New Portrait

Sorry it's been a while since I've updated.  It has been a crazy couple weeks at home.  Not a whole lot to update on, but here is a new self portrait. 

Green Self Portrait  9x6"  Color Stick on Discarded Student Artwork

A Developing Style?

So here's my newest self portrait.  I think I'm developing a multi-layered style that I actually find enjoyable.  I may do a couple more self portraits in then style to hone it in a little more, then start doing some other content.  Most likely a bit larger and detailed.  Anyhow enjoy the pic.

Untitled Self Portrait  8x8in Watercolor and Color Stick on Corrugated Cardboard

 

 

As always, thanks for reading.

 

Raygun

Blue Self Portrait and Small Update

Well, I know I've been slacking lately here on the blog, so here's a self portrait.  My students took a little too much paint today, so I had them set it aside instead of washing it down the sink.  It was interesting modding their pre-mixed colors into a useable pallet for a self portrait.  I'm really fond of working on surfaces that are salvaged now.  I think I will be venturing out soon to see what I can find out in the wilderness (and by wilderness I mean garbage cans and thrift stores). 

On a side note, I've temporarily suspended the random word every two week project.  It's been over six weeks, and I haven't had a single submission.  On top of that, I have only half finished one project myself.  Mot of my free time has been devoted to self portraits, restoring my 1961 VW, and all of the awesome chores that come with being a land owner with numerous trees during the autumn months.  Expect more later.  The gears are definitely turning, and some new stuff will be up soon.

Anyhow, here's the self portrait:

      Blue Self Portrait  4x6in Tempera and Color Stick on Discarded Student Artwork

As always, Thanks for reading.

Raygun

Ecce Raygun: A Rant About the Value of Art

Behold, It's me!  I'm here with another personal blog update.  For those of you with sensitive eyes, there will be swearing.  For those of you who are offended by the defacement of artwork, or the destruction of religious iconography, you may want to read on...or not, I guess it depends how open minded you are.  I'll assume that you know where I'm going with this rant.  If not, read this article and come back.  It's okay.  I'll wait.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/world/europe/botched-restoration-of-ecce-homo-fresco-shocks-spain.html

Okay.  Now that we're all up to date, please allow me to bestow upon you my opinion about this botched restoration job:  This is one of the best damn things to happen to the art world in years.  Allow me to explain my thought process in three stages.

1.  The proper preservation of artwork is now more of a concern than it was a few months ago.

Obviously, this was an important enough painting to grab national attention once it was defaced.  If one of my pieces of artwork had "Potato Jesus" painted over the top of it, not one person would give a shit.  I mean, I would.  But I'd probably be too busy laughing my ass off to get really upset.  So here's the question:  If it was so important, why didn't the church do a little preventative maintenance during the many years of neglect, or at least mention to the parishioners, "yeah, we know the frescoes are looking rough, would you mind putting the word out to help us raise money for a restoration"?  Nope, instead the head of the church let a little old lady with no artistic training take a crack at fixing Jesus up.

Now there are talks of lawsuits against the little old lady.  Churchgoers and art buffs all over are the world are up in arms about the entire incident.  I've even heard one report claim that the painting is beyond repair, will be painted over, and a reproduction of the original would be hung in its place.  To me, this is what the art world should be up in arms about.  I would offer money, and the replacement value of the plaster to have this NEW iconic piece of artwork in my personal collection

Anyhow, because of this incident and the worldwide attention it garnered, people are looking at old and deteriorating pieces of art in a different way.  I think that this one incident helped raise awareness about what one should and shouldn't do to a piece of art...even if they have permission from the person who is temporarily in charge of its well-being.

2.  Cecelia Gimenez may be the next Picasso.

Seriously, Check out this sketch the Pablo Picasso made in 1946:

http://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-210.php

I see a lot of similar qualities between the two works of art.  Granted, by 1946, Picasso was an old pro with hundreds of pieces of art under his belt.  The "Ecce Homo" restoration is a first attempt at an artistic venture for Ms. Gimenez.  Granted, it wasn't her working from the ground up on an original piece of artwork, but she still created something new and exciting.  I'm sure she feels terrible about the whole mess, since it was her favorite image of Jesus, but hey, it's not every day that you create something that winds up on t-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and almost every website out there.  Do you realize how long I've been making my own art on purpose?  I've never even come close to being offered a gallery show (yet),  let alone have millions of people talking about and seeing my artwork on a daily basis.

My point is, she made something that is important and widely acknowledged as significant.  Whether it's good press or bad press, people are talking about it.  It's is solidly engrained in the collective pop culture mind of the world.  I would also be willing to bet that I'm not the only person that would speak up and support the preservation of the new painting.  Because seriously, how many of you even knew this painting existing before it became awesome?  Painting over this would be like painting over a Banksy (on a side note, I'd like to mention I'm not a huge Banksy fan)

On second thought, maybe she's the next Modigliani:

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/m/modigliani/modigliani_guillaume.jpg.html

3.  This painting is funny as shit!

I mean, if you can look at this and not laugh, you are way too serious and need to lighten the fuck up.  Take all religious context away from it and look at it strictly as an image.  It looks like Fisher-Price finally got around to making a monkey themed Mr. Potato Head.  It's all over the news because this thing is absolutely ridiculous.

How many religious paintings have you seen in your life?  If you've ever taken an art history course that focused on art before the twentieth century at a Catholic university like I did, I'm going to hold firm and say that at least 50% of all the artwork you've ever seen (including print form), contained religious overtones.  It's just what people do.  There are many reports out there claiming that this was not a particularly valuable or rare piece of artwork.  In a couple years, I'm guessing that even the parishioners and citizens of this town, will talk about this and laugh.  I'm sure there is the embarrassment issue now, but seriously, I bought a t-shirt of this painting.  Before this, I didn't know anything about this church, this town nor this painting.

Okay, I'm ranting.  I like this Cecilia Gimenez's rendition of "Ecce Homo" so much that I had to make a self portrait based on it.  Here it is:

"Self Portrait after Cecilia Gimenez" or "Ecce Raygun"  9x12in Crayon, Pencil, Ballpoint Pen on Discarded Paper

So there's that.  Sorry for the swearing and all, but I really love this fluke in the course of art history, and have to speak with passion.  I have my favorite artists and I like to see new things by them, but every so often I'll see a piece made by someone who has no idea what they are doing and it inspires me.

Afer all, taking art too seriously was what led me to quit making it.  If it wasn't perfect, I stopped and gave up.  Now, I have gotten into the habit of making quick pieces, mostly on discarded pieces of paper during my lunch break with basic office supplies, and I couldn't be happier.  When I spent a fortune on supplies to create a "perfect" piece of artwork, I rarely liked the end result.  Now I have a ton of old artwork with quite a bit of money sunk into it taking up space in my house.  Oh yeah, and I can't stand to look at it anymore, and no one has ever wanted to buy it.  My new stuff gets a lot of attention from my friends, and I'd be more than happy to give it to them if I knew that they would appreciate it and give it a good home.