TGIF

April 17, 2009 By pamcarriker in cloth, melange, metsy, paper, portrait, published, scissors, tutorial, zne 3 Comments

Thank you everyone for participating in my sale! It is now officially over, and the rest of the packages will go out tomorrow.

I just ordered some new prints of some sold originals and I will let you know when they arrive.

Also on the immediate horizon, my article, ‘Wearing My HeArt on My Sleeve’ will be in the upcoming issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors. This article includes step out pictures of one of my portraits.

I am going to go and relax after a day of mulching, planting, and mowing. The yard looks great, me not so much:-)
Have a great weekend all!

Art at the Speed of Life

June 18, 2008 By pamcarriker in art, cloth, life, mom, paper, published, scissors, zne 32 Comments

Finally my wait is over. I just received my copy of Cloth, Paper, Scissors today, and there is my article! This is a dream come true. When I decided not to continue teaching art at a small private school, I searched inside myself to find answers as to which direction I wanted to go with my artistic life. I have always been involved with art, I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t creating in some form or other, but now I wanted to set some goals. It was time. It is a scary thing to put yourself, your art, ‘out there’. It’s personal in a way that some may not understand. And there is the fear of rejection. I tasted it with my first two submissions. Then I got serious. If I really wanted to make this happen, I needed to keep forging ahead. So I did, and I have had several things published. I can’t describe the feeling of seeing your work in print. I know many of you already know this feeling. It validates all those trips to Hobby Lobby and Michael’s, well maybe not ALL of the trips, but some certainly! It also makes you want to try harder, do more, go places you haven’t gone before. We are often our own worst enemies. We tell ourselves we can’t do something more often than others do, by far. There is one certainty, if we don’t try, we can’t succeed.

July 3rd this issue of CPS hits the new stands. I look at it with a feeling of great satisfaction that I did not give up. I did something I didn’t think I could do. I stepped outside of my comfort zone. If you have a chance to see my article, please read it with this in mind. It comes from my heart, it is something I wanted to share. I hope I have more opportunity for this kind of challenge. I loved every minute of the experience, even the scary parts! At 43, I am growing and changing. Who would have thought? This is a sneak peak at the first two pages of my six paged article, you will have to pick up a copy to see the rest:-)

warm wishes,

Pam

P.S. They even published my mom’s crock-pot roast recipe on their website! Thanks Mom!!

Great News, and more Great News!!

May 1, 2008 By pamcarriker in army, article, cloth, mom, paper, publication, scissors 7 Comments

Today is just so full of good news that I have to share it with my friends! The first thing that happened, was that I got the layout for my article in Cloth, Paper, Scissors! I actually cried, I’m such a baby, but this is such a dream come true for me. The article is titled ‘Art at the Speed of Life, how a busy mom finds time for art and still gets dinner on the table’. It will appear in the July/August issue and is 7 pages long. The editor had asked for three ‘sets’ of artwork (that will be explained in the article) so that they could have some to choose from. They ended up using all of it. I’m still just dazed. I love that publication and to think of being in it leaves me pinching myself.
Now for the OTHER exciting news, that had me bawling today! My PFC, son, Christopher sent me my first letter! I have been waiting to hear from him and I won’t lie, it’s agonizing. I didn’t even have a way to write to him until he sent the address. It was so good to hear that he is well, and ‘really liking the whole army thing’. I can’t send him any cookies though, because the Sargent will make him do a push up for each cookie and eat them while he’s doing the push ups🙂 Oh well, that will come later. I am just overwhelmed right now and no one is home to share any of it with. Thanks for all of the support, it is so encouraging to hear from you all. Hope your day is going great too!

Affirmative on the Affirmations!

March 15, 2008 By pamcarriker in cloth, collage, paper, publish, scissors, somerset, stamp 4 Comments

Sometimes we work so hard to achieve something and then when someone says “OK, show me”, we are suddenly plagued with self-doubt. Such was the case for me this week. I have been working really hard on being published this year, striving toward validating my life-long artistic pursuit. My journey has finally lead me to this mountain and I have been climbing it joyfully, filled with excitement, full steam ahead! Several pieces of my work will be published June – August in The Stampers’ Sampler, with a guest artist feature in August. I have been working with the editor and copy editor these past two weeks and it has been a new level of excitement for me. My other endeavor has been to have an article published. I love Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine for their personal articles. I always find new techniques and inspiring words to help me along my journey, so a couple of months ago I submitted a query letter with my idea for an article along with some pictures of my work. The editor contacted me and they want me to submit the whole article and several pieces of work. BIGTIME dancing in the streets from me! But, after my feet got sore from dancing:-) I sat down to get busy and the self-doubting started in. Can I do this? Who will want to read it? Just reading the bios of other contributors is intimidating! I am largely self-taught, no fancy art degree, just a life-long love and lots of hands on experience. When these self-doubts started crowding in, I decided to take a nice long soak in the tub with a glass of wine and a good magazine, CPS, of course. I thumbed through the latest edition and there was an article by Kelly Rae Roberts about Affirmation Collages. This was just what I needed to hear! The funny thing is, this is the issue my artwork is in that was inspired by another one of her articles!! So, I decided to try her method, every time I have a doubt pop into my head I would write an affirmation to counteract it. The first affirmation I borrowed from her as it fits perfectly, “You can never do this” becomes “Do the thing you never thought you could do”. “Where do I start” becomes “Begin today”, “What do I say” becomes “Say it from your heart”. What are your affirmations? I encourage you to write them out and own them. We can do anything we set out to do as long as we keep trying. Today’s project is going to be to incorporate these into an affirmation collage to hang in my studio so that I won’t forget this valuable life lesson. If you want to see this issue look under my past blog posts.