January 2019 in Photos

I’m changing up My Photo of the Month series to be more of a recap of the last month, instead of focusing on just one Instagram photo.

1. Getting out of the Holiday Blanket

Getting back into a regular routine at the beginning of January feels like emerging from a holiday cocoon. Or, as Quijote illustrated, peeking out from the snuggly blanket my mom made me (us?) for Christmas.

2. Museum Date Day

Phillip and I had a couples’ counseling appointment (we go periodically — I recommend it!) and decided to make an afternoon of it.

We dropped Quijote off at doggie daycare, went to therapy, got lunch at The Coronado, and then went to the Phoenix Art Museum, so we could see the Teotihuacan exhibition before it closed.

We also took at quick look at a few other exhibits while we were there, including Scandinavian Pain + Other Myths, José Guadalupe Posada and the Taller de Gráfica Popular, and Mexican Photographers, Mexican Views.

Also, I did a double take on the way to the elevators when I spotted a particular neon color combination that I thought I recognized from the Seven Magic Mountains installation we saw in Nevada. I don’t even know what exhibit it was part of, but, yep, it was a single Ugo Rondinone sculpture — in travel size, I guess!

3. Park Snacks

We’ve been trying to be more consistent in Quijote’s training, practicing things like coming when he’s called at the park. One day, I thought I’d give him a break since I didn’t have his usual reward treats with me, and he seemed (hilariously) annoyed.

How is your 2019 starting out?

February 14, 2019February 14, 2019

Blush: A Color Story

If fire engine red screams Valentine’s Day, blush whispers it sweetly.

It’s a romantic yet subtle shade, as lovely on walls as it is on flowers. Although it’s a more traditional choice for this holiday than last year’s black and white, they look fabulous together. Blush is also great with deep blues or teal-y greens.

Like the illustrations, destinations, and DIYs in this post, blush doesn’t even have to be about Valentine’s Day at all.

1. Ceramic vase by Polina Shutova 2. Flower arranging how-to via Food52 3. Venice, Italy buildings 4. Are We There Yet? painting by Christina Baker

5. Pink room via Esther Lee 6. DIY Grand Budapest Hotel envelope by Thimble 7. Bellevue Corduroy Skirt via One Loved Babe 8. “Room in your heart” hand-drawn type by Maddy Nye / for designlovefest

9. DIY eraser heart stamp via Cotton + Flax / black + white love 10. Living + Working in 350 Square Feet via Design*Sponge 11. Honeymoon in Sardinia commission (map detail) by Mura 12. Jacome Plaza in downtown Tucson

13. Stenciled Valentine Gift Bags via Martha Stewart / Valentines Day DIYs 14. A rural house with urban style in Ibiza, Spain / h/t sfgirlbybay 15. Santorini illustration by Mari Andrew

Photos link to their sources.

February 7, 2019February 5, 2020

Sampler

I don’t know if this ever happens to you, but sometimes I’m in the middle of working on a bunch of things and can’t seem to get anything totally finished before I need to move on to something else.

That’s where I’m at right now.

So I thought I’d share a preview of things I have in progress and things you can read, listen to, and share in the meantime.

Film Festival Reviews

I’m working on more in-depth reviews of the films we saw at Arizona International Film Festival (AZIFF) last year.

For AZIFF 2019, I’m planning to cover more days of the festival and would love to know what you’re most interested in hearing about!

Comment:

What film festival stories do you want to read?

Reviews of more films? Any particular type/genre (documentary, comedy, animation, etc.)?
The AZIFF experience and tips for getting the most out of it?
Filmmaker Q+As or interviews?
Would you prefer any of the above in video or audio (podcast) format instead of written articles?

Quilt Show

This year I went to two days of the Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival in Phoenix. The first one was with my mom (who introduced me to the Festival) and the second with my sister-in-law Dinah and friend Kelli (who was my co-presenter at Craft Camp and co-taster at Macayo’s Scottsdale).

I’ve been editing photos and am impressed all over again with the creativity and inventiveness of the exhibitors we met there!

Read:

A couple crafty posts from Kelli…

Festival Food

While we were at the Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival, I wanted to investigate the food vendors at the Fairgrounds a bit more.

I found out that the concessions actually come from several independent businesses, who really do care about the food they make. Over the 2 days we were there, my quilt show squad and I got to sample a huge Indian taco, several flavors of kettle corn, a whole buncha barbecue, and this ridiculous brownie sundae.

Local Art Loves

I haven’t done an official kick-off post yet, but I definitely want to celebrate local art you love again this Valentine’s Day!

Share:

You can start anytime by snapping a photo of art in your neighborhood and sharing it using #localartloves.

