I have completed the cards; they now have silver stars and a sprinkling of snow. I decided to sell them for $3.50 each, with $2 from each sale going to the Philippines disaster recovery via Oxfam. My sister and her family lived in the Philippines when the kids were little and one of my staff has a partner who comes from there, so want to help out. More than half of them are sold already! Might be another card making session coming up.
I’ve spent part of the day making Christmas cards using Gelli Plate prints; none of them are finished yet. The inspiration came from an email by the Cloth, Paper, Scissors team. There’s a link to the project I have transformed into cards.
My dear friend Joanne Dillon bought me back some stencils when she went to the USA recently. One of them I had seen someone using on an art video on YouTube and had been lusting after it – and now it’s in my stash. How awesome is that? Today I got out my art journal, new stencils, inks etc and had a play to get a feel for them. Most of these pages aren’t finished yet but I wanted to share progress shots. JD – you rock!
In 2010 Tony and I took four works I’d created to the Legato exhibition in Cassino, Italy. They honoured four men who had swerved in WWII; my dad, my best friend’s dad and uncle, and the father of a woman who had worked for dad.
I am sending work next year, when the commemorations will be all the more special as the world marks 100 years since WWI. I’m already doing a large landscape based on my recollections of the walk to one of the memorial services we went to, but have been hankering to do something honouring a solider as well. But didn’t know who, or why. I should have known to listen and wait, because the answer always comes.
My good friend Joanne D had asked me a while back about doing a piece to honor her grandfather but we didn’t pursue it. She and I have been emailing and I’m going to do a piece that she can show her Granny then it can travel to Italy, then return to her family. Fantastic!
Before I knew that was happening, I decided to search the internet for local people who had served that could have relatives I could trace and talk to. My mother was adopted, and didn’t find out until she was in her 60s – but we were able to find out both her mother and father’s full names and are in contact with some family members. I was scrolling through names and there was someone I thought had to be her uncle. I range her half-sister and she confirmed this but went on to say that her father had served in WWI as well. Would I like her to send me some copies of war records etc so I could do a work about him.
I had to end the conversation and think about what I had just heard – that I was being given the opportunity to honour the grandfather I never knew by creating a work about him and sending it to Italy to be honoured by hundreds of people. I felt utterly overwhelmed. I wrote back today to say “yes, please do send me some copies” as I’d love to do this.
When we connect with people, and tell others what we need, it’s incredible what happens. Here’s a photo of Mum, and the piece I did of Dad – I knew they’d both be excited to hear this.
The piece I’m working on was looking quite ‘pretty’ but I knew it needed an ancient wall. This meant trusting my instinct and being prepared to act – something I have been not so good at in recent times. with my art This afternoon I took a deep breath, made a mask, grabbed some brown and black inks and started making an ancient wall right over the top of the some of the prettiness. It feels good to be trusting myself to grab paint and go for gold. Here are some detail shots (in reverse order – oops)
Here’s some late afternoon shots showing the progress in wee patches of detail. The layers now include very dilute fluid acrylics, heavy body acrylic and spray inks.
For once I am remembering to take rough ‘n ready photos as I work through the many, often ugly duckling, stages of a mixed media painting. The photos are quick, crooked and poorly lit, but are enough to show the process I work through, and are in order.
I’m sending work to the Legato exhibition in Cassino, Italy, in 2014. I’ve been playing with ideas for a while, but nothing has worked as I wanted it to. The problem has been my head-space rather than my actual art practice. Last night I think I finally got into the right place mentally to get on with it. Fingers crossed.
Legato is now an established part of the annual WW2 Battles of Cassino commemorations held in Cassino, Italy in May each year. The 70th commemorations will be a special time with surviving veterans, international dignitaries and families of veterans participating as well as the local Italian people who are committed to remembering and honouring the people who were there during WW2.
I have some full size sheets of watercolour, a bucket of water, a couple of photos, my memories of Italy, some stencils, inks, fluid acrylics, brushes and a new roll of handytowels. Oh, and my camera. Here’s a few visuals of what’s involved.
Cath Sheard 