone obsession was born.  Those I confiscated from Nathan’s loot were wire wrapped into pendants with the same kind of energy I had experienced for the first time in Sedona in 2015. Several of these pieces below are in my online shop. Click any pic below to see details if they are still available.

One random morning, encouraged by creative excitement, I filled a backpack with jewelry, walked in "off the street", and landed a spot in Gallery 873 located in Ivins just as they were opening that morning. One of my bestest wraps ever sold within days. It felt like a “Welcome to the Southwest”!

Four months flies by when everything is new and there is so much to learn, to navigate, and to still plan yet another move. When our time was up in St. George, we were fortunate to find a very affordable apartment with a view of the Pine Valley Mountain Range from La Verkin, just outside of St. George and only 20 miles from Zion National Park.  Oh joy...

PS. The sunsets in St. George competed with Florida beach sunsets and it was definitely a tie!

Watch for next month's post from our LaVerkin abode where we lived pandemic-free for four months before the US was taken hostage by Covid.

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Convenient Online Shopping Returns @ Tina's Sedona

Greetings From Tucson... I'm feeling great about upcoming seasonal opportunities to sell my beaded artistry!  That said, I guess this is a good time to announce that online shopping at Tina's Sedona is once again possible. Important details in a minute.

But first, here is some of my artwork to be sold at several local events.

FIBER ARTS TUCSON 2025

It will be “a first” to sell French Beaded sculptures & jewelry at this Fiber Arts Guild event. These artists are my "tribe".

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VENTANA GALLERY  This is a juried show where Tina's Sedona bead artistry will be available through January 2026.

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As This Season Unfolds... I am excited about attending- of all things- a tatting workshop on October 6th. The only thing that concerns me is going off in another direction with a good variety of 5 want-to-do's already holding my interest. I will just have to live to be 100. After a final remodel in our home which included my studio, I am ready to ditch technology and get back to working with my hands.

For Your Convenience... So my website shopping cart is once again operational after a few years without one. Here are a few of the newest additions to Tina's Sedona. I'm preparing to add My Necklaces soon.

A Final Word...

My interests are so diverse that I need direction from my customers. If you have purchased from me before and you would like to see more of the same, please let me know. I don't mind focusing on what people want to see out there. The holidays are coming and I would love for you to shop at Tina's Sedona. 

Until Next Time… Let me know what kind of work or play you are currently doing with your hands. My hand "play" works wonders for me.

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An Unusual Summer

My sabbatical of 15 months has at long last ended and it was worth every moment that I stepped back. I have pittered and pattered the past few months.  But all summer long I have felt as if I was preparing for "something" and then, in late July, the deluge began.  And it wasn't rain from Tucson's monsoon season.

The thought had occurred to me that I should prepare a traveling exhibit of sorts to include all of the French Beaded florals that I have been creating for the past few years. (The Asiatic Lily pictured in my last blog post finally got planted!) I offered the Exhibit and it was accepted by the Cactus Wren Art Gallery & Nest in Tubac to begin in early August. While I finished the pricing of my annual delivery of wearable art jewelry to the Tubac Center of the Arts, I was also mapping out the Exhibit for the Cactus Wren space with hope of delivering to those two locations on the same day. As it happened, just as I have for past three summers - I delivered a collection including some new, original designed beauties, to the Tubac Center of the Arts.

I installed the The French Beaded Floral Art Exhibit just a few days later and it opened on August 5th. The first sale happened within 48 hours!  Visit my Instagram to see which one sold. This Exhibit has since been extended until August 28th.

In the midst of those adventures, I was invited, along with three other artists, to demonstrate my artistic process at CATALYST SAACA Creative Collective in Tucson.  They were hosting a special evening of cultural exchange with a delegation of visiting artists from Kazakhstan, in partnership with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage,  the Southern Arizona Arts & Cultural Alliance, and Chevron. Seriously? How does one say "no" to that? So I dropped all preparations for Tubac and prepared a demo to display and explain my work with raw stones including wire wrapped pendants and, of course, my story necklace "Desert Transition".

Several visiting artists from Kazakhstan 

My reward was a wonderful evening communicating through interpreters as well as experiencing up close the awesomely unique artistry of these international ambassadors. We came together one on one with heart warming smiles and handshakes that honestly stirred emotions of unity and connectedness. The kind eyes said it all!  

