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beautiful
November 2009 
the world is beautiful.
Posted on Oct 18th, 2008
by 
synonym for light
synonym for light
this is a piece of art/collage/photo/box that was supposed to be a postcard that was inspired by tink and her little bit and albert and his mom and neil gaiman and national geographic and iceland and india and stars and grapes and trees and apples and angels made of stone and love and life and death and music.
Access: Public
great combo….I forgot about that song and that movie. It perked me this morning.
this is so beautiful. I keep wandering on the landscape of it, seeing new things in new ways.
I want to make a collage too. I have been saving bits and pieces, but I have no idea how to do it - the materials to use. I know you glue stuff on something and put something glazey to seal it - but what are the materials exactly?
Very beautiful!
maze – I'd forgotton about that song too and stumbled upon it the other night. love it.
mimi – to make a collage you use whatever you have available. at least that's what I do. this one was started with a box and onto it were glued various bits of stuff. then I ran out of glue and so I used what I had available - scotch tape. I didn't put anything over it– nothing glazy to seal it because it will need to be opened – it's going into the mail, but if I were making one that I wanted to see last for awhile I guess I would need to glazy it somehow. :-)
my rule for this activity was to use only what I have on hand. no credit cards or bank accounts were harmed in any way in the making of this bit of art. only treasures that were being neglected in my household were used and packaged to go on to brighter days of greater appreciation, hopefully in someone else's life.. :-)
I'm working on several boxes now. I don't do the usual holidays because my life is usually much to hectic at the holidays time of year, plus I'm more of a buddhist or taoist or humanist or environmentalist than christian even though I was raised in a mostly christian society – agnostic really. I work in Aspen and Christmas/ New Year's is the busiest time of our work year and we aren't allowed to take any time off during December / January unless we win the vacation lottery. So I try to make my gifts throughout the year and also not to buy in to the idea that one has to buy things to give gifts. I'm an eco/recycle/year round gift giver. The gift of an uncluttered Earth is nice too. :-)
hi emma. :-)
thanks for stopping by gaias. :-)
I LOVE this. Do you know what I'm gonna do?? Print it out paste it up frame it hang it on my wall :)
It's not just the dancer. It's not just the wonderful colors, the happy spirit riding in the stars, the bright green at the bottom that steals my heart, the stars, the sense of tink and lil bit whom I've come to love. It is, for me, sooooo the little angel/fairy-being right there in the center, with head hanging sad walkin' sooo sloooow.
But look!! The birds are flying in to soothe. The little dog in the back is moving faster — coming in to surprise and delight. “I'm here! I'm here with a heart soooo full of love and compassion, you'll not be able to do anything but brighten up and PLAY with me!” Yessss!
(And books. Ummmmmmmmm. Look at all those books! Wonder what's in them?? May I borrow a few?)
willow – wonderful. that makes me so pleased.
that little angel / fairy - being right there int he center is from a neil gaiman graphic novel. her name is delirium. she is a muse of mine. when I used to be more of a roller coaster of huge ups and downs, she reminded me of myself or maybe I just wanted to be that special and didn't know that I really could be. I printed her from a website somewhere some long time ago and taped her to my front door where she's been since we moved into our current home. we replaced that door last week because it was letting so much air in and out and I took her down. that's how this particular box project started. she is the very first thing that went onto the box and everything else had to begin to go around her.
you may borrow as many books as you like. that photo was from a photo collage I made when farland and I first got back from iceland. it was a very bad quality camera phone pic of a reflection of me in a used bookstore window in reykjavik at night– feeling a little like delirium that night – confused about going home soon and having the big iceland adventure come to an end and also so longing for some people at home– a strange time. I also brought home one wonderful book from that store. I think I may live in Iceland someday – maybe when I'm 87, who knows. it feels to me like I might really have lived there before or will in the future.
willow, I have so come to love you. your comment is more amazing than the box. you are wonderful. thank you so much for coming to visit.
I haven't commented here because I knew I was going to see the real thing and I wanted to wait - I almost wanted to unsee the pictures! And it's even more wonderful in person and I'm going to frame it and put it on my wall. And the things inside the box…Dawn, your idea of a postcard is a little different from mine…Thank you so so much - I feel incredibly honored.
