Commit Acts of Art Every Day: Exploring Art

 "Not every act of art creates something special, but it does create something. It is the act of art that is important, not the result." Michael L. Goodman

On the last Friday of each month, I teach a free art class for the West Jordan Cultural Arts Society called Exploring Art. It is designed for tweens, teens, and adults, and is a time when we come together to experiment and commit acts of art.

In the last half century, the city of West Jordan has grown from a small rural community in the Salt Lake Valley to being the third-largest city in population in the State of Utah. While the city has kept its rural, western attitude with its PRCA Western Stampede Rodeo every Fourth of July week and demolition derbies in August, the city also vigorously supports through the Cultural Arts Society a community symphony, a jazz band, a concert band, The Sugar Factory Playhouse, The West Jordan Youth Theatre, a literary arts guild, and the visual arts. The visual arts sponsors a spring Arts in the Park festival each year and oversees an art gallery housed at West Jordan City Hall.

The Exploring Art series is not a continuing, in-depth art class. It was designed to introduce participants to a different art form each month, give them some time to practice, and send them home with a few supplies to continue creating on their own. In the first three classes, we explored Op Art, Neurographic Art, and Zendoodle. In August, the class will explore origami folded books and zines. Future classes will explore reverse piano-hinge art journals, gelli plate monoprinting, mail art, and Artist Trading Cards.

I made a few samples for the participants to see as I gave the introduction. Here is one of the Neurographic samples I made, with copies of it decorated various ways.

After showing the samples, I put them away so the participants would not try to copy them while working on their pieces. Here are some in-progress works by some of the participants in the Neurographic Art class:

Commit Acts of Art Every Day!

Two ATC Posts

My first ATC trade for March was a quick trade Mayan mask theme. I found this Mayan head in an old art text. After trying it out on several backgrounds , I decided this black and white op-art was the best fit. I especially like the way the black and white appeared in the eyes. I sent the card off in the hand made envelope below.

The second trade of March was a pattern card. My trade partner likes kaleidoscopes, so I wanted to use the patterns in the form of a kaleidoscope. Along the way of experimenting, I thought of a Victorian puzzle purse as an extension of the pattern theme. I have never before now made a puzzle purse that did not start with a square piece of paper. Rather than cut of the extra parts under the top folds, I had to adjust the folds so that the purse would open to show the pattern on the inside. After a lot of trial and error, this is what came to be.

I made tight creases on the inside folds so that it easily collapses back into the shape of the card.

I sent this trade in a single sheet folded into an origami envelope. I created the page on the computer. I used this paper, because I felt that the collage fit with the pattern theme of the trade.These envelopes generally make it through the postal machinery, but sometimes they get chewed up. I usually ask the post office to hand stamp these types of envelopes and hand sort them. They will often hand cancel but then throw them into the sorter anyway.

Optical Art, Op Art and Crossed Eyes

While sorting through a box of old art papers, bits and pages from magazines and other fodder that I have saved for art projects and collages that are yet to be created out of the chaos, I found a folder of black and white op-art that I have had for at least thirty-seven years. Most of the pieces are copies of student work from the early years of my career when I taught art at Union Junior High. They are the high contrast black and white, geometric designs which if looked at too closely or too long cause the eyes to cross and summon hallucinations, head aches and, in extreme cases, a dead faint. Best to be avoided, but if not, at least taken in small doses.

 

 

 

So small it is. I made some copies on cardstock and chopped the sheets into 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch cards. Then I broke out the gel pens and started to alter the cards. I have a black and white ATC trade coming up, so I used three of the cards as a background for a set of chat noir cards.

I used a few others as backgrounds with some cutouts from magazines, but most of the cards I have been coloring with the gel pens. Here are a few cards that have been colored, but are not in a final, finished form.