New heights

This spring, one short month before leaving for a massive 3 month trip we had planned, I took on a sculpture commission.

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I may have had a momentary lapse in judgment (mostly kidding)….

I rarely take on commissions of this scale, and never with such a short deadline. However, this was too interesting to pass up…an opportunity to create three unique installation pieces as part of the art curation for a new apartment building in Denver.

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Taking on work like this is always nerve-wracking, especially if it’s an untested design and a new client (this project ticked both of those boxes). All that being said, I decided to go for it, and it was such a lovely experience.

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I had the opportunity to push my work into a larger scale than I’ve ever worked, and the designs were a fresh take on the process I already know and love. Working with three companies in three different time zones with a strict deadline before leaving for our trip was quite the rollercoaster, but we all managed to work together to get the pieces approved and hand delivered 2 days before we left.

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Leaving the shop for an extended period gave me some important time to digest the project and to be inspired about some new sculpture pieces on the horizon. I’m excited to see what the fall and winter brings to my little shop.

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Summer 2022: A little update on life in (and out) of the shop

Hello friends, it’s been a while! As I write this, I’m sitting in a camp chair on the Oregon coast. We drove out here to camp for a couple weeks, get our feet in the sand, and to explore the temperate rainforests along the ocean.

It’s been pretty idyllic….fish and chips as many times as possible, long morning walks with Tucker on the beach and plenty of moto rides through the pines on the 101.

As per usual, I brought a bit of work with me…photo editing has become my constant companion on road trips, because it’s a task I can do remotely which then frees me up to do the design and production work when I’m back in the shop. I love editing, it feels like a final culmination of all the hard work, the first look at new pieces for the rest of the world, and a chance to stretch myself creatively in another medium.

The other project I’ve been working on (slowly!) is a print portfolio encompassing the last two years of work. Years ago, I printed up some portfolios and have been meaning to get back to it ever since. It’s such a wonderful thing to look back and reflect on, so I’m looking forward to finalizing the designs.

This month has been all about the new Alpine White Collection…a small series of work I have been testing since the end of last year. I’m so happy with the final pieces, they are starkly white and deeply textured, so the light casts all kinds of delicate shadows on the surface. In some designs, I paired the white concrete with a rich, gold leafed interior (SO much work, but definitely worth it).

I‘m confident that the textures and shapes will resonate with viewers…they were made with love, lots of time, and with intense care and detail.

The Alpine White Collection goes live on July 25th…I hope you’ll take a look and let me know what you think!

Until next time,

xx, C

Setting up shop in the Rocky Mountains

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Slow and steady wins the race…

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That’s what I hear. I’ve never been good at it, this whole “slow living” thing. I grew up literally sprinting from place to place, and that translated into my adult life.

Living on the East Coast cultivated a pervasive feeling of chaos, the feeling that you were always one step behind everyone else, and if you just worked harder, you could catch up.

I still struggle with this immensely, it has the potential to creep up and control my life. 

Enter the Spruce Creek Cabin.

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With a huge cross-country move and house renovation which took months longer than anticipated, I’m just now getting up and running in my studio. 

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Instead of neat storage shelving, I still have UHaul boxes piled up with unfinished work, inventory, and tools. The walls aren’t painted, and are patched in many places where the electrician and plumber had to cut holes. It’s been a real struggle to let go of my ideals of a “perfect” studio, and just get to work.

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Creative projects, other companies that require my attention, social media strategy, web design, cooking, adventuring, staying healthy….balancing all these facets requires careful planning.

I’m working on it. I’m learning that without fail,

there will be at least one thing (to be honest, more like 5 things) that don’t get done that day. 

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I’m trying to let go of the pressure I put on myself, to focus on the quality of the work over the quantity, and to leave plenty of time to play outside, meditate, spend time with my old dog and my man…

because that’s really what it’s all about. Balance. 

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As it turns out…balance breeds creativity. There’s a lot of great stuff coming…I promise.

A deep thank you to everyone who’s reading this, for hanging in there to see what comes next!

