Jill Kerttula
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Some thoughts and tips where to shop!

5/25/2014

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My last mannequin and I contemplate our futures while we wait for her new partners to show up to take her away. Both she and Sasha have found employment at Community Centers as decorative participants in Halloween and other celebrations.  It is a bittersweet thing to say good bye to them! The third is now showing off historical costumes near here.

The tent left yesterday to now house welded sculptures of a local artist, John Pahlas who I think has a very bright future ahead. He will be doing a number of shows this year, and will be on the Mt Horeb artist tour in a couple of weeks. I wish him the best!

The machine will soon be headed to Baraboo, WI to make the beautiful purses created in Helen's Daughters' studio. Her things are amazing and, after having been through several shows together, I can attest to her creativeness and just plain nice person-hood as well! I hope it serves her as well as it has me.
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These shelves may be empty, but I can assure you neither my head or heart are! I am full of enough good memories of each and every one of my customers, shows, fellow Etsy sellers, and followers to last me a lifetime! The projects we have worked on together have been just beyond fun.

My head is about to explode with new ideas for me to work on. Obviously the photography is right up there... I keep thinking of a combination of my photo and quilting, but haven't quite formulated it yet! I found a myriad of wonderful fabrics I have purchased to make garments for myself, but never have had the time to do so! So that is on my agenda. Exploring a whole new part of the country and living the city life instead of our rural existence will take time and be fun!

And of course... there will be grandkid time! We will now be two hours instead of two days from them, so I am thinking we have some lost time to make up for this summer!
For those of you looking for garments, may I suggest a friend and great designer, Secret Lentil. I am sure many of you have already found her, but if you haven't be sure to check her out! She used to be on Etsy, but now sells direct from her site - tell her I said "hi"!

Another great source for knit goods is "The Devil Made me Do It". She is located in DC, but sells on-line also.

The maker at "The Painted Daisy" bought all my unused cashmere, so I am sure there will be some wonderful winter things offered in her Etsy shop
. Herr summer things also look fabulously fun!

Another Etsy friend who is also a great maker, a bit different style,
but always good service and work; Gail at Savoy Faire, has a couple of shops, and does a lot of the the 'shabby but chic' type clothing for all sizes and occasions.

Of course those are just a few of the great makers out there. I hope you all find someone to make your life and garments more fun
. Be sure to keep purchasing from the handmade community at your local art fairs, and on-line. We appreciate it very much.
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what a find! Mommy has a magical dress!

5/21/2014

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Cleaning packing and purging is exposing some real finds! I had totally forgotten about this gem. One year (probably about 1990), in the after Christmas sales, I ran across this doll. I could not leave it in the clearance bin at Toys r Us for fear of it being foisted upon some poor child, so I bought it. It is an amazing piece of fiction - sure to permanently scare any child who encounters it. 

It was evidently developed by a Yale grad (and mother) who felt this was helpful. I hope Yale has reconsidered her diploma by now.
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Here is the instruction sheet... The magical dress has several layers to accommodate a soft cushy belly in one layer and a pouch for the baby in the second layer! Wow - why didn't I think  of that! This is so much easier than that silly birth process we all know and love.  Be sure to check out #3... as a mother of two, I can assure you this is not true.
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Comes complete with your very own ultra sound!
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Note Mommy's return to the perfect figure, and her politically correct wedding and engagement rings!
Now... got any suggestions what I should do with this gem of a "toy"? Please let me know!
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Purging, Pricing, packing.....arghhhhhh

5/18/2014

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It has been quite the month. We have made it through most of our 35+ years of accumulation, and much of what my mother-in-law left, and a bit of what my mother left. My kids are both grown and gone, but their stuff lingers on. I thought I might share a few of the things I have learned - mostly about myself - through this process.
All that stuff that "might be good for something someday"
isn't and probably won't be.

As an artist, I tend to see potential in most things. As an artist who has done both collage and quilts using non-traditional materials, the percentage of potential usage seems to have risen to about 100%. Things of note: A metal heat duct grill that I think I got out of the trash about 30+ years ago. A rusted metal oil space heater that I am sure could have made a fine table. Scraps of every kind of paper imaginable, and drafting supplies that I have sworn I would never use, now that a computer can draw a circle without a ruling pen. Of course there is also the aproximately 50 sheets of dryer lint lifted carefully from the screen, but those DO have potential and will be carted to Virginia. Did I mention the polyester jump suit in gold from about 1980? (My only solace is knowing that there are those of you out there who are saying "why would you get rid of ANY of that")
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Black, grey, khaki and white; the spectrum of my life!
What I think I will wear and what I wear are not the same!
To start the great closet purge (we are going from two walk-ins to one shared!), I sorted what I wear regularly from what I wear rarely (or if truth be told, never). The results were startling. On my left (wear) was a collection of solid and subtle prints of black, white and a few khaki items. On my right (rarely wear) was a cacophony of color and prints. hmmm. As I thought about this, I realized that one of the best parts of the garments I made for jill2day was the chance to make colorful and statement garments that I would love to wear, and then see the joy they brought to those who actually wear them. I think I have to work on this "when I get old I shall wear purple" thingy.
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The important family heirlooms are not
made of crystal or gold.

