Tag: upcycle

Horse and Dragon Brewery Hosts Screen Door Studios Trunk Show Saturday July 27th 2-5 PM

The owners of Horse & Dragon are hosting a trunk show of my recycled art on Saturday July 27th from 2-5 PM. Come taste their wonderful beer and see my bottle cap bead jewelry, tee shirt skirts and upcycled shirts in one of my favorite places in Fort Collins.

I love the quirkiness of Horse & Dragon Brewery. It’s so comfortable. It does not exude a corporate atmosphere. The brewery and tasting room have a hometown feeling. The tables are made from thick recycled wood, playing cards are readily available, and the music makes me want to get up and dance.

And every beer I have ever had at Horse and Dragon has been outstanding. After meeting Carol and Tim Corcoran, owners and visionaries of Horse & Dragon, I found we had a lot in common.

They have created a little brewery with a great heart. The heart of Horse & Dragon Brewery includes high quality beer, fantastic and dedicated employees that make my time in the tasting room fun, dedication to recycling and the environment, their passion for birds and bicycling, eco-friendliness and their love of international travel. It is at their patio I encountered my first bee hotel. We share many of the same values.

“We have dreamed of and planned for Horse & Dragon since our honeymoon, which we took in Napa Valley (the non-Colorado one) and during which we had every dinner at that beautiful wine country at a local brewpub.” says Tim and Carol Corcoran, owners of the visionary brewery Horse & Dragon Brewery of Fort Collins, Colorado. We are all lucky they chose Fort Collins to brew their magic.

“Thanks for sharing and caring for Earth with us.” The founders say and “its vital for people to relax and connect with each other in today’s increasingly busy, stressed, individualized, and disconnected world. Craft beer Is a fantastic and tasty way to accomplish this.”

Horse and Dragon is founded on four principles to make great beer, minimize their environmental footprint, treat everyone ethically and to be proactive members of our community.

I love birds and Tim and Carol put up a kestrel nesting box this winter. A pair of kestrels nested,and laid five eggs in the late spring. Only three birds survived due to the weather, and they recently fledged. The whole time the kestrels were in residence, Horse and Dragon live streamed their antics.

The black and red logo of Horse and Dragon speaks volumes how they feel about their beer. It’s strong, striking, unique and eye-catching. The logo is a combination of the Corcoran’s Chinese zodiac signs. Carol’s Chinese zodiac sign is the horse and Tim’s is the dragon. It reminds me of a coat of arms. I love their logo.

Before I met the owners of Horse and Dragon Brewery, I bought two half growlers of their beer at Pringles because their logo caught my eye. I coveted their bottle caps. I loved the logo that much.

I was pleased beyond belief when I walked into the Horse and Dragon tasting room. I had a meeting with Carol and showed her my jewelry. I was hoping it would be a good fit to sell in the tasting room. She immediately said, “Yes.” without blinking an eye further proving Horse and Dragon’s commitment to recycling and their commitment to being proactive members of their community. They embraced my art and passion for recycling.

A glass display case of Horse and Dragon bottle cap earrings, bracelets and necklaces are available for sale at the tasting room at 124 Racquette Drive, Fort Collins, Colorado. The tap room is open everyday twelve to six every day.

Origins and Inspiration of the Manly Shirt

       

 

My creative process involves starting with a problem and then looking for a solution. Sometimes the answers come while I am driving or working on something else—the idea just needs to be planted.

 

And so it goes with neckties. They languished in a bin for years. The silk ones were separated and given to a quilter who turned them into a quilt titled “Wall Street”. The polyester, dacron, rayon and other ties just went into a plastic storage tub as I had no idea how they could be used in my art. I really thought about donating them as I felt that my house was reaching Hoarders status, but my friends assured me my décor was just Organized Chaos.

 

The problem that presented itself was I needed to develop a man’s shirt. I thought about it for months. At first, my thinking was to just use “manly” material for the gusset at the back and my stash of neckties would be used to embellish the cuffs and the collar.

 

In a meeting with a very good friend , a master creator, accomplished artists and inventor, I ran my idea of the Manly Shirt at a brainstorming session over coffee. She suggested that I use a tie for the gusset in the back.

 

I first I dismissed this crazy idea, but the more I thought about it, I realized this was the perfect solution. Instead of a man or woman wearing a tie in the front, the tie was adorning the shirt at the back. It was sort of a reversal and, therefore, a surprise. The old saying about the mullet hairstyle came to mind, “Business in front, party in back.”

 

Now I started dismantling ties for the gusset, ironing them and pairing them up with shirts that would work for those particular prints, stripes and colors. I also discovered I needed more ties—so it was off to Senior Day at the ARC Thrift Store. Imagine my surprise when I found a peek-a-boo tie, and naturally I kept that for myself.

 

Peek-a-boo ties were the rage in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Inside the lining of a tie was a secret silk screened image of a sexy pinup girl, which echoes my philosophy about my new style of man’s shirt, “Business in the front, party in the back.”

 

(For the images for this blog entry, I would use four shirts, but four different ones so you could show two fronts and two backs and that way you could show four designs. Also, I would have all of the ironed. Of course include the peek-a-boo tie.)