So last night at an ungodly hour of the morning actually, I found myself semi-awake and coming up with the most amazing things to say on this blog and on my Conundrum blog and even putting together the best video for the Conundrum YouTube sight that ever existed in any space, time or what ever! But of course, it was all in my head, in the wee hours of the morning. 
Now as I sit here trying to remember what it was that I said in my head before, I am coming up with a big fat ridiculous irritating blurry blank!!!!! 

You should have written it down when you came up with the ideas, you say? I have tried that. The second I start to write things down, my mind shuts down and all coherent, interesting thoughts in my head go into some sort of witness protection program and I am not clever enough to find a way to track them down, kill the rogue agents who have been sent to kill said thoughts and still make it out alive! (if you can tell me what movie I am referencing just there, I will be seriously and duly impressed!)

I have written the most fantastic, moving, inspiring speeches, given the most informative and interesting lectures, taught the most exciting classes, written epic stories and blog posts, made the greatest most fantastic art (the kind that you don't have to be dead to enjoy fame and fortune for) shot Hollywood style, blockbuster videos and basically have been the most magnificent, mythical version of myself that could every possibly be.... all in my head either right before I go to sleep, while I dream or right after I wake up in that not really awake but slightly aware of the world around me stage. When my brain is fully awake. I am dull, forgetful, boring and just all around less than ordinary most of the time. There are moments of brilliance randomly sprinkled through out the ordinary or less than, but they come on me so fast and are gone before I realize they are even there so I can't prepare for them to make the most of them. I simply hold my breath until they are gone and hope that if I said or did something majestic that someone saw or heard it and got something out of it. 

But.... 

If I could print directly from my brain, or get recordings of what I say and do in my brain during those specific times, man oh man the world would have to take a step back and prepare for the awesomeness that would be headed their way because let me tell you folks, it would be so much more than massively epic. It would literally blow peoples minds... which would be messy so I would have to find a way to tone it down about for general consumption of course. 

So if someone could please invent a way to print, record and otherwise document the fabulousness that goes on in my brain when I am not really awake, that would be great. We have all these recording technologies these days... it can't be THAT hard right??? Just rig up some sort of jack into the head that connects to your smart phone or iPad and hit record ya?

Well, someone out there with the awake brain power to do it get right on it and you will make millions upon millions of buckaroos! I promise! I would do it, and have done it, but it was when I was just waking up and well... you know how well that goes for me.

I think maybe I will do a Conundrum blog post about this and see if I have a moment of brilliance... or not.... 

Hoping you have lots more moments of brilliance than I do!

Stacey

Last night we had a fabulous set of thunder and lightening storms with downpours of much needed rain. I enjoyed every minute of them even staying up later than I had planned to watch the light show out my bedroom window. Unfortunately, the aftermath of that natural awesomeness is a dreary, bleary, blechy day today. It feels like a Monday (the dreaded "M" day again!!!) To add to insult to injury I am once again dealing with hives all over my face. I find myself wondering if my skin has decided that it is allergic to life in general. Can you get a total skin replacement???
In dealing with this hives issue that has no been going for a month and a half or more, I find myself once again wondering why people go to school for so many years and pay so much money to become doctors because it doesn't seem to me that they actually learn anything useful. I often find myself going to the doctor and either knowing more than they do or we sit there asking each other questions, neither one of us having the answers and I end up taking more medication in the HOPES that it will relieve the symptoms but do nothing for the cause because we have no idea what is causing the problem. Maybe I am just a medical mystery but seriously folks, I thought doctors were supposed to know stuff about medical stuff and be able to properly diagnose you and resolve your medical issues. So the saga continues... 
On an artistic note, I've been having a wonderfully productive last week and a half, and hope to continue that for another week or so before I switch off into family vacation mode and hit the road to see family both near and far. I wish that my time to work on my art was longer, but I will take what I can get. 
For the future, I am working on a possible group show with a couple of friends (more info to come when I have it) and I want to pick up my Conundrum project again once my face doesn't look like a bloated tomato. I figured that people didn't want to see that on a video so I thought I'd hold off a bit. But check the website that is connected with the videos because I am blogging in the mean time!
I think that's enough for now!
Hoping you all are having a wonderful week!
Stacey

