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Inspired by our January felting & looming workshop at Leola’s Studio, Renaissance Woman Sheila challenged the rest of us to commit to creating art every day for a month.

We thought it was a great idea, and each signed up for a few days in February. (Not coincidentally, the shortest month of the year …)

As a result, 28 pieces of art were created by our collective of members. On March 2 we came together at Teafarm to celebrate Art Month and “show and tell” our work.

Here are our creations:

February 1

Love is in the Air, by Sheila Ie:

February 2

A homemade-from-scratch Thai dinner, by Cindy J:

February 3

A springtime necklace, by Patti Talbot:

February 4

Some subversive cross stitch, by me:

February 5

A soother clip, made by Kim K:

February 6

Daffodils by Kim K — one of our photographers:

February 7

“Morning Cupcake, Any Way I like It,” by Sheila Ie:

February 8

Tessa says: “I gave myself a one hour time limit and the task of creating a thank-you card for a friend.”

February 9

Brenda says: “I like to create small spaces for special things in my home and office. This is my Wild Woman corner that I have had in every office for a decade – my ‘wild woman’ does not like sitting in front of a computer all day, so I give her things to play with while I am working. I just made this one yesterday in my new office – I change it up from time to time just to keep things fun.”

February 10

Maeve says: Acrylic on canvas paper. First time painting with something other than children’s washable paints. I call it “What my heart looks like on the inside when I watch my daughters dance an Irish jig in their pyjamas.”

February 11

Cindy J’s art: “It is wet felted and finished with needle felting. My inspiration was drawn from the amazing new energy and growth being brought forth by spring, so appropriately titled Spiralling Energy.”

February 12

My 2nd art day! I gave myself an art moment by attending one of the Writers on Campus poetry readings. It was WONDERFUL to hear poetry in Duncan. Here are some of my favourite lines from Patrick Friesen tonight:

“I felt like I was walking over a plowed field.”

“You come home with stones from the beach and then you wonder why you bothered.”

” . . . naked in your green dress . . .”

“I don’t like long cars. They hold a human like a tiny seed.”

Also, the word “anaphora.”

February 13

Preschooler Valentines by Sheila Ie, made with construction paper, tissue, glue:

February 14

Patti says: Meet “Florencia,” my beautiful piece of turquoise seaglass found at Florencia Beach, Tofino. I made a lovely cage for her out of copper.

February 15

“Tofino Dream Catcher,” by Patti:

February 16

Linda’s poem:

To the mountains! we declared.
A roaring midnight fever
silenced our call.

This rare February day
so bathed in sunshine,
now spent indoors
snuggled on a couch
with books tottering
piled high on blanket folds.

We took council by the fire
with chicken soup
and stories of camping
years past and those to come.

And tonight I sit in gratitude
for tottering books
and this messy life
with her gifts
of unexpected pauses
and so full of fevered blessings.

February 17

Maeve playing “Chariots of Fire” on the piano with video footage of her amazing daughters:

February 18

For my 3rd art day I experimented with hand-quilting designs, using some drawn designs and some freehand. I usually just stitch the seams of my quilts (straight lines), but after seeing Angie’s designs on one of her quilts I was inspired to try this. This quilt has been my “play” quilt — I used it to learn how to hand-stitch curved pieces.

Front of quilt (look carefully to see the yellow thread …):

February 19

Katie made fridge magnets featuring Bruce Springsteen. She says: “The picture of him in the toque is from 1975, the year Born to Run came out.”

February 20

Angie says this about her quilt: “I’ve been working on it since November, with a fabric line called Botany. It’s my first full quilt, and a whole lot more work than I had anticipated (I thought it would be done for Christmas, which is so comical they could make a movie about it). I used a shot glass for the circle patterns, a ruler for the lines and a leaf template for the, well, the leaves Today, to make sure I was doing something arty and specific to to our goal of trying something new, I changed up my pattern for the edge (gasp!), which I was going to leave plain, and did some crazy freestyle.”

