Touch Me All Over
This piece, like all of my mixed media pieces, are made on these clayboard mounted boxes and are one of a kind. This one is square (12″ x 12″ x 2″) – called, “Touch Me All Over” and the art actually wraps around the edges for a more 3D type look. The surface is covered with an acrylic sealant for added protection. It is also notched in the back for easy hanging on a nail or screw. :)
I hope this one goes to someone bold + sexy. Rawr. Buy it now on Etsy >>
8 days
8 days until I say “I do” to the only man I will be with for the rest of my life. So generous, kind, gentle, handsome, strong, hard-working, passionate, fun, unselfish, + smart. 8 days until I marry my soul mate – the father of my children, my partner in crime, the one that I’ll grow old and gray with – and we’ll be loving every minute of it.
I’m so excited that I feel like my heart is bursting at it’s seams. 4 years has flown by so fast! Words cannot describe the love in my heart for this man…he is truly everything I could ever ask for and more. Thank you Robert Argeanton for all the warmth, love, and happiness you have brought to my life – I promise to give all of that to you for the rest of my life.
Twisted Up
So, I tried as much as possible to relax and just hang out and make some art this weekend, but the wedding is 19 days away! I cannot believe it and the stress is building up like crazy – not because I should be stressed, but because I am a naturally anxiety-riddled person. I am trying to take some new vitamins called SAM-e to help me feel calm, but I’m not sure if its working or not. Hmmmm….I heard it takes almost a month to work, so I’ll probably just have to wait and see. Anyway, I just wanted to show you guys some new artwork I made over the weekend – I’m pretty stoked about it. :) Let me know which ones are your faves…
Lightopia Online – Website Design
The Lightopia Online site is a very modern e-commerce design paired with major focus on search-ability. The idea was to let the user search the large product line by style, type, or brand and follow a preferred path to the perfect lighting piece for their home, office, or venue. Focusing on high-quality materials, great craftsmanship, and honest service – the design decisions came together beautifully.
Features include: Dynamic Flash Animation, e-Commerce Interface + Checkout Process (with product options, user reviews, wish lists, send-to-a-friend feature, featured products), Advanced Filter Search Function, Contact Form with Google Map Integration, & Mighty-Site Content Management Software.
Van Drunen Farms Website Design
Love, love, love the Van Drunen Farms website that we just launched at Orbit. Andy, Liz, Jill and I had a great time touring the 1,200 acres of farm in Momence, IL . We also took a fully decked out tour (hair nets, safety glasses, and lab coats) inside the warehouse to see just how they freeze-dry, drum-dry, quick freeze (IQF), sugar-infuse, and fire-roast all the fruits, herbs, and vegetables that they produce and ship out. It was so cool!
Love the people at VDF and had a great time working on their site design.
HL Sourcing Design
It was great working with Henry-Lee & Company on the HL Sourcing website design at Orbit. We brainstormed for awhile and came up with this great slide show feature on the homepage to showcase all of their services and capabilities in materials. I think everybody was very pleased with the outcome of this site – a successful project in style and function. :)
BareWalls 2009
So yesterday I participated in the 15th annual BareWalls 2009 exhibit – a benefit to support the endowed BareWalls Scholarship Fund for aspiring students at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was a nerve-wracking/crazy/fun experience to make artwork live in front of the audience (on an 8-hour deadline), but I’m really glad I did it. I had the opportunity to meet a lot of new artists and really enjoyed the challenge. I was really timid at first, but finally met some really great people that got me out of my shell. The volunteers were also very helpful in hanging my pieces and bringing me food/water! Kudos to them!
The artwork you see here is my favorite finished piece out of all 5 I ended up completing for the show. Check out some of the other photos on flickr. Enjoy!
