Day 67: Vaguely Vain

Day 3 of the “wow, I really love mixed media work” series. The president of the California Council of the Blind gave me a call in reference to an inquiry I placed a little while ago. I want to do an art project for the blind, but as a sighted person, I wanted to get some insight as to how the blind community currently experiences art. As an exercise to get my brain thinking in terms of touch and sound instead of purely as images, I decided to take a quick trip to a great local thrift store for inspiration.

There, feeling baskets and dishes and crochet with my eyes closed, trying to create mental images based only on the texture, size, weight and spatial relationships, I started to get some insight as to how I might tackle this project. When I returned home, I had a totally rad old physics textbook, some vintage sewing patterns and yarn to add to pile of mixed media resources and today’s piece to do.

I am trying to spread out how frequently I use a canvas since they don’t grow on trees… well, they have wood, so I guess they kind of do, but anyway, I’ve been meaning to use more paper and fabric and whatnot. The thing is that I just love the way canvas feels under the brush. There is a distinct difference between painting on a wood panel, painting on a stretched canvas and painting on a flat canvas panel (where the canvas is adhered to stiff board). The brushes have different tension, the paint reacts differently…. there are just subtleties that you come to notice about your favored media over time.

It was an interesting moment today because as I finished this one up and put it on the wall with its brother and sister, I thought “I can kind of see me making these forever”. I’ve never had an art moment quite like that, so we’ll see where it leads. “Vaguely Vain” includes the Spanish/English “mirar” page, a scientific diagram of a mirage, part of a sewing pattern and a few other odds and ends. I think I like it the most, but then I like all three together quite a bit.