Wednesday, March 13, 2013

20 year celebration

she's been doing it for 20 years?





it is hard to believe that in just a couple of months i will have been creating game boards for 20 years.  i picked up my first piece of wood and began creating game boards only for the reason that i thought they were really neat and i wanted a group of them on my wall... but as i began making them i just didn't want to stop for i began to dream of a day where i could make them for your homes.






when i began i had a tiny area on my porch where i had set everything up....i learned to not only paint, but to saw, hammer and sand. i learned so much about layout and design.  my only background was pretty much my belief in that if i wanted to do it then i could....(thanks mom and dad for self esteem and confidence, the two greatest gifts you gave us kids, much needed for cliff diving in life.)





when you have a small art business, so to speak, you are the wearer of many hats...not only do you design and create you also are the resident painter, mathematician and woodworker.  you are the task manager; accountant, web designer, blogger, research department, shipping department, purchasing department and cleaning service.  you are the doer of all, the dancer of building your own life...

many of you have been with me for all of these twenty years; you've been with me for my move from texas to these appalachian mountains, that i knew i would love and that is now finally called 'home', and from what was the back porch to a studio more than big enough to be somewhat organized....we have laughed with each others stories, and shared our fears and sadness....we've watched each others kids grow...and many of you are now enjoying your 'retirement years', which is so much fun for me to witness...


and sometimes we were lucky enough to have been able to meet face to face - already feeling like old friends...




i thank all of you for this....for wishes do come true...






to visit my site; which really you did help to create, here's the link:



below:  "big top, bullseye and gypsy"





Friday, March 8, 2013

take me to the circus....



i have begun a new series that is very sentimental to me... "take me to the circus"

when i was a very little girl living in iowa my parents gathered all of us little girls into our car and took us to the ringling brothers and barnum and bailey circus....45 years later i still can remember the day...







as we began to pull our car up into the open field my eyes danced with my very first view of the 'big top' standing high; calling us to walk into a different life.  this life of mystery; smells of sawdust, wild animals and food.   colors; of tents, wild lions in their cages and the sparkling costumes worn by what i thought had to be the most beautiful people in the world pulled me in many directions...




a rapid heartbeat caused by the fear of watching the high wire acts, and the awe of seeing lions, tigers and elephants for the first time in my young life is instilled in my memory... 

i was hooked; mystery and color, the perfect combination for my little girl eyes...

years later we moved to sarasota florida....home of the ringling brothers circus...imagine my curiosity,  for still a young child, we drove through areas that the performers were known to live during the winter time.  




as i became a young teen i found that my geography teacher was from the famous flying wallenda family, i was surrounded by circus and a much simpler time in sarasota...




my parents still took us to 'the biggest show on earth', and as i became older i watched and pondered my escape to run off with the circus, for i knew, i always knew, that i should be in the circus...




this first piece in the series is entitled 'the big top', for after all this was my first view, and inside that tent comes all the mastery of all your emotions...




this piece is, as you can imagine, color with the underlying hint of all the organized chaos that one might find under 'the big top'..

it is 'loosely' based on an american antique game wheel dated 1930 that originally had a spinner attached.  the original piece was priced at $1,800.00.  i state 'loosely' primarily for the reason that my piece does not have a spinner attached




limited edition of 10 pieces,  then retired  (9 available at this time)
19" x 19"
baltic birch from russia and poplar from the appalachians

$245.00

i hope you will like the journey that we are taking....if you would like to order this piece, just drop me an email at:  dianeallison@charter.net or give me a call at 828-265-0977...

you can also browse my website if you had another piece in mind: