{I'm Loving...}: Dorothy Art.

Back in the spring I was casually scrolling through instagram tags (a pasttime of mine) and was on the #choose901 tag to see if there were any fun Memphis things to add and I saw a portrait of my church, Calvary Episcopal. I was instantly in love and followed the user to see what the art was - turns out it was Dorothy Collier's Dorothy Art.

I immediately went to her etsy shop and ordered my own version of Calvary:

Dorothy does lots of different art pieces, including commissioned churches of all sizes using wedding programs or hymns in the background. She also specializes in a "southern" focus - here are my favorites:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/158459509/cow-calf-cattle-farm-moo-mixed-media-on?ref=shop_home_active

http://www.etsy.com/listing/112102414/cotton-boll-oil-painting-on-dixie-land?ref=shop_home_active

I was so pleased with our portrait of Calvary that I decided to surprise my best friend with her own Calvary as she prepares to marry her sweetheart on September 21. Here's Elise with her Dorothy Art:

 Not only are Dorothy's art pieces beautiful but she is an absolute pleasure to work with! She's delightful and goes out of her way for her custom pieces. Dorothy's art can be found several places across town, including at Gild the Lily and Sheffield's Antiques. Dorothy is also featured on Front Porch Art, a fabulous website featuring Memphis artists.

So right now, Dorothy Art is what I'm loving. Go check it out yourself!

In art and culture,

{House}: Art update.

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I got three pieces of art at this year's Cooper Young Festival. The next day I was so excited that I got Jake to let me use his one day off of the week as a work day around the house. We went to Target and got my go-to frames and then came home and hung up the art!

Jake's not going to like this picture but isn't he being so patient and sweet? He listened to where I wanted the pictures and then hung them for me. He also fixed my leg of my new hutch (on the floor in the front of the picture):

And the new art - the Andrea Manard birthday present from Brie:

And the Painted by Holly collages in the corner of the den, across from their Beale Street print sister:

And while I'm sharing, for my birthday Beth gave me the most precious piece of art. It is a blue Ball mason jar painted vibrantly on a piece of reclaimed hardwood floor. And the best part? It is by a Memphis artist that she happened upon in Knoxville. The artist is Beth Meadows - she has an etsy and a website.

Little by little I'm cultivating quite the little collection of art. And I love it.

In being artsy fartsy,

{Memphis}: Cooper Young Festival 2012

It is no secret that I love Memphis. And I love Midtown. And then there's my love of arts and crafts. So when all of these things collide, you get the Cooper Young Festival. Located in one of Midtown's trendiest neighborhoods, Cooper Young Festival is full of hundreds of booths selling art, jewelry, handmade crafts, and more. In addition, there are civic engagement booths, lots of food (and beer!), games for kids, and local musicians. It is a happening place to be and I never miss it!

This year Brie and I went to Cooper Young together (parking at her house makes the festival a little easier, not gonna lie). It was a beautiful day and I snapped some pictures of my favorite booths to share.

The first booth we fell in love with was furniture, frames, and decor made from reclaimed wood. I loved this table below:

And this cooler stand was just so precious.

The booth was from two guys together, Chris of Antebellums and his friend.

The next booth had fun typography prints and artwork. This booth was run by sisters Kristen and Lindsey Archer. Lindsey did all the typography prints and has an etsy site. Kristen did the photography.

After that we stopped by one of my favorite booths from last year, Andrea Manard. For my birthday last year Brie got me a little block print of three owls from her and so it was fun to see her back and check out her new stuff. Andrea uses a lot of maps in her work, which I love. Here's her etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/andreamanard# . I love the sailboat in the bottom left and also a map of Tennessee in the shape of Tennessee she had.

After that we found another favorite from last year, Painted by Holly. Holly does watercolors and portraits and sells her work as originals, prints, notecards, magnets, and bookmarks. Last year I got a print of her Beale Street watercolor and this year Brie and I both fell in love with Holly's collages. Brie got the Midtown collage and I got both the Midtown collage and a UT collage:

We browsed and walked around a lot more and mostly just enjoyed the pretty day and catching up with each other. When I got back home Brie texted me that she snuck back and got me a birthday present so I went back over to check it out - turns out she was sneaky and noticed I loved this Andrea Manard piece below while we were at that booth and so she went back and got it!

I love it so much - love the map, love the quote, love the colors. What a thoughtful friend.

Once I got my art home it was time to hang it up and enjoy my little slice of Memphis.


Just for fun, here's my CYF post from 2011: http://www.makinitinmemphis.com/2011/09/cooper-young-festival.html


In art, friends, and fun,

{Craft This}: Paint Chip Art.

Paint chip artwork is all the rage on Pinterest right now. The premise is simple. Take paint chips from your hardware store and create free artwork. When I blogged back in July about updating our master bedroom, I talked about changing out the art in the gallery frames on our wall. This seemed like the perfect place to try out the paint chip art.