I love your ideas about recycling/year round gifting. I like the idea of buy-nothing-day, but I would rather have a buy nothing holiday season. Krissy and I do stocking stuffers and I always do something for Adrian, but that's it. I have a hard time with the idea that the retail sector depends on all of us to max out our credit cards every winter - I can't participate in all that, it's just not fun. Not that I have any credit cards, but you know what I mean.
Dawn: awesome, awesome, beautiful gorgeous, awesome!!
Mimi: I'm with Dawn on using whatever you have ('no credit cards or bank accounts were harmed in any way in the making of this bit of art' - LOL!!)… that said, I like PVA for gluing, and you can get a product called Liquitex for glazy-thingy-ing it (which I've never bothered with, except for boxes).
There are a LOT of books now on doing this - search: collage, altered books, artist trading cards, decoupage, visual journals at a library. For collage enthusiasts, I recommend the incomparable Nick Bantock's (of Griffin & Sabine fame) Urgent: 2nd Class: Creating Curious Collage, Dubious Documents, and Other Art from Ephemera - which is more about encouraging you to play! - rather than how to do it.
Willow: yes! Everything you said! Mmmmm, books…
Dawn (again)… Ahhhh!!!! I'd forgotten I'd read somewhere about your trip to Iceland!! More, more!! Have you blogged about it somewhere?? Show me where!!! (Have you seen the movie No Such Thing??)
Tink: LOVE stockings, but so with you on the 'hard time with the idea that the retail sector depends on all of us to max out our credit cards every winter' - though I try to think of it as: people have been paying off debts this time of year since Roman times - no debts could go into the new year. Only, instead of paying off debt, we're paying it forward to our loved ones. Hmm. Not really so much. Have you read Judith Levine's Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping - she was freaking one xmas about the whole commercial merry-go-round, and decided not to buy ANYTHING - other than food, for a whole year. Interesting stuff.
May we ALL be blessed with infinite creative capacity (an minimal need to expend filthy lucre to exercise it)!!!
Dawn, I had seen this before and was reminded of old collages I used to make. I never put together anything like this, though. But I think I want to revisit it. I love Delirium.
oh, and here is a link to a collage I did a couple of years ago with a little angel/fairy being. And some Delirium…
ooh yeah! this is great dawn, I love it & now, I r e a l l y want to know what's in the box? ('o') I was thinking about a decoupage event for the art cards project too, still a slumbering idea for later when I'm vertical again. Going 3 dimensional is just awesome & very innovative out of the box thinking ;-)
the books on yr collage made me think of wallpaper frock. I love the designs & copy the idea by using rolls of retro wallpaper for decoration & if i weren't as lazy as I am, I'd love to create a collage roll to play with.. anyway, check the link, you might get inspired <3
oh my goodnes. where to begin. tink dearest – my roommate/friend whom I've known since jordan was a baby – got jealous when I was making that box – she said, “why haven't you ever made a box like that for me?”. so she's on my box list now – sometime before the end of this year she'll get one. I'll hide it under her pillow to save on postage. :-) heehee I feel a fairy attack coming on.
also – on the gift giving front – adam thinks I'm cheap, but I'm not, I'm just eco conscious and creative – it's more fun. (must remember to get him something NEW as a gift sometime.)
tsuya – I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Griffin and Sabine books – I had them once, but gave them away. I think our library has them still. I'm going to go visit them at the library soon. thanks for reminding me. and that other book of his. maybe I can convince the library to aquire it!! yum!!
anyone know any way to make glue from scratch at home?? I don't want to buy anymore glue sticks (or ANYthing made of plastic– unless it's made of recycled plastic and will be recycled again and even then I'm hesitant) since I read Chapter 9: Polymers are Forever in The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. There's too much plastic in the oceans and it's really, really bad. even for the zooplankton.
and iceland – I did blog about it at the time, but that website went out of business and I haven't really recreated that blog. I will search and find some links for you and maybe you've inspired a new project for me. also – check farland's blog. she has posted a few random comments about iceland and plenty of photos over the years. I'll get back to you on the iceland blogging thing. :-) I'm tickled that you are intested. I was obsessed for months before and months, even years afterward.
