Getting Gigs from Craigslist- Maia Moms and Vanguard Cycle

I Heart Single Moms....

And All Men are Mothers...

What do single moms and wicked biker modders have in common? They both got to check out my arts and crafts this month! I found these great opportunities on Craiglist and they were both within a week of each other. The insane thing about it is that while they were both small venues open for crafters to set up for free, the demographics that their event brought couldn't have been any more of complete opposites.

It was such a great chance to test out my products with different types of crowds and do some really diverse networking. It was also quite the adventure- I didn't know what to expect, so I just had to jump right in!

The Maia Moms Mother's Day Celebration

That's right... Maia Mom's founder Allison Herrin has a spread in Woman's World magazine!

The Ladies of Maia were very charming and polite. They are a non profit organization that is dedicated to helping single moms get back on their feet. This event was aimed towards fund raising for their cause and to celebrate, of course, Mother's Day.

Fun Fact: "Maia" in greek means "Great Mother." That's how they got their organization's name!

These chicks really seem to be going places. Maia Mom's founder was even a feature Women's World magazine. We even got featured on the local news! I can't find the original broadcast but they wrote an article about it here.

 
The Maia Moms office (which is covered completely in PINK!)  is located in a historical section of Charleston that the city has been renovating for years now. The building has been around since the 40's, going through many transformations until the final form it is in today. I was very impressed with how it turned out, though! It makes me happy to know that a warehouse once used to hold supplies for war is now a host to a variety of artisans, businesses, and charities. Some harmony in this world has been restored.

A quaint tea party for the mothers, organized by Maia Moms. So Cute!

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This event included a number of attractions including a Tea Party area, "Play Dress Up" Photo booth by Shanacott Photography, and a table where kids could make Mother's Day cards. There was also a few other vendors and booths set up, too.

Here's some kids diligently working on their Mother's Day cards. I thought this was a sweet idea for the moms.

11 Countries in 11 months.. are you out of your mind?!?!

One of the vendors that attended the Mother's Day bash was a young woman named Anna Javaux. She was raising her own funds so that she can afford to take an 11 month missionary trip around the world. I think her goal is incredibly brave and ambitious, and I respect a great cause like that. I think the crowd agreed, because these bracelets she was selling were flying off the shelves!

Green Glass Recycled Art by Debbie and Dana Page... man, their set up is the bee's knees! Also, they win the award for most adorable artsy married couple.. teehee.

Gotta love this lime green display set that Green Glass had at the venue! It was very stylish and eye catching. Their products were great-  Debbie and Dana's expertise are in  manipulating recycled materials like old bottles and metals. Their facebook revealed a huge variety of work, but my favorite thing they had at Maia Mom's were all these super cute glass bottle wind chimes. Different styles included bottles with the bottoms cut out as well as slumped bottles and glass rings.

BEHOLD.. MY PILLOWS! Me posing with my creations. Dad was chilling, too. My lovely parents came and visited me at the bash... It was a nice way to spend Mother's Day with my mom and dad. We all got to goto the tea party!

Some new jewelry and my "oldie but goodie" felt keychains.

I was lucky because the Maia Moms had some extra tables for me to use. It gave me a lot more space to spread out my work! I brought along with me a bunch of different recycled t-shirt pillows as well as the rest of my keychains. I also have a few new jewelry projects (pictured right) that I haven't documented on this blog yet! Stay tuned, though. During this event I finally sold the last of my Mustache keychains. A little boy purchased the last one and promptly began walking around holding it up to his face like it was his real mustache. He then went to the bathroom, still decked out in his disguise, so that he could check out how his new 'Stache looked in the mirror... LOL. Seeing people enjoy my artwork brings me so much joy.

The Vanguard Compound Grand Opening

The Vanguard grand opening was definitely a very different event from the Maia Mom's mothers day tea party. I think they replaced all the tea with a bunch of bad ass motorcycles....

Hmm, I don't see any Tea Parties going on at the Vanguard Cycle compound for some reason!

