Marnie Is My Muse

I did all this on my Summer Vacation!

I had big plans for this summer. My To-Do list was a mile long. It started with all the jewelry making I was going to click off my list. I have a sketch book (or six) filled to the brim with ideas and pieces I want to make. Next up was organize the studio, including going through all the paperwork that has been piling up. And finally, I was going to put up Etsy and Art Fire sites, update my web site http://www.goodmusedesigns.com/ and write up a couple of tutorials. All this and I wasn’t even planning on being in town for most of the summer! There was a little voice that kept trying to tell me I was biting off way more than I could chew but, NOOOooooo! I pressed on with my master plan, for about 12 days…

Then I got caught by the myth….The radio was playing “Schools out” by Alice Cooper, “Summer in the city” by The Lovin Spoonful, and “Chevy Van” by Sammy Johns. My best intentions flew out of the window because every year when summer rolls around I actually expect to get a summer vacation… programmed from childhood that summer means a break from the usual school year. When it starts to get hot outside I’m primed for a fun-filled, let me get out of town, head for the lake, the river, the beach time! Never mind that it’s hot in Tucson nine out of eleven months of the year and summer really means the temperatures around my home reach the same temps as Mars….Okay, maybe it just feels like Mars. Never mind that I haven’t been in school for, let’s just not go there… it’s been a long time! And NEVER MIND that I have a well thought out to-do list….When the word summer is mentioned it should always be followed by the word VACATION!

Now that it is Labor Day weekend, the traditional “last weekend of summer” in my fantasy world (based on actual fact from my school days), I wanted to beat myself up for not doing every single item on my to-do list. My “self” wanted me to feel badly for not completing it. I almost bought into the guilt trip….I nearly fell into an old pattern of perfectionism… but I caught myself just before looking back at my summer and calling myself a failure…. Instead I looked back at all this fun I had…Drawing and painting, playing with clay, writing in a journal, a bit of collage, collecting shells at the beach on my mini-trip with my friend Kaitlin, a bit of scrap booking and even planning the ideal work day was fun because I wasted a lot of time coloring in all those time slots! So tell me, does it make a difference in the end that I chose to call my summer a success instead of a failure?

By the way, you can listen to Sammy John’s Chevy Van here… I love this song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiEIToOWr64&feature=related

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.

The Murky Blog I mean bog…..

When I wrote my very first blog post, ( https://marnieismymuse.com/my-first-blog-post/ ) I compared jumping into the world of blogging to jumping into a murky bog…Things haven’t changed that much for me…it still feels a lot like sticking my foot into a slimy, bubbling with Lord only knows what; nasty, hot mess! I have a few more followers now than I did that first day. I no longer feel like I am talking to myself, now I have a couple of friends to talk to, of course most people won’t admit to being my friend now that I went public with the “All my friends are crazy!” post…but, you know who you are…. and the writing part is getting a bit easier. I still don’t have “a voice” or a “mission” as all the businessy type people believe I should have. I don’t bare my soul and tell all our family secrets like the successful, passionate, artist types say I should do. (If you want to know all the boring I mean really juicy family secrets you have to come to the studio and take a class.) And I still struggle with what to write about. It’s not easy being an artist/business woman. Really, it’s a lot of fun, I love to make jewelry and I love teaching classes! That’s the good part, but I ENDURE the business end of things. I don’t have a photographer/marketer/accountant/computer wiz/salesman husband but the husband I do have is worth his weight in gold…now let’s see, the current market rate of gold is $1,665.25 an ounce…well you do the math, it’s not my strong suit either! I guess in the end there is nothing I would rather be doing than making jewelry, art and hanging out with my crazy friends. ( https://marnieismymuse.com/friends-crazy/ ) After all how many people can say they created a slimy bog? Yes, it took me 15 minutes um, I mean several hours to create that slimy, murky bog to photograph for this blog post. So my question is this, do any of my artist/readers not only enjoy, but thrive on the business side of being an artist and if so can I be your best friend 😀 ???

