4-H Projects

Serving Tray and Hot Dish Mat
Originally uploaded by seeshells

More stuff that mom brought me from my childhood included this set that I made in 4-H and took to the county fair. I thought they were kinda lame at the time I made them, but now they're just cute.
The 'serving tray' was an old cookie pan, in case you couldn't tell, spray painted and decorated. The 'hot dish mat', as it was named by the intake person who must have been from Minnesota, is a piece of cork with felt glued to the back, also spray painted and decorated.
I bought a can of clear matte finish that I'm going to spray them both with, (like the judge suggested), and the tray will work perfectly in my cupboard to hold all my spices. (That's a big project for another day!)
Below, along with removing the address, since my parents still live there, I added the notes from the judges.

Heart Dish with Etsy Purchases

Heart Dish with Etsy Purchases
Originally uploaded by seeshells

Since I was taking the photos of my heart dish from my childhood at the same time as I was taking photos of my recent Etsy purchases, I decided to put them together, and what perfection! I think that's the perfect thing for my little heart dish to hold, and it sits by my computer to inspire me!

And The Back

M.R.F. 2-1-75
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

Here's the back of the cute heart dish. It has my initials (my formal initials that is) and the date: 2-1-75, which would make me about a month and a half after my 11th birthday, in the 4th grade. That date also means I created it on a Saturday (I had to look it up, because I didn't remember doing anything like this in art in elementary school), so it wasn't a school project. Maybe a 4-H special seminar or a Saturday church group?
The piece is about 2 1/2 inches across and about 3 inches from point to highest peak.

Heart Dish

IMG_6105
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

I didn't think of myself as an 'artist' throughout most of my elementary school days. There were two or there boys in my class who would meticulously draw the most detailed cars, maybe one drew ships, but I was in awe of this talent. They drew realism, and were the same ones I had drafting classes with later in high school. They were the future draftsmen and designers whose artistic talent lay in the perfection of realism.
I have never been good at or interested in doing realism myself, and realized later that I was an artist, I am an artist, despite making things that are not photo representations.
I made this little dish when I was still in that period of my life of not thinking that I was an artist. I had just turned 10, and was much more interested in the literature we read that year, which included The Hobbit, and A Wrinkle In Time (if you've never read this book-go read it now!).
I don't remember the actual making of this dish, I remember that we wouldn't know what the glaze actually looked like until it came out of the kiln, which was very intriguing to me, the not knowing. I think, since I didn't consider myself an artist, I didn't care so much about making it perfect or symmetrical, but the asymmetrical-ness was what I realized I really loved about it.
I really think that creating this particular piece helped me start to see the artist inside me, the artist who isn't about realism, but more about the beauty in asymmetry, the artist who doesn't need to know everything is perfect, but can experiment and play and be happy with the results!

Silhouette

Silhouette
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

Several years ago, I took a parents class at my church. We got together on Saturday mornings, in the cool fall like now. I don't actually remember a lot of the specifics of the class itself, I think we talked about creating rituals with our kids, for one, and we did a few creative projects in class that we would be able to do with our kids.
One of the things that we learned about ourselves in this class, was that we really enjoyed getting together as a group. We were maybe 10 women, and one man, with kids all right around the same age, who all really felt inspired by and connected to each other. When the weekly class ended, we didn't want it to stop. We came up with a plan to continue meeting, on a monthly basis, to explore more creative ideas, and share ideas with each other, we'd each take turns leading.
That part, the getting together after the official class was done, that's the part that stands out in my mind the most. We made plaster casts of our faces, learned some yoga, wove, and danced. We enjoyed our time together. The group shrank every week, unfortunately, the spirit was willing, but the families were busy.
One week, when I think we had only three of us show up, we made silhouettes of ourselves. We commented that it was perfect that there were three of us, one to hold the light, one to trace the shadow, one to sit and be traced. I think the plan all along was to make a collage out of our silhouette, but that morning all we had time to do was the tracing, and my posterboard with pencil sketch outline stood in the back of my closet for a while. I pulled it out a few months later to color in the outline, another year later painted the background. All the time collecting possible pictures. A couple years ago, I collaged on the pictures that you see in this photo, complete with 'art car' painted lavendar and covered in seashells, these pictures being the dreams or goals or ideas that were in my head at that time. I hung it up then, and I have added a few things since then, sometimes just jotting a note as I walk by. So many things have changed since I hung it up, and many more have changed since the origional day of group silhouetting, but I am still me, and the 'things inside my head' haven't changed too much in all that time.

GenericSM

genericsm
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

Another piece of computer art that is a few years old.
When I bought myself my Wiacom drawing pad, in 2002, it came with a limited edition of a great art program. I haven't been able to get a more updated version of that program, (and the old one won't run on our computers now) and that's really disappointing. None of the art programs that we have can do what it did, even though they can do a lot of other cool things. Probably a lot of folks would rather have layers, and dots to move lines, but I really miss the airbrush and chalk.

The Contents of my High School Purse

Here's a watercolor and ink piece I did in high school. These were bright inky watercolors, and I was just experimenting, but I really liked the look of drawing over the painting. When I draw &/or paint now, I still use a similar technique.