Some awesome artists I met at the show:
Lorna Filippini-Mulliken
Kathleen King
Carmel Anderson
Sandra Hart
Virginia O. Roeder
Motion/Vision/Transition Opening – JUNE 26
It’s just about that time…time for the opening - FRIDAY, JUNE 26. I’m so excited that I can hardly contain myself. This is definitely up there with one of the coolest things I’ve done in life – I can remember wanting this back when I was a kid.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m exhausted from working full time and going to the studio about 20 hours a week for the past few months…but I’ll be smiling big next Friday when everything is in place and looking good. :) Continue Reading →
Great Weekend, Condo Update, Studio Space ;)
Hello!
Bobby and I (and Kurty) had a great time I had this weekend with Mom + Dad Fiocca! They were literally only here for 1 day but it was really nice to see them and hang out. They stayed in a corner suite at the Dana Hotel and Spa looking down State Street with floor to ceiling windows…it was pretty cool (more pictures here). We spent the day walking around the area and eating good food. We came back to the hotel in the afternoon and watched a movie. haha. It was really fun and I’m so glad we spent time relaxing and hanging out because that’s exactly what I was hoping for. :)
The photo to the right is us standing on the bridge near our new condo building on Saturday. We took a cab over there to show my parents and they were really excited to see it. I almost forgot how excited I was 2 months ago when they pushed back our closing…but since we went back I’m super excited again. :) We are literally a week away from new closing date. WOO HOO. Lets see if we really get to close this time! ha! Continue Reading →
My Paper N Stitch Exhibition
Hi Guys! If you get a chance – check out my shop at the Paper N Stitch Exhibition today thru March 22nd and “favorite me” by clicking the heart on my shop page. The more hearts I get, the more chances I have to win prizes at the end of the month. I hope you enjoy the exhibition and check out all the other talented and amazing artists in the exhibit. :)
Check back for updates as well because I will be uploading more artwork to the site as the weeks go on. Thanks again to all you wonderful people out there that support me. Love like that makes the world go round.
Little City Center for the Arts
This is Little City Center for the Arts‘ new website that I designed at Orbit recently. I am so happy with the way it turned out. My favorite part about this project is that I love the organization – for more than 20 years, they have provided children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities the opportunity to explore and expand their unique and creative talents, promoting a sense of accomplishment and empowerment through the arts. Continue Reading →
CAD, Updates, MIA, Art Show, Condo, Broccoli Quiche
So, the Growing Up CAD show went really well and everyone had a great time. I’m glad Nick and Lee were able to come – we had a really fun night that night (except for the fact that I bumped my head really hard on Nate’s ceiling LOL) – you can see pictures from that night on my flickr set and you can also see the Chicago Art Department Photos here. Here’s cool shot of a couple checking out my piece. :) Bobby and I were really happy to have won one of the silent auctions and got to take home art from Jen Rosenthal. She was one of the original peeps in my Go Go Video class at CAD 3 years ago.
I’ve been a bit MIA lately – just have a lot going on. Doing artwork at home and selling it on etsy, planning a couple of art shows with a friend at work Nick Haas, working on some really huge projects at work that are taking up every bit of my patience, will power, and focus…in fact tonight I think I’ll be working from 7-10 on more designs that are due tomorrow. What’s fun and exciting is I get to go to New York for the design presentation in December…that will be a blast. :)
I absolutely cannot wait to go home for Thanksgiving and see my family and play with my nephew Alex and relax a bit – I’m hoping to get down to Delaware and visit with Jess and Josh for a night and celebrate their birthdays. Depends on if we have enough time to get down there and back without upsetting my family – it is the first time they’ve seen me in a LONG time. I definitely want to try and make it – I’d love to see you guys!
The condo is looking closer to finished now than I think I expected for November and that’s really exciting. :) We still have to wait until February to move in but some of the lower floors will be moving in in December/January. It’s gonna be so awesome to have our own place! yay!
I’m off to work or I’m never gonna get stuff finished for tomorrow! Hope everybody is doing great. And a big thanks to Kurt for the sweet a$$ brocolli quiche he made tonight. Yum in my tum! lol.
