Welcome to my Home Art Studio

I am delighted to share a virtual tour of my studio with you today as part of "Open Studio Day" sponsored by Studio magazine and the great people at Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazines.

I have six sons, so as they began to move out on their own, I finally could claim a room for my studio. The challenge for me was that it needed to be a multi-functioning space (I am a writer, creativity coach, and I love to work with a variety of media in art -- primarily fiber art). For a number of years, I also costumed for the theater and for my own one-woman show.

My little space (a former bedroom) is packed -- filled with all kinds of creative items -- from my collection of over 200 antique books and magazines, to lots of vintage lace, trims, buttons, fibers and fabric.

On one side of my room I have bookcases and a roll top desk (purchased with part of a publishing advance on a series of books I wrote). I love sitting at the desk -- but it is often crowded with work as I multitask.
On the opposite side of the room is my very small sewing table. It is an antique oak "campaign" desk -- one that might have been used by a high ranking soldier in the Civil War due to its size and the ease of folding it up to carry to the next tent city. It has a small locking drawer with its original key. (This came in very handy with those six sons of mine -- if they could find my good sewing shears, they would use them on all kinds of their own projects -- including cutting wire!)

I was also blessed to receive a couple of my husband's family heirlooms I enjoy in my special space -- two antique oak spool cabinets. They really help me sort and organize all the little bits of lace, buttons and trims -- and yes, even spools of thread.




At heart I am a creator/developer. For years my husband tried to get me to darn socks (those boys went through them so fast) to help save money. I did (and still do) mend good clothing -- but to me darning socks is just so mundane! My valuable time could be better spent exploring new artistic endeavors. At one point, I must admit I did embroider the tops of my son's socks (with just a little stitch on each in the same color) so I could try to track the multiple tube socks going through the laundry and find mates before the dryer ate them!

I know my curiosity and passion for exploring the creative came from my two dear grandmothers, both now in heaven. I have been working on a quilted album of important memories of my life. I have finished the 12 x 12" page that represents the wonderful contributions those two women made in my life. From one, I inherited an interest in quilting, flowers, music, and fine detail; from the other a love of reading, writing, sketching, and needlework. Many of the initial antique books I collected and the pieces of vintage linens and lace came from their treasure trove.

There are so many heirlooms to be treasured, restored, re-purposed and enjoyed! I love living my passion every day, finding inspiration from the writings and textiles of past generations. It is my hope that I can inspire future generations to value these treasures so they will not be lost.

The opening picture of this blog post showed my antique ironing board with a project just being started. Here is the finished product -- a statement collar (bib) necklace I made from using pieces of wonderful vintage lace and buttons. My antique dress form, "Martha" is modeling it for me.

I hope you have enjoyed my virtual studio tour and the opportunity to get to know me just a little in the process. Oh, and because I know many people are curious to see the "real me" -- here's a photo my husband took of me. If you would like to see more photos of my studio and artistic endeavors, visit my Facebook Fan page (link to the right): Vintage Legacy Studio. Of course, you can always see more of my art in my Etsy shop. I have a special 20% off sale in my shop today in conjunction with the open studio tour.
Connect with others in the Open Studio Tour here.

Back to Creating

So why haven't I blogged since last Christmas season? Wow! If I'm honest, it's because I also haven't been honoring my own life mission statement! The first phrase includes "designing space to grow, empowering myself and others to be creative." Well, if you don't give yourself space to grow, it's pretty impossible to empower yourself or others to be creative -- DUH!

So, I decided that my day job just cannot take priority in my life anymore. Maybe that's because when a bad economic environment shakes up the hours and pay one for the job, you begin to ask yourself some serious questions about what you want to be doing with your time and energy.

Yep, I could say it has something to do with the job -- but it also really has to do with ME. What are the choices I've been making? Do I want to make different ones? Yes, I do -- so you will see me more often, I hope (unless I am very busy creating). Even then, I do want to share with you how I'm empowering myself in that creative process so I can truly honor the latter part of that mission statement about empower others to also be creative.

I've done a few of the things I was doing two years ago (they are posted now in my Etsy shop: http://vintagelegacystudio.etsy.com and I've included a couple of pictures here -- but I'm also exploring all kinds of new creativity! I am messing around with making flowers out of vintage '40s and '50s hankies, I'm writing about some of the things I've done in a "how to" on ehow.com (you can find my articles by my user name there: CoachJudiB) and I'm also researching ways of possibly bringing the books to print that I wrote several years ago. So, trail along with me on this journey and we'll explore some creativity together.