up to speed

So I wanted to give everyone a little background about me and my art journey before I started blogging about the everyday “stuff”, so I think you’re pretty well up to speed now! Oh! Except I took one more class at the community college – intro to painting – and got to play with paint and learn how it works! Here’s my two favs from that class:

Now, in other news, Jason (my wonderful husband) went off-roading with his jeep and some friends last weekend and look what he brought me back!! He said they were from some old mining camp from the 1800s (but could’ve been from campers in present day too ;) – still so cool! Can’t wait to figure out something to do with them!

first tries

these were my first mixed-media art pieces. I had read an article on transferring images and absolutely HAD to try it! i used shots jason had just taken on our anniversary (for those of you who already saw this post yesterday, when jason got home i made him take new pictures for me, so these ones are better :)

Then I started taking my first art class – an intro to design class (with Barry Krammes – lol) – and I LOVED it! Just putting colors and textures and ideas together in visually appealing ways… felt so much like just playing! I was 26 and in a class with all these cute little college freshmen, many of whose skills with drawing or painting far exceeded mine… but I could hold my own with design! :) my 2 favorite pieces from that:

lovin' the silhouettes!

Barry introduced me to beeswax, and i fell in love! this piece got a little... melted, 'cause i originally hung it above the oven in my kitchen -- not such a good idea :)

Biola was too expensive even to audit, so after that I took a drawing class at the Community College, and loved that, too! I mean, I was REALLY unsure of myself at first “never” having drawn before. But my teacher, Alexandra Weisenfeld, was so encouraging! I felt like the star of the class – she not only praised my technical abilities in drawing, but also my playful, creative side – made me feel like a “real” artist with real potential. A couple of pieces from that class:


self-portrait

my "art area" (known to most artists as the studio? i guess because it's only part of a big room, we call it that...). picture got smudgy from being in my portfolio with charcoal drawings...

While I was taking that class, they had a contest at my work (Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles) for nurses to submit art pieces with a theme of “Family-centered care”, so I made a last minute piece and turned it in! that was so scary – putting myself out there like that… only about 7 nurses entered, but I WON! $500! It was crazy! And SO exciting! I took Jason out to dinner at the Yard House with that money to thank him for his support and celebrate with me, and then with the rest, every last penny went back into supplies and stuff for making more art! (if only every piece I made could be so profitable! I really could quit “work” and just “play” making art! :) think it’ll be a while before that happens…… ) Anyways, here’s that piece (I got paid $500 for it AND I got to keep it!)

it all started with scrapbooking (2 of 2)

Then the transition to “art”. My husband and I love to go on “dates” to Borders. Sit in their café area and read together, drink yummy concoctions… so I would always grab a huge stack of all the scrapbooking magazines and thumb through them till I had so many new ideas floating around I had to go home and play (oh, and sometimes we buy books and magazines, too – we’re not JUST freeloaders ;)! Well, one day, somehow a Cloth Paper Scissors ended up in my stack and I started reading it, intrigued by the images and my very first introduction to mixed-media art – I think I read it cover-to-cover that day. But the article that drew me in the most was the one by Kelly Rae Roberts. I delighted in my first glimpses of her art, but even more than that, it was her story! So similar to mine. That she had been in the medical field, totally not using creative talents at all, and then eventually after she discovered the joy she had in creating, she took the daring step of leaving that stable career and dedicating herself to making art as a full-time endeavor! That has been my dream since that moment. I also had a friend at the same time who was an art teacher, who was working on developing her own portfolio, and we began to talk about her art and the altered books assignments she was giving her class… she started giving ME creative assignments, too! And it was all downhill from there for me! I couldn’t stop! I started taking art classes at local colleges, to try to develop some of those skills a little bit more, and I have fallen in love. My day no longer seems complete unless I’ve created something that day. I am obsessed with rust and all things distressed. I love texture and almost none of my pieces get away without some sewing pattern attached to it, making it all wrinkly…

it all started with scrapbooking (1 of 2)

I know, I know. That statement is enough to make all the “real artists” out there shudder. But it’s true, and I can’t deny it! I had never considered myself “creative” IN ANY WAY. I grew up always being the smartie – good at stuff like math and science – guess that’s why I became a nurse! But anytime a project called for creativity, I was like “count me out!” Then I discovered scrapbooking. I mean, I had glued stuff in scrapbooks since I was like 15,

my first scrapbook ever

but never paid any attention to color or layout or anything, but when I was in college, some of my other nursing friends were scrapbookers and I saw a whole new world open up!

my first "cute" scrapbook

My skills kept developing in that area, but I still thought “I’m not creative – I just put together stuff that’s already there in my own way.” Then I had a conversation with a friend that helped me realize that that is exactly what creativity is! You don’t start from nowhere and create new worlds without a reference point in THIS world and the things and colors and textures you’ve experienced here! It really is just putting it all together in a new way that is “yours”. That opened up the doors of creativity to me – I suddenly had the freedom to do whatever I wanted with my supplies, and I loved it! I still stuck with paper pretty exclusively for a while, making cards and scrapbooking for myself and others.

People started calling me “their creative friend”! What a change! I hadn’t done anything creative like paint or draw or collage since I was a kid (part of the reason for the name “rusty artist” – the idea that everyone starts out as kids able to access their creative sides, but as many are encouraged in a different direction, they stop using those talents/that side of them, and it ends up “rusty”.) Now people were asking ME to create stuff for them and their families!

jason took pictures of a bunch of rusty stuff for me at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco (you can't really tell from this picture, but the letters "RUSTY" have actual rust on them - not sure if that's too archival, but i like it :)

Explanation of the name RustyArtist

The reason for this name is twofold: first, I love rust. I cannot resist a rusty object. My sisters joke that for my birthday or Christmas, all they have to do is go look around on the street till they find something rusty, and I will be happy – lol – it’s true! I think I even put it on my Christmas wish list one year – “rusty stuff”. I buy objects from thrift stores and MAKE them rusty. Like this shield – it started out plastic with a shiny silver emblem – doesn’t it look way better now?? ;) The second reason for this name is the idea that most of us are “rusty artists”. We get to express our creativity boundlessly in childhood, but soon it becomes less accepted as we “grow up” and are encouraged in other, more practical directions. So my creativity was very “rusty” when I finally rediscovered it a few years ago, and I’m still getting all my creative parts in working order. Can you hear the tin man saying “oil can…”?