It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got that Spring

I know, I know. It has been far too long since I last posted. I hit a mental road block late last fall, and found myself unmotivated to create during the winter.

This is a regular, seasonal pattern for me. I am excited to make art in the late spring & summer, and even feel the drive in the bustle of autumn. Then, I find myself pulling off the road by the time the leaves fall off the trees and the sun sets at 5 o'clock.

*sigh* Despite best intentions, I was on the wrong side of the creative train tracks all winter.

Until May. It was a vibrant, bright month. I saw Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, got my hair bobbed, and downloaded Bryan Ferry's classy vintage jazz album.

While we were on vacation, my husband took me to see a hot jazz band touring south of the Mason Dixon from New York City. The Hot Sardines, they're called. They have a half-French chanteuse and belt out numbers complete with a living and breathing tap dancer as instrument.

Suddenly my head is full of art moderne motor cars, streamlined movie palaces, and flappers in elegant cloche hats. All the things I loved in college and why I obsessed about the 1920s are back briefly in vogue and life is wonderful.

I am driven to dust off my studio table and decoupage again. To celebrate joie de vivre, I used a charity auction certificate and invited my friends to a wine taste in the rolling Blue Ridge foothills.

In these heady, madcap days close to summer, I am enjoying the flow of inspiration and the joy of making.

I have several projects going, but the mini-piece I display on this post is my new iPhone cover. I took my background from a magazine, glued tissue over it with a star and a quote from Fitzgerald's book. The champagne bottle is a sticker. Everything got a coat or dab of picket fence shade Distress Ink.

I'm also posting my sketch of a torpedo-car that goes along with the Deco art I am pinning on my Pinterest boards.