Finding Art Again

When I was in middle school we were charged with the awful task of writing a term paper.  This was not something I was excited or interested to do.  I have to admit that up to this day I don’t fully understand term paper writing with all those references,  all those rules of transferring a piece of information without angering the term paper gods for acts of plagiarism.  All I really remember is that there was something about reading a bunch of books but encyclopedias were not allowed. There were index cards, there were lists of references and there were more lists.  Papers were handed in, papers were sent back.  You were not allowed to copy information but you had to reference what you wrote.  Oh I just didn’t get it.

Phonetic Spelling for Michael(a) in Mayan

I still don’t get it and it’s perhaps the one large failing of my educators. Well that and the fact that I never memorized my multiplication tables but let’s not get into that particular piece of trivia.

 One assignment I remember was to write a term paper on the Mayan Civilization. I may have gotten a D or a D- I have no clue how I stumbled on the topic, for all I know it was assigned but I did find it interesting.  I liked the story about all the abandoned cities in the rainforest. Once there thousands of people living in those cities and then there was nobody living in those cities. 

 I’ve always been fascinated with Mesoamerican pre-Columbian art so I was thrilled when I was asked by an author to collaborate on a divination deck.  Not only was it something that interested me but I think the style suits me.  I am currently in the “research and development” stage. It’s all about what colors should I use and how do I represent certain themes. Do I stay true to history or do I allow artistic license to play a role.

One of the first design sketches I've worked on.

As an artist it’s funny how some of the most simple decisions can take so long to develop when you are working on a project like this.  We had decided we wanted a main picture with a border so I drew up a sample drawing.  But then the decisions… Should the borders be the same for all the art, should they change, what should they represent, What information were we trying to convey.  Should I reference only Maya or should I combine from others, should I use certain symbols?  Obviously It’s both and exciting and daunting task.

 I am learning much more than I did when I was writing my term paper. As we develop this I am learning so much. I had discovered that they had different symbols to represent the same phonetic sound. Writers, although I think of them more as artists, could combine these symbols in different ways to represent the same words.  I think this lends an incredible level of creativity to writing.  What you read is truly in the artist’s voice.

 There is much for me to do.  A project of this size will not happen overnight. I’m convinced it will consume me for a bit.  Hopefully, once I am completed with it my work can in the very least pay homage to a great culture. Perhaps it will inspire someone as I have been inspired to find out more about what once had been.

Mini Card Size Dog Glyph

Autumn brings with it a desire to work on wood crafts. I suppose it is a habit I got into long ago when I had worked at a fabrication shop.  We used a wood stove to help heat the place and we would get cast off wood from a local door making company.  We got barrels and barrels of the stuff.  Often we picked out the good pieces and made cute little 1980’s country crafts with them. I used to do craft fairs and sold tons of my cat silhouettes, watermelon slices and heart shaped ornaments.

Pumpkins say What?

Recently I came across one of these wooden ornaments and can’t believe I sold any it was so sloppy with its transparent paint showing the pencil lines below.  Of course some were better than others. I miss having this free wood and a band saw at my beck and call.

This year I had a couple of turned apple shaped wood pieces hanging around that I would make fun little jack o’ lanterns out of and decided I wanted to do more of these. Last year I had discovered four of them that I had painted in 1990 and I repainted them for fun.

A trio of Jack o' Lanterns!

I have found out that wood items are much harder to come by these days than in the late 80’s when craft stores had entire aisles dedicated to turned wood alone.  Extensive searches on the internet did not turn up the exact shaped ones I used two decades ago but I did find an apple shape at a local mom and pop craft store I discovered one day.

What are you lookin' at?

A Happy Group of Jack o' Lanterns

I took them and gave them a coat of gesso which I believe seals the wood fairly well and painted them up. I made quite a few.

More happy jacks!

Another project I like to do is to make “candy containers” from pods.  There are these round wooden cup pods on sticks available in the dried flower aisle of craft stores.  They have gone up in price – much like everything else but are still fun to work with.  I cut off the stick which you can get out fairly easy and gave them a coat of gesso both inside and out.  I’m very generous with it on the inside.  I drill holes in the side. Paint up with orange paint and cute jack o’ lantern faces and make sure I give a coat of glow in the dark paint to the yellow parts of the face.  Then I used pipe cleaners to make a handle.

Happy Halloween!

Last but not least I got my hands on Paper Mache skull masks and painted them up as day of the dead or “dios de las muertos” masks.  The first two I have done look okay but I really wish to improve my line work.  It’s been a long while since I’ve played around with acrylic paints.

Flowery Dios de las Muertos Mask

All in all I’ve had a fun time working on my haunted crafts. What do you make?

I've combined my love of Oak trees and Dios de las muertos