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved

When clients, students and friends come to the studio it doesn’t look like this….ever…. Oh sure the “not just another bad hair day” found object/mermaid sculpture is there along with my kindergarten diploma and a variety of other “interesting” odds, ends and artwork; but for the most part everything is put into some kind of order…. But when I am working, well let’s just call it like it is…. the creative fairies come out and mess it all up! Really, I have nothing to do with it and I can’t control them. They buzz around me pulling things out of the cabinets and drawers, trying different stones, textures, templates, anything they can get their tiny little hands on!  I am the neat and orderly type, the one that has a place for everything and nothing, I mean everything in its place…That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

BTW, for those of you that aren’t up on mystical creatures the Brownies are the ones that come in while you are sleeping and CLEAN THE PLACE UP! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownie_(folklore)  *note: If any brownies are reading this, you are welcome here ;D

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved

My friend Christine Tucker gave me a copy of this poem (pictured) during our writing circle last week… What a nice reminder that I love owls. Perhaps it is because they are elusive creatures; I don’t see a million of them out in the yard like the doves or the sparrows that flit around happily during the day. When an owl graces me with its presence I am completely awed. There is a Great Horned beauty that comes around to visit every once in a while…. I want to think there is some kind of message for she brings from the other side, you know, some wise message that will change my entire mindset and suddenly all things in my mind and life will become crystal clear… but since I am a bit slow when it comes to things like this, the message is always a bit vague…okay, it is completely unknown to me… but it is still pretty cool to just hear the soft, clear “Hooot-Hoooot” as a reminded to ponder the mysteries of the night.

In the photo’s along with Chris’ poem are a couple of cutie hootie’s that I did a while back… inspired by the Great Horned Owl that visits me on occasion. http://goodmusedesigns.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=77

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved

OK, maybe not ALL my friends but the majority of them are a little out of the box, and that’s the way I like it! I was teaching an addicted to metal clay class http://goodmusedesigns.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=5  recently and the topic of having crazy friends came up. It made me start thinking about how much fun I have with my students and my friends… Many have been with me for several years and some have been with me for just a session or two. They come from different back grounds, different places, and they come to jewelry making from different craft-type activities but the things they all have in common are they enjoy life, like to have fun, and don’t take themselves too seriously….Not to say that they don’t take their work seriously because some really amazing things are being created in my classes. Most of my friends outside of my jewelry life are a little crazy too…. I think it’s a “birds of a feather” thing… My favorite T-shirt (in the picture) created by the fabulous Suzy Toronto http://suzytoronto.com/ pretty much sums up one of my philosophies of life… I think “normal” is over-rated! How about you? Would you say you fall into the wild and crazy, fun loving category or the “normal” category? And just exactly what qualifies as either one? And just a little more food for thought…. Does falling into the normal category mean that you aren’t having fun? (oh boy, I really hope the answer to that one is crazy people have more fun because otherwise it blows my entire life plan <giggle>)

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved

Great things!

Lots of women love to go shopping for clothing and I’m not saying that I don’t like to get new clothes (although the people who see me day after day, year after year in the same wardrobe might argue with this) but I absolutely LOVE hardware stores! I can wander around Home Depot for hours and not just because I’m waiting for the guys from “Yard Crashers” to show up…… I tell my dear husband, Steve repeatedly that if he ever sees any of those guys, he had better bring them home! But what I really like to do is browse the hardware stores looking at tools and things that I can use for something other than their intended purpose. Here are some examples of my favorite finds:

wood scrap = texture.

yellow “things” = metal clay shapes and texture tool.

nail sets = metal clay granulation tools.

white toilet screw covers = things to dome metal clay.

electrical wire caps = flower press tools for metal clay (you have to file off the words first.)

silver bracket = jewelry sized t-square and straight edge.

I hope these inspire you to take a look around the next time you are in the hardware store and if you see those Yard Crasher guys from HGTV http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv154/videos/index.html PLEASE, please, please send them to my house!

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved

I had two entries for the Inspire the Muse Contest https://marnieismymuse.com/inspire-muse-win-fine-silver-earrings/ that were basically the same idea to use the items to make a sculpture…..  So the committee has decided that Brenda Kay and Freckle Face will both receive a pair of earrings! Since Brenda Kay submitted her entry first she will get first choice of the fine silver or the bronze earrings.

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.