. . . anticipated the ending

of this year with much relief and some trepidation. In many ways, 2008 was a banner year. . . great events, an interesting time in which to be alive: characters in the news that kept us engaged; breathtaking hubris, stupidity, greed, cruelty; an opportunity to become different and better, individually and as a collective whole. As for the trepidation, well, I think we all suspect that perhaps the worst is yet to come, from an economic standpoint at least. I have trouble with this: try to think of bad times as opportunities, as signposts to something better ahead. It's going to take all the creativity we have to thrive in the next year, I think.


This collage is a companion piece to one I posted a couple of days ago. On Flickr, Harold Hollingsworth (a really cool artist) commented using the word "brutal." Loved that comment. The white spot at the bottom left is actually thick texture paint, but the texture didn't show up in this photo. Yesterday I did play around with the printing plates, with little or no success actually. And it felt like all my creativity leaked out in that process so even the collages I created seemed off, I didn't like them as well as some I had made before.


I really like making these small collages. To me they are more free-flowing and spontaneous than my paintings. I am hoping to apply everything I learn during this time of collaging and experimenting so that when I turn to painting again, I will have developed skills to improve my art, whether from color mixing or color combinations to methods of applying paints and textures.

. . . ran out of

. . .collages to post to cover up my artistic inactivity. I guess I will just have to make some more. After reading Nita Leland's The Creative Artist, the older version, I decided to check out my bookshelf to see what other sources of inspiration I had forgotten about. I came across Color on Paper and Fabric by Ruth Issett. Now I'm ready to try a few more things with my painted tissue paper, primarily what Issett calls glass plate printing. I don't have all of the supplies that she uses in her examples, but I can adapt the experiments to what I do have on hand. Just like when I cook, a recipe is nothing more than a suggestion. I find that if I try something new, ideas pop up and "what if I" do this or that leads to some interesting, if not always successful, results.

. . . celebrated a birthday

My daughter Stephanie was born 34 years ago yesterday. I remember it vividly. . . my firstborn. . . but I refrained this year from retelling the story, as I have been known to do, much to the eye-rolling chagrin of my kids. They used to love to hear about the day they were born, but somewhere along the line that all changed. Maybe they just heard it too often. Yesterday I made chocolate birthday cupcakes and Betsy decorated them with sprinkles and we sang "happy birthday to you" after supper.


Stephanie and Andy recently told us that we could expect our third grandchild in early July. Betsy will be 4 1/2 and Joe will be a little over 2 when the new baby arrives, so they will be very busy. Betsy wants to name the baby Schmitty if it's a boy and Nina if it's a girl (apparently they are cartoon characters); Joe just says "baby" (and Betsy has taught him to say "shake your booty", too.) It was a wonderful Christmas present.


I didn't do much more than think about art yesterday, primarily on how to go about selling some of it on etsy, and trying to think of other ways to market it, as well as alternative ways to go about earning some money without having to work in a law office. And that's assuming there are any jobs in law firms to be found around here. Have you ever just written down your dream jobs, with no regard to financial compensation? Near the top of my list would be book reviewer. Imagine getting paid to read. . . I do it now for free. Also near the top would be writing about something I knew about or something interesting I could learn about. . . not fiction, more reporting, facts, only facts. . . and where I could talk to people about what interests them. I am practical, pragmatic and a creative problem solver. I'm trying to figure out how to parlay those characteristics into cold hard cash.

. . . spray painted tissue

Somewhere on a blog yesterday, I came across a reference to Nita Leland's books. I found her Creative Artist in my bookshelf and spent a hour or so just looking through it at the photographs of all different kinds of art and reading some of her hints to jump-start creativity.


From that book, I got the idea of spray painting some of the tissue paper I have in great supply. Leland suggest spray painting with a metallic paint, but I couldn't find any in my supply so instead I used blue, orange and yellow. That was great. But scrounging through my stuff, I also found some old old old netting spray in white, black and gold, which I applied over the top of the blue, orange and yellow. Very cool paper. On another sheet I used some texture paint to stencil numbers and letters on tissue paper, as well as a sample of all ten different sizes of sequin waste, and every other texture I could put my hands on. The I found an old tube of bathroom caulk that hadn't dried up and used it to draw and write various shapes on another sheet of tissue paper. Then I ran out of room so I had to wait until everything dried.


The bright lime green paper I made last week has been sitting there tempting me and I could not resist making this simple three-color collage using a bit of it. The black is a piece of the black gesso paper I made, and the white is tissue paper covered with the texture paint. I couldn't resist spraying on the netting spray since I had just rediscovered it hiding way in the back of my shelf.

. . . dug through trash

searching for a missing gift card. It was nasty, and unsuccessful, but necessary because yesterday was trash day and with the detritus of Christmas gifts and food preparation piling up, I could not delay.


It was springlike here yesterday; the temperature was maybe in the 60s. I woke up earlier this morning to hear the house moaning. . . that really doesn't happen very often, but the wind was blowing just like a summer storm. It is still dark here, with periodic thunder and lightning. We will have ice and snow before it's all over.


My plan is to spend some time downstairs today just mindlessly gluing, tearing, painting and creating. You will have to bear with me and share in what I make, be it good or bad.

. . . were totally exhausted

so I will leave you today with this thought: "Next to a circus, there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out of town any quicker than the Christmas spirit." Kin Hubbard.

Kind of sad, pretty much true.

. . . assisted Santa Claus

and everything is ready for the kids. Betsy and Joe tracked Santa's journey on the NORAD website last night and left cookies for him and breadcrumbs for the reindeer. They assured me that Santa would definitely stop by my house, too. I saw the merry old man putting gifts under the tree. I had to let him in the back door, because there was a fire in the fireplace. Merry Christmas.