Shopping at 2011 Empty Bowls

I spent a pleasant morning shopping for a bowl at the 2011 Empty Bowls event, held annually at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and Lawndale Art Center.

I wandered through, looking at the  many choices ...

circling through the tables and tables of bowls more than once ....

and still I couldn't decide ... so while pondering further, I looked at everything again!

The good news is, I did finally select one, with the help of my friend Tammy, who volunteers for Empty Bowls every year. 

The money I paid for my bowl ($25.00) goes directly to the Houston Food Bank to feed the local hungry AND it also bought a bowl of soup for my lunch today (creamy corn chowder -- yummy! Thank you Whole Foods Market).  Tammy took a break from volunteering to join me for lunch too.  She had selected a lovely gourd bowl -- gosh, I should have taken pictures of our bowls before they were wrapped up for the journey homeward.

If you missed this year's event, be sure to mark your calendars for next year's Empty Bowls .... date to be announced at some point in the future ...

A call for bowls....

The 7th Annual Empty Bowls Houston 

will be held March 19th, 2011 from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

This event is in need of lovely handcrafted bowls to offer the many who turn out to support the Houston Food Bank.

With a $25.00 donation, one receives the handcrafted bowl of their choice, a yummy bowl of soup for lunch (with bread and water), and the goodwill feeling from doing something to help stave off the hunger in our hometown.

While the majority of the bowls are ceramic, all varieties of handcrafted bowls are accepted.  I know as I have made fiber art bowls the past three years and am working on new bowls for this year's event.

Click here to find out more details, or contact me as I'll gladly share what I know and encourage you to make another!

For the curious out there, click here to see the first bowl I made for Empty Bowls.

Felted Bowl

The Sixth annual Houston-area Empty Bowls event is tomorrow. 

This year, I crocheted a bowl and then felted it.

Here is a bottom-side up view.

I made two -- and kept meaning to add embellishments of some sort, but ran out of time this year.  Be sure to come tomorrow and support the Houston Food Bank by enjoying a bowl of soup and selecting a bowl to keep as your special momento.

Empty Bowls 2010

This Saturday, May 22, is the Sixth Annual Empty Bowls event at the Houston Contemporary Craft Center.   As in the past two years, I have made a fiber-art bowl to donate to this worthy cause and I've encouraged my fellow art quilters and fiber artists to do the same.

If you have a bowl to donate -- they started collecting them last week and will be glad to accept yours too!  Just drop it by HCCC before Saturday or click here for more details.

If you are in or near Houston, be sure to stop to browse the wonderful selection of bowls and stay for a tasty lunch consisting of a bowl of soup (naturally!) and your choice of one lovely bowl to keep.  Minimum donation is $25.00, although they have a select group of upgraded bowls (these are fabulous!).  Come in the afternoon and look for me or my boys as we will be there volunteering.

Empty Bowls 2009

Above is a curious peek at the first of four bowls that I will be delivering this Saturday to the 2009 Empty Bowls event in Houston. This is the second year that my Beyond the Borders (BTB) Art Quilt group has contributed bowls to this annual fundraiser benefiting the Houston Food Bank.

If you are in or near Houston this Saturday, March 21, please drop by the Houston Contemporary Craft Center (HCCC) and the Lawndale Art Center to view the thousands of bowls donated by local artisans to this worthy cause. If you find one (or more) that call to you, a mere $25.00 allows you to take it home. To celebrate your purchase, you will be given a tasty bowl of soup (in a different bowl!) for your lunch. There will be live music and a variety of craft demonstrations taking place too.

Now to see how wonderfully creative my BTB friends are ...

Here is Connie Fahrion's bowl, the one I've been teasing you with. It is a delicately sweet bowl.

She named it "Earth, Wind and Fire"

A look at the bottom ...
and the colorful sides ....
changing with the different angles.

Janice McKeehan created two bowls for this worthy event. This one is made using felt as the stabilizer, assorted cotton greens, beading, light and petite stamped designs (one has to look close to see them) and lots of quilting to hold the layers together.

The sides overlap, held in place with a lovely beaded embellishment.

