The End Is But The Beginning

As 2006 ends memories are formed
Memories of happy times,
Sad times,
Times that are forever past.

As 2007 begins Dreams are formed
Dreams filled with hope, wishes, plans,
Thoughts of fun with family and friends.

The years end too quickly,
But always start with thoughts
That there will be enough time
To fulfill all those Dreams


Oh, but that this year will
be the year where Dreams are fulfilled
And the memories are forever cherished.

TEA FOR ME

Well, for the first time in 3 months I am able to take some time for me. I decided that I should sit down and enjoy a slow cup of wonderful raspberry-apricot tea. I bought the beautiful creamer and sugar bowl along with the cup at a little store in Seattle. This was last year when Tracie, our friend Lori, and I went to our annual retreat at ArtFest. We always start and finish the trip with a little shopping at the market. It is so much fun!

When I spotted this lovely creation by Muzeum I knew I had to have it. I took it to work and when I need a few minutes alone to gather my thoughts I brew a cup of tea, shut my door and let my mind drift to the adventures at ArtFest. It is so relaxing to think about the laughter and artistic creating that happens at ArtFest. Teesha, Tracey and their crew work so hard to make the experience top notch.

Then, teachers like Nina Bagley, Leslie Riley, Pam Garrison, Traci Bautista (to name a few) give the best classes. I remember Nina's class last year-"Sheer Beauty, Mica Wallhanging", it was a blast. I had never worked with mica before but when I finished I had a beautiful wall hanging that now hangs proudly in my art room. I absolutely love Nina! She not only is fun but has a terrific amount of patience.

Oh, I must take another sip of tea! Delicious! MMM!

Memories! How grand!

Each of the last six years we have gone to Art Fest I come home planning to attend the next!

I think this year - I will go to the little tea shop at the market and buy the pitcher and more cups to match this set. I love the pattern so much because it reminds me of all the artistic talent flowing around Fort Warden when 500+ artists show up to create!

Wonder what the past Generals of Fort Warden would think about all the creativity. Definitely not a "Yes,Sir. No,Sir" environment now! Do you suppose the spirits are still around?

Well, time to get back to work! More time for tea later and more time for dreaming!

Invitation to Valley Ridge

I would like to invite you to join my daughter-in-law, Tracie Lyn, and I for a FANASTIC! Fiber Fusion class that we will be giving at Valley Ridge Art Studio on April 21 & 22, 2007.

Kathy Malkasian operates this enchanting studio located in the rural countryside near Madison, Wisconsin. She and her husband, Bill, host wonderful artist workshops from spring thru the fall. It is a marvelous way to enjoy the beauty of nature while learning new techniques from a variety of talented artists.

Tracie and I will be the guest artists for the April 21/22 weekend, and we are absolutely thrilled to be part of the Valley Ridge Experience! Our workshop, Fused Fragments Extended Journal , will enable you to use the smallest scraps of paper, ribbon, fabric, yarn and many other fibers. In addition, we will show you how to incorporate a wide variety of materials such as pictures, photos, and natural elements to create an INCREDIBLE journal. The surrounding Wisconsin landscape will serve as our inspiration.

We will also explore the use of silk flowers and leaves, thread, yarns, fabric, feathers, sequins, buttons, small flat ephemera, and any special objects as our surface continues to transform into a beautiful unique piece of art with great depth and dimension. Finally, we will show you how to make plain paper or cardstock, paper folders, fabric, canvas and much more into vibrant, multidimensional collage art!

Tracie and I have been busy gathering, drying, and pressing beautiful botanicals from the Midwest to give to our students for incorporation into their work.

We are just so excited about sharing this fiber technique with all of you. So, if you are looking for a fun filled weekend, where you can enjoy the company of others who love art as much as you, please COME and JOIN US! You will see for yourself that Valley Ridge Art Studio is truly a PERFECT getaway!

Mother

As many of you already know I said the final goodbye to my mom on Sunday, November 26, at 4:29AM. I was by her side. During the final months,weeks and days of mom's illness I saw a side of her I had never seen before. She was very brave and displayed a strength beyond words. When visitors came she would be her old self laughing and joking. She was especially happy when the children came to see her. She always loved children so much. My heart would ache as I knew that when they all left the pain would dominate her time. I guess the part that touched me most is that not one time did I see my mom cry. Even when the pain was so bad she couldn't move she never shed a tear - perhaps the pain was beyond tears, I don't know.

