Art Club

Last night I attended my second "Art Club" meeting. We had a fantastic evening. The full moon may have helped. I demonstrated Karen Michel's (Complete Guide to Altered Imagery) techniques for distressing photographs. Like the two above.

We soaked our photos in warm water to loosen up the photo emulsion a bit. Then we sanded the surface of the photo with sandpaper, a sanding block etc. The process is meant to open the surface (the shiny, slick surface) for further additions of paint, oil sticks (the water soluble kind), bleach pen dots or lines, stamped images, etched lines (ballpoint needles or awls). As you can see in the image on the left, I didn't sand everything. I left the tunnel images and the glass sculptures.

My demo piece was a picture of one of the other members (she had brought a handful of "bad" photos to share). I sanded the background images, leaving her face and seated body intact and began to show the group how to add color back into the sanded areas. P was very pleased with this as it was the messy background which had made the photograph "bad". After much painting, stamping, puncturing, she had an altered photograph she loved.

Another artist had a lovely photo of her young teen daughter in a pretty swirling dress. What wasn't so nice was the background. A moss covered dingy rental house. But after soaking, sanding, painting and with a halo of bleach pen dots, she had something she said she "worshiped".

In the end, each and every artist there last night went home with a new trick in their art tool box and with a very nice piece or two of altered art. Our 'end of evening' show and tell had something rather spectacular from each of us. All very different, as we are, and a fresh approach to making art.

And remember ---- I had to be, literally, dragged to that first Art Club meeting in March.

The Art Club began with one woman who wanted to learn and make art with fellow art makers. She invited two or three women to join her in making some cards or collage. They each invited a friend to come along at the next meeting. In March, we had about 15 people. In April, 12. Everyone brings some food to share, if they have some, and materials to share like papers, magazines to tear up, boxes of paints, oil sticks, glitter, pens.

Last night, in the "tell" part of show and tell, I discovered a number of members who were artists long ago and had lost that part of their life to family and work responsibilities. They were trying to reconnect with that past life. In my small way, I pushed them outside the "box" and into new territory. The have returned the favor, so to speak, and pushed me outside the house.

Yes, what we were doing could be classified as "craft" and not "art". But it's not WHAT you make or create. It's that you DO something. MAKE something.

One artist, wanting just a little something to do in the 30 minutes each day she had for art, now has photographs to alter with a shoebox of supplies. Sandpaper, oil sticks, watercolor paint. And she collaged images onto the altered photos with a glue stick. She thanked me repeatedly for giving her the gift of something she could do anytime and anywhere. I had given her art, she said.

What about each of you, dear readers? Do you have art in your day?