Transformation of a Community

In the 18 years that I have called Reno home, I have witnessed a huge transformation in our community. In my early years, I heard Reno referred to as having the potential to be a Renaissance town, but that it was more of a jumping off place, where creativity is cultivated, but artists move on to bigger and better things. About 8 or 10 years ago things started to shift: up and coming artists not only stayed here, but artists were actually drawn here. Of course I think a huge part of that is our Burning Man community. What a surge of art that burners have created here! With artist collaboratives like The Generator, the possibilities are endless. Artown is so packed with amazing events, it's hard to pick which concert, art gallery, craft fair, workshop, etc, to attend on any given day in July.  And the community support of local arts is overwhelming. Art advocates like Oliver X of Reno Tahoe Tonight and Eric and Geralda of Art Spot Reno are making it their mission to bring arts to the community. People are thirsting for creativity and Reno is delivering.

One of the amazing sculptures at Reno's annual Sculpturefest

What I'm noticing now is a transformation in our community in terms of spirituality. With all of the turmoil in our society, people are looking inward to find a sliver of peace. They are looking for creative outlets to nurture their spirit, and I'm seeing that lead to more of a quest to find that sense of inner peace...and in turn, a sense of purpose.

I am inspired and excited to see so many friends who are doing an amazing job of raising the vibrational level and making a positive impact on our community. I think this is where it starts and there really is a ripple effect on the rest of the world. There have been so many people taught and inspired by my Reiki Master Teacher Denise Sheehan of Sage Spirit Coaching & Reiki, who are finding their calling to open businesses to share Reiki with our community. Urban Lotus Project is a non-profit created by Hannah Bias to bring yoga and meditation to at-risk and under-served youth in Reno. Have you been to one of Alchemist Theater's monthly gatherings? With a great mix of humor, music and meditation, they deliver powerful sermons that bring spirituality to us in a non-threatening way. These gatherings have been so popular that they have turned to live streaming because they sell out every month, even after moving to a larger venue. There are so many other local people and organizations that are paving the way as well, too many to contain in a simple little blog! Friends are talking of finding healing through singing bowls, crystal beds and floating chambers. People are thirsting for spirituality and yes, once again Reno is delivering.

When I began my Reiki journey 6 years ago, and completed Yoga Teacher training 3 years ago, I never knew how serendipitously they would all be blended with my journey as an artist to create a place for people to come to nurture body and soul. It is very exciting to see so many who share this common vision for our community and are finding purpose in serving others. It is humbling to be in the midst of the transformation.

Artown in MidTown with Copper Cat Studio

The last time I blogged we had just announced the big move to Midtown. Well, we hit the ground running and since opening in late January, we have had almost 30 workshops- mosaics, of course, and other mediums including Fused glass, Henna, Steam Punk Jewelry with resin pouring, wirewrapping Tree of Life and more.  It is so awesome to be bringing mosaics to the community at large as well as providing a place for my artist friends to teach their craft.  These past few months have been busy to say the least!

Photo: Digiman Studios

We are excited to be partnering with Artown in a number of events this year. Below is a list of events that we will be hosting or involved in. More information can be found on our website as well as the Artown website.

Mosaic 101   July 2nd
Mosaic Garden Stones   July 6th
Art In The Garden   July 9th (Copper Cat Studio will be closed to attend this show)
Glass Fusion Jewelry 101 with Donna Smit July 13th
Henna 101 with Kimberly Allcock   July 16th
People Project: Smaller, Artist Meet & Greet   July 17th
Junk Heart Pendant With Donna Smit   July 20th
Mosaic Birdbath   July 23rd & 24th
Midtown Artwalk   July 28th
Mosaic 101   July 30th
Half Day Yoga/Mosaic Retreat July 31st

 

Not listed on this roster of events is my involvement with Urban Roots in a community mosaic mural build. We will be working with children 5-11 years old to create a a mosaic mural for one of their structures. I'm really excited about this one!

We would love to see you at the studio for a class or just for a visit. I am there Tuesdays through Saturdays. 20 St Lawrence in MidTown next to Creme Cafe.

