Creative outlets

This was the third deMeng class - and the wildest. First, I mixed up the venues. How I managed to do that on the last day of the retreat I have no clue. But I did - and I came in late. I gathered junk from the common pile (as I did not have any metallic objects, mesh, wire or any of these things) and I started playing with it. Again, no idea what I was doing, no theme, no plan. Just texture at the beginning and then color.
I made 2 pieces - one rectangular (an old photo frame) and one round. I thought about them as 2 separate pieces until Michale looked at them and decided they belonged together. And in fact they look much better together than apart - with the round piece on top of the rectangular one. And there are common elements between the 2 (the game aspect of the pieces). In part. they reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.

Morpheus box

This was the second class with Michael deMeng. The process was the same, except that I was frustrated most of the day. I am not sure why, I think I panicked, afraid that I will not finish, I forgot the paints this time so I had to go around borrowing from people. It was also the first time I tried to incorporate more junk in the pieces. I think I found the end result to dark. In the end though, after a good might sleep, I like the way it turned out. And I finally found a place for the small gourd I brought from the Camino de Santiago!

Each side of the mobile piece in the middle has a saint or a buddha. I regret not having taken a voice recorder with me. Michael's comments at the end of the session were very good; they would have been helpful now on one hand to remind me about my pieces and also to help form an eye for things to look for in a piece so that I c an improve my work.

I can see clearly now

This is the first class I took with Michael deMeng in Phoenix. It was also the begging of the mix ups that lasted the whole week. I forgot to bring the box that was part of the supplies. I was convinced I needed it for the Wednesday class! So here I am with nothing to work on. Luckily I found a cigar box at the supply booth - I liked it au naturel and I almost felt guilty to alter it. But the end result was interesting and unexpected of course as I did not have a plan and not a clue how it will look like. This piece was sold.

Updates

Keeping up with the updates seems to be more challenging than I thought. My many activities require juggling abilities and inevitably some things fall through the cracks. Blogging is one. Housework is another one.

I have been busy with midterm exams. I started taking riding classes and last Saturday I drove to Ottawa for a storytelling workshop held by Ottawa Storytellers.
Nov 7-9 I was out of town on a retreat. I still try to run outside, the weather has been unusually warm so far. I did not have a lot of time left for art. I ordered a while ago 3 booklets with workshop exercises from Juliana Coles. I am slowly working my way through one of them. I made a journal out of brown grocery bags and newspaper pages - 3 signatures sawn on a cardboard spine.
I will be posting it when I finish the exercises.