Sparkles

What is it about glitter that just makes everything look so pretty? You just have to love sparkles, they are always festive! Found In The Art Cupboard....

Gingham

What is it about gingham that just says Summertime? In its all its many rainbow colours, it is just pure happiness. It is a cozy pattern, it screams of Christmas, of Spring bouquets tied up with it and the sweetness of a Summer picnic as a gingham tablecloth sits beneath your bounty.

Gingham, its a good thing!

(Found In the Art Cupboard)

A Box of Rainbow Happiness

This made me smile when I took the photo. Just a box of pastels, in a rainbow of happy colours.

I am 163 days in to my 365 Day Project. So, please head over to In the Art Cupboard to see what I've been up to!

A few of my favourites so far, over the progression of the project.....

Day 141

Day 81

Day 64

Day 124

(All Images Photographed by and Copyright of: Jennifer Michie)

A Trip to the Tate

I had the great fortune of leaving the cupboard for a little while on Wednesday and I got to accompany an Art trip to the Tate. It was a treat walking around with the students, getting to sketch some things in my sketchbook and taking as many photographs as I could.

I haven't been to the Tate in quite awhile. Mr. Michie went on a school trip before Christmas and he inspired me to want to go again after such a long absence. However, they were hanging so many things that a lot of the rooms were closed, so I didn't get a chance to see as much as I had hoped.

One piece I did see was by the conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans. Who had a stunning, ballroom size Venetian chandelier hanging in a room; that lit up very slowly and once warmed up the lights would flash on and off. It was so beautiful and yet surreal to see in white this room, the bold colours of the chandelier's droplets and flowers were all that stood out, against the blinding light when the bulbs reached their highest power.

My minor in College,was Arts Management and one of the courses I took was a gallery class. One area we focused on, was how do people use the space they are in and interact with the space they are in.  I always think back to that class as I watch people in a gallery/museum.

There was no way around this chandelier it was so wide and hung so low it almost touched the floor. You couldn't miss it. Yet, I stood against a wall and watched people breeze past it, give it a wide berth, as if there was nothing of importance to see, or, they would quickly glance at it and move along. Maybe its sheer size unnerved people, they felt it was too big to interact with, it isn't as "simple" as standing in front of a painting on a wall. Who knows? It was just something that fascinated me.

I had a lovely day out and I think the students did as well, a lot of good ideas for their exam theme of "Similarities & Differences". I just thought I would share a few of my favourite images from the day with you:

Theodore Von Holst, The Fairy Lovers, about 1840
Michael Ayrton, The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1942-3
Henry Fuseli, Titania and Bottom, about 1790
William Blake, The Book of Thel pl. 7, probably 1796
John Linnell, The Last Load, 1853
Cerith Wyn Evans, Chandelier

I picked up these two postcards as my treat. I thought they offered an interesting perspective on "Similarities & Differences", so I am just going to pocket them away as an idea for a student in need:
 

{Self Portrait with Fried Eggs, Sarah Lucas, 1996 (left) Honeymoon Nude, John Currin, 1998 (right)}

Goose Girl & Foxy

I would like to introduce you to two very special people. I discovered them In The Art Cupboard, or they discovered me, we are still not sure which way it happened, but we are glad to have met. This is Goose Girl & Foxy. They have decided to leave the Cupboard for a little while and come and stay with me in my cottage.

Goose Girl & Foxy are very curious, I am not sure what they get up to when I am not at home. They decided to sit around the Christmas tree on Sunday and bask in the glow of Christmas lights. They begged me not to take it down, Foxy loves the glistening twinkle lights and the branches are the perfect canopy to sleep under. So, the tree will stay up a while longer.

They have agreed to travel with me when I go out and about.  I have the perfect pocket in my purse for them to travel in, in absolute style, of course! So watch out, Goose Girl & Foxy will be popping up here and there, you never know, they might get their own spot on my blog....

A Book

One of my colleagues in the Art Department is a wonderfully delightful woman. She usually marches into my cupboard in the morning, singing "Hello" to me, like my own personal Ethel Merman.

She was commissioned by a county museum to create a piece about books. She used a vintage book and then began to take it apart. Drilling through it, slicing out interesting text and images, putting it back together in an accordion fold, that when opened creates the most fascinating scenes as you peer through the "tunnel" into the book. One of my favourite bits of text is the one used in the image above, "A constant source of surprise, was the joy of doing it".

A resourceful artist and one who does not waste, she stacked the circles that were drilled out of the book on top of each other and screwed in a acrylic holder to make a resting spot for the book when it is closed.

It is a truly charming piece of work and is something that I will be photographing and documenting over on In the Art Cupboard this week, so please come over and take a look!

Are You Watching?

Have you been over to In the Art Cupboard lately? I have just finished my first month of posting all the Art Cupboard treasures I am finding and there is so much more to come, so please tune in...

Come on over and visit me at my 365 Day Blog!

Come In...

Knock, Knock, Knock! Come in, the Cupboard door is now OPEN!

Come one, Come All...

Step right up! Step right up! Come one! Come all to In the Art Cupboard.

Enter through the magical cupboard door  October 1st and see what awaits you!

I'm getting ready for the "grand opening". Entry is FREE, grab your popcorn, get your peanuts....Step right up! Step right up!

(Image: Flicker Sabine&cats')

The Art of Simplicity

I have gone through so many changes with my new blog, In the Art Cupboard. I had so many different ideas of how I wanted it to look. It would be cleaner, simpler, not all the girly flowery things that exist here on Jenny Wren's.

