A Passion For Creativity

self-portrait collage

“Artist/Woman Thinking About Stuff”

That is, art business, paperwork, facts & figures.

Red sky in the morning,

sailors take warning.

digital painting

Do you remember the old weather prediction rhyme?

Mornings this winter often arrived under rosy skies, followed by rough weather. We welcome rain here in the high mountain desert. After soaking soil, it brews up as creeks, and gushes into the rivers and lake.

Right now, snow powders the mountains from the latest, ongoing drenching. Smoky white and ominous gray shapes surround me, a line of silver gleams when the sun blinks.

I never tire of looking at these Sierra ranges. Whiteness is but a temporary disguise. Their appearance changes with the seasons’ light and time of day. Underneath the cold mantle, blues, purples, grays, browns, greens, tans await.

How can an artist resist?

Red sky at night,

sailors delight.

Sorting through a kitchen cupboard, culling long unused, or worn-out pans and utensils, there’s an unfamiliar plastic object. See exhibit A.

Exhibit A

It’s very likely a piece of an appliance, the round part is about 2″ diameter, but WHAT IS IT? Oh, just throw it out!  Yet, what if it’s something important that something else can’t work without. It doesn’t fit on existing kitchen appliances. Now I’m intrigued. How did it get here, did the parent get tossed out long ago?

So I take many photos of it, and post it on my FaceBook page as the “alien object”. One of my helpful friends thinks it looks like a coffee filter part. Then another friend, Shari Downhill, is certain that it’s a wall bracket for holding an immersion mixer. Mmmmm, OK, makes sense! Although not working as hanging device with the mixer I have. See exhibit B.

Exhibit B

It’s definitely “an extra”, but now a compelling extra, having spent surplus energy on it, so now the creative brainstorming kicks in. A resolution is needed before I let it go.

There are sculptural possibilities; the object fitted into a glued construction, white or painted? What about an installation, an old kitchen drawer filled with other unknowns, leftover pieces and parts of appliances and tools long gone-a puzzle to figure, and a comment on our consumerism.

More immediate and accessible are the images, the photos, let’s do something with those.

PhotoShop is my go-to virtual tool. The photos are already on the computer; I cut, paste, reorder, manipulate, and filter. Absorbed with it, often I can’t recall the paths while immersed in the process.  The object takes on a bit of personality. See exhibit C.

Exhibit C

Then, more ideating follows. It’s a logical step take this image and create an ArtiStamp with it since it’s offbeat and the design would easily fit the format.

Briefly, artistamps are faux postage that mail artists create as an extension of their ideas and run the gamut of subject matter. The creation method also varies, from hand-drawn, painted, etched, photocopied, rubber stamped, to the easily created computer/personal printer version. We share, trade and use them on mail art. See exhibit D.

Exhibit D

Designed as a sheet of 24 stamps here’s a close-up.

It’s a fresh January 2010. How do you mark the event? Consider that it’s also a pristine decade, in a way still unblemished with our human strivings.

In nature, time is cyclic. Echoed in celestial movements, marked by reoccurring seasons, the environment returns unto itself.  In our created reality, humans mark time linearly, young to old, beginning to end. Although part of the nature cycle, we mostly define existence as “from here to there”. It’s easy to get caught up in that concept. Yes, and I succumb.

I have a psychological yearning for new starts…the concept of out with the old, step lively into a new scene beckons. The handy symbolism of a new calendar year is a perfect opportunity to mark that crossing.

How do I approach it?

It’s surely an extension of being a visual person, but I constantly seek order, unity, and balance in my surroundings. It’s another composition! And it needs negative space! Clear, uncluttered areas are a place to rest the eye and the mind.

Clutter, stuff, stuff, stuff, it comes into our lives so easily.

My major New Year’s ritual is to toss out, recycle, simplify, reorganize, and renew the scene in our home.

Ahhhhh, room to breathe again!

FLUXKIT Shakers

Or perhaps 50 mail artists at ready, get set, and go…  For those unclear on the concept-these are mini music shakers from my “duct tape and lentil” series for Keith Buchholz’ FLUXKITS.

Fluxkits are smallish objects (a box perhaps) that are collections of other objects that hold meaning to the artist and can be interacted with by an audience. Keith Buchholz is assembling this edition of 50- everyone contributes 50 of something. Then we each get a FlUXKIT in return and it is also archived. Mail Art seems to easily move in the direction of Fluxus, since it (and Fluxus) has such a strong element of humor and anti-commercialism.

The music aspect refers to #12. Musicality*, on Ken Friedman’s 1992 list of 12 Fluxus  ideas (and my own need for rhythm)

*from 40 Years of Fluxus

Have a wonderful holiday!

The poster from The Queens Museum Of Art Exhibit, Selections from “A Book About Death” , at the Partnership Gallery. In addition to showing selections of the original works from this artists’ collaboration, this show included  supplementary submissions from other artists, including one of my images.

The cover of “Good Mail Day”

What fun is this? A book on creating art for mailing! If you poke around this blog you’ll discover that Mail Art is one of my passions. There’s a worldwide network of us, people that love to send their art visibly through the mail; art of all manner, shapes and sizes.

It’s obvious that “Good Mail Day” which hit bookstores September 1, 2009, is a labor of love for the authors  Jennie Hinchcliff and Carolee Gilligan Wheeler. It’s an engagingly written intro to the creative aspects of making your own mail art and decorated envelopes using drawings, collage, recycled items, and more. Their can-do approach is accessible to all. Throughout the book, illustrating the ideas, are images of mail art examples from around the world, including my contribution of a collaged rattle/music shaker.

It’s a paperback, but with a nice heft to it and has beautiful photos in an original layout with illuminating bits of mail art history thrown in. Get yourself a copy and be inspired!

“Good Mail Day” is available at amazon.com and in Barnes & Noble bookstores.