The cut glass so carefully protected by prior generations means little to me; The small glass that my grandpa kept his pennies in means a lot, but will probably be meaningless to my children. As I sifted and winnowed through the "good dishes" and the other artifacts of the family, I realized that it is the experience that the object evokes is meaningful to me, not the object.

When I was a kid, we went to a farmer's co-op in my dad's home town of Brantwood, WI. A chunk of brick that I got when visiting the ruins of it with my sister last year, means a lot more to me than the china cups my mother so carefully saved through the years. There are many antiques I appreciate for craftsmanship or history, but the mere fact they were owned by a prior generation does not instill greatness in them for me. The older my children get the more I realize that memories are so relative to the individual, and so are the objects that inspire memories. When the time comes for them to clean out my house, I would expect them to say "why the heck did she save this?" a lot. They will not know that the sand dollar was given to me by a close friend or that the plastic magnet from the "Chapel of Love" at the Mall of America is from a very special day.
Or that chunk of brick still connects me to my dad

More lessons learned, but that will do it for now. Off to get the couch cleaned off for the person who is buying it today.

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Dear Budget makers; the arts are not dispensable.

5/2/2014

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I can not remember a time when I have not made things. I can not remember a time when my brain didn't immediately crop and compose whatever I am looking at. I can not imagine my head not saying "what if" and "what about if you"... This is not a brag or a exhalation, just a constant reality of my life, just as each of you have a constant in yours. This is also influenced by the weeks of going through all my saved possessions and artwork as we prepare to move.
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pen and ink done in middle school.
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wood block done in high school
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monoprint done in high school
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welded sculpture done in high school
My memories are not of place, or even always, of people but of what came from it. I remember a Joseph (the one with the coat of many colors) from pre-school Sunday school. He had a circle that attached with a brad and had many feet on it, so when you moved them it looked like he was walking. I remember carefully choosing the colors for his coat. I remember drawing a moose in kindergarten, and I was dumbfounded when my teacher got so excited about it. It was just a moose!

My first run-in with school authorities was when I (apparently) dripped black paint on the floor of the
first-grade while doing my art project. In fourth grade, There was a three-dimensional jaguar for the Amazon (country not software!) display, and my clay sculpture of Lily the dog next door. 

Jumping ahead to middle school, there was the introduction to printmaking and pen and ink drawing, which thrilled me beyond imagining. The combined physicality of carving and the starkness of the line was really compelling to me.

In high school, I also tried my hand at jewelry (couldn't do gold because gold was too expensive at $35./ounce!) and the pottery wheel. Neither really got to me because of the finesse and lack of immediacy in the processes involved, so I did slab clay pieces and discovered welding. And I continued to draw and print.

High School was a challenge for me, and without Don Hunt and Evelyn Bauman I may never had made it out. Their art rooms provided a sanctuary for those of us who didn't quite fit in with the science or jock activities. It was a place you could bare your soul, speak your mind through your hands, and go at your own pace, it was a place where hearing a different drummer was lauded not chided.

Then came adulthood, but I will leave that for another post.


I was not alone in these art rooms. There were many, then and now, who found refuge and joy there; And now budget cuts find them "dispensable". Sorry, but I think not.

Art has been a compulsion and solace for humans since the cave paintings at Lascaux. The arts have, at one extreme, moved our souls and
celebrated or exposed human events; and, at the other extreme, made life simply more enjoyable and pretty. The arts are both subjective and objective; They are private in the creation and and public the experience. The arts can be a livelihood, a hobby,  a rehabilitation or a spectator sport. But they are not dispensable or a luxury to society.

What can you and I do? Make sure our kids have a box of crayons as well as an Xbox. Make sure that in between Spiderman and other blockbusters, they get to go to live theater. How about a stroll through a sidewalk art show. Do we get as excited about the art elective as we do about another AP math class. Do we  chuckle at the idea of an art or music choice for a profession; maybe we should acknowledge it is a viable option?

Finally. And maybe most importantly, do we check the opinions of our candidates about education in the arts before we vote? Maybe we should.
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  • Home
    • Fiber art
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  • shop
    • Shop: Fiber Art
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  • Process & Videos
  • CONTACT & ARTIST INFO
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  • News & Musings