Day 29: Nearing a Beautiful End

The End of our Fused Glass Sgraffito Challenge is near...

You have all developed into courageous sgraffito-ers, and I am so proud of your progress!

Beginning a challenge like this is difficult even for trained artists, and many of you have told me that your art and drawing experience is very limited.  See what you're capable of???  

YOU HAVE DONE WELL!

Today and tomorrow your challenge is to take a black and white "selfie" and create a glass powder self-portrait from it.  This is a huge challenge for all of us.  I personally have never attempted a self-portrait.  It's very uncomfortable for me to study myself in that way... 

to have a visual record of the way I view "me" is almost too much.  

Maybe that's why I have never tried.  This challenge is on the threshold of what I think I am capable of, both artistically and emotionally.  I think it feels like this for most artists.  

It's a real introspective.

  

It's comforting to know, that should I decide to dump my drawing later  

I'll still have a beautiful, perfect sheet of white glass.  Nothing to lose, right?

 After all, another drawing is jealously waiting to create itself there. 

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I want to tell you about the artist in the photo above, some of you may already be familiar with her.  Frida Kahlo once said,

" I paint myself because I am so often alone, and because I am the subject I know best."  

Aren't we all the subject we know best, but afraid to say it in a permanent way? 

 Maybe we don't want to see ourselves as we really are... read on...

Frida Kahlo was born outside Mexico City in 1907.  She contracted polio as a child, which left one leg slightly disfigured.  

At 18 she was involved in a very serious accident while the bus she was riding on had a collision with a street car.  She suffered a broken spine, ribs, collarbone, pelvis, and a dislocated shoulder.  

As if that were not enough, She also endured eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and an iron handrail pierced her abdomen which would leave her childless...


She spent three months in a full body cast recovering from her injuries, but still she painted.

Frida Kahlo wore long skirts most of her life, perhaps to cover her inability to look like she thought she should.

Although she lived most of her life in horrible pain, bedridden for months at a time, she painted anyway.

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Nobody taught her to paint, she did it anyway.
The curious will always be curious.
The painters will always paint.

Keep working.  You are your own best teacher and 'talent' has so very little to do with anything...

By the way, I haven't even taken my 'selfie' yet and I won't be able to start this challenge until night time...

Add your progress here

Natsukashii

I like words.   I am especially fond of Japanese words, because so much can be said in small 'pictures'.  "Natsu" is the first part of the word and the kanji looks difficult, but in that first little block there are symbols that mean heart, pocket, bosom, breast, yearn, miss (someone), become attached to, curious, eager to know, dear, missed, desired...  

The English translation would probably be 'nostalgic', but the English word leaves me without pictures.  Pictures within words make the Japanese language so seductive... I just want to learn more so I can unfold the beauty of how they fit together so perfectly.

I spent this weekend with a student, who has become a friend.  She was here to make a sgraffito style city in fused glass, and brought with her some photos from her childhood home in Iceland.  I truly enjoyed listening to her stories and learning about how life was while she was growing up. I'm interested in knowing about these things; the natsukashii memories that we all carry.

Here is a photo of a small section of her glass city, she mastered faces in a hurry!  Each part of her city was tied to those natsukashii memories, and I am feeling pretty lucky to have heard the stories behind the artwork that she created.  Life is short.  Every piece of artwork carries a memory of sorts.  Spend the time to look for it and you'll see...