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“I’ve come to roam the forest past the village….

I’ve come here to get high, to do more than just get by…

I’ve come to test the timber of my heart.”

-Joe Pug

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A State of the Union for Carolyn Powers Designs in 2020

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Well, well, well, it’s been quite a while since I’ve written. As it turns out…uprooting your entire life during a global pandemic and moving your studio halfway across the country isn’t a great recipe for consistency. 

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2020 has been quite the rollercoaster. I’m sure that statement won’t shock any readers…it’s been that way for just about everyone. When COVID really hit the US, we were in Breckenridge, Colorado, where we spend every winter. Flights were grounded, the town was shut down, and there we were, sitting in place for months…just waiting and watching. We were under contract for a lovely house with an attached studio, and had to walk away from it due to the financial uncertainty that COVID threatened. It was a hard time, being far from family and friends, far from my studio, in an empty town, with the endless news cycle and feeling of impending doom keeping us up at night. 

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Three weeks later, our real estate agent called and we were back in the game. A little one bedroom cabin, three miles from town, nestled on 3 1/2 acres of woods on a mountaintop had just come on the market…and no one could go look at it because of COVID. She did a video walkthrough with us, we put an offer in, and before we knew it we were the proud owners of a Breckenridge cabin (immediately dubbed “The Spruce House”). 

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That was the easy part. There was still a 3 bedroom house in Philadelphia where we had lived for almost 10 years. We left it in January with no intention of packing up and moving. Arriving back to the East Coast in June, we had a few panic attacks and then dove into the unbelievably daunting task of packing up a life, two businesses, and somehow getting it all safely across the country. 

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Let’s fast forward a little…through the staging of the house (ugh), the 25 showings in 3 days (yay), the anxious waiting for inspection to go smoothly (ugh), the months of delicate negotiation with the buyers (ugh), tears shed at the drop of a hat, a 30 year flood that brought water into the basement for the first time ever….emptying out closets, shelves, and a storage unit, shipping my beloved jeep off on a truck, packing everything into two storage cubes, watching them leave with everything we owned, more tears, champagne on the last night, and finally, finally, saying good bye and locking the door. 

The day we left to head back to Colorado was bittersweet, but by the time we hit the highway, I could have screamed with relief. Maybe I did, come to think of it. 

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That timeline puts us back here, at The Spruce House, September 1st, in the middle of a construction site. Work that was supposed to start in mid-July had just begun. No bathroom, no laundry, no stove…floors sticky with glue after they ripped up the cheap vinyl flooring…it’s rough. Not great for an artist anxious to get back to work in time for the Christmas rush. 

We’ve been living in our RV in the driveway for 2 months now. Sometimes I get a day where there are no workers, and I go inside to design pieces for future finishing. Some days it’s constant construction management and there are tears over endless frustrations. My studio is packed in a storage cube in Denver, waiting for a day when there won’t be a giant trench running the length of the garage (my future shop). Every day, the temperatures creep closer to winter, when the snow will pile 20 feet high on either side of our little dirt road. 

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Just like the rest of the world, there isn’t much to do but wait…wait for 2020 to end, wait for the tide of this pandemic to turn…wait for our home to be finished. Until then, I’ll be dreaming up ideas, writing them on scraps of paper, and using my creative energy for photography, writing, cooking, and planning. The most important thing is to keep on making, whatever that looks like day to day. 

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Upcoming Festival Dates

Here are the dates for my upcoming shows. There will be more added as the season goes on, but for now....

Saturday, June 13th: Ambler Art Fest (all of main street in Ambler will be shut down with live music, art, food, and drink. Lots of fun and things to do for everyone. Art show runs from 10-6, and I highly recommend walking over to Forest & Main for a craft brew afterwards!)

Saturday & Sunday, July 11th-12th: Haddonfield Art Festival (2 full days with tons of artists!)

Stay tuned for late summer/fall dates...Cheers!!