Read/look at:

Last year’s Local Art Loves

[UPDATE: 2019’s Local Art Loves kickoff post is up now!]

Phillip in the Wampa’s Lair

Okay, not really something I’m doing, but Phillip was recently interviewed on the Wampa’s Lair Podcast! It’s a Star Wars podcast that we’ve been fans of for a long time. (Phillip wears their t-shirt everywhere. And one of the hosts, Jason Hunt, shared some great tips for our Phoenix Comicon newbies post.) Anyway, they have a series called “Tales of the Lairians,” where they ask their listeners (a.k.a. the “Lairians”) to share Star Wars stories from their own lives, and Phillip is featured on the latest one!

Listen:

Tales of the Lairians #13 – Phillip Liebold

And that’s it for now! So at least I finished one thing. Hopefully, this starts a trend.

Just FYI: we received complimentary quilt festival tickets, food, and a 2018 AZIFF media pass from the respective organizations/vendors. More info will be in upcoming posts, but let me know if you have questions!

January 23, 2019January 23, 2019

Photos of 2018

2018 was the Year of the Dog. Adopting our Quijote in May was a watershed moment for us. There has definitely been a before and after to how we approach travel, socializing, and our daily life with this adorably sweet yet feisty addition to our family.

I have a tradition here of summing up my year in photos from my Instagram, both my own favorites and the year’s “Best Nine,” as counted by an app.

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A post shared by stephanieliebold (@stephanieliebold) on Apr 24, 2018 at 5:59pm PDT

This time it seemed a little different, since I hadn’t been posting to my Instagram gallery as frequently, and a lot of the photos I did share were from earlier years.

Still, I think this can give you a little window into my 2018…

You Like This

In a way, you (or anyone who liked my Instagram posts) voted for this first set of photos, since Best Nine just automatically selects the photos with the most likes.

Best Nine (from left):

Row 1 — Motel sign, Sedona / Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix / Women’s March Phoenix 2 — Dragon tree shadows at Coronado Island, CA / Spreckels Organ, San Diego / Monet Pond, Denver Botanic Gardens 3 — Typewriter at George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center, Phoenix / Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Consuelo, Altea, Spain / Mosaic in the Vatican Museum

My 2018 Picks

This collage I put together somehow feels more like my past year — especially with Quijote at the center of it all!

1 — Pompeii at Arizona Science Center / Date Night, Yuma, AZ / Typewriter at George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center, Phoenix 2 — Downtown Tucson / Quijote / Dragon tree shadows at Coronado Island, CA 3 — Sunset at La Jolla, CA / The Farm at South Mountain, Phoenix / San Marco Square, Venice, Italy

What memories stand out from your past year?

January 11, 2019January 11, 2019

House of Glass

For the past eighty years, the St. Clair-Rice family has been crafting art glass using techniques passed down through generations.

I remember seeing this St. Clair Glass on the kitchen counters and shelves and window sills of my dad’s side of the family since I was a kid. It comes from the same place they do: Madison County, Indiana.

Of course, the people and the glass have made their way across the country, moving for better jobs or better weather or bigger cities. Our family’s business used to be farming, but, even the relatives that stayed in the region left the farms years ago.

Every so often when I was growing up, my family would make kind of a pilgrimage from our home in Arizona to visit our Indiana family. Sometimes we’d visit the St. Clair glass factory (The House of Glass) in Elwood.

The showroom had shelves and tables stuffed full of lamps and vases, and so many paperweights — palm-sized sculptures shaped like birds, bells, baskets, apples, and angels with a landscape of colorful glass inside their clear exteriors. Each one was made by hand in the on-site workshop.

My parents would buy gifts to bring back for the friend who collected apple things or the one who was dog-sitting while we were away.

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A post shared by Stephanie Liebold (@stephanieliebold)

You could see new pieces in progress, molten glass glowing from the heat of the furnace as the artist turned it and added color and shaped it into something you could recognize. It was like magic.

And it still was when we visited Madison County a few years ago. The store shelves were more sparse, but through the back door in the sweltering workshop, artist-owner Joe Rice was still firing the glass by hand.

Even then, he was concerned that he hadn’t been able to find an apprentice. Like my great-grandparents’ farm, there wasn’t anyone willing and able to take on the work long term.

As he used a long metal pole to heat up the liquid that would become a teapot-shaped ring holder, Joe Rice (who sometimes signs his work “Joe St. Clair,” using his mother’s maiden name) explained how it wasn’t just that he didn’t have a successor, there were few glass makers out there who could match both their production numbers and commitment to flawless glasswork.

And now there are even fewer.

Joe Rice announced last year he’d be closing up shop at the end of 2018, limiting his work to only select projects.

I still hope that one day soon someone will have the passion to learn his trade and fire up the furnace again.