My mode of transport in fiji

A bunch of years ago I came home from being away for two years on a tiny island in the middle of the south Pacific. My two years as a Peace Corps volunteer had ended and I was ready to become a full time artist. I started by making crazy little mixed media sculptures, goofball media costume jewelry and painted t-shirts. I was successful! So I kept at it for years.

At first I was Martoons, but when Al Gore invented the internet some guy named Martin something who also worked in a cartoony style had already grabbed martoons dot com so I gave my art the moniker HappyArt and snagged this domain name for keeps!

My art fair career morphed into national wholesale fine craft venues and I enjoyed much success with that too. Always open to learning new media and sending it through the “Marti filter” as a fellow exhibitor once said of my style I designed and sold fine crafts using aluminum to plasticine – silk to wood. If I found it delightful and could make the objects profitable then usually my clients and their customers did too.

Things carried on and I became more digitally savvy. Also my overworked hands were starting to break down from overuse so I began moving away from wholesaling my art and into web site construction and illustration.

Then I moved to Kentucky. Then the economy took a nose dive and my long distance web clients starting cutting back on needing my services.

So what’s an artist to do?

Go back to her roots of course! After a bit of a hiatus I am designing a new body of work, this time with a decided focus on fantastically fun fiber felting – where I can ‘paint’ with soft alpaca and wool fur hand dyed into gorgeously rich hues and turn into scarves, sculptures, throws and purses!

The New Booth

I don’t have a whole booth’s worth of fiber art yet – so below is my new booth with both fiber and paintings in it. Wish me luck as I apply to art fairs for later this year and 2012. And you have a recommendation, do share!