What I did was incredibly simple. I used frames I already had, grabbed several shades of the yellow that I use in my house (a bees-wax or straw yellow), making sure to go way lighter and way darker for contrast, and then started playing.

First I took out the old art - for the small frames this was a dried leaf set. Beamer was helping...
(oh and of course I was on Pinterest at the time - are you surprised?!)

The small frames got a bunting pattern on cream cardstock. I used baker's twine (Martha Stewart brand) and cut the paint chips into triangles. I used two chips of the same color for this one.

If you look closely, the printing on the paint chip is on one of each frame, just giving it a little paint-chip-flair, if there is such a thing.

Then for the larger frames I did an ombre effect, just putting the chips into the frame layered so you could see all three (and making sure that you can see the paint name for that same paint-chip-ness as the others, give it some street cred, ya know?).

So for $0, I got four pieces of crafty-art-ness. (There's a second of the ombre ones).

Now I need to get something done for the middle frames (they are 8X10's) and my wall will be updated!

In free art,

{Memphis}: Billy Moore Folk Art.

I love bright colors, local flavor, and collecting things. All lend themselves well to an obsession with Billy Moore Folk Art. It all started a few years ago when Trolley Stop opened and our friends came home with one of Billy Moore's cotton inspired folk art pieces. We went and got our first piece, which was a house with two red trees on a piece of square wood, and were hooked.

Since then we've gotten two others to add to the collection of square folk art pieces - one of a city scape at the Cooper Young Festival last year and more recently a cotton field with girls dancing that I got at More than Words in Germantown.

I follow Billy on facebook (and you should too) and he recently posted a picture of a painting he was doing for Bryant's to thank them for letting him hang his paintings in the restaurant. Y'all know how we feel about Bryant's in our house - biscuits = life. So when I saw this, I knew I wanted to see if Billy could make one for Jake. He goes there with his bro' buddies on Saturdays and so Bryant's is pretty special to us. Luckily Billy was more than happy to make one for us - it is on canvas and is bigger than our squares we have from him.

We were very excited to pick it up and can't wait to hang it in our house.

Also recently we turned a friend into a Billy Moore disciple. Beth came in town two weekends ago to visit with our college friends and ended up buying three pieces at Trolley Stop:

She blogged about the new art over at her blog here. You can see how she displayed her new pieces.

We also got to see more of Billy Moore's pieces because he had a booth this past weekend at the Music and Hertiage Festival downtown. He seemed to be doing well and I was really digging his stuff, particularly the turquoise house on the window pane in the top left of this picture below and one of his square pieces that had a church and the words "Do Lord Remember Me" (a nod to my church camp love).

So if you want a piece of local art that is unique and colorful, definitely check out Billy Moore. He'll be at the Cooper Young Festival on Saturday, September 15th but you can always visit his facebook site or email him - moorebilly71@yahoo.com .


In supporting local artists,

{Art}:CHB Tinworks.

Like I mentioned in my last post, my friend Charles Houston Beaumont, III has really developed as an artist in the last few years and his business is growing and expanding in big ways. When I was over at his house for dinner the other night I got to see his recent artwork. I took some sub-par pictures to share with the blogosphere because I was so impressed and wanted to spread the word.

CHB has a website, facebook page, and email.

CHB uses reclaimed metal found around for his work and sometimes paints the metal, sometimes presses patterns into tin. The roof tile with the painting of the building is of our main hall at camp, Claiborne Hall, made on an old clay roof tile from the roof they took down this summer when they replaced it.

CHB has been featured on PBS for his artwork and also had an art show at La Maison in Memphis. He does commissions and has pieces for sale - just email him or visit his site (linked above).


In artwork and friends,

One New Year house goal down: art.

I blogged my "house goals" for the year back in early January. The first one was to change out the generic IKEA art work in my dining room. Well, as they say, mission accomplished. One goal down. Scratch that off the list.

It involved a little etsy hunting and a little crafting but I took this:

and made it this:

 Here's our dining room in full (by the way, the color reads really bright in these pictures, it is more of a straw color...):

 So the two switches I made - the first was the three picture frame by the den. I switched it out for this adorable canvas print of San Francisco I found on etsy. I'm pretty obsessed with it. The print is by Laura Amiss and here's her etsy. She does canvas prints (they have felt sewn on!) as well as prints you can frame. I want to grow my collection and have a whole wall of them!!

 The other change I made, I blogged about back here. I replaced the IKEA prints in the Ribba frames from IKEA with a map I cut into three pieces. All the details are in the post linked above, but the total cost of the project was about $15, which was the map+tax.  Here are the map pieces being cut:

And a close up once on the wall (incidentally, that wall color is actually much closer to what it really is):

And now, the view down the side of the dining room with my unique, individual pieces instead of generic but cute IKEA-stuff.

So there it is. Goal One. Dunzo. So glad to add a bit more character to our house. Both of those choices have meaning - the maps for my profession and the canvas print as a nod to our fun family trip to San Fran. I've been getting big on "intentional decorating" and not just throwing stuff in the house.. I think this is a step in the right direction.