Lastly (well maybe), the icing on the cake from that evening included another invitation, one to apply for a juried gallery exhibit that will begin in September and last four months. I'm awaiting a decision on my entries submitted.   There are still 11 days left in August.  What more can happen?

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Summer Sabbatical

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the word “sabbatical” comes from the word “Sabbath,” which is a day of rest dedicated to God. Essentially, a sabbatical is several Sabbaths put together. It feels like the right way to describe my past few months. I don't move forward but I don't move backward either. Ever been there, when all activity seems to slow to a state of silence, almost a state of paralysis? It is an unfamiliar state for me, but I am actually enjoying the "letting go" of it all. No projects moving forward. Dabbling with ideas but not pursuing them. Rest. YES, please. That's not to say I haven't accomplished anything. Just not a whole lot that I would normally sense as productive.

Ah, but, while on sabbatical there is still news to report from my neck of the desert.

Update on Tohono Chul Submission

Poor little thing feels terribly rejected... lol

My sci-fi Sonoran Desert piece was not accepted for the new Tohono Chul Exhibit "Exotic Sublime | treading softly". Honestly, I cannot tell you how relieved I was when I was notified. Smack dab in the middle of a planned vacation to relax was this project awaiting my attention upon my return. It wasn't ready and I wasn't either. That's not to say it would have been accepted even in a completed state. Then I would probably have been very disappointed to have finished it to no avail. But, alas, I was saved from stress I did not need. Will I ever finish it? Now that I am feeling very "sabbatical-ized" I am not quite sure...

Oh, But A Win!

I have managed to sell four out of five bracelets that I submitted to Tohono Chul’s annual 10 x 10 | A Fundraiser exhibition in progress through May 26th!

Utah & Arizona

How did I get into this silent place? Nine days, 1400 miles on the road and exposure to the most exquisite landscapes yet. Monument Valley, Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon to name just a few. I feel as if I was metaphysically hit by a wall of mountain in Bluff, Utah, where our second floor balcony faced a huge monolithic mountain range just feet from us, one that ran the length of the hotel and towered into an incredible sky. That kind of exposure makes it so easy to become silent, to pull back, to reassess motion and all activity. Do you think a vortex got hold of me?

My Current Pursuit

I am walking my way up to 3+ miles about 4 days a week. On vacation, Nathan and I discovered, as we had suspected, that our artistic pursuits have definitely slowed down our physical strength and hiking endurance. We are on a mission to rebuild and regain that. Optimism exists during sabbaticals...

Rest easy,

Tina

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The Spring Desert Enfolds Me

We live in the Sonoran Desert which is blooming like crazy this time of year and early next week we will head back up to the Mojave Desert to see the flora bloom there. Who would guess that we would be desert dwellers in our golden years?

The Drama of Design

The question is always "who am I creating this for?" And inevitably the answer always results in "I am creating this for me." Otherwise, the tendency to run in circles trying to address every possible critique leads to frustration and adds to the production time. This is the dilemma I have been dealt with building a tabletop piece in preparation for submitting to another juried show. Unlike anything I've done before, this piece represents a science fiction interpretation of the Sonoran Desert. Unlike designing and creating a piece of jewelry, this table top project has required a series of components that need to contribute to the big picture of a very surreal desert which I am building. What an adventure it is! Having just submitted my paperwork for jurying of my piece, I should hear from Tohono Chul by April 16th on whether or not my piece has been selected for this Summer's exhibit of the "Exotic Sublime | treading softly".

NOTE - The beaded pieces contained in this depiction of a futuristic Sonoran Desert reflect my first attempt at designing my own creations in French Beading – excluding the Asiatic Lily designed by Lauren Harpster of Bead and Blossom. With her permission, I have included my creation of it in vivid colors of my choice. I have also redesigned its body to “nurture life” via an attached umbilical cord of sorts extending to an adult insect of my design. I have also altered the Lily’s stem work to include a “youngster” emerging from an additional pod which I added to the flower’s structure.  

