Amy Huff and Her Double-Secret, Undeniable Creativity

Portland Graffiti captured by Amy Huff

I met Seattle artist, Amy Huff, at a Silver Bella art retreat in Omaha, Nebraska in 2008.  This was a fabulous retreat created by artist, Teresa McFayden, who was my last interview.  I remember flying up to Omaha in 2008, leaving my two-year old behind for the first time, knowing that when I would arrive, I would not know a soul there.  For introverts, like myself, this is not something high on our list of things we want to do.

When I walked into the ballroom with 200 other "bellas," I thought I was going to hyperventilate.  They all seemed to know each other, most of them looking like Anthropologie cut-outs, and, to my surprise, inclusive of newcomers, very chatty and gracious.  My skin was crawling.  I got to my table, and there sat Miss Amy with the same look on her face as mine: was it fear, as well?  I wasn't sure, but I noticed she had less to say than I did, which was why I liked her immediately.

She was from Dallas, and me from Houston, and maybe both being Texans unified us.  Or maybe it was that both of us had no one to cling to, and therefore, found some safe harbor with one another.  That first night, I watched her and saw she had mad skills, but the humility of Mother Teresa.  I was representing artists at the time, and had become adept at one thing: spotting talent.  Every artist I tried to represent or did represent had this one thing in common - they were consumed about what they did and their approach to it was unlike any I had ever seen.  Most of them were self-taught, but even if their background was formalized artistic studies, it was their technique that made them stand-out.  Amy had that same quality.  She had the insatiable need to create, get it right, think about it and master it.  I watched at how adeptly she handled making glass Christmas ornaments, sewing a hat, making mobiles, and her double-secret, undeniable mastery at jewelry making.

Peace, Love, Om necklace by Amy Huff

In one class we took together, taught by Kaari Meng of French General, the task was to make a handmade rosary.    Kaari came over to Amy and said, "Your links look professional, and your technique is incredible.  How long have you being doing this?"  Amy, humble as always, was totally shy about it, and probably doesn't even remember this.  I wanted to hit her on the arm and say, "Dude, that was Kaari Meng saying that to you.  You are that good."  Look at the link work below...good gracious...total perfection.  I've seen artists struggle for years to get this good.  She sometimes sells her jewelry, and has an Etsy site. 

Mala style necklace by Amy Huff

After the retreat was over, Amy made a necklace for me and sent it to me as a surprise.  The thing I love most about artists is they have the most generous souls.  I've watched Amy grow as an artisan the last six years.  She makes jewelry, blogs, bakes like a professional pastry chef, solders, cuts glass, paints in art journals, but probably my favorite thing to watch her do now is see her photography and Project Life books.  Project Life is a fabulous, innovation that I learned about from artist Ali Edwards that takes the old-school scrapbooking methods and replaces them with methods that are cleaner, less cluttered, easier to keep up with and just plain fresher.  The emphasis is more about documenting stories, capturing simple moments, and being able to do it quickly and efficiently .   

Project Life example by Amy Huff

Poject Life page by Amy Huff

Amy's editing and photography skills are something to behold and I often look at her Instagrams, study them, and  actually write down the filters she uses, in order to try them later on.  The picture below of her daughter, Sophy, is the type of photo you wish you could get even once in a lifetime.

Photograph by Amy Huff

When talking to Amy about how her creative process started, she said something that stood out to me.  "When I was little my mom was always creating something - Halloween crafts, Christmas cookies with all the different colorful icings, sewing constantly."

It was the absence of creativity, when I moved away from home, that made me want to create again.

In 2006, she went to her first art retreat in Dallas, followed by a metal cutting class, and classes with Sally Jean.  Her husband was working nights at the time, and even though, she was working full-time, she would stay up until two o'clock in the morning soldering, metal cutting and making all types of jewelry.  Her studio and how it is set up is something she fights with herself about.  She says, "I fight with myself about this.  If I don't see it, I won't use it. So my studio is organized chaos."

And it's better for her if her studio is a mess.

When asking her about how she handles failure, being a perfectionist, she said it used to stop her if she made something poorly.  Now, she just pushes through it.  And professionally, she thinks a failure has been to take risks.  She recently read an article that stated women only apply for jobs where they think they have 90% of the qualifications.  Conversely, men apply with 60% of the qualifications.  This is something she is focusing on changing.

