Limited edition holiday ornaments

I have been busily and happily making a limited edition of 40 Joy Love Angel ornaments. This is my first annual ornament edition and I am enjoying every minute of it!

I begin with text paper from a book of Christmas short stories which I collage over chipboard. Then I make an original ink drawing, each with her own personality, for every ornament. Next I design the word collages, construct the wings, and finish each with a selection of glass, metal or stone beads. My contemporary color palettes include surprising mixes of orange tones, pinks, and aquamarines, frosty blues, elegant black and white, and a range Christmassy greens and reds. 

9/40 Joy side

9/40 Love side

One side of the ornament highlights a flowing, original ink drawing of a woman, a bead nestled at her throat, her delicate, wire, angel wings, the word collage Joy, and a sparkle of gold and crystalline holiday glitter.


The other side features a cluster of colorful beads, the word collage Love, and is finished with a festive dusting of glitter. Each uniquely beautiful ornament is numbered, signed and dated.

I hope you love these as much as I've loved making them. Please pass this on to two friends!

These signed and dated art pieces are made as a limited edition of only 40 ornaments. Each is a unique and original creation.  Now available at Acorn Gallery in Idyllwild, at www.etsy.com/shop/JoannTomscheStudio, or directly from me if you are in Idyllwild.

3/40 Joy side

3/40 Love side

Create joy

Halloween is in two days and here I am working on Christmas ornaments! 

The irony of this will not be lost on anyone who knows my habitual holiday routine. Which is, don't give  much thought to anything holiday-ish until after Thanksgiving, or preferably, after December 1. 

That makes for a short shop, ship, prep, and gift season. Not to mention eating, drinking and merrying!

create joy. text on paper, found rusted wire, glass beads.
backed up by my studio.

I've collected a few special ornaments every year since my 20's, and made some over the years, especially with my kids. Last year one extremely fragile glitter and glue star still remained. Not bad for fifteen years. One year I had the brilliant idea to make wired twig stars with beads with my son's third grade class. It was an explosion of wire and beads, and at least three more parents and the teacher to assist any frustrated little fingers. Haha! The teacher is still my good friend, thank god.

Fast forward to this year. I recently completed an order of word tags for a new retail venue (hurray!) and have been feeling motivated to make more "words" that connect me to holiday and family.

So this year I have decided to start a new art tradition and make limited edition ornaments.

I set to work on many, many sketches, and many prototypes using materials ranging from twigs to broken ceramic tiles, wire and papier mâché. 

I'm happily hard at work on the design I chose, and I will unveil them here soon. Stay tuned.


Meantime, I'd love to hear back from you about your holiday ornament traditions.

Create today

Fall days like this give me energy for creating new things. Today I'll be working on a limited edition holiday ornament design. Angels! Joy! Glitter! Look for it to be posted here soon.

What are you creating today?

Good things happen

My life feels so amazingly different than it did a year ago. Back then, I was working at an office job, feeling underappreciated and bored, but grateful to be supporting myself and my kids. Many mornings I cried as I got ready for my day, longing for work that would nourish my soul.

Then, in January, I wrote out a statement of intention about earning my livelihood in the arts. Within a WEEK, I was offered a part time art teaching position, and within two months, a gallery manager position. Was I nervous about accepting these jobs for which I had limited experience? Yes. But take them both, I did: challenging, fun, soul-nourishing work, with amazing people from whom I would learn so much.

I could never have anticipated the avalanche of great things that has come from taking this path. In the beginning, when I was anxious and somewhat stressed about my new roles, my wise and wonderful friend, Steven, asked "Well, do you like what you're doing?" Me: "Yes". 

His reply: THAT'S WHEN THE GOOD THINGS HAPPEN.

Truly.

Summer

This summer has been a unique experience for me.

I'm managing a gallery, which is really fun and interesting in and of itself. Plus, as the gallery is at an art school with a program of summer classes in the arts, I meet many people engaged in creative activities by choice. What I mean is that they value their experience in the arts so much that they use their resources of vacation time and money to be there. So every day I feel a part of a community that values the arts. This is my tribe. It's exhilarating.

The students I've met are so surprising - retired teachers, property managers, optometrists - all learning, risking and sharing the love of an art form. Then there are the teachers - book makers, potters, metal smiths, painters, printmakers - sharing their craft with warmth and kindness. How great is life!

As I'm in the gallery six days per week, I was concerned that I'd have no time or energy left to make my own art. But to my delight the opposite has proved to be true. I'm energized and inspired nearly every day to create. What a fantastic outcome.

Feeling pretty blessed today.

Hey it's spring!

Go make some art!

Joann Tomsche 3/23/12

the meditative quality of repetition

pile o pears in slanting light

Here I am again recounting my experience of crocheting and stitching as meditative, soothing, healing. Maybe that's why my ancestral women did so much of it. Stitch by tiny stitch, healing the frazzled nerves of motherhood, of busy days on the farm, of stretching small resources. Me, I do it 'cause I love color and fiber and texture and form. Oh, and yes! It soothes my raw edges of working motherhood, of co-parenting, of too damn much to do in too little time. And then I cluster them in the last rays of sun on a barely spring day and I feel "Ahh....delightful!"

Joann Tomsche 3/20/12