Windflower ...

Windflowers, their beauty captures every young dreamer,
Who lingers near them,
Ancient Windflowers,
I love you ...

this is a total coincidence that i managed to enter Inspiration Avenue's challenge "hello spring" this week. remember my "byte me" adornment? well, my fren Myza saw it and she loved the concept. she said she wanted to commission me to make a hybrid USB necklace for her too.

Myza and i go a long way. i think i've know her for at least 15 years, maybe more ... and she's a very very good fren who's been there for me thru thick and thin ... erm ... and also, fat and slim :p ... i dun think i could ask for a better fren to share my life with. we danced together, worked together, laughed, fought, slogged and even bought our first home in the same area at the same time. to this day we remain close and often have tea when we send our kids to ballet school ... at the same place :) now that's what i call true friendship.

it was her birthday yesterday ... what better than to give her a gift she wanted :) so i made this USB necklace for her. she's a much more daintier person and definitely more ladylike than i, i thought a more delicate design would suit her better than my humongous scary looking biker dude "byte me" design. and so i came up with this. it still has my trademark rusted washer, a milder version but with prettier shades of oxidization.

i wanted to give this piece a name ... when i look at the piece and think of Myza, 'delicate' comes to mind ... also, sweet and gentle, carefree (the vision of running in the windy field), ornately romantic but not vintage, more of innocence romantic and a little daydreamy nostalgic. immediately the word Windflower came to mind and soon after, the tune from the song Windflowers by Seals & Crofts comes drifting into my head. PERFECTO!

i googled Windflower and found out that it belonged to the buttercup family, is an anemone species and blooms in spring. wallah! isn't it perfect? just like the song, just like the harmony in the song, just like Myza ... perfect ...

can you guess what i am?

i am an assemblage of sorts ...

a rusty washer, a jeans button, a tiny clock gear waiting to take flight

i like to hide in the shadows, waiting to pounce ... or perhaps i'm just waiting for Edward to come "byte" me :)

my maker now has finally made something for herself, a statement piece i am and no doubt will attract many a-conversation for my anti-social owner :p ... she can now resort to just showing me off (instead of using her intelligible sign languages, her 'erms' and 'ahs') when others ask what sort of stuff she makes

HAH!! i bet you never thought i had another function too! i am not just a pretty face you know ...

Yours truly,
Luthien's 16G flashdrive

a new gallery

i haven't been doing much art lately ... or perhaps i've just been doing 'art' of a different sort. this past week has been spent sizing-up Altered Alchemy. yup ... literally sizing-up becos i've added a new gallery and a new profile to it. and in doing so, i have been making some new banners for the different links, a couple of new buttons and a new layout. and yes! i finally got to use the blogger "pages" gadget and it's really quite cool. it's a user friendly way of giving you the opportunity to section up the blog and make it sort of look like a professionally designed website.

i made public my gallery and my profile on friday and was quite delighted by the amount of hits they have so far :)

so if you have the time, please click into my gallery ... you can click on the horizontal tab above to get in or you can click here. and then tell me what you think ok :)

also sneak a peek at my profile ... again you can use the horizontal tab or click here ... this one took me ages to write becos i was trying to write it as if someone else was writing it for me ... you know, in 3rd person narration (yup ... trying to be professional but failed miserably). as predicted it didn't work out and i finally still ended up using "i" ...

anyhow ... i'm quite happy at what i managed to achieve on those new sections with my limited knowledge in HTML and practically zilch knowledge in CSS. at least now i have a more integrated website complete with a profile and a place where people can see photos of my stuff without having to dig them up in my blog. :)

gifts gifts and more gifts!

has it been so long already? UGH!! i 've been down with that dreaded flu and cough and trying very hard not to give it my girls! i already killed one whole pack of 50 surgical masks and goodness knows how many mils of antihistamine, but the cough just won't go away! it just gets worse at night.

now comes the happy news ... woohoo!!! i just wanted to show off the 2 door prizes i won for the OWOH event :) and another mysterious gift which magically appeared on my doorstep yesterday ;)

the first OWOH prize that arrived was this gorgeous digital art by Rian of Freubel-Art which came almost immediately after the announcement of the winners :) isn't this set of 8 vintage beauties just breathtaking? i love the vivid colors and these ladies of old sure know how to set the mood with their expressions. i can so imagine what wonderful stuff i would make with these!!