Guess what? This piece is not finished and, if selected, must be delivered in early May! LOL I will cover the tabletop board with fabric and attach everything to that when I return from our trip to AZ/UT. For now, I am letting it go. It will be easier to let go when we leave town and get to our mountainous destinations. In case you're wondering, we are driving via Flagstaff to Monument Valley, the Arches, Moab, Bryce Canyon, Page (not far from Marble Canyon where we stayed last spring) and a few other majestic spots along the way. We will clock over 1300 miles on this nine-day journey.

This post is going to be a short one as we leave in three days. I am still deciding on whether or not to bring a new, very small, hand sized, "fun" project from my beading bucket list with no demands for completion. I am 90% sure I will leave home without one this time.

As you can guess, next Month's Blog will be about our trip. You will also get results of my Tohono Chul submission! Until then, enjoy this time of year and get outside.

Best to you all,
Tina

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Springing Forward 2024

My Shameless Promotion

My presentation to Members of the Tucson Handweavers & Spinners Guild on February 27th was an utter success. After delivering a twenty-minute PowerPoint tour of my artistic phases, I landed on my latest obsession with French Beading. My final "ta-dah moment" in beads was amplified by lots of applause and several gasps at the sight of my finished Black Aeonium piece designed by the very talented Lauren Harpster @beadandblossomstudio. The experience presenting to a large group was empowering for me and the audience's reaction and applause was so encouraging that I literally jumped up and down with delight. (Yup, I was actually overpowered by joy...) LOL

A Buggy New Project

I am hoping to submit my concept of a French beaded sculpture in early April for an
upcoming juried show at Tohono Chul that will run May 16 - August 5, 2024. The Exhibit's theme this time is "The Exotic Sublime | treading softly". At the current moment I am prototyping bugs! I'm going out on a limb here by telling you my plan because I don't believe in jinxes. My hope is to append "something that crawls" to a French Beaded piece I constructed many months ago... Here is one of my bugs and the Asiatic Lily (another fabulous design by Lauren Harpster) from which it will spring forth and "tread softly"... The bugs are my design! Keep your fingers crossed that I meet the deadline...

We are Off, Again

Next month we head back to Northern Arizona and this time visit Monument Valley and Moab, just to name a few stops along a 1400 mile route that we will drive in nine days. One of our stops will be to Bryce Canyon which we've driven through but never hiked. Barring any major snow hazards we hope to get down into the hoodoos! If you haven't yet visited the Southwest, we highly recommend early spring if you want to avoid the crowds. Even during other times of the year, research the views in less travelled areas. If you do enough research you can ride down roads and capture what many others will never see. Here's one vision from a drive we took in Hurricane, Utah, about three years ago where we stumbled onto a perch from which I caught a glimpse of Zion National Park in the far distance. A priceless, unrushed, silent experience with no crowds. We are doing lots more car touring than hiking these days which presents many photography opps are unexpected, thrilling, and striking!


I enjoy keeping in touch with you! My wish for you this Marchy Month is that Spring -- in whatever form it takes for your part of the country -- opens you up for new adventures, especially before the heat of summer comes your way.

Tina

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Summer Musings of a Distracted Artist

It is official. I am considered an Artist. Though several wonderful mentors have told me so repeatedly I have barely had time to get used to the whole idea and now it seems like it's official since I participated in my first Gallery showing last week. Even more solid proof is
that my artwork will be on public display in one place, an actual Gallery, until August 7th, 2023.

Are you artistic? If you have no interest in this subject, just skip down to "Time to Lighten Up" and read about my summer sale.

If so, is your mind full of ideas that engulf it, spin it into distracting visions on a daily basis, and make it nearly impossible for you to narrow down the best idea with which to engage?

Are artists supposed to prioritize projects to...

Celebrating My First Gallery Exhibit

Four years ago on May 11th, Nathan and I hit the road for the Southwest. We really only look back when Facebook sends us the Memories of life in Florida. Our new life here is very different and very satisfying. At least once a week we celebrate the barely explainable freedom we feel from making a major move in our senior years. The most recent benefit is the new friendships we have found by joining clubs in our area. Before leaving Florida, we just did not consider how a cross country move (and a pandemic) would strip us from in-person contact with nourishing community interaction.

For me, joining the Tucson Handweavers and Spinners Guild has been a life saver. The extremely talented resources there are well established in their artistry, and they are encouraging and motivational. They accept me as an artist which helps me see myself as an Artist.

As a result of my growing confidence in that role, this week I'm celebrating having been...