Art Projects in My Brain

I could spend all day puttering around.  I have tools handy, I’ve got a stereo and a big…ass…fan so it’s not overly hot (with the exception of the current heat wave going on) and I’ve always got piles of stuff laying around for my many art projects. I usually look at the stuff and wait for inspiration. Lots of times, I don’t know what I’m going to use it for – I just know that I need it.

 My stash currently consists of 3 or 4 gnarly twisted vines and some crazily bent pieces of wood and lots of bee wood. What’s bee wood you ask? I’ve already written a story about taking some to work but I’ll tell you again. Bee wood is a branch of cedar, which has wood bee holes bored through it. I’ve got a couple of cool projects going using that stuff. I try to find things in nature and make them into something cool. Right now, I also have a long running project that uses dirt dauber nests. I’ll let you know what I’m doing with them once I’m done but it might be a while. I only have one spot where I can collect the nests and I’m at the mercy of the creatures to decide when and how many to build. I was working on one today and kept getting whiffs of something really stinky. I couldn’t figure out where the heck it was coming from until I took a smell of my hand. Holy crikey! My hands smelled like something had died! Then, I got the bright idea to smell the dirt dauber nest. BIG MISTAKE. My nostrils were stuffed full of dead, rotting dirt dauber babies and let me tell ya…they stink!

 My mom told me that when I was young and encountered something new I’d have to touch it and then smell it. You’d think that after a lifetime of smelling some pretty rank things I’d learn my lesson. Um, yeah. NO. I’m 60 and I’m still making the same damn mistake. So let me be a warning system for you…don’t take a huge snort of a dirt dauber nest that’s been opened. It smells worse than ass.

 I’ve also been playing with leaves. They’re so interesting and come in so many varieties. I can’t resist pressing them into wet concrete or mud and I love to arrange them by color. Sort of like a natural color wheel only I line them up into a line. See?

I’m very inspired by the artist Andrew Goldsworthy. If you’ve never seen his work, look him up. He does some amazing work using items found in nature. He doesn’t use anything that’s man made. I’ve seen some of his work that used his own spit as glue. He must be psychotically patient because some of his stuff takes weeks or months to make and then he purposely lets them fall apart and go back into nature. If I’m going to spend hours and days and weeks on something, I want it to last for infinity.  Mr. Goldsworthy is a true artist.

I take forever to be inspired or slap something out on an impulse. I’ve got stuff on the front porch, the back porch, by the fire pit and in various places around the garage and of course, I have stuff scattered about in the house.  So really, I only have 8 or 10 piles of stuff that's waiting for artistic inspiration. I don’t think I’m ready to appear on the hoarders show just yet.

Right now my mind is whirling around some new ideas. I need a mannequin, some zebra wood, a French horn or two, some old bed springs and some chicken wire if anyone has any of those. I’d also down right beg for a band saw. I could do 20 new projects if I had that baby. So, if you ever have some weird junk lying around or you see a crazy crooked piece of wood and you can’t figure out what to do with it, send it my way. I’ll use it eventually. Oh, and I could use some metal pipes or any kind of iron so I can bust out the welder and make something awesome.

I’ve got to go now. I see some moths laying around and I was just struck with an idea as to what to do with their wings. See, I just exploded with a few new ideas. Dream big people. And be sure to look for me at the weird-o artists convention one of these days. Because if you know me, you’ll know that I’m weird. And proud of it.