Her ritual for creating?  Get all pieces spread out in front of me, grab a big mug of tea (dang it, I forgot to ask what type), light a citrusy candle that her friend Randall makes (I want to be friends with this guy), and turn on her Avett Brothers radio station on Pandora (who I was not familiar with, so I listened to them non-stop while I wrote this post, and enjoyed more than my first snickerdoodle).

Favorite art supply? Brown-nose pliers & charcoal pencil
(note to self: charcoal pencil was Teresa's too-I gotta get one)

Worse sense to lose and what you would do about it? Sight.  She'd miss seeing her daughter's smiles, especially first thing in the morning. If she lost it, she would take up quilting, sewing and stitching, in order to have the tactile ability to create.

Favorite TV show visually: Outlander on Starz
(Bob and I checked this one out this weekend...um...for the love of all that is holy...turn it on! Even the man loved it).

Favorite Aha Moment for me interviewing her:  Finding out there is another person in the world who salivates over the sets of one Nancy Meyers, and adores the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun."  I knew Amy and I had a lot in common, but since I have every one of Nancy's movies recorded with instructions "that they are NEVER to be erased off our system," it's nice to know someone else has this same affliction.

Dream job if money, eduction or anything else would not hold you back?  Be a professional travel blogger who went to art retreats and wrote about them.

With the amount of retreats this girl has done, her writing abilities, photography skills, and her focus on taking more risks, I like the direction I see her heading in.  One thing leads to another, as one job prepares you for the next one.  Can't wait to see her what she creates in the next 6 years.
  

Coffee Talk with Teresa McFayden

When you go to Teresa's website, you'll see right under her name:  Artist, Instructor, Latte Slammer.  And she drinks Starbucks, so I knew I would like her. Silver Bella creator and founder, she is known nationwide for a variety of mediums: painting, hand lettering, paper crafting, art journaling, stitching and embroidery, and that ever popular item circling the Internet for years, The Advent Calendar made from a cookie sheet.  Her talent as a teacher beams through her online art courses, which have detailed and thorough explanations along with organized curriculum.  I have taken 4 of these, and left each one with skills I did not think I would ever be able to accomplish (much less from the Internet), probably because her background was in elementary education.  Along with online art courses, she started selling her various works on Etsy years ago, and let me tell you, things blew out quickly.

No matter what she does, I've noticed she always seems to be at the forefront of the latest art trends.  Being one of the first to lead the pack in art retreats and online art classes, I'm interested to see what her next focus will be.  Right now, her focus is painting.  She seems to be in the mode of...

The fewer things I use, the better result I get.

Painting has opened a new place for her since focusing on it seven years ago.  She did not like her results initially, but she kept doing it because it felt good.  She approached it as play, and in playing, her skills developed.  I wish more people could use her example to do what feels good, and get better while you practice and have fun.

With two kids in college, and one three years away, I think a lot of women can relate to the desire to pair down and simplify.  She moved to her new studio seven months ago.  Her old studio used to occupy the bottom portion of the house, meaning it was huge, but being located in the basement left it light less and with room for a whole lot of stuff she no longer used.

Tired of walking into her space and seeing messes, which looked like work to her, she started to avoid her studio.

Now, that she has light, plants are in places where stuff used to be.  As she said, "Plants represent life and energy to me."  I asked what other rituals she added to her new room:  a fresh cup of water, music (always), her essential oil diffuser and her little Yorkie, Lilly, laying on the floor.

If you follow Teresa on social media, you would know she is a big believer in essential oils.  This has become a heartfelt vocation for her.  I asked her if I could post a video she recently did (WITHOUT MAKEUP) showcasing her skin routine with these oils.  I felt like this was such a BRAVE thing to do, and I wanted to highlight it because it shows her sincerity behind her conviction.

With all her successes, I noticed there were many failures.  Not really failures, because the proverbial closed door helps to open a new door, but many avenues that ended and then she had to sort of reinvent something new.  Many, many years ago, she did a local TV show where she taught all types of crafts.  When this station went belly-up, she had gotten to know every creative-type in the state.  Hello, Silver Bella Art retreat, where she already knew the clientele to draw and also in doing the show got noticed from a national company to travel around the country and demo their products.  Another closed door happened with  a rough experience in licensing her products, as the company was sold two years into their working relationship, and then the new company had a different direction.  Hence, her products were no longer selling.  What she gained from that experience was national exposure, and "the belief that as an artist you can bounce back from any experience.  You are the one with the creativity and it starts and ends with you."