Friday Night at Home…
:) Just wanted to say hello tonight – I’m having a really nice night. Listening to John Mayor live (thank you kurty), drinking a glass of merlot, making garlic mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and fillet minion (seasoned with chopped onion and garlic). Bobby just came inside from fabricating a metal frame for a digital sign in the backyard. It smells so damn good in here and I still have 10 minutes on the fillets. Just smelling all the good smells and smiling. Wanted to say hi. Hope everybody has a nice night.
Oh, and for those of you who don’t know Justin Winget has a blog. It is here: http://www.justinwinget.com
Digital Printing on Canvas….YAY
So I’m really excited because I just set up a time next week to go meet with Digital Hub Chicago – a print company that does large format digital printing on canvas. They are very eco-friendly which makes me happy as well. My awesome new friend and co-worker Nick Haas brought in one of his printed art pieces (which by the way are awesome and kick ass and all that good stuff) and I am totally sold on trying out the print on canvas thing. It looks amazing and plus I’m thinking I can maybe print some really large pieces to get an idea how they might look for the upcoming art show we are planning.
I finally met Nate Winter (the super cool and talented writer friend of Nick) last night who will also be in the art show. I’m sure if he saw this blog he’d be a little disturbed by my terrible writing and grammer. lol. I have yet to meet Kurt Kreissl – another amazingly talented artist that I am excited to be exhibiting with – I and totally flattered they even asked me. So that’s my brief update…I’m out!
The Violet Hour
Last night after seeing the Sex in the City movie (which was fabulous and unexpectedly very long) with the girls from work, Libby and I decided to check out the Violet Hour and have a cocktail or two. Neither of us had been there and I had never even heard of it. It’s right in the middle of my neighborhood but I never knew it was there because its disguised by a very abandoned-looking wood paneled exterior and a yellow light bulb, and it’s hard to find the entrance. It seriously looks like there would be nothing behind the front door, but when opened there are these beautifully luxurious curtains that you walk through to get to the host…he took our IDs and we went through another set of large draperies…it’s a sight to see once you get inside too…these very tall backed chairs, low lighting, sparkling chandeliers, candle lights and VERY pretty and delicious drinks. It looks like a cross between Alice In Wonderland and a very swanky club. We were pleasantly surprised by the story of the unicorn on the menu and the fun choice of music. It was definitely something I would recommend to people looking for a different experience. We had a great talk and laughed a lot and said goodnight. :)
Condo Update!
We picked out our condo finishes on Monday night! yay! It was fun….much more fun than I had thought it would be. I originally thought it would be intimidating and Bobby and I would be having a hard time deciding on stuff, but it ended up that we have close to the same taste and were able to agree on everything. Unfortunately, we didn’t bring a camera so that we could take a picture of all the samples that we ended up going with….so bare with me and try to imagine. he he.
First of all, we settled on bamboo floors (similar to this link) that are a golden color with a cool linear textured look. We are doing Caesar porcelain tile in the master bathroom and in the 2nd bathroom we’re doing Colonial Caesar – a lighter/natural color…..the tile on the walls inside the shower and tub will be White Ceramic Subway tile and the countertop in the master bath will be white Carrara Marble (not the sink style but the marble style). We just stuck with the standard stainless steel appliances in the kitchen that come with the unit because if we upgrade those we’ll do it ourselves…but we did choose some Wenge Woodline cabinets (similar to this look – yet the grain is vertical in our place) and Cohiba Brown granite (though this link doesn’t do it justice – it is actually very iridescent and shimmery in the light) for the countertops and island topper.
Anyway that’s the gist of it though we did pick sinks and carpets and shower doors and other misc. stuff, but I don’t want to bore you. We are so excited and impatient right now…we still have like 8 months til the place is finally complete, but I’m sure it will all be worth it!
