Generosity

I've been thinking a lot about generosity lately. I am so fortunate to be surrounded by generous people. The piece pictured here is a prime example of that: the stencil was a gift from my friend Kris as was the label "hope chest", the photo came from a member of IAA, and the beads came as a gift during a mail art swap.
I made this as a gift for a friend of mine who is in the middle of working on her doctoral dissertation on Polish feminist bloggers. I find this topic incredibly fascinating since I myself am two out of three. She has been incredibly generous with me in not only discussing her work, but mine as well. Debating artist philosophy, meaning and process with me over email. I count myself blessed to have such a wonderful and giving friends. Artists and non-artists alike.

Why Save it?

Artists, I firmly believe, are natural hoarders. You know what I'm talking about. The drawers of ribbons or scraps of ephemera that we can't quite bring ourselves to throw-out. Pretty much every artist I know (except for my friend Bev) has tons of stuff. Stuff we don't use, stuff we're saving for...something. I am no exception. I have this gorgeous white rub-on that I keep pulling out of the drawer and looking at and then putting back. But today, when I pulled it out I found myself wondering--why am I saving it? So I used it on my journal page here:

The face in the picture is mine, it's a stencil I cut and made from photoshop. It's my first, but now that I've done it I want to do more. If you're interested in learning how to photoshop/cut stencils there's a great tutorial here. And if you just want to look at some beautiful stenciled work look here. You have to scroll down and see the goldfish. They are just too cute!

Cork and Stencils

So, Mary Ann, who is an amazing artist, was doing this thing on her blog about people's bulletin boards and I kept meaning to take a picture of mine, but our camera's batteries were dead. And I kept doing that thing where I wander through target looking at stuff thinking "Now Bianca, what is it I keep forgetting to buy? Hmm..." Then I would promptly get home with my bag full of Resses peanut butter eggs, and other equally bad for me things and see my camera sitting on my desk and smack myself in the head and promise that the next time I wouldn't forget. Except I would. Anyway, I finally remembered the batteries and took this picture. I tend to stick random stuff on my board, first runs at new techniques or stamps. Stuff that I have no use for, as of yet. There are also a couple of pictures, one of me and my Nonna, and one of me and my Grandfather. I think my favorite thing I did up here is the dancing skeleton in the tulle dress. If you click on it, you should be able to see her. I also keep images that inspire me, of course.

As long as I had my camera out, I took this shot as well. I cut my very own stencils today. You can see them at the top of the photo black and white from the paint I used. These were the first I'd done by hand--I've made some using punches but that's not really very complicated. I actually cut several today, but I only used these two. I am really happy about how they turned out. I'm not certain if this page is done yet or not. I went out on our porch to look at it tonight and just couldn't decide. So we'll have to see.