When I asked her if she could do anything else (money, location or education aside), she came out with "Coaching women. Confidence seems to be something a lot of women struggle to obtain.  Helping them gain this would be rewarding."  Could this be an aha moment for the future?  One can only hope.

No canvas is ever ruined or wasted.

You can paint right over it.

The New Mission of Little Lucy & Scooter

I've been thinking about this blog for awhile. I went on vacation recently and sat for many hours looking into the Texas landscape trying to figure out what to do with it. What did I want it to be in 2014 & 2015? What is its current mission?

Originally, I started this blog because I wanted to write. I had no clear purpose. Just wrote what came to me. Some days on the blog that was showing a cool new book that I made, or doing a tutorial of sorts(which I found to be loathsome, tedious and definitely not something I wanted to do). Since I write often at my real job, I wanted this blog to have as defined a purpose as my work blog.

I know what I like and what my life has been missing.  Above all things, I LOVE writing about other artists.  Promoting their work, showcasing their product and going behind-the-scenes in their studios. Love paging through their sketchbooks and seeing where that idea of theirs originated. Nothing thrills me more than looking in the tray or box of unfinished projects and asking, "What's this?"

When I started the company, Little Lucy and Scooter, in 2008, I sold handmade products for artists and specialized in selling to Art Museum Gift Stores.  My first client was The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and quickly, I was selling to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and The Menil Collection. I added a slew of retail stores to my client base, and then the recession hit. Stores that were buying these wares outright, no longer had the money, and wanted to put future purchases on consignment.  I probably could have continued on, but add into the equation that I went through a divorce, making it inevitable that I had to move on, get a "real" job with steady income, and think about the next chapters in my life.

The part of this job that I loved was writing about the artists.  I wrote their bios, wrote Press Releases, got them in The Chronicle, on the Tidbits blog, and all types of Houston local magazines.

I can sell.  Sure.  I've been in retail for 32 years.  What I love more is writing and promoting other people's creative evil-genius side. All this writing about artists taught me the foundations for writing people's online dating profiles.  It taught me how to write a personal, authentic, and often quirky bio that stands out.

An artist's mind is something to behold.  When people are brave enough to put something out in the world that they created for all to see, I want to applaud them.

My new mission is to feature artists on my blog.  I'll be featuring artists in all mediums (taught, self-taught & especially outsider), designers, bloggers (because they are artists too), retailers with crazy-cool visions and well anything else that makes me think "Geez. How the hell did you think of that? You're amazing."  I'll also be throwing in things about Lucille (my daughter pictured above) and her side-kick Scooter who this blog has always been dedicated to. 

If you're an artist and would like me to consider writing an article about your work, just shoot me a message. Believe me, I'm not above meeting you in a needlepoint store, finding out you're a letterpresser, inviting myself over to your house and then holding you up as the biggest Martha Stewart in-the-world.

One thing that always amazed me about my former business was the way artists found me. I never found them.  It was always this happy coincidence that was Divine, I promise.  I look forward to feeling that again.

Carol Hicks Bolton - Oh How I Love Thee

Your tour guide today.

If you don't like taxidermy, best to not go in, 

because there is an abundance of it.

By far, our favorite stuffed scenario.

A lot of bedding...and one thing I love at her stores is the pillows she does for the foot of beds.

I told you there was a lot of this.

Fab light fixture.

If in Fredricksburg, go visit.  Plan on an easy hour or two.

I did this in 15 minutes, because I had Lucille and I'm not going

to drag my kid to a store like this for hours and expect her to have fun.  But in 15 minutes, we had a blast!!!!

Letters for Miss Maya...and the list goes on.

My letter writing project has been going well.  If you missed why I am doing this, then look here.  Once I found a format to follow and started a system of sorts, it's now the same as the regular routine of brushing my teeth.

