My whole life I have felt torn between what I saw as two separate and un-combinable parts of myself - the healer and the artist. For the first time in my life, my day job working in the inner-city schools in KCK and my weekend job helping style and create Studio Rewind and Celfie Boutique KC make me feel like a whole and complete person. I love creating collage art and the space at Studio Rewind is like a large canvas - concrete, brick and metal - in which I take the things I love, the things the people I love collect, and create a larger than life collage in which all parts of me can soar and express.
It is a past time that brings me closer to my daughter and the man I love ~ it is a dream come true and a joyful space in my world.
One of my favorite things to do as I travel around looking for items is find and purchase images of the Virgin Mary. I have created two grottos featuring Mary for the space, and the newest one "Our Lady of the Sea" is currently in our space at "Rag and Bone":
These grottos are created 100% out of pieces found in our adventures, everything is second hand. I collect the items that call to me, and after a while, certain things just call themselves together. It is my goal to always have a grotto on display. So once one sells, another seamlessly will take its place.
I also have finished my first "before and after" piece for the shop. I found this coffee table at a thrift store for $12 and just loved the drawers, the glass top and the fabulous wood trim on the table top.
I had several ideas for a re-do but in the end decided on a very simple design. An extremely thorough cleaning (ewww! need I say more??). Then painting the bottom of the piece in an onyx black. Taking out the tacky red fabric and replacing it with an ecru duck material, covered in French writing and finishing it with cream, ceramic, tear-drop handles. I love the finished look and dressed it with some fabulous, antique shoe forms Trey bid on at an October auction we attended:
And Ella and I opened Celife Boutique KC this weekend. Show-casing high-end, extraordinary, and fun "re-run" fashion. I am excited to join in this business adventure with my beautiful, creative daughter and am glad for the time it allows us to share thinking, planning, learning and growing together! And a big thank you to Trey for helping us design the industrial clothes display complete with metal pipes and the coolest vintage ladder (you're the best babe!)
Studio Rewind and Celife are the perfect complement to my life and a constant source of inspiration and joy. Just another reminder that you can't go wrong if you do what you love! Do the thing that makes your heart sing, bring joy and beauty into the world and healing will abound.
I hope everyone out there is ringing in 2014 in vibrant hues of health and joy!
With affection from Rae, Ella and Trey at Studio Rewind and Celfie Boutique KC ~~
