Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Creative Process

Copyright Tattered Edge 2007

This was yesterday's work. I thought it would be fun to share the creative process that led to it in my post today. So here's the story:

Susie LaFrond is hosting a Triptych exchange. The perametres are that it has to be on the theme "home", there have to be 3 ATCs interrelated and they have to be joined in some way.

The idea started with me thinking about homes, which led to me thinking about people living in the past, present and future. That made me think of generations and how each generation represents those points in time. I decided to use images of men and boys in my work-most art I see is woman related and quite frankly, I like doing art with men in it.

Sunday, I was at the local ATC swap and my friend Cari Helm showed up. The card she was trading was a cleverly folded piece of paper in the shape of a house. I knew right away I wanted to fold some houses of my own for my triptych. I went through my scrapbook paper and chose 3 Basic Grey pieces that were rough looking (like old paint) and used them to fold the houses. I sanded them and added some charcoal pencil. I found three images I wanted to use to represent the past, present and future and printed them off. I mounted them on black cardstock and cut them out leaving a scant line of black outline around each image to help them stand out.

The next step was to find some quotes I like and turn them into transparencies. For the past I chose "You have to know the past to understand the present". For the present, "The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future or anticipate future trouble, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly." and the future's says "If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each of them is present in your body. You are a continuation of each of these people." I printed them out and then cut them down to the size and shape of the house. I attached them using tiny copper eyelets.

Once I had that done, I made the tags and attached them through one of the eyelets. Then I mounted the images of the men on top. Lastly, I found a piece of crackled wall paper and accordion folded it to cut the picket fence which I used to attach the houses together.

I really like the symbolism of this piece. I love that the old man (grandfather) is facing so he's looking back at the past, the father has his feet firmly planted in the present, and the boy (the son) is looking toward the future. I also like how the fence links them all together-providing both connections and boundaries at the same time. For me, home is where you come from. It's your roots and the legacy of all the people who have touched your life, seen or unseen, for better or worse.

So that's my process and the end result, which is about to go in the mail. I liked this piece so much that I am going to make one for myself because otherwise, I would have a hard time letting it go. I hope whomever get it enjoys it.


6 comments:

Karen Owen said...

Very cool! You did a fantastic job.

Karen

halo said...

oh, that is so very cool! I love reading about your processes behind the piece, too-- it adds a whole other dimension to it :)

Anonymous said...

So wonderful, wonderful!!!

Anonymous said...

You are sooooooo good!

CreativSpirit said...

This is a wonderful concept, well done.

liz said...

i LOVE this!! so cool!
liz xx