2017 Little House Silent Auction

2017 Little House Silent Auction

OffCenter's Albuquirky 2017 Little House Silent Auction will be held this year in Albuquerque at the Sumner & Dene Gallery at 517 Central NW on Friday, May 6 from 5-8pm.  Help fund OffCenter Community Arts Center by coming out to the grand event and purchasing one of the 100+ little houses donated by Albuquerque artists.  The silent auction will be in conjunction with downstairs openings for artists Frank McCulloch and Friends.

My submission to this year's silent auction is a little out of the ordinary for me.  It is titled "Surfer Girl" -- I've never been on a surfboard in my life, but I have lived next to the ocean . . .

You can take a look at my post from last year to see one of the 4x4" "blank" wooden forms provided by OffCenter.  And, if you want to see most of my submission to the Little House Silent Auction over the past years, click on the "Little House" label to the right and all of those posts will come up.

Here we go with this year's submission:

For the 2017 auction, we were limited to a "footprint" of 6" x 6" -- so my 4" x 4" little house sits on a white sand (handmade paper) 6" x 6"base.   I really wanted to have the little surf shack be in white sand, but didn't want to create a mess, and was extremely happy with how well the handmade paper worked!

I roofed the house with pieces of extremely skinny bamboo -- a little over 1/8" diameter pieces.  The window frames and front door are also bamboo.

Each corner of the house is covered with tiny little white shells.  I made a front door mat that has people footprints and kitty foot prints.  (Surfer Girl's kitty is sitting in the shade under the clothesline on another side of the house.

I found a package of really (and I mean really) cute flip flop embellishments.  A pair of purple and blue polka-dot flip flops sit by the front door, and another pair is on the clothesline side of the house.  A pair of sunglasses sits on the windowsill next to the "Hang Loose" front door.

Surfer Girl's clothesline sports two bikinis -- one with a shell bra and a polka dot bikini to coordinate with her palm tree flip flops.

Her surfboard is propped up on the side of the house next to the windowbox, along with a pair of her swim fins.

And, finally - the fairly nondescript back side of the house with a palm growing out of a pile of shells.

2016 Little House

2016 Little House Silent Auction

OffCenter's Albuquirky 2016 Little House Silent Auction will be held this year in Albuquerque at Sumner & Dene Gallery at 517 Central NW on Friday, May 6 from 5-8pm.  Help fund OffCenter Community Arts Center by coming out to the grand event and purchasing one of the 100+ little houses donated by Albuquerque artists.  The silent auction will be in conjunction with downstairs openings for artists Frank McCulloch and Mark Horst.

My 2016 Little House

This year I was faced with the challenge of creating my Little House while recovering from a torn ligament in my left thumb.  Everyone comments to me, "Well, you're right handed, aren't you?"  Yes, but YOU tape your left thumb to the rest of your left hand and try going about your life this way and see what it is like to navigate through life without an opposable thumb!  Buttons, zippers, driving a stick shift, unlocking the front door, etc.

Okay, back to the subject.  After seeing a photo in a magazine of little cabin in the woods, my first inclination was to make a birch bark cabin with a corrugated roof.  And while I'm talking about getting started, I've been asked what one of the "blanks" looks like that OffCenter provides to us artists.  Here's a photo -- it's basically two pieces of scrap 4x4 with a chimney.    

I sat with the idea of a birch bark cabin for a few days and couldn't get real excited about it, so my next thought was that since I love making little houses with button-covered roofs,  (Check out my blog for two of my button-covered roof houses.)  I'd do another button-covered roof house!!  That idea went by the wayside because after four huge garage sales this past summer to downsize and reorganize all the stuff in my studio, I couldn't find my buttons (which have now been found).

So, one morning before getting out of bed (a lot of my ideas come to me either in the morning before I am fully awake or while I am in the shower) the idea for the roof of my little house came to me --  I could use the Italian paper my friend Eric had given me -- "Grafiche Tassotti"-- of vintage Italian tarot cards about the size of dominoes.

  

Yahoo!  I'd get started right away by painting the roof of the house black and the body of the house a cream color, then going on to roofing.

I used strips of 4 tarot cards to create rows of "shingles" for the roof .  I couldn't bear to cut the tarot cards in half to create a normal shingled roof with staggered shingles -- so all you roofers out there who are reading this will know that the courses of shingles are indeed improperly laid.

You'll see the completed roof again in many of the subsequent photos, so I won't add one here.