I want to say thank you to all my dear friends and family that supported me during this difficult time. Without the love and support of all of you I am not sure I could have found the strength to be there with mom day after day.

Thank you for the emails, cards and phone calls where you let me know you were thinking of me.

Thank you for continuing to check my sites for what little news I was able to get posted.

As I go into the Christmas holiday it will be difficult without mom but my family and I have a lot of fond memories of holidays gone by. These memories will be cherished. A friend shared this message " They live forever who are loved in memory". How true!

Thank you again dear friends and family.

Marylin

Childhood Remembered

This is a area of our yard that I love. It reminds me of when I was a child and how I spent hours lying under a tree reading my favorite books. Now that autumn has arrived the colors are more vibrant than ever and the little fairy seems to be so content to sit silently on the rock reading a book. Oh, to be that small girl again - enjoying nature and spending time aimlessly watching the butterflies and catapillers as they prepare for the closing of the summer. I would read the stories and pretend that I was a fairy princess and all the little animals were my friends. They would tell me stories of their adventures. When a butterfly would land on my cheek I would dream it was a kiss that would grant me my every wish. If I lay very quietly the birds would land close by and I could watch them pick at the ground. Oh, for only one of those moments now! Just a moment to dream and not have a worry in the world! Childhood! What a marvelous time yet so short!

I would listen to the twirling of the windmill and could hear the wind speaking to me! It would make me feel safe as if all the small animals were telling me their secrets and letting me know they were my friends! The words on the pages of the books I read seemed to come alive! The clouds would drift by and form beautiful pictures in the sky. Pictures that brought the pages to a visual form that made me feel as though I had drifted away to this far away land of dreams and wishes! In these moments the beginning of my "Wheggies" began to form in my imagination. The "Wheggies" are small angel-fairies that I write about and make small dolls to show what they look like. They didn't have a name back then but as I began to recall some of my childhood thoughts I began to write about them.

FAITH HOPE LOVE

Dear Friends,

I want to thank all of you for your patience and understanding. I apologize for being away from my blog for so long. It has been a long two months since I last shared my thoughts with you. My mother is terminally ill with lung and throat cancer and these last two months I have tried to spend time with her, take care of getting her settled in a nursing facility as well as being there while she has spent time in the hospital. It has been a time to get reaquainted with my mother and a time to reflect on exactly how short our time with loved ones really is. Since I have been married for 40 plus years and raised three wonderful sons, my time with my mother has been limited. We seemed to have drifted in opposite directions. Her illness has enabled us to dock in the same port and share thoughts and moments together.

My husband has been very supportive as have been my sons and my very special daughter-in-law, Tracie. As many of you are aware Tracie and I are teaching together. She has taken on much of the responsibilities for submitting proposals and organizing information for our classses. What a wonderful daughter she is!!! I cannot thank her enough! I am so looking forward to our next trip to Artfest 2007 and the chance to share our creations with all of you whom signed up for our class.

As my mother nears the end, my heart is filled with faith, hope and love. Faith - that God will take her into his loving hands and comfort her during this time of pain and fear. Love-for my mother, my husband, my sons, Tracie, and my family and friends. Without their love for me I don't know that I would have the strength to be there for mom during her time of need. Hope-that God will keep giving me the stamina to spend these final days with mom and keep performing all my daily responsibilities.

Words cannot express how much all the kind thoughts I have received from many of you has meant to me. This is just one more reason why art is important to me! It really gives me strength to know that you have all thought about me. When I do find moments, here an there, to work on my art, I find that I lose myself in the creativi

ArtFest 2007

Teesha's information on ArtFest 2007 is ON LINE!!! Tiphoni has done an absolutely AWESOME job!!!!!! The site looks GREAT! I can hardly wait. Tracie and I have attended every year since Teesha and Tracey started planning this WONDERFUL experience. Lucky SEVEN!!! I so look forward to this experience every year and this year is no exception! The only thing that makes this year even more special is that my daughter-in-law Tracie and I will be teaching a class! We are sooo excited to share this fusion technique with everyone at ArtFest. We have been frantically getting more journals together so we can share them. We are having so much fun planning the class and gathering goodies for everyone in our class. I am getting my first experience at drying flowers because I want to share some of these wonderful botanicals with friends at ArtFest. I think I may burst at the seams just waiting for the months to pass so I can get to Port Townsend again and experience the feeling of being swept away in the wonderful world of ART! Every class I have ever taken has always given me more than I expected and I can see by this year's choices of teachers and classes the biggest challenge I will have is making a selection. I wish I could take EVERY class!!! They all look great! And I see Tiphoni is teaching - What a legacy for Teesha and Tracey - to pass their wonderful creative gift to their children- and see them love it as much as they do!!! They must be sooo proud. I am frantically looking at each teacher's site so I can make my selections for the days I am not teaching! See you all there!!!!!!

