All Keyed Up

My Grandfather the engineer loved tools. At one point several years ago as he was getting older, my Grandmother was tidying up his extensive assortment of tools and gave me a box full of keys. This accidental collection of unusable or orphaned pieces seems to have grown over the course of many decades, as there were both shiny new keys, and older worn pieces ornate enough to be art.
I've moved several times since then, and had put the keys in a 'safe' place somewhere along the line......famous last words.
Naturally, I didn't see them for years until just recently when I opened a random box labeled 'office desk'. It was all keys and pens.
I blame the cats.

Name: Navy
Likes: long walks on the porch, snuggles, and grouping things together

She really is a bit of a hoarder and likes making piles of things. Mostly her toys and dolls. She only likes the ones she can mother, no jingles or non-soft cat toys for this little lady.

"Don't you touch my babies, mama!"
-As she sprung into the frame to keep an eye on me

New rug? Needs babies!
STAT.
Those are her two favorites.

As usual, I digress.
So, I love shadowboxes. Very much. We have a storied past, and bright future together; me and shadow boxes. I had gotten a large (~1.5'x3') one several years ago on sale for dirt cheap, earmarked for displaying Grandad's keys. It too was in a 'safe' place for a while.
When the keys resurfaced the other day, I went about getting them in said shadow box before I lost one or both of these key ingredients again.

Materials: Ruler.Chalk. Hot Glue Gun. Wine. Keys. Shadowbox.

I counted out the keys and got really lucky that they, along with two key rings, numbered such (36) that they would all space out neatly within the frame. Because no one deserved to be either left out or crammed in.
(Side note: here is a tumblr that will make all the OCD pieces of you happy)
Things were going well as I measured out a grid for the keys and made a chalk mark at each point where a key would sit.
I put all the keys on the board in a rough approximation of where they would go, and started to rearrange them in the most attractive order I could muster; distributing like items and putting the best ones towards the middle.
Then I realised that I had made 13 too many little chalk marks......and the chalk wouldn't come off. Whoopsies.
Cross that wine off the materials list I suppose?
Nah.
It turned out to be a happy accident in the end. I just scooted the keys in between each chalk mark, and hot glued them down. #wineforthewin

The little blue chalk marks add a lot of interest and charm to the piece. What a good mistake!

I showed it to my Mom (the daughter of my Grandfather), and she thought it was great. I did not have a suitably honorable place for it in my home; so it will be going to live on a prominent wall in her kitchen.

I'm so pleased with how it came out, and glad I finally was able to put it together, especially in time for Father's Day this year. Even though Grandad isn't with us anymore, he was a fantastic father to his small herd of girls (5!), and it makes me happy to have things of his displayed and enjoyed on a daily basis.
Here's looking at thinking of you, kid.
:)


-Lindsay

Quick Gallery Wall to Bring Together a Room

I've been taking a little time off project and post wise.
Work has been SUPER busy, along with a log jam of other commitments over the past couple weeks.

I love being busy, but I've needed to decompress when home rather than start new home projects, or even finish any of the 10+ ongoing ones. My place is cleaner than normal though, as I've been tidying up rather than building impressive and dynamic messes.
Buy mostly, I've been taking a stab at relaxing.

the closest I will come to being a Lil Wayne fan

Something I did do over the weekend was rehang a bunch of art in my living room to create a gallery wall. The pieces previously there were hung when the room arrangement was different.

Before at Thanksgiving.
With old furniture arrangement. And big bro.

Absolutely no piece of furniture is currently in the same place as above, and so the picture placement no longer made sense.

I gathered up all the art I wanted hung that was lying around in different rooms, and set it all out in front of the wall on which it would go.
I tried to evenly distribute the the art across the wall, by varying landscape vs. portrait orientation pieces, as well as picture content (naked peoples, landscapes, flowers, abstracts).
There are all sorts of tutorials about using paper or tape or toothpaste to measure out exacting measurements for gallery walls.