Katie

Going Back to Work

Eight years ago today I took a big leap and quit my day job to become a full time artist. I had been building up to it with my side business as a mural artist and my growing love of mosaics, but it was very scary to walk away from the safety net of a regular paycheck. The first year was great- I landed the biggest job (still) of my career~ The Peppermill pools, 1200sf of mosaic mural. Then the economy took a dive and I diversified. I love to cook and had a great opportunity to cook for a wonderful family, two dinners a week for a couple of years (Thank you Tammy, that little bit of income helped us to eat in lean times!). Those first few years, I didn't turn down any painting or faux finish job. I participated in every craft fair I could get into, sometimes even multiple events in a day. I worked harder than I ever have in my life but enjoyed every moment of it. There was just no way I could ever go to "work" for someone else! In the meantime, I completed all three levels of Reiki and became a Reiki Master, then got my Yoga Teacher certification, not sure how these would play into the big picture. The last 3 years or so have been flowing pretty amazingly. I have found a nice groove of mosaics, workshops, painting, yoga and underlying everything was Reiki.

About this time last year, ready for the next chapter, I put out the intention of having a community space for arts and healing. I didn't really think much more about it because I wasn't able to wrap my head around how it could actually happen. January came around and I had an amazing opportunity to buy my friend's online mosaic supply company. Step one in that direction. Then I acquired the inventory of another friend's stained glass store. Another step in the retail direction. Then over the summer I had a friend who was thinking about letting go of part of her space in Midtown and I thought, great space but no room for yoga and I had an investor that was looking to buy a building, so I wasn't looking to rent. Coincidentally, I was there meeting a friend for breakfast so that she could give me keys to the yoga studio next door where I was going to start teaching. But it didn't hit me until I was eating breakfast there again Labor Day weekend that this, in fact, would be the ideal location for my new studio. On one side, an excellent restaurant to partner with for catering during my workshops, and on the other side, the yoga studio where I happen to rent space as I need it. Kind of perfect, don't you think?  Oh and my favorite little pocket of Midtown, direct neighbors being Creme Cafe, The Yoga Center, Reno Public House, Neverender, Chuy's, Wedge, Dreamers and Macbeth Theater. And we would be renting, but better to rent for a few years while we figure out what our permanent place needs to be AND get to be in the heart of the artsy, fun place to be in Reno right now.

Soooo the Big Announcement~

Future home of Copper Cat Studio & Tessera Glass

In January we will be moving the studio to Midtown on St Lawrence St, next to Creme Cafe. This is the same spot that launched the popular Picasso and Wine. My working studio will be there, which means I will be there full time Tuesday through Saturday. There will be a retail section including mosaic tile, mosaic supplies, tools, books, mdf shapes, stained glass, and more. We will have gift items featuring several of my local artist friends. We will have workshops that can accommodate groups of 16+, including our ever popular Mosaic 101.  There will be shorter workshops for those who have experience with mosaics and are ready to dive in and we will extend our Full Day Retreats with Sage Spirit to include two yoga sessions, breakfast and lunch catered by Creme Cafe. And for those who have been asking- we finally will have room for OPEN STUDIO! There are so many ideas for workshops and we will even be hosting guest artists to learn other mediums. We are hoping to partner with Creme Cafe in not only catering during workshops and private parties, but to host a rotating lineup of artists that will adorn their walls and will coordinate to teach workshops in our space. A tentative Grand Opening party is planned late January to coincide with Creme Cafe's Fifth Anniversary. We are so excited we can hardly stand it!

Smalti

Smalti. For most mosaic artists, it's the creme of the crop as far as tesserae goes. The first time I was introduced to smalti, although I did not know what it was called at the time, was in my parent's church St Charles Borromeo in Oklahoma City. The walls are covered with amazing smalti murals. The first time I used smalti was in 2004 in a week long course at the Mosaic Art School in Ravenna, Italy, taught by renowned mosaic artist Luciana Noturni. I have to say the whole process of creating a mosaic in the double reverse method and using hammer and hardy, the way it was done in ancient times, was very intimidating and very time consuming. It was awesome to learn the process but at that time in my mosaic career, smalti seemed a little out of reach to experiment with, as it is very expensive. 

