Sculpture Mania!

My camp "Sculpture Mania!" at the Dallas Museum of Art in August was a BLAST to facilitate! I had wonderful kids, a perfect environment and accomplished my main goals. Here are a few of the kids in front of the plaster hands they had painted. What made these plaster hands unique is that they were created by pouring plaster into rubber gloves, sealing them and having them firm up. Kids were able to see how liquid plaster can take the form of a mold (rubber gloves) and become a solid shape. The kids were able to feel the plaster harden through the plastic gloves without all the mess too.

My favorite project was creating a three-dimensional work of art inspired by Jackson Pollock's two-dimensional painting titled, Cathedral. Here we are creating squiggly lines with art wire and "floating" them on thin fishing line woven within an open-sided box.

What made this project so much more meaningful and educational was having the real deal, Jackson's Cathedral right there with us in the gallery for inspiration!

The more lines that were added the better it got. The piece now sits in my dining room. I have some ideas on how to recreate a similar yet more stable, reuseable frame that can have light added as an option for added effect.

More Photos of Sculpture Mania!

This photo is from the first day. We discussed classical sculptures like the marble Roman woman in the backbround and compared it to this plaster Henry Moore piece, "Reclining Mother and Child". It's surface LOOKED like marble, but it wasn't and the mother & her baby's features were much less defined & obvious.

I try to fill every moment with opportunities for learning. Here we are riding one of the museum's huge elevators while also discussing a creative project.

Moving 4-5 year old children through a large museum without mishap can sometimes be a challenge, but with this particulr class it was always a breeze. They were a truly wonderful group of kids, real sweethearts!

Look at us we are living sculptures!

Discovering tinfoil's sculpture making qualities.

I ALWAYS feel so alive and in harmony with the universe when I am exploring the creative worlds of visual art, storytelling and performance art with children AND adults. It is my definition of bliss.

Recent Explorations in Art

I used an old album, newspaper print and phonebook pages with this work I call "Static". It's ugly, but by golly, it's unique! It was inspired by Mark Grotjahn's works like his Big, Big, Big, Big Nose on view at the Dallas Museum of Art's, Private Universes Exhibit.

This is "Transformation...It's Time". The flowers were painted on canvas, cut out and put on this canvas. I have a real clock piece inserted on the hands. This piece is all about allowing oneself to be transformed through the use of one's inner creativity and then bringing that transformation out into the world. My inspiration was from my own creative need to continue to grow and explore my life through the art I make.

Hidden in the depths of this painting are $500.00 bills of play money. If you look closely you can see the money peeking through. I have happy face stickers popping out over them. Traced with a fine pen and requiring the viewer to come in close to read are the words, "Then I'll Be Happy". This work is inspired by Richard Price's Check Painting on view now at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Tell Me A Story is inspired by Christopher Wool and his works where he breaks up words sporadically on huge canvases. I have this one hanging by my desk now. It was fun to make.

I had trouble photographing some of my work. I keep getting a glare. This image is not flattering to the real piece. I collected old bottle caps for the leaves, used copper strips to create the trunk and have old book pages for the background. The frame I picked up at a yard sale for $5!!! It is over one hundred years old and in gorgeous condition. I named this work Discarded Life for it's made from things once valued, if even for a few moments, in a person's life. I love using bottle caps and have several more ideas for their use in future artwork. Now, all I need is time to MAKE it. >sigh<

Rag Bags by Me!

I saw a picture of a bag in a catalogue for $298.00! The bag was "unique" and I thought it was a creative use of material. I said, "I can make one for a lot less." So I promptly made three using 'like new' purses and left over fabric scraps. Here is the first one.

Up close view.

The second one. It looks kind of sad hanging there on the fence.

This one is my favorite!

I was thinking of naming these purses, "Raggedy Purses by Raggedy Ann!" Hah, but I don't want to think of myself as being raggedy...so...I'm still brainstorming... At any rate, I have been using the top purse for two days while running errands and have had lots of feedback. I do believe these bags are marketable and so I may make a few for sale.

My Chicken Chairs

A short time ago, I came upon a yard sale where a guy was selling four chairs. He was selling them for a total of $20.00. They were very study, but the seats had a bit of wear to them. No problem! I happily handed over a twenty dollar bill and brought the four chairs home.

Here is a before picture of one of the chairs. They were all identical. Using recycled wool sweaters that I first felted, I created 'chicken' chairs. This is HENrietta.

This is megHEN.

This is StepHENie.

And this is gretcHEN. She's my favorite. Shhhh...don't tell the others.

Lily turned 19 on July 23!

There's my baby and her boyfriend Andrew. The pesky bunny ears there above her head are Jeff's, he's up to his usual mischief. It doesn't look like he will EVER get tired of doing that. >sigh< See last photo in this post where he is at it again. Oh, and please ignore the messy desk & office behind Lily, I was in the middle of re-organizing everything. It looks way better now, I swear.

Lily is enjoying wielding that knife far too much! She had a Baskin Robbins chocolate and mint chocolate chip icecream cake. It was yummy!

See?

It was plate-licking good! Hah! Lily loves to wear goofy hats. She has a large collection of them. She wore her penquin hat for this special day.

This picture was taken a week before her birthday when we attended the outdoor concert for Justin Caldwell's new CD release. SEE? What did I tell you, there is Jeff with the bunny ears again. I've been married to him for nearly 25 years now, and he has never gotten tired of doing this. I guess it has become a tradition of sorts now.

SMILE.

Lily and Leonidas

Here is a picture of Lily with Leonidas, her cat that she named after the great Spartan king and warrior. We took this photo two days ago.

Lily then went to clean Ophelia's cage. Ophelia is our dwarf rabbit. Lily put the top portion on the floor with the door open. I guess Leonidas was feeling curious, perhaps wondering what it was like to live in a cage, so he crawled in and spent a good long while hanging out in it.

Sniffing at the bars...mmmm...smells like bunny!

Wow! Look at how the ceiling looks with lines running along it. KEWL! So this is what it's like for that pesky little fur ball and attention stealer. Hhhmmm, most interesting.