I make art

Hello hello!! This semester has been mighty crazy. Way crazier than any other semester I have had so far. But I love it! I have no idea what I want to do as far as life as a fibers artist but it's super interesting to explore the medium. In class we've been learning a lot of different techniques that we could use in our work in the future.

I have some photos of my work that I thought I would go ahead and share

This first project was me just experimenting with color matching and gradations. I made different kite mobiles because I feel that kites keep popping up in my life and also I love the whimsical nature of them so I decided to make these:

 I also placed little letters in each of them. I think I want to revisit this kite idea later on and include more little letters because I found that part very interesting and left a lot of room for experimenting.













I also learned something called shibori and it's a type of resist dying. You can wrap the fabric around a pole, stitch through it, or clamp it. The technique I used below is the clamping technique. I really liked this piece because it reminded me a lot of graffiti and I feel that I am drawn to that type of aesthetic in artwork. 




More to come once I take photos of them! Thanks for visiting!!

<3 Ashley

PS- I forgot to tell you! I am the blogger for the KCAI Fiber Department so you should check that out too!! http://blogs.kcai.edu/fiberdepartment/

Hello World

Hello Devoted Readers! I'm so sorry I have neglected this blog of mine for so long! Lots of things have happened! I am back from summer camp....we had some change of plans and ended up back at our old camp. We most likely won't be going back to a summer camp this coming up summer. I think that phase of our life is over and we're ready to move on to something different. Also I have started in my new major, Fibers! It's oh so amazing! I will be posting some of my work soon. And I now work for the fibers department through work study and I get to start a Fiber Department Blog! Isn't that exciting?!?! I get paid to make a blog. What exciting news haha!

In other news we really wanted to get Calvin a friend to help him break out of his shy little shell so we recently adopted another furry family member who we named Sproket. He is quite the handful. Full of energy and spunk to say the least. As seen by the photo he has quite the attitude! We love him, furry attitude and all!

And Calvin just seems to be getting cuter!  He's still skiddish and shy but he's starting to jump up and down and get excited about things like food!

And they also like to sleep a lot once they've calmed down. A-dor-a-ble!

 








In other news, I recently helped a friend photograph a wedding and LOVED it! I love photographing weddings! It's really fun and I feel that I will get more and more creative the more I do. I plan on helping her out with more weddings in the future and then eventually starting my own business, hopefully soon!! All I need is a camera. Sadly I had to part with my camera so now I'm hoping to save up for a camera and maybe Christmas money could help me reach my goal sooner *fingers crossed* You can check out the photos that I helped out with on my friend Jordan's site or you can friend her through her facebook fan page. If you're in our area you should book her for any event, wedding, engagement, senior photos, because she has great prices and does a really great job!

Another thing I'm really excited about is soon starting a website. I'm going to put my photo work and fibers work up there and all you lovely readers can stay in touch that way too.

All in all I'm just really excited about everything that is happening in life right now. The husband is doing really great too! He seems to be in some sort of art funk which is no good but we all go through it and I think he's picking himself up out of it as we speak so I'll make sure to keep you updated with his work too because a lot of what he does inspires me and I think that's really important :)

Thank you all for reading and I'll make sure to keep up with the blog and post interesting stuff every now and then haha.

<3 Ashley

Traveling

Sorry I haven't been able to update my blog. I've been traveling and now have settled in with my side of the family in the Greater Alabama region. I haven't been doing any crafts (lame) but I have been reading a lot. I found out the readers digest books are the best! There are 4 books in the book itself and each book is only about 200 pages. So there's not 400 pages of character development and too many adjectives to count. Just straight to the point. I've been reading all mysteries so it gets to what's going on then the search for the bad guy then the bad guy is found and it's oh so good!

Rob and I will be helping out with bible school next week at the church I grew up at. It's an Egyptian theme so we all have to dress up (which is not as exciting to Rob haha he's never been one for costumes). It should be fun.

We have about 2 weeks before we leave for camp and I'm getting more nervous. I'm also sad that I won't be rejoining the returners at my old camp but it will be for the best. The new camp seems really great and I haven't had a bad encounter with them. Every time I call them they are just so nice! So that's comforting.

Anyways that's a little run down of what's going on these days. My grandma and me are going to Hobby Lobby soon to get some patterns and material and hopefully I'll have something awesome to show all my readers soon! Thanks for stopping by!

<3 Ashley

Cruise weekend

Rob and I just got back from a wonderful cruise vacation to the Bahama's with friends and family. It was a lot of fun and very relaxing! I did bring my camera to capture the wonder that is the Bahamas and as I go to take my first photo a message popped up "No SD card"....seriously? I brought my stinkin camera but no SD card, I had left it in my computer. Super lame. So the whole time I just took a ton of mental pictures. So no updated blog with tons of fun pictures....fail.

Anyways now that we're back we've been hanging out with the family and tonight me, Rob, and Johnathan (our little nephew) will be cooking calzones! We're really excited about it. And I believe sometime next week (probably tuesday) we will be heading to good ol' Alabama to spend about a month with my side of the family. This summer has started off so great and will only get better I feel :) Although we have to stay on a strict budget until we get to Canada we will be just fine spending time with family and cooking and having a great time.

