I’m excited to announce I have a new website in the works!

The address will stay the same: www.sallyprangley.com

But it will look very different!  Images of my artwork will prevail on the opening page instead of this blog and my baskets will be featured in different groupings.  It will be super easy and fun to navigate thanks to a terrific web designer I’m working with!  (more about her later!)  Stories will be included to give you some insight into my creative process—what inspires me, how I came up with a particular series of baskets, and what might be coming next!  I will still have a blog through my website, but it, too, will look different!  And I promise I’ll be writing in it regularly!  There will also be a link to my Facebook artist page, Sally Prangley- Artist, where I share images and stories about my artwork and my encounters with art in general!

 

Keep checking back and by the end of March, a new website will greet you!  Just in time for Spring!

If I got paid a penny each time I was asked that question, I could buy a lot of bubble gum!  It’s such a direct, focused question, you’d think I’d be able to easily answer it.  I wish!  Here’s what runs through my mind when asked HLDITTMAB…

 

-It took me 50+ years to get to where I am today that I can create such baskets.

-A while.

-Actually, a long while.

-More time than you would suspect.

-Days and days and days.

-Under deadline or not?

 

You might see a pattern here and realize that I don’t gauge making my baskets in minutes.   Hours and days are more accurate for the physical act of making a basket.  But when it comes to the amount of time between coming up with the concept and executing the basket, it is more like days, weeks, months, years-- but sometimes it’s mere seconds.

 

Take the Fade Basket, pictured below.  There is a non-linear path behind its creation. 

 

It actually started out to be an all-bronze basket, intended to be suspended inside another larger basket.  But something happened along the way and I set this bronze basket aside, incomplete and still attached to its spool of bronze wire (a basket’s version of the umbilical cord). This is actually very unusual for me to set a basket aside mid-stream.

 

Flash forward at least a year or two.  Really.  I was under deadline to have 60 baskets ready for an event.  I was running tight on time and looked to my studio shelves for anything I might have overlooked.  And that’s when I saw the bronze orphan.

 

I picked it up, examined it and asked myself to consider the possibilities.  And in a flash, just like those old camera flashes that went poof  when the picture was taken, my mind came up with adding dark annealed steel wire in gradual stages so the basket would fade from light to dark.

 

And before I knew it, I had turned that forlorn unfinished basket into a new one, brimming with possibilities for other creations on the “fade concept.”

 

So how long does it take to make a basket?  You tell me!

 

 

It's nearly here:  the 2011 American Craft Council Baltimore Wholesale and Retail Show.  What a mouthful!  It's been on my bucket list for years and I am anticipating this show with a lot of excitement and some trepidation.  I have no idea what it's going to be like showing with 700 other artists, except visually amazing.

This will be my first time doing a major wholesale show in combination with retail.  I hope to meet some new gallery owners/buyers and further my goal of world domination through wire basketry and jewelry!

Eight cartons of wirework and booth supplies were sent via UPS last week to the Baltimore Convention Center.  My wonderful husband and I arrive on Sunday, in time to set up on Monday and then greet the wholesale world on Tuesday & Wednesday, and the retail world on Thursday-Sunday.  In between all that, Brad will play hooky and take the train to Washington DC a couple of times.  Lucky guy!

Back to my studio...I still have a few necklaces I want to complete, and make a couple of dozen Wildflower stems and...well, it never ends!

San Francisco Here I Come-- Again!

 

I can hardly believe it’s time for the fantastic ACC Craft Show in San Francisco, and that it’s been a year since my debut there last summer.   It’s on the water at the venerable Fort Mason Center, and the caliber of artists participating is inspiring!  I’ve packed and shipped 8 cartons of wire basketry and booth supplies to the show, and have a very creatively packed suitcase filled with all of the paraphernalia it takes to support a retail store—from credit card processor to scotch tape, tissue paper to the indispensable duck tape.  My wonderful husband, Brad, will be at my side keeping me company and laughing the entire time.  His title is Chief Technology Master-- he keeps images of my artwork rotating on a laptop, with a steady stream of music to groove with all weekend long. 

 

I’ve been working what seems like 24/7 for months for this show.  To tease you, new work includes baskets within baskets, and baskets made out of monofilament (a fancy term for fishing line!).  I’ve literally expanded my Candy Basket line, now making them in medium and large sizes.  New images will be posted once I’m back from the show.

 

I love being an artist!

Pliers 


I use some more than others. My favorite pair has mint green plastic coated handles and really long and narrow metal grippers, with little indentations inside the grippers to hold wire without it slipping through.  I’ve used them so much that they are wearing out.  That means the grippers don’t grip as well—the metal indentations have softened and smoothed over time, like rocks in a river.  And they don’t meet perfectly at the very end, called the nose, when they get old and tired. I don’t particularly like spring-loaded pliers. The springs usually break. Some handles have cushy, hard foam-type padding that is actually not that soft on the fingers. Well, nothing is that soft on the fingers if you use it 8 hours a day. Which leads to calluses. That won’t be my next blog.  But the best thing about pliers is that they are like uber-fingers. They can get places and hold things that my own digits can’t. They can pull wire tight, loop it through very small openings, reach wire that is beyond my own grasp. Kind of like Edward Scissorhands. Only I can put my pliers down when I leave my studio.

My fingers are developing calluses again. That's always a good indication of my work load. January is, historically, a quieter month on the production front for me. That's when I get to catch my breath after a crazy autumn of fulfilling gallery orders and holiday shows. 

This past January, I spent a lot of time checking out books from the local library, on everything from contemporary graphic design to tips from interior designers. Costume jewelry. 60's design. Paul Klee. I look for highly visual, iconic elements of our vast world to inspire me. I read, take it all in with my eyes, and trust that the food processor in my mind will whirl it all together and at some future point, something new and different will spew forth.

Ahhh, the creative process. Such a welcomed mystery in my life.

Welcome to my new site! It is still in development, but we're so close! In the next couple of days you'll be able to check out the different categories above to see a sampling of my work and then bookmark this page and read blog posts revealing insight into my work and recent projects.

An open studio event in Sally’s studio on Bainbridge Island for holiday shopping!

Presenting the sparkling artwork of two artists who work in metal.

Sally Prangley - Elegant and unusual wire baskets and wire jewelry.  Colorful and eccentric mixed media clocks and mirrors.

Suzanne Arkless - Precious metals and gems combined in colorful and flirty jewelry designs.
 
 Friday/Saturday December 4/5  11am-5pm  
 Sunday December 6  noon-5pm.

 Sally Prangley Studio  
 5244 Lynwood Center Road NE, Bainbridge Island

Directions:  Heading south on Lynwood Center Road, the closest cross street is Emerald.  The entrance to my paved driveway is about 200’ past Emerald, on the left hand side of the street.  There is a brown & white watershed sign about 10’ before my driveway.  There will be a sign for “Sparkle” at the bottom of the driveway.  Turn left into the driveway; it winds left past two homes and up a small hill.  My studio/home is the second home at the top of this small hill, where there is lots of room for parking.

206.842.5151