Switching Gears in 2011

I am taking a small hiatus from j2f workshops and have been concentrating on my art and working with Linda down at our new space the L E Warford Gallery in the 4th Avenue Market Place.

It has been alot of work getting a Gallery up and running it day to day, not to mention the First Fridays every month. But we get real excited, panicky, cranky, fried, inspired, creative, exhausted and then we throw a party at the gallery and drink wine with friends. Such a trip it has been so far.

 

I still a few j2f workshops planned for this year, a bookbinding workshop in March and of course an Earth Day Event that my friends at GrassRoots will be hosting. But "junk" keeps calling me back to come play and I can't resist. Plans are in the works for a Recycled Art Sculpture Show. Stay tuned..........

I have made it back and am coming up for air.

I can't believe it has been so long since the last post. I'm not really good at this blogging thing, but it is a great way to say what you need to say. I have been busy trying to lead my life as an artist and have been diving into all sorts of things. Been printing fish, painting watercolors, taking family photos in Hawaii,  making sculpture, jewelry, silk screening textiles and sewing. Whew!
But I am back to J2f and starting the 2011 winter workshops with a calendar recycle workshop that will show you how to use all those beautiful images to create functional fun items. I have a Gauguin and Kandinsky calendar that will make great books and envelopes. It is a 2 project, 3 hour workshop and I hope to see you at GrassRoots, 5-8pm, Monday Jan 17.

Summer is Here!

It is hard to believe  two months have flown by since my last post and it is June. These are some photos of my art road trip to Whitter. It was gorgeous and the photos just give a small hint at how nice it was.

April Events for J2F

• April 6th, Tuesday, 6:30 to 8:30


Telephone wire jewelry workshop is. Make a pair of fun and funky earrings and a colorful bracelet. Cost is $25.00 and preregistration required.

• April 17th, Saturday, 12-3pm

Earth Day Expo at the Anchorage School District Education Center located at East Northern Lights and Boniface.

Schools, businesses, non-profits will highlight their recycling/green efforts with Games/Contests/j2f workshops, food and snacks and will feature information booths by -

- ASD Recycling Clubs, ASD Energy Conservation Program, ASD Composting, AYEA, Green Star, Alaska Waste, Smurfit Stone, Solid Waste Services, Total Reclaim


• Earth Day - April 22nd, Thursday, 5:30-8:30

Junk2Funk is gearing up for the Earth Day event at GrassRoots. The 2010 Spring ECO Art series ends with a magazine paper bead jewelry workshop from on April 22nd. You can make a Mega bead necklace or a pair of earrings. It will be a drop-in format and the cost is $5.00 per project.

The Alaska Youth for Environmental Action (AYEA) fundraiser during the Earth Day event and will have j2f recycled books, AYEA cloth bags, and other eco-art items for sale. Check out what campaigns they're currently working on while nibbling on homemade baked goodies! They are great book makers and bakers too! For more information about AYEA, see http://ayea.org/WordPress.

100% RE Books!

The j2f Eco Art Spring 2010 workshops
featured my "100%RE" bookbinding series.The books are made with 100%  waste and surplus materials that are:

RE-imagined
      -used
      -cycled
      -newed
      -purposed

Handmade with a creative eye and a green heart!

 The books were created using traditional Japanese bookbinding techniques. The pages were made from printer and copier paper( that was printed on one side) and the  covers were from various waste paper and cardboard sources such as calendar pages, magazines, postcards, photos.
I love this project because it creates a beautiful, functional, useful item that gets waste and surplus materials back into the reuse stream. It is a no risk creative process and fun to make.
"Recycle is good, but ReUse is better" - Deron Beal  of  FreeCycle http://www.freecycle.org/

Here are some the workshop photos:
Soft Cover Book - January 12th


Accordion Book - January 26th


Hardcover Book - March 23

GrassRoots Eco Art Spring Workshops

GrassRoots Fair Trade Store is hosting a series of j2f Eco Art workshops beginning in January, twice a month on Tuesday nights and concluding on Earth, April 22nd with a community participation Eco Art event.

We opened the series on December 29 with a paper bead making class, using Christmas wrapping paper, a Lego poster and a wall calendar poster to make a mega bead necklace. It was a community drop-in event from 1-3pm. I started out with 4 people and was totally surprized as more people kept showing up, and by the end of the event 22 people had participated! We had a great time and everyone was very gracious in sharing supplies and helping teach each other as well. Here is some pictures of the session:

Books for AYEA

Last week Wednesday, November 18, 2009, I hosted a bookbinding workshop for a few members of AYEA, (Alaska Youth for Enviromental Action) at my studio in midtown. This is my favorite Eco Art project because uses 100% recycled material and creates a beautiful and very functional notebook.
This was to be the art project for the up coming Anchorage area high school recycling clubs forum the following Saturday at West High in which 20 to 50 people might show up! So we needed other student teachers to carry this off.

I showed them how to create the books from scratch, which involved setting up and cutting the recycled printer paper with and Xacto blade, metal ruler and clips. Cut covers, aligned and drilled the sewing holes and used the traditional Japanese bookbinding sewing technique to put them together.

Here is a slideshow of photos from the workshop and forum project.