Anyways, Vanguard Cycle, from what I can gather, does customizations for motorcycles. If I'm wrong you'll have to forgive me, I am not very well versed in the cycling world! That's why this free venue was the perfect opportunity for me to test out my products on a completely unknown demographic. Plus, we were all celebrating the opening of Vanguard Cycle's new compound, which apparently required much blood, sweat and tears to obtain. Congratulations on your success, guys. They had a huge area to work with that was right on the Lowcountry's coast- it was quite a beautiful view.

They had live concerts in the evening but during the day they had a bunch of really cool artists and craftsmen showing off their work! 

This guy made his own candles. I loved the variety of different shapes the candles came in- everything from Easter Island heads to piles of skulls. He also hand carved some of his candle molds, including the gargoyles displayed in this picture. What an interesting craft to get into!

The guys of Bad Monkey Motorworks were super friendly, despite their somewhat frightening but hilarious"mascot" which was an evil Tellitubbie... with a switch blade.

LOL.. this is awful. "We've had this guy for a few
years. We've put him through a lot." Jokingly says the
Bad Monkey guy.  No Kidding!

Free stickers! I love free stickers! This is going right in the collection... Thanks, Bad Monkey!

An awesomely bizarre piece by Ashley Burton.

Ashley Burton's art- it actually had real pills glued onto the surface.

A lot of daring contemporary artists showed up at the event, including mixed media artist Ashley Burton. She's very talented when it comes to making surrealistic works of art! I especially liked this painting that incorporated pills on the canvas. That must've taken forever to complete!

Close Up on another Ashley Burton piece with crazy eye ball flowers.

Ashley Burton and her partner in crime. Keep on creating, Ash!

I think my favorite work at this show came from surreal artist Cyndi Deery. She is an incredibly nice person with such a plethora of cool art! I wish I would've gotten more pictures of her work, but a lot of them came out blurry. Guess that means you'll just have to check out her Twitter page! ;)

Some hipsters hanging out and selling art. You can tell they're hipsters because of that Pabst Blue Ribbon box hiding under the table.... you're not fooling me with your elaborate disguises!

In addition, artist Ashley Hardwood was there selling these intriguing sea urchin ornaments. How incredibly delicate and beautiful these little things are!

 

Seth Van Guard and his team catered the event. They provided some really tasty BBQ platters and good ol' fashioned hamburgers and hotdogs. These guys were working really hard, and their tasty food was proof!

Finally, a picture of me and my set up! This time I didn't have any extra large tables, so my set up was a lot more smaller and compact. I only took out a select amount of pillows instead of the whole brood. My friends Racheal and Patrick (pictured left) helped me set up my tables!

Racheal is also a very talented artist. She did this drawing of a skeleton on canvas.. isn't it just wild? It got a lot of attention at the show. She also had some crafty ornaments made from recycled beer coasters! I'm glad that my friends came with me, they brought a lot of variety to the table.

Now it is time for me to ride off into the sunset.......

What I discovered at these two venues, that while the venues were both radically different, the people that attended were equally as nice.  All in all, it was a great learning experience that required relatively low risk to undertake. Maia Moms simply asked for a donation to their charity, which wasn't hard to do because the cause is good, and the Vanguard Compound asked for no commission whatsoever!

 These kind of events are happening all the time, but it is up to you to find them in your area. As I stated before, both Maia Moms and Vanguard were discovered simply by browsing a few local categories on Craigslist. There are also countless opportunities on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Just take a closer look at your favorite social sites. You will be surprised at how many opportunities are out there for a fledgling artist to cut their teeth on. And they're easy to get involved with- all it took was a few back and fourth e-mails and a decent portfolio (or an artsy blog like me ;P)

Go out there and show the world your art! It is such a rewarding experience.

From Now On In......

From Now On In- Art at the edge of extinction

'Tis the season for shows! I've been to three already this summer! More info on those to come.. but for now, I'm busy preparing for the next Phillip Hyman show. Hope to see some friendly faces show up! You guys like the promo poster I whipped up? ;)

Wreck This Journal Part Four

WRECK THIS JOURNAL 4 - THE RECKONING

That's what this blog post would be called if it were made into a movie... of course you'd have to watch the first, second and third installation before you could watch this one. Otherwise you'd totally have no idea what was going on with the plot. But the good thing about sequels is that they always add in some sort of surprise element to keep the story spicy. In this case, we have a surprise walk on role from my Wreck This Journal's clean cut, long lost brother. 

