ARTS IN THE CARDS

June ATC challenge is

"Sunflowers and Lemonade"

My first mixed media class was with an artist (Nicki Bonnet) who used a lot of found objects in her art. She also used a lot of unconventional stuff for surface design, one of which was spray paint. She said that after taking her class we would never look at "stuff" lying around outside the same. I was hooked.

My partner is a photographer, and while traveling we make many roadside stops. He takes pictures and I roam the side of the road looking for what we call "road kill". I usually end up with a bag of "road kill" and the end of our trips to stash away in my studio. I often wonder why one rusty bottle cap out of a dozen strewn about catches my eye on any particular day. I excuse myself by knowing that someday, that bottle cap will be just the thing I need to complete a piece of art.

While trying to figure out what to do for this month's ATC challenge, and after many false starts, I came across some pages of a telephone book that I had altered a while back. I first painted the page yellow, silk screened some green dots, then silk screened some branches in brown. The whole thing looked kind of hideous so I tossed it into a box with other"uglies" hoping that someday that phonebook page would work out for me. Then I found the metal flower pieces that I picked up years ago from...??? Oh, the brown velvet buttons without a shank were in a box that I came across while trying to clear my studio cutting table. All of these things came together to make the ATC cards.