Welcome Guest Textile Artist Frauke Schramm

As I mentioned in past posts, taking Kelly Rae Robert's Flying Lessons last year has impacted my life and business in so many ways. One of the benefits of the ecourse was the personal connections made with other creative people and I'd like to share some of these people with my blog readers.

 For today's blog post, I'm thrilled to be welcoming my guest blogger, Frauke Schramm. Frauke is a talented textile artist from Germany who makes beautiful quilts. She's also sharing her hubby's photography in today's post. I'm so happy to have her as my guest. Please be sure to leave a comment to let her know you visited.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Hi everybody ! I’m Frauke (also known as quilthexle), an emerging textile artist – and I’m sooo honored to be guest posting today on Melanie’s lovely blog! Thank you so much, Melanie!

Melanie and I met via a inspiring, life-changing online course by Kelley Rae Roberts. One wonderful experience we made through this class was connecting with lots of amazing artists from around the world. How else would a textile artist from Southern Germany do a blogpost on a mixed-media artist’s blog from Louisiana?

Only after I graduated in Political and Educational sciences and started working in corporate world, my creative voice started nagging at me with a voice I could not overhear anymore. So – I took a patchwork class. And was hooked – immediately. In 2009 I entered a quilt into a juried show in the US – and it won first prize in the category “cutting edge”.

I was thrilled, happy – and very nervous and unsecure at the same time. My inner voice urged me to do “more” – to live a creative life, with the big goal of doing this textile art thing for a living sometime in the future. Now I’m on this way … taking baby steps, sometimes without any progress, sometimes leaping forward, sometimes I’m a happy big smile, sometimes I feel just miserable about it.  

One important thing I learnt: be prepared to have downtimes, to be desperate, to consider to quit. But these feelings are so important! Because they do tell you something about you, your own journey and what you need. Just a few days I was standing in our dining room, sobbing in the arms of my wonderful husband – the words I uttered were “I don’t know the way!” A bit strange ? yes. It got me thinking … what do you do when you’re lost? You ask for directions! And so I did – right now, I’m getting into contact with a coach. She’ll not know my way – but I hope she can help me to find it ;-)) I have the strong feeling that this was meant to happen, that it is my very own logical next step. So – listen well, and if that inner voice sounds strange, listen even closer … it wants to tell you something ;-))


So, enough about my creative journey and me. For this guest post, I want to look a bit further into living a creative life as a couple (with both still holding “paycheck jobs”). While I’m a textile artist, my husband is a talented hobby photographer. Of course, taking pictures is an important part of my art, too – capturing the everyday inspiration. Sometimes we go on a photographing trip together. The process of being on a photo trip together is a lot of fun for both of us; when we look at the pictures at home, it is always so inspiring to see how the important other one captured the scene we both saw. I’m going to show you some of the pictures from these trips – do you want to join me? I would be delighted !


Recently we had a short period of winter over here in Germany. And here’s a picture of both of us ! Well, at least of our shadows ;-)) to the left is DH, taking a picture, the shorter figure is me.

 Another trip took us to an old furniture fabric that was torn down. We did not see any “do not enter”-signs ;-)) and spent a very inspiring hour in a wet, cold surrounding. This picture by Jens gives you an idea what we were looking at:

The reflections of the partly torn-down roof in the puddles on the floor fascinated me – so I took this picture:

And Jens took a pic of the fire extinguisher and later on edited that pic so the red became the prominent (and only) color.

I took pictures of small details:

This last picture was taken by me – and Jens edited it, so it is a true coproduction:

I hardly ever do a lot of digital editing with my pictures (I do resize them, and sometimes I correct the colors), so it is kind of weird for me to see one of my pictures edited like this. On the other side, when we spoke about this guestpost, it became very clear to me that Jens would not want to have any of his unedited pictures published. To me, that’s an important part of working creatively together: you must respect the way your partner sees his or her art. You don’t need to love it, and you don’t need to praise it when you don’t feel like it, but respect for the creative decisions of your partner is absolutely necessary. But working together or side by side can be truly inspiring, and in the end, you’ll profit both … even if it’s only because you enjoyed a great time together!

