Day of the Dead Box

The TattooDreams tour of 2012 continues and has us on the road in Oklahoma City for their six day long show. Our booth is filled with many new boxes and furniture. This is our first time taking this body of work there and plan to leave many pieces behind!


This new Day of the Dead box is in our booth......until someone snags it!! If this needs to be yours and you're not there, contact us! It can be yours!!!


Booth 32C

Steampunk Box

What's old is new and often revisited.
Such is the case with the steampunk movement in design.
Gears.
Movement.
Innovation.
Action.
An era when things were
built
invented
constructed.
Smokestacks and glass block windows.
A grid of light.
The hum of factories filled the air
and lined the pockets of workers
who
wore time pieces
and hard soled shoes
walked to work
heard lunch whistles blow
punched time clocks
wore aprons and visors to shield them
from the
dust
dirt
ink
innovation
Being created
by machinery
printing presses
fire
flux
and their hands.

On etsy.
$75.00

••• Leaf Vessel •••

Our newest TattooDreams vessel is the Leaf Vessel. This is a tapered cherry box designed and built by Jon. Patricia stained it a warm tobacco color and stamped gold leaves onto its' surface. Over that she attached cut, painted and airbrushed leaves of various sizes and type. These deciduous leaves are edged in gold and adorn all sides as well as the top. The lid is composed of an additional layer which leaves tuck under and around the decorative finial.
The ephemera that cascades down from the finial is a compilation of seeds, shells, nuts, and semi-precious stones strung on waxed linen.


This vessel is currently on display at the Orchard Gallery in Fort Wayne Indiana. It's part of their "In the Garden" show which runs from March 3-31.

The Orchard Gallery
6312A Covington Road
Fort Wayne, IN 46804

(260) 436-0927
If you feel the need to adopt this box, call the Orchard Gallery at the number above and tell them this one needs to be in your collection. They will understand and help you make this happen!

$450.00



9x9 17

What Valentines Day Means to Me

I love Valentines Day! I love that ~ in the midst of the darkness and chill of winter, a day is set aside for love.
For flowers.
For showing affection.
A day for love.
As a young girl, Valentines Day was special. My Mom found something, albeit small, to gift to my brother and I to remind us of her love. That is after all what Moms do, and my Mom was great at this kind of thing. It was also in February that I usually caught the flu and would miss my classroom Valentines day party. The parties where crayon decorated brown paper bags were made into mailboxes with white scalloped doilies and taped to the side of your desk to hold Valentines from classmates. Where the Room Mothers brought in cupcakes and punch and math class was halted.
Valentines. The small envelopes, some pink, some red, some white got deposited into your bag. Some with stickers on the back. Each with your name on the front.
Tucked inside, the small illustrated cards bought in cellophane packs at the supermarket the night before and hurriedly signed by the obligatory classmate. Then every now and then you'd find one that said "Guess who?"..... a mystery that made your day...needing to be observed more closely later that night in the privacy of your bedroom.

Now I have a new appreciation for this holiday of red and pink. I love seeing these colors come to stores after the reds and greens of Christmas disappear. It's in the February that I generally feel the full thrust of winters' cold. When flowers are not blooming and an assorted sense of cabin fever and general malaise sets in. The winter holidays are over, the anticipation of spring beginning. A feeling that things to come are not quite here yet.

Anticipation.

Love that was.
Love that is
Love that can never be.
Love that never dies.

The most beautiful of all four letter words.
A verb that magnifies our lives.
Because if love is not put into action, it's merely an adjective to describe.
Love must be put in action to become fully alive!

That's what Valentines Day means to me.

With love,
Patricia

The Armadillo Christmas Bazaar

Jon and I are in Austin Texas doing the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar with our TattooDream boxes. Twenty six years of doing a myriad of various types of shows and venues across the country and nothing remotely compares to this! Booths are various sizes which lends a varied and interesting esthetic to what is already an eclectic show. Coupled with the amazing live music from class acts, we feel this is a real treasure and a gift to be here.
Every day we open our booth to the wonderfully fun and interesting people of Austin Texas. They are genuine and most welcoming to us, especially when they hear we came so far. Our hosts, Bruce and Annie have gone above and beyond to welcome us into this Armadillo family. Health issues as they are, we need to make some changes to our show schedule and we hope by doing this show that will allow us the ability to do just that.

To us, this is our Christmas gift.