Well, here it is a week later, and I am finally getting back to my blog. I have been spending most of my free time trying to retake pics so I can post them out on my website and on etsy.com. It has been very stressful losing everything on my computer. Lesson learned on keeping information backed up. I am working frantically on my fiber fusion projects so I can also post them. Thanks to Tracie, my blog looks better, and she is kindly helping to rebuild a lot of my information. Don't know what I would do without her. She is not only the best daughter-in-law one could ever have, but is really my best friend. We have so much fun together.

Worked on a Wheggie Fairy yesterday. I will try to get a pic on-line to share with everyone. I will also try to post the short story I wrote about my Wheggies. My long term goal is to write a book about them and have Tracie do the illustrations.

Finally, I compiled some info to send to the people that participated in Barb Matthiessen's fabric dyeing class during Fiberfest 2006 so we can do a trade of dyed fabrics. That was such a fun class! Loved it!!! Barb, Chris, and Dorothy were a blast! They all do the best fabric batiks.

Have a great week everyone!

Marylinsnouvelle

Well, today I decided to create a blog. I wanted to share future plans and happenings in Marylin's Nouvelle Collection. I am excited to begin showing my creations on line and share all my thoughts relating to how they are created and why I create using fabrics and other fibers. Through the years fibers have taken on new shapes and the ideas others have demonstrated in the newly created yarns, threads, fabrics and other fibers excite my creative being. There are virtually no limits to what can be done with these fibers. I want to share what I do with them and how ideas are sparked. My daughter-in-law, Tracie, of www.TheRedDoor-studio.com and myself love to team teach together. Her talents in artistic collage and my love of fibers give us a chance to share many fun and creative moments. I am hoping that this love of fibers for both of us is apparent to all who take our classes which will inturn give them an opportunity to pass that love to others. Please watch for my new website www.marylinsnouvelle.com which is due to be fully functional by the early fall. It would have been on line and fully functional last week but my computer died and being the artist I am and not a technical thinker, guess who forgot to back up all information? I lost pics, and the specks for the website. Oh well, live and learn, huh? Got one item for sale posted to etsy.com, then all pics were wiped out. Now I need to get pics. Can hardly wait to share my fabric designs, and my Wheggies (angel-fairies) with the world. Love ya. MaryLin

DRAWINGS AT THE BEGINNING OF EVERY MONTH!!!!


Then, IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE TO BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN SOME FUN ITEMS....visit my blog on a regular basis and leave a comment on each post. Every time you visit a post and leave a comment I will place your name in a jar.(Only one comment per post, please) The more posts you comment on the more chances you have to be a winner. On the first day of EVERY month I will draw a name and that Lucky Person will win a prize.

The prizes will be different each month.

Possible prizes you may win are:

Vintage Papers
Original artwork I create
Fiber fused fabric I create
Original patterns for various items
Packaged fibers
Book or magazine
Miscellaneous fabrics
Miscellaneous ephemera items
And much more.

In December I will draw a name from all those who have visited my blog all year and left a comment at least once every month.

Every time you leave a comment on a post your name will be placed in the drawing.

The more times you visit thoughout the year the more chances you have to be the big winner!

DRAWINGS AT THE BEGINNING OF EVERY MONTH!!!!


Then, IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE TO BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN SOME FUN ITEMS....visit my blog on a regular basis and leave a comment on each post. Every time you visit a post and leave a comment I will place your name in a jar.(Only one comment per post, please) The more posts you comment on the more chances you have to be a winner. On the first day of EVERY month I will draw a name and that Lucky Person will win a prize.

The prizes will be different each month.

Possible prizes you may win are:

Vintage Papers
Original artwork I create
Fiber fused fabric I create
Original patterns for various items
Packaged fibers
Book or magazine
Miscellaneous fabrics
Miscellaneous ephemera items
And much more.

In December I will draw a name from all those who have visited my blog all year and left a comment at least once every month.

Every time you leave a comment on a post your name will be placed in the drawing.

The more times you visit thoughout the year the more chances you have to be the big winner!

I am excited to hear from all of you and to see who the lucky winner of the first drawing will be!