A Good Saturday

Today was Family Art and sARTurday down at PeaceLove Studios, where I volunteer.  I recently became the Saturday activities coordinator and today was my first test run as coordinator.

We did artist trading cards in both workshops and I think a good time was had by all.  ATC's are so easy to do--well, they are easy if you're not spending a lot of time on them.  For example, one guy who came to the sARTurday afternoon session probably made 20 and he was just doodling and drawing single figures on each one and, I have to say, not making a lot of effort.  My friend Louise, on the other hand, really took her time and thought out what she was doing and "only" made 3.  Another person, Laura, only made one but hers was a really complex line drawing in pencil.

The kids had a blast.  They LOVE glitter glue.  Especially squeezing the bottle til it practically bursts!  Big lumps of glitter glue all over the place.  But it was fun watching them glue pom poms and butterfly sequins, put stickers on, and cut out paper shapes with fancy scissors and glue those on.  So unafraid to do things.

I need to cultivate that abandon, that lack of fear.

I keep going back to a piece I saw not long ago on Art 21, a PBS series on art in the 21st century.  I don't remember the artist they were profiling, but he said something profound that I made sure I noted down.  The paraphrase is something like "I had to learn to waste paint, to not be afraid to waste paint and paper."  Basically to be unafraid of making "mistakes."  Truly, there are no mistakes in art.  Every "mistake" becomes an opportunity to transform what you created unintentionally and go into a direction you hadn't previously considered.

I am having to learn that.  I have wanted to take a different direction in my work, work more abstractly, and don't think it's been as successful as the comic collages I've been doing.  At least it seems more labored.  I don't seem to have the same freedom.  I am afraid to make a "wrong" move.  I have to learn how to do the "wrong" thing.  And remember that there are no "wrong" moves in art.  Art needs to be an adventure.  I have to learn to become more adventurous, recapture the abandon and fearlessness that I had as a child doing art, before people told me I "couldn't do art," that I wasn't "good enough."

I guess it really goes back into learning how to play again.  I guess.

This is one of the abstracts that I think may be self-consciously abstract in its execution.  It doesn't look or feel right.  So it's been sitting, waiting for something to happen.  And I guess it'll be sitting for a while longer until I decide what, if anything, to do to it.

And another:

Just not sure about them.

We'll see what if anything happens with them.  In the meantime, I need to go play.