And we're live!

September 4, 2019

New online store is up an running! A better representation of what I make now and a chance to buy! Please check it out. neuronsandnebulas.com

Sorry for the website hiatus.

September 3, 2019

Over a year has passed since my last update. Art on the Street 2019 was such a huge success for me. Since then I’ve been filling orders, and preparing for fall and winter markets.

I’m also launching a new website/online store which will better reflect my current work as Neurons and Nebulas. It should be online in the next few days, but not without a few tweaks to be made I’m sure.

I’ve moved away from the animal bust sculptures this year, which has been a huge source of relief for me. I’ve been focusing on larger framed felt pieces which better reflect the “science inspired” theme that I am aiming for.

As always, I am most active on Instagram, so please feel free to follow along there (or on Facebook) to see what I’m up to.

Showcase of Art on the Street Award Winners

August 7, 2018

I am very happy to have won the Honourable Mention Award at this year's Art on the Street. Some of my work will be hanging at 10C Shared Space for the month of August along with the other award winners. Here is an article from the Guelph Arts Council about the event.

Art on the Street

June 19, 2018

Very excited to be participating in Art on the Street this year. You can find me in booth #12. This will be my last show of the summer, so I hope to see you there!

You can also get a preview of my work in the window of 10 Carden Shared Space (42 Carden St.,) from June 18-22nd. And see my work on a street lamp banner along Quebec St. all summer long!

Upcoming Shows- Spring/Summer

May 2, 2018

Etsy Made In Canada Spring Show

May 5th, RIM Park, Waterloo ON. 10am-4pm
May 26th, Sleeman Centre, Guelph ON. 10am-4pm

Art on the Street

June 23rd, Quebec Street, Downtown Guelph ON

New Stockist!

January 18, 2018

It has been so hard to get anything done since the beginning of the year, but very soon my little one will be starting daycare, and I will have a couple days a week to DO THINGS!! That being said, I do have some great news:

It's with great honour that I announce my newest stockist The Handmade Den in downtown Guelph. Some of my animal busts and felt items will proudly hang in their new location, The Handmade Den & DIY, at 47 Macdonell St. So happy to be selling my work in my hometown along with so many fantastic local makers. ❤

EDIT: They have combined stores in a beautiful new location! 24 Wilson St.

Pet Portraits

December 5, 2017

If you have contacted me about a pet portrait in the past year, I have not forgotten about you! 2017 has been a very busy year. After finishing up a few more orders and commissions I plan to take a much needed break for the holidays. I will then get back to sculpting your furry friends starting in January 2018. Thank you for your continued patience and support.

One final show for the year.

December 5, 2017

When I was approached to do this show, I just couldn't pass it up. It's a science themed Holiday pop-up in Toronto! I am unable to attend in person, but I will be sending a bunch of my felt magnets and brooches. You can check it out this weekend at the Toronto Etsy Street Team Gallery. 906 Queen St, West. Dec 9th and 10th from 10am-8pm both days.

Here is the event page for more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/139753393447930/

Feature in Guelph Today.

October 18, 2017

I was recently interviewed by Brianna Bell of Guelph Today about starting up my business, and my creative process. You can read it here.

Upcoming Shows.

August 30, 2017

Four exciting shows have been booked for this fall. I will be selling my animal busts, felt brooches and magnets, as well as some small painting and acrylic pendants. Come see Neurons and Nebulas in person. My fledgling business which is becoming my new livelihood!

September 23
Etsy Made in Canada Guelph
Sumerlee Science Complex, University of Guelph

October 29
Elora Handmade Market
Wellington County Museum and Archives

November 12
Etsy Guelph Handmade Market
Cutten Fields

November 24
Feminist Holiday Market
Mitchell Hall, St. George's Church, Guelph

Local feature

June 6, 2017

I've been featured in a local blog about moms who own and operate thier own small business. You can read my interview on the Guelph Kids Guide website.

ETSY finally up and running.

May 30, 2017

It's official! I'm just starting very slow for now with only a few listings of my jewellery and felt brooches and magnets. But I'm finally on Etsy as Neurons and Nebulas.

Next show.

May 23, 2017

The next show I will be a part of is Creative Spark in the Park. It will be an outdoor event, held in the beautiful Royal City Park along the Speed River and across the street from The Boathouse Ice Cream shop! Coming up Saturday June 17th, from 10am-5pm. I will be there with my faux taxidermy, brooches and magnets, a few small paintings and some new heart pendant jewellery!

So busy I forgot to update!

May 9, 2017

A lot of great things on the go right now! I just finished up with the Elora Handmade Market. Such a cool event with a great turn out. It was so nice meeting my fellow vendors and some of my instagram "fans." I am now filling up the months ahead with commission pieces for pets and animals!