So, what next???????  What would be the theme of this year's house????  Then the idea came to me -- I'd make a fortune teller's house -- Madame Ruth's house at 34th and Vine in the song "Love Potion No. 9."   

So, off to dig around in the studio and round up materials to start the real work.  

First I added the windows and doors to the house, followed by adding exterior decoration relating to fortune telling.

The front of the house has a door which opens to the interior (showing Madame Ruth's living room), a "Fortune Teller" sign hanging by chains from the eaves of the house, a potted palm, and Madame Ruth's crazy cat guarding the doorway.

The path leading up to the front door of Madame Ruth's house is made from smashed bottlecaps from the Left Hand Brewing Company which are surrounded by little little glass pebbles.  I thought the bottlecaps were perfect to complement the palm-reader aspect of the piece!

The house sits on a 10x10" piece of foam core board covered with "grass" made from green hand-made paper with lots of little natural inclusions.  Crocus pop up here and there in the grass, and Madame Ruth has a wrought iron sign at the outset of her walkway.

If you look into the window on the side of the house on Vine, you'll see Madame Ruth with her crystal ball.  There is an astrological wheel on the gable, and metal snake and skull house decorations.  The red and black trim on the house is some wonderful ribbon I had found in the dollar bin at Michael's a couple years ago.

The back side of the house has a picture window with a neon "Fortune Teller" sign, a metal bird house decoration, and a free standing palm-reader's hand.

The final side of the house has a sun/moon symbol on the gable, a window in which you see a shelf loaded with bottles of Love Potion No. 9, a metal iguana house decoration, and another potted plant.

Madame Ruth's gazing ball is on this side of the house in a rockery created from turquoise stones.  The rockery is surrounded by "logs" made from sliced sticks.  The (marble) gazing ball sits on a pedestal made from an itty bitty black spool.  

The 4th and Vine street signpost is made from a painted dowel stuck in an upside-down little wooden flower pot, with a jewelry finding holding the street signs.

I made a small boo-boo in that I glued down the Fortune Teller sandwich board at the base of the street sign before I added the straps which keep the sandwich board from doing the splits.  My choice was to either forego the straps or fold myself into a very weird position and attach the straps with tweezers.  Being a person who really likes completion, you know what I did.

So, that pretty much describes the entire piece, and here's one final photo showing the entire yard and street sign:

And, one final note: I  need to brag about the fact that this year's project was created entirely from things on hand in my studio -- I bought absolutely nothing new for the project.  

2015 Little House

10th Annual “Albuquirky Little Houses”
Silent Auction Fundraiser Friday, May 1, 2015

5:00 – 8:00 pm 
Held at: Sumner & Dene,
517 Central Ave NW (upstairs)
During Frank McCulloch’s Opening Reception
 

This year's Albuquirky House Tour will be May 2 -- check out the wonderful event at:

http://offcenterarts.org/events/albuquirky-house-tour/

House of Quotes

This year my Little House entry for OffCenter's 10th annual silent auction (see http://offcenterarts.org/little-houses-silent-auction/) is entitled "House of Quotes."   

 

My idea for this year's house was to use a house quotation and a vintage image related to the quote on each of the six basic surfaces. 

Some of the six ideas started with the quote and some of them started with the image.  The first two photos each show you three surfaces of the little house and the remaining six photos are close-ups of each of the six surfaces. 

Many of the embellishments on the house are rusty pieces of metal I've picked up on my daily walks in the North Valley.  Being primarily a paper artist, I usually completely cover my little houses with some sort of decorative paper, but this year I decided to paint the little house and show some of the texture and cracks in the wood.  The basic wood forms are provided by OffCenter -- the base of my house is cut from a wood 4x4" 

 

 

On the smallest side of the house I used the "may your home always be too small" quote -- matched it up with a line up of vintage bathing beauty friends and added a gold milagro -- a small gold house!

 

 

 

On the opposite side of the house I used the "house without books" quote, and added an image of a vintage ABC Book.

On one surface of the roof is the "house of cards" quote -- with three vintage cards.

 

 

The other side of the roof (the side of the roof with a crack!) has the "falling" Irish blessing with the image of a falling man.  I "patched" the crack with one of my found rusty objects.

This is my favorite side of the house -- "A house doesn't become a home until love moves in."  The squarish embellishment is one of the most favorite things I've ever found along the roadways on my daily walks -- it's some sort of a paper gasket!

On the other large side -- I just had to use the vintage image I had found of a tiger cat standing on its head!  Thus the "cat's house" quote.

