Back From the PNW With a Challenge

I got back from Portland almost a week ago, and now that I'm unpacked and a routine medical procedure is behind me, I can get back to work in the wet lab. And that's where I spent last evening and this morning - trying to meet a challenge given to me by the wonderful and talented Kimberly Affleck while I was in Washington. Kimberly commissioned me to make a vessel for her. She's going to embellish it with some of her own personal found objects as well as her beads. While she was auditioning color combos for this piece, she put a few together that didn't work for her. When she exclaimed, "Ewww, those colors are bad!", I told her that there are no bad colors and that I could make just about any colors go together. I don't know what on earth I was thinking! I had her pull together some colors that she thought would look dreadful together so that I could try to prove my point. Yesterday I decided that I was ready to face the music.

Here are the colors that I have to use.

Last evening I started making small felted objects that I would use to embellish the vessel. I also pulled out a few balls of yarn that I thought I would incorporate into it.

When I went to bed, I started to visualize what the body of the vessel might look like. I decided to make the vessel predominantly green and yellow, then I drifted off to sleep. This morning when I went out to the wet lab, I changed my mind about the vessel color and also decided to ditch the yarn. Here's where I am in the project right now.

I'll wait until this evening to felt it, then tomorrow I will attach the embellishments. This certainly isn't a color combo that I would have chosen to work with - I'm hoping that when it's dry and has shrunken it doesn't look too garish. But hey - Kimberly picked these colors, so she's stuck with them! :-)

The colors that she picked for her "serious" vessel are very rich and I'm really looking forward to working with them. I should be bringing you pix of that WIP in the next few days.

Here's Kimberly yucking it up at the Mexican restaurant the Friday night of Labor Day weekend. She and I were drinking Cadillac Margaritas - yowza! Vickie Branch is also in the picture - Vickie and her daughter Marion Ogle hosted the Labor Day weekend "knowledge exchange" event at their fabulous shop/studio M & D Designs in Chinook, WA.

Hmmmm... I just noticed the colors in these pictures of Kimberly. They look vaguely familiar... Perhaps I should name this vessel Cadillac Sunset.

And now I'm off to a meeting. Have yourselves a happy and creative day!