Next up is a science art themed show called Wunderkammer: The Cabinet of Curiosities. It will run from May 11th-28th at the Toronto Etsy Street Team Gallery, 906 Queen St. West. Three animal busts were made specifically for the show and five of my felt diagrammatic magnets will be on display as well.

I've made a new email account for contact and inquiries. You can now reach me at neurons.and.nebulas@gmail.com

Instagram is the place to go to see what I've been up to and what's coming up next! I'm always updating there.

Business!

April 13, 2017

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed that my name and profile photo have changed recently to Neurons and Nebulas. I'm planning on getting my Etsy shop running by this summer and making a go at being a full time artist/stay at home mom. This painting is part of the inspiration for my (grammatically incorrect) business name. My paintings are definitely inspired by nebulae, and the geometric patterns represent phosphenes- the lights and shapes that seem to float in the visual field.
I can't bring myself to delete the baby photos just yet, so I can't say this account will be strictly business, but we're heading in that direction.

Back in action

March 1, 2017

I'm very excited to be a part of the Elora Handmade Market Spring Show this year! It's a few months away, but I'm happy to have a reason to get back into making stuff! Here's a little taste of what I'm working on, but check out my Instagram for more up to date happenings.

3. Lauren Wright Vartanian- Heart brooch.jpg

6 month hiatus

January 20, 2017

You may have noticed from the Instagram feed to the right that I have been busy with my latest creation, a baby! I have been devoting the majority of my time to keeping her happy and healthy, with very few attempts at making art at the same time.

I do plan on starting up my Etsy shop at some point, mostly to sell the animal busts and jewellery. I promise I will get back at it sooner than later.

Pet Portrait Commissions

April 8, 2016

A lot of people have been giving me suggestions on which animal bust to do next or what they'd like to see. I am able to do commissions if you'd like a specific animal, or if one you like is no longer available.

I am also going to start doing pet portrait commissions. If you would like one done, please send me an email with photos of your pet, from as many angles as you can— right and left profile, top of head and under neck, face on etc. Since these are three-dimensional, the more angles I can see the more accurately I can reproduce your pet's markings. These will be slightly higher in price as they take longer to make in order to get everything right.

Here are my first two pet commissions. Ashley the Tabby Cat and Thomas the Welsh Springer Spaniel. I look forward to trying more!

Dublin Street Church Fine Art Show and Sale

March 19, 2016

I'm starting a new batch of animal busts for an upcoming sale at Dublin Street Church in Guelph (corner of Dublin St. and Suffolk St.) on Saturday April 9th, from 10am to 4pm. Admission is free. Please stop in for a look.

Here's a picture of some critters in the works. This is after baking to set the clay, and before painting and mounting.

Guelph Public Library Display.

January 2, 2016

Some of my paintings will be on display at the Westminster branch of the Guelph Public Library this January 2 to January 30, 2016. Please pop in for visit if you can. A few are for sale and will be marked with the price beside each painting. Please contact me via email if interested in purchasing one. The library is located at 100-31 Farley Drive, off of Claire Rd. in the South end of Guelph.

Instagram Feed

I didn't think I'd participate in today's #marchmeetthemaker 'Silver Linings' but then I got to thinking how having my kid and starting this entire venture IS my silver lining. Up until the end of 2015, I was working in a job which made me very underappreciated, stressed out and extremely depressed. It wasn't only bad for my mental health, but for my physical health as well. I was also really bummed out that I wasn't using my artistic background to its full potential. When I finally became pregnant, it felt like having a child was my golden ticket out of that career. I had a chance to stay at home and start creating again (after being in the trenches of the newborn phase and then only during nap times). When maternity leave was over, I decided not to go back and was fortunate enough—thanks to a very supportive husband— that I could continue on with this. I've never been happier or felt more fulfilled than with this as my job. And this platform has a huge part in my success as a full time professional artist. So thank you for liking my images, reading my long winded captions, spreading the word about what I do, or purchasing my work! [This photo was from July 2019 at the Aga Khan Museum, with Luke Jerram's touring Museum of the Moon.]

🌈 COLOUR!! Fuck yes to colour. Deep, rich, and harmonious colours. 'Non-obvious rainbows' to include a little of everything on the spectrum if possible. Use the highest chroma on the colour wheel and compliment it with nothing less than midway down. Triadic and split complimentary pairings. Good colour combos make me salivate. The only overarching 'theme' on my account grid is black, white, warm brown wood and rainbows! (Don't get me started on that anemic looking ✨Influencer✨ filter again!) [FYI to anyone interested in this puzzle. Yes it looks great, but the pieces have the least satisfying fit of any puzzle I've ever done, and they're so loose that they fly out of place if you so much as breath on it.] #marchmeetthemaker #colour

Today's #marchmeetthemaker is process. First there's a sketch, which I digitize by tracing in a vector program. Then I break down the design into the different pieces/colours to be cut with a Cricut machine. If it's a new design, I usually cut out a paper mock up first to see the size in relation to the frame, or to figure out how it's going to fit together. When I first started out I was making stencils and tracing and cutting by hand. It took forever and I hated it. I included a video of sewing in real time. I love hand stitching. It's meditative and calming. It's been almost 6 years, so my stitches have really tightened up and are more uniform than when I started out. It's like muscle memory at this point.

