The Wardrobe, Davis CA

                                                                    The WardrobeApril 8th: Paper Couture: Fashion Collage Art by Julie Nutting



The Wardrobe, in conjunction with Davis' Downtown Art About, presents "Paper Couture" by Southern California fashion collage artist Julie Nutting on Friday, April 8th , from 7-10 pm. Several of Ms. Nutting's fashion collages will be displayed and available for sale. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call The Wardrobe at 530.756.1128 or email staff@thewardrobe.com
Ms. Nutting will also be teaching a class the next day, at 1:00 on Saturday April 9th at the Davis Art Center. Space is limited to 15 people, and reservations can be made at The Wardrobe for $50 each.
Julie Nutting has been creating for as long as she can remember. She started drawing fashion figures when she was about nine years old. She grew up in the era of the first really fabulous fashion doll clothes. It was a time when doll clothes were exact replicas of Dior coats and Balenciaga gowns. Zippers were real and buttons were of the tiniest proportions. When she couldn't have the clothes she wanted for her dolls, she simply made them from her mom's pretty pastel hankies or fabric scraps headed for the trash bin. This led to a lifelong love of fashion illustration, design and sewing. She is published regularly in Somerset Studio magazine and has a book Collage Couture coming out this June.

Charms and Printer Trays



My bottle cap charms and plastic thingy charms




My domino charm and a ceramic seashell i made with my friend Paulette, last year
The merbaby is Ingrid Dijkers bisque charm that I painted

 Last week was a crazy week, trying to recuperate from my Key Largo trip. I had to get ready for Glitterfest, which is a really big deal here on the west coast. Gf was super busy, I think their best show yet with many new, amazingly talented vendors. I could have spent a lot of money there but thankfully I was too busy to get out from behind my booth!
Sunday was a day of total relaxation after unpacking all my goodies. I have been wanting to get back into my Key Largo projects but just wouldn't even let myself look at them because I had to be ready for GF. So yesterday, out came all the charms and vintage images that I gathered from our charm day in KL. I couldn't rip open that printer tray fast enough! I wanted it to really capture my trip to Florida, using the turquoise of the sea as my base color. Mermaids (and babies), seashells and of course keys found their way into all my little compartments.
On my last day in KL, I learned how to make charms out of bottle caps, dominoes, memory frames and other assorted stuff, thank you very much Val and Eileen! All of my tiny treasured pieces are tucked into the little boxes. One of Jen's handpainted faces found her way into a box as did Ingrid Dijkers bisque merbaby. There's a glittered heart with the word dream on it that I put to the left side of the tray that I picked up from a vendor at CHA. The colors went perfectly as did the word dream, as I dream of another fabulous artsy, beachy retreat in the future!

Making glam girls in Key Largo

Chaotic mess...I love it!

Lillian (Canada) Linda (Florida) Eileen (NYC)

Gina (Oregon) Sue (Illinois) Marita (Oregon)

Daisy (Florida)

Ingrid Dijkers Lovely Renaissance lass



Sarah (Australia)  love her originality!



Jen (California) A fairytale princess



Teri (NYC) love the color and texture!


Was I nervous? You bet! What a group of talent that was gathered here! What I loved most was everyone was given the exact same materials; black background papers, newsprint, tissue and a tiny piece of colored paper. Every piece turned out so different and each held a bit of their creators' personality within. With little instruction these women went off in their own direction for about 4 hours. The room was quiet as each concentrated on their layering all the different papers. I'm sorry I didn't get pictures of all but it was hard in the frenzy of things!.
Did I have a favorite? Of course I did! The problem is mind changes every time I look at them!

Key Largo, day2 with Ingrid Dijkers

Over the Edge Journal

Jen and Val painting away

Messy and Fun!

Pancho

Day 2....Ingrid Dijkers AMAZING Over the Edge class. I have never done anything like this so I was a bit nervous surrounded by all this talent! Ingrid was a great teacher tho and I caught on pretty fast. We made chipboard journal pages, starting with gesso and ending with the most beautiiful edges. These pages had layers and layers of paint, paper, stamping and stenciling. we learned to dress up the pages with beads, buttons and wire. We layered them so the many layers could be seen at once. They were so much fun to make, you just didn't want to stop. With 17 ladies in one room, you can imagine how noisy it could get but what I found amazing was how quiet my table was. Everyone was completely in their zone, concentrating like they didn't have a problem in the world. I love being in that zone! Of course we could hardly stop for lunch, Cuban sandwhiches brought in....delicious! Can't forget the Cuban cofee that made its' rounds every few hours to keep us wide eyed. Oh yeah, I thought I'd introduce Pancho. He was in an ajoining room but he managed to get his say so in every now and then! He seemed to like the retreat as much as we did!

Waking up in Key Largo

Ahhhh...waking up to this for 5 days! As you know, I spent a week in KeY LArgO teaching a workshop at a private retreat. This is where about 6 of us spent our nights and woke up to this glorious view every morning.
This home was owned by a friend of Jackie, one of the participants, and he offered it to us to use for the week. Set up high on stilts like all homes in the Keys, it sat not far from the Atlantics' edge.

What does one do when there is no beach in Key Largo? They bring the beach to you! His property was filled with crushed rock the color of sand that spread all the way to the little boat dock to give the illusion of a beach. SpECtaCUlaR! The water was turquoise and waveless, much different than that of our beloved Pacific. The homes were unpretentious and many were painted in the cool, pastel colors you find in Florida. No where else is a pink house more accepted than here.

Imagine the inspiration this view brought to us before we began our days of nonstop aRt!

More to follow....

OOps!

Do you all remember the brides I did last year? Well yes, one of those brides has a pregnant friend who loved the art so I was asked to create a preggy girl for her friend. This piece was so much fun because I never met the girl and have only seen a picture of her. She's a Colorado girl, outdoorsy, hikey, mountainy, not girly at all. Not girly? Gasp! How to cope with that one? She has the most beautiful head of thick curly red hair. that combined with some outdoorsy colors was my inspiration. I absolutely loved the way she turned out and decided to name this piece Baby Bump. Now the fun little finale of this story....as I was finishing this, the bride called me and told me she was pregnant! Hmmmm, do I see another preggy piece happening?