The Art of Creating.......

When I was in the 7th grade my art teacher taught us how to use watercolors to make magical landscapes. Right there and then I knew I wanted to create. But wanting to create and actually creating are of course two very different things. Sometimes when I sit down in my studio I see nothing, I have no ideas. So of course I clean and shuffle.

Two things have helped me increase my creative studio time while minimizing that cleaning time. The first was joining a local art cooperative. The Del Ray Artisans Gallery holds 10 shows a year. The themes are announced 6-9 months in advance so there is plenty of time to develop those creative ideas. Not every theme ignites sparks of creativity. But I've had a lot of fun entering these shows and trying new techniques.

The second way I fuel my creative drive is to enter challenges through my favorite local art store. Judy Gula and her friends at Artistic Artifacts have issued 3 very different art challenges over the past 3 years. The first challenge was to create a small art quilt based on the theme Power Suites. The second was also an art quilt challenge based on the theme Art and Old Lace. 

The latest challenge theme was Metallica. Participants were asked to create small (8"x10") pieces using any technique so long as the emphasis was on metal and all things metallic.

You can see the whole collection by going to Artistic Artifacts any Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday between January 18th and February 8th. I finished my 2 entries last night......so here is a preview.

I started Bloom by weaving Arizona Tea
cans with yellow fabric. The center flower
was machine quilted. The letters are
aluminum from a thrift store. I punched
the remaining flowers from recycled soda
cans and attached everything to an 8"x10"
canvas I painted orange.

 Scanning the Sky was a lot of fun. I created the sky by machine sewing soda can bar codes to strips of fabric. Then I wove the strips and stitched them together before tacking the whole thing to an 8" x 10" canvas I covered in gray pin stripped cotton fabric.

The birds are punched from Pepsi, Coke, Coke Zero and Gingerale cans.