New work for the spring

Spring is here in Pennsylvania, and rapidly turning into summer. Every free moment I have has been dedicated to prepping for upcoming festivals. First up, some hand dyed and embroidered flags, larger in scale than my usual work.

All of the colors are softened with a tea dye to add to the antiqued look.

Each flag is patched and every seam is hand embroidered...not an easy feat.

My favorite of the two ended up being the Grand Union flag, a pattern that represented the United States from 1776-1777, before the Betsy Ross design was established as the official flag.

Another design being brought to festivals this spring and summer: A tray full of little treasures, moss, and artificial succulents. They never need light or watering, and look lush and green forever!!

Next up on the new design front, copper/hypertufa hanging planters (air plants make caring for these super easy), metallic mini pots, and copper footed planters. Every copper piece has been aged with a patina so they blend beautifully with the rugged look of the hypertufa.

Every show will be different this summer, as I finish some new designs and bring them out. Looking forward to sunny days and many happy plants.

First of the Fall Shows

In case you didn't make it out to the Mt. Airy Street Fare, here are some pictures from before and during the festival. It was a beautiful night to walk the cobblestone streets, eat deep fried cheese curds, and buy adorable plants!

Lots of prep work had to be done to get pots and plants paired and ready for the show. But once they were all safely transported and set up in their booth it seemed to be worth all that work.

My next show will be Saturday, October 4th @ the Ambler Oktoberfest.

All day long!

Freedom

(written 9/11/14)

(obviously I still haven't managed to juggle computer work with studio work)

It hasn't quite sunk in yet, but this marks my first week of freedom. The past few months have been a stressful whirlwind of production, design, and travel, all wedged in between my responsibilities at work. It seemed like every time I landed somewhere, it was already time to move on to the next thing.

But here it is! At last! To become a full time artist is one of the biggest blessings to come my way in quite a while. I could never have done it without the immense emotional backing my family and partner have provided me...For years I've juggled new projects with work schedules and vice versa. Any creative individual can attest to the battle of finding time to create.

"Artistic freedom" is hard, because all artists are enslaved by their art. The mental barrage of self deprecation, problem solving, designing, reinventing… all of these become magnified tenfold when you work in a home studio all day long.

This week, I'm talking myself off of the proverbial ledge, reminding myself that I WILL find my groove, that it's only the first week, that I made the right decision, that the bills WILL get paid.

Only time will tell. For now, I look forward to hard work. Lots of it. But it's what I want, what I've signed on for, and I'm looking forward to creating lots and lots of new treasures.

Show preparations continue..

After the hypertufa pots were safely stored away to cure, I took a road trip out to Ott’s Exotic Plants. I went to look for “parent plants” which I will be able to take cuttings from and propagate. (Photo credit for this trip goes to Morgan, my partner in crime and tireless supporter)

It was wonderful to get out of the studio and be inspired by so much natural beauty.

While all the flowering plants were hard to resist, I was looking for hardy succulents and cacti, which will stand up to travelling from show to show and to their new homes.

As hard as it was not to fill my cart to overflowing, I made some careful decisions and came away with a wide variety of plants that will continue to produce for a long time.

It was worth taking a day off simply for the inspirations to be found amongst a beautiful nursery.

May 2014

With show season in full swing, I’ve been working hard to create more products for my home décor line. It’s been a challenge to design, test, and then manufacture so many new pieces, but it feels good to stretch my craftsmanship into new directions.

Experimenting with hypertufa recycle cast pots was one of my favorite projects of the spring. Collecting dozens of recycled containers, I cast pots and bases of all shapes and sizes. Hypertufa is an amazing material, it has the look and feel of concrete, but is much more lightweight. The possibilities it possesses are endless…if you’re willing to get your hands dirty.

My family indulged me and came over for a beautiful spring day of casting.

With as many hands as I had helping me that day, I was able to quickly refine my techniques.

After the pots cure for 24 hours in a dark, cool place, it was time to unmold them. This is where the hard work comes in. After each one is taken out of its mold, it needs to be sanded and carved carefully. The hypertufa dries with sharp jagged edges, and once those have been sanded and chipped away, I was left with beautiful, ancient looking pots.

