A Questionable Act

I know people who know people who do things that might, under certain circumstances, be considered illegal.  I am talking about, of course, yarn bombing.

Yarn bombing inSweden
(wikimedia.org)

Yarn bombing usually takes the form of wrapping all sorts of public property in yarn:  trees, statues, buses.  It is done in the dead of night to protect the perpetrators.  I know people who recently yarn bombed the center of my little village.  They are the subversive group known as Knitters for Peace.  They struck last month and left a trail of 80 knitted pumpkins in their wake.

It would have been funny if they had done this at 8:30 at night instead of midnight (because everyone wanted to be in bed by 10).  It would have been funny if one of the participants had brought along her husband, kids, and dog in order to not draw attention to herself.  And it would have been really funny if one of the members, dressed entirely in camouflage for the purpose of stealth, had ended up standing on a brightly lit street corner, arms akimbo, waiting for his wife to finish a conversation with some friends whom she ran into unexpectedly.

I'm not saying I was there.  I'm not saying I witnessed these events.  But I would love to be a subversive Knitter someday.  First step - I have to learn to knit.
-christina

The Class

I had 3 students in my Inspiration class.  First we spent some time talking about where we, as artists, find inspiration: nature, museums, fabric stores, books, music, yoga and even little children.

my Inspiration Journal plus supplies
used to create it

Everyone seemed excited to make the journal.  They really liked the idea of using book pages to decorate the covers.

this book was made for a little girl

One student was a retired school librarian and found it difficult to tear pages out of the books.  She was finally able to do it and the results were excellent.

all the books made during the class

This is a project that everyone seems to like.  I look forward to teaching the class again.
-christina

Inspiration

Tomorrow I am teaching a class on creative inspiration.  That doesn't mean I am an expert on the topic but I will be leading the students in a discussion of inspiration.  Where do we find artistic inspiration?  Sometimes it comes from an internal source (imagination, dreams) and sometimes external (nature, books, other artists).  Once inspired, how do we trust ourselves to carry out the artistic act?  This is often difficult for me.  There are many excuses that I can use for not following through with a creative idea: lack of time, materials, or knowledge.  I need to push through all the excuses and just start the work.  As Pablo Picasso said, "Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working."

Here are some excerpts from The Artist's Way that address the idea of inspiration.

“Art is an act of tuning in and dropping down the well.  It is as though all the stories, painting, music, performances in the world live just under the surface of our normal consciousness.  Like an underground river, they flow through us as a stream of ideas that we can tap down into.”

“Once you accept that it is natural to create, you can begin to accept a second idea – that the creator will hand you whatever you need for the project.  The minute you are willing to accept the help of this collaborator, you will see useful bits of help everywhere in your life.  Be alert: there is a second voice, a higher harmonic, adding to and augmenting your inner creative voice. This voice frequently shows itself in synchronicity.”

tombeardshaw @ flickr.com

I love to look for synchronicity in my life.  I often feel that The Universe is trying to tell me something, mostly positive and supportive.  At least, that's how I choose to interpret it.

The inspiration class also includes making an Inspiration Journal.  Everyone, including me, loves leaving class with a finished project.  I will let you know how it goes.
-christina

Let's Play

I had an artist play date last weekend.  My friend and I played with molding paste and stencils.  I shared with her the technique of creating texture by spreading molding paste over a stencil.  The only bad thing is that the paste takes a while to dry.  We used a hair dryer to speed things up.

We decided to create a collage using a canvas board, paper and paint.  My friend has an extensive stamp collection so she used stamps on her project as well as paper.

My friend's collage with paper and molding paste (the
green leaves and light pink splats are paste)

I tried 2 different stencils on my board.  One worked well (the flowers on the right) and the other one did not look as good (squares on the left).  I painted over the dried molding paste with Golden fluid acrylics.

My collage - paper, molding paste,
and paint

I love having art play dates with my friends.  We each have different kinds of items in our artists stashes and it fun to share new things.  Luckily, I have 2 more play dates on my calendar already.
-christina

Black and White

Last year the art teacher at my son's junior high did a cool 3D art project involving paper rolls. I asked her if she had any paper rolls left over and she kindly gave them to me.  I painted the rolls with gloss medium, added black acrylic paint to the ends, then set them aside for many months. I just found them again last weekend.  

My normal inclination would be to contemplate possible projects for a few weeks before creating anything, but instead I decided to just get something done right away.  I created 2 pins - one for me and one for the art teacher. A completed project is a wonderful thing.

-christina

T-shirt necklaces

A friend and I decided we wanted to make t-shirt necklaces after she scored a bag full of old white t-shirts last summer.  First we dyed the shirts, an activity that sounded more fun than it actually was.  We chose purple, black, red, green, and blue.

It took until this month for my friend and I to get back together to play with the newly dyed shirts.  I started by cutting them into 1 inch strips using my rotary cutter.  From what I read online, using the rotary cutter is key to making the material curl properly.

T-shirt strips

Materials all laid out (yes, we drank wine too)

Next we pulled out all sorts of supplies: beads, ribbon, buttons, waxed linen, thread, wire, chain, brads, and rubber o-rings.  We played for about 3 hours.  Here are the results.

Chain, buttons, and beads tied on
with waxed linen

Ready for when summer weather
returns

My friend and I had fun with this "instant gratification" project.  Go to Pinterest for more ideas of what can be created with old, cut up t-shirts.
-christina

My friend made a Halloween
eyeball necklace
(great eyelashes!)

For the Birds

My office is between the bathrooms and the copy room.  As you can imagine I see a lot of people walking by throughout the day and the opportunity for chatting makes my office quite pleasant.  Unfortunately my desk looks upon a boring, white, cement brick wall.  I considered asking if I could paint the wall, but I thought I would be told no.  I also considered painting it without asking, but decided that was a bad idea. So I have been decorating the wall with bits of art that I created.

Right now the wall has a tree motif.

The tree on my office wall with the first 3 birds

Last winter I decided that the tree looked barren so I added the 3 birds.  Those were not enough birds to chase away the winter blues, so I recruited other people in my office to make birds at lunch one day.  I brought the supplies and the template (I wanted all the birds to have the same shape) and another 8 birds were hatched.  I made 5 more to represent all the people in my department - they know which bird belongs to whom.  The tree looked nice and full once all the birds were added and people dropped in to visit their birds occasionally.

Each bird represents a person in my department

After awhile, I tired of the birds (who frequently fell off the tree) and returned each to the person who made it.  The tree is going to come down soon as well, since I am working on another piece to hang in that spot.  My director can see the wall from his desk as well.  I hope he likes daisies.
-christina