 

 

My Little House donation to last year's silent auction can be viewed at

http://primarilypaper.blogspot.com/2014/03/2014-little-house.html

 

and my donations for previous years at

 http://primarilypaper.blogspot.com/2013/03/quirky-little-houses.html



2014 Little House

This year the Albuquirky House Tour sponsored by OFFCenter will be held on Saturday, May 3.  For those of you who aren't familiar with OFFCenter, you can read about the center and the house tour at http://offcenterarts.org/  

In connection with the house tour, one of OFFCenter's  main fundraising events -- the Little House Silent Auction -- will be held at the Summer and Dene gallery on Friday evening, May 2.

Here's the description of the Silent Auction from OFFCenter's website:

The Friday night before the Albuquirky House Tour, our "Little Houses" Silent Auction will astound you with the variety of creative approaches over 125 established and emerging artists have taken with the meaning of "home." Artists donating "Little Houses" for past auctions have included Frank McCulloch, Angus MacPherson, Stephanie Lerma, Melody Mock, Maria Moya and more! Come see who will donate a unique, quirky "Little House" this year for you to take home! Will be held at Sumner & Dene Creations in Art during Frank McCulloch’s opening reception for his solo exhibit on First Friday ARTSCrawl. For more info call OFFCenter at (505) 247-1172 or Sumner & Dene at (505) 842-1400.

Each year OFFCenter provides local artists with "blank" little houses made from wood scrap, and each artist decorates/embellishes a house to donate to the fundraising silent auction.  (Artists are not limited to using the blank wood houses and create some amazing and wonderful houses!!)

For the past 5 years or so I have contributed a little house to the silent auction. (My creations from past years can be viewed in my March 27, 2013 blog post.)

This year, my little house started with the idea that I wanted to "side" the house with paper that features old wooden rules.  In my ribbon stash I had some yellow cotton ribbon that looks like the tapes in the metal retractable measuring tapes -- I wanted to use this for the gutters on the house.  And, for a not-so-subtle play on words, I ended up naming this piece "House Rules."

 

 

The attic window is created from tiny little bamboo sticks.

 

I thought maybe I'd roof the house with little wood shingles, but I so loved the button roof on my house from last year, and I have so darn many buttons, I decided to create another button roof.

 

The door on the house is a large rectangular bone link from a bracelet.  The archway above the door  is a broken earring that I found in my junk jewelry stash.

 

 

* * * * *

Three of my co-workers at Papers! also created Little Houses for this year's auction.  I asked each one of them to send me photos of their houses so I could include them in this blog post.

 

First is Madeleine Havas' black and white creation:

 

 

The black paper that Madeleine used to cover her wood form is a handmade paper with embedded strings.  She cut windows into the paper using the lines created by the embedded strings as cutting lines.  Behind the windows she inserted portions of a cotton paper from India that we employees at the store called "Paparazzi Paper" because it had images of faces that could be famous people.  Madeleine said that she wanted the overall impression of the house to be "sinister."

 

Next is Janice Gabel's Little House:

 

 

Janice used one of the smaller forms provided by OffCenter -- the main part of the house is made from a length of a wood 2x2", whereas the two houses above were constructed from 4x4" forms.  Janice is both a calligrapher and member of Albuquerque's book arts group Escribiente, and incorporated both of those talents into her Little House by adding an accordion style book with calligraphy to one side of the house.

 

 

 

Suzanne Marshall made two Little  Houses this year:

 

 

The first house is a collaged  "Skinny House" made on a flat base ( size-wise I would guess this piece is about 8-1/2" x 11").  Definitely a house that could fit into a skinny urban lot! 

 

And Suzanne's second whimsical house was made using another of the small wood 2x2" bases and features a hoe foot and a side 4" fan. 

 

* * * * *

As a postscript to this blog post -- OffCenter just reported that both the House Tour and Little House Auction were huge successes and raised over $11,000 which will go directly toward supporting OffCenter's ongoing community arts programming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quirky Little Houses

When I moved to Albuquerque in 2003, I found it extremely easy to integrate myself into the art scene -- people, contacts and opportunities appeared before me almost as if by magic.  One door opened onto another and another and another and I soon found I was going to have to carefully pick and choose how to spend my time because there were SO many things to do and places to go and shows in which to participate, etc.

One of the first places with which I became connected in Albuquerque was OFFCenter Community Arts Project http://www.offcenterarts.blogspot.com/  http://offcenterarts.org/

OFFCenter's Mission Statement is

We believe in artmaking as central to community building.

