Sunrise, recycled furniture/chair, handmade tiles, 19"t x 11.5"w x 11"d, by Tammy Vitale, $125

Drum roll please.  And the winner is……ME!

Yes, I’m the winner because I have such great friends out in cyberspace and they help me so much when I’m trying to figure things out.  Thanks to all who entered into my contest for my 10 second elevator speech. 

I have chosen Sara as the winner of the tile for her entry for my contest – the 10 second elevator speech:  "I’m a sculptor.  I like getting my hands muddy in wet clay, then shaping it into beautiful forms – it’s like making a solid, earthy poem."  Congratulations, Sara.  For the rest of you, Sara is a long time friend who moved away to Michigan several years back.  Our initial friendship was before I worked in clay and while I was still working at poetry.  Sara has since become a regular client of my work, even taking a torso back on the plane to Michigan with her once, on board, all wrapped in bubble wrap.  So she has an overview, and wove a bunch of pieces into that statement that I didn’t even think about.  Thanks, Sara!  Your tile will be out to you this week.  And thanks to everyone else who emailed and/or left statements here.  They were all great!

Yesterday I did get into the studio and make, make, make:  3 torsos.  I plan to do a few more hours today and every day this week.  The other thing high on my list is finding galleries (the make, make, make is so I’ll have work for them when I find them!).  And so, instead of a long blog, I’m going to share a few interesting blogs I’ve come across recently:

Chris Bolmeier Art has a great set of marketing questions on her blog from an interview with Clint Watson.  You’ll learn a lot!

Surfette has a great blog on the media and it’s on-going attack on women, and what we get fed (and, ladies and gents,  we incorporate this stuff if we don’t pay attention to what we’re feeding our subconsciouses). 

Carla Sanders has some great sketches at her post:  Nude Up a Tree.

Enjoy!

thought for the day:  Notice attempts to compartmentalize you:  Are you dependent on a system of reward and punishment for approval?  do the rules and codes of conduct you follow come from a heart-centered space, or are they designed to create a label of "specialness"?  Don’t fight these institutional pressures or even the fact that they exist – simply let go of all attachments to them.  You are not saintly (a good person) because an organization says so, but rather because you stay connected to the divinity of your origination.  You are not intelligent because of a transcript; you are intelligence itself, which needs no external confirmation.  You are not moral because you obey the laws; you are morality itself because you are the same as what you came from….Trust first and foremost in yourself.  Wayne Dyer, Change Your thoughts – Change your Life:  Living the Wisdom of the Tao