In a couple of my yahoo groups we have been discussing memories of art work that we did as kids. These discussions have brought back a lot of great memories for me. I remember getting a toy sewing machine for a Christmas gift and sitting in my bed at night with the candle in the window on and sketching out ideas of things to sew. As I recall none of those ideas ever worked out, but it was fun sketching them while the rest of the house was asleep. I still remember the feeling of being the only one awake when the house was so quiet. It was great!
I remember making chains from gum wrappers, potholders and mittens. In high school I was obsessed with painting cats. We had tons of books of photos of cats and I used to paint them on canvas and give them away. I wonder how thrilled the people that got them were. I only have one of them left at this point. The canvas for the dog and cat was 11" by 17" and only cost 75 cents! I guess that was expensive back in the 60's. In college I was into painting nebulae (gas clouds in space where new stars are born.) I still have one of those hanging in my office. I gave a lot of those away for gifts as well. I wonder how many hit the garbage cans over the years.
When I was a freshman in college back in the 70's I was into constructing small boxes and then gluing black and white photos from magazines on the boxes as a collage. I still have one I gave my mother for a gift. She recently gave it back to me. You can see images of people that were in the news at the time among the photos. Some of them I do not recall, but I do see Paul McCartney and JFK. I also found some words to add to the collage as you can see in the photos. I wonder what my mom thought when I gave this to her as a gift! It was probably something like !!!!??? hippie.
It has been fun thinking about doing art as a child and what a thrill it was getting a new box of crayons or paints. Eventually this all lead to making quilts. I still do some painting, but I concentrate my efforts on quilting. This is where I find my creative soul these days, but it was fun to think about the childhood that lead me here.
Chris
so cool that your mom saved that box and gave it back~~
ReplyDeleteLook at you!! Here you were doing altered art (the boxes) long before altered art was ever named...I love your picture of your furbabies...Wow!!!! hugs, Skye
ReplyDeleteCollege in the 70's ... interesting times ... Viet Nam war, Kent State ... ah the memories. My art was questionable in those days. I can remember taking a design class as a senior in HS and the teacher just didn't think I had any design sense. Oh well! But, these days... quilts spark my soul! Your cat and dog are wonderful.
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