You can read more about the Project's vision and mission at  http://offcenterarts.org/vision.htm

Over the years I have taken workshops at OFFCenter, taught workshops at OFFCenter, modeled in wearable art fashion shows at OFFCenter, participated in "regular"  (well, at OFFCenter I guess it could also be considered "irregular") art shows, volunteered at and for OFFCenter, and I have a booth at OFFCenter's annual Folk Art Festival.  Here I am in 2009 at my booth:

One of OFFCenter's major fund-raisers for the past 7 years has been its "Albuquirky House Tour" and "Little Houses Silent Auction.  For the silent auction, artists throughout the community create small pieces of art in the form of quirky little houses.  You can start with a wooden form (usually quite quirky and crooked) supplied by OFFCenter or use anything of your own.  This year the little house auction will take place on May 3 at Sumner & Dene Gallery from 5-8 pm during the First Friday ArtsCrawl and the house tour is May 4 from 11-4pm. 

About this year's house tour:

Take a self-guided house tour of three uniquely artistic, quirky homes in Albuquerque while giving to a great cause. The homes and sculpture gardens part of this year's tour range from a violin maker's shop/home overtaken by story-high dragons, a artist/hair dresser's shop/home laden with murals and mosaics to a multi-media artist/collector's home splashed with colored walls, artwork, mosaics and more!

http://offcenterarts.org/housetour11.htm

Last year over 150 artists participated in the creation of Little Houses and the silent auction raised over $6,000!!!!

I love creating the little houses for the silent auction and have to say that I am quite pleased with my creation for this year's auction.

I picked up a blank wooden form  at OFFcenter -- made from sawed up 4x4's.  I knew exactly what I wanted to make this year, but was initially thwarted by the fact I couldn't find anywhere in my studio the wonderful bag of buttons I wanted to use for roofing tiles. 

So, on to Plan B which was pretty close to Plan A, but in an entirely different color range.  Having just completed a lot of work for the Albuquerque Art Museum's Deco Japan show, I had some leftover yuzen paper, and decided to cover the house itself with yuzen.  I sifted through the many boxes of buttons I have my studio and came up with a nice pile of buttons in the same colors as the paper.

The first two photos show the finished project -- which I call "Blue Button Bungalow" -- paper covered exterior walls, painted gable, and button roofing tiles.

The front door is adorned with a bead doorknob and black/silver moon button, a wind chime hangs from the eaves, a gray cat sits next to the WELCOME mat, and three little pots of flowers grace the front yard.

Below is a close-up shot of the button roof.

And, here are a few of my creations from previous years:

For those of you who are old enough to remember watching the "Rocky and Bullwinkle Show" -- the "Fractured Fairy Tales" portion of the show was my favorite part -- traditional fairy tales with storylines altered and modernized for humorous effect.  So, this "house" was my fractured fairytale version of "The Little Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe" and had so many children, she didn't know what to do. Well, my little old lady knew what to do -- she "donated" some of her children to other famous fairy tale character.  A little twisted, yes.

Here's the poem I wrote to go along with the piece:

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES --
THE OLD LADY WHO LIVED IN A SHOE

There was an old lady who lived in a shoe
She had so many children she decided to get rid of a few.

Two to the shoemaker who despite of himself
Said they‘d be a great addition to his six little elves.

Two more to Cinderella to assist in her chores
Still leaving the old lady with seven children more.

Two to live with Red Riding Hood to help with the load
Of watching out for mean old wolves hiding ‘long the road.

Two to Snow White and the Handsome Prince with The Kiss
In whose loving marriage wee little ones were still amiss.

And two more to Jack with the Beanstalk green
They’d be fine companions and keep his house clean.

And the one that was left was her precious blonde child
Who would someday be a teenager - pregnant, disrespectful and wild.

But in the meantime they’d both live in the shoe
That failed to meet proper zoning, fire safety and off-street
parking regulations.
K. Schweizer
2008

I don't know who bought the house -- but I thought the non-rhyming final line would reel in an architect or city planner with as quirky a sense of humor as my own.
　

And here is my "House of Cards."  This little house is another wooden form -- both sided and roofed with tiny little playing cards from a "thumb deck" I found at one of the local dollar stores.  Each playing card is about 1-1/2" tall.  I happened to be at OFFCenter the night the house was purchased -- I always love seeing my artwork find its home!

And here are photos of my "stick houses" that are put together with twist ties.  I got started making these little guys and just didn't want to stop!

Look for future posts with more of my artwork created for or at OFFCenter!