Emergency Arts

photo courtesy of Las Vegas Arts and Culture

Ever come to Las Vegas and just get sick of losing your a$$ at the casinos?? Man, you ought to try living here! Here is a suggestion of where you can stop by next time you happen to be visiting. The Emergency Arts building is in downtown Las Vegas at 520 E. Fremont street, right across the street from the El Cortez which you can see in the background of this photo.

I happened to go there today to meet up with my friend Lynne who has two shops over on Etsy - HiJinx for Handknit and Crocheted items and Adamson Art for all her amazing paintings. Most of the shops inside were closed but we did have a wander around and saw some cool artwork.

Let me tell you something interesting about this building...it used to be a medical center. My husband even went there once for a physical when he was applying for some job years ago. All the artists are using the former examining rooms...wild!

It was a bit quiet today which is to be expected as it was a Wednesday afternoon but they do have a lot of events there. It was nice to finally check it out and good to see that East Fremont Street is starting to get some love and it looks so much nicer down there.

Hope you can check it out if you are ever in this neck of the woods. After that you can check out the Arts District which I'll tell you about some other time.

Camera Woes, Tagged and Thanks

Ahh so many things to blog about that I am using one post for all three. Firstly, my camera woes, or more specifically my rechargeable battery woes. Monday I decided I needed to take some photos, I have a section in my Etsy shop which is 10 Bucks or Less. I thought it would be good to pad it out a bit. I knew my batteries were dead so come the afternoon I plug in my charger and leave it. Fast forward to next day about 10am, I get my nice little home-made lightbox all set up and get all the earrings I want to photograph, put the batteries in and my camera starts up just fine. Then, the battery icon lights up and POOF it turns off! Ugg how frustrating, I've only had the batteries since January, did I overcharge them? So, I go to the Energizer site and can't really figure out what I did but I figure I'll call Customer Service. Sure enough, the woman helping says I most likely did overcharge them and would I like for them to send me a $15 coupon to use to buy some more? Ummm YEAH!! Of course I want to save money if I'm going to have to buy new batteries. As you can see I did manage to charge the batteries enough to get a few pics so I've already started listing the earrings and will be doing so over the next few days.


Now onto being tagged. Lisa from Alterity Art has tagged me and I gotta tell you Lisa I tried to start this post as a response to the tag. I really did. I had the first paragraph done and then when I got to the part where I had to list 8 things I'm looking forward to, well I got to number 2 and then, that was it. Then I looked at the next 8 I was supposed to write about, 8 things I did yesterday. Oh my goodness, I really don't want to bore people to death with my blog. Believe me, the most exciting thing I did yesterday was walk to the Post Office and back. I will tell you what the 2 were that I managed to fill in for what I'm looking forward to:

1. My 81yo mother-in-law coming over from England for a visit on Sunday.
2. Getting a job

I was tempted to fill in the last one for the rest too but I didn't want to sound like a complete loser (haha). So thanks Lisa for the tag and well, at least I tried ...right?

Lastly, I want to thank John over at John Wright Art. I received my print today that I won here on his blog. It is lovely and I can't wait to get a nice frame for it.

Where Do You Find Inspiration?

Everyone will have a different answer and I'm always interested to find where people get their inspiration from. I was reading an article about this subject but it covered the topic of wire work and design. The author's suggestion was to look at buildings with ironwork which makes perfect sense. I'm sure there are people who live in the country and have the landscape around to give them ideas. There are people who paint or photograph what is around them. I have to admit that I don't really know what inspires me, silly as that may sound. When I come up with a design sometimes its just sitting with a bunch of bead or jumprings in from of me and hoping for the best. Other times it might just suddenly come to me what I should do with that awesome focal bead that has been sitting there for ever. Then there are the other times when I'm out and I see something that gives me an idea for a design.



One thing I do love to do is look around for inspiration. Whether it is from nature, like the first photo (Zion, Utah, USA) or from something manmade like the bridges and buildings in the second photo (Tyne Bridges, Newcastle, England). It might be the colors or the shapes that give you the ideas to come up with a design. So what inspires you to make what you do? or do you have many different inspirations? I'd love to hear what inspires you.

Southern Nevada Center For The Arts

January 23rd 2009 - The day of the Grand Opening of this great new venue for artists of all mediums. I have to be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect but I was more than pleasantly surprised.

The Center is located in the Neonopolis complex which is in downtown Las Vegas, at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd (the Strip) and Fremont Street. As you walk in there is a reception area and then you go on your journey. Each artist has their own studio where they have all their works on display and some even have a small area to work too. What a great idea for people to walk in and watch someone working on their newest painting or closing jump rings on their latest necklace design.

The variety is what makes this center a great addition to Las Vegas. You have painters, sculptors, photographers, jewelry designers and mixed media artists. The list includes a few local Etsians which was great to see and to meet these people in person. I spent ages talking to Robbie, a very talented jewelry designer whose shop is RubyVegas on Etsy. Also representing Etsy is Jill from Tendersoul who makes beautiful adorned pottery pieces and she shares her studio with Bonnie who has some amazing paintings. I also spoke with Bonnie for a while and I apologize to her since she did tell me that she sells on Etsy but I had a brain hiccup and didn't grab her business card. I was just so excited to be able to just talk about creating I guess. Plus, I haven't been out the house much since I lost my job so all that pent-up gab came rolling out.

Needless to say, this is a great venue and once they get rolling and add the gift shop and space for classes it will be brilliant. So for those of you who want to visit Las Vegas and are not interested in gambling and strip clubs, or want to do something once you have lost your ass then here is a great option. By the way, their url is in the photo but here is a clickable link to it www.artcenteronline.com.