Total Eclipse of the Art

I’ve been … Preoccupied 😅

In September 2021 I painted a moon for our neighbour’s little girl, Luna, of the phase of the moon on the night she was born. Actually, I should go back further than that; when one of my BFFs Maria had her daughter in May 2019, I looked up the moon phase for the date her daughter Emily was born and it was a full moon. Months prior Maria had mentioned the novel Emily of New Moon, and I just couldn’t resist painting a pink full moon for her.

Fast forward to November 2021 when I painted by first commissioned moon and created an Instagram account* sharing all of my projects. Then in October 2022 I launched my Etsy page and I’ve been excitedly painting ever since.

I’ve more recently branched out and have made a few stickers. There’s a lot of work that goes into every aspect of Total Eclipse of the Art and I have no idea how long it will last or where it will take me or if it will be enough to become something full time. But for now, BuY MY sTuFF So I doN’T HaVE tO WOrk 😜

*I realized I never explained the pun-worthy name behind my business. Our neighbour Serreh [Luna’s mama] urged me to start something with my moons after I gifted her Luna’s moon. So, one evening, after dinner, I was at the table and we were very non-seriously talking about my moons and the very first name that came to mind was Total Eclipse of the Art. It was terrible and wonderful at the same time. The end.

Dining Room Update; as it is now and plans

I haven’t shared much of our dining room I’ve been selective with the aspects of our dining room I’ve shared so far. Most of the room I quite like, but unfortunately the largest part of the room makes me feel like this:

The other four sections of our dining room [broken up by the many doorways] work well by themselves; the plate corner, the bar-cart-shelf, the little floating shelf island, and the corner with our hutch. The only part of the room not pulling its weight is this wall:

It’s so … meh. And since it’s the largest wall in this room, it’s M E H on a bigger scale.

I originally hung the mirror off-centre to actually line-up with our front room [I’m standing in the opening between the dining room and the front room in the photo above], which probably only makes sense to me. The burgundy dresser holds all our crafty things; crayons, paper, glitter, paint, you name it. I rescued that dresser from a snowbank two and a half years ago [as my friend Kimberly said, “I don’t think there’s any phrase that’s more you than that“.] It was in horrid shape. We had just moved into our home and we needed the storage. As soon as I put it in our dining room I had every intention of replacing it. It was a total placeholder for a real piece of furniture. The only thing that could be done with it was to paint it.

Here is what I’d like to do with this space …

STUFF I’D LIKE TO CHANGE IN OUR DINING ROOM:
– New dresser / storage unit [possibly paint it? It depends on the piece]
– Move mirror [center it on the wall]
– Have more intentional artwork around the mirror
– Paint the dining room table like this
– Source better dining chairs [maybe … we’ll see]

I had a boost of inspiration the other night and created a mock-up of how to add a bit more purpose to this end of our dining room; a lot more symmetrical and intentional.

I have enough plates to make some sort of plate display, and let’s face it, I can thrift a lot more if I need to. I’m not sure if they’ll all match in this way. This is where I think I can add a bit more spice to our dining room by adding more unusual plates to this formal style of plate display.

I’m excited to work on this space as it’s not going to take too much effort to make a big enough change. Have you worked on any smaller projects like this lately? Where just moving a few pieces of furniture has given a new feel to a room?

Chrissy Teigen awkward face image via ET.

New Wall Plate from Wolf Dottir

A few weeks ago I added a new piece to our plate wall and it’s so perfect. I’ve been following Margaret, Wolf Dottir, for ages on Instagram and I’ve been wanting one of her pieces to add to our plate wall for just as long.
Recently we sent a few messages back and forth as I loved her The Great Mother plate [which was out of stock at the time], so I asked if she had any other plates she would be willing to print her Great Mother artwork on [yes, Margaret is a talented artist as well plate technician (is that even a term? Well she is)] another plate. A week later I had my hands on this custom piece and it has perfectly bridged our plate wall to a second dining room wall.

I’ll include below an updated legend of the other plates included on our wall, as they’ve moved around a bit since I last blogged about our wall.

SOURCE LIST:
1. Fuck That Shit decorative plate by Lou Brown Vintage
2. Thrifted ‘abundance’ plate from Value Village [extra points if you get the SNL reference]
3. Thrifted gold plate
4. Thrifted side plate from Value Village
5. Plate left in our Lower Town apartment by previous tenants
6. Thrifted plate from Value Village, added a sparkly black gothic ‘C’ using my Cricut
7. Insect Mandala side plate by The Curious Department
8. Bubble wall sculpture by Lana Filippone
9. Thrifted tea set from a charity shop in Dublin for our wedding
10. Plate left in our Lower Town apartment by previous tenants

I love adding more pieces to this corner and can’t wait to see where I find my next plate.