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About me, Shari Elf. Shari Elf is a singer-songwriter, fashion designer, raw food chef, life coach (with training from Dr. Pat Allen's WANT Institute in Newport Beach, CA) and maker of art from trash. Harvested from her travels or mailed from patrons, trash is transformed into magic, with poignant and exuberant slogans framing creatures, landscapes, and scenes from dreams we all wish we had every night. Shari has created her own way around the commercial art Shari Elf received a BFA from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington in 1983. She also received a degree in Fashion Technology from Maui Community College. She created her own clothing line and ran her “Elf Wear” brand for several years, sewing one-of-a-kind hand painted knitwear to the better boutiques on Maui and Oahu. Shari has a penchant for awaking the sleeping artist in all people, and when you meet her she will probably get you singing, drawing, dancing, or at least playing your kazoo or accordion. Shari currently lives in her cabin near Joshua Tree, California. Before that she enjoyed living in Kansas City and before that she lived in Los Angeles. Note from Shari : "Before all that, I grew up on Maui, Hawaii from age 10, and before that, I was in Seattle, born to parents Roy and Pat Elf. Recent accomplishments include 10 years ago founding the “World Famous Crochet Museum” and co-founding Art Queen gallery (with Randy Polumbo) both in Joshua Tree, California. Shari does not crochet items, but collects them joyfully for the museum. What started as a collection of bottle and toilet paper cover poodles in her bathroom has grown into a world class array of gems that delight visitors daily to the museum. Since the museum opened 10 years ago in an old Fotomat building it has been featured on the web, in numerous newspapers and magazines and an Ovation TV special recently, "The Scenic Route" with David Keeps. Donations are streaming in to the museum, giving the collection more depth and character than ever.
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Shari performed at the 2003 TED Conference, singing songs from her 2001 debut album "I'm Forcing Goodness Upon You." It was really exciting for her to meet Matt Groening at the TED Conference and learn that he had bought a bunch of her CDs for his friends. Shari is happy and proud that everyone who attended TED in 2003 got one of her CDs and she got, and still gets, lots of compliments for it. Shari started a line of t-shirts for the Santa Monica Museum of Art for their holiday boutique in 2010 (where she was the gift artist) and sold over 100 pieces of her Good and Sturdy Art to museum holiday shoppers. Her "What Would Cher Do?" T-shirts were a big hit. Less than a year later, Cher's friend Ron showed up at Cher's house wearing one of the shirts he got from Kyleigh, friend of both Ron and Shari's. Cher laughed and took a picture and sent it to her Twitter followers. Shari sold a bunch of the silk screened shirts printed on thrift store clothing (underwear, jackets, t-shirts, sweaters and dresses) to Cher's twitter fans. Note from Shari "Cher has such lovely fans!" thanks for reading this! something good is gonna happen to you today! : )
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I often mention The Ringing Cedars of Russia and I am building my "Space of Love" on my "Kin Domain" in the Joshua Tree area of California. Many intentional communities have formed around the concepts in these magical books. Here are links to pdfs of the first 3 books, posted by one such community, Rivendell Village Book 2. The Ringing Cedars of Russia pdf There are 10 books in the series, you can also purchase them from the Ringing Cedars of Russia website or on ebay or amazon.
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"I'm Forcing Goodness Upon You" Shari's debut CD, release date 9/11/2001
Want to own the latest printing (2018) of my debut album? (Eco Sleeve) $7 includes postage in the US. I want one! Or download or purchase at CD Baby where you can also read a bunch of nice reviews and longer sound samples. You can also download this album or selected songs on iTunes
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Seamstress Video, now playing! Click on the Seamstress below to see the award winning video by John Bergin of Kansas City. Made for Hallmark's community oriented Kaleidoscope Center that's me singing my autobiographical seamstress story.
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(Click album for more info and free downloads of all of the songs) Well, I thought it would be fun to make a tribute album even if I've only released 1 CD before this (hey, that CD took me 15 years, I figured I should celebrate!). And I didn't want to sit around waiting for someone else to do it for me, what if they took 15 years?, so here it is, with 44 fabulous contributions from my very good friends, and since it's my album, I threw in a few songs myself.
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Here is my Airtstream Vacation Rental "Life in the Slow Lane" near Joshua Tree, California on airbnb. 1974 Airstream International.
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Articles about me, Shari Elf:
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Me on "the scenic route" with David Keeps recent LA Times article about Joshua Tree "Maximum Creativity at Minimum Wage" Susie Bubble blogs about Art Queen, the Crochet Museum and fun finds in the Joshua Tree area for Style Bubble
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