One look at these silly characters explains why Laurie Hardin insists her job doesn't feel like work

Here is an article about one of the artists that I follow closely.  I love her work and find her ability to be so creatively productive envious.  She has a definite look to her work and I find her dolls to be both pleasing to look at as well as cheerful and fun.

Please read this article about Laurie Hardin, she is being featured in her local paper, but I think she deserves more exposure than just local exposure.  I am sure you will agree with me that her work is delightful!
You can visit the original work here>>
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Photo by: Sarah Mulder, Kearney Hub
Laurie Hardin paints details on a Halloween figurine. Hardin first saw the idea of Halloween figurines while watching HGTV.

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Posted: Saturday, October 31, 2009 9:30 am | Updated: 8:11 am, Tue Nov 3, 2009.

By SARAH MULDER Hub Staff Writer | 0 comments

KEARNEY - When Laurie Hardin was brainstorming names for her studio, she didn't have to look very far for inspiration - it was lying right on her studio table.
Hardin's two youngest cats always find a place to carefully walk, lay, play and even get a drink of water on her studio table. Hardin refers to them as her "studio boys," while her husband, Kelly, referred to them as "monkey boys" when they were little because their tails were, and still are, extremely long.
"When I was going to come up with a name and they kept being on my studio table, it just stuck," Hardin said.
Among the paintbushes, paint and figurines on the studio table is a container, once used to clean paintbrushes, with fresh water for the cats to drink. The cats' food, water and toy bowls are tucked safely underneath her table. They even have a special chair to jump onto when trying to get on Hardin's work area.
Hardin's Monkey-Cats Studio features hand-painted and hand-sculpted figurines inspired mostly by Hardin's favorite holiday, Halloween.
"Some people do really dark things, but mine are a bit more whimsical," she said.
Hardin said she saw the idea to make sculpted Halloween figures while watching HGTV one afternoon.
"What I started doing is making my own Halloween figures," she said, noting her initial goal was to make a shelf full of figures for herself.
Hardin admits the first figures she made were disastrous.
After she found a clay she liked that looked like old-style papier-mache, she started showing the figures to her friends.
And then she taught some classes on how to make them.
Then she sold some figurines at a craft show two years ago.
Now, she is in her fourth year of making figurines and recently took 62 pieces to a Halloween show in California called Halloween and Vine. She came home with only seven pieces.
"Halloween and Vine was huge for me," she said. Hardin even had to turn down orders for figurines because she is already about a dozen orders deep.
Before making figurines full time, Hardin, who has bachelor's and master's degrees in art, worked full time. She told her husband she wanted to paint landscapes full time for one summer.
During that summer, she received a couple commissioned pieces, and when she was done, she told her husband she would find work. But instead, she started selling her pieces at craft shows.
She said about a year ago, she realized she could make a living off her artwork.
"It's just been a wonderful thing. I've been so happy doing it," she said.
Hardin said she gets her ideas for figurines through drawings in her sketchbooks.
"I don't ever have a problem with ideas," she said. "Every time I run out of ideas, I just flip through these."
After picking out a figurine to create from her sketchbooks, she mixes clay, which she orders in 25-pound boxes, and works it by pinching or rolling it out. She covers a styrofoam figure with the clay, adds wooden dowels for legs and lets it air dry for about a week. Hardin said it usually takes her about eight hours to sculpt the figure.
After the clay is firm, she primes and paints the object, sometimes putting on eight to 10 coats of paint.
"My surfaces are never one coat of paint," she said. "I like what it does to the surface."
Hardin likes the fine details on her figures, all the way down to sharp points on the stars.
"I will go through paintbrushes like crazy," she laughed. Poking out of a large container on her studio table are new high-detail brushes. Any time those paintbrushes are on sale, she said, she picks up a bunch.
Hardin said she has about four return Kearney customers for the figurines, with more customers in Omaha and Lincoln.
However, almost everything she makes goes out of state. She ships many figurines to California or the East Coast.
"I didn't know when I first started that there were serious, serious, one-of-a-kind collectors," she said, noting a lady in Pennsylvania has more than 20 figurines.
In addition to craft shows, Hardin also sells the figurines through an online market place called SpookyTime Jingles and through eBay auctions.
Hardin also creates figurines for other holidays, but most have a Halloween twist.
"Even my snowmen kind of look Halloween-ish. I don't do that on purpose," she laughed.
Hardin said she will make about 130-140 figures this year and sells about six pieces per month.
"I just feel blessed to be able to do this. It doesn't feel like work," she said. "This is what I need to be doing."
e-mail to:
sarah.mulder@kearneyhub.com

Weaver stretches creative repertoire with dolls

 This is an article I found that talks about how this retired teacher went about becoming a doll maker.

