Rob Pruitt's Desert X Flea Market in the Palm Springs Art Museum

Hello friend!  it's me, Shari. Back on my blog, 8 years later.  I like to tell stories, I take some pictures. I like to make art and clothing and things. Maybe it would be fun to give this blogging another try. There are things to share. My growing garden, my evolving creations and the evolution of my brain.  Photo above by Chris V. at Rob Pruitt's Desert X Flea Market at the Palm Springs Art Museum point of view: of Mary Tyler Moore.

What fun to set up a flea market space in the lobby of the Palm Springs Art Museum! We were open for business for 9 days. Many folks thought we were just a display, but part of the art is the discussion, selling and yes some haggling, which i didn't realize Rob was encouraging people to do so it took me a minute to catch on.

A few folks could not figure out what my coat says. I made it for myself to remind myself of my lofty goal towards all.  (#unconditionallove)

I really love this piece. I bought the original HOPE piece from Rob's table where he was selling the donated flea market items of museum patron Donna MacMillan.

The original word was HOPE. I just dont like that word, maybe it's too religious or political for me. I prefer action (or surrender to what is) over sitting around HOPING.  Rob suggested I remove the E and add a hopping bunny.  Here is my final piece, a collaboration with Rob Pruitt. I showed it to Susan Goodman as Rob was drawing her portrait and she bought it from me for $10, my offering price. I kind of regret selling it but Susan's on the board of the Palm Springs Art Museum so it's got a great home. Rob says he likes a lot of my other works better. 

Susan Goodman with her portrait by Rob, Rob Pruitt and me, Shari Elf with HOP

 

Susan Goodman with her husband Rodney Lubeznik with some of there newly collected Shari Elf works. 

I have invented a clever new device for cell phones!  It was a big hit at the flea market, shown here in  the hands of the fun and friendly purchaser, Eric Shiner of Sotheby's.  I have so far avoided getting a "smart" phone and refer to my little slide phone as my "brilliant" phone, it leaves me alone most of the time so I can enjoy a human life. 

Lots of Shari Elf t-shirts being sported today, 2 of these are also Totally Blown.

It was super fun to get to invite some fellow artists to join the flea market, here is Heather with her beautiful jewelry and some decluttering going on. 

Here's my friend Arturo (he lives near Art Queen in Joshua Tree and has been tie dying my t-shirts as well as opening and closing Art Queen for visitors). He had his space at the Flea Market with his new original art and the arts and crafts of his talented parents.  This flea market was the first time he had ever sold any of his art, I'm delighted he is inspired to keep making art. 

Breathe in Breathe out was created (on a thrift store painting) one morning before the Flea Market. It was such a bustling market I had to replenish my stock almost daily.   I had a blast in my studio and at the flea market. Seems like I was in my true element. I'm grateful it sold and was being wanted by several people at once just hours after I brought it to the Flea Market. 

Kenneth Kuchin and Bruce Anderson, philanthropists of Desert X, purchasing a vintage Shari Elf mermaid for their mermaid collecting friend. They also purchased a Shari Elf prayer flag.

   

 

Sarah in the outfit I decided I wanted back after she put it together. But I let it go. Vintage what would cher do vest found a good home. New friend modeling my scarf poncho dress.

Friends Doug Smith and Leslie Mariah Andrews doing live portraits at the Flea Market. 

Lovely and Fun customers Kaye and Ben Zlataroff with 3 new Shari Elfs, 2 are from Susan Kuhlman's collection, she's reduced her collection from 110 to 100.  I really enjoyed seeing Don't Blend In again after all these years. 

Another original $10 piece I made for the flea market.  "Can of Monkeys with Elmo" 

People were so willing to be tagged with Shari Elf patches.

