The suitcase artist: About

THE SUITCASE ARTIST ©

I have been an artist all my life, exhibiting threw out the country and even in Europe, it is however fairly recently that I began to pursue with such vigor my recycled art avenue nearly exclusively. I minored in art at UW-Madison Wisconsin. I had been painting on large scale canvas and slowly started to incorporate papers, and other weird objects. My work had been edgy, controversial and always bold in color and content.That all changed, I still remember the day when a friend gave me an an old, dirty beat up vintage suitcase, when something clicked in side of me. I was enchanted by all the sides, each one having a unique presentation yet finding a way to make it cohesive into a Halloween suitcase, since sold at exhibition.

SUITCASES

Are extremely time consuming taking 40 to 80 hours depending on the complexity of the design and if I choose to do the inside or not.I simply love taking old phones, lamp shades, chairs, deer horns, shoes and converting, transforming them into works of ART. Nearly all of the items that I create I have saved from the land fill. My husband and I , on our first date went to a landfill/junk yard, sadly they do not allow you to do this much anymore. It is hard for not to make some of my designs cutting edge, it fact a suitcase series was rejected for exhibition because of the subject matter, It was considered to provocative. I love adding images of pin up girls and raunchy fashion models to my work. My website recycledartsit.net is in the works and when it is complete I will post its link. These you can view previously sold work, view exhibitions, and keep up to date with my techniques. Thank you for your interest.

I closed both my retail art gallery and vintage clothing boutique, to purse an on line venue.All my life I have been collecting antiques or vintage items: in fact my very first paycheck I received as a young girl, I went to the antique store and purchased an antique ceramic coffee pot from the 1940s.(which I still have) I have always had an eye for classic quality and have been able to date items easily. I think I got this from the massive amounts of classic film I have viewed, my eyes gobbling up every detail. I have also read my fair share of books but really I think it is a gift in some ways.

I have been collecting for years but when I opened my Boutique, it was like I was a giant magnet and the vintage found me. I work religiously on my stores, posting new items weekly if not daily.I wear vintage clothing because I believe that it is a GREEN decision, I am not contributing to slave labor in such countries as China, creating additional land fill from excess packaging, and I wear it for the quality and the style. Artists like to express themselves uniquely, at least this one does.

At the time I knew nothing about the Internet but I drove right in. I am self taught It took nearly a full year of working 30 hours a week to arrive at where I am at now. I have two stores, I started with FUNKYFINDZONLINE.ETSY.COM added http://www.etsy.com/shop/cathyscostumefindz and later discovered ARTFIRE and bonzana. I created the social network http://unitedarts.ning.com/ developed over several blogs and have a strong social network presence with the intent of achieving high google ratings for my name, which I did , all with free hosting sites.

TAROT PSYCHIC READER

I offer on the phone readings from my on line stores fro $25.00-take a look at this quick video where you can see first hand what you receive for the reading. Find the reading here

I have been reading Tarot cards for nearly 30 years, all of my adult life.I have been featured several times in the media, print and on local news. In addition, to the traditional cards I use other decks:mermaid, animal totem, fairy. I have added to my repertoire, palmistry, and tea leaf reading,To learn more about my story please checkout my blog where I discuss the use of cards and other related psychic phenomenon. http://psychictarotreader.blogspot.com/ and have recently added you tube Tarot lessons .

THE WRITER

I have been writing poetry all my life which can be viewed a this site htp://www.poetrysoup.com and have been working on a book for some time, PETRIFIED GENERATION.