I think the most difficult part of the learning curve initially was not getting in the groove of writing the letters, it was sitting down to think of who to write 62 letters to.  Have you ever sat down and written 62 letters, maybe for graduation presents or your wedding?  When do do write a note of thanks in these situations:

1. You know what you got.
2. You know who to thank.
3. You pretty much know what to say.

But when you sit down to purposefully write notes to people to acknowledge them and say all the things you have never said, guess what happens?  It creates an avalanche.

You start thinking of all kinds of things...stuff you might have never said to your partner (good and bad), things you wish you had told a previous employer, quippy responses you should have said to a customer.  I find this experience somewhat like a cleanse.  

One key to the success of this is not writing a letter everyday, but writing multiple letters when I am in the mood.  So, I have a list, I know what letter I should be on, some days I fall behind and some days I am ahead.  And that's cool because these are my rules.

Miss Maya...I know words are powerful.  You taught me that.  Thank you for that lesson.  This experience is changing me in ways I had not quite imagined, and I am enjoying doing it for you.

My Summer in Mexico with a F-ing Hairless Dog

Many, many summers ago, I spent a summer in Mexico doing an intensive summer language program with UST (University of Saint Thomas).  We lived in what was once the Governor's Home in the Yucatan in a town called Merida.  Sounds palatial, I know.  It wasn't.

A bunch of partially supervised college kids in a tiny town with no drinking age.  With only one disco that had no phone and no way to call cabs.  Uh-huh.  We hitched rides from strangers to get home late at night after curfew from that disco.  Yup.  We did.

We bought hammocks in a store where they asked us to go back into the back room and I promise you now, we were lucky to have come out of the back room alive.

The owner of the house had a hairless dog and a hairless cat.  Do you know how weird these animals look in real life? I was in equal amounts awed by their looks and repulsed by them.  My friend, Craig, in an inebriated state after one of these trips to the above mentioned disco, went so far as to describe this hairless dog to our driver while trying to get home.  He kept repeating "We have to get home.  We have a f-ing hairless dog. I have a f-ing hairless dog!" 

During this summer, the historical event that was captivating me was the sale of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's private jewelry collection.  It was going to be 'the auction of the century.'  I think I read some Dominick Dunne story in Vanity Fair and it inspired me to write my thesis paper on this auction and their love story for my paper...and are you ready for this?  In Spanish.  I think the blood, sweat and agony that my friend Eli went through helping me get that paper finished is what bonded us for almost 30 years now.

Why am I recapping all of this?  I guess my daughter asked me tonight why I knew so much more Spanish than her.  I was able to recount how I did and think about why I did.  I had forgotten I knew this language once.  I loved this language once.  I experienced this culture and was forever changed by it.

I cannot wait until my daughter asks to study abroad.  "Yes, Yes, Yes" I will say...."Go, Go, Go" I will say.  Come back and have stories that you cannot tell me and friendships you will savor for a lifetime.  Experience going into a mud hut with dirt floors and no furniture, where meals are cooked in an oven outdoors, and people who cannot afford beds offer you a soda, because you are their guest.  Stay in a house with no air conditioning.  Eat food that gives you many types of intestinal problems.  Go be with people who have nothing and have no idea that they do.

Go, baby, so you can be the one sitting at the dinner table years from now recounting an amazing journey to your daughter with memories that make you look back and think "Wow, I did that?"

Why I'll Be Writing 62 Letters This Summer and Dedicating Each One to Maya Angelou

When Maya Angelou passed away, my very first thought

was sadness and then regret.  I regretted never taking even

10 minutes to sit down and write her a thank you note.

A note telling her how much courage she gave me through

reading about her life.  A note telling her how many of her sayings

grounded me, and still do.  A note telling her you have given me

strength and I didn't even know you.

Bless you.  Thank you.

I appreciate you.

I don't want to feel this type of regret again.  To honor her and what she has done, I am going to handwrite one letter a day to

all the people I owe thanks to (even though 62 letters would never cover all the thanks I owe to others), along with some apology letters that are long overdue.

I am going to photograph each letter, so I can reach my goal

by holding myself accountable.  My hope is that this simple

action might inspire others to break out the stationery

and pen one to someone - anyone who could benefit from

their acknowledgement.

Miss Angelou made me believe words are powerful.

They can take on a life of their own.

With honor to her, I intend to honor others.