art
Family-themed art is a look into one's living room; it depicts celebration, crises, and the quiet moments of familial interactions.
Creativity and Craft
In my view anyone can be creative, but when you combine creativity with craft you can produce fine art! I create my artwork with paper. I've learned that creating with paper requires the skillful use of an array of tools such as scissors, knives and rulers. The first piece I can ever remember making was a paper daisy chain surrounding the title of the Beatle's song, 'Come Together'. I remember with pride because my 5th Grade teacher, Ms. Carmola, put it up on our classroom's wall!
By Aaron Needle5 years ago in Families
My Bohemian Upbringing
People often ask me how I came about my painting method. And it’s just not one easy answer. First I feel a need to explain; I didn’t want to be an artist when I was a kid growing up. My parents were both artists, when I was a young child they curated an art gallery and would have openings. People would come up to me and ask-do you want to be an artist when you grow up? I didn’t know. In 1969 my family went to Europe for a year, it was something a lot of people did at that time did; the American dollar had a high value there. According to my dad, when we lived in Malaga, Spain, I would sit in front of paintings on the floor of museums and draw, people would watch. I don’t remember this, I was 5 years old. One thing I DO remember about Europe was lying on the benches of the Louvre bored, as my young artist parents looked at Monet paintings from every angle, step back, move forward, and squint. My biggest disappointment that year was that the “Piccadilly Circus” was not a circus, but a square in London! My grandmother had come over when we were in Italy, and journeyed with us to London, where we caught a giant sea going ship back to the states. She kept saying all the way through the Netherlands we were going to Piccadilly Circus. I thought it was a real circus. My mom spent her inheritance, living, traveling, and doing art; then she went back to college in the 70s. Just like Donna’s mom, from the 70s show, she set out to “find herself.” My parents got divorced when we came back from Europe.
By Melissa Brown5 years ago in Families
Bold Joy
My mom, who is a hairdresser in Puerto Rico, lost her job after the devastation of Hurricane Maria. The hair salon where she was working for the last 6 years never recovered from the damages. This hurricane left thousands of families without homes and destroyed some communities entirely. We lost an estimated 2,975 American citizens. My mom proved her resilience by bringing clients to her home. Her business was starting to pick up, until COVID-19 lock down, leaving her without a job again.
By Christian Marrero 5 years ago in Families
Creating Happiness
Her work desk, in the dimly lit corner of her bedroom, was perfectly in order. Artists paper laid out amongst the many shapes and sizes of bristles of her paintbrushes with paint palettes of acrylic paint made from leftover cardboard cereal boxes-perfectly imperfect, nestled together amongst one another on her desk. Her tool caddy with the different patterned edged scissors and all the tools she'd ever need were right within her reach where she could access them easily. The smooth melody of Billie Holidays "I'll be seeing you" playing in the background, Kayla was about to transcend into her happy place where she could create something beautiful for others in a mindset she could escape within, an alternate reality, if you will.
By Kayla Fridrich5 years ago in Families
Repurposed with Love. Top Story - June 2021.
Checking the mail It wasn’t that long ago that I fell in love with a widowed gentleman. He would check his mail “to see if anybody loved” him, and would return smiling, even if it was only a bill waiting in the box. This gripped me, for I had long loved greeting cards, and bought them randomly over a period of years if they were pretty or amusing or unique. I bought the ones that made me feel something, and that I could imagine others would like. My collection was a reflection of part of me. I bought the cards, yet there had been no reason, no purpose or person in mind other than to recapture the feeling it had given to me the first time I saw it or read it.
By LP Steinbeck5 years ago in Families
Wishing Bear
In the Alaska summer of 2009, I had just graduated college and was looking for more ways to help pay off my school debt. Raised in bush Alaska, 40 miles from the nearest road and completely off-grid, I had a wide variety of self-sustaining craft skills. I was currently living in Anchorage, the largest town of our state. The city often attracted more tourist than state residents. So, I decided to make unique gifts for travelers. Their little “piece of Alaska” to take home.
By Meghan Williams5 years ago in Families
Shaping Happiness
I grew up wanting to become an artist. Perhaps it was growing up in my grandmother’s house when I first developed this affinity. Every morning I walked down the pink-painted hall adorned with paintings; some framed, some exposing the carefully painted edge of the canvas. They were all mounted center to the adjacent piece to form a line, almost as if done with the same care you would see in a gallery. In this house, not a single wall was bare. If not decorated with framed and embroidered verses, or butterflies preserved in shadow boxes, the walls were made known with patterned wallpaper in retro orange and greens. Everyday I walked down the hall that stretched from the front entry to my grandfather’s study, and I would look up at the paintings.
By Janine Yeung5 years ago in Families
Create Your Happiness: Découpage
Art runs in my veins from both sides of my family. On my mother’s side my Great-grandmother, Margot Lund, was one of the Queen of Norway’s seamstresses designing and sewing her dresses in the early 20th century. Her daughter, Elsa Lund, my grandmother, learned the seamstress trade and sewed her children’s clothes as well as her daughter’s Barbie clothes in the 1950s and 1960s.
By Lisa Comento5 years ago in Families