Three little blazing solar eclipses on their way to Kentucky. The path of totality for the Total Solar Eclipse on April 8th 2024 will just skirt by the northwestern edge of that state. In the before times, I had plans to book a family vacation to Arkansas, or Texas, for the big event (path of totality plows right through the middle of AR.) Hopefully covid is under control by then, but we may need to take our chances and hope for a clear day here in Southern Ontario. Or Southern Quebec, or the East Coast. Not that I don't love my own country, it's just that it's a huge gamble that it won't be a f*cking sudden blizzard in early April. Bonus entry for #marchmeetthemaker 'from the archive' because these 3 have been sitting in my stock pile for a few years now.

Happy Pi Day. These are the closest pieces I have to pi related content. And to be honest I needed to read up on pi to see what I might have already made that could relate. The following is lifted directly from Wikipedia: An occurrence of π in the Mandelbrot set fractal was discovered by David Boll in 1991. He examined the behaviour of the Mandelbrot set near the "neck" at (−0.75, 0). If points with coordinates (−0.75, ε) are considered, as ε tends to zero, the number of iterations until divergence for the point multiplied by ε converges to π. The point (0.25 + ε, 0) at the cusp of the large "valley" on the right side of the Mandelbrot set behaves similarly: the number of iterations until divergence multiplied by the square root of ε tends to π. MATH!

Oh hey, it's my face! Thanks to everyone who came over here from @ologies to check me out. Here's one of those random interesting and slightly embarassing facts about me posts: 🚗 I don't drive. I know how, and I have my full license, but it scares the crap out of me to do so. I'm generally uncomfortable on any form or wheels, or having things strapped to my feet other than shoes. 🐸 I'm afraid of frogs. I don't trust them. They're shifty, evil looking, and it's the beady eyes and suddenly jumping and flailing their gross legs that gets me. 🧀 I love parmesan cheese and cilantro. I sometimes plan meals around what I can top with them. 🎧 I like psychedelic, dark sounding, prog-rock style music. The more it sounds like you're playing Dungeons and Dragons in the back of a van in the late 70's the better (think Mars Volta.) And I love weird complex electronic music (think Aphex Twin.) I also love Ween. 😎 I was never the popular kid in highschool. Or college. Or at the summer camps I worked at. But elementary school, that was my time to shine (or I just didn't know any better.) In all fairness, I always did (and still do) have some excellent close friends at each stage of my life. Quality over quantity. Are you a not so secretly nerdy inept adult outcast like me? Maybe that's why we're friends now. 🥰 Thanks for being here.

Sewing a moon in the sun 🌔😎☀️I love the afternoon sun at my desk and had to share how dramatic this lighting was. That's is all.

Yesterday I went to assist my good friend and rock purchase enabler @therubiesmellow, and came home with some minerals I didn't even know existed! Purpurite is a metalic purple, and it shines like that high-vis reflective tape. Stichtite has gorgeous mauves, greens and browns and is deceptively light!! And dioptase which doesn't even look real it's so damn teal/green. I had to use everything in my power to leave behind some of the most incredible specimens so she could, you know, sell those to other people. I picked out the MOST purple purpurite for my daughter cause she's going to flip her lid over it. Had to forgo on some incredible chrysocolla and malachite pieces. Check out my stories for some of the amazing things (ie ones I was drooling over) that she still has in her collection. And to get a coupon code for 10% off! ✨

Kidney is finished and off to San Antonio! This will be hanging in a nephrologist's office. Stay tuned for what I'm making for a urologist! 🍆🥼

Alright, last #marchmeetthemaker for a little while, but 'small detail' is my JAM. I don't know, but maybe it comes back to my late teens, early 20s psychedelic fueled lifestyle, but getting up super close to something to see just how complex it was, exploring vibrant colour combinations, and being attracted to an animation like lense over reality has always interested me. My paintings were full of a mishmash of chaotic spills and carefully controlled grids and outlines. I wanted people to focus in on like, a square inch of the painting and get lost in a tiny imaginary universe. So with sewing, I like how teeny tiny I can make things, and they're so much more inviting for people to want to pick up and hold right up to their faces to soak in all the little details. I also recently had a conversation with an established illustrator/artist who said I may need to rethink my audience for this book. This might be too confusing– visually, for wee babes. But it's you, the adults, who are eating this up. I know sci-art lovers and teachers are a niche market, but maybe that's who I need to market it to? 🤷‍♀️