Fast forward to 2013 and I met a couple who have become one of my favorite repeat clients. They have lived the most interesting life of art and adventure, traveling the world over and literally roadtripping from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica.  You can read more of their journey at From Polar Bears to Penguins. They came to me with a commission for a bathroom countertop and the design to be inspired by a book of drawings that they had gotten on their travels. The one they liked the best was a drawing of a tree with all kinds of creatures intertwined and coming out of the branches and roots. As an artist, this is just the thing that gets you excited for a custom project! 

Inspiration for the Smalti Mosaic

They had insisted on smalti and I tried to discourage them, as last I had checked, smalti was ridiculously expensive. As I researched, however, I found that since I had worked with smalti in Italy, there were several vendors that offered smalti here in the US and even some that imported it from Mexico. I chose the latter and when I ordered samples I was very impressed with the quality. Still pricier than glass tiles, but more affordable than I had anticipated. The only way I can describe smalti is that it is yummy. The colors and variations are luscious and it cuts like butter. The texture smalti creates in a mosaic is unlike anything you can create with vitreous glass tile (...says the owner of a mosaic glass tile company). 

So we were all set and began the design process~

 

...And Complete!

Several months ago, they contacted me to create another smalti mosaic.  This time for their garden. The subject was St Francis and I was very excited because from childhood, he had always been my favorite saint. Of course we went the non-traditional route and used a folk-art drawing as the inspiration and it turned out just perfect for their garden.

In Process

Installed on a boulder in my client's garden

As I was writing this blog, I got an email from my clients asking when we can get started on adding more animals and birds throughout the garden. It's looking like more smalti is in my near future!

Serendipity

Serendipity.  It seems to be the word of the day.  Word of the past few months come to think of it. In my last blog post in October I talked about finding my groove.  Well, it just seems to be getting better.  And taking turns that I couldn't have anticipated.  Really good turns, but we will get to that....

Those of you who know me well, know that I have a gift of manifesting things that are important to me. Almost to uncanny levels of detail.  We got our last two houses this way, so I turned my attention to my work life.  First, let me say that I already feel like I have it all.  I get to work from home, creating works of art that bring pleasure to hundreds (maybe even thousands at this point).  I attract the most amazing people to my classes and workshops. Basically I get to play mosaics all day every day and get paid for it. Not bad, right? I guess you could say that things were getting a little too comfortable and I was ready for the next chapter.  So I put it out to the Universe that I was ready. Ready for whatever it is that is going to take me to that next level.  My dream is to have a community arts center where I can hold larger workshops, have a retail mosaic supply, have visiting artists of all mediums hold workshops and who knows, maybe even a space for yoga and Reiki, the other two loves of my life. I had no idea how this was going to happen (and still don't fully), but something was presented to me that I just couldn't pass up. Something that is a huge step into fulfilling my dream.

Seven years ago I was shopping for mosaics online at a place called Mosaic-Tile.com (soon after it would be renamed Tessera Glass). As I was placing an order, I realized the company was in Reno. I called them up, picked up the order and we began chatting, totally hitting it off and that was how I got started teaching mosaics. I taught at their warehouse on Dickerson, then followed them over to their new location on Wonder Street. As I grew and expanded Copper Cat Studio, Don and I moved to a home that had a fabulous studio behind the house and there was finally a space that I could teach in of my own. Vernon and Andrea, the owners of Tessera Glass, were totally supportive of me going on my own and we have remained close and continued to send business each other's way over the years.  When the economy took a dive a few years ago they were hard hit but managed to hold on. They started another business in the meantime, Reno Screen Repair, and it has been a great success. As 2014 was coming to a close, they made the very difficult decision to let go of Tessera Glass and concentrate solely on the screen repair business. That's when it hit them that if anyone could take this on maybe it would be me.... It seemed like a no-brainer to me, a fully functioning online mosaic supply store with built in-clients, enough stock to keep me going for quite a while, and all of the support I need from people selling me the business, who want to see me succeed.  I'm excited to be keeping Tessera Glass alive and hope to make them proud by making it bigger and better!