Rob with his Kitten's panty pillow. Me wearing an homage to Rob Pruitt's art, my panda dress. 

santa barbara, santa cruz and san francisco

i am enjoying my big tour and working vacation. the columbia river was so beautiful to drive a long for a few hours til i headed north to spokane, washington.

ha ha, too bad that tree was moving. there was no place to stop when i was most enjoying the view. and i also enjoyed seeing a moose standing up to his armpits in a stream next to the highway.

going back to catching up on where i've been on my tour, after leaving los angeles, i treated my s.elf to 2 nights at the immaculate heart retreat center (http://www.ihrc.net/) in santa barbara. it was restful and beautiful. my room was the old nanny's quarters in the beautiful old main house of the estate. i enjoyed meeting other women on group or personal retreats.the food was tasty and healthy, with lots of fresh foods from the organic garden there.

after my personal retreat, i came down from the mountain to my house concert at perry and doug's house in santa barbara.

perry is an artist and perry and his husband's home was an art piece.


perry's friends were fun-loving and ready to laugh and sing along and come up the the "stage" and share a talent. mita was my amusing side kick and impressed us all when she played a blade of grass very loud. it was great to see don carlos, formerly from 29 palms, and some other desert friends.

the next night i had a house concert arranged by petrine michum and it was hosted at the lovely ranch of John Poitras, who has been interested in having house concerts. i felt like a queen staying in petrine's cute guest house and i made her a green smoothy the next morning. here i am at john poitras barn/concert hall. i really enoyed meeting petrine's friends and the wonderful dinner conversation (and dinner).

my favorite flower is the california poppy. i had to stop to take this picture.



after the concert at perry's house i was on the road to santa cruz to have a house concert and relax and make some art on the porch of linda roseman and kate simmons. they had a bunch of really fun loving friends, too, some of them sharing their talents. perry and doug told some of their friends in santa cruz to come, and bruce, who was at my first house concert at my cabin, was in town and brought his cousin.

linda's friend opened the show with a cute love story about her car.

here is linda and kate, with "i can see your aura" mermaid, linda sang a great song with that title, both at the house concert at my cabin and at her house concert in santa cruz.












here i am making art on linda's porch, i am a big fan of porches, i guess they are a bit like gazebos, which i mentioned earlier that i do not like, maybe gazebos seem to lonely to me out there in the middle of the yard. : ) i really loved my clown that is living with perry and doug in santa barbara now, so i had to make another dog with his clown.

i like santa cruz, and even got my new car ran into in the parking lot by a sweet little old lady. i tracked her down, some nice folks had witnessed her rubbing her car against mine as she backed out, and as i was shopping in trader joes. i ended up going to her house and finding out she also used to play guitar, and sang and is very crafty. we had such a nice visit that we decided she ran into me for a reason. linda and kate plan to visit her, as she lives alone and her husband died a couple years ago and she has no children. it was a very heartwarming visit, inspite of the new dent on my car. since i am into art cars, maybe i'll decorate the dent.

my next show was in san francisco, in lady bee's garage. lady bee has wonderful friends and i enjoyed meeting them. i was delighted when matt venuti showed up and played his hang drums for us!
matt and i met at the TED conference in 2003 and he did a wonderful version of my song "some thoughts on if i should die, some day" for my tribute album. i know matt is way over qualified, but he played the sewing machine and delighted us all.

















my next stop was san rafael to see my dad and my step mom gwen. we had a great visit, and i got to make a green smoothy for gwen's sister and her husband. they loved it, and it has been so fun to put fresh greens from people's gardens in my smoothies, george and gayle had mint and sorrel and plums and some other stuff i forgaged for in their garden.

my friend alicia bay laurel is the vegetable fairy and when she visits, she loves making veggies for her hosts. i like making green smoothies, but not everyone is into them.

here are some fresh finds from joanne licardo's garden in portland:














well there is another blog entry. i hope to get better at this. : ) i really am sad about michael jackson and have always been interested in his music and life and once read his autobiography in the 80s. it was cute because he was being so nice to everyone and i feel like i kinda sound that way. not that i'm not nice or have something mean to say... i'm just feeling like i'm learning to ride a bike with this blogging stuff.