Pin

Breaking form, I used no precise method and continued to rely on those good ol' eyeballs.
Lots of picture hooks and hammer swings later: the room looks settled and sensical.

Yeah, I'll be working on doing better panoramas.
It just has not fit into lasagna time yet.

This room has had about 5 different furniture arrangements, and this one feels like home....finally.
The gallery seals the deal, as it's made up of favorite pieces of mine done in various mediums: pastel, water color, pencil, paint, and cut paper.

bottom shot taken post-wine

The gap in the middle on the bottom is for Mr.Beans the cat, who often looks artfully perched while enjoying a favorite view of his kingdom.

Another good free project, using what was already had.

-Lindsay

Art School Leftovers

Leftovers are awesome. Be it food, paint, fabric, rescued animals, money (ha!), or art.

I have a lot of 'leftover' art, which I absolutely treasure.

Being in the art department in college gave me the opportunity to interact with all sorts of creative and crazy talented people who had exceedingly high standards of themselves, and excelled in various fields. The painters would churn out pieces they found mediocre, but I would pee my pants if I could create, and was therefore more than happy to take off their hands. 

I had similarly high expectations for my sculpture and ceramics: it was good, but I wanted it to be great. My castoff's were still high quality, and quickly grabbed by friends who could paint the aforementioned masterpieces, but created 3-d pieces that could be described as 'paperweights' for grandma. 

For the record: I am pretty limited in my artistic talents. My painting skills do not extend past painting a wall. With the exception of pastels done one specific way, any 2-d artwork of mine is grandma territory. Unless I can make it with my hands: best of luck telling if that piece hanging on the wall depicts a landscape or a vegetable (an no, it's not like it's even abstract).

Most of this leftover art has been sitting in my parents basement, or loaned out to friends and family for the better part of 10 years. I'd recently been thinking about some handmade ceramic tiles a professor who heavily impacted/inspired me in college had given me, but I did't see anywhere when moving. Soon afterwards, I discovered them at a friend's house lining her garden. She was graciously happy to let me have them back, so I quickly snatched them up before she changed her mind. (thanks Trish!)

These tiles were made from terracotta clay in a custom built tile mold. This particular professor had gone out of her way by letting me pester her into showing how she both built tile molds, and created the tiles. It wasn't part of any normal class curriculum, just an aside one evening when we were both in the studio. She was producing a huge number of tiles for some project I can't pretend to remember. Some didn't meet her standards and she allowed me to have them. 

A hallmark of her work, to me, is the incredible texture she is able to achieve.

ceramic nerd ho

I love the piece's roughness due to it's material composition and handling, and the surface finish from the glaze and kiln effects.

I'd never done anything of substance with these tiles, but have always wanted to display them. There are no attachment points on the back of the tiles, so I decided to mount them on a board, with mortar, just like any other tile.

They are heavy, and will be hung outside, so I needed a sturdy and weather resistant board on which to mount them. 

I laid them out in the pattern I wanted and figured I could piece together a backing from some of the scrap wood piling up on my deck.

Wrong answer.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time sizing, cutting, bracketing, yadda yadda yadda, and came out with an inadequate, wonky backing. 

those aint good apples

Off to Home Depot and $6.50 later, had all the wood I needed.

2x4 strand plywood

I laid the tiles out again and traced around the edge. I lopped off the big pieces with my circular saw, and dremeled off the rest. All the cuts were straight, so this was nice n easy.

fear not, the pallet table was safe

To seal the wood, I painted the whole thing with grey primer.

project helped immensely by a delicious shandy

I then slopped on a layer of leftover mortar and laid down the tiles. I slowed my roll and let the mortar cure for 72 hours before grouting. I made sure to cover the edges of the board with the grout as well so it would not have a weird grey edge.
The thing is indeed HEAVY and required heavy duty hanging hardware on the back.

thats a good looking back side

It is now living proudly on my porch, lookin fine in the summertime.

-Lindsay