I found her methods very interesting as I never really thought of the process one goes through to be creative and to make art dolls.

After reading the following article and looking at the pictures, I will have to try her method.  Maybe that will be the way I can jump-start my creative abilities.  I have always enjoyed being a student and learning, so her method may just work.

What do you think?

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 Detail-driven

CHIEFTAIN PHOTOS/JOHN JAQUES -- The intricately beaded face of one of Anzlovar's dolls is shown in this close-up.

Anzlovar's small dolls and pins as well as her large art dolls will be for sale at the 25th annual Handwoven Holiday Sale.

CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/JOHN JAQUES -- Angela Sue McDowny, one of Anzlovar's dolls, is posed in the kitchen of her home.

This long-limbed doll, with body made from hand-woven fabrics, is one of Anzlovar's creations.

Janet Anzlovar shows a doll she's finishing. The doll's dress was sewn patchwork-style from fabric woven by Anzlovar.

By MARY JEAN PORTER
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

Method meets creativity and whimsy in this weaver's art dolls.

Big-eyed and soft-bodied, the dolls made by Janet Anzlovar are detailed masterpieces - of weaving, sewing, embroidering, beading and more.

Anzlovar, who's retired from a long career of teaching in District 70, says she approached doll-making like she did teaching.

"I enjoyed making learning units when I was teaching, so I made one outlining what I would do to be a doll-maker. I set my goals, I listed activities like taking classes and joining a doll club, I listed the resources I'd use.

"I'd take two years out, travel around, read books, meet people," she says. "I would learn to make the dolls in conventional fabric, then apply what I learned to hand-woven fabric. I really did take an academic approach. I wanted to do it right." Anzlovar already was a master weaver with more than three decades of experience when she decided about four years ago to start making dolls. She says she was interested in them but wasn't a collector.

"I had one doll, Susie, as a child. I got married and left her behind but my mother gave her to me some years back. I love her dearly - she's in my weaving room."

From one doll, she's graduated to many, nearly all of them with bodies and clothing made from fabric she's woven. Their faces are hand-drawn with colored pencils, pens and chalk. They have yarn hair and finely embellished garments. They are small and large, they have names and they have pedigrees in the detailed notes and drawings Anzlovar makes as she creates them.

"I make mainly art dolls, though I have made some children's dolls that can

be played with."

Anzlovar says she's a "detail person."

"I love color. Making these dolls has been an outlet for my weaving. I give a lot away, I sell some, I keep some."

She mentions Leslie Molen of Denver and Lauren Vlcek of Colorado Springs as mentors, and says her husband Jim has been a big help: He builds props for her doll presentations, offers constructive critiques and lets her "bounce ideas off him."

Anzlovar has taken doll-making classes in many places and now has started teaching them herself. She's been invited back to New York to teach a class in making hats for dolls. After that she wants to try making dolls from clay and from woven wire.

"Doll-makers are like weavers in that they are very creative, very giving, very friendly people," Anzlovar says.

Janet Anzlovar's art dolls will be among the hand-woven goods, pottery, jewelry and Christmas ornaments offered for sale at the 25th annual Handwoven Holiday Sale, sponsored by Handweavers Guild of Pueblo, which runs Friday through Nov. 14 at the Historic Vail Hotel, 217 S. Grand Ave. Sale hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Guest artists will be Jill Larkin and Frank Grey. For more information, call 561-3762 or e-mail

weaversguild@gmail.com.

maryp@chieftain.com

You can visit the original site of this article here 

Alternative medicine in the mainstream?

Image by Wonderlane via Flickr

 As a psychiatric nurse for the last 20 or so years, I have been an advocate of alternative medicine as well.  I have always believed that we must try to do for ourselves as much as we can before we seek professional help.  I believe that through proper and adequate nutrition and supplementation most chronic medical conditions can be averted altogether or can be halted in their progression. I also believe that herbs and acupuncture can play an important part in keeping the body healthy.

