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!