The storm and tornado

I've been working on some different art pieces.  I need to decompress from school so I've been doing things that really let me run free.  I ended up with paint and ink all over my arms and legs from these.  And that's a good thing.

This one is tentatively called the tornado.  I was thinking about the many things in life that we just can't control.  There are things in our lives that are like a force of nature.  Can't be stopped.  The best we can do is protect ourselves from their damage.

My daughter called this one "Raindrops".  It's a good name.  Painting with watercolors helps remind me that I'm not in charge.  I put the water colors on the page, and water colors have a mind of their own.  They run.  They bleed.  They mix with other colors on the page.   I always love watching how the painting changes as it dries.  I am enchanted at every stage of a water color painting. 

I guess I've been thinking alot about what I can control, what I can't.  Sometimes all I can do is put up boundaries.  Other times I simply have to accept that I'm not in charge.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

5 year goal: Give a TED talk

In 2005 I hear about a study done on Harvard MBA graduates.  When they graduated they asked the graduates if they had goals.  There were those with vague ideas, those with no idea, and some with a 5 pages list of goals, sub-goals etc written out.  They followed these Harvard alum, these very successful people.  All of them were as successful as you would expect.  But those who had any written form of a goal were more successful.  Even if they had to adjust their goal along the way, make course corrections, or completely find a new goal.  It was simply the act of writing down their goal.  Higher rates of personal happiness, better marriage rates, earned more money, the whole nine yards.

In 2005 I set my goal, get an MBA in 5 years.  At that moment I hadn't even finished my BA.  My husband had left me a month earlier.  I hadn't worked in 5 years and had two small children.  My first priority was finding a job, not going back to school.

Well, it took a little bit longer than 5 years.  Closer to 7 years.  In December I graduate with my MBA.

And now I find myself wanting to set another five year goal.  Just as ambitious as a last goal.  I want to give a TED talk.

I don't even know what topic I would give a TED talk on.  Oh well, I didn't know how I could go back to school, and I did it.

So, I'm going to start recording my journey here.  Once I graduate in December I will make a daily commitment to work this goal.  I will be here daily working out my plan, finding my tools and climbing this hill.

Costs of recycled art

Cost of collecting colourful supplies (otherwise known as other people's waste stream)- $0
Cost of glue- $2
Cost of receipts for background (hmm . . . might need to ask my accounting prof about this one! I'll take a guess though)- $0
Cost of Frames- $50

Beautiful, amazing, recycled art-

Priceless

Finished piece

Recycle.

I know, its not a traditional English script, but it does say recycle.

The word was cut from the mosaic and glued onto a background of receipts.

Our consumer culture front and center for art. Bright packaging + receipts = Art Work. I like it. I like it alot.

I prefer this version, though. The word recycle is here in negative space, cut from the mosaic. It is hard for our eyes to trace the pattern of the word. The repeating pattern tends to capture our brain. Add to that, the fact that the word Recycle is in a non traditional script.

Recycling can be hard to locate. We have to work thru our long held assumptions, to view the world thru fresh eyes.

Save a receipt, save a tree

I was at UTA, buying my snacks to get me thru another long class.

"Do you want your receipt with that?" the young lady behind the counter asked me.

"No." I shook my head.

She nodded. "Save a receipt, save a tree."

As I walked out that phrase stuck with me. Receipts are fluttering all over the place. Most of the time they collect in my purse, wadded up at the bottom. They become trash.

I started collecting my receipts, not sure what I was going to do with them. Save a receipt, save a tree.

Today the receipts became the background for my artwork.

A modern mosaic

A modern mosaic. Done in the Islamic style. Six point stars. Everything cut from local material.

I'm struck by how different this does look from a traditional mosaic. Though the pallet is always deep with saturated colours, these colours are so much brighter. The color choices are traditional Islamic colours. Blue, purple, green, yellow, orange, red, and brown. I wanted to use the amazing silver, white and pinks that I've collected, but they simply don't go with traditional pallet. The colour are so much brighter than you would traditionally expect.

Modern marketing for ya!

Can you find your snack?

How many of our beloved snacks can we identify in this form?
I see Coke, Starbucks, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, Cliff Bars, Granola Bars, Chex mix. What do you see? Here, let me help some more.

Lots of cutting, lots of glueing

Today I began the process of adding the "trash" to the art piece. It was alot of very precise cutting. And now you can start to see what it's going to look like.

What I like the most is that I can still recognize where each of the bits of color came from. When I cut up the cans of Monster, a few of the pieces had the logo on them. The Starbucks logo is still recognizable even when its cut just down to a small square.

I'm thrilled that I was able to get some of the "please recycle" logos off of various items and onto the piece. I know I've got two at this time.

Laying out the patterns

I've been involved in the tedious task of laying out a mosaic pattern on a piece of paper. I layed down the pattern, and then used carbon copy paper to carefully get the pattern onto my piece of paper.

Once the pattern was on the paper, I then had to lay out the word "Recycle". In the end I'm going to have to cut out the word recycle, and I need to make sure that I don't have any metal pieces in the area that has to be cut. So, to insure that I can cut thru the final product, I laid the word out on top of the pattern. Again, using Carbon paper, I traced the word onto the paper.