I must say that although we've struggled the past few months, I've never been happier. I love spending every day with my best friend (the hubby <3) and visiting his family and getting to visit my family. It's great to have a bigger family now that we're married. Makes for never a dull moment!!

Thanks so much for reading my blog. I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up with it I'll try my best to update throughout our Alabama and Canada adventures!

Goodbye Kansas City (at least for now)

On May 15th we headed out of our apartment and said goodbye for 3 months to the lovely Kansas City. Although I occasionally enjoy the KC area I was so ready to be out of there, especially our apartment where our roommates will stay and we will no longer hop into the roommate bandwagon. Roommates are usually a bad idea. So we have learned our lesson and when we get back to the KC area we will be moving in to our own place! We are so excited!

Now we have made it safely to Florida and we've been hanging out with family and friends since we've been here. Rob's God daughter was baptized on Sunday and oh jeeze she is adorable! It was a great get together and there was tons of food and family and great times! I love spending time with Rob's family <3 Let's all take a moment to bask in her cuteness haha

 

She was the most relaxed baby I've ever seen

 

Proud Mom and dad

 

 

These pictures were all from her baptism. She had her own cake (as seen above) and is so very photogenic. It was great fun!

I knit her a cute sundress but of course I didn't take a picture of it haha so maybe I'll snap a picture of it soon. I still need to take a picture of all my knitwear. I'm so behind! 

We're heading out on a cruise soon and we're so excited to take a quick little vacation. Then after that we're heading to visit my family then to camp. This summer is going to be exciting and it's definitely starting off with a bang! I love being in Florida around family and friends. It's a nice feeling that Kansas City just doesn't have. 

I will soon start crafting, or at least posting pictures of things I've made so all of my lovely readers can see what I've been up to. 

Thanks so much for stopping by :)

<3 Ashley

Finals week

Things have been mighty crazy around these parts for finals week and the end of semester show. Last week I had my final critiques with the whole department and I think they went well I'm just at the end of my rope this semester so it was hard to stay focused. Then on Friday everyone was setting up for the end of semester show which is kind of a big deal around these parts. We get quite a turn out of people who are interested in investing in students art and people who just love seeing the new eyes of the new artists. I really enjoy the end of semester show a lot. I submitted 2 pieces in the show and both got in. It was part of my latest series which I will explain a little later in this fun filled blog. Rob (my lovely husband) got 9 pieces in the show and 4 of them sold! How wonderful! He is so very very talented and I get excited for him when he does well with what he is doing (which is often because he works so hard on everything he does). Rob and I also submitted some of our work into a gallery space and had our first showing in Kansas City's first friday :) (if you're in the KC area our work is being displayed at Hadens lofts and the lofts are for rent and amazing in every way). This was quite exciting because I feel like things are starting to work out with our artwork and it's good to get our names out there.

 Ok on to what I've been working on for the past few months. My series started out as documenting the passage of time in a certain place in my life that I spend time in. I would take photographs randomly throughout the day by remotely controlling my camera. I would then layer these photographs on top of one another to create movement and action. I didn't really like how they were turning out. They just weren't really conveying anything that I was going through at the time or anything that I wanted to translate to the audience.
 So then I just started taking photographs of everything and everywhere I was to maybe figure out a better way to portray the passage of time in my life and maybe get some of my frustrations to come through. Thus started the beginning of a series I really am starting to like and know that I can expand on. I started taking photographs of all around me and joining them together to create an exploration of the spaces I find myself in and reconstructing it the way I feel is beautiful and cohesive.

I feel that this series just starting off for me. It's helping me to work through the idea of routine in my life and whether or not it's a good thing. These photographs are taken of places I find myself in all the time in this routine I've created for myself and once I take the photos I start to reconstruct them in a way that isn't conducive to the routine of which I see them. So this is quite an interesting progression for me. I've never progressed in a forward motion before especially in a way I enjoy. So hopefully this will continue and I'll share my discoveries with all of you :)

I have some photos of our end of semester show as well but they are at my home computer (I'm at school now) so I will update that soon.

Thank you very much for continuing to read my blog I really appreciate it :) Also I would love to hear what you think about my new series. I'm titling all the photographs individually with the 2 intersecting streets where they are located. Any feed back is good feed back :)

Also, Rob has a ton of pottery and if there is anyone in the KC area that wants some very reasonably priced pottery just leave a comment and let us know, if not it's all going into storage.

Thanks so much for stopping by!!

<3 Ashley

Dear World,

I'm sorry I have not written a new blog in such a long time. I've been working hard in school because it's crit week and finals next week so it's been kind of crazy! I will be posting all the stuff I've been working on soon like my knitwear and my photos. I'm excited about everything and hope I can finish everything up in time.

I cannot explain how excited I am for this semester to be over. I've been dealing with a lot of stuff this semester so this summer break is just what I need. Sometimes it's just hard for me to understand some people. I've just come to realize that I should cherish my true friends and my husband and my family because it is so hard to find true friends and people who will stand by you and understand you in this world. I thank God everyday for the people in my life :)

Alright well I'm off to frame my work. Thanks so much for reading my blog and I will update soon with everything I've been working on this semester. Talk to you all soon!!


<3 Ashley