To be very clear here, I believe that if all you have done to stay healthy fails, I do believe you should see your doctor.  Never ignore symptoms of illness.  Use of alternative or complementary medicine should be used for maintaining health.  

So, on that note, I have an article below that I found to be quite interesting.  I hope you will read it and then give this issue some thought.  Tell me what you think.

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More Med Schools Are Teaching Alternative Medicine

Submitted by Tyler Woods Ph.D. on Nov 2nd, 2009

Ten years have gone by and $2.5 billion have been done in research, yet it all comes down to scientists, doctors and researchers have really found no cures from alternative medicine. Still, these mostly unproven modalities and treatments are mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans and more med schools are teaching alternative medicine.
The government has spent more than $22 million to help medical and nursing schools start teaching about alternative medicine. Critics tend to be upset because they feel lesson plans are biased toward unproven remedies. These critics are also upset that more tax money is being spent to train more young doctors to do research in this field, which will launch some of thee bright young doctors into careers as alternative medicine providers.
Doctors need to know about popular remedies so they can discuss them non-judgmentally and give competent advice, the government says, and many universities and medical groups agree. "Patients are using these things" whether doctors think they should or should not, and safety is a big concern, said Dr. Victor Sierpina, an acupuncturist at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Still some critics say it is like teaching “Harry Potter medicine.” Students are being asked to close their eyes to science principles that guide the rest of their training in order to keep an open mind about pseudoscience, they say. Still, it is not stopping med schools from teaching alternative medicine.
One of the largest and well known schools is The University of Arizona's Center for Integrative Medicine. Currently it has medical residency programs in hospitals around the country and is partly sponsored by well-known advocate Dr. Andrew Weil, the center's founder. The Bravewell Collaborative which is a private group promotes such care and offers scholarships for many of the Arizona school's students to get hands-on training in integrative care clinics.
The University of Minnesota offers medical students an elective course in alternative healing methods at a Hawaiian medical center and students raved about things they had tried firsthand, and said they returned more willing to recommend acupuncture, meditation, yoga, herbal remedies and other nontraditional care.
"Consumers are demanding it" and more research is needed to see what works, said Mary Jo Kreitzer, who directs the Minnesota school's alternative medicine curriculum. "Ultimately we need to align policy" so that insurers pay for these therapies” ,
Georgetown University started the nation's first graduate degree program in complementary and alternative medicine and they strive for objectivity, said the program's director, Hakima Amri. She stated the goal is "to train a new generation of open-minded but critical physicians or scientists."
Written by Tyler Woods Ph.D.
Tucson, Arizona
Exclusive to eMaxHealth

Source: 

Associated Press, ABC News 

 

On the net:

• Medical school group: http://www.imconsortium.org/cahcim/about/home.html

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Art Dolls 101

Our new member in the spotlight this morning is Anna Zueva,a professional doll artist who lives in Perm city, Russia. Anna's dolls are so enchanting and whimsical, with such delightful characters, that I know you'll want to see more then the peek you'll get here. So for more of her art dolls; visit her Etsy shop, her blog, or her amazing website! Welcome to the ADO team Anna!



As I mentioned before, I have become fascinated by the world of Art Dolls.  I am amazed at the myriad forms these dolls take.  The methods, the styles, the subject matter of these works of art never ceases to impress me.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Art Dolls, I really would suggest that you visit Much ADO about Art Dolls  and familiarize yourself with all the artists and their styles.  I am getting to where I can identify the artist just by looking at the dolls, so I know I am getting better in my knowledge of this community.

There is another site you could visit to see the works of various artists as they apply to holidays.  This site, American Holiday Artists, showcases dolls that were designed with different holidays in mind.

I frequently visit art doll blogs, so I encourage you to check out the other sites listed in the blogrolls on these sites.  Over time, I have developed favorites--some of them I have showcased here before.  I wish I had the money help support these wonderful artists, not to mention collecting a wonderful assortment of beautiful art dolls.

More about Christmas

Image via Wikipedia

I have never been a Christmas person.  As a matter of fact, Christmas has always been my least favorite holidays.  I don't like getting surprise gifts and I hate shopping.  I used to be able to enjoy the season when my girls were small by decorating and holiday crafting, but not so much anymore.

One year I made each girl a handmade stocking and decorated each one with beads and sequins and hand-made appliques made out of felt.  I really enjoyed the work, but now I don't even think they know where those stockings are.

Another thing I used to do was make bread-dough tree ornaments.  I would start making them in October and have enough to hang on the tree for Christmas.  The girls loved to "help" when they were small , but by the teenage years that too went by the side of the road.

So, here I am now, middle-aged and facing Christmas.  My grandsons are teenagers so they are not into crafting or decorating.  All they want is money or games; maybe even clothes--if they are cool.  Christmas is just another day.  Usually, I choose to work that day and let those with families take the day off. This year, I think that will be what I will be doing also.

I have begun thinking about shopping for gifts, however, which is very unusual for me.  With the advent of online shopping, I find the task not quite as bad.  I don't mind buying gifts, but I love that they wrap and deliver to the receiver.  No mess, no worry.  The only thing to remember is to shop early enough that the gifts arrive in time.

Anyone else with a similar story?  I'd love to hear some of your stories about Christmas past, present, and future.

Here are the thoughts I am having about gifts this year:

For my sister who is always getting lost--a GPS navigator to use in the car.
For my youngest grandson who loves to play games and be online--a netbook computer of his own.
For the oldest grandson who is a real gamer--a Wii gaming system
For both my daughters, each a veteran reader and traveler--a Kindle Reader
For myself, who works online and loves to watch my grandsons--a camcorder

Wow, that was so easy.  Now all I have to do is find the money and get busy ordering!! This is the way to have Christmas!

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Is anyone ready for Christmas?

Image by Tvlip via Flickr

Halloween will soon be a memory and Thanksgiving will be here before you know it.  With that in mind, has anyone else been thinking about getting ready for Christmas.  I know that the retailers are all trying to do their best to remind us of the imminent arrival of the HOLIDAYS--Halloween candy and costumes hanging side-by-side with Santas and Turkeys.  I sometimes don't remember what is the next holiday anymore.

I have just started buying my gifts and already I am having trouble.  Don't you know people that have everything and you have to buy them a present?  That describes my children who simply go and buy whatever they want right when they want it!  Whatever happened to delayed gratification, or working for something you want?

That particular mind-set makes gift giving a nightmare.  Usually, by the time Christmas rolls around I have simply given up and I just give money.  That seems so wrong, but what else do you do?

Is anyone else having these issues or am I all alone here?

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Vitamin D in the news. What do you think?

 

 I have been reading, both online and in print, about all the possible problems that can develop from a low level of Vitamin D.  As a nurse, I am interested because I believe that we need to do everything we can to maintain and keep good health instead of relying on the health care system.  As a proponent of natural and holistic medicine myself, I firmly believe that additional vitamins are a necessity if you are to have a strong body and mind.  

The problem I find myself having is this--there is so much hype in the mainstream news today about Vitamin D and all the myriad diseases it can prevent and even I become skeptical.  First of all, vitamin D is not really a vitamin at all but rather a precursor hormone.  Hormones are involved in every process of the human body, so I am sure that a deficiency in a specific substance could lead to many and different sources of ill health due to the breakdown of the natural processes of the body.  Beyond that, I still need convincing.  Although I have been taking Vitamin D supplements for some time, I am not quite convinced that Vitamin D is the "magic bullet" for good health and long life.

Below I have included just one of the many articles I find daily about this subject.  Feel free to read the article and comment.  Why not read it and come back here to comment?  

Try this link for more information...

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 Health Buzz: 1 in 5 Youngsters Lacking in Vitamin D and Other Health News

By Megan Johnson

Posted October 26, 2009

Study Finds 1 in 5 Youngsters Lacking in Vitamin D

A new study finds that about 20 percent of U.S. children between ages 1 and 11 aren't getting enough vitamin D, the Associated Press reports. Researchers looked at vitamin D blood levels in almost 3,000 children recorded between 2001 and 2006. The researchers also applied a higher cutoff for deficiency that showed close to 90 percent of black children and 80 percent of Hispanic children may be vitamin D deficient, according to the AP. Earlier research has suggested a link between vitamin D deficiency in kids and health problems such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol and has also shown that many U.S. teens are lacking enough of the nutrient. Health professionals do not have a single set of guidelines to determine the level at which a child is considered deficient, the AP reports. The latest study appears in the journal Pediatrics.

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[Read: Vitamin D and Kids: How Much Sun Should They Get to Stay Healthy? and 3 Ways to Make Sure Kids Get Their Vitamin D.]