Art is Fun.....!!! My Two Cents Worth

a few of my ATCs

(Which are now living in a box...in the closet)

Once upon a time....well maybe I should say: Not once but almost always and almost upon everytime....I go off track. The result of a cluttered brain. I have a compulsion to learn and to try something new and something else...again...and again....and.....well, you get the idea.

In the beginning there was needlepoint....I made a case for my glasses (which I've since lost...the case, not the glasses) and a bargello pillow. That pillow was the end of my journey into needlepoint. I realized that I could go out and buy a piece of upholstery fabric that looked exactly like my needlepoint and it wouldn't attract moths...like the project to which I had given many hours of my life. While my bargello was hiding in a closet...it was, except for the canvas, devoured!!! Scraped clean of those tiny, woolen stitches.

Then...my mom gave me her watercolors (she liked oils better)....and I was off again. I painted and painted and then packed all of the paintings and paints into a box...and into a closet (there's something about my relationship to closets that might be interesting to explore some day). Twenty years later I found that box and had four of the paintings framed (decided that they weren't too bad after all...and they hadn't been touched by moths!).

I made a quick trip into embroidery...then decided that I needed a bigger canvas. I explored quilting. True, about it being a bigger canvas....but it also (as what doesn't?) takes a lot of time....and room. Have you ever tried to prepare a king-size quilt top for the actual quilting? The only space large enough for this process was the living room floor. My dog, Mishka (I only lived with one at that time...but he was a BIG, 100-pound, dog) and my cat, Weird ol' Willie (just take my word for it...he was) loved that part of the process. They offered themselves up as quilt sitters. I could coax Willie off of almost anything with an empty carboard box....but Mish was happiest when he sat on my quilts. I had to pin around him. He loved to help.

Cross stitch was next. Then I took up quilting again...(Mish) had taken up residence in Dog Heaven by then....and....I had purchased a very large cutting table on which to work. I made pieced quilts, then applique, then crazy (quilts...not me...not yet). Discovered that, as much as I love making quilt tops I tend to put off quilting them. Which means that I have a pretty good collection of tops and very few finished quilts.

The next adventure was in Paper. On tiny bits of cardstock or watercolor paper...2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch bits...I made ATCs (Artist Trading Cards)...hundreds of them. I even managed to trade bunches of them with other makers of ATCs. I have a huge collection....in a box....in the closet.

Such is the sad story of my creative life.I'm again heavily into Cross Stitch...but also have the urge to journal (this blog is kind of a journal, I guess) and to make ATCs and maybe even do some quilting. What I once did one-at-a-time....I can now try doing it all.

Some of it takes time....but I've got time. I'm retired!