Monday. Most folks fear and dread the oncoming "M" day. I am one of those folks usually but this time I found myself looking forward to Monday. So far it's been a day of reuniting with old friends, meeting new students and getting some work done. Add to that some good food, good music and air conditioning (which is a must in this weather) and I am having a rather wonderful day. My summer sculpture class starts today. I am sitting here looking across the room at a few of the students who have shown up early. They seem to be eager to try out what ever I am going to throw at them, though right now they are all on their phones, probably texting. 
So, a new day is half done but still full of possibilities. It's a pretty good life.
I hope that you can say the same thing about your Monday. If not, tomorrow is a new day. Here's to hoping that it will be better than what came before.
Cheers!
Stacey

I woke up this morning with a craving for Ants on a Log. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's celery with peanut butter and raisins. (pic to the left) I ate it often as a child but haven't had it in at least 25-30 years. As I was eating it this morning I was trying to figure out why I wanted it, what triggered the memory of it, where the craving came from. I came up with nothing. It's a tasty treat that is relatively good for you but it certainly isn't something that I would normally eat. I don't even normally have celery in my house but there I was, eating Ants on a Log with a big grin on my face and I realized that though I have no idea why, the joy I was experiencing was enough. I stopped wondering why and just ate up my breakfast and started the day with a smile. I added some scrumptious cherries and to top things off, some delish iced tea with lemon. And a bright good morning to you all!

Fueled with good food and a good mood, I am in the studio again. It took a while for me to get into the groove this summer because there were so many things that needed to be done to wrap up last semester and prep for summer classes and for next semester, but finally, last week I was able to start spending some quality time in the studio doing my own work. I've slowly gotten into a routine of 8-10 hours a day in the studio every day and holy buckets has that been productive! One piece down (see last blog post) one piece half down and another started along with a ton of prep work for 3 other pieces. It feels good to get into my own work in such a focused way. Summer is my time to create and this summer I was beginning to think I wasn't going to be able to do any of my own work, but I was proved wrong. I could dwell on the fact that I don't have as much time as I thought I would, but why waste time with that! I am eating up the time I have with relish and look out because some fabulous work is coming your way!

So for now I am going to sign off and get back to work. I will put up more pictures as things progress and maybe (if I can get my ducks in a row) a video on how I make these luminary forms so that you can try it yourself!
Ta ta for now!

Stacey

Hello and good morning to you all! I have been working hard lately on some new works and I thought I would share one with you. It's another in my Luminary series. Titled Out of Context I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. Click on the image to go to the gallery to see some different views of it. I will add more as more pieces are finished. 
On other fronts. I am getting ready to teach a summer class in sculpture. It's a smaller class that I am used to teaching so I am thinking of playing with the projects and might shake things up. I hope they are ready to be guinea pigs for me as I try out a few new things with them. I am looking forward to that. 
After the class runs it's course, I am heading home to visit with family in upstate NY and then off to Illinois to see more family, go to a Cardinals baseball game, eat some good food and then back to teaching again in the fall. 
It seems that the summer is already gone and yet when I look back I am amazed and how much I have gotten done and how much there is still yet to do. Time does funny things when I don't have a set schedule to follow. Here's to hoping that the rest of the summer is wonderful, productive and interesting.
Hoping that you are all well and having a blast!
Stacey