So that Universe, I tell ya.  I asked for it. I knew something big was coming for the last few months. It was even giving me enough anxiety that I had to call in help from my Reiki Master Teacher and friend Denise.  She helped me work through it and the only condition I gave to the Universe was to get me through the holidays, give me some down time (which I didn't get because of another amazing surprise...and blog for another time) and to bring it on after the first of the year.  I got the call on January 2nd. As of Monday, the 2nd of February, I am the official owner of Tessera Glass!  It will remain an online store for the time being, but I'm hoping to have a storefront with larger workshop space within the year. Maybe go back to our roots on Dickerson?  It was our dream that Dickerson would someday be the artist enclave that it has now become.  It wasn't our time then, but maybe now it is....

So back to Serendipity. It seems to be happening on a minute to minute basis lately.  One particularly cool thing was the day that we made the "handshake deal", I went to teach a yoga class that afternoon and one of my very first mosaic students ever, from the Dickerson days was in my class. Just happened to be trying yoga for the first time and ended up in my class. I believe in signs. Serendipity.

Finding my groove...with Reiki

I've known in the back of my mind that I needed to update my blog, but I can't believe it's been a year and a half since I've written!  A lot has happened in the last 18 months.  I have become a Certified Yoga Teacher, we bought our first house, moved into said house (yes, that was worth it's own line item), completed several awesome custom mosaic installations, and traveled a fair amount.  We have two more Burning Man visits under our belt.  We have had many family members and friends visit us. My sister even came for a 5 week summer sabbatical and was a tremendous help with our move. We've enjoyed watching several friends become parents for the first and second time.  I've had some really successful shows and a couple of real duds.  I've collaborated with dear friends to host day-long and multi-day workshops that have been as beneficial to us as they have been to the students.  It's been an amazing time of personal and professional growth.

Sunset at Chateau Weaver

It's feeling like my own personal New Year.  I'm not sure if it's the mentality of buying a home and setting down roots, or if it's the fact that my 40th birthday is approaching....I also get a little introspective right after Burning Man too.  Maybe it's a little of all of the above, but I'm feeling the need to regroup, reassess and get a little more clear on my path.  The last couple of years, I'm finally in a comfortable groove- I have a steady stream of fun interesting work, I am surrounded by an amazing community of friends and colleagues, I am thoroughly enjoying teaching yoga, and am blessed to have the most supportive, loving partner.  Sometimes it just seems too easy.  For that I am grateful!  But what to do to keep that flow going?

I used to be the person to wait for the other shoe to drop.  Knowing that "This too shall pass" doesn't just refer to the difficult times to end and easier times to begin, it's also the opposite, and kind of makes me anxious.  There is an ebb and flow to life, good and bad, easy and hard, quiet and hectic, yin and yang. For me it just seems that the highs and lows have relatively small swings. I attribute this to Reiki.

What is Reiki?  From my teacher and friend Denise Sheehan's website, "Reiki (pronounced “ray-key”) is defined as spiritually guided universal life force energy that promotes stress reduction and relaxation and contributes to healing. Reiki, a form of energetic clearing and balancing, works on physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels, restoring balance to body, mind, and spirit. Reiki also releases sub-conscious barriers and other obstacles, and empowers dreams and goals."  The great thing about Reiki is that there is no dogma and it isn't attached to any particular religion. I have friends of many different religious denominations and many with no religious affiliations who use Reiki.  To me, I just see it as another tool in the tool belt in addition to prayer, meditation and other daily practices that bring me closer to the divine nature which is at my core.

Kind of like my yoga practice, Reiki does not define me, but has had tremendous impact on my life...in a subtle yet profound way!  When I had experienced this sense of ease in my life for an extended amount of time, I looked back and the thing in my life that had changed was the fact that I had incorporated Reiki into my daily routine in a multitude of ways.  It's hard to say when things changed, but there was a definite shift. The right people came along at the right time, relationships were easier, I felt less need to control things around me (especially things I couldn't control), oh and abundance- in every aspect including prosperity. Work was flowing in, I was doing fantastic at shows.  I no longer go to bed stressing about money. Imagine that!

