Even though there is trash all over the streets, a boarded up or burned down house on every block, and crackheads and prostitutes roaming the streets at night, it is Lavonne Sallee’s art gallery on downtown Virginia Street that is causing an uproar in Bay Area locality forums on Topix. The pieces displayed in her gallery windows have been called “gross,” “pornographic,” “occultish,” “sick,” and “x-rated shit” and Sallee herself has been the target of very stinging insults. The funny thing is that Sallee is very possibly the most classy and gentle-looking woman I have ever seen in Vallejo; she often takes walks downtown, wearing long, flowy skirts with her adorable Yorkie lapdog by her side. It’s very hard to imagine anybody being able to say such things to her face. When she got wind of the virtual cat fight going on in the Topix forum, she was far from shy about taking part in the discussion herself.
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I have been living in Vallejo, California since January 2009 and have been making observations the entire time. All I knew about Vallejo as a teenager growing up in the South [San Francisco] Bay Area was that rapper E-40 was from there. I remember hearing about the history-making city mayoral race of 2007, when there was a dead tie between Vice Mayor Gary Cloutier and former Solano County Supervisor Osby Davis, who each received 5,158votes. I remember when, a year ago today, the city of Vallejo declared bankruptcy. For those of you who aren’t yet in the know, C&T Publishing authors are big in the blogosphere. Here’s a little bit about some of our blogger authors and links to some of the gems they’ve recently posted to their blogs: Laura West Kong is the author of Fast, Fun & Easy® Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry, a September 2009 release. She designs quilt patterns and fiber art, but has dabbled in many other crafts as well– she even made chili pepper piñatas for Cinco de Mayo! Check out this great Sew-n-Go tip she recently posted to her blog, Adventures of a Quilting Diva. I knew there had to be a use for empty dental floss containers! I just added the tree bird scrapbook I made to SpazMade, my Etsy shop. This is the front cover… These days it’s hard to justify an impromptu spending rampage in jo-ann or your favorite local quilt or scrap supply shop. Some of us can’t even justify spending the gas it takes to get you there. As much as our local, independent craft suppliers need our support right now, we are limiting our purchases to the essential items we need to complete a specific project, instead of stocking up on fabric and papers we like but have no plan to use in the near future. When I imposed strict limits on my spending earlier this year, it wasn’t with a happy face. But then I started thinking like a creative person should, and not only discovered a *silver lining* to my situation of limited means, but craftily came up with some new ways I could get my hands on the craft materials I need… |
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Copyright © 2012 Danielle Dews, Crafty Marketeer - All Rights Reserved |
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