The first casting went so well that I continued experimenting with different shapes, some hand molded, some cast. I created some air plant displays and vases for upcoming shows.

Spring 2014

It’s been a long, cold winter, which made my work hard. Foraging is difficult when the ground is frozen or under snow, and woodworking when it’s too cold to open the windows or work outside is not the easiest. But finally the ground has come alive again and we are back in business…big time!

Before launching back into full time production, I was able to spend some time photographing work, organizing my shop, and was invited to host a pop up shop.

I took advantage of my warm weather travels and did some foraging on the Gulf Coast, scouring the beach for hours to collect bits of grey lava rock.

As the weather up North has warmed up, we took off to get some camping in before the heat of the summer. With a new campsite flag, we hit the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, drove through Tennessee, and stayed a few days in Asheville, North Carolina.

Being out in the woods was great for both inspiration and foraging. You never know what kind of fallen wood will be found around the next bend in the trail.

Camping in the mountains with no cell service for miles allows you the time to absorb and acknowledge the tiny details in nature.

Harvest Party

At long last, after living in our home for a year, we finally got it together enough to throw a party worth calling a "housewarming". I, of course, had to finish an installation or two in the house and fix a couple of paint chips in order to have a crowd over. One part of the house I finished was the second floor hallway, in which I installed an Edward Gorey art piece, taken from his book The Gashlycrumb Tinies. It turned out to be far more work than I had expected, but well worth the effort.

I also took a case of pickle canning jars I had in the garage and made lanterns with green floral wire, some pebbles and tea light candles.

And of course, as with any event...flowers are essential.

Even some of my old standby plants seemed to perk up for the occasion.

It was well worth all the hard work. The house has never looked better, and it sure was a fun party!

A dinner party and then back on the road

Before the heat had shut off the outdoor world to us, we were able to enjoy our screened in porch before a family dinner. Heady Topper was in attendance of course.

As was Austin, with her big nose which is always finding some sort of trouble.

Didn't take her long to figure out that she likes the taste of home made strawberry peach daiquiris almost as much as I do.

A delicious collaboration of cooking made for a great meal, lit by candles on the table and peonies from the yard.

Then we were off again. First to Boston, to wander the city and to see old friends.

Home is always good to come back to, especially in the summer where everything is as lush as a jungle.

Before we knew it, we were headed down south to the sun and the sea.

Leaving paradise is hard to do. But the summer is just beginning. Once the heat hit, we headed north to cooler places. Mountains and rivers and good friends made for a wonderful trip, work included.

We were able to stay in the most beautiful little cabin.

This time we had the dogs, who loved the cool mornings and running off leash almost as much as we enjoyed traveling with them.

Part of our trip was work related, and in our search for more Vermont footage, we climbed to the summit of Mt. Mansfield, the highest elevation in Vermont.

It's easy to forget about the world below when you're up that high.

There is so much beauty everywhere you look, I found myself trying to take it all in, somehow retain each breeze and leaf so that when we went home I wouldn't have to leave it behind.

We went to the Stowe hot air balloon festival to film the balloons inflating and taking off.

 Before leaving Vermont, we got to celebrate this guys 1st birthday. He was pretty psyched.

The road home was long, but we had everything we could need in our truck...good music and two happy dogs.

Daily inspiration: I can safely say that I am inspired by the thought of cheese and bread every single day. Especially when the bread was baked that morning, the cheese from a local farmers market, my feet still wet from climbing a waterfall, and the breeze out of the pines blowing across the porch.

It's a long, rainy road to Waterbury Vermont

I know it seems as though I have abandoned this, or have been too busy to create, but on the contrary, I have simply been creating too much to find the time to  successfully document my work.

I've had my hands in so many projects lately, but I will try to cover a little of everything. Pleasantly surprised by my handiness, I took on the porch, its screens blown out by hurricane sandy, the floor filthy and the paint cracked. Somehow I managed to repair the screens without needing to replace any, and repainted the porch floor a lovely palm green. Wish there was a before/after.

