Mixed Media

We had some requirements for the game we created. We had to use some part of “Rick Rubin’s Creative Act: A Way of Being” book, in our art. We actually tore one copy of the book in half and only had that one half of the book to work from for the entire year. We independently made each piece of art, below you will only be viewing my artwork.

The rules discussed were as follows. We could use anything from found/black out poetry, to using pages simply as pattern and texture in a work. It could be two dimensional or three dimensional. There were no limitations on what we used, our process, or our finished result, only that we had to create something using a part of Rubin’s book and it had to be mailed out by the end of each month; she lives in Missouri, I live in Texas. The resulting pieces were all about experimenting and expressing something new and working within a deadline to see how that affected our art and output. Could we even do it? Would it be worthy of the name art? She had a full-time professional job, we both have busy kids and busy lives. I had never used print, text, or mixed media in my work before. She had experiences with collages, but none with found poetry.

The amount of growth that I personally experienced was off the charts. From making collages and creating found poetry to successfully working within a deadline. It forced me to not overwork things, as well as think more intellectually using a lot of problem solving. At the same time, I often did lots of pre-planning and tried some new art techniques or experimentation almost every day. I carried Rubin’s book with me everywhere and was constantly writing in it, searching for words and newly created sentences or simply to illustrate something on the page. Some months a piece was created from start to finish in one month, but for me, I usually had bits and pieces that were woven in from ongoing art making and experimentation. Ironically, I felt that this book was more impactful just trying to absorb one page at a time than trying to read it a chapter at a time. During this time, after a recommendation from Jenny, I started watching art youtube videos showing me new techniques or reminding me of ones I had forgotten. Without this conversation, I honestly wouldn’t have even thought of youtube as a source of ongoing art lessons for me before. Now, I watch an art channel weekly if not daily. I tried gelli printing for the first time and loved it! I was doing string pulls of paint on art, dripping paint, blowing ink and paint with straws. I learned how to coffee stain and avocado stain paper! I got out all of my various old art supplies that had been stored away. I stowed away recyclables and found objects for printing and stamping. I went to garage sales and thrift stores again, which I love but had drifted away in the past, looking for random treasures that I might be able to use to create pattern and texture in my mixed media art collage. I wove paper, tore, cut and glued, sanded magazine papers, and combined my love of drawing and painting in my work. And I was influenced by the work that Jenny created and sent me. She often sewed on paper and I was so intrigued by that and felt it was so risky, wild and courageous!

I realized many things by the end of the project:

1. I do love using drawing and painting to convey realism in my work. This was good to know because I was fighting such tight perfectionist tendencies before I started this project that it was making me unhappy, but I loved combining the two styles into collagesI This led me to begin incorporating textural abstraction in my larger body of work.

2. Deadlines actually helped me. Even though I have a great fear of failure around them, and often feel like a piece is never finished, a deadline made me put my art more as a priority in my life ahead of other demands. Also, mind you we both had to send work out that we felt like was either not finished or had some flaws in it. And both of us really didn’t see the flaws of each other’s work when we received it.

3. I had fun again, my mind was working, it was playing and experimenting, I was surprised and delighted again by making art. I learned I often need some of these warm up exercises of playing and some unexpected accidents with paint moving around to lead me where I wanted to go.

4. Critiques and collaboration. I remembered how important it is to give and receive feedback and work with someone else. Art making is predominantly a solitary endeavor, but I was better for engaging with someone else. Jenny and I talked and wrote about what we liked and thought could improve in a work and it often influenced our future project. Some of our thoughts that made us limited, be it size or orientation with work, began to alter and take shape as we both originally started using the basic shape of a book page and then began changing that and breaking down the barriers that we thought we knew.

5. When we brought all of our work together at the end of the year I was so surprised how inspirational and motivational our works were. The artwork was important, but a secondary backdrop for the most important thing, some really inspiring messages. I wanted and needed that encouragement poured in me and love reading them often. I am so happy to share them with you and hope that they encourage you too!