After a bit of thinking and recovering from being ill. I have decided to relocate The Conundrum conversation to it's own website. The Conundrum blog in conjunction with the youtube channel will now house all the Conundrum content. This is a way to make my life a little more organized and hopefully allow me to get to things in a easier fashion. Having said that, I hope that you all check out both Conundrum places and join the conversations that are slowly (very slowly) beginning to start there. I have opened up the content to anything that we might want to talk about after realizing that my life doesn't just revolved around the arts, but that there are a million other conversations to be had! So, hop on over and check things out. 
On another note, I was hit three weeks ago with an evil skin infection that ended up causing me to have some sort of crazy drug reaction that resulted in head to toe swelling and hives that I am still trying to deal with. That's why I was incommunicado for a while. It is my intention to actually get to this blog more often that I have in the past. At least once a week is my current goal. I think it's a good one:) We shall see how it goes with everything else in life hurtling toward what ever end it has in sight for me hopefully a long long time from now!
As I said, I am still trying to get over this crazy medical stuff. On the one hand, steroids are wonderful in that they seem to be keeping the symptoms at bay, but on the other, steroids! yikes! I guess we have to take the good with the bad.
It was in interesting if non-traditional 4th of July in my house this year. I spent most of it cleaning my house as it was the first time I had a span of hours with nothing else to do. Not that I didn't have anything else to do, but those things that I had to do are located in public buildings that were shut down for the holiday so I was forced to be in my home which made me bit the big one and finally go all domestic on my space and clean in up. Granted, I only got two rooms done, but that is so much better than before so I feel accomplished and happy about how things turned out. 
I didn't make my way out to any fireworks displays what with the strange rescheduling of many of them due to the weather we were supposed to have. Turned out, the weather on the 3rd (the day many of the events had been rescheduled to) was the day of the most fabulous lightening and thunderstorm I have experienced in quite a while. I don't know if any man made fireworks displays were enjoyed, but I certainly enjoyed the natural splendor of the storm. I even recorded 8 minutes of it just for fun. Unfortunately you don't really get the full effect of the show as I was in my bedroom recording through the window and the rain was so intense all you see is flashes of light and not the actual lightening and because I was using my iphone, it didn't record all the nuances that I was able to see with my eyes. The video simply doesn't do justice to the experience so I won't add it here but believe me when I say it was awesome!

After such a great storm, what was a girl to do you might ask? I cleaned some more, made a stellar chicken, onion, mushroom and cheese concoction that I put on a tortilla and man oh man was it good! Not your typical hots and burgers on the grill for the 4th, but it made me happy. 
So, now I am finishing things off with getting back to my blog, The Conundrum and dealing with other online/paperwork type things so that tomorrow I can get back to the studio and continue working on some of my new works. 
I'm really excited about a few pieces that I have in progress. Pictures will come soon I promise.
So, on that note, I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the holiday weekend (for those of you who are from the US of course) 
Be safe and find the wonderful in the everyday!
Stacey

Howdy folks! 
Have you ever had someone look at you with that look that says,"I am concerned for  your future and I also think you are flat out bonkers for trying to make a go of it in anything related to the arts because you are going to fall flat on your face, have to move in with your parents, never be able to pay your bills and end up sad and alone." 
Well, I have. More times that I can or want to count. It's part of the fine print that we all ignore when we decide to go into an arts related field or forge our way forward in the arts. Sometimes you don't even get the concern from people, just the flat out crazy bit. 
So why do we do it? It's not like their concerns aren't valid. Going into the arts certainly doesn't provide a person with any sort of guarantee, stability, or promises. In a time/economy/social era like we are in these days the arts are low man on the totem pole at best, kicked off the island and forgotten about most of the time and usually just something that is relegated to little kids and something to marvel at for a second when someone convinces an Elephant to "paint" (I won't get going on my feelings on this whole animals making art thing. That's for another time.)
So with all this against us, why do we take the hard road? We know that jobs are few and far between, we know that most people won't understand or be supportive of our choice and we know that no matter what we do, luck or no, we are going to have to work our asses off every second of every day. Does the idea of walking up hill in the snow with no shoes pulling a cart full of manure both ways sound familiar???
Answering my own question, I do what I do for many reasons. The first reason is that I have to. I am an evil, unsocial, unforgiving, nasty person when I am not creating. Those who knew me when I took a little time off from art can attest to this and have told me that it is most certainly true. I am not my truest self unless I am creating art, talking about art, helping others create their art or otherwise involved in the arts. Secondly, I love creating. It makes me happy. Every part of the creative process is something that I can get lost in from the ideation stage when I am just coming up with ideas and concepts to the sketching stage where I plan things out all the way through to completion. I can stand back and look at what I have made and regardless of how well I think I did, I have created something that exists outside of myself but is infused with my thoughts and dreams and ideas. I think that's something pretty darn spectacular. I guess the third biggest reason that I create especially sculptural works is because I have to keep my hands busy all the time. There is something in me that needs to build things, needs to have the materials in my hands working with them, molding materials into what I see in my head. It's just who I am. If I don't create I end up getting fidgety and I can't sit still. I can't focus on anything or complete a thought. So I guess doing what I do is a bit something like my own personal therapy or my own drug of choice. I'm completely OK with that.
So why do you do what you do despite all that is going against creative endeavors these days?
Comment here or on the YouTube video. I can't wait to hear/read what you have to say!
Until we Conundrum again!
Stacey 

