SPRING HAS SPRUNG!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Just log onto www.toginet.com for a brand-new,
LIVE, 2-hour
Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski!
3 pm -5 pm EST 2 pm – 4 pm CST 1 pm – 3 pm MST 12 pm – 2 pm PST
Call into the live show with your questions or comments for my guests
(877) 864-4869
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CLICK HERE to join Mark’s FACEBOOK Fan Page!
CLICK HERE to follow Mark’s Twitter updates!
CLICK HERE to join Mark’s Pickle Road Studio Posse on Yahoo!
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MEET
Artist, Gallery & Studio Owner, Curator, Inspirer
SUSAN SCHWAKE
About SUSAN…
Susan Schwake grew up in a creative family. Her mother supported her interest in art from a very young age and made sure that she followed her dream. Doing just that, Susan studied fine art at Plymouth State University with a concentration in painting and printmaking in the 70’s. For the past 17 years she has run an independent art school. She developed, wrote the curriculum for and continues to work with people of all ages and abilities. For the past eight years the art school has been part of artstream, llc which is a gallery and design studio. She has curated over 70 shows both in her own gallery and as a guest curator in others.
Susan has worked with hundreds of people making art through residencies, community organizations and private schools over the past 13 years. Susan has been very active in her local city’s art scene. She was a founding member of ArtEsprit.org and their first president, she has created local community festivals such as the lantern parade, and has been part of juried public art exhibitions. She helped form the city of Rochester’s Arts and Cultural Plan, chaired the committee to form a commission and now sits on the commission.
What is most near and dear to her heart is her own creative expression through fine art. She tries to follow the rule to make a line every day and finds that through that process she learns the most. She does this in her studios alongside her husband Rainer who makes each day a little more wonderful than the one before.
Take a peek at the fun and creativity happening at Artstream!
And check out Susan’s book! A teacher’s feast…
Susan knows how to guide kids to find the artists within them!
CLICK HERE for Susan’s website!
CLICK HERE to keep up with Susan’s beautiful blog!
CLICK HERE for Susan’s gallery shop!
Susan’s on FACEBOOK and TWITTER!
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MEET
Photographer, Digital Artist, Author, Teacher
SUSAN TUTTLE
About SUSAN…
Susan is a photographer, digital artist, online Photoshop instructor, and author of Digital Expressions: Creating Digital Art with Adobe Photoshop Elements and Exhibition 36: Mixed-Media Demonstrations and Explorations. Her third book, Photo Craft: Creative Mixed-Media and Digital Approaches to Transforming Your Photographs, co-authored with Chrysti Hydeck, will be released this fall.
In a 2011 online interview with the 52 Photos Project, Susan described her artistic process: “I am a self-taught photographer and digital artist. I rely mostly on my inner knowings when I take pictures–shooting from the gut, most likely breaking all the rules:) When I see something special I wish to capture, I can literally feel my heart rise in my chest. I follow those gut instincts. Not to say that I don’t think about composition, color, tonal value, etc. –I certainly do and am meticulous about these aspects, but I seem to mostly follow an internal set of rules as opposed to ones that have been imposed upon me. I am a formally-taught flutist, so I know what it is like to be instructed to follow pocketfulls of rules and technical procedures. For me, this type of learning can crush some of my creative spirit, so with photography and digital art I made a conscious decision to have full ownership of my output and growth–thus I am self-taught in this area. I taught myself Adobe Photoshop and enjoy using both Elements and Creative Suite.”
Susan’s images are lustrous and dreamy…
And her books are enticingly full of ideas and vision!
CLICK HERE for Susan’s website and blog!
Susan’s on FACEBOOK and TWITTER!
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MEET
Poet, Editor, Teacher, Novelist
EDWARD FIELD
About EDWARD…
On June 7, 1924, Edward Field was born in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up on Long Island, where he played cello in the Field Family Trio over radio station WGBB. During World War II, he flew twenty-five missions over Europe. After a short time at New York University, where he first met Alfred Chester, he travelled to Europe in 1946 and focused seriously on his writing; he returned to the United States in 1948.
In 1956, after brief stints working in a warehouse, in art production, as a machinist, and as a clerk-typist, Field began studying acting with Russian émigré Vera Soloviova of the Moscow Art Theatre. He applied the techniques he learned to reading poetry in public, and was able to support himself in this way throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Field has taught workshops at the Poetry Center of the YMHA, Sarah Lawrence, and other colleges. His books of poetry include After The Fall: Poems Old and New (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007); Magic Words: Poems (Harcourt, 1997); Counting Myself Lucky: Selected Poems 1963-1992 (1992); New and Selected Poems from the Book of My Life (1987); A Full Heart (1977), nominated for the Lenore Marshall Prize; and Stand Up, Friend, with Me (1963), which was the 1962 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets.
Field has edited anthologies of poetry, translated Eskimo songs and stories, and written the narration for the documentary film To Be Alive, which won an Academy Award for best documentary short subject in 1965. He is the editor of The Alfred Chester Newsletter and has prepared several volumes of Chester’s work for Black Sparrow Press. Field has also collaborated on several popular novels with Neil Derrick, under the joint pseudonym of Bruce Elliot. Although Field makes regular trips to Europe, his permanent residence is in New York City.
Inspiration from a master: “Poetry is no different than newspapers,” Edward recently told The Villager online. “What you think about is what you should write about.”
One example of Edward’s profound and personal poetic voice:
Both My Grandmothers
Both my grandmas came from far away
on the difficult journey alone with their children.
They had the courage to do that
but only enough strength
to get here, raise their kids, and die.
I myself have stood on the shore of the Caspian Sea
crying my eyes out
and knowing how far away far can be
and how far this America—strange and difficult even for me—
was from their homes,
from the life they yearned back to.
But they lived here uprooted the rest of their lives.
–Edward Field
Read More!
CLICK HERE for Edward’s website–which includes a fantastic, personal photo gallery of leading American writers!
CLICK HERE to visit Edward’s youtube channel!
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MEET
Crochet Artist, Writer, Teacher
CAT STOLZENBACH
About CAT…
Cat says, “I work and teach Crochet 101, Tunisian Crochet and Pjoning at Fancy Tiger Crafts or the Fancy Tiger Land of Wonderment and Joy, as I like to refer to it. I am a crochet fiend and I recently learned to sew so I have also been making some clothing items and a few quilts.
I am completely obsessed with the Malabrigo Rios yarn that we just began carrying a couple of weeks ago. I bought it on a whim right before teaching a crochet class and by the end of the class I was madly in love! I went home and made a hat and matching neck warmer that very night! It’s soft and spongy and wonderful to work with. The colorways are so beautiful that it’s almost impossible to chose one–although, my current favorite is ‘Piedras’ (pictured below).
The abalone hook, above, is the tool of my other current obsession, Pjoning or “Bosnian” Crochet. This hook makes stitching fast and easy. It feels so nice in your hand that you won’t want to put it down, although it’s beauty may distract you from your craft! This hook with this yarn is a match made in heaven!”
Cat’s employed by Fancy Tiger Crafts, a gorgeous boutique in Denver, CO, that specializes in crafting supplies and classes. Their motto? “We believe that making things by hand makes the world a better place.”
At Fancy Tiger Crafts, Cat teaches a popular Year Long Afghan Class that sounds like heaven! Each month students meet for a 2-hour class, and Cat teaches a new stitch each session that students then use to make a new square for their afghan. By the end of the year, students have 12 amazing and different squares to stitch together into a finished project, like this!
Cat’s just had a terrific article published in Piecework magazine: “Bosnian Crochet: Redicovering a Lost Craft.”
Here’s a clearer look at the hat project, one of Cat’s Bosnian crochet works:
Look at some of the swoony-beautiful hooks out there for Bosnian crocheters!
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And, when your Mojo listening’s done…
Get your small-quilt thinking caps on (look, mine is fur-lined!!) and make a resolution with me to enter the NEW Alliance for American Quilts contest (the prizes are amazing – and your small quilt isn’t due until JUNE!!!)
The 2012 theme is “Home Is Where the Quilt Is,” celebrating the form and the meaning of Home. All techniques and materials are encouraged. Entries must be 3 layers–top, filling and backing and must conform to our contest guidelines–click here to download the “Home” entry form (3 pages).
THE CONTEST IS OPEN TO QUILTERS FROM ALL OVER THE GLOBE (yes, you too, Australia, Canada, Italy, France, England, Ireland, Poland — anywhere and everywhere there are quilters!)
CLICK HERE to read more about this awesome opportunity to let your craftwork shine! DO IT DO IT DO IT WITH ME, cupcake!!! And thanks! xoxom
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If you’ve never used Auriful Thread. . .
. . . then you haven’t really sewn!
Why not start off with my BASICS ?
Mark Lipinski's Blog 
LOVE the new look! And is that violet’s baby picture in the corner? LOL
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