Tour de Faux

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I've been posting a lot about my art car this summer and not too much about my art bicycle.  That's just simply because the car is a new venture, but the bike is equally cool if not cooler.  I am constantly adding more to it even though I am running out of room.

This Sunday, the 19th, there's going to be an art bicycle "parade" at the Faux Museum in Old Town, Portland.  The reason I put parade in quotes is because it's the first ever 0 miles parade, meaning nobody is going nowhere.  I guess people will just have to walk around us.  It's probably the hardest parade I've ever been in, ha!

Here are some recent photos of my lovely bicycle that I call the Big Pink.  I have included my Pink Princess helmet in the photos because it's equally as glamorous.

Almost everything I have added to my bicycle came from SCRAP.  The bling on the spokes are file folder tabs, the streamers are used Mylar balloons, fake flowers from SCRAP or free boxes, plastic candle doilies on fenders, plastic swan nut cup, all from SCRAP.  There's a faux moustache hidden in between the two flaming tail pipes that I made out of materials -- everybody -- SCRAP!.

If you have an art bike and live in Portland, Oregon, here are the details for the contest:

TOUR DE FAUX

The Faux Museum, NW 2nd and Davis

10:00am - 12:00pm

The Tour de Faux is a 0.0 mile bike event sponsored by The Faux Museum and taking place at the museum at NW 2nd & Davis in Old Town, on Sunday at 10am. Bicyclist, tricyclist, unicyclist {anything without a motor} will be judged in four categories: 1. Best Bike. 2. Best outfit. 3. Best Helmet 4. Best attitude and Regimen. Prizes will be awarded. $10 entry fee includes picture and spoke card.
CREATIVITY, SPONTANEITY, and OUTRAGEOUSNESS will be rewarded.
  Go to www.thefauxmuseum.com for more details!
Tom Richards, tomthefauxmuseum, The Faux Museum, 206-218-3984

Craft Day with my good friend Sarah Dyer

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My friend, Sarah, went to a small town in Spain last June to work as a teacher's assistant.  She and I were roommates and fellow SCRAPpy crafters and so I was sad to see her go.

She had a blast in Spain and came back home in June only home is where her parents have recently moved to, which is Chattanooga, Tennessee.  When she sent out the email that she was coming to Portland for two weeks, I began planning all of the fun things we would do together.

Sarah is an amazing artist and LOVES to craft.  I knew she would need some craft time since it's a hard thing to do when you have traveled to a new place and left your art supplies at home.  Plus if you don't have a SCRAP nearby, you really are missing out on a great resource.

Today we had a craft reunion and it was awesome.  Sarah made this beautiful refrigerator magnet that has a clothespin so you could attach a note or reminder to it.  Here are some action shots and the final product.

I too worked on a craft that I had been meaning to do for two years now.  It's about time.  I got the instructions from "The Naughty Secretary Club," which is a book on how to make fun jewelry out of reused items.

I first made the necklace without the antique bling, but Sarah convinced me that it needed a little something and so I added the old chain and bangle.

It was so much fun to craft with Sarah.  She and I are a great pair when it comes to crafting because we brainstorm well together and can make our crafts even better with the tiniest sliver of an idea -- not to mention she is so talented.  I love it.

My Crafting BFF!

Repurposed Montana Crafts

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Last weekend I headed to Missoula, Montana for a Bender family reunion.  I hadn't been to a family reunion in 20 years and this is the first one that has ever been in Montana.
It was great to see my relatives and I had a lot of fun.

On Friday we went mining for sapphires.  As we were heading to the mine, we passed the Testicle Festival, which is a festival for eating Rocky Mountain Oysters.  If you don't know what Rocky Mountain Oysters are, you should Google it.
Apparently my cousin, who lives in Missoula, said that she went once and it was quite the spectacle.  Since it's near Sturgis and right around the time of Sturgis the Testicle Festival is populated with a mix of bikers and Montana hippies and probably some folks who are just curious.  She said you really have to go to see what it's like.  We didn't have time for that; next time.

On Saturday, myself and a couple of my cousins went to the various Saturday Markets, all of which are located on South Higgins Avenue.  There are three of them:  one is a farmer's market, strictly food,  few blocks down is a craft and fine arts market where I got this super cool skirt made out of a t-shirt.  I couldn't resist the horses.  The third one is more local foods and crafts, I guess.  I'm actually not sure, but they were all very cool.

On the way home I saw so many billboards that said come check out the "50,000 Silver $ Saloon."  I couldn't resist, plus my cousin told me I should check it out.  It turns out that it has a saloon where the walls are totally covered with vintage silver dollars.  It's pretty cool.  My pictures don't do it justice.