See for yourself the ridiculous differences between these two books...

Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal- Before and After

I recently purchased a brand new WTJ as a gift to one of my artist friends. I couldn't help but take some pictures comparing the two books. It's hard to believe that they are the same.. actually, the new one has more pages inside than mine does. Kinda hard to tell from the pictures, I know.

Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal - Before and After from the side.
Here's a picture comparing the thickness of a new Wreck this Journal compared to my totally wrecked copy. This is where their differences become real obvious. Since I began working on it, this book has doubled in size.

So what else is new with my journal? Lots of new pages, but the old ones are still changing all the time...

The main thing that has happened to the journal lately is that it is completely falling apart! The covers are peeling off. The book itself has also breaking up into two equal halves. I think the only thing holding the two pieces together are some little threads of paper.

Wreck This Journal- Table of Contents

  I'm still using my home-made table of contents page... I've began crossing out page numbers that are 100% complete. It seems like I still have a lot of pages left, but I try to keep in mind that a lot of those pages are very close to being finished. Makes things seem less daunting if I think about it that way, at least!

"Press leaves and other found things"

Some may remember this page from previous blog posts, it is covered in rose petals. Like the changing of the seasons, the petals have almost all completely transformed from a vibrant red color to dull brown. Still, this has to be one of my most unexpectedly favorite pages in my journal.






It's been quite the challenge trying to fill up every single page of the Wreck this Journal. To combat all of that empty space, I've been doing all sorts of little doodles in my WTJ lately, including these pages:

"Scribble Wildly with Reckless Abandon" So I drew a portrait of Lana Del Rey... I'm going through a phase, I think!

"Do some rubbings with a pencil" I think I waited too long to do this page. By the time I got to doing the rubbings, the paper was so worn down by being so wrecked that any of the rubbings that were there barely showed up! So, naturally, I drew a big fat fly's head over all of the mistakes.

Kind of a weird page- "Chew on This"... The freaky lips and tongue are loosely based off the infamous "Open up and say Ahh!" Poison album cover. Also, suddenly maggots!

"Tongue Painting" Okay, I kind of went crazy with this page. It all started with some sticky transparency paper and a sharpie. I drew the strange dancing figure ladies and layered them on. After that, more and more colored pencils and markers. And some lips. And some Eskimos. Like I said, this page went crazy.

"Tie a String and Swing Wildly" I admit that I never did work up the bravery to tie a string around my journal and swing it against things. However I'm sure it's been thrown and abused enough to make up for that teeny tiny factoid. Since my last update on this page, I've added color...it kind of reminds me of some sort of weird jungle now.

Out of everything that has been inflicted on this journal, time has effected it the most. This page is the ultimate tattoo cover up- I drew over the original drawing on this "Ugly Drawing" WTJ page because I have since let go of those frustrations and replaced it with two pieces of poop.

"Pretend you're doodling while on the phone"

There are a lot of pages like this in my book- half finished. I think the biggest challenge of the Wreck This Journal would definitely have to be commitment. To fill each page back and front is no easy task... it's almost like you have to rewrite the book entirely. But there's no time limit, so I feel encouraged to work only when I want to. And sometimes that means I sit my journal down for long periods of time before I get back into it again.

"Test This Page" For Science, of course.

Still haven't done anything with this page besides color it, but I have to note it is the "last thread" keeping this book from splitting apart. "Sew This Page" seems more like a command than an instruction now!

"Wrap something with this page" - Instead of wrapping up something in this page (which would be weird because the paper is tiny) I went ahead and made it into a cool bat person themed pocket holder. The pocket contains a napkin from Medieval Times, personal notes, stickers and other random things.

"Cover This Page with white things" - A very interesting but tough challenge...  it's like having to draw a picture entirely with a white crayon! But somehow, it works. I love how everything is "white" but all in a different shade.

"Make a Mess. Clean it up."