This year the show runs 11 days. Open daily from 11 am to 11 pm right up to Christmas Eve. In it's 36th season this year. We've spoken to so many artists who have done it from the beginning as well as patrons for whom this has become a holiday tradition.
We've known about this show for a very long time but knew we didn't have the rigth work for it. Now to actually be here doing it it feels very cool!
Our dear friend Bonnie Blandford is here to help us for the first 5 days. Her offer to help us has been hard to quantify. She's given up time at home after a busy year to do this. We are forever indebted. Days are long and morning comes a bit too soon, but the energy within that hall is addictive.
Time away from the booth is good too. Our dear friend David Haun is taking Bonnie and I to the South AustinTrailer Park Eatery tonight for supper. Food trucks in Austin provide some for the best local fare around and this one is sure to please. Bonnies first night here we at at Chuy's. Excellent food and eclectic decor. Loved the ceilings full of hubcaps! Hmmm... I do believe it was here that the infamous Jenna Bush got arrested! (Some rich girls just need to know that laws are for everyone!) Hahaha!

If you are anywhere near here, plan a trip over to the Armadillo. We're in the Palmer Events Center. Plan to stay the day and into the evening! A dim hall, alcohol, fantastic live music and a great place to do all your holiday shopping!
Eat, drink, shop and fill your sleigh!!

Heckers TattooDreams are in booth B4. The one with the puple and blue LED lights and fun boxes!!

Artist Box

Some pieces just come out really good-- this was one of them!
~Patricia

Skull & Skeleton In Art: Folk Art to Pop Culture

This past July we were thrilled to be approached by the energetic Mary Urbas at a show we did in Ohio. Mary organizes the gallery at Lakeland Community College. She asked if we would like to participate in a the Skull & Skeleton In Art: Folk Art to Pop Culture. Sounded like it was right up our alley- so we sent 15 pieces of our work. One piece is featured here, our newest mirror we call the Day of the Dead Milagro Mirror. Accompanying this mirror were a myriad of boxes and vases all very TattooDreamed!

The shows runs September 15- November 3 2011.

Many thanks to Mary for her hard work and amazing dedication and to Michael Kifer who introduced us to one another!

I hope if you're a Day of the Dead collector or in the Ohio area you'll attend what will be a great collection of wonderfully 'dead' art!!!

~Patricia

New Work from TattooDreams Studio

We have been busy here at TattooDreams Studio on Purple Hill. Our collectors will reap the reward of our efforts! If you see something here that ignites your soul- contact us jphecker (at) bluemarble (dot) net. We can help make this part of your collection!
~Jon and Patricia Hecker
TattooDreamers



The Artists Palette
Roughly 12" high. On this palette resides a wonderful quote from St. Francis of Assisi. Speaks to the creative spirit of craftswomen and artists. A must for your studio!
125.00




Affirmations Mirror
Black stain on oak adorned with positive affirmations. Affirmations are of various heights and are accented with a raised copper tacked edge. Very hand hewn!
Excellent for an entry way to your home or business or wherever the tone of positivity needs to be prominent!
20" x 28" Can be hung horizontal or vertical. Wired on the back with stainless steel cable.
$650.00



Quilted Reflections Mirror
Hand painted and air brushed patterned pieces adorn this bold mirror. This matches everything!
Wood is stained black over oak. Patterned shapes are of various heights and are accented with a raised copper tacked edge. Very hand hewn!
20" x 28"
$850.00



Affirmations Mirror
20" x 28" Cherry with raised words in black. Affirmations are of various heights. A wonderful way to set the tone!
Cherry copper tacked raised border.
$650.00

☀ What I Learned at Ann Arbor ☂

What I Learned at Ann Arbor
Sometimes life's lessons are best learned from watching nature. In our case, it was ants.
Yes, the lowly often stepped upon ant.
Sales were exceedingly slow in the 100º heat at Ann Arbor this year. I sat on our grey utility box behind our booth on Friday evening. The low box gave me a great vantage point to ant watching.
It had cooled a little. Streets were full but no one buying much. I had time on my hands and lessons to be learned!

A colony of ants found some broken chips on the sideway behind our booth. Perhaps remnants from us feeding Timmy the baby squirrel behind our booth earlier in the day. Timmy and his Dad inhabit the grounds in the front of Angell Hall on State Street. They must love the artists coming to town each year since their diet becomes infused with a new array of snacks and friendly animal loving artists to play with them. These cute squirrels were fed, photographed and befriended by many of us! Timmy loved peeled grapes cut in half, pistachios my husband shared with him and gluten free edamame chips. Only the best for Timmy!

The ants however added a whole new dimension to what occurred in my hundred square feet of overly expensive 'real estate' for four days!