Finally, once both guidelines were on the page, I actually colored in the paper with colored pencil. With these complex mosaic patterns, I have accidentally painted a square the wrong color before. When I previously worked in water color I made that unfortunate mistake. With glue, that could be a disastrous mistake. So, to prevent it, I colored in the paper. If you look closely you can see the lines for the word "recycle," but at this stage they are purposefully very light. Just so I can keep track of where I am in the piece.

Recycle is a foreign word

Today in class our professor was talking about "green" issues. We discussed how they can improve the bottom line for the company. How they can help to generate good press for companies. Even when most people only have a marginal interest in environmental issues, seeing that a company is green will create a positive mental image for most people.

"How many people will only buy from green company?"

We all sat there questioning ourselves. No matter how green I say I am, I'm not that stringent.

"Who doesn't care?"

One hand shot up.

I looked at my classmate thinking this thru. This classmate always donates recyclable "trash" to my bucket. He might not care about recycling, but when I made it really easy for him to recycle, he does.

As I left class another classmate asked me if I had enough in my bucket. I smiled, saying I always want more.

"So what you're saying is you want us to waste more?"

"It's not waste! It's recyclable stuff!"

"But it's our waste."

"For me, it's my resources as an artist." This art project is governed by what "trash" I manage to collect.

What is waste to one person, is a precious resource to another person.

Recycling is a foreign word to most people. Waste is waste. It's a left over that needs to be thrown away and cleaned up. But when its easy, even people who could care less will recycle.

Believe it or not, this is actually an English Calligraphy Script. It will be part of my next art piece.

One art piece completed!

I'm so happy! I've got this piece completed. And it looks really good. Now all I need to do is get it framed.

I would be even happier, but I discovered that I had flipped the image! That's what I get for taking a picture! The solid and white sides of the star should be flipped. If I had the time, I would redo the image. But I don't. The piece is due in April. And I've got at least one other image that I want to do for this contest.

I love the rich colors! The blues and oranges are so bright and vibrant. That is the one thing I love about advertising, they always use such rich colors.

The end is in sight!

Tonight I got even closer to being done. The yellow is hard to glue. It is small percise lines of yellow/orange that make the star. It's not like the blue that covers huge swaths of territory. I had so much glue on my fingers tonight that I had to stop to simply clean my fingers.

But the blue is finished! And only the yellow/orange remains. I love the way it looks.

Adding color

I've begun the process of adding color to UTA's logo. This is the first time I've worked with truly mixed media for a collage project. I had to buy new glue. Elmers simply won't hold cut up allumin soda cans to paper! And I have no clue what sticking power Elmers would have with the plastic wrappers off water bottles.

I'm making progress. It takes a while to get everything glued in place, to fit everything together.

As I was uploading these pictures, looking at the small thumbnails, it was really amazing to see how the image popped out, to see the clear lines created by the color. Even if the color is a mosiac.

It's actually turning out really well!

Got the UTA Logo!

I needed the UTA logo for this project. One good picture later, logo captured. Even if it was backwards. Oh well, so what!

I got the logo printed. FedEx Kinko's was kind enough to englarge the logo. I then put some carbon paper underneath the logo and began tracing it.

I traced the logo onto a large piece of paper.

And voila! Now I will begin filling in the logo with the recycled trash from my class!

Valentine's Day

Tonight we shared the love. Or at least the candy. My classmates are probably under the misguided impression that I politely gave them candy tonight. No, what I actually did was handed out candy wrappers that still had the candy attatched, and I crowd scourced the job of seperating the candy from the wrappers. And then my classmates turned back in a variety of pink little wrappers to me.

To: Ryan

(Kissy, heart, heart)

From: Na Na

Please Dump your trash into my bucket

Be careful what you ask for! Because some classmates are oh so willing to DUMP their stuff into my bucket!










LOL! In reality, my MBA cohort has been very willing to make sure that I get a generous offering of recyclables to play with. My little bucket is always full when I pick it up after class. I get a nice variety of recyclables thrown my way.

Please Recycle

"Please Recycle" Coke writes on their can.

This is recycling! Isn't it!

Guide to recycling Coke cans, Charity style. First grab a set of metal clippers. You're gonna need 'em!

Next, shred the can into lots of little coloured pieces. And then sort the pretty colors into piles. All the reds go together. All the blues together. Later, make pretty art with all the pretty coloured pieces! I'm sure that's exactly what Coke had in mind! Right?

UTA's Trash to Treasure Contest

I'm participating in UTA's Trash to Treasure contest. The guidelines were very loose. Recycle, or repurpose an item, or items. Be creative, resourceful, sustainable, pratical. Other than that, go for it! Oh, and it can only be 5 foot cubed. Has to be able to fit thru a door. Hmmm . . . I wonder what's happened in the past?

So, I'm collecting the recycling trash my class generates to repurpose it into art. My class was so helpful! On their way out the door, every one put their recyclables in my container. I don't think I've ever been this excited to see a full trash can.