Me and my mom

While perusing the gift shop, I spotted these very interesting bowls and vases made out of rancher's rope, the kind you tie cows up with.  It was old rope that wasn't being used any longer, and since I am a huge advocate of reused products, I couldn't resist.  Actually, my mom bought it for me for being such a nice daughter; aw, thanks, Mom.

Who knew Montana had such cool reused crafts, and I am totally in love with Missoula.  It's like a mini Portland.

Art Car Part 3

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Here's the latest in the art car progress.
I was driving up to my brother's a couple weekends ago and I had the idea that I would let my six-year-old nephew, Warren, draw some of his robots and monsters on the trunk of my car.  He's quite the little illustrator.
He was very excited about the idea.  Here are the action shots and results of his work.  I added a few things, too, because he likes the idea of drawing together.  We had a great time doing this together.

My 1st Flower Mandala Sculpture with Christopher Reitmaier

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My good friend, Christopher Reitmaier, who is an amazing artist, asked me to help him with one of his flower mandala sculptures for the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival.
These sculptures are relatively large and require a fair amount of flowers and since we are both creators of reused materials it was only natural to go the flower warehouse where all the flowers arrive into Portland and dig them out of the trash and give them a new life.
In all fairness, Christopher has done quite a number of these mandalas so he's quite familiar with where to grab these flowers.  I had no idea.  I was his apprentice for this project.

After making a pretty good flower haul, Christopher prepped the flowers and on Friday we both went out to St. John's where Cathedral Park is and got settled in to create the flower sculpture.  I have to say that it was very fun, which I assumed it would be.  Christopher is a very lighthearted, fun fellow and I very much enjoy being around him.
By the way, here is a link to his website.  Please check it out.  http://www.somniative.com/

Here are some of the photos of the progression of the mandala.

Christopher at his finest wearing the beginning of the mandala's centerpiece.

Christopher, the very serious artist wearing one of his amazing pendants that I love!

Mandala in progress.

Christopher adding petals of color on the greenery.  I made him skip.

He's having Way too much fun!

Documentation that I really did help on the project.

Mandala's centerpiece.

The finished mandala.

It took both of us about 3 hours to create this sculpture.  The people at the festival were really pleased and a lot of people told us how beautiful it was.

We left for a while to grab a bit to eat and then I took off to do some errands.
 I came back about 2 hours into the festival and when I looked for the mandala, it was pretty much gone.  There was nothing but bits of flowers and leaves that the children were playing left.  It was unbelievable.
I have no idea how long it lasted into the festival, but I guess the children took a liking to it and destroyed it.  At least they had fun.  Yet just another example of impermanence in the universe.

Hearts,
Bece

Guest Speaker at Camp SCRAP

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Today I get to be a guest speaker for Camp SCRAP, which is a one to two week summer camp for the crafty reuse kids or those that want to learn about crafty reuse. Last year I was asked to be a guest speaker, but was unable to due to my work schedule. I am very excited about this talk.
The speaker theme this year is travel and craft. We are asked to talk about a place we traveled to and maybe made a craft item related to that travel. It turns out that in 2007 I went to China for two weeks.  Before I left for China, I came to the conclusion that I would save all the plastic bags that I acquired to make a quilted plastic bag purse out of them. I figured it would be the ultimate souvenir, and I am pleased to say that it is!
Here are some pictures of the final product, which I made a few years ago:

I traveled to China with the instructor of my Taiji school and 10 of the students in my Taiji class at the time. (I am now studying with a different instructor.) We stayed in Beijing for one of the two weeks to learn a very basic Bagua form from a Bagua master there. The hotel we stayed at was lovely. They provided matches that were slightly longer than normal and so was the matchbox. You may have seen this project from an earlier post, but I made another one of my refrigerator treasure boxes to share with the Camp SCRAP campers.
Here are some images:

 Wish me luck!

Happy 4th of July (a couple days late)

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I decided to celebrate my freedom this 4th of July by adding more fun to my car.
I have come to the conclusion that I need to add the shiny mardi gras type beads to the hood of the car, so I added what few I have.  It will be a major work in progress as I slowly come across those beads, probably at SCRAP.  Who knows, maybe I will come across the mother load one of these days.

The other thing I added to my car was some leopard spots and words.  Yep, just random words that popped into my head.  My neighbors were having a bbq, so sometimes one of their words would filter over to my ears and I would then add it to the car.  I had a great time.  The leopard spots and words took about 4 hours, but I had nothing but time on the 4th of July.

Later, around 10, I met some friends on Mt. Tabor and checked out the fireworks.  It was a pretty sweet view.  You could see Portland's fireworks, just barely see Vancouver's fireworks, Sellwood's fireworks and then all the personal fireworks all going off around the same time.  I loved it.  I will have to remember that for next year.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!!!