I mocked-up a "board", trying a background that looked like a cork board with my designs pinned on it and lived with that for awhile, although something about it never felt right. I tried a stretched canvas background, a solid color in a variety of hues. Like Goldilocks, I just new they were not the right fit.

And, then it hit me! I was trying too hard, too hard to make it look like something it wasn't, this is a blog about simplicity, about finding one thing a day you want to photograph and putting it up for the world to see and so, the site itself, should be just that. I lost my way for a little bit, but I found it again, simplicity is key.

Vacations

It is only Monday and I think I need a vacation! What a crazy hazy day this has been!

I am loving my new job, always something different, always moving here and there and I like that. I have been busy designing a few things for the big Art trip happening in a few weeks, so Photoshop and I have been in full swing creating an interactive type guide for the students to use.

I am also finding more and more goodies to photograph for In the Art Cupboard, the pile is growing bigger and bigger so stay tuned...

(Image: Found in Mom's Basement)

Mid Act

Well, this past week has left me feeling like I have been caught mid-act! I can see the bar I need to grab and I am reaching out for it and going to hold on tight as I swing into week 2.  I have been busy every day tidying, organizing, assisting the department and finding new things to catalogue that I plan to photograph.

One of my faves this week was a something I spied behind the door of a colleagues room. It was a  commissioned piece she created out of an old book for a library. It was beautifully done and the way it was imagined and executed left me feeling like Alice about to tumble down into the "rabbit hole" of this book. This is a work of art that will feature on In the Art Cupboard and she has kindly agreed to let me discuss her work in a blog piece here on Jenny Wren's, which I plan to do in the near future.

The gentle jazz crooning of Nat King Cole's "Your Nobody till Somebody Loves You" is beckoning me into the kitchen to dance with Mr. Michie, while we make dinner and enjoy the last lingering drops of sunshine as evening falls...

P.S. I bought my first Fall item this weekend. A little pumpkin trick-or-treat bucket to put on my desk and fill with candy for my cupboard visitors, I can't wait for October!

("Breathless" by G. Elvgren)

Back To School

Tomorrow is my first full week at school. I jumped in last week and now I am just swimming around, not sticking too close to the edge, I have thrown myself into the deep end and I am just fine, for the moment anyway.

I have plans this week to do more cleaning in the cupboard, just taking it a section at a time. In going through a pile on Thursday (it cascaded down when I went to reach for something above) I discovered some treasures from China. There were little paintings, bought in a market, a box of two shadow puppets and a few packets of tissue paper wrapped intricately designed paper cut-outs including circus figures, the New Year's animals and a selection of Oriental women.

I cleaned the other half of my "hallway", so now there is an easy path inside, with no tripping, twisting, or contorting to get through into the main part of the cupboard. So, tomorrow I will be donning my green apron, rolling up my sleeves and getting back to work!

In celebration of going back to school I will be doing a small series this week of "Back-to-School" posts, so keep a look out for ideas and projects that I will feature here!

I Jumped

Well, I jumped! And, the water was just fine!

Today was very busy, with a major learning curve I had to quickly climb up! My day was spent in and out of meetings, I worked in my cupboard in between, unpacking supplies. I love the smell of pastels and charcoal and inks. It was a treat to open those boxes, the first person to touch the beloved Art supplies before they become a muddled rainbow of used things.

There is much more to learn, but that will come in time, I know. For it wouldn't be an Adventure if you already knew the journey at the start! As Anne with an "E" says:

"Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?"  -L.M. Montgomery

The best part of my day was the end. I was picked up by Mr. Michie and arm in arm he walked me to the bus stop and then home we went! I felt just like Anne of Green Gables with her Gilbert Blythe.

Into The Cupboard

I ventured into the cupboard yesterday and began to get the lay of the land. I wanted to straighten some things up, clean some things out and just get a general idea of where everything is supposed to be!

In the process I brought along my camera with me to start to get a feel for how I want to shoot things: in a collage, by item, a mixture of the two? Do they look best on my work table? My desk? With a fabric background?

So, I played around a little, grabbed a few things and started to shoot. I had so much fun, cleaning and discovering some of the items in there, like an original box of violin strings from what looks like the 50's or 60's, there is a handwritten note on the side stating they are 20p each.  I also found an original handheld camera from the 1960's with the original receipt of purchase and Japanese instruction manual still intact.

These are just a few images from yesterday. Some, might be used in my new blog, others not, but I wanted to get a feel for things and how they would best work and be photographed. I can't wait for school to start!

Visit my new blog I will be beginning my 365 day project soon...

(Tape & Tag in image are Pugly Pixel Freebies)

Lost & Found 4

*"London Brick Company", toy truck found on a windowsill.

Lost & Found 3

*"Fetch", plastic dog with a ball found on a windowsill.

Lost & Found 2

*"I Ain't go noBody...", a Dora the Explorer head found on the sidewalk.

Lost & Found 1

*"Stuff It", resin dog found on top of a garbage bin

Lost & Found

As you know, from my last post, I am beginning a new blog called, "In the Art Cupboard". It is here that I plan to do a 365 day project through the medium of photography.

I am making a point to be armed with my camera more and more as I go out to run errands, shop, or we take a walk through our beloved woods.

This is a small test, dipping my toes in the water to see what I think of doing this project, is it best to leave my photos as they are, do I like the idea of tweaking some of them, do I want them all to have a certain feel, or will that change depending on what I am shooting?

So for the next 4 days I will place one image on my blog in a miniature series of "Lost & Found". These are all items that I have found out and about while talking a walk. Some still remain where I found them, others have either been taken by someone else or swept away....