Thanks again, Melanie, for having me over for this guest post. Everybody who read it – thank you so much, I do appreciate your time! If you want to see more of Jens’ photography, please visit his flickr account (and if you don’t mind, tell him how you liked his pictures …). And if you would like to visit my corner of the web, you are invited over to quilthexle’s world – the door is always open, and I do my best to keep my blog a happy and welcoming place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you, Frauke, for sharing your and your husband's art with us. Thanks everyone for stopping by. Have a great week.

More Mardi Gras

I'm still celebrating Mardi Gras! I have had three Mardi Gras Dachshund orders this week, and painted two back to back. These are for long-hair dachshunds, so - just in case you wondered - yes, I can paint your long haired doxie. You can order your custom Mardi Gras Dachshund painting from my Etsy Store.

All this Mardi Gras art has me longing for the French Quarter, so we've planned a trip in the next couple of weeks. I can't wait.

Busy weekend ahead - an art reception to attend, a "Dancing With the Stars" local event, and a few days later another "masked" event with a twist. And I will be featuring an artist here on my blog this month. I can't believe it's March already!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Mardi Gras and Murder Mystery Dinner

This has been a jammed packed month with heart themes, mardi gras and mystery. Over a week ago I attended the local "Go Red" event for the American Heart Association. The day before the event I had the privilege of assisting the coordinator and her team in decorating the venue for an expected 350 people. They chose a Mardi Gras theme of "Krewe de Rouge", and had red mardi gras mask centerpieces, gift bags, red chair covers and other beautiful decoration. I love event planning, so this was right up my alley. Some local artists donated paintings, pottery and other hand made items for a silent auction. My "Felt With the Heart" painting was purchased by a Louisiana Senator and his wife. I was so honored that they chose my piece for their home. Another highlight of the night was meeting Jenna Bush Hager. She was the keynote speaker for the event and was just as beautiful, if not more, in person.

As soon as that event was over, I had to get busy for my own Mardi Gras themed event - a murder mystery dinner! This special dinner for eight included gumbo, muffelettas (New Orleans Style), king cake, and a Mardi Gras Ding Dong cake, something I put my own unique spin on. The ficticious setting for this party was a New Orleans Garden District mansion and included a notorious gothic author, a southern beauty queen, a Las Vegas trailer trash gold-digger, a French Quarter street musician, a bayou boy, a lawyer and last but not least, hired help in the way of the chef and the maid. My husband and I took the roles of the hired help. I love how my friends took the time to dress the parts of the characters. No one read the scripts beforehand (including myself) so we were in for hilarious surprises throughout the night as we tried to guess who the murderer was. If you have never done a murder mystery "game", you can't imagine how much fun it was. We can't wait for the next one.

Meanwhile back at the studio, I have a mardi gras dachshund custom painting in the works along with some canvases that I haven't decided what they will be yet. Want to take a peek?

I have another fun event to attend next week and hubby is already planning our spring break vacation. I told him to surprise me! I'm too tired to think about anything but I will be ready for a new adventure soon.  Thanks for stopping by. I promise I'll have more new art up soon. Have a great day!

Felt With The Heart

Today has been designated as the day that "love" is celebrated. Happy Valentine's Day to each and every one of you that is reading this. If you have come here via the Fly Tribe Blog Hop - a special welcome to you. Please, please don't forget to leave a comment so I will know you stopped by.

I want to start today's post with a beautiful quote from Helen Keller:

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.   I was inspired to incorporate this quote into a painting I created for an upcoming American Heart Association silent auction. I wanted the painting to reflect the "go red" theme, so I painted one of my favorite subject - red poppies. If you look closely, you can see the quote in between the stems, and a hint of wording at the top.     "Felt With The Heart" 24" x 30" ©Melanie Douthit   I think the painting would make a cool greeting card. What do you think?  Speaking of greeting cards, how many of you remember the cute adorable valentines we used to exchange in grade school? Here is one that brings back memories.     And here is one more little valentine images. This is a photo my hubby took a few weeks ago when he saw that his toothpaste splatter that landed in the sink made a heart.  I mean, how many times does that happen?     Thank you for stopping by today.  You can continue the Fly Tribe Blog Hop by going to this link. Have a wonderfully creative day.

