one week until kickoff!!

in one week, i will be sitting in my booth at the cherry creek arts festival, hoping that the attendees will stop and have a look at my work.  it's both scary and exciting.  i really can't believe the time has come to make the final preparations!!

(click here for a link to the cherry creek arts festival site)

i finished these two prints early this week.  they are both about 10x18 inches, and will be for sale at the festival.  my goal is to get one more done in the series before the event...but it has to be today and tomorrow so that the print has time to dry before being matted and framed.

in my last post, i talked about the inspiration for the first print, which you can read below.  it has been reworked a bit.  i have added a purplish element, and have drawn into the lace to make it seem "lacier".

the second print is also inspired by a memory from childhood.  i remember being fascinated by anything that had to do with being a mature female.  at an early age, it had not really occurred to me that i would one day have womanly body parts that needed cinching in and holding up.  my mother's underwear drawer was a big mystery to me.  there were all kinds of things in there that made me feel uncomfortable, yet curious.  i would sneak in my parent's bedroom, and go through my mom's carefully folded stash of underthings.  i can smell that drawer as i am typing.  the sweet smell of cotton, the perfume of the paper drawer liner, and the unmistakeable scent of the wood surrounding it all.  

i would take out the contents, one at a time, and study them.  lace, elastic, metal hooks, those rubbery nodules that were attached at the end of her girdle to hold on her hosiery.  i always wanted to try that stuff on, but never dared.  it seemed like something i shouldn't do.  then i would put everything back, trying to make sure that things looked untouched.  if she ever knew, i would be so horrified and embarrassed.

it's strange to me now that underwear evoked such feelings.  lingerie doesn't make me feel uneasy in the slightest bit now.  it's a fact of life, one that is with me every day.  in a way it is liberating to see undergarments as subject matter.  my hope is that i can connect my childhood memory to yours, somehow, or at the least, make you smile!