Hello fellow questioners, risk takers, thinkers, creatives... in short, my awesome viewers/readers! You are most likely reading this here blog post because you saw my recent video on YouTube about Success in the arts. I am pretty hyped up because it is the second video in the series which means that I have now officially created a series! Also, it means that I am moving forward on an idea that has been knocking around in my ever crowded brain for some time now. I thought I would talk a little more about the question of Success in the Arts here, expanding on the thoughts that I shared in the video.
As I stated in the video, I was surprised to find that money didn't seem to be a big factor in the definition of success from the folks that I have talked to about it. Those that brought it up at all only mentioned it in almost in passing. It seems that money is actually only one of the many tools used by creatives to do what they do, it's not a driving goal or measure of success. There have been many times when people have told me that I shouldn't go into the arts because I can't make any money or I shouldn't be an artist because you will only be famous after your dead so what's the point. Yes folks, these are direct quotes. To me those are clear indications that money and fame are sort of bench marks, quantifiers if you will of societies view of success. 
In my personal view, while money is nice to have and I enjoy having enough to pay my bills, feed myself and in general sustain my low key lifestyle, I don't see it as something that I use to measure my success. Having more or less of it doesn't mean that I am more or less successful in my art. Same goes for fame. While a little recognition of my awesomeness is nice now and again, it isn't why I do what I do. I create because I have to, because I want to communicate to other people, share my thoughts, ideas, dreams, opinions, create a response in other people, get people to think about things beyond what jeans to buy and what celebrity is dating/breaking up with who. Money and fame don't come into that. I would still be making art even if I had no money and I can only hope that I would still make art if I was dripping with cash. As for fame, knowing me and how I hate crowds, have a hard time opening my mouth around strangers and get anxiety if there are more than 2 people in a room that I don't know, I don't think fame is for me. 
So those are my expanded thoughts on the idea of Success as an artist. Now I want to know yours! Comment on the YouTube video or leave a comment here. Let talk about this thing that we all hope to achieve in our life time and what it really means for folks who are creatively driven!
Here's to hoping that you all are having a fabulous time doing what you do! Keep your eyes peeled for more Conundrum to come!
Stacey 

Hey there you fine folks! I have a lot to talk about and it feels like so little time to do it so forgive me if this is a whirlwind blog post and you feel like you've been through a tornado when it's all done but here it goes.
I have finished another wonderful year of teaching here at Worcester State College. This past year included great students, new opportunities for teaching, meeting fellow professors that I hadn't met before, earning Tenure, getting the Alden Excellence in Teaching Award, going to commencement for the first time and so many more wonderful things that I just can't type it all out. It's been a productive, crazy, chaotic and fabulous year!
I have started a new body of work (along with my houses, luminaries, body landscape sculptures and stone carving) I have started wood carving and a series of mixed media paintings that I am pretty darn hyped up about. Pictures will of course come as I get the works finished and documented.