It's Mardi Gras Season

It's Mardi Gras time in Louisiana! Our local Mardi Gras parade is tomorrow. I have friends that will bring their camper downtown sometime today, park it and have a spread of food there tomorrow. Mid afternoon is a Mardi Paws pet parade (can you say "aawwee") - with the parade later in the evening. It's a fun time for family and friends, and very different from what you will see in New Orleans. It's the "G" rated version of Mardi Gras. :)

Last week I created this painting for a silent auction fundraiser at a local Mardi Gras ball.

"Let the Good Times Roll!" (Laissez les bons temps rouler.)

Size: 20" x 20"

I'm planning something fun next week for Mardi Gras. I've always wanted to host a Murder Mystery Dinner, so I'm organizing a "Murder at the Mardi Gras" mystery dinner. We are all excited about this fun evening. Everyone has been assigned a character with a description about them. I'll post about it afterwards.

Next week the Creativity Tribe is having a blog hop. Be sure to check back. I'll have links posted to the main sight so you can follow all the participants. Our theme is "Love".

Happy Friday, Everyone and Laissez les bons temps rouler.!!!

Born This Way

I titled my most recent peacock painting "Born This Way". Think about it: the peacock didn't decide to be a magnificent looking bird - it was, in fact, born that way. I got to thinking - are artists born? or are they made. There is much debate on whether artistic ability is genetic or learned, and it seems that it can be both. But if it can be learned, can "all" people learn to be artists or are certain people more likely to be be "better" at being an artist than others? I'm sure that can be a long debate, too.

I decided to go back to the first known accounts of artists in the bible. Bezaleel and Aholiab.  Exodus 31:1-6

AND THE Lord said to Moses,²See, I have called by name Bezaleel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.³And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and ability, in understanding and intelligence, and in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship,⁴To devise skillful works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in bronze,⁵And in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, to work in all kinds of craftsmanship.⁶And behold, I have appointed with him Aholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and to all who are wisehearted I have given wisdom and ability to make all that I have commanded you:

I've always understood this passage that the talent and ability was from the Spirit of God. The children of Israel had just come out of a few hundreds of years of bondage. They were slaves and forced to make bricks. I don't think there was a lot of time to learn wood carving and fashioning things from gold. Their talent had to be given to them by God, either from birth, or at a later time. So, does this mean that all talent comes from above or was that just a special occurence. What do you think?

Here is the before and after of "Born This Way"

"Born This Way" 20" x 20"

Born this was was sold to a smart collector of happy art about 30 minutes after I shared it on my facebook page. I love it when that happens.

Keep up with my latest studio creations on my Facebook Page. Just press the "Like" button and you will get my feeds directly on your page.

And now you can shop my Etsy Store directly from my website. Here is my Shop Link.


Thanks for stopping by today. Have a wonderful weekend!

Routines and Calendars

I know many people won't agree with this, but I actually love January! It's the end of the holiday hustle and bustle and a time to start organizing and getting back to "normal" (whatever that is). I've already filled up my new datebook through March, but I like planning ahead. It makes it so much easier when something pops up unexpectedly. If it doesn't fit in the calendar - I politely decline. It feels much better than over extending myself.  It also helps so much with commissions. I can pencil in my non-commissions pieces around my schedule. It helps keep me on track from week to week.


If you are an artist, what do you do to help organize your studio time?

And for those of you that are enduring bitter cold winter storms, remember, it soon will pass. Here's a quote that I just love.

 Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. - Helen Keller.

 I just finished up one large commission and have another one to start right away. I'm loving that we have an unusually warm January here in the South. I have natural light in my studio and these bright sunny days make it such a cheerful atmosphere to work.

Here is a piece I finished last month. It has already found a home with a collector.

 "Quite Contrary", 20" x 20" (in private collection).

We are getting ready for Mardi Gras here in the South. Just for fun, I'm in the middle of planning a fun Mardi Gras themed dinner party. Sssshhh.. Can't give away details just yet.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!