thrift shops – Summerhouse Art

#1 in the Pique Assiette Mosaic Inspiration Series – Hawaii

Posted on June 10, 2009June 5, 2020 by Helen

Next week I’ll be starting mosaic classes for a few new students and I know that one of the questions everyone usually has is how to come up with an idea for a piece. So I’ve decided to do a series of blogs on inspiration.

Well, getting inspiration is really not all that hard. Sometimes you just let it all happen. Often, my problem isn’t getting an idea but choosing which idea to work on. I usually have too many ideas. I’m a Pisces and apparently making decisions is tough for those of us in this area of the horoscope. Or, as Jimmy Buffet says ” Indecision may or may not be my problem”.

It may be easier to show how inspiration works than explain it. So, as I said in the beginning of this blog, I intend to do a series and will show a few of our mosaic pieces and how they came to be. And hopefully that will say a bit about inspiration.

#1 in the series is my favourite mosaic,” Aloha”, one of the first mirrored and shelved mosaics I did. What was the inspiration? Well, obviously, Hawaii. We had enjoyed every moment of a vacation in Hawaii. We’d immersed ourselves in every touristy thing and soaked it up. We wore Hawaiian shirts and shorts and carried our camera around our necks.

Will and Helen in Hawaii, summerhouseart.com

I fell in love with the Hula dance and the music and Will and I both fell in love with Hawaiian shirts. And then of course there were the palm trees and all the tropical flowers, like orchids. Well, nirvana. And did I mention that the first morning on Oahu we went, wait for it…yup, garage sailing. And some of the pieces that went into this pique assiette mosaic came from those Hawaiian garage sales. Pique Assiette, by the way refers to a type of mosaic done with broken dishes and found objects, which is right up my alley.

Once we got home, I had the idea to make a piece to commemorate our trip, and things just started to happen. Things for the mosaic started to appear on trips to thrift shops.

saltpepperwm

The dishes with the palm trees and parrots, the Hawaiian dashboard dancer ( I LOVE kitsch) , the bananas and the plates and salt and pepper shakers. All of them just appeared in my site lines as if by magic.

Aloha Shrine by Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com

At some point I got the idea to have a shelf to hold all of the Hawaiian goodies. And then I had to create something to put under the shelf. This gave the extra benefit, we realized later, that when you were sitting down you had a whole other dimension to enjoy in the mosaic.

detail, Aloha Shrine by Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com

So that’s how inspiration works. Get an idea, a germ of an idea and somehow what you need for it will make itself available. And all of those things will, if you let them, arrange themselves until they feel just right to you and viola! There you are with a mosaic project to do.

And another thing, don’t let the reality get in the way of artistic inspiration. Ok, I know that bananas don’t grow that way on banana trees and that there aren’t really any parrots in Hawaii, why I don’t know. And that bird that’s sitting on the pineapple on the top, well, that just happened and looked good. So go with the flow, relax and let inspiration take it’s course.

The Show at Hatley Castle

Posted on May 11, 2009January 16, 2015 by Helen

You would think that with a craft show looming on the horizon that we would be responsible and get everything ready on the couple of days beforehand but no, not us.

Instead we decided to have a little party at our house to celebrate our good friend Hart’s birthday on Friday night with our usual compliment of fun loving friends and two of our sons in attendance. It was a Mexican theme with everyone bringing food and goodies with a Tex Mex flavour and even the music I found was Mexican. I love having these get togethers on a weekend night, nothing beats good conversation, laughter and good food with friends.

Then Saturday, instead of staying home and designing a new hand out card in the morning, the lure of garage sailing was just too strong to resist. One of our three sons, Dave, in his call to wish me Happy Mom’s Day late Sunday night, said he was pretty sure we are addicted to garage sailing to which I replied that it was not an addiction but our way of having fun. And we did have a wonderful morning buying plants, finding good free stuff and taking our usual ocean side coffee break in the beautiful sunshine. Lucky for us, Eric was at home while we were out galavanting preparing the sculptures and packing them up for Sunday and doing other little odd jobs like repairing our show table.

Finally by late Saturday night we did get everything done. The new card had been designed and printed just in time before Office Depot closed. The car had been packed with all the mosaics and pots and boxes of supplies. All that remained was for Hart to come over with his truck in the morning so we could load it up with table, chairs and sculptures. With me running around telling everyone to hurry because we have to get there before the end of load in time at 9, we finally were on our way. That is, until we realized about 4 blocks away that we had forgotten the tent. Now you cannot screech to a halt when you have vehicles loaded with artwork so we coasted to a stop and turned around to get the tent. Well at least we were only a few blocks from home. You may say you should have a list of things to check off. Well we do. But we’ve done shows so many times that we sort of gave it cursory attention. Actually I think we did pretty well. The only other things I forgot were plants for the mosaic pots display and that was soon solved by buying some more plants for the garden at the show. Or was that just an unconsciously cunning way for me to justify buying more plants?

A view of the Castle from the front lawn

The show itself was great. Sunny, breezy and beautiful. Lots of people stopping and signing up for classes and taking a real interest in our sculptures. Our spot was on the front lawn of Hatley Castle overlooking the ocean. We all managed to take time off from our booth duties at different times to take in the rest of the show. I even managed a guided tour of the castle with our good friend and writer, Lia, who is also a tour guide at Hatley, giving lots of little known info about the history of this now popular place for shooting movies like XMen 2 and 3. Lia has written three wonderful stories about the feline friends in her life. Watch for a special segment in our blog on these literary gems and how to get them.

