Artist Quote

He said that the purpose of his art was "to testify that we live in a beautiful and orderly world, not in chaos without norms, even though that is sometimes how it appears." M.C.Escher

Lessons for Kari

I have finally found a use for a patchwork pillow cover that I have had stashed away for many years. As I stated in my first post, "Let Me Begin....", I sometimes find things that I just have to have but have no idea of how I am going to use them. This was the case with a patchwork pillow cover that I found at one of my thrift haunts in Portland. It was a simple square patch design...but the almost brittle fabric and vintage calicos begged to be adopted and cared for. When I find objects such as this, I wonder who made it, what kind of home or family did it belong to, how did it survive and how did it find me? Because of the vintage aspect of the piece, I wanted to showcase the calico designs and not overwhelm them. I also collect quotes, poems and words to live by....so I decided to take some of these inspiring words and incorporate them into the design. I also added some stitched flowers, velvet flowers, postage stamps of birds and butterflys, Chinese fortunes, lace, ric rac and seed beads. To finish off the project, I attached a color copy of a childhood photo of me and letters spelling "kari". I guess I wanted the words to speak to the child in me in hopes that I may have heard them and held to those ideals....and if I still need reminding, they are there for me now as an adult.

My next step is to carefully wrap the project to be mailed for submission to 'Art Quilting Studio' in hopes that it finds its way to the pages of the magazine. My fingers are crossed that they want to use it.

Of paper beads and tweens

I had an opportunity to share a bit of creativity with some 8 to 12 year old girls at church. I'm of the opinion that you really do not know your subject until you can successfully teach someone else what you know and how to execute a skill. That was my challenge one particular night last October.....to teach these tweens how to make paper beads. I had a huge unused stash of scrapbook paper that I cut into long triangles. With paper triangles, bamboo skewers and white craft glue in hand, I was ready to educate these girls on the finer points of paper bead making. Some girls dove in, were enthused and ended up with some very nice beads. Other girls were equally enthused, but struggled with rolling the paper and finishing it with glue.....with a little bit of cheerleading and one-on-one instruction, these girls saw improvement in their technique with each bead. Then there were one or two girls that were not the crafty type and were not excited about the task at hand, but with some encouragement managed to roll up a few beads and didn't seem to hate it so much in the end. After the class, I had scores of paper triangles left just waiting to be rolled into beads. I spent several nights watching reality TV and rolling my beads. It made me wonder if the ladies in Uganda watch 'Dancing with the Stars' while they are making their beads.....probably not.

Artist quote

"Whoever wants to know something about me- as an artist which alone is significant- they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognize what I am and what I want."  Gustav Klimt

Let me begin....

I've been creating since I can remember....whether it was by coloring, drawing, cutting or pasting. I always looked at 'raw' materials with great wonder. I may not have always known (and still sometimes don't) what I would do with any particular swatch of fabric or ball of yarn or piece of construction paper, but I usually took great interest in its color, texture, pattern or any other properties it held. With some materials I knew exactly what I wanted to do and delved in....in other cases I stowed the treasure away waiting for inspiration to come along. I still use my materials this same way today. There are those pieces of ephemera, beads, fabric, scrapbook paper, etc that call my name and immediately let me know what they are meant for. On the other hand there are those things, particularly found objects or discarded items that beg to be brought home, but have no immediate need to tell me how they wish to be implemented. My hope is that this blog will tell the story of how I 'hunt & gather', plan and assemble any given piece of jewelry or collaged item I come up with. I would have just used the word create in the last sentence, but I have found in the last few years that I truly plan my work. I'm no longer the young girl who just wants to use something because I find it interesting or beautiful, I am a maturing artist that wishes to honor what I have found and to share it with others.

In future posts, I want to not only share my art work and my process of producing it, but also some of the other creative outlets that I have run into.