Wearing a Beaded Necklace

I fell off the Fun-A-Day wagon a bit. School can be so consuming for the creative, one would think I would be bouncing off the walls with creative ideas for all those assignments thrown at me this week, but I wasn’t. I just wanted to sleep. I attempted two collages and they didn’t come out so great. And I thought maybe that’s it, maybe that is all the collages one gal can do in a lifetime in that short amount of time.

Then, my grandmother gave me a whole bunch of sweet, vintage beaded necklaces.. I just wanted to wear them all at once, but didn’t. I was trying them on and remembered this portrait of Paula Modersohn-Becker wearing nothing but a beaded necklace. Its one of my favorites. I decided to create my own version of a portrait in nothing but a beaded necklace… only its me, I’m not holding a flower, and its a collage.

Portrait with Circles

I sketched this one out this afternoon while waiting for my sculpture class to begin. I decided to go with the idea of texture and pattern as the concept.

Divisions

Classes start tomorrow. Then it will be dividing my time and energy between loads of work for school, work for money, and life.I can kiss free time for non-school art work goodbye until May (aka my own vision)! Maybe I can squeeze it in here and there… but I’m not optimistic about it. I feel kind of bitchy about not having school credit for being an artist/future educator (like they’re teaching me in school – ironically). I’m not perfecting my craft, nor do I have time to do so. But its got to be done I suppose, its that or forfeit my graduate degree and the hopes of a better future for myself. Its a double edged sword sometimes.

I feel like I need to be everything for everyone at all times: the super student, the perfect daughter — some sort of super woman who does it all and who is passed out at 10:45pm.

This piece is about those feelings of being divided up, everyone wants a piece of me, everyone wants something. I call it “Divisions.”

Here and/or There.

In honor of the upcoming holiday of Valentine’s Day, I created this piece. I call it “Here and/or There.” Someone told me that “she’s out there.” Where “there” is, I don’t know. I do know it is not “here and now.”

In a Hood

In honor of the past two snowy days, I created something rather winter-like.

The black pieces are from this sheet of weird vinyl stuff that I found at Rhode Island Recycling for RI Educators. It sucks to paint on and until now I haven’t had a use for it. It works well with glue and collage techniques and not much else.

I call this piece “In a Hood.”

The Mask We Wear.

Its the face that we present to the world, not our closest friends who might be able to see through the smile, or the act. Its a best face forward. Unfortunately, people don’t always seem to read me (or my art) the way I would hope. My mask seems rather hard to penetrate and see through even for people who know me – I don’t do it on purpose that is just the way it is.

I realize this looks a little drag queen-esque – I just thought I’d go with it – maybe I’m in female drag. Besides it would make people wonder what the hell was going on inside my head when I created this.

Collage time!

I’m participating in the fun-a-day project/ show in Providence. The goal: make something creative every single day for a month, then show it the following month.

I’ve decided to make collage self-portraits. Since I’ve been single, I’ve done enough self-reflection and self-criticism these past few months to have some decent concepts for at least 31 pieces.

Here’s the past two days’ Fun-a-Day collages and today’s piece all rolled into one!

Dialogue

This is the collage for one of those days in which you feel you may as well be talking to a wall because no one is going to listen or respond anyhow.

It appears that I am sharing a secret with my wall… if these walls could talk, we’d sit down with some green tea and have a bitch session.

Button

My 5×8 sketch journal will never close like it should from all the collages and paper build-up, then I decided to glue a button to this collage. I decided to rip this one out of the sketch journal when I realized the page would never lie flat, hence hindering future images — I guess I should’ve about that before I glued a button into my sketch journal.

Someday I Suppose.

I forgot to post yesterday’s image,  I was busy freaking out over the Rhode Island teacher certification exam, aka hours and hours of my life studying for an exam my master’s program failed to prepare me for. Hours I will never get back, plus one night where I slept a total of two hours (that would be last night before the exam this morning).

This piece has nothing to do with the certification exam. It has to do with marriage and will that ever happen… sometimes I think I have a better chance at winning the lottery. It’s a nice thought however (marriage, someone to wake to every day, all that good stuff… and maybe the lottery). Right now I can’t seem to get a date so marriage isn’t in my near future… though I fully support everyone’s right to marry. I’m calling this “Someday I Suppose.”

I haven’t come up with a title for today’s collage. I used some cut up pieces of vinyl along with cut up paper on this one.