Of course, I’m always on the look out for other artists who make art from recycling and I was not disappointed. I just have to share a few of my finds. Unfortunately the first two don’t have web sites yet. I loved the jewelry made by Joyce Bezusko made from bits and pieces of old jewelry she finds in thrift shops and wherever.

Each one is different and unique and many are really playful. She has a bit of a following with some people collecting her one-of -a-kind pieces. She also sells in Hawaii, hence the name of her business Island Girl Originals. Or is that because she lives on our little island? Hmmm. You can reach her at 250-248-0637.

The next was a wonderfully talented seamstress, Renee Morris, from up island in Courtney, who makes these perfect bags with big shoulder straps from scraps of great materials. Her latest designs are made from recycled men’s tweed suit jackets! Amazing bags. Her little business is called Hobo’s and you can reach her at buyhobos@yahoo.com.

Amy's wonderful windows — Wonderful Windows

I loved Amy Houston’s booth with these awesome windows made with recycled glass and bottles and bits and pieces. She is part of a group called Two Glassy Ladies here in Victoria. I checked out their web site when we finally got home and it’s worth a visit for the blog and all the great glass beads they make. The windows are created by Amy’s mom, Elizabeth.

The ladies of Wild Arc — The dedicated ladies at the Wild Arc booth

And I have to share with you the BC SPCA Wild Arc booth where they were selling baskets of flowers to raise money for Wild Arc. This is a great organization who takes care of wild animals injured or orphaned. You can find out more at www.wildarc.com.

So all in all it was a great day. I always get a kick out of the people who come into our booth and are smitten with mosaics. So many admit to saving broken dishes and wishing to make something with them. I just know I’ve met a future mosaic artist.

And now I really have to finish putting away all the stuff that we were too tired to do last night as we crashed with our supper in front of the TV and watched British murder mysteries. This week, I’m planning to do gardening and plant all the goodies I’ve been collecting that are waiting for a home in the garden. Where to grow it all? Ah well another little problem to get creative about.

My latest motto to live by is to have fun everyday. This last weekend, what with a birthday party, garage sailing and doing a craft show I think we managed it.

Abundance in a Recession

Posted on May 1, 2009January 16, 2015 by Helen

Every night the news is full of one word- recession. So many people getting laid off or downsized as they called it in the 90’s when Will got laid off from a very nice job as a Graphic Designer for a big Oil company in Calgary. We’d gotten used to living a comfy life with savings and holidays and money to buy things. It can be hard to make that transition to not having that nice paycheque with the perks thrown in. But luckily, we’d had practice. We were children of the 60’s and were well into being green and recycling even then.

When Will was still in Art College, we had to make a student loan last forever with little kids growing up and needing lots of stuff. I had a little sign on the kitchen wall then. It said “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”. Today I’m not so sure I’d say “do without”. I have found over the years that the world is a pretty abundant place – as long as you don’t mind second hand. We haven’t been in a mall for years. We rarely buy anything new. We find more than everything we need at garage sales and thrift shops. It’s not a hardship, it’s actually a pretty nice way of life. And did I mention really cheap?

The other day I was reading an article in the neighbourhood paper about a couple who had taken a pledge not to buy anything new for a year. I applauded their newfound enthusiasm for being green consumers, but I had to chuckle a bit since it’s something that has been such a part of our lifestyle for so long that it’s just not news to us. It’s just something we’ve done since the art college days.

We look forward to garage sailing season. We’re ready to go by at the latest 9 am Saturday, with our thermoses filled and muffins packed. Part of the fun is finding a great place for a coffee break, in a new park we’ve discovered or by the beach.

We’re very conscious of wasting gas in our little Subaru station wagon. And yup, it’s second hand too, what I like to call pre-dented, so we don’t have to worry about every scratch or mark as we would on a new car.

Last weekend we went to a flea market, one stop shopping. Our favourite is a street sale, when a whole street has a neighborhood garage sale, because it saves gas and we can visit a whole lot of front yards looking for the perfect bargain in one stop. Another way to save gas is to decide from the ads where the most sales are in town and mark out a route, so that we’re not crisscrossing all over. And of course, we always visit the ones that weren’t advertised on the way. You have to keep your eyes peeled for those. Speaking of which, why can’t people make signs with big letters so you can see them as you drive by.

I have a real belief in abundance and that all you have to do is want or need something, and somehow the universe delivers. Call it flakey but it works. Odd things happen. A couple of years ago for instance I decided we needed one of those black barrel composters. A couple of days later, I’m out for a walk and not even a block away there is a black composter and a whole bunch of other good stuff on someone’s front lawn with a “FREE” sign on it. I, of course, wasted no time getting it home. Another time we needed a door for our studio, with a window, preferably steel and practically the first garage sale we went to had the exact thing for $10. We got them down to $5, hey, we’re cheap! The door had been cut down but even that was ok because it was exactly right for the space we had. And it came with the door frame. Perfect!

Don't you love the kischy reindeer? (no I didn't buy it) — Don’t you love the kitschy reindeer? (no I didn’t buy it)

If you want to get a sense of abundance, even in a recession, just start garage sailing or as some say, thrifting. The savings are fantastic, lots of good things that you can really use are even free and hey, everything is getting a second lease on life and not going into the landfill. What could be better? or greener?

Who knows what we’ll find tomorrow?