February 21

“When the dog bites, when the bee stings,” by Heather K. (mixed media collage)

February 22

Sheila Z. calls this ‎”The Art of Thrifting.” She says: “a roll of salvaged vintage upholstery webbing, a thrifted hanger, and a creation to chart your little bundle of love’s growth.”

February 23

Pressed flowers from last summer made into tiny fairy cards made Linda D:

February 24

Heather K says: “This is what happens when the dog wakes the baby from his nap, the one you were counting on to make some art! This was co-created by myself and daughter Sami after a family hike down to the water where we found the driftwood. It’s called “fairy seahorse”. Her vision; I merely followed instructions.”

February 25

Cindy J says:

Yoga! I feel an hour and a half practice is most definitely an artistic expression. And since I cannot share this visually with you (thank goodness), here are some of my feelings, emotional and physical, during yesterday’s art of the practice of yoga:

breathe
open
focus
calm
grow
holy moly I can’t hold this any longer
free
moonlight
still
strong
revive
alive

Namaste, my Renaissance sisters.

February 26

When one of our members was unable to art it up, Sheila Z. came to rescue with this snazzy magazine holder. She made it using burlap from the same roll she turned into her February 22 art, plus a thrift shop-ed frame (shown on the top left). Final product is on the right!

February 27

“Jewelry Graveyard Resurrection,” by Tessa.

She says: “My art tonight was taking a few broken necklaces, and mending and mixing them together to make a new one! Many of my ‘art’ projects are often more creative repair projects.”

February 28

“Quick trip on a Rocket Ship,” by Sheila Ie (Oil Pastel, Chalk Pastel, Black Ink Pen, Illustration Marker, Paper 2013)

To share in the adventure and cheer on our members, please join our Renaissance Women Facebook group!

At first I didn’t think our upcoming December 2011 wedding was suitable for my re-skilling blog. It’s not like I’ll be able to knit socks afterward.

But once we started brainstorming priorities and plans, I realized that weddings are just another example of how out of touch my generation has become with the essentials. Just as our food has become unnecessarily complicated, so too have weddings. Essentially, weddings are a celebration of love and union. They are a chance for family and friends to witness the exchange of vows/promises between two people in love. A wedding should be a celebration.

Instead (as I’ve learned after attending two bridal trade shows, perusing a few bridal magazines, and witnessing a number of friends plan their event), weddings have become elaborate, expensive, stressful affairs. If you let yourself get sucked into the wedding industry propaganda, you will easily find yourself spending hundreds or, more likely, thousands of dollars on a dress you’ll wear for one day. You will order a cake that costs more than any item of clothing I currently own. And you may even (like one friend-of-a-friend) find yourself wearing a tiny piece of jewelery that could easily put three people through university. Ludicrous. Clothes and jewelery aren’t priorities in my day-to-day life, so why would they be priorities for my wedding?

The expense is one thing. The stress is another. With all the elements of even a relatively simple wedding, a wedding can become an enormously complicated event. Building a house is nothing, compared to being the general contractor for an army of DJs, photographers, videographers, florists, hair stylists, make up artists, dress fitters and seamstresses, tailors, chefs and servers, a venue, the officiant … not to mention all the guest-politics that need to be considered.

Anyhoo, my point is that weddings have become ridiculous, and not at all like they could/should be. Just like our bread, our beverages, and many other aspects of our lives.

So Brock and I have invented a new movement: the slow wedding.

Just like the slow food movement, our wedding will be as uncomplicated as possible. It will focus on what’s really important to us (family, friends and food) instead of all the elaborate baggage that we’re told to care about.

Instead of expensive clothes and an engagement ring (which aren’t important to us), we’ll put our money toward good food (ideally grown by ourselves and our fellow local, organic food producers) and good wine.

We will choose to support local, ethically-minded businesses in the spirit of slow money. (That means I get to go to the spa.)

Instead of stressing about guest lists, RSVPs and seating arrangements, we’re going to have a small ceremony followed by an open-house style reception, so we can celebrate and visit with our family and close friends.

A friend of ours is marrying us. We’ll pay another (photographer) friend to bring her camera along.

So there you are. We’ve begun a new movement and I can check off another basic skill learned this year: how to get married.