My Top Three Art Memories of the Year: Sabrina Ward Harrison's Workshop, Making a Piece for Urban Outfitters, and Baby Tattooville 2011

The year is coming to an end, so it's time to look back on the year's most awesome art memories in my life.  I have a lot to tell you!

Here are my best art moments of the year, in the order that they occured:

1. May 2011, My Trip to Prince Edward Island to attend one of Angela Ritchie's Ace Camps with Instructor Sabrina Ward Harrison...

Meeting my favorite artist, Sabrina Ward Harrison, has been a dream of mine for a very long time.  At the start of 2011, I made a list of life dreams and goals, and taking a workshop with Sabrina was at the top of the list... Just a few days after making my list, I found out Sabrina would be teaching in Canada in May, so I jumped at the chance and signed up right away!  I could barely contain my excitement until May, and when the trip finally came, it far exceeded my expectations on so many levels.  Sabrina was amazing, the other women who attended the workshop were amazing, the art making and photography and writing exercises were amazing, and even the food and accomodations...also amazing! 

We stayed in a The Highlands, a Victorian house full of antiques, old photos, and dress up clothes and hats...  Here is Meaghan all dressed up in front of the house:
Here is our table set with placecards written by Sabrina in her beautiful handwriting. 
Making art.
Such lovely handwriting...
Works in progress.
This is the piece I made while on the island, "Play, Laugh, Grow."
Sabrina took this photo of me in my room at the Highlands.  I loved sleeping in a canopy bed! I used to have one as a kid...

2. September 2011, Creating My Piece, "The Stories We Carry" for Urban Outfitters

Urban Outfitters commissioned a piece from me in September that would be on display in the Urban Outfitters Store on Tour Traveling Gallery in mid-October.  The traveling gallery toured the south along with an Urban Outfitters Pop Up Shop, visiting Columbia, SC, Tallahassee, FL, Athens, GA, and Knoxville, TN.  I love Urban Outfitters and have always dreamed of doing a project with them, so this was truly a dream come true!

They sent me a huge box full of Dockers Alpha Khaki pants and asked me to make art with them!  There were no rules, just the way I like it!  I tore the pants up and used the pockets to create a design The side pockets were saddle shaped and looked like a star when I arranged them all in a circle.  The back pockets were rectangles that I filled with scrolls of text.  The border is made of the waistbands, and there are some little accents made with the key pockets.  
The Stories We Carry, 2011
Dockers Alpha Khaki Pants, Khaki fabric, silkscreen, fabric glue, thread, buttons

My Arists Statement:
The Stories We Carry, is a visual depiction of the narratives we tell each other and weave together like fabric in order to create an identity for ourselves. These stories make up the personal histories we carry with us throughout our lives, providing individualism and self expression, much like the clothing we wear on the outside of our bodies. Made up of a flat panel of khaki fabric that is collaged with reassembled pockets and pieces of Dockers® Alpha Khaki pants, the piece is a distressed and deconstructed depiction of collective memory that has been reformed into a new history, quilted together, and reassembled. When we reflect on the ways our own memories work, we realize that our stories often change in the retelling, facts change places, and snippets of details become forgotten. The background of the piece is filled with screen printed writings that signify the stories we tell, and the pockets are printed with pictures of people, portraying the faces behind the stories. Some of the pockets hold scrolls of screen printed stories, which are symbolic of the secrets we keep and the baggage we carry with us. No matter where life takes us, we are made up of the stories we hold inside ourselves.

Some In Progress Photos:



3. October 2011, My Trip to California to Attend Baby Tattooville...

Baby Tattooville is a secret society that meets once a year at the Mission Inn in Riverside, California.  This was my first time attending this event, and it was wonderful!  This was the event's fifth anniversary, so it was extra special because there were a total of 31 artists in attendance.  Here is a list of the artists:

Yoskay Yamamoto

The Mission Inn
The Baby Tattooville Art Jam is one of the main events: all 31 artists collaborate on a huge piece of art, and everyone in attendance gets a high quality reproduction of the print to take home with them.

Here is Jeff Soto painting the background for the Art Jam:
 Bob Self and the Baby Tattooville Secret Shop:
The Art Jam Continues.  Amy Sol and Molly Crabapple painting.
The Lovely Molly Crabapple.
Lola draws in my sketchbook.
More progress on the Art Jam.
Setting up for the Circus Punk Throw. Each attendee got a chance to knock down a Circus Punk customized by one or more of the artists in attendance. It was an awesome event and lots of fun!
I got the Circus Punk I wanted on my very first throw!  It was a black and white punk done by Buff Monster.
The Art Jam continues with Gris Grimly, Tara McPherson, and Miss Mindy painting.
The finished Art Jam!

All in all, this year was pretty awesome and full of creative adventures!  I hope 2012 is even better.

What are YOUR top three art memories of the year?

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