What I am up to : Jill Berry Blog

In mid-December my friend Deedee had her annual women’s dress up ornament exchange party. 40 fabulous women in a room with trading, champagne, food, and lots of shenanigans is my kind of evening. I laughed, a lot.
Have to say I went there with a mission, to get the ornament Deedee herself made. One has to [...]

Snow, and Samples

Posted on December 4, 2009 - Filed Under 2010 Workshops, What I am up to | 2 Comments

At six a.m. my backyard looks like this. The puppy is bouncing around, the kids are still dreaming, and my coffee is just brewed. The indigo snow and the black branches, the hint of my neighbor enjoying the same morning, this is rich.
The last few days I have been in my studio making samples for [...]

Found

Posted on September 14, 2009 - Filed Under What I am up to | 6 Comments

I am getting ready for a class in San Diego, actually two classes, and can’t get my act together at all. I am usually ready far ahead of time, but this week, and last, have been mightily distracting. In the interest of art, cartography and paint, I created this piece of paste paper, which to [...]

Lost

Posted on September 3, 2009 - Filed Under Visual Inspiration, What I am up to | 9 Comments

I am not finding my way in any real sense this week. My husband lost his job, the fourth in recent years, the rejection notices are coming in, and right now, I feel beaten up. It won’t last, and it won’t kill me, but I am definitely on a path I want to get off [...]

Charming Books

Posted on July 29, 2009 - Filed Under What I am up to | 5 Comments

I have spent the last six days with contractors, trying to decide what to do about yet another flood in my basement. My kids are at camp, and next week I teach at ArtUnraveled, so you can imagine that this is not fun time over here. To be honest, I was mopey, whiny and altogether [...]

Sage Siblings

Posted on July 3, 2009 - Filed Under What I am up to | 2 Comments

We are driving home from Ghost Ranch, and Sydney is showing off what she has taught herself about the animal kingdom. (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genera, Species, remember?)
“Sam, do you think you are in the same kingdom as a lion?”
Sam says “Sure!”.
“Right, it is called Mammalia” (she was wrong, it is animalia, and the [...]

Secret Gardens in Boxes

Posted on May 19, 2009 - Filed Under What I am up to | Leave a Comment

The first day of Paul Johnson workshops we did Secret Gardens in Boxes. We made these self contained pop up books that are only one piece of paper, cut, folded and decorated. We then made another that fits in a box, and we wrote haiku to go on the pages.

There were twenty people in one [...]

Artfest Journal

Posted on April 9, 2009 - Filed Under What I am up to | 4 Comments

I went to Artfest as Festal Virgin (the one and only time I can say that) and came back as a UberFester. It was a huge adventure, starting from the ride in the purple rental car with my new friend Lori, all the way through the classes and being retrieved by my brother Andrew and [...]