Dragon vs. Man
Back in college, when I was taking fine art photography, this was one of my best black and white photos. I’ve been saving it since almost 2001 in a manila folder inside my file cabinet. Probably because it is an ex-boyfriend of mine, probably because I’ll never really frame it because it’s an image of a half naked guy and I’m sure Bobby wouldn’t appreciate that in our living room, or anywhere else. But it IS still one of my favorite photos – probably because of the angle, the composition, and the tonal values. So I figured I would scan it in and save it here…so other people can say what they think of it.
I call it Dragon vs. Man because we all have our other sides…I have mine too. Even though there are good + bad memories there, everything in life is a lesson learned and a way to grow into who we are today, so I say……no regrets. 
Computer Dating
Bobby and I got invited to this RD659 wine and cheese party last night to meet our new neighbors. It was held at an Supreme Art + Frame shop down on Randolf Street across from the development. We invited Jess and Sang-woo to come with us since they are still looking for condos and might have been interested in this property too. There was wine and cheese and obviously a character drawer…which gave it a bit of a carnival feel, but hey who cares it was fun. Below is a pic of Bobby and I with our beloved computers. haha. I think it looks alot like Bobby but not much like me. I like my cartoon yellow hair though. It rocks!
Colorado Update
So just got back from Colorado on Sunday night…had an awesome time with everybody…it was so nice to see Amy + John + Graeme (haven’t seen them in forever!) Everybody had fun skiing except me, haha. I ended up sitting it out the whole weekend with a pinched nerve in my shoulder. The sharp pains started happening on Friday and gradually got worse and then Saturday they were still there but they were fading. I felt like a bit of a lame-o but I had fun drinking beer and periodically hanging out with everyone as they came down the mountain for breaks. We went to Vail on Friday and A-Basin on Saturday, In Vail we met this so-called famous bull rider champion, John Baker, that supposedly was having a million dollar winning streak. (See above photo with weird guy with big mustache. haha.) He was nice and we all hung out with him that evening thinking he was really cool and interesting, but then we got back to Frisco and googled him and found out we had been punk’d. Couldn’t find his info anywhere, so he was obviously pulling our leg. WHAT A WEIRDO!
Made for a funny story so I’m satisfied with that. haha.
Saturday night and Sunday we were in Denver…had a crazy dinner at The Corner Office Denver including things like Lobster Mac n Cheese and Chicken and Waffles….”World Comfort Food” its called. I also might add that my Coors Light was very tasty. (Guess you had to be there to think thats funny.) haha. After that we came home and played guitar hero and talked til the early hours of the morning. :)
Sunday I had my first ever Bloody Mary and then we hit up a Rockies game in some very nice weather which was lots of fun. Afterward sadly we had to head home. A big thank you to Amy and John for their hospitality and lodging. We had a great time and hope to see you guys in Chicago this summer!
Oh yeah P.S. I’m going to upload my photos tonight and I’ll update this post with a link to them. So check back for more pics. :)
Sweet Caroline…lol
So Good So Good So Good from missshellie on Vimeo.
Bobby and I went out with Bridget + John last night to a little Mexican place called “El Taco Veloz” and happened to sit down right as the Karaoke guy started to sing. I think everyone thought I was a little insane cause I was dancing and singing along in my seat…but it was pretty hilarious and hard to ignore….we were sitting directly in front of the speakers and it was so loud we couldn’t hear each other talk. Damn the food was good though, yum! I think that might be our new spot…used to be Aurturo’s on Western but this new place is just 3 blocks away from B+J’s house…and I think the food is better. DING.
Replenishing Body Kiosk – London Design Museum
Bobby and I went to the Design Museum today in London…in South Bank (near the Tower Bridge) and it was so awesome…wayyy better than the Tate Modern. :)
This design work was created by Ross Phillips, head of interactive at SHOWstudio, the online fashion broadcasting company, founded by Nick Knight.
It was inspired by the fact that the human body is made up of 60% water, used a 25 section, touch screen video grid where visitors were invited to make a one-second video recording of a close-up section of their body, which was added to a constantly moving, composite video portrait.