A page that I was shying away from until a random person finally marked it up with their drawing of a toilet, scribbling on the rest of the page for flair.  For some reason the scribbles reminded me of tangled threads, so I glued in a big ball of thread trimmings that I snipped off of my Frankenquilt. I was feeling extra reflective that day so I entangled little strips of paper in the threads that are tiny secret "personal messes." I work on those messes one pile at a time.

"Page of Good Thoughts"

Atta Boy!

One day, I was given all of these really weird / old encouraging Disney stickers, so I thought the best way to utilize these guys would be on the good thoughts page. Because Disney characters are always so overwhelmingly positive all the time. I didn't think the page was quite finished until I drew all over it with some markers and colored pencils, though.

"Write Carelessly. Now."

 It took me a long time to fill up this page! I thought it would be a quick and easy one, but I ended up going back on several different occasions to "write carelessly." It became kind of addicting after a while, though. You get an overwhelming sense of freedom from writing random trains of thought.





Working on certain pages can unexpectedly effect others... most of the time in an awesomely cool way. For example, these pages were so raw that they wrecked other pages in the process:

"Cut Through Several Layers" I didn't like the job I did the slack job I did the first time, so I got my X-Acto blade and took it to the extreme.

"Infuse this Page with a smell" - The nose approved of the sweet perfume scent that once permeated off this page... if you sniff really hard, you can still smell a little hint of it! I like the way the cut diamonds have created an interesting pattern on this page and still somehow managed to not cut any of the words or drawing off.

"Create a Nonstop Line" - Challenge accepted.
I created a really complex nonstop maze and colored in the sides with Sharpie marker.

"A Space for Negative Comments"- This is a collaborative drawing between me and my boyfriend. He drew the strange spider guy and I colored him in... then, accidentally bled the nonstop line maze all over it. Fortunately, the maze kind of fit around the drawing in an interesting manner. Very surreal little drawing.

By the way, if you recall from my very first Wreck This Journal post, my friend Tiffany had gotten into wrecking spirit as well. Tiff has been super busy with being awesome at school but between the craziness of finals and college life she has still managed to find time for her journal. She worked on a few new pages that I'd like to share!

"Throw Something at the Journal" I could never quite figure out what I should use as a "ball dipped in paint" without ruining a perfectly good ball but it seems that Tiff has figured it out. Whoppers make perfect disposable paint covered ball missiles!

"Fill This Page with Circles" - I love all the googly eyes, so cute! I also like how she utilized round containers of all different sizes as colorful paint rings.

"Page for Four Letter Words"

"Add your own Page Numbers"

Two new additional pages to Tiffany's WTJ.  I just want to point out her first four letter words that came to mind were "Poop" "Turd" and "Fart"... I like your style Tiff, very "artsy fartsy" of you Lol.

Probably my favorite page by Tiffany so far, "Write One Word Over and Over." It's so colorful and nice looking!

The most important thing to remember about working in a Wreck this Journal is that you just have to keep with it. Even if you put the journal down for a whole year or something, that doesn't mean it's no good anymore and that you aren't allowed to work on it again.  There aren't any rules..The book is a symbol for being able to live your life how you want to!

In conclusion, I guess I have to say that I can't say exactly how long I'll be working on my Wreck This Journal before I consider it finished. I know it seems a little extreme to try to fill up all the pages, but seriously, how many people have actually been able to complete this challenge? It would be an honor to be a part of that club, so expect more updates on new finished pages from my WTJ in the future. I'm in it for the long haul.

The only thing that can stop me is the book itself... it's falling apart at an accelerated rate at this point!

I leave you with a few things to think about...
Firstly, does anyone have any suggestions on how I can put this book back together again? I was going to try to sew it but I'm not sure, especially if there's another option that would be more heavy duty and long term.

Also, I invite anyone that has done a few pages of their WTJ to definitely share their work! I love seeing fresh inspiration. Just drop off a link to your blog or directly to the images in the comments section. It's very interesting to see how people all interpret the pages differently and also the rationale behind their process.
 
As always, happy wrecking everyone!

My Journey With Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal 

1) The Beginning.....

2) WTJ Part Two

3) WTJ Part Three - Vengeance 

4) WTJ Part Four - The Reckoning

5) WTJ Part Five - Return of the Journal (Final)