Crafting an Artful Life: Imaginative Musings on Creativity By Victoria Lansford

Our Cakes and Eating Them Too

Behind the Scenes· Calligraphy· drawing· Inspiration

13 Nov

Bizarrely, my son Skyler, my husband Chris, and Skyler’s best friend Nigel were all born on November ninth, with Skyler and Nigel a mere 10 hours apart in age. Normally, we would all celebrate together, with me frantically cooking and baking in the leaner years, and all of us blowing it out at our favorite celebrity chef steakhouse in the…
Read More

“And Now for Something Completely Different”…Sort Of

Art Jewelry· Calligraphy· Current Projects· Inspiration· Miniatures· Painting· Processes· Teaching· Workshops

30 Oct

What started out as scary but possibly short has turned into what I half jokingly call living in captivity. Seven months later, I now call it living under house arrest. It got me thinking about Galileo… The funny thing is that if I woke up tomorrow in a pandemic free world, by some unlikely miracle, I probably wouldn’t grab the…
Read More

The Pursuit of Happiness

Calligraphy· Inspiration

16 Oct

Living in captivity with one constitutional lawyer and one aspiring politician means political talk in our house is inescapable. About the best I can do is remind the people I live with “not in my studio, please!” This was true even when we lived in a real democracy. Now that we’ve been living in a full blown oligarchy for almost…
Read More

From Mummies to Filigree – VoyageATL + Upcoming Online Class

Art Jewelry· Behind the Scenes· Current Projects· Inspiration· New Work· Processes· Russian Filigree· Teaching· Videos· Workshops

2 Oct

My story was recently featured on VoyageATL. Please check it out along with many other stories about my fellow fabulous Atlantans of note. It’s wonderful when living and working “outside the box” has a location where we can all safely gather. About those mummies and their metal…It’s funny how often I’m asked how I became a metalsmith and how often…
Read More

Time Travel in a Fiery World

Art Jewelry· Behind the Scenes· Calligraphy· Current Projects· Inspiration· Instructional videos· Russian Filigree· Teaching· Videos

18 Sep

Even in the midst of “screen fatigue” I continue to be amazed at our increasing ability to be in so many places at once. I can’t add, “and all from the comfort of home,” with so many people displaced or under threat of evacuation right now. Just when many of us got used to spending more time at home, others…
Read More

Praise for Giving Voice: “Remarkable Work”

I love Giving Voice. This remarkable, inspiring and unique book is a magical journey unlike any other and is beautifully done. Rich colors and patterns metamorphise into stunnning images created by reknown artist Victoria Lansford. Her words dance and flow across the pages filled with insightful thoughts and expressions. The music is contemplative, sophistocated and lovely. I would highly recommend this book as a gift to others or for one’s self.

RogueJoan via Apple Books

Praise for Giving Voice: “Amazing”

Giving Voice is what ‘multimedia’ is supposed to be! Visual art, music, and spoken word brought together in a complementary manner. Whether you're checking out a few pages to get a quick pick-me-up of pen, ink, and piano, or parking yourself in one spot to lose yourself in the gestalt, or doing something in between, you’ll find something new inside to keep coming back to.

Anonymous via Apple Books

“Victoria is a true artist and shares her gift teaching with patience, passion, good humor, and enthusiasm…”

I just spent the most wonderful week-end with one of the best teachers that I have ever had the pleasure of learning from. Victoria is a true artist and shares her gift teaching with patience, passion, good humor, and enthusiasm...she has an infectious laugh, and you can't help laughing with her while she encourages you to achieve levels of skill that you didn't know you had. 11 other jewelry students and myself came into her workshop on Saturday having never picked up a hammer to do repousse ever before and all learned more from her in this one weekend than we thought possible. She spent time with each of us, pointing out better ways to solve whatever problems that we were having pushing the metal around to make it do our bidding. Victoria, I can't wait until you come back to us!

Patti D'Arbanville
Artist, Actress

“It’s beyond beautiful…”

No painting, song, or sculpture had ever moved me like your art did. It's beyond beautiful, I cannot describe my feelings. Each piece is so organic, they look alive. Each one left me with different feelings, mostly: wonder, amazement, happiness, and curiosity. Some even a soft anger or loss. But each one left me emotionally rolled. You're work is....life changing. I've finally heard the thundering beacon of what I want for my future. And that is to someday be as an amazing of an artist as you.

I thank you so much for what you do.

Alexandria Reyes
Phoenix, AZ

“I wish to compliment you on the wonderful DVD you and your production crew produced to introduce your method, knowledge, and vision for Russian Filigree…”

I wish to compliment you on the wonderful DVD you and your production crew produced to introduce your method, knowledge, and vision for Russian Filigree. The DVD demonstrates, so honestly, your dedication, skill and techniques that you have given to master this artful jewelry. You hold back nothing and give so much. This is the best teaching DVD that I have purchased in a long time. Thank you once more for the opportunity to learn from you.
Cordially,

Dolores Lewis
Dean Emeritus Moore College of Art

“In Japan, Victoria would be considered a national treasure…”

Victoria teaches techniques used for millennia to create many of the great works of art one can see in museums. Though these techniques had fallen into disuse due to their labor intensive nature, Victoria has found many tricks that streamline and improve the processes, and she uses them to make strikingly contemporary pieces rooted in the ancient world.

One will never go into a hardware store with the same mind set again. Students are given a series of challenges and opportunities to grow their own inner voices and are encouraged to create works unique to them, at their levels of ability.

The number of places one can learn these skills in the US can be counted conveniently on one's thumbs. In Japan, Victoria would be considered a national treasure, and she would be funded to pass these skills on to the next generation.

Al Boyers, Metalsmith

Crafting an Artful Life – Victoria’s Blog