Yesterday I went to Fort Collins to the Colorado Quilting Council meeting. It is a state wide guild that holds its meetings all over the state of Colorado. Sometimes they are close to me; sometimes not so much.
Fort Collins is about 1 1/2 hours away from where I live- so very doable for a day trip. It is a fun place- with lots to see and lots to do. I wish I had remembered to take pictures! I stopped at the knit shop Lambspun– it is the shop that is featured in Maggie Sefton’s knitting mystery book series. Lots of beautiful yarn- good thing I had left my wallet in the car or I might have heard “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!”
Last year at Thanksgiving we went to Fort Collins with our daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law and went on a brewery tour. Fun stuff.
Back to yesterday, we had the meeting in the morning and our lecturer was Lyric Kinard. Great. If you have never heard her talk, try to. Very inspiring. She talked about creating art and learning the steps–she really tried to impress on us that everyone can be an artist–you just need to learn how. It is just like reading–you didn’t start but reading Shakespeare, you learned the basics.
Then I stayed for the afternoon class- the working title of it was BAD ART Day!
Loved it.
Here is the bad art we created. I say we, because you never worked on one piece start to finish (except the portrait, but I’ll tell you about that one later).
The idea was to play- play with shape, line, color, texture, and value. All the things she talked about in her lecture earlier in the day. She would give us an instruction, and like the t.v. game Jeopardy, we only had so much time to do it. Don’t think too hard.
Then we either passed the piece along to someone else in the group, or we got up and moved.
The best thing I got from this class was to remember to let yourself play and make bad art. Don’t expect perfection right away. Use your scraps, practice and throw it out. Let yourself off the hook; you don’t have to be perfect the first time. Repeat, use your scraps, practice and throw it out.
Recently at another meeting I heard the following statement and basically Lyric was saying the same thing: Don’t compare your beginning or middle to someone’s ending.
So, go play and make bad art. And remember, use your scraps, practice something and throw it out!
Next time I will talk a little more about each piece I brought home and show you my “portrait”! But right now, I have some more Globetrotting blocks to catch up on.
Here are the blocks for March- only April left and then I will be up to date!
happy making bad art,
Kate