I’m in mourning for my summer vacation. I will be wearing black for a while. I could potentially do this all year, lol. I love wearing black, especially with blonde hair.
Mourning
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SILK-CASHMERE-LEATHAAAAAAA
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Last week there was a day I forgot to bring a mask. I had to wear a standard issue one from the stash the school gave me. Ugh! It is crazy how different school is these days with the masks and the social distancing – the integration of the on-line technology and all the paperwork/organization/mayhem. But it hasn’t put a damper on the fun.
My students are happy to be back in school. I only actually have classes twice a week and students are there one day and at home the other day. My colleague and instagram photographer, Katy, and I, have been working together to recreate our art courses to align with the new safety protocols and to allow students to access the courses on-line. No clay, paint or collage work this year – the focus is more on formal principals of art, illustration and design.
We purchased sketchbooks for everyone, as well as dry media including markers and colored pencils. We are still working with the local Lions Club (awesome!) to create peace posters for their international contest. Some of my students may become professional artists by the end of the month.
I know I haven’t blogged much since the onset of these “Covid-19 months”. I plan to improve my on-line store on this site – I’ve upgraded the website to the bells and whistles one, but I haven’t really gotten around to uploading more than a few bracelets for sale. I have a new email address – artist@karentash.com. And I did go to a museum today. I’ll be writing a couple of blog posts about that soon.
I’m happy to be back to school too. I love fashion sooo much – love getting dressed to go someplace. I’m having fun incorporating the mask into the mix – the ones from Kes are phenomenal because I can wear them around the neck during mask breaks. My other favorite ones are by Jonathan Simkhai and, yes, my own, available on www.redbubble.com.
Oh, and, of course, I am a blonde now so I look a lot different than I did in March.
Change is good. <3
Embellishment
Just completed a legit full week of work with outfits of the day to show for it. I am all about silk, silk-velvet, leather and embellishments, and have taken to wearing the bracelets I created over the summer.
There are over five hundred bracelets in stock with more on the way. I’m obsessed with this new venture! I’m waiting for the arrival of tags and some other supplies. Will be launching the collection soon! <3
In Class
My Marc Jacobs boots have gotten a lot of air play so far this year. I am crazy about them, especially the rust colored booties that at first I didn’t think would actually go with anything. Love them! Patent leather rocks.
The past two months really flew by at work. The annual peace poster contest is in full swing. The Lions Club will send three judges to select a winner from the eighteen entries on November 1, 2018 and my Studio in Art students have really nailed the theme. It is “Kindness Matters”. They are an amazing group of people. Kind, without a doubt and so, so talented. Cannot wait to share what they are doing. I gave them each a brand new tin of 72 colored pencils to use and they are taking such good care of them. So responsible! I just love them all.
All of the Art-8 students have finished their clay projects. We are glazing them as well as working on finishing up some paintings. I double up on smocks during that activity but I still manage to keep DeWitt Cleaners in business. Most of my clothes are dry clean only because they are all pretty much silk and cashmere.
I don’t always take my #ootd pic. Sometimes I am in a re-run. I try to style myself so that I am not wearing the same shoes with a dress or the same pants with a top but sometimes I just feel like repeating a great outfit. I admit I have a lot of clothes. I just love fashion. There is always a new designer to discover or something new from the ones I already know. New – new – new. I love new. Getting dressed to go to work is just fun. It is easy – effortless. And anything that makes you feel this good is a good thing. <3
Black Mourning
I wore all black this week because I am in mourning for my summer vacation – and because I just love wearing black. I think I have, like, six black skirts and about a dozen different pairs of black pants. I don’t know how many tops. I could potentially extend my mourning period through the month of September just for the challenge of it. But I don’t think I will.
My grandmother used to hate seeing the old widows at church all dressed in black. She was a pearls, pink crochet cardigan, and pastel floral dress kind of girl, so I know she wouldn’t approve. In 1996, I was hired as a long term substitute. At the end of that first school year, I had to go through the interview process all over again when the other teacher decided to retire. I wore red and black (the school colors) every day to work until it was confirmed that I had gotten the job. Fashion themes are fun! Go Bears!
No Air/No Problemo in Oz
There is no air-conditioning in school. We take my #ootd pics early in the morning and by the end of the day I am sometimes somewhat of a hot and sticky mess. I am grateful to have two fans mounted on the walls in my classroom and I have been drinking tons of iced coffee, water and a Gatorade every day.
