I love the Smarter Every Day videos and this one was particularly fascinating.
Artist Trading Card Club
We started an Artist Trading Card Club. I am excited to see where this takes us.
In 1996 a Swiss artist, M. Vänçi Stirnemann, exhibited a collection of miniature art he had done (around 1200 in all). They were the same size as baseball or hockey trading cards – 3½" X 2½". At the end of the exhibition (in 1997) there was a trading session, which took his exhibition to the new level of 'Collaborative Performance'. Other sessions sprung up around the world with the same idea of trading between people who created the miniature art, rather than open market buying and selling.
On my birthday this year, I decided that a couple of friends and I would go to Galveston. (Fortunately, they obliged.) It just happened to be Mardi Gras weekend, which added to the festivity. In preparation for the trip I bought three sketchbooks – one for each of us – and various pencils, pens and erasers. When we weren't exploring the historic district or partying on the Strand, we chilled and sketched while we talked. (That was the plan, anyway. In practice we only sketched a couple of times.)
At the end of the weekend I introduced the idea of an Artist Trading Card club. I asked if they would be interested in starting a small group and then seeing where it led us. There was interest and it grew as time went by. So, last week I made all three of us commit to a time. (It would have been beneficial to commit to a place as well, but 'live and don't learn' is my motto.) It's easy for good ideas to remain ideas and never grow into reality, unless somebody pushes forward. So, I decided to give us all a little shove in this direction.
This week Barry, Tamara and I met for dinner, along with Tamara's niece, and after eating we began drawing. We had fun chatting and sketching, much to the puzzlement and dismay of the waiter. I had brought the same pencils, pens and erasers along with a set of Prismacolor pencils. Tamara, a graphic designer by trade, more or less kicked our collective artistic butts. Barry was a little artistically blocked, but eventually did a lovely abstract piece, reminiscent of his jewelry. Tamara's niece, an RN, played lightly with text and I putzed around with a couple of ideas. At the end Tamara made the observation that we all kind of stayed in our comfort zone, but that is a reasonable place to start. We've all been kind of artistically blocked in one way or another (except maybe Tamara's niece who is busy saving lives daily in an ER), which is why I came up with the idea in the first place. So, Barry made a couple of suggestions for future meetings. One was that we all start with a shape – the same shape – and see where each of us takes it. Another was that we each draw a shape on a card and then pass that card to the left and let the next person take over. Both are very good ideas and will help us break out of our comfort zones.
Hopefully there will be more to come of our little club. There are already a couple of other people wanting to join. We'll be international in no time.
Stay tuned...
Relaxed
Cleo
I long to be this relaxed and content.
Toiled and Troubled Egg
I boiled some fresh eggs that we get from a local farmer. Something terrible happened to this one. I don't know quite what to think.
After boiling the eggs for precisely 11 minutes, I dropped them into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Even in the boiling pan I could see that there was something not right about this egg.
Small bowl by Michael Obranovich
I recon we could scrape that part off, but I still say that something ain't right. My boiled egg has a growth. Like it was trying to sprout a set of teeth. Or give birth to Casper, the Friendly Ghost or something.
We'll still use the boiled eggs, probably even use this one. But, I'm keeping it in a separate bowl in the refrigerator, just in case. I don't really want it to influence the others.
Growing Old Again
A few years ago I wrote a little essay about growing old and I used light bulbs as a tool to demonstrate the tacit, subtle, almost unnoticed fear that I have of it. Today, I was shopping with Nameless for light bulbs and I experienced it all over again. His patience grew thin as my irritation grew thick and all I wanted to do was replace some bulbs in my bedroom that had burnt out.
He tried to help by asking intelligent, leading questions in an attempt to narrow down the possibilities, such as, "Were you looking for decoration, or to light the room?" (The bulbs in question are for track lighting.) "Are you trying to read by them, or spotlight artwork?" Truly, though, I had gotten into my car with a bulb in my hand and run to the hardware store thinking that I would walk in, find replacement bulbs, buy them, take them home and install them. Things like Purpose, Aesthetics, Design... these things hadn't even entered my consciousness. I was just replacing bulbs that had burnt out. Little did I know that I was racing toward a minefield.
So, let's revisit this essay, this previous blog entry, shall we? It is as valid now as it was when I wrote it and I'm that much closer.