The base is signed and dated, naturally.

The back stands tall, taller still if you unfold the cuff.

This is a great bowl ... I wonder who will select it this Saturday?

Janice made this second bowl to donate as well. I am sure you will agree it is a fabulous and unique floral bowl.

I just love it!

Each of the petals and leaves are wired, giving them the natural wavy look. They can be re-shaped if needed or desired.

An underneath view ...

Looking into the heart of the flower to see its beaded center.

Now for my 2009 Empty Bowl donation....

(may I have a drum roll, please?)

First, a view of the inside -- a simple, spotted green ready to be filled with your favorite what-nots.

Next, a view of the outside -- layers of yarns, fibers, tulle and netting, possibly a stray candy wrapper or two as well.

It has a well-loved, shabby-chic look, or are my rose-colored glasses blinding me?

Can you believe the diversity of these four bowls? Think -- these are by just three artists. Imagine the thousands of other bowls that will be there on Saturday! With ceramic and clay bowls in the majority, without a doubt, there will be an extremely wide range of all kinds of bowls ... including bowls crafted with wood, paper, felted wool and other fiber creations (including these four -- Thank you Janice and Connie!)

Please come to HCCC and Lawndale (side by side on Main Street) this Saturday, March 21, 2009 between 11:00 a.m. & 4:00 p.m. I will be volunteering in the morning with my boys and my friend Tammy. Make a $25.00 minimum donation and enjoy a tasty lunch of soup, listen to entertaining live music, watch various craft demos taking place, shop for the bowl of your choice and support the Houston Food Bank!

Click here to view last year's BTB bowls.

Click here to find an Empty Bowls event near you.

More bowls

I wanted to share a few of the other bowls donated by my Beyond the Borders (BTB) friends to Empty Bowls last month, which raised over $40,000. The bowls that guests take home are concrete reminders of the empty bowls in the world, especially at mealtimes.

This fiber art bowl was created by Connie Fahrion. My photo does not show the cute little frog (button or bead) stitched to the inside of the bowl. I love the button and fiber trim along the rim.

Linda T. Minton made this wonderful tiny bowl by adding decorative beading over a miniature glass bowl. This view is from overhead looking down onto the bowl. She didn't complete it in time for this year's Empty Bowls -- so be sure to come early to next year's event!

Liz Broussard wove her bowl with strips made from paper bags that had been stitched and painted -- quite fun, unique and very delicate. Thoughtful Liz made a fiber box for her bowl to travel in too.

Here are the two bowls that I brought home. As you can see, neither is a fiber art bowl, but I love them dearly. A local potter, J. Calder, made both of my bowls.

I recently learned that Volunteers at this event are paid with a ticket (for lunch -- a bowl of soup, and your choice of a bowl) so I plan to volunteer next year, especially if my friends Scott and Tammy remind me! Look for an Empty Bowls event coming to your area.

Empty Bowls

May -- a quiet month for my blogging, but only because regular life kept me too busy to post anything.

One May activity was my Beyond the Borders (BTB) group's participation in the 4th annual "Empty Bowls Houston."  For those who've never heard of Empty Bowls, it is a grassroots effort by artists and craftspeople across the country to feed the hungry in their communities.  For a $25.00 donation, you receive a simple lunch of soup, bread and water, and can then select a bowl from hundreds of one-of-a-kind, handcrafted bowls donated by Houston area ceramists and craft artists, including my BTB Art Quilt group. This is our first year to participate.

Our guidelines were simple: create a bowl using any medium desired. There were suggested dimensions given, but bowls of all shapes and sizes were accepted. The bowls themselves need not be usable as soup bowls either.

I wanted to create an original bowl, not following any set pattern, and was inspired by a pair of my son's jeans that were in need of patch repair on the knee (again!).

Needless to say, the jeans are now shorts!


My bowl will not hold liquids without developing a slow leak and may be the only collapsible bowl this year at Empty Bowls. My one goof: I forgot to sign it ... oops. It went to a new home that day -- so perhaps the new owner will happen across my blog and say "hello" .... it's possible, right?