No complaints though, as Syracuse, New York weather feels like Florida right now and we are on the verge of summer vacation!
Here are my most recent outfits. My Rachel Zoe dress needs the dry-cleaner stat, as Friday was a particularly muggy day. It is currently a silk version of what my hair looked like later that day – that frazzled ’80s rock star effect that we all discarded with the invention of flat irons. Seriously cringe worthy, lol. I wore boots that day because I was sure it was going to rain mid-day, but that rain did not appear until I was driving home from work. It lasted all of fifteen minutes leaving us with perfect outdoor festivals weather for the weekend – Ozstravaganza in Chittenango and Taste of Syracuse downtown.
Strike a Pose
I love fashion! I have enlisted pinch hit photographers for my outfit of the day pictures when Katy is unavailable. The result is a bunch of different poses. I am going all out Zoolander silly with the wispy look away thing – so funny!
Summer #ootd
School’s Out for Summer!
I’m finally getting back to blogging now that I’m in summer mode. I will post soon about more new encaustic paintings, once I get around to mounting them onto the chalk boards. I have a dozen new heart paintings and a dozen abstracted baseball ones that I am loving. They are currently residing on my kitchen table – and on the surrounding counter space. No current plans for exhibiting them as of yet.
I still have artwork up at Kimberly’s Salon on James Street in Eastwood and at Syracuse Yoga down the street on Thompson Road. Not sure what is up next for me, but that makes the journey so special. I made the paintings for a purpose; just not sure what that purpose is as of yet, lol.
If I can get my friends to put up with doing the photography, I will try to post #ootd pics on Instagram during July and August. Although I am usually the one who takes our obligatory selfie when we are all out and about, I am not a fan of those selfie pics where the fashion blogger cuts off her own head or shoots a foreshortened image from above. By not a fan, I mean I really don’t want to do that. So…we’ll see.
Here are some outfits from the past few weeks. Kinda fell off the wagon with posting them here. We were having technical difficulties with the lighting in the classroom. I had to double edit the pics to adjust the brightness, so there are inconsistencies – I guess I will hold to that excuse. We take dozens of pics in a short time and I swear I am always changing out the pose, but for some reason I like this crossed legged thing-a-ma-bob that I have been doing a lot. It feels like the most natural and most comfortable position for me especially when I am wearing a dress or skirt. My go-to vogue. My work colleague Brad calls it my stance.
My new favorite things – Halston Heritage and everything by Rachel Zoe! OMG, I love her! I now own five pieces – two dresses and three tops. I am on her site literally every day. I want more!
I’ve discovered something called the Amazon wish list. It is a public list of things I desire. All I have to do is dream while on-line shopping and perhaps these things will actually materialize in my mailbox on the condition that fairy godmothers/Santa Claus/tooth fairy/Easter bunny/patron saints of fashion do exist. That is wishful thinking at its finest. How cool is this?
I <3 fashion. Love, love, LOVE!!!
#fashionintherealworld
If you search Instagram for the hashtag #fashionintherealworld, you will find all of my posts. I invented it and #fashioninrealtime, and #fashioninreallife. I just checked them; I think there are only two or three posts on them from random fashionistas. The rest is all me.
Here are my outfits of the day from the last two weeks. The landscape of my background keeps changing as I shift student work around the room. All of my clay projects are complete. The last batch went into the kiln today. The 5th graders are currently working on a three-dimensional wood sculpture, my Studio in Art students are learning watercolor techniques and the rest of the 8th graders are immersed in the various SLO test projects: Statue of Liberty paintings, “under the sea” landscapes with fish (mixed-media lesson), Japanese fan project (also mixed-media) and abstract paintings with realistic horses thrown in. So four additional different lessons for the six classes.
There is a lot going on, which will culminate in the School Fair set for May 12, 2017. I will have my hands full preparing for that exhibition and hopefully even with the upcoming state math tests looming, we will get everything accomplished.
But first – Spring Break!!! I will be working on the business of making art as soon as tomorrow. Can’t wait. Watching students make art is clearly a fun job, but nothing beats the guilty pleasure of creating my own artwork – even though it is super messy and therefore cannot be done in designer clothes. So…I will be sacrificing fashion for my art. I did buy a new dress for Easter though. It is Halston Heritage. <3 OMG, I love it!