In checking things off the goal list,

An Art Mystery.

The other day, my mom and I did a run to Gary's Antiques (Cooper at Central for you locals) for a little treasure hunt. If you've never been to Gary's, my mom describes it best - like a mix of American Pickers and Hoarders in a three room small storefront. Strangely, some things are vastly overpriced, while others are completely underpriced. Part of the fun, I suppose. But I digress...

On this particular trip, I was looking in a box of frames and found a little painting of the sea. My mom took a liking to it and we went to the front where the guy (Gary?) sold it to us for $5.00. My mom went to Michael's and got a frame and mounted it inside the frame. She decided to put it in the boys' bathroom at their house (yes, we have a boys and a girls).

Interestingly, the painting is old (the canvas is made with a wood frame) and signed "Stevens." So my mom decided to google the artist and found out that larger paintings of this Stevens character are selling for upwards of $400-$600.

Now the hunt is on to unearth the identity of the artist. We've done thorough google searches - the ebay listings of the Stevens paintings all list the artist as simply "Stevens" (all with the same signature) and the sellers do not know anything about the paintings. So we've got ourselves a little mystery!

In treasure hunting,

Cooper Young Festival.

We love living in Midtown Memphis for many reasons... and one is the Cooper Young Festival. Cooper-Young is a neighborhood in Memphis that is anchored by the intersection of Cooper and Young, has a slew of awesome restaurants and bars, and has historic homes, many of which have gone under renovation and are gorgeous. 


The festival happens once a year, in September, and is a mix of art, civic engagement, fun, music, and randomness. You're probably going to see at least 50 people you know, you're going to get drawn in by the intoxicating smell of bratwurst, you're probably going to spend some money on crafty goodness, and you'll have fun. 


We managed to get out only $55 the poorer, with two pieces of art, which I consider a victory. We met up with our friend Justine, who got some great things for her sweetie Brie. Here are some of the things I eyed as we walked around the festival....


Saw some cute girl stuff for my friends with kids at this booth, Groovy Gurlz. They are on etsy at www.groovygurlzetsy.com. They had cute VOLS stuff!

 I remembered this booth from last year. Andrea Manard makes her art using mixed media, including maps (my favorite!). I spied these small narrow guitar pieces and thought they were too cute. Andrea has an etsy and a website too - www.andreamanard.etsy.com and www.andreamanard.com

 The next booth I fell in love with was Painted By Holly. Holly Johnson is a young artist that uses watercolors to paint "Southern" things like Memphis scenes, SEC football, cotton, and more. I fell in love with a watercolor of Beale Street and ultimately ended up coming back and making it mine. Holly has a website - www.paintedbyholly.com . 

 The next booth we went to had some different painted pieces. Some were funky, some were more classic. The artist was Cindy Aune. Her website is www.artid.com/cindyaune. I loved this bicycle painting:

 After that we stopped by our favorite artist's booth, Kristi Bauer. She painted the art that is above our fireplace. I blogged about it way back when. Her paintings are mostly landscapes and still life. I love the ones she does where she uses Overton Park as inspiration. Her card says she has a website but I couldn't get it to work, but she does have an email - kristibauerart@yahoo.com. 

Next up was a stop by Billy Moore's tent. Billy Moore has become a local favorite. We first found his art in Trolley Stop Market and thought it was just very unique and fun. We've got one piece by him already and decided to add to the collection. He has an etsy (http://www.etsy.com/shop/billymooreart) but the best way to find him in town is either at Trolley Stop Market or Fino's on Madison. Here are some of his pieces - all painted on wood:

 I really wanted the chicken (rooster??) in the picture above. In the one below, there is a church in the bottom left corner that has a yellow backdrop. The bottom that you can't see is a cotton field. I wanted that one really bad too. But ultimately we chose a different one that I love the most!

 Our last stop of the day was to say hi to a friend from high school. We had run into some of Jake's buddies earlier in the day and they mentioned that their friend, Spencer McLean, had started using reclaimed wood and found items to create art. We stopped by to say hi to him and wound up checking out his pieces. We were very impressed. He has a facebook page with more pictures of his stuff - he does anything from art type pieces to building furniture. I was definitely lusting after more than a few things. 

 We walked around a little more before walking back to our car. We parked at Brie and Justine's house, which was perfect since it was only a block from the festival. And isn't their house precious?

 Once we got home I inspected our spoils... First, here's the Billy Moore one we got:

 I think it is going to go above the one we already have. I really like the one we got for a lot of reasons, one being that it has the same green/yellow background going on with the red trees. Ties it all in. I think we'll have to hang the first one a little closer to the leash holders (dog butts) so it doesn't look too crowded. 

 And here is the watercolor I got from Painted by Holly. I am going to frame it and put it in the front bathroom (which I hear is a place of honor, as most guests will visit it). I'm excited to have a piece of Memphis in the house. 

All in all, it was a successful trip. We lucked out with great weather and great find. 




In loving Midtown,