Stuck in Bloody London ;)
Bobby and I got up this morning thinking we were going to the airport and were surprised to find out that our flight had been canceled due to weather…and that there weren’t any flights to Chicago until tomorrow. Although it’s not so good for our pocket books…we did get to stay at a cooler hotel in a different part of town and we got to go to the Design Museum, which I was really sad we had missed. It was raining like crazy today so it wasn’t as fun walking from the tube…but it was well worth the wet walk.
There were lots of really amazing designed objects/furniture/fashion but our favorite at the museum was this interactive video installation. I’m going to post a video of that above this post if you want to watch it. Basically you could hit “record” and choose a spot on the screen and you’d record a one second video of yourself that would be placed on the projected screen. The coolest part about it is that you’re little video stays there until someone comes in behind you and chooses that same square to replace you. Until then, you really are a part of that art work. :) You can see in the video (that I’ll be posting next) that Bobby and I are doing some silly stuff…it was really fun!
My Valentine
What did you guys do for Valentine’s Day?
Bobby and I set up a cooking class at the Chopping Block at the Merchandise Mart downtown – we had champagne, lobster and watercress salad, pistachio encrusted scallops (those were sooooo good!), beef wellington, and for dessert we had chocolate expresso mousse parfait. It was only a demonstration class (not hands on) but it was really fun…it was nice to relax after work and not worry about cooking. We shared a table with a couple that actually lives down the street from us and they turned out to be really cool. I’m so glad because I would’ve been uncomfortable if we sat with strangers that didn’t talk to us! haha!
Anyway the class was awesome and we ate some awesome food! Oh and Bobby got me roses and a teddy bear – it was so cute! I walked off the train and he was standing there hiding it from me… I think I’ve been in denial about recieving flowers for a long time (maybe because I don’t usually get any!)
So anyway, moral of the story – I like getting flowers – even if they die soon after – its totally worth it. haha!
After our class we took a cab to meet Jessica, Sang-woo, and Allison at the movie theater on Western Ave. to see “Jumper” (wouldn’t recommend it) but we did have a really fun time anyway…I was a little tipsy from the wine at class…Jess was worried I might fall asleep in the movie. haha. (Oh another movie I do not recommend if you are not in the mood for crying your eyes out – is P.S I love you – wow, that was a tear jerker! My chest and throat hurt when I left that movie from all the heartbreaking stuff I had to watch!)
I’ll write more later, I have tons to fill you all in on.
:) shell
It’s Saturday night…
…and I’m a geek.
I’m really excited about this new blog. I swear this is the last time I’m going to try and keep this up. Try not to get weak and delete it. What do you guys think? Think I can keep it up? Ok well just watch – I’ll make you proud this time.
Well, for starters, it’s going to be quite an exciting year. I’m getting in shape, I’m going to hone my skills as a hula hooper and I’m going to try really hard to visit all my friends that I so desperately need to see. (You guys are the ones that have made my life so interesting up until this point.) Thanks for always being there and listening.
Well, I’m off to work on this blog design…check you later (for a more intimate update.)
:) miss. shellie
Transported to Map Space
I dreamt last night that Bobby and I were looking at google maps. We flew from the couch right down into Southern California. We just jumped in and the little vector streets and parks turned into real live spaces. As we zoomed in to the map, we somehow transported into the map space. We jumped and bounced and screamed because we liked it. We were like, – in there. We were sort of flying and he was explaining to me that when he used the “zoom” feature we were able to move closer to the streets and it was almost as if we were jumping and moving way out in the atmosphere.
I’ve only flown in dreams twice. This is the second time. It’s absolutely cool.
Its really as if I have the ability to gravitate and I can feel that feeling in my chest that you feel when you are falling, but then with a burst upwards, the feeling goes back down. I’m sure I sound completely insane. Dreams are essentially something that happened to me in my unconscious and don’t really pertain to any of you out there. But maybe someone had a similar experience…?
Anyway… I hope we all learn to fly one day.