THE WORLD IS ON YOUR SIDE

QWERTY-NESS

When I am not creating new designs for URBAN BIRD, I work on larger fine art pieces using a batik process on paper.  I was invited to share the August-September show at Office on Alberta Street in Portland, Oregon, with Office owner Tony Secolo.  Office is an award winning design store, art gallery and design studio. If you need a cool laptop bag or want to hang out with cool creatives, Office is the place to be. Visit www.officepdx.com to see more. 

Tony’s enthusiasm for typewriters inspired this QWERTY show.  QWERTY is the top line of letters on a keyboard.  I picked out a word that starts with each letter and then randomly typed that word, using one of Tony’s vintage typewriters, on old blank book pages.  Then, I dropped hot soy wax on each letter which then resists the dyes I paint into the paper.  After waxing out and then removing all the wax, I cut out squares from the batiked paper, glue them down, sand it all and apply lots of varnish.  Here are the words I picked for each letter:

Q – QUEST

W – WIZARD

E – EXPECT

R – REWARD

T – TEACH

Y – YOURSELF

My fine art process is much more abstract than what you see in my greeting card designs.  Exploring my medium gives me new ideas and insights that I can then apply to my card designs.  Thanks Tony, for an occasion to use my paper process in a fresh way.

The world is on your side.

THE WORLD IS ON YOUR SIDE

I have been a working artist my entire adult life.  Fortunately, I had the good sense to choose a partner who “gets me” and has done everything to encourage my creativity. I can’t begin to share my artistic endeavors with the world without you all knowing that there is a beautiful, generous and nurturing man that supports my vision in every way and has for over 16 years.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude for this man. 

Thank you Adam.

So with that said, let the bloggin begin……..Chances are you found my blog through my www.urbanbirddesigns.com website that features my greeting card line, URBAN BIRD DESIGNS. I will be sharing information about URBAN BIRD news as well as my fine art work and other projects.

I’ve titled my blog “THE WORLD IS ON YOUR SIDE” after one of my favorite greeting card designs. I was inspired by the word pronoia.

pronoia : a conspiracy of goodness in the world working on your behalf.

When you start to think of all the things that go right everyday and the little miracles that are occurring at every moment from the refrigerator that keeps your food cold to the breathing that keeps you alive, it is humbling.  The fact that I got a blog up and running is proof of this conspiracy. If you told me a month ago that I would be bloggin…………But here I am ready to share with you, through my artwork, the magic and possibilities that I know exist for us all.

So blog readers, thanks for the visit and when you come back you can look forward to learning more about URBAN BIRD, seeing my artwork and process and more proof that the THE WORLD IS ON YOUR SIDE.

Jennifer Doheny