it's been 3 weeks on the road, michael, here's where i've been

hello michael! i'm having a really good time on "shari's big tour" this summer.

i'll catch you up on stuff, it has been almost 3 weeks since i began my trip.

the first stop of my tour was a sunday afternoon concert/talent show/pot luck, july 5th, at the home of my highschool pal, elizabeth (james) johnson's house in stevenson ranch, north of los angeles (that's her in her back yard there to the left). we hadn't seen each other since monica (riecke) morakis' wedding about 20 years ago. elizabeth said she owed a bunch of her friends a party and this would be a great way to see them and see me and be part of my big tour. here are some pictures of the lovely friends of elizabeth johnson's family.



about 50 people showed up, and almost half of them children. i enjoyed gearing my set even more for kids (as if my songs are not already kid-friendly). after some brave youngsters broke the ice, more came up on "stage" to share a talent, play my guitar, and tell jokes and stories. fun was had by all, it seemed. i was most complimented when 3 of the 8 year old boys later told me that my show was really fun and that they really liked the "randomness" of my songs.







"like when you met jesus in the parking lot of the hardware store, that is so random." it was fun to be understood and appreciated by such bright and creative home-schooled youngsters.





well, michael, this is a fake shot of me pretending to be performing. my camera and it's operator do not take good pictures in the dark, it was dark when the show started.

here is my lovely assistant preparing to pass out instruments for the seamstress song. i really enjoyed her hanging out on stage with me, unfortunately she had to go home to go to bed before i got to play the seamstress song.

that was the first stop on shari's big tour.

i had fun staying with my friend marian treger in los angeles and making art all day monday for a back yard garden party and art sale at joyce davis' house in culver city, tuesday, july 7th.







michael, here i am making art in marian's living room. she chose the name "magnetta" for her art pen name. for short, she's "mags" and i'm "shags". i have a lot of nicknames. sometime i'll list them. i'm sure a little mystery is fine, too.

you can see magnetta's art on her book shelves behind me, she is my protege, and she even sold 2 of her peices at joyces garden party.

i usually try work 10 hours a week on my art and it was really fun to work 11 hours on art on this day. mags worked on her art and display.

here is my favorite piece of the day.

thanks to joyce for the lovely snacks (pigs in blankets, home made cookies, iced tea and lemonade and lots of other goodies) and hospitality!

here is "cousin joyce" with some of her elfs. i am "cousin elf" because of a sale we had some place where i was supposed to be related to her. that is another one of my nicknames, michael, do you have a lot of nicknames?




here are some pictures of the lovely folks that showed up for the garden party.

this is erica and gabriella with "life in the slow lane"






and here is the lovely krishna, who showed up a day earlier on joyce's door step and
then wondered if she was a day early. joyce loved the surprise visit by krishna (baby due any day!) and gave her a fresh-out-of-the-oven oatmeal cookie. krishna took goldy locks and the bear! and those flowers i really liked and the woman with her purse.



here is the lovely deb lacusta who used to buy art from me at the santa monica airport flea market, i'm happy she searched and found my website recently and is adding to her elf collection.





joyce's happy back yard in culver city.





here is my table of art.

well, those were the 2 first official events of shari's big tour. as you know, michael, because you were there with randal, the first unofficial event was the practice concert/potluck/talent show at my little cabin in morongo valley on july 3rd.

here are a few pictures of that event before i go off to work in portland, making some fun art with the stuff joanne and i got at the goodwill "bins" yesterday. they have lots of good crap to make art with in portland! i found more today at the sellwood baptist church's annual basemet sale. have a lovely day and remember,

micahel blackwell, something good is gonna happen to you today!

















michael, bruce, casey and randal!




steve and martha, kate and linda, ingerborg, nichole and valya.... toodles for now, thanks for reading, stay tuned for more, love shari