ali makes art.

2010-07-22T01:06:00.001-07:00

i saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because i couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs i would choose. i wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and as i sat there, unable to decide, the figs…began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”-s.plath

ps. her name is thelma and i bought her at the santa cruz flea market. isn’t she super fantastic?

2010-06-28T02:22:00.000-07:00

my camera is broken. i suppose i should start with that. it's kind of a big deal, because if you know me, you know i've seen much of the past ten years through a viewfinder. it's very strange, seeing life without the parameter of my familiar frame. while i'm the first to admit i love a strong vignette, my vignetted sight was causing me to miss out on things i didn't know i had missed. the darkness around the edges is opening up and letting a little more light in... i'm learning to preserve the moments i'm experiencing without all the snaps.

i feel things strongly right now. so i'm making things.

my life used to be a series of building climbs and swift descents on a rickety wooden track. the ride i was on was both exhilarating and tedious, so i decided to pretend i wasn't there anymore. closed my eyes tight. almost believed that i stopped feeling it. it worked for a while.

i'll quit with the metaphors. i love metaphors, and i think that metaphorical jokes and references are funnier than basically anything else in the universe. i'm a geek like that. if i could communicate solely in a secret language on some other level, i totally would... however i GET that shit like that is completely annoying to pretty much anyone but me, but i digress...

i got hit by a drunk driver. i still experience the affects of my brain damage daily.

i was coming back from the john mayer show in the middle of nowhere known to some as the sleeptrain amphitheater. i knew some back roads that would save us from sitting in some traffic. instead, part of me still lingers at that stupid intersection. i don't really talk about it; i'm still learning all the ways it impacted my life. besides the physical pain, i know i completely lost a significant portion of my vocabulary, and i struggle greatly with my short term memory and cognitive thinking skills. i drag my sentences out aimlessly and stutter, searching for the "right" words. if i am tired, which is often, i would substitute nonsensical words with the same beginning letter as the correct word. ("Do you mind if we swing by the start* to pick up some groceries?" instead of store, etc) For someone that once expected a career in journalism, this was devastating. it's gotten better. i'm more aware of it. i try harder. it really sucks, this invisible disfigurement.

even as i write this, it doesn't seem like my life. it's very surreal. my point in sharing this? i don't always have the words.

anyway. much has transpired over the course of the last year and i find myself in a place desperate to acknowledge everything i experience. i want to feel and remember it all deeply: my emotions, my actions, my good days, my bad days, my "inappropriate" thoughts, things that make me smile, etc. but like i said, my camera's broken.

so what you see here is a collection of my latest projects. they expand throughout a few posts. (for anyone that found their way here through a facebook link, you'll have to click on my header to see them...) any way, these are my latest good days and my innermost thoughts. my secret struggles and my memories illustrated. lyrics and quotes from things i've heard, books i've read, movies i've watched. struggling sentences taken from old journal entries and pages ripped from vintage books. paper dolls and maps. newspapers from abandoned buildings. tags and envelopes, letters i've received, and pictures i have drawn. the methods i'm using cause the lines in my drawings to oftentimes bleed out, but i like that. i feel blurry and out of focus sometimes, and i want the things i'm doing and making to reflect that. sometimes the lines are sharp and the image is stark. sometimes the pieces are devoid of color, and othertimes, the canvas is overwhelmed by the color and activity. these pieces are far from perfect. i'm essentially the opposite of a perfectionist. i'm not necessarily ever pleased with the final results of these pieces, however, i like that they are made passionately, even haphazardly. it's my life. it's me. so... there.

2010-06-28T02:09:00.000-07:00

2010-06-28T01:53:00.000-07:00

some recent projects...

2010-06-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

a collection of recent projects and one throwback. i cant help tossing the "robert swift is my hero" one in. i still love it, mostly because if you saw the face rob gave me when i showed up to his game with this on a shirt... you'd get it. robert used to live with me + is as close to a big brother as i've got. i've painted pirates on his walls; he's bought me puppies. like every brother, he has publicly mortified me, so it made my LIFE to watch his pale skin turn tomato red. while i'm at it, i should let you know that he sucks at foosball. i'm in santa cruz today. it's beautiful. i hope you're sitting pretty somewhere too. :)

2010-06-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

the floorboards, weathered by their storied past... the writing on the wall; as she jumped, the framework she stood upon literally collapsed. "so, this is twentyfour," she sighed amidst the peals of laughter.

(this picture... because sometimes life is too great to forget.)

well, shoot.

2010-05-28T02:13:00.001-07:00

i think we all have this idea of who we are. our personal identity, the person we know we are inside. that being said, it's a bizarre thought to realize that oftentimes this person we are inside is perceived differently from our world and community if we are unable to properly communicate or allow ourselves the opportunity to be vulnerably transparent. transparency has always been a stretch for me, as i'm hyper aware of my actions and i've always cared very much about others perception of myself. it's pretty exhausting, right? well, i feel like the same has been true about my art. i have this idea of what my personal aesthetic is. but i wouldn't ever let myself get there in fear of... whatever. the variables change, but long story short, i've always been my greatest stumbling block to where i want to be.

until recently. the last few months have been a time of incredible change for me, and in many ways, i'm experiencing emotions that i have no way of expressing except through colors, pattern, paint, paper, and print. there are words i cannot speak, but translate so perfectly through the paper image of an object, or a sketch of a memory from a particular place in my life. or lyrics from songs that i've listened to fourty-nine times in the last thirty-six hours.

i'm so excited about this new connection to the things i'm creating, and i genuinely feel euphoric when i finish a piece. there's so much peace and unrest and numbness and aliveness all at once in my life, and its the best feeling to see those emotions on canvas. i think there's a lot more of where this is coming from. i'm really excited about it. feels so good.

how about you? is it hard for you to let yourself fall freely into life and the art you're making?

bloom installation.

2010-03-02T17:46:00.000-08:00

i've realized that i had not yet posted pictures from my BLOOM installation.

i had a lot of fun with this installation. a lot of the work i've done up to this point has been commissioned pieces. i value the opportunity to work in that manner, but that being said, it was really super awesome to have the freedom to conceptualize from the ground up. we (jake, one of bloom's owners and i) wanted to create a non-traditional holiday scene using unusual, but ordinary materials.

installations are way more time consuming and labor intensive than people initially realize. i feel really blessed to have the support of many of my friends and family with my art and the actual creation of the pieces. the "AGLOW" wall was made up of hundreds of wooden rounds from the walnut trees from my grandparents orchard. the vintage lights donated from friends and family. the rest of the materials were ones that would have possibly been "found" in an establishment such as the coffee shop this was installed in.

one of the key elements of this installation for me was the use of coffee filters. bloom's coffee is all brewed-to-order in french presses, so i loved the irony of allowing the coffee filters to be a admirable piece of non-functional art. i'm pretty sure the irony was lost on 95% of the audience, but that's not really the point. bloom is pretty misunderstood as well. it's alright, boys... one day.

i've learned a lot from my time on the visual team at anthro. my mantra regarding installations: "it always takes three times the materials, and twice the time" one might anticipate. with this knowledge, i feel prepared to take on any project... being over-prepared is the key.

i hate that i battle with anything i create. i wish so much i could simply take pride in the creation. instead, i cringe. it was difficult for me to even go into BLOOM for the majority of the two months the installation was up. i wanted to tear down and re-do everything a few times over.

thanks, jake and luke for the space and time to do this... and for your willingness to help install, tear down, and pull all-nighters to make it happen. also thanks to my family and whitney, rox, danny and tyler who threaded straws, cut wood, and blistered their fingers helping me make things.

{Sacramento News and Review Interview}

2010-01-27T18:34:00.000-08:00

recently, i was interviewed by the Sacramento News and Review (SN&R) regarding my installation at Bloom. it was a cool little deal, a little uncomfortable to read my words in print... {hereby swearing to limit my usage of the word, "like"... oh my gosh.}... but otherwise fun. felt a little as if i should start heading in a direction with my art, instead of just "dabbling..." but still wondering what that means for me... back to school? more focus? could i direct my attention towards one medium? hmmmm. things to ponder. the link is here, but i posted it for you below to make it easy for you.

In Bloom
Alexandra Nelson
By Shoka

This article was published on 01.21.10.

Roseville resident and freelance artist Alexandra Nelson is a proponent of spreading DIY art culture in the ’burbs, and she gets a little help from her friends, too. The 23-year-old is a self-described “dabbler” of different creative endeavors, but her most recent one is an installation at Bloom Coffee & Tea (1485 Eureka Road, Suite 100 in Roseville). It consists of a nest of branches and vintage colored stringed-lights, massive blooms made of coffee filters, vintage picture frames and strung straws—a similar aesthetic to the whimsical and at times extravagant displays at Anthropologie stores, where she also works as part of the visual team. Her installation remains in the cafe until January 31, and she blogs about her projects at http://alimakesart.blogspot.com.

How long did it take to install?

We only had one night to install everything, but we came up with the concept within a week. They close at 11 [p.m.], so we got in here, probably at 12 or 12:30 [a.m.], and they open at 6, so we just pulled an all-nighter, grabbed some friends and had Luke and Jake [Elia, Bloom’s owners] just install everything that night.

When was your first installation?

I actually started at Anthropologie as an associate when our store opened in June of 2008, and then I interned as part of the visual team, and then I got hired on as visual sales in the earlier part of [last] year.

Are you thinking about art school?

I’ve been looking into different ones in Portland [Ore.], especially. I just really like the vibe up there, and looking at different people and schools in the area, it seems the competition is really high, and I really admire that. … In the next year or so, that’s what I’d like to do, and just working on freelance stuff until then.

What kind of stuff?

I dabble in a lot of stuff. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or bad thing—some people have one thing that they’re really passionate about, and do only that … and I think what’s been fun for me, and what I’ve done so far has been possible because I haven’t gone to [art] school, I haven’t had to pick a major yet. I've never really defined "what I'm good at." … I’ve made a lot of invitations, graphic design, lots of T-shirt designs and any kind of print work like that, lots of digital arts, some photography.

What’s your house like? Are you a crazy hoarder?

Oh my gosh, that’s hilarious. You should see my car right now. Basically... because I feel like I see potential in everything, all of these little things, Ive collected so much stuff. These frames on the wall were in the back of my car for, like, two months, because I knew I’d have a purpose for them at some point.

How big is your car?

I have a Civic, a Honda Civic, so not very. But I’ll literally see things and just feel like I’ll have a purpose for them. … My grandpa has a ranch out past Lincoln; they’re rice farmers, and my dad’s a rice farmer, so whenever we go out there, there’s tons of things that people have just left undiscovered, like old wooden things that are deteriorating and half-buried.

Over on that wall there’s this wooden structure, and I found that buried out there, and my dad was like, “Please, just put it on the dump pile. Don’t grab that, it’s embarrassing.” I was like, “Dad, you’ll see, it’ll be on a wall somewhere at some point.”

On a whim [recently], I decided to throw a trunk show, just like a handmade market in my mom’s house. We had eight or nine vendors. We went to one in Santa Cruz, and it was so much fun, just inviting everyone in the community together, spend the night just shopping, drinking champagne, hanging out.

Roseville and Auburn and the whole foothills area, it’s largely suburbia and box stores, so it’s really rare to find handmade things. When you do, people really love it, because it’s not what they see all the time. So bringing that to my mom’s group of friends was really fun. … So I made a bunch of headbands, and when it’s all displayed, it’s so beautiful, but people like my grandparents [generation] don’t understand that. They like new and shiny. (I'd actually like to add that both sets of my grandparents were extremely generous and helpful with enabling me to do this installation by scouring their attics for vintage lights, and donating more wood from their orchards than imaginable.)

Why did you use the word aglow for the installation?

We were trying to decide on a word for long time, actually. Something with the holiday spirit, but wasn’t overtly cheesy Christmas. I actually wound up opening it up on my Facebook page to all my friends, and we had this long list of words going. So on there, I said, “What is the word to you that encompasses holiday, cozy, family, all of these things about winter and the spirit of the holidays?” The one that everyone loved that gave that sort of feeling when you read it was aglow.

What’s next?

I’m not sure yet. There’s always something. I’m constantly busy, but it’s always some frenzy of activity. [December was] out of control. The one night that we installed here, I worked a full shift, then came here, installed overnight, then went back to work at 7 the next morning... no sleeping. I was like, OK, just hand me more coffee. Let's go.

{invitations and save the dates}

2010-01-27T16:18:00.000-08:00

it all started with one. my dear friend, laurie, is a talented designer with a strong concept of design. when she got engaged almost two years ago, i was inspired by her idea of creating a lichenstein-inspired save the date and played around with ideas. i thought it was a fun, quirky way to announce an engagement, but i had no idea that the design below was to be the first of many, many more.

it's always an interesting challenge to work with brides during the wedding process. it is such a fun and yet, stressful time. i enjoy doing all sorts of invitations and digital projects in general, but love in particular doing save the dates. this part of wedding planning is a couple's first impression and contact with their friends and family regarding their wedding, so i love when it's a fun one! a save the date is "allowed" to be a little more playful than the more "formal invitation to follow." conceptualizing a great idea with a bride and being able to tangibly create what they dreamed up during one of the most monumental times of their life is a great opportunity.

working with clients, in general, has it's challenges... i've learned that it's necessary to establish a clear concept before starting in on a design. a client may have a vision, but may not understand how to convey that to me, so it's part of my job to help them dream and identify what they're looking for before i get started on the project. i still struggle with balancing my personal aesthetic and a client's wishes, but it's actually been a great practice to create art that is outside of my natural realm. ive realized that in the lifetime of an artist, much of the art that is created will be client-driven. and while i desire to establish my own identity, it's also important to me that i'm able to adapt and rise to the concepts, challenges and opportunities i'm presented with in the future.

2010-01-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

this weather! dreary, dreary, dreary.

2010-01-21T00:43:00.000-08:00

the motto of two thousand nine. and apparently, my life.

accidental art

2010-01-17T03:26:00.000-08:00

i love when pieces of your life happen to transform themselves into bits of accidental art. i always wish i could keep the happiest memories and moments captured somehow... maybe in a vintage mason jar on a shelf for when i really need them. well, anyway. it's been about five years, but the carefree nostalgia of that day comes rushing back to me every time i catch a glimpse of a simple cd jewel case that i've since affixed to my wall in my little studio area. let me explain.

this is my dear, dear friend, kristin. we met when we worked at a camp together. i love camp. i've gone to the same camp since i was in 6th grade, but my life really changed when i decided to work there a summer in 2004. i applied really late, not knowing what to do with myself in a moment of panicked realization that ALL. MY. FRIENDS. WERE. LEAVING. FOR. COLLEGE... and i still didn't know what i was going to do with my life. (hah.) we ended up working dining. (ew.) however, for as much as i still feel nauseous when i smell an industrial kitchen, and as many nightmares i had that summer ("BUTTER. i forgot to bring them their BUTTER!!")
... it was one of the best times of my life.

i'm still not entirely sure how it's possible to pack as many memories into three months as we did that year. anyway. the NEXT year, i was smarter. i applied earlier. i worked with 1-6 graders that year instead of serving camp food. we went up to lake almanor with our team for a weekend away, and somehow kristin and i got to spend a really lazy drive back to santa cruz together, stopping anywhere and everywhere we wanted to take pictures. one of these places was a deserted road, surrounded by sunflower fields. for some strange reason, the area and roads were COVERED with butterflies. thousands of them. some swirled around us, others' lifeless little winged bodies were strewn about. they were so vibrant and beautiful, and our pictures couldn't capture that. so i looked in my car. (it holds the answers to basically everything.) and i found a cd that i had been carrying around for years. it was a joy williams' cd. joy grew up in the small camp town that i was working at that summer. i remember first hearing one of her songs in junior high in a cabin at that same camp. it was perfect. after carefully preserving a few of these small vibrant creatures in the case, i naturally put it in my glove compartment where it stayed for the better part of two years.

but one day, i took it out, noticing the beautiful yellow-orange against the blue background. and despite that i was under a tight deadline and felt the weight of stress on my shoulders, it took me back. to that warm, carefree california day, wandering roads seldom driven, jumping into fields with sunflowers the size of our heads, snapping pictures with cameras containing film... opening a mason jar full of memories. it's really strange to have a box of butterflies. i totally get that. but we all have our quirks. i'm just deciding to mount mine on my wall. and tell you people, apparently.

and since you're already online, you should go check out joy williams' new project... the civil wars. they were recently featured on grey's, and they're letting you download their new album for FREE right here. friends with good taste are currently in love. that's all you need. go.

2010-01-14T06:31:00.000-08:00

my lovely friend, jessy, turned 25 and these were the invites i whipped out for her little party. the girl was aglow amidst her friends that night.

2010-01-14T06:16:00.000-08:00

the holiday windows and large scale. using every kind of texture available of a white papery-plastic-y-sort, we made these poofs. i know i already posted a few. but you should see more. different ones. they're pretty. and diaphanous. :)

newest obsession.

2010-01-14T05:56:00.000-08:00

so, i'm fully obsessed. i wear headbands constantly, i have short-er curly brown hair. and, well, it's usually a bit unruly. when i'm running off to work or wherever, my saving grace has seriously been my multitude of what i call my "big-ass headbands." classy. i know. but, you see, they take over my head. and i actually don't really mind it. i love it. anyway. it started out that i was making them basically everyday to match my outfits for work. and then people wanted to buy them. so... i started selling them. meredith and i even did a trunk show where i sold a whole bunch of them. it was a lot of fun and it gave me a little bit of confidence on the band-front. anyway. you should see them. they're fun. and pretty. this is just a few of the ones that didn't sell. of course, no pictures. ugh. sorry.

oh. and my friend laraye had a "sparkle-moustache" party. so so fun. all kinds of sparkles and moustaches. you guys should have that much fun too. try it soon with your friends. :)

holiday 2009.

2010-01-05T00:42:00.001-08:00

these are the most recent windows. poofs. and more poofs. diaphanous poofs. made of any materials we could find. somewhere, there's a picture of me working on one of these poofs during our store's holiday meeting. the funny thing about the picture though is that while it's a picture of me and a poof... all you can see is the poof. and my hands and feet sticking out around it. yep. they're THAT big. the single greatest lesson i've learned since working on installations is that you "always need MORE. more materials. more than you could ever anticipate." that seems to be a good rule of thumb. because the 100 poofs you already made may have been overflowing the art room AND the stock room... but that doesn't mean that they will look like they have a presence on the floor. those buildings are waaaay bigger than they seem. it's awful to discover this mid-install... but a serious salvation to understand it from the beginning.

my first windows.

2010-01-04T23:52:00.001-08:00

this last year and a half, i have had the amazing opportunity to be a part of an incredible company. i had high hopes for my future experience when i showed up to the open interviews wearing a fantastic thrifted isaac mizrahi dress. (and ugly heels i tried to camouflage with a last-minute maneuver involving big bows and a hot glue gun... but enough about that...) i had never worked retail. but i had done my homework, internet-stalked the company thoroughly and showed up prepared for my interview. i knew it was love, and i knew i would be spending a lot of time in their store... regardless if i was to be employed or not. the idea of working with so many women was daunting. i imagined folding beautiful clothes all day and then coming home to cry over all the drama. but, it wasn't like that. amazingly, even with my lack of retail experience, they hired me. and a year and a half later, i can truly say that i have made better friends than i ever could've imagined. during that time, i've been able to be a part of the visual team since fall/winter of 2008. i started as an intern and am now working as visual sales. meaning sometimes i'm lucky enough to make the beautiful displays you see when you walk into the store, and sometimes i'm lucky enough to spend the day with amazing people that are also enamored with the company... but are there to shop. it's been a year and a half i wouldn't trade for anything. i've learned so much and spent time on projects you wouldn't even believe. for as much as i'm good about taking pictures of my friends, i've been terrible keeping up with my work portfolio pictures. many are taken with an iphone and edited to look... presentable. i hope that you can look past my form and see the images for what they are... inspiring works in progress and glimpses of pieces shown in a way you might not have noticed before.

these bird windows were only up for a short time, even for our standards.

just a few of the people that i adore from work.

shannon and the orchard.

2010-01-04T17:50:00.000-08:00

while i love photography, let's get it out in the open from the start: i am by no means anywhere near my goals as a photographer. in all aspects of art and design, i attempt to identify the types of artists that i am personally inspired by and challenge myself to work faithfully in the hope i will one day align myself with this incredible community of talented artists. when recently interviewed, i told someone that i yearn for a competitive artistic environment. she seemed surprised at my word choice... compete... competition... that conversation has actually run through my mind multiple times since saying it. i've realized that really, what i meant was that i yearn to be living in a community of high artistic standards. a community that CHALLENGES each other to perform at our own highest ability. that all being said... i'm working on my photography. i love it, i love creating a setting that captures the spirit of the person i'm photographing, and i love looking at life through a lens. my friends know me as someone rarely without my camera, and my hard drive and the walls of my house are full of moments captured that may have otherwise slipped by us.

if there's anyone that had a strong spirit that i've photographed... it's shannon. i worked with shannon when our store first opened. she had been playing some local shows and wanted a few images that represented her well. you can tell from the pictures alone that she is a quirky character, with a strong sense of her personal style. when she described to me what she was planning on wearing, i thought it would be nice to photograph her out at my grandparents farm. i love the orchard, the slough, and the dilapidated barn. check 'em out.

diaphanous.

2010-01-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

also about a year ago, my dear dear friend, meredith of the plumb blog fame and i collaborated on an installation at UC Berkeley. the idea was to create a piece that evoked the feeling of a word picked from a hat. our word was DIAPHANOUS. i had never heard this word before. now, it's one of my favorite words. nothing else quite conveys an ethereal scene like it.

diaphanous: 1. Of such fine texture as to be transparent or translucent: diaphanous tulle. 2. Characterized by delicacy of form.

so thin as to transmit light

gossamer cobwebs a hat with a diaphanous veil

filmy wings of a moth gauzy clouds of dandelion down

i love watching strangers interact with my art.

sheer silk stockings transparent chiffon vaporous silks

d i a p h a n o u s .

one year ago.

2010-01-03T22:03:00.000-08:00

one year ago, my friends, luke and leyland jacob opened an amazing coffee shop. one year and a week ago, my friends, luke and leyland jacob asked if i had any art they could put up in their amazing coffee shop their opening month. i recognized this would be a good opportunity... a chance to cross off both "sell a piece of art to a stranger" and "show a cohesive collection in a coffee shop" on my life's to-do list. there was one problem. i didn't really have a cohesive collection... or any art that i actually wanted to put up in public at that time. so i got busy. like, the next week my kitchen was overtaken by drop cloths and canvasses and i was covered in paint and not sleeping. this is how i work. inspired by the shop's modern decor, rustic (and amazingly artful... nice work, boys) flooring, i created this series. each piece had elements of a graphic black silhouette, pops of color, typography, and text from... well, a "re-purposed" bible. i loved hearing people's reactions to the fact that i used pages from a bible... the reactions definitely ranged from "that's blasphemous" to "that's amazing." and, well... who am i kidding... i like a little controversy. so, i think this is an easy way to start out... at the beginning of last year.

i'm sorry if you see yourself in this picture and feel creeped out.
you were just sitting there looking so cute in your red slouchy hat,
working beneath my painting. i had to steal a picture. sorry.

this is the floor at bloom. the guys created it themselves from salvaged wood.
i'm enamored every time i walk in.

i created approximately 6 or 7 different images in one week for this opportunity.
literally, worked tirelessly around the clock.

i know... seems like i already showed this one to you...
but i ended up making at LEAST four or five versions of this one!
they just kept selling out!

2010-01-03T08:47:00.000-08:00

thanks for stopping by!
it's hard to know where to start the documentation of a artful life...
so bear with me as i struggle through sorting through more pictures than i could ever hope to document... :)

{About Ali Makes Art}

2010-01-02T00:34:00.000-08:00

alexandra nelson is a twentysomething still stuck in suburbia. while she plots her escape into a cooler town, she passes the time by making the places around her more beautiful. she is technically employed at anthropologie, is part of the visual team, and makes extra cash by doing anything art-related. she's had mild success with the following: graphic design, installation, painting, photography, and living passionately. she's currently obsessed with cynicism, glitter (again), and making headbands. armed with a glue gun, the eclectic items found in the trunk of her car at any given time, her weakness for rusty metal and distressed wood, and her font collection, she's pretty sure she could take on the world. she has a collection of small dogs. to contact her further about any possible projects or collaborations or opportunities: alimakesart@gmail.com.