I also finally took my baby stag horn fern and planted it vertically on a weathered wooden box I found at the flea market.

The wood was taken from a snow fence in Wyoming. Looks awesome. Every time I see it I'm inspired to make more vertical planters. Went on a moss foraging excursion at the park the other day in hopes of doing just that. The dogs were very patient.

While looking for garden plants, I came across a gem at the greenhouse across the street…a fiddle leaf fig tree which I have wanted for quite a while. It will live happily on the porch until winter with our new turtle Elvis.

Speaking of new animals…it's hard to believe that I haven't found time to put up a few pictures of our new family member, Austin. We finally went to NGAP and navigated the harrowing adoption process in order to bring home this 65 lb peanut. It wasn't easy bringing a greyhound that had just come from life on the racetrack 2 months previous into our home, with all of the hardwood floors and scary noises. She didn't even know how to climb stairs, let alone walk on a leash or let us know when she needed to go to the bathroom. There were more than a few moments where i questioned my judgement on bringing another dog (three times the size of tucker) into our lives. Fast forward 2 months.

She has undergone the most amazing transformation, and become the dog I had hoped for when we went to the shelter. Polite, gawky, lovable, with the cheesiest overbite you've ever seen. It's hard to believe what training can do.

The biggest project I have worked on over the past month or so has been the Motto Films blog, which I started compiling on our trip to Waterbury Vermont to film a mini documentary on the brewery The Alchemist. More web design was the last thing I had planned for myself, but after spending a week photo documenting and writing about our incredible experience, the next step was to put it out into the world. So glad I stuck with it because the brewery themselves promoted the new motto films blog. Huge affirmation. What an amazing, visually stimulating journey we had.

So what else….we came home to our co op share, which is new for us. Turns out we have to find new ways to use vegetables we would never buy at the store. I'm so glad to be pushed out of the norm by our organic farms and to be handed things I wouldn't usually buy.

Daily inspiration. Breakfast. The discovery of the deliciousness of an avocado.

Spring Frenzy

It's been a hectic couple of months. Looking at my camera files shows a serious lack of adventure documentation. I've been awfully busy with the house and work. As we are leaving for Vermont on Thursday for a job at Heady Topper, I figured I'd better upload whatever images I have now. I'll be documenting our trip so there should be some pretty cool posts after we get back. But for now...

(On a trip to New York, we visited the ever adorable Rocco in Manhattan)

(Design work for a new tapestry in the stairwell. Huge proportions, 60x70" . In production now, more pictures to follow once it is finished!)

(Another home project, bottle cap tabletop consisting of ALL self collected/drank bottle tops! Took about a year to get enough together. I used particle board for the base, trimmed in real wood, stained a dark walnut and then poured resin over the whole thing. Dried it for about 4 days and screwed it to the base, a refinished sewing table base. Finished photos to follow.)

Today's inspiration:

A spring morning brunch with tulips (Phillies colors!) gathered from the garden. Ciao until after our trip to Vermont!

New plants and old trees

I am at a point where I have finished the original triangulated series, and am now putting the finishing touches on 3 or 4 pieces…backing, hangers, etc. While I’m on a break from designing new pieces (although there are always ideas forming in my mind) I have spent some time working on my studio, organizing my tools and my wall space. Always feels good to grab a tool from its designated place vs. digging through boxes and tool bags looking for it.

I also finished my antique scissors display, framed in an old repainted thrift store frame and pinned to foamboard wrapped in burlap. Finishing this gave me some ideas for dimensional elements in my upcoming pieces…!

There’s a new pet keeping guard over the studio. I received a castoff wall hanging fish tank a couple weeks ago. I made a pretty paper frame for it to hide the plastic seal, and found a bamboo stalk to grow in it. My new studio fish Isis is now happily installed on the wall near my sewing machine.

