The Teal Designs Art Studio Blog: Artist

Thursday, December 4, 2008

FEATURED ARTIST: Michelle Sinofsky Eshbaugh and Creative Curves Jewelry and Lampwork Glass Beads

::FEATURED ARTIST::

Michelle Sinofsky Eshbaugh
Artist and owner at Creative Curves Jewelry & Lampwork Glass Beads

Artists Name: Michelle Sinofsky Eshbaugh
Name of Business: Creative Curves Jewelry & Lampwork Glass Beads
Type of Business: jewelry design and glass work
Web Site(s): http://www.creativecurvesjewelry.com and
http://www.creativecurves.etsy.com
Contact: creativecurves@yahoo.com

Retail and Wholesale orders welcome!

First of all, do you have any special offers for your customers this holiday season?
Yes, click the image below for a FREE Lampwork Glass Bead Picture Frame Keychain with purchase! I am also offering customers the chance to win a $25 dollar gift certificate, so make sure you sign up too!

ABOUT MICHELLE...

Current shows, exhibitions, or places selling your work:
This was my first full year of fine arts and craft shows. I have one more show in December in Northampton Massachusetts and hopefully a full 2009 season with many new additions. At this time I don’t have my work in many stores but would be interested in some accounts. I mostly sell my work through craft shows and on my websites.

What do you create?
I create one of kind pieces of jewelry using my own lampwork glass beads for the individualistic person.

Where do you make your creations?
In the comfort of my own home where I have a glass studio in my garage and an office where I put all my materials together to create works of art.

What makes your creations special or unique?
I pride myself on making pieces that are unique and different that catch people’s eye and often generate people to take a closer look. I put my heart and soul into my creations so with each piece the buyer gets my passion and love of creating it.

What inspired you to become an artist?
I have been creating since I was a little girl. Art has been in my family on both sides and it has always caught my attention. I would have to say my families support has become my biggest inspiration to become an artist.

What really gets you in the mood to be creative?
So much of the world around me gets me in the mood to create. I often look to nature and fashion to get me in the mood.

What do you do to unclog a creative block?
Creative blocks …they do happen on occasion. I usually put aside what I am doing and often refresh my mind by standing in my backyard and looking at the world around me. Sometimes I start a different project in a different medium for fun and it often spurs another creative venture in the glass and jewelry medium.

What is your favorite time to work?
Anytime I get to work is my favorite time.

Do you have a “day job”?
I used to teach school full-time and was pursuing my hobby making jewelry part time. I had a life changing moment and realized as much as I loved teaching school that it was not my calling or my dream. So here I am and I couldn't be happier. Besides running my business I am also a full time stay at home mom.

What is a challenge you have had to overcome as an artist?
Being an artist is wonderful but defiantly has its challenges. There are a lot of talented people out there and the competition can be steep. My biggest challenge was finding the right path to my dream and the right time to pursue it. Even though I pursued my educational path not in the art field I found my way back to what runs in my soul.

Who/what inspired you to become an artist?
I would have to say my family has inspired me to become an artist. My mother and grandmother have been very supportive to my venture and my father was the one who used to encourage my growth by always surprising me with educational sources and positive encouragement.

What are you most grateful for?
I am most grateful to have a wonderful and supportive family who sticks by me through the good and bad times. I owe great thanks to their encouragement to keep creating and fulfilling my dream.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Pictures In My Head

Sadie by Teal Marie Chimblo

It drives me crazy that I don't have more of my fine art work online yet. I've got so much to shoot and scan, and then there are all the pictures in my head, swirling and whirling, keeping me up at night; noisy little buggers.

There is never enough time. Choices have to be made. I say the artist's prayer,
"Let me live one more hour then it takes for me to birth it all."

It is a funny thing being an artist. I'm a visual artist (mostly) so a lot of what comes in, and goes out, for me, is visual. But, even non-visual items take on a life of their own. Sounds create textures; touch produces a series of shapes; a smell generates color. All the senses intertwine for me this way. They seem to be talking to each other, sometimes behind my back, telling each other secret stories and then springing the surprise on me. I don't mind... keeps me on me toes.

Sometimes I feel engulfed in my surroundings. I think this is part of the oneness that yoga and meditation bring to my life, as well as my "artist's mind". The singularity of One Taste. The permeated feeling that comes from knowing that nothing really separates me from anything. Only the illusion provided by molecules vibrating a slightly different rates makes it seem so.

I had this feeling the other day laying down on a park bench after my morning run. Watching the yellowing autumn leaves shake, and then cascade down over the path, over me, through me and down past the ground beneath, going on and on for infinity. I wondered how I could portray that in paint. Can you? Makes me jealous of the masters of the moving picture. I think they might have a better chance.

Siren by Teal Marie Chimblo

I paint a lot of women. They say that artists are always painting themselves, and I definitely see the truth of that in my own work. Sexy, vibrant, rash, hollow, lost and found, glorious and broken, I see them all in the female archetypes of history, and in the mirror.

Eris Discordia by Teal Marie Chimblo

They are all goddesses, and as such they don't have to play by the rules. They are hardly well-behaved, but then that hardly ever gets a goddess anywhere does it?

Infection by Teal Marie Chimblo

Some are more fragile then others. They have good survival instincts.
Knowing when it is time to leave is something I have learned from them.

Anima Sophia by Teal Marie Chimblo

It is encouraging to see the places they have arrived at; it's good to plot their course on a map, keep it for reference to see where they have been, the trajectory they are choosing next. They are elusive and uncontained. As they should be.

The fourth and final phase of anima development is Sofia, named for the Greek word for wisdom. Complete integration has now occurred, which allows females to be seen and related to as particular individuals who possess both positive and negative qualities. The most important aspect of this final level is that, as the personification "Wisdom" suggests, the anima is now developed enough that no single object can fully and permanently contain the images to which it is related.