Lesson One: Ants don't work alone.
They take on huge tasks and work in groups. Overwhelming to most insects they whittle away the sides of big things making them smaller and lighter, providing nourishment at the same time. They took on huge tasks and broke them into smaller tasks they could handle.
Brilliant!

Lesson Two: They communicated with one another! If they can do this, why can't our politicians manage this task? Why can't we do this with one another?

Lesson Three: A few leader ants rode atop the small chip and gave directions! Clearly female ants charting the course not wanting to get lost and willing to ask for directions should they become disoriented along the way. Never needing GPS they were guided by instinct. What better way to live! It's the journey people! I digress....

Lesson Four: They traveled out of the path of being stepped on by moving their chip into the crevasse of the sidewalk. They stayed low and did their thing! Honestly, I don't think they cared that I was watching them. What a blissful state to travel through life in!

Lesson Five: They accepted help along the way. Other ants took over when the fist squad got tired. Something we all need to remember. We can help one another!

Lesson Six: When the rain came and splashed on their efforts, they took cover under the leaf I gave them and picked up where they left off despite their chip being relocated. A few inches to us, probably miles to them! They did not cease!

Lesson Seven: Past errors need not be repeated. We can learn from them and move on! A good reminder!

Lesson Eight: Sometimes it's Gods smallest creatures that can teach us life's biggest lessons - if we are willing to watch and learn!

They never gave up.

I can learn from this!

~Patricia

Frida Kahlo- A Mexican Icon

The amazing Frida Kahlo is the theme of this warm cherry box. The box is handmade by my husband and rubber stamped by me. All the designs are permanent and will not fade or wear away. Sealed with a protective spray. The intricate designs are a wonderful mix of sayings and images of this iconic Mexican artist. My one of a kind boxes are quickly becoming collectable and can be purchased from me here or at selected art fairs across the country.

This box measures 8" wide x 3.75" deep x 7.25" high. Perfect for holding thoughts, dreams, tea bags, artist trade cards or anything you desire!

Adorned with magenta pink feet and and red fringe. A fun Fiesta creates the knob on top. Lined on the inside bottom with black velvet. Wonderful details make this box one to covet!!
If you chose, fringe can be removed-that's up to you!


TattooDreams 2011 tour schedule is posted on my website http://TattooDreams.biz

More boxes can be found on the rest of my etsy site.

$55.00

FREE Domestic shipping!

Spring is in the Air-

TattooDreams Tour continues-- Dunwoody Arts Festival•Dunwoody, GA this weekend. New vases, story boxes and wall art!! This past week we put into motion our new vases. They're a fun new inclusion to our work and come adorned with handmade beads and tied around the top.
They cost $68.00 and hold water using the recycled water bottle tucked inside.
Great for gift-giving or a gift to yourself!!

This is just the beginning-- there's more to come!
The road calls and there's art to be sold!
Happy Spring everyone!

YOU STILL NEED ART

~Patricia

Georgia on My Mind

Heading to Dunwoody Georgia this weekend for the Dunwoody Arts Festival. This will be our first time there and with us will come new work! I love taking new work on the road to get the reaction of collectors and fellow artists. Georgia should be beautiful this time of year with trees and wildflowers in bloom.
Hoping to spend a day with my beloved pandas at Zoo Atlanta. Lun Lun has a new cub, Po and we plan to see him. Pandas bring me peace. Their quiet demeanor and slow, careful gestures align with their docile nature and graceful habitat.

While on this trip, my family will be scattering my Fathers' ashes in the mountains, per his request. It was a year ago he died on Easter and it is time to fulfill his last wishes. Having never done this, I look forward to returning Dad to the Earth and the mountains he so loved.
This is closure of the most natural kind.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

~Patricia

Fripples

Letting a pet go is perhaps the hardest part of having one. Today we had to do that. Our sweet 15 year old Fripples' heart gave out. We'd been giving him extra love and care since late fall. On New Years Eve we took him to the vet. This last week has been very difficult. When we decided to put him to sleep, our vet said he couldn't do it until Monday. That wasn't an option so we went to a vet we'd never been to. His compassion and diligence were what we needed.

I always felt Fripples was special - that's because he was! He was a gift. He found us 15 years ago in our forest home in the woods. During our time together he weathered lots of lifes' ups and downs with us.
A constant furry companion, a teddy bear who hugged us with his sweet white mitten paws, dazzled us with his watery green eyes and fluffed in the breeze on the deck sitting beside his red and pink geraniums. His sweet kittenality had everyone who came to visit us wanting to take him home! He would sense when my blood sugars were low by my breath during the night and stay with me until Jon gave me juice.
He was my best friend.