We took a trip to the Philadelphia Flower Show, and fought through the crowds for a few hours. Buying plants is a weakness of mine, and I brought home some awesome plants that I installed throughout the house. Makes me want to incorporate plant life into some of my pieces somehow!

This staghorn fern was already mounted on a rough slab of wood, and to make it fit better into the decor I framed it in burlap and a handmade wooden frame by my friend Michael Heffernan of MDH Woodworking.

 I also picked up a bunch of air plants and installed them various places. I took a vintage pottery pie plate and made an insert to which I attached a few air plants, twigs and some of the moss we collected in Austin in the fall.

I always find inspiration in the delicate work of gardening, the eye for composition one must have when planting new plants and the organic unpredictability of branches, shoots and flowers. While installing my new plants, I finally managed to hang the trunk of fallen pine that I carted home from Virginia last time I was there. It has this amazing sculptural feel now that it’s finally up on the wall. Wasn’t a pretty process getting it to stay there, but now that it’s hung I’m so pleased that I stuck to my intentions and went through with it.

So, not much new in the realm of tapestry design, but immense creativity has still been happening this week. Everything I do leads to another new idea.

Here’s a little daily inspiration, pictures from our Italian dinner we made last week. Yum.

A day spent away from the eye of the needle

So another day has been spent researching web design, taking pictures, cutting backings for finished pieces, etc. All things that need to be done, but I always wish I was sewing. Too much time with the computer makes my head spin. But here's a few good things that came out during my day, a few doses of inspiration.

Caught the pup peeking at my pedicure just as I was getting ready to use a new camera for some shots...

I stopped working mid morning to meet my mom at a tea room for some much needed scones and, of course, tea...

And while photographing finished pieces throughout the house, stopped to shoot my bonsai garden. Skipperdee was sleeping, otherwise he would have gotten his picture taken too.

Needle and stitch.

I have gotten a good amount of work done this week, it feels nice to log some serious hours sewing and creating. (And, of course, time with the pup)

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I have started working with some more abstract, shape driven pieces which has led me to think about my color choices and how I make the technical decisions I do. Each individual choice can change the path of a design, one color mistake can take the tone of a work from good to bad very quickly. There has been more than one occasion where the color I thought would work so well has ended up getting pulled out, one stitch at a time.

So what is it that I am so drawn to in these abstract pieces? As the years progress, I am learning more and more about the way my artistic mind works. Dispensing with more intricate designs and drawings allows me to develop a deeper relationship with the actual craft, the stitching and the colors. It allows the viewer to really pay attention to the intricacy of the handwork instead of focusing on a design or pattern.

Personally, I love it. In a way, it is a larger challenge to create a visually pleasing canvas out of a few abstract shapes and a few thousand stitches of yarn than it is to embroider a botanical pattern or filigree design.

(First finished geometric piece)

Here's a little daily inspiration.

The beginning. of something.

It has felt like a very long weekend, more full of frustration and self doubt than my weekends usually are. I laughed when I read the label of the Lagunitas Sucks Brown Shugga Substitute Ale I was drinking to find this quote: "But in that time of deepest despair, as is common to artists everywhere...broke, hungover, abandoned by the muse and prepared to take a job at Arby's, we found in that darkness the spark of inspiration." And in that state, I threw myself into some unfinished projects today. Finishing, or very nearly so, a series of rope tapestries, I have had them stacked in my studio waiting to be hung. Unfinished pieces in an unfinished studio. Yuck. Now they are all either hung somewhere in the house or relegated to wait in the studio till my next show.

I also finished a project that I've had in my head for a while, a burlap pinboard next to the kitchen door as a place to put all the pictures from our travels. It turned out to be much more work than I thought but well worth the effort. Didn't help that I wanted it to be huge. Certainly is. Looks like I need to do a lot more traveling.

I can't seem to stop putting jute twine on everything I own. Its just so awesome.

So after all that.. I'm feeling much better. Hard work tends to drive the angst right out of you.

Here's my inspiration today, hand painted color test fabric. Maybe a new piece will come out of this.