She dreams a little
mixed media box - vintage photo, cut up vintage text, vintage mending fabric, metal findings, silk thread, paper, board, lacquer, glue
5,7x4,1x0,8cm / 2.2"x1.6"x0.3"
She dreams a little
Lately she's been dreaming many little dreams, so you'll get an extra blog post today in addition to the artsy advent calendar. I hope you've enjoyed it so far! I still get butterflies in my stomach every day when I realize a new box has been published and People can see it. I have no idea who you new guys are, but according to my blog stats, there's plenty of you visiting me. Hello to everyone new, and especially to everyone who's been following me regularly during my Paperiaarre years! Nice to have you all stop by! This little mixed media box is something I made during summer, before I began designing larger pieces for the exhibition, and there's something about the minuscule size of it that makes it all the more dear to me. It's like jewelry except it's not. What does one do with a box like this? One does not do anything with it. And mostly I like not doing anything. Every minute I'm not doing something creative or feeling at home in good company.
So, what I've been dreaming about? Encaustics, for one thing. I got myself some basic tools and materials, but I haven't felt like trying it out yet. It may have to wait until the exhibition is done in February, since I have a feeling learning the technique may just swallow all of my time. I recognize the monomaniac in myself, and just now I need to protect myself from it and get the exhibition pieces and Christmas things ready in time (although our Christmas will luckily be quite low-fuss). Reading about encaustics online has been a frightful thing, actually - most of the techniques the tutorials and example pieces feature results that either look like barf or make me want to barf, so I'm most glad I found some truly talented encaustics artists (
)with amazing portfolios, as well as aesthetics that please me, before reading up on the basics. I'm (unsurprisingly) less interested in the colours and more in the possibilities of translucent layers and inclusion of non-wax materials.
coincidentally has a layer of beeswax on it, so maybe that's a beginning of sorts already.
Organizing is another matter that's kept my head busy. I have more space for my art/book things than ever before, but I also spend more time at my work desk than ever (not saying I'm necessarily working harder than before, I just used to work on the floor a lot more before), so no amount of space can be enough, and it gets challenging at times. Like, when a fresh ball of fancy embroidery thread (the type that won't be imported to Finland any longer, so this is the last one in this colour available) falls from the overflowing storage container on a shelf above my desk because I'm forcefully spreading glue, and shaking (just maybe) the entire building while I'm at it, and the thread lands bang in the middle of my glue pot, and I just have to finish glueing anyway, after which I end up unwinding the entire glue-soaked thread in the sink and washing it in the middle of the night. The thread is fine, my mental health less so. Luckily help is on the horizon as I just designed a new (and massive) shelving system with my father for the work area, and maybe we'll get it assembled in time for next summer, or something. Until then I'm embracing the chaos (also, loving my new translucent/un-green cutting mat as a pool of calm amidst it all), and sorting things only when I'm totally running out of workspace. Not the most zen surroundings for creative work, but maybe the most zen approach I can find in me.
The last dream-worthy thing I'm going to mention today is that I'm apparently going to make a massive paper chandelier as a part of my exhibition. How wonderfully curious (=I have no clue what next).
What have you been dreaming about lately? A little or a lot?