He had the same white fluffy color and coloring that a sweater my Mom gave me had. I felt he was somehow my Mom reincarnated.
I had my Mom 15 years and Fripples the same.
That just never seems long enough when you love them.


Go with God sweet bunnyman- you will always be loved.

Handmade Bee Box - TattooDreams

Bee Box measures 5" wide x 5" deep x7" high (12.7 cm x 12.7 cm x 17.78 cm ). The top opens by way of a yellow and black wooden knob and matching feet. Inside, the bottom is lined with black velvet. I always decorate the inside of the lids, and this one is no exception. Treasures, trinkets, jewelry or nothing at all can be placed in this box.
Artful empty or full!

$48.00


More boxes can be found on my etsy site:
http://tattoodreams.etsy.com

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

FREE Domestic shipping!

Gluten Free Pie Crust Recipe and Pumpkin Pie

Gluten Free Crust

1 stick unsalted butter
1 1/2 c oatmeal flour*
5 tbsp cold water
1 tsp vanilla

Cut butter into flour until a crumb like texture forms. Add water and vanilla and work dough with hands. Press into a pie pan. Mine was about 10" wide.
Bake at 400º for 12 minutes.

Some individuals with celiac disease cannot tolerate oats, use your best judgement.

Pie Filling

1 15 oz. can pumpkin
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 425º. Mix all ingredients and pour into pie shell. Bake for 15 minutes at 425º.
Reduce oven temperature to 350º and bake for 35-40 minutes until center of pie comes out clean with toothpick test. Cool pie before cutting.
Enjoy.
We add a scoop of good vanilla ice cream on top of warm pie!

New Ornaments on Display

My husband Jon built the most beautiful display racks for our new ornaments. Crafted from a downed branch in my brother-in-laws yard we brought back from Virginia, this looks great. Copper tacks securely hold the waxed linen thread over each limb.
These new ornaments will go to our next shows, arrive at the Orchard Gallery in Fort Wayne and be posted to etsy.com in time for the holidays.


Patricia

NEW Things From Our Studio!!

We've been busy this week! After some very cool brainstorming with our friends Steve and Sue last weekend, we took to our studio and created smaller versions of our 'oh so popular' beads. These strings are about 10", tactile and oh so yummy (if I do say so myself). Can be used as ornaments, fan pulls, or decorations to hang-- we'll let you decide! You'll easily want multiples, so deciding which ones may be the hard part! All are one of a kinds!!!

If you're in Louisville, Kentucky this weekend we will be too! We're in the St. James Art Fair - On the inner court in Booth SJ-341i- North Green between Magnolia & the Fountain.

We have boxes, beads, wall pieces, tables and spirit sticks! It will be chilly, the beer and cider flowing and the leaves falling!

Come out and buy some art!
Support the creative spirits!

Posted here is some of our new work we'll have with us this weekend.

Patricia & Jon

TattooDreams Beaded Room Divider Screen

This is a room divider screen that my husband Jon and I designed and built. It appears more like a sculpture and becomes a conversation piece wherever it's placed! Each panel is 66" tall, 16" wide and holds 5 strings of beads per panel. It consists of 15 strings of handmade rubber stamped painted and cut out beads strung on stainless steel cable. Each string is adorned with tied silk and fringe intermittently added to radiate bursts of color.

Beads can be custom made to incorporate family names or pets or significant dates almost making this a 'family tree'.
Can be made with color or natural and black.
Pieces of my work are available for movie prop rental. Please enquire by phone 812-935-6172 availability and rates.
Any item from HeckerDesign Studio can be shipped world wide.


Jon and Patricia Hecker
Bloomington, Indiana

TattooDreams Wall Art

As my line of rubber stamped TattooDreams work evolves, so have new ideas! Pictured here is an image of the back corner of my booth showing some wall pieces I've recently done. These complete what is becoming a body of work that is maturing. I'm happy with it's progression.

You still need art!

Patricia

Etsy Workshop - How to Sell on Etsy--South Bend Museum of Art

Jon and I are looking forward to our Etsy Workshop in South Bend on August 16, 2010
Monday: 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
We are being hosted by the South Bend Museum of Art and Community Foundation’s ArtsEverywhere Initiative

During this informative workshop we'll show the finer points of using the etsy website to the participants and post a box live to our etsy site.

Jon and I are not affiliated with etsy in any way other than being happy users to its site, but are available for group workshops. If you or your group are itnerested, please contact us at through our website for availability.

Pictured is one of our new Peace Boxes. It will be posted live to our site during the workshop next Monday.