I won't go a year without buying anything, but I might go a year buying only things that are useful, beautiful or joyful. and then think deeply about what is actually useful, beautiful and joyful.
laura – yes! post pictures!!
tsuya – good links. beautiful faerie. :-) and thank you too for adding to the story from the storymaking blog!!
tara my dear – thank you. and for the link too. and you my dear are going to be going INto the box soon. a different box, but IN no less. check the mail a week from friday. you are my next “postcard”. your patience will be rewarded. now I've spoiled the surprise, but not really.
emma – I have your address too!! :-)
anyone else who has a bit of box envy, please send me your address and then be patient or…. even better…. forget that you've given me your address so you can be surprised someday. :-)
I love you all!!!
thank you for inspiring me.
PVA is awesome, I fell in love with it when I was doing scenic painting. It comes in gallon or larger containers which are recyclable, so that's a packaging plus. It can be used for gluing down, for glazing, and can be mixed with pigments to make saturated colors that aren't made chalky by a white base (it dries clear).
“Library paste” (which no library would every use of course) is just flour and water. It works great until the buggies get hungry and eat your work.
I can't work without adhesives, so I try to buy the largest containers possible to minimize packaging waste. I refill small containers when it's something that dries out easily, and float plastic wrap on top of the remainder in the larger container. Plastic wrap is a waste, but it's thin and much less wasteful than losing a big part of a container of glue or paint. I haven't figured out how to use more than half a bottle of gorilla glue because once the air space is created it turns itself into a rock. Has anyone mastered this?
A lot of adhesives have a solvent base, but quite a few could be packaged in plant derived containers, they just aren't. The consciousness isn't there yet. When I go to the art supply store downtown and look around I see mostly people who would pay extra for biodegradable packaging, but when I go to Michaels or someplace like that, the “craft store” kinda places, I see people in acrylic sweaters in the winter and metallic gold sandals in the summer and I don't think recycling is a big priority there, and thats where a huge portion of the customer base is. So I don't think the demand is big enough yet. Maybe as petroleum based products become more expensive the problem will self-resolve?
does pva stand for something? or should I just look for pva?
and god I hope you are right about the problem self resolving sometime SOON!
I've never used gorilla glue.
PVA stands for polyvinyl acetate. Sometimes it's written PVAc. It's a water-based polymer, which means clean up is easy, just like washing out acrylic paints.
Gorilla glue is the bomb. You could probably build a house by gluing it together with gorilla glue. I'm sure it's made of toxic waste or something but god, that stuff is sturdy. I love it for 3D things like wooden boxes with stuff arranged inside. Or reattaching a car door (kidding, but just barely).
nice. sounds like I should never, ever, ever touch gorilla glue. I am a hazard with glue to start with. :-)
Well, it takes a few minutes to set up. I'm a hazard with superglue - I've been known to glue my fingers together, to glue objects to my body (unintentionally), and to find when I'm done that something can't be picked up off of my desk anymore. But for some reason the things I'm trying to glue with it usually don't stick…
tsuya – i haven't seen that movie but when I googed this is what I found first….
the kids in the carpool to jordan's school in 6th or 7th grade LOVED the CD that this song was on…..
no such thing.
it was nice to hear it again. thanks. that john mayer is so cute in a could be my son sort of way. :-)
now I'll go see if I can find out about that movie. :-)
tsuya – I got that movie – “no such thing” from netflix and watched it last week. the acting was TERRIBLE, but I enjoyed the movie anyway. I'm sure I laughed in many of the places that weren't actually meant to be funny and didn't laugh in some of the places that were meant to be funny. :-) I absolutely adored seeing parts of Iceland again and hearing Icelandic spoken. There was a part where the heroine is drinking coffee in a gas station and it was so true to life. All the gas stations in Iceland had these great little coffee areas with those small cups and real cream and sugar cubes – yumm!!! thanks for the recommendation – it brought back sweet memories.
that line from the john mayer song – I just found out there's no such thing as the real world.” makes me so happy.
I like to steal a line or two from song lyrics, take them out of context and paste them to other lyrics or ideas — lyric collages – you don't need any glue for lyric collages.