Great Reno Balloon Races from our backyard

So I guess when I'm thinking about how to proceed, it's to continue a life of ease, to be grateful of the many blessings in my life, and to continue to do my best to serve my fellow beings that chose to be on this journey with me. Mosaics and yoga and painting will work their way in there somewhere.

If you have questions about my path with Reiki or would like to get more information about Reiki attunements, please comment below or send me a private message.

Here Kitty Kitty

A couple of weeks ago, I decided at the last minute to have a table at the Nevada Humane Society's Doggie Palooza.  I know that I said I was going to limit my shows this year, but I couldn't pass this one up.  I'll do anything for the furry four legged (and at least one three-legged) kids.  When I arrived and was given my placement, of course it had to be against a wall of kitties.  So many little sweet faces looking out of their cubbies, hoping they are the next ones to be chosen for a forever home.  Two of my neighbors were Sweetie and Sara below.  Sweetie was near the bottom of glass and any time a child would come to the glass, she  would roll on her back hoping for a belly rub.  Sara most definitely captured my heart and if we didn't already have two cats at home I would have snagged her up immediately.

  

Reading her bio, I was puzzled that a cat like Sara has been with the Humane Society for more than two years.  Her daily routine does require medication, but she seems like she would be that perfect snuggly lap cat, with a good balance of attention-seeker and aloofness that makes a cat a cat.  I chatted up many members of the staff as well as volunteers and found out what a truly amazing place the Nevada Humane Society is.  In 2007 there was a shift in leadership at the NHS and they decided it would become a no-kill shelter.  What this means is that only animals who are ill or injured beyond help or those that are an extreme threat to others are euthanized.  They went from an adoption rate of less than 50% in 2006 to 94% in 2012!  And the numbers are staggering- 8,822 adoptions in 2012, 9,340 adoptions in 2011 and 9,668 adoptions in 2010.  Due to their high save rate and support of the community, Washoe County has become the safest place for homeless pets in the nation.  The NHS accomplishes their mission through quality animal care, comprehensive adoption programs, accessible low cost spay/neuter services and a free animal help desk that took over 25,000 calls last year.  They even have a program for feral cats where they humanely trap them, bring them in to be spayed or neutered and return them to their habitat. Under the care of two-yes two-veterinarians, the NHS performed 9,686 spay/neuters in 2012! 

I didn't learn all of this at Doggie Palooza, but just being there in the facility prompted me to take the volunteer training they had the following week.  I am so excited and looking forward to spending a little free time giving love to the animals.  Of course they need dog walkers, help with administration, cleaning, etc.  You name it, they will take volunteers on any level.  I found that out at Doggie Palooza when I asked Nikole, who happened to be the Community Programs Director if I could come in and play with the kitties.  She said absolutely!  With as many as 200 cats in the facility at any one time, they are starved for attention and socializing, brushing, playing with the little red laser dot- all of these things can make the difference of bringing out their personality and having a better chance at adoption.  My focus for now will be making my rounds with the cats, but I have it in the back of my mind that I'd like to give Reiki to some of the more aggressive or troublesome dogs. We'll see where this leads...

Back to Doggie Palooza- it was a very successful adoption day for the Nevada Humane Society. 21 dogs and 16 cats found forever homes.  My table was near a couple of the meet and greet rooms, so I had a close up look at families taking time to get to know their future pets and even bringing pets from home to play to make sure it was a good fit.  

If you haven't been down to the Humane Society on Longley Lane, go check it out.  I was so impressed with the facility, the cheerful staff & volunteers, and what they do for the animals in our community.  If you have a few extra hours a month consider helping out.  I have a feeling I'm going to get just as much out of this experience as the animals that I am spending time with.

The NHS Mascot "Lucky" playing with Tango the Aussie