obsessed hardly begins to cover it. i want so many pieces by this lovely artist that i’m considering just having her send me the whole lot, and offering her a kidney in trade.
mrs eliot’s originals are collages mounted on wood – she does both one-piece works and works that are a hinged-together series. hard to explain, but the picture above is an example of one of my favorites, called “sunday evenings.” the text on the images reads “Good heavens! It’s so beautiful at this time of the evening isn’t it?”. sigh…i heart heart heart it.
francesca (the artist) was kind enough to share a little bit with me about her composition and inspiration. i loved what she had to say:
my pieces on wood are mainly collages of paper, i also sometimes draw directly onto the wood. i love using pencil on white painted wood. I usually have all my paper scraps on my computer anyway because i sometimes work out compositions on my mac and it also allows me to print the patterns onto whatever paper i like, for example if i want a piece to have more texture, i might print onto an embossed vintage wallpaper.
i started with my [hinged wooden] books; at art school i had loved making collages of torn up sentences and illustrations in my little A6 sketchbooks and when i revisited them for inspiration i realised i wanted to do that for a living! but in a way that was more lasting and so that they could be on display and not hiding in a book that you had to open every time. that’s the problem with a lot of artists’ books, they sit on a bookshelf half the time and you never get to see inside. a few months later i discovered the craft blogs, and then etsy, and that was it.
delightful, isn’t she? best of all, her pieces are so affordable – you can score one of her originals (usually done in editions of 10) for $60-70, and she offers prints of most of her pieces for $20, as well as notecards and other fun toys. i have no idea how she does it, but she manages to make the prints of her hinged books every bit as darling as the original.
i can just picture this above the sink in my kitchen – so perfect! or, i love the idea of grabbing a bunch of her season prints as a set – i found autumn (my absolute favorite), winter and summer on the site, but i’m guessing spring is around the corner.
and, just because i love it so, i’ll show you this one too…it’s called milk.
head on over to francesca’s etsy site and snap up any or all of her gorgeous pieces today…or just enjoy the lovely art show (and the photos that show how adorable her home is – i’m in love with her teacup collection!).
i spent my sunday in berkeley, checking out the outstanding wares of three of my favorite potters, all of whom teamed up to throw the mother of all sales this weekend. i had so much fun, and actually got to meet all of the designers, which was possibly even more exciting than seeing their gorgeous work in person. they were every bit as delightful as i’d expected.
