Collage Canvas



Remember that canvas? The one that was going to be the base for my "BE" collage? Yeah, well, now it looks like this...



At first I was only going to post about the canvas and let you leave posts saying, "Oh, how very pretty." And leave it at that. I was going to ignore the fact that there has been nothing posted here for a month now. I mean, honestly, up until I just typed the beginning of this paragraph, that's all it was going to be. But I was thinking about how to explain why I took the butterfly off the canvas and added the vintage paper and ink and gel medium mixes.  And I realized my interaction and changing the canvas has had a lot to do with why I haven't posted and my emotional state of mind and how it's affected my creativity lately.

Let me start by saying I'm sorry. To be honest, I have no clue if anyone else was getting anything out of those challenges because I rarely get comments posted here.  I did hear from some of you by email every once in a while but I never wanted this to be a case of me talking and no one talking back.  I crave interaction on this subject.  Creativity is communication: communicating by visuals, music, written words... it's not one way.  So I was a little discouraged.

Then we had some health issues with my mom that landed her in the hospital a while back (she's fine, thank you for your prayers.)  And the boys and I have been fighting colds/sinus infections.  You know, the kind that doesn't make you "sick" but really makes you feel tired and half out of it for a while.  It was all rolled together with my depression at summer ending and having close friends moving away and school issues with Liam.  I shut down.  I didn't create anything.  And I was miserable.

So a few weeks ago I decided to make a deliberate effort to shut myself in the living room and spend time every day connecting with God.  Not necessarily "praying" in a typical way.  Though prayer does end up happening at that time, my prayer seems to end up being more of a communion with God.  Less talking at Him, more being with Him if that makes sense?  And that changed things.  

I started looking at my canvas that I wanted to use as the base for the collage.  The words from the BE passage speak to me in a grand, cosmic, Creation-with-a-capital-"C" way.  The canvas was too blah.  Now it's less blah.  And it makes me smile when I see it (the colors are more real in person.  The camera had a hard time focusing and picking up the color with the shine of the gel medium in the light at that angle.)

So what does this mean for this blog?  Well, for one thing, it's not ending.  It's not over just because I'm not posting challenges weekly.  By the way, I liked the challenges.  I just ran out of things that spoke to me and didn't want to post things just for the sake of posting something.  There are plenty of "How to" blogs out there for crafty people such as yourselves.  And there are a lot of "look what I can do" kind of blogs too.  This isn't supposed to be either.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I want to make stuff.  Things that are inspired by my communication and relationship with my Creator.  Things that celebrate my connection with my Creator.  I'll post them here.  And I'll post what made me do the things I do.  And hopefully you, as readers, will post not only what you think but also what you would have done differently based on your faith or relationship with Him.  Not because you think I made a mistake but as a reflection of our individual identities as artists in relationship with the ultimate Creator.  Where I did a canvas you may have written a poem or knitted a frog disection... what?  You think I'm kidding?  Look at what I found online*:



So I'm excited again.  Next time I'm going to post my little tangent on how fascinated I am with gel medium in a philosophical way.  Yes, I've been told I'm weird.  I've dealt with it.

P.S.  I will be putting the butterfly back on the canvas eventually.  Along with some other stuff.

*I don't know this person but they have one of the most fun Etsy shops ever:  The Crafty Hedgehog

Comments

Teresa said…
I love the canvas. You'll have to put it in the art show. We'll have to get together soon.

BTW....I got a job at Ethicon.
Stacie said…
WOO HOO FOR THE JOB!! :)

Thanks for the comment, Teresa! Getting to know you and Dorrien has been good for me. I appreciate both of you.

As far as the art show, I'm hoping to have a series of small canvases done by then. I was originally doing to put the entire BE passage on one canvas but decided to split it up. So we'll see how many I complete by then (they'll stand alone fine as well so there's less pressure :)

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