THE CONUNDRUM
I have also very recently, as in today, started an interesting You Tube project that I am really jam'n on right now. I have added a YouTube connection to my website (up in the right hand corner over there with the face book and twitter icons) If you are someone who has any opinions on the arts no matter if you are involved in them or not, please go check it out and subscribe and comment and share it with your like minded friends. 
As I briefly stated in the intro video to the project titled "The Conundrum" I am hoping that this video series will be the catalyst for a conversation on the arts that I think people are having in small groups, on the spur of  the moment as sort of a throw away chat but it has so much more potential and impact on our lives, society and the world at large. I hope that through these videos we can generate shared information and knowledge about the Arts, why they are important, how they impact us on every level and through every lens and why we have to continue to have the arts in all aspects of society and life. 
Of course, the first question that I ask is simply what are The Arts? I think that to have a conversation about the Arts we have to at least be on similar pages as to what we are actually talking about. I see the arts as so many different things from visual art to theater to dance to music to performance to movies to design to comic books to writing etc... Coming from a background where I learned craft skills and then took them and used them to create art, I see  some aspects of craft as also being art. When thinking of the crafts, I think of creating utilitarian objects like cups or chairs or rugs. In my thinking, anything that elevates the creation of a utilitarian object beyond it's stated purpose, like considering the surface of a mug or the form of a chair and changing it to make it something more than just it's purpose is what changes craft into art. 
In short, so many things can be/are art so it is impossible to think that there is any part of life that isn't directly or indirectly impacted by the arts in some way. 
These are some of my beginning thoughts on our Conundrum. I hope to add more to this blog and to the YouTube project started today. 
Come back often to check out what's going on and what we are talking about!
Have a wonderful and inspiring day and go do something great!
Stacey

Over the past few days I have been having conversations with many folks regarding the merits of the different social media sites that have become so popular in the last few years. I myself have a facebook, twitter and now a tumblr account along with this website and at least 3 different active email addresses. I thought I was overloaded with different ways to plug in and access information but after talking to some folks I realize that I am just a babe when it comes to all of the different things you can plug into! It led me to ask myself why I have what I have, how I use them and if I would consider looking into other options. 
I first opened a myspace page years ago just for fun as a way to have a website for myself that was easy to use. I have since forgotten the url, password or any information pertaining to it so I consider that defunct by neglect at this point. If it is still floating about out there and someone stumbles over it, let me know! I have my work email, and a personal email and a back up email just in case. These three emails are a long way away from the over 15 I had when I was involved in RPG character writing when I had an email for each character I wrote for! Thank goodness I don't have to remember all those passwords anymore! phew! When I started teaching I started my facebook at the urging of my students who used facebook as their main means of communication. That was the reason at first but then I found that I liked the site and have used it regularly ever since. I opened a twitter account a few years later just for shits and giggles and to follow a few interesting folks for quick snapshots and life updates and such. I don't check that often because most of the time I forget that I have access to it but every once in a while it's fun to look through. Now, at the urging of my current students I have a tumblr account to show off photos of my students and their work and other art related images. I just started it so there isn't much to it but I can see the appeal being a visual person. Then of course I have my website that comes chock full of goodies like this blog, the ability to put up photos, share my life with the world and link to other sites and interesting bits of info. 
The long and the short of it seems to be that many of these things overlap in what they do and who they are trying to connect with, but with so many options, people have chosen their drugs of choice leaving me with the option to go with my website only and miss out on what is going on elsewhere or to connect with all these other sites and simply try to keep up. For now I am trying to keep up in the hopes that one day a system will be devised that can simplify everything OR that one day other people will stop being interesting and I won't want to know what is going on OR that one day I won't be so interesting and won't care if other people know what is going on with me. I guess I will just try to keep up as I don't see any of those other options becoming reality any time soon if ever. So in the spirit of social media sharing, please do check out my facebook, my twitter, my tumblr and of course my website:) 

As a PS to this post, I just tried making a link to my tumblr from this website as I have done with facebook and twitter and I guess it is too new because there isn't an icon for it yet! So here is the link to my tumblr. sparker1.tumblr.com 

*The picture on this post was found on tumblr and I realized that it perfectly illustrates how social media sites make me feel so I thought it was appropriate to add*