Rian's blog is full of beautiful digital work, some you can purchase and some are free for the taking. yes ... free! so if you are a lover of digital art, you might wanna give her a visit real soon!

the second gift came last week (or so) ... sometimes i wish i lived nearer! but you know what .. it was worth everyday of the wait. this very beautifully crafted ATC comes from Laura of Artfully Musing. when Laura told me that i won this, i couldn't believe my luck! the ATC depicts autumn, my favorite season that holds many fond memories for me of my UK days.

Laura is not only a wonderfully inspiring artist, she has a big heart as well. on her blog she shares with her readers many tips and tutorials of her art techniques, very informative and so very interesting. she's even made up a segment of "blog of the week" which comes on every Friday and i was one of the lucky ones who got featured :) you can read the post here.

and just when i thought i had received everything that i was expecting ... a package mysteriously appears on my doorstep yesterday morning! my first thought was it's probably some supplies i bought from etsy. upon opening it, my jaw literally fell straight to the ground and i was rooted for a minute!

it was the most generous gift from a friend i met over an online class hosted by Michael deMeng.

YES!!! it's Mr deMeng's book on Rusty Things! woohoo!!! could this get any better?

it was a gift from Anne of El Milagro Studio ... one minute, we were talking over the email and i was like whining that i can't seem to find this book here ... the next minute, WALLAH!! the book magically appears on my doorstep!

*oh ANNE!!! you ROCK! thank you so much for this wonderful gift! *

i told Anne that i will be in her servitude for all eternity!! Anne is an amazing and fascinating assemblage artist! she literally transforms trash to treasure, anchovy tins to shrines! and you know what, Anne actually won a piece of art by Michael deMeng himself. during the online class with Michael, we had a little competition amongst us on colorwashes, and the students were encouraged to submit new colorwash combinations. and Anne's color Crypt Corrosion won hands down! here is the post on the art piece that she won.

ahhh ... i am looking forward to many happy hours pouring thru this fantastic book! perhaps i may come back, or i may forever be lost in the deMengish world of Rusty Things!
so ... Adios Amigos!

drama, dance & music ...

for as long as i can remember, i have always been inclined to the arts. during my younger days, i performed quite a bit. sometimes, we did shows nearly every night. we sang and danced at hotel ballrooms, exhibition sites, discotheques, pubs, clubs ... we did company dinners, weddings, parties, product launches, road tours, etc etc etc ...

yup ... those were the days when "we" were just "i". but as "i" became "we", the shows slowed down ... and when "we" became "us all",well, they stopped altogether. only on special occasions i would "take out my dancing shoes" and do a show or 2. i preferred working behind the scenes, directing the show and choreographing dance.

last week and this, i have been feeling just a little more than nostalgic ... i was cleaning up the laptop and ended up looking thru my photographs from yesteryears. the stage, the lights, the cameras, the costumes, the makeup, the people ... the emotions, all came rushing back to me ... like a movie on rewind.

so for the past few days, i have been reliving my past in my head ... and my craft. i thot it apt that i made a tribute to my long lost friends ... drama, dance & music ...

i also found some images that made me smile ... images of some of the last shows i did ...

this came from a performance we did in December 2007 ... my last real performance on stage. i remember we had quite a huge cast, probably 40 people which consist of dancers, stunt people, dragon dancers, stiltwalkers, fire eaters and such. we did a solid month of rehearsals for this 5-part show.

LOL!! getting all dramatic here as the story unfolds. becos we couldn't find a dancer who could do martial art, Jason (my hubby) who did martial arts in his younger days, was put on stage under duress :p to take the part of the lead male! and i had to revamp the dance movements to cater to his dancing abilities ;) this show was a lot of hard work, but we had a lot of fun too ...

this was a later show in March 2008 for the International World Trade Conference ... that's Luciano, one of the lead dancers ... i directed and choreographed this one, taking just a minute role, only becos it was a hassle hiring one more person just for 30 second appearance!

ahhh ... my boys! pretty cool aren't they? that guy on the bottom left, he's been training with me since he was 19 ... and now, he's a dance choreographer too *smiles proudly*

i hope i haven't bored you guys to death ... i normally wouldn't share these things on this blog, but this time, it felt like therapy for me ... perhaps one day, i would get a chance to don the costumes and the makeup again ... even for just a while ...