Thursday, January 21, 2010

Hmmm...Chairs

Here is one of two chairs that I took apart several months ago now with the intention of reviving them. However, as you can plainly see, they are still bare! The plan is to re-upholster them and paint the wood parts white. The second part of the plan is to complete this over Winter Break (December 23 - January 2), which didn't happen. Deciding what fabric to use has been the most difficult decision so far!


(one of the bare chairs)


(I kept the fabric from one of the chairs to use as a pattern. The fabric and the cushions are sooo dirty and gross!)


(I bought these chairs from a local thrift store for $10 each about 2.5 years ago now. The form and character of the chairs is great! The idea from the very beginning was to remodel them.)

These are the samples I picked at first. I love the "ocean" colored ones (the first one and the last two); however, after staring at these for the last several months, the idea of covering the chairs with them became...boring? I was finding a lot of fabrics I liked and some I loved, but none that were calling out that they are what these chairs need for their new adventures in life (or at least in my living room).











Tuesday, December 8, 2009 while researching for the American Art packet (for ESHS) by watching PBS's Art21 programs online, I had an inspiration. (Nothing in the programs actually inspired this thought, just that art in and of itself inspires more art!) Anyway, I am totally in love with the Irish landscape (I really, really want to go there someday!) and had the idea to turn my chairs into works of art instead of just pretty chairs. Therefore, I am going to create an Irish landscape on my chairs! They will almost have the feel of a quilt being draped over the back of them, but the 'quilt'/landscape will be part of the chair! Tricky, huh!?! I'm so excited to start designing them and putting them back together and paint the frame black (it's the actual chair frame AND the frame for the work of Art!! Isn't that awesome?). I really needed an art project to work on and now I have one! ( Now, I'm working on the pesky problem of getting the money to finish them.)


(This is just a picture for inspiration, it won't look exactly like this picture)



(Fabrics that I'm thinking about using. The blue on the bottom right will be the sky and the brown next to it is for the chair seat. The "landscape" will start at the back of the seat and travel up the back of the chairs.)
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Creativity Journal

Creativity: to create something novel and appropriate to the situation (see post: "What is Creativity," December 11, 2009)*

1. Create something out of the word simcha (joy/happiness/festivities/celebrations/etc)

2. Finish my chairs (See post, "Update: My Chairs")

3. Pottery

4. Start a children's Art class

5. Teach Art at a Women's Correctional Facility

6. Come up with assignments for the American Arts packet

7. Change the assignments in the Drama Costuming packet - the students will create 4-5 female and male costumes from the 11 time periods included in the packet, plus the final instead of only writing (copying and pasting) info about each time period.

8. Create a book exchange/book club for illiteracy/aliteracy

9. Learn Art in a foreign country

10. Write a book

11. Start a children's magazine for children by children and publish it on the web.

12. Create trees and hands (not necessarily together, but maybe?)

13. Blog book - only novel in the sense that it's my own writing!

14. Create a chess set (even though I don't personally play chess, lol!)

15. S'mores with a twist

16. 3D art - I admire other forms of art, but I personally only truly enjoy the physicallity and manipulative quality of 3D art. There's something truly living in 3D art that I miss in 2D art.

17. Sign language hands (alphabet/words)

18. Hands of twisted metal coils

19. use different types of materials to create imprints in clay (wire mesh)

20. A shelf/centerpiece holder (a couple of bricks on the bottom, long, thin wood, 12" width laying on top, block (thicker than the bricks on the bottom - 6"?) in middle, and a short piece of wood on the very top).

21. vase (fill baggie with rice and seal the bag, wheel thrown then carefully squish).

22. 3D collage out of meaningful paper.

23. Babushka doll style vase with side cutout (possibly put a piece of glass in the side opening)

24. Babushka dolls - make smallest one first, with side opening and something inside(?), then the next biggest - place small one inside next biggest when done with the bottom of it and secure the two together. Continue this process with side openings in each so that you can see all the way through to the inside "jem" in the smallest one!

25. atlas - split into pieces and reassemble into something new - mobile? encase each piece in between glass sheets, hang as a put together puzzle.

26. paper dolls & scenery out of different types of paper, paintings, collages, maps, etc.

27. A storm cloud with a silvery lining (mobile?) ceramic/paper mache

28. "baby ducklings" for each child, somehow uniquely different somehow, name and date of birth.

29. "stained glass" with veggies/fruits & other natural things. Lacquered and soldered.

30. Men's dress shirts with faux cuff links printed onto the cuffs or fancy/fun buttons to replace the buttons on a standard dress shirt. button clips? a button cover-up to go over existing buttons without changing the button itself.

31. A pottery wheel bat that has form attachments in order to create smooth indentations in the "bottom" of the piece being thrown.

32. "Quilt" of the six-day-Christian-creation-period.

33. A dollhouse book for paper dolls! such a cool idea!!

34. print your own fabric using a large "rolling pin" stamp?

35. Cloth nesting dolls

36. map topography - cut out all of the countries and continents and islands, layer then largest to smallest hang them slightly apart. From an actual map? or traced out onto something else?

*Please be creative and use your own ideas and not mine. Although if you are inspired by my ideas and the inspiration and not the idea itself is used, then by all means, use the inspiration!!

About Me

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I love visiting with family and friends, reading, teaching, art, and day dreaming about world travel, especially going to Ireland someday. In 2009, I earned a MAED in Elementary Education. In addition, I completed both the Reading and Elementary Math Endorsements during the 2013-2014 school year. Currently, I teach first grade and love it!

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