Here's my next featured creator! Notsobland is a super creative mother-daughter team. I was immediately drawn into their shop, and I know you will be too! Check it out at http://www.notsobland.etsy.com.
We both do a little bit of everything! Both of us create things, take the pictures, and put them on Etsy. It is a great way for us to be creative, have fun, and spend time together. We definitely need to do some collaborations for Etsy. We have done them before in classes or just on a whim, but haven’t sold any. We have very distinct styles, but they compliment each other well. A team project will be our next endeavor…
Your shop is full of wonderful visual art and the photographs of your jewelry are fantastic! Do either of you have formal training in any art form?
Mom (Lynn Bland) has a B.S. in Art Education from Florida State University. Her mother and father were both artists, so it was hard for her to get away from it (not that she wanted to!). She has also been published in “Somerset Studio” magazine, “Signatures,” “Material Visions,” “Gallery,” “Legacy,” and “Art Doll Quarterly.” She also writes technique based articles for the quarterly “Sew Somerset.”
I (Mari Bland - the daughter) have a B.S.C. in Visual Communication from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I took some photography classes, graphic design classes, and videography classes. All of these definitely came in handy when trying to take good pictures of our jewelry and artwork! I also won a few art awards in high school for some pieces that made it on the posters for the county art shows.
Do you create for a living, or do you have a "day job." If so, what is your day job?
Mom is an artist and a mom. J (and she does both beautifully) She has owned her own flower arranging shop, taught school, and worked on a boat with my dad. But, now, she gets to spend all of her free time creating things… and loves every minute of it.
I am a student… which I would consider a day AND night job! Hah. I just finished my undergrad at UT and now am starting the Walters State culinary program. I’ve gone from creating visual things with paint, computers, and cameras, to creating them with milk, sugar, and eggs!
Your shop has a "look." All of the items have a similar style. Is that on purpose, or does it just happen?
At first, it was an accident. We took pictures of everything that we had and put them on Etsy. Then we noticed that there was a common theme… nothing we can name, necessarily, but a theme nonetheless. Now we try to take pictures of our items with our “theme” in mind. But, I don’t think that either of us has ever created something with our Etsy shop in mind… we just make things as they come to us… and hope they fit within our Etsy store!
What inspires you?
Mom (Lynn Bland) has a B.S. in Art Education from Florida State University. Her mother and father were both artists, so it was hard for her to get away from it (not that she wanted to!). She has also been published in “Somerset Studio” magazine, “Signatures,” “Material Visions,” “Gallery,” “Legacy,” and “Art Doll Quarterly.” She also writes technique based articles for the quarterly “Sew Somerset.”
I (Mari Bland - the daughter) have a B.S.C. in Visual Communication from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I took some photography classes, graphic design classes, and videography classes. All of these definitely came in handy when trying to take good pictures of our jewelry and artwork! I also won a few art awards in high school for some pieces that made it on the posters for the county art shows.
Do you create for a living, or do you have a "day job." If so, what is your day job?
Mom is an artist and a mom. J (and she does both beautifully) She has owned her own flower arranging shop, taught school, and worked on a boat with my dad. But, now, she gets to spend all of her free time creating things… and loves every minute of it.
I am a student… which I would consider a day AND night job! Hah. I just finished my undergrad at UT and now am starting the Walters State culinary program. I’ve gone from creating visual things with paint, computers, and cameras, to creating them with milk, sugar, and eggs!
Your shop has a "look." All of the items have a similar style. Is that on purpose, or does it just happen?
At first, it was an accident. We took pictures of everything that we had and put them on Etsy. Then we noticed that there was a common theme… nothing we can name, necessarily, but a theme nonetheless. Now we try to take pictures of our items with our “theme” in mind. But, I don’t think that either of us has ever created something with our Etsy shop in mind… we just make things as they come to us… and hope they fit within our Etsy store!
What inspires you?
Oh goodness… the question here should be what doesn’t inspire us! We live in the Great Smoky Mountains and have deer, hummingbirds, butterflies, and turtles in our yard every day. The mountains are always giving us ideas and inspiration. Mom loves to create artwork with leaves and birds as symbols, and we have both surrounding us all of the time. I love insects and flowers, which appear in my work very often, and I can go get ideas simply by walking outside. Other than our surroundings, some common themes in our work are rebirth, travel, nature, politics, and anything that forces us to create something in its wake.
Do you have a studio, or place that you work? If so, what is it like?
Mom has a studio that she graciously lets me use when I get a moment or two. She shares it with her friend, who is also an artist. I love it every time I go there because you can see where my mom’s stuff begins and her friend’s ends because of how messy it is! Don’t get me wrong, it’s creative and crazy messy, not bad messy. It is a totally free and creative space that neither of us feel inhibited in. How lucky to have a space that we can actually leave messy for the next time inspiration strikes?
What made you open your etsy shop?
We learned about the amazing thing called Etsy from a magazine article. As soon as we started browsing some shops (ok…. hundreds of shops….it’s addicting) we found ourselves saying, “We could do this!” And so, NotsoBland was born. We thought it would be a blast making things together and working on it together. We get along so well and have so much fun together, that we knew there would be no conflicts, so we went for it! We have been creating and enjoying each other and Etsy ever since. J
Do you have a studio, or place that you work? If so, what is it like?
Mom has a studio that she graciously lets me use when I get a moment or two. She shares it with her friend, who is also an artist. I love it every time I go there because you can see where my mom’s stuff begins and her friend’s ends because of how messy it is! Don’t get me wrong, it’s creative and crazy messy, not bad messy. It is a totally free and creative space that neither of us feel inhibited in. How lucky to have a space that we can actually leave messy for the next time inspiration strikes?
What made you open your etsy shop?
We learned about the amazing thing called Etsy from a magazine article. As soon as we started browsing some shops (ok…. hundreds of shops….it’s addicting) we found ourselves saying, “We could do this!” And so, NotsoBland was born. We thought it would be a blast making things together and working on it together. We get along so well and have so much fun together, that we knew there would be no conflicts, so we went for it! We have been creating and enjoying each other and Etsy ever since. J
No comments:
Post a Comment