Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Studio Moves...Oh my!

Wow! Last week was insane! Between getting home from vacation on Monday, multiple natural disasters (my biggest rational fear....zombies are my biggest irrational fear) and moving my studio, I have been feeling crazy crazy crazy. After a vacation I usually need a few days to relax, decompress and get everything back in order. Not so this time... We decided to move our studio space so we came back to a week of frenzied packing, only to be interrupted by hurricane Irene! We wanted to get everything out of the studio this weekend but with the rain, wind and threat of awfulness everywhere, we decided to wait until today. Thankfully we didn't get hit as bad as anyone thought and all is well in our hood. That said we still have 3 days of moving ahead of us and all the biggest stuff is the most daunting. We have a big truck so that's not the problem...it's the weight of said heavy things and the fact that the hub has a bum elbow and his wrist has been bothering him...AND the fact that O'Rae, despite being the awesomest baby ever, does not have super human strength yet (I'm hoping it kicks in soon though...) so it's a pretty motley crew we have going on here...Here's hoping we get through the next 3 days in one piece and can get all our pieces in one place.

Image from here

Animal Sculpture at Fleisher Art Memorial this Fall!

This fall I'll be teaching Animal Sculpture at the Fleisher Art Memorial on Monday nights! If you are interested in taking a class please sign up at www.fleisher.org. Need tuition assistance? No problem! Fleisher has a great tuition assistance program that is very easy to apply for. More info here.

Right now I'm loving...

...this little face.

My Husband is Awesome

Justin works as an art handler and is co-branch manager of Crozier Fine Art's Philadelphia branch. He and his co-conspirator, I mean, co-manager, Eric McDade do all kinds of crazy things with art...moving it, installing it, packing it, shipping it... You might not think that any of these things would be crazy enough to involve forklifts but you would most certainly be wrong... Take, for example, the 13 foot long crates of Ai Wei Wei's 'Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads' that they had to move this week...

This is just one of two flatbeds that came bearing crates...Yikes!

Yup, those are big crates...

Justin taking the crates off the flatbed with the forklift...

and backing it into the loading dock.

Then he and Eric switched the crate from one forklift to another...

...so Eric could put it up onto the dock...

...and it could then be transported through a hole not much bigger than the crate itself... Whew!

Only to be done all over again for the other crates...! I'm not just saying this because he is my husband but Justin is AMAZING at packing, moving, installing, etc artwork, especially big and seemingly impossible projects like this one. So if you are like Ai Wei Wei and need your stuff moved and stored somewhere, give these guys a holler!

In the studio...

Summer...

Busy busy busy

This is just a quick hello to assure you I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. I am just having a super busy summer between studio work, the forming of the Philadelphia Sculpture Gym and just life in general. As a family we are trying to have a bit of a life this summer and have already taken a bunch of vacations with a few more to come (nothing too fancy...weekends here and there and a few longer spells away). I've also started a piece in the studio (a life size portrait of my daughter Olivia...photos to come...eventually) and once I see how this goes I'll see if it will develop into a full body of work. I'll be sure to post updates, as exciting things are happening. Happy summer to all!

image from here