Such is the life of jafa’s
26 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Free Art Friday, Radio show, Yellow Springs Tags: free art friday, love in, wyso, Yellow Springs
In cold, wet dreary Yellow Springs, Ohio and we are busy as ever. We did a wee interview with WYSO Jerry Kenney this morning for the Love In weekend (airs Feb 5th at 10:30am).
I believe he felt the love 
More about that on my blog
Nancy Mellon, Jafabrit, Jo Caputo and Jerry Kenney at WYSO Weekend
Tomorrow it’s Free Art Friday and I have two new pieces to put out Here is one of them below (acrylic, collage, and varnish on board)
AND
I am helping Nancy hang the Yellow Springs Arts Council Permanent Collection in the John Bryan Gallery. A slide show can be seen on the YS Arts Blog sidebar.
Valentine Yarn Bomb
23 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in craftbombing, knit graffiti, Street Art, textile graffiti, yarnbombing, Yellow Springs
The Love In is coming up in town, it seemed appropriate to get up a sweet and simple little craft/yarnbomb for the occasion.
Nancy and I will be coordinating “THE KISS” 
Saturday, February 11, 2012
“The Kiss” Public Performance Art with Jafagirls (“Just Another Flippin’ Artist”) Nancy Mellon and Corrine Bayraktaroglu
80 couples (people, pets, families, stuffed animals) will be synchronized to kiss at 3:27 PM at 80 kissing stations throughout downtown Yellow Springs, plus photographed for a “Kiss in the Springs” slide show.
Meet at 2:45 on steps of church to synchronize watches and receive kissing station assignments, locate kissing station, and be ready to kiss at exactly 3:27 p.m. Contact Nancy Mellon at 937-767-1366 to register. Registration required. Bring camera to capture the magic moment and then send photo to jafagirlart@yahoo.com to be included in “Kiss in the Springs” slide show.
This event is part of the Yellow Springs “Love-In” Weekend coordinated by Yellow Springs Arts Council. Visit www.yellow-springs-experience.org for more weekend details.
Event location:
First Presbyterian Church
314 Xenia Avenue
Yellow Springs, OH
See photos from the 2008 “Kiss in the Springs” Public Performance Art:
http://ysarts.blogspot.com/2008/12/catching-kiss-in-springs-event.html
You don’t have to be HERE to participate, join in the fun, and pucker up, take a pic and send it to me with your name and location.
Mysteries of the Heart Exhibit
16 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized
Nancy is busy helping hang an exhibit at the Village Artisans this morning and I dropped by to get a sneak peak at some of the work. Can’t wait to see the exhibit up, some of the work looks wonderful.
Reception is February 10, 2012 from 7:00-9:00 PM at 100 Corry Street, Yellow Springs, Ohio
Here are our submissions
Ink on Archival Paper by Nancy Mellon
Acrylic and Resin on Wood by Jafabrit, more heart paintings are available at “would you, could you, IN A FRAME”
and here is my daughter’s
acrylic on canvas by Claire B, you can also see her work at the Sunrise Cafe in town.
Nancy’s Notes: Heroes and Valentines
10 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized
Well even though we’ve been in a holiday zone where art making and jafagirl mischief goes on the back burner, we have still been creating a few surprises.
There have been a few Free Art Friday treasures about town. And we are about ready to put up a Hero Pole. I had been thinking about the everyday heros in my life. In fact I made it a theme for our Christmas. I wrote notes to all my heros (telling them why they are a hero) and tucked them in back pockets of Super Hero ornaments that I made. I ended up putting Super Hero emblems on everything I made them. So now they are sleeping on Super Hero pillows and putting their wrists at the computer keyboard on super hero wrist rests. Steven, my husband and always hero, received a wonderful painting called “The Hero’s Journey-Unconquered” by artist Michael Fleishman.
After talking to Corrine we decided that it would be neat to honor everyone’s heros in some way.
So Corrine and I will be putting up a Hero pole with super hero emblems on it and there will be some felt emblems in a zip lock bag attached to the pole for you to use, and a stain marker (that we will also leave in the bag)to write your own hero’s name on and tie it onto the pole. Or you can take it home and embroider the name on to it before you tie it onto the pole.
Then if you want to, please send us your hero’s story of why they are a hero. Send it to us at jafagirls@gmail.com and Corrine will put it on our Hero Page.
We are also working in cahoots with the YS Arts Council (They are sponsoring us!!!!) to present a public performance art piece called “The Kiss.” We did it for Christmas about 3 years ago and everyone had so much fun. Corrine did a great slide show of the whole event. That’s a hint Corrine..could you add the slide show, with the music, i loved the music you chose, to this post?
This year we are doing “The Kiss” as part of a Valentine weekend that the YS Arts Council is putting on. They are calling it a “Love-In.” It takes place over the weekend of February 10th-12th.
“The Kiss” is 80 couples all kissing at the same moment,at kissing stations all over downtown Yellow Springs. You can look down the street and see people kissing and laughing everywhere!
So if you would like to join the fun here’s the info:
“The Kiss”
Eighty couples wanted to kiss at 3:27 p.m. on Saturday, February11th at one of 80 Kissing Stations (look for the large Red Lips) inside and outside in downtown Yellow Springs. If you would like to join us in this short Performance Art Piece, please contact Nancy Mellon 767-1366. We’ll meet together at the steps of the Presbyterian church at 2:45 to synchronize our watches, get your assigned kiss station, find it and be ready to kiss at exactly 3:27 p.m.
Cincinnati Bombshells Visit
03 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: bombshells, cincinnati, sock monkey
The wonderful and bodacious Cincinnati Bombshells visited us at our Jafagirl Salon Talk at the Yellow Springs Arts Council AND brought us a little pressie.
We LOVE our winged sock monkey-thank you
If you don’t already know about the Cincinnati Bombshells, well let me tell you, they are taking yarnbombing to a whole new level. As they say in their manifesto “ We are actively contributing to a more positive type of global warming.”
Here is their Facebook Page
Blogging for Dummies and yarnbombing
01 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in craftbombing, knit graffiti, textile graffiti, yarnbombing, Yellow Springs
Lol, thanks to Susan Gartner I found out my photograph was included in the Blogging for Dummies lol! It’s a screenshot in the book of my 2009 stencil spray painting on knitting and was featured on Mandy Moore’s and Leanne Prain’s yarnbombing website . As Susan said. “ I was just reading the book, minding my own business, I turned the page and voila!!! There you were!”
Where the Robins Rest
16 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Free Art Friday, Radio show, Street Art, Yellow Springs Tags: mark lipinski, radio interview, robin redbreast
Free Art Friday
Somewhere in Yellow Springs, Ohio
Did a wee radio interview with Mark Lipinski about Free Art Fridays on Dec 7th at Creative Mojo and me thinks I have unleashed a major FAF-er. Mark seems to be having oodles of fun doing it, and if you go to his facebook fan page you can see some of his first pieces.
Mine was very simple and done on cardboard, paint, bit glitter and shellac.
About the European Robin Redbreast
Robin, Power Animal, Symbol of Growth and Renewal
I so miss seeing these sweet little robins, but at least I get to see them on YouTube.
Nancy’s Notes : Protest Kits and Stamps
07 Dec 2011 2 Comments
in craftbombing, Etsy, Zazzle
What fun! Today Corrine and I created another stamp on Zazzle. The last one was Corrine’s little black button bird. He is a black bird with attitude on a deep red background. She had made that image for a Christmas card a couple of years ago. I love it so much that I keep it out all year. That bird makes me happy.
Today, in honor of the newly reopened Antioch, (and my son Brendon’s first year as an Antioch student,) we made a second postage stamp out of a drawing that I did. It’s the Main Building on Antioch Campus in the snow. ( It was a really cold and crunchy, feet crashing through piles of snow kind of day when I went out to get that image.) The stamp looks wonderful and what a hoot to have an official postage stamp! Please pass on the info about it to any Antioch alum who might like to give a shout out for the reopened Antioch.
We also managed to put 2 more Mini Protest Kits on Etsy. TWO! That is a record for us. In between each kit we went and helped Corrine’s daughter Claire put up her joyful show at the Sunrise Café. I fell in love with a beautiful, serene painting of a mother and child. It gives the feeling of medieval art, lots of golden highlights and 2 gentle, grace-filled faces. This one you have got to see, it’s gorgeous.
So back to today, hmm what did we put on Etsy? Oh yeah, 2 Yarnbombing kits, one Peace Poppy with a peace tag and a knitted Protest Poo. At our Hairy Art Palace shop on Etsy, we have pictures of the way the kit looks when you get it, all the parts of the kit laid out and a photograph of what the yarnbomb will look like when you are done. And each kit contains 2 Jafagirl Yarnbombing postcards as a gift from us to you.
That’s 3 kits now available on Etsy. Only 4 more to go! One which will be a Roach Rage Kit (three rubber roaches, and supplies to decorate them, a tag, etc)
It’s amazing what you can do with Rubber Roaches
They seem to delight children and “some” adults alike.
Nancy’s Notes: Artist Trading Cards
13 Nov 2011 1 Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: Artist Trading Cards, craft activism, Craft Kits
Kit now Available in our Etsy Shop
I started making ATC’s, (Artist Trading Cards) a couple of years ago. My friend Ann Bain, a wonderful calligrapher had seen them and thought they would be fun to do. They are a wonderful way to meet and play with other artists. The rules are simple- ATCs must be 2 ½ x 3 ½ and you can’t sell them. They are traded for other ATCs or given as a gift or kept because you just can’t bear to part with them. As Ann would say, they are so small they are not intimidating to do.
And like potato chips, you can’t just do one, you find yourself making a bunch.
We planned a couple of community ATC shows called ‘Size Does Matter’ for Village Artisans, an artist co-op Gallery Ann and I are part of in Yellow Springs.
To get the juices flowing we held a series of workshops to make ATCs. They were half classes and half just plain good-time get-togethers. We would spread out a table jammed with different art mediums, medium gel, wires, scissors, paintbrushes, wire cutters and a ton of collage goodies. One thing everyone loved was picking out a starter kit. We decided that it would be easiest for the participants to get started if they had a kit. There were different bits and bobs in each kit, the colors schemes were different and the supports were different. All the kits came in a clear bag which contained 9 assorted 2 ½ x 3 ½ supports, directions, scraps of art paper for collage and a second see through zip lock bag of notions. A lot of the participants couldn’t resist the lure and had to purchase more bags to take home and play with.
We had a blast, learned tips for working with different mediums and got to experiment with mediums that we hadn’t tried before.
To top it off we had the shows and on the last day had a party where we traded our art. Such fun! It was neat figuring out how to display the little miniature pieces of art. I think our favorite way was using mini clothespins to hang them from ribbons that we had stretched across the walls.
After that we were asked to do an ATC workshop at the Senior Center. (Thank you to Louise Simons who sponsored that! She had been one of our original participants and made the neatest tiny paper masks.) That was a blast to do.
So that brings me to a short cut for you. Corrine and I have put together ATC kits for purchase. They are a little more stuffed than the ones that I did before because the Jafagirls have added a Craft Activism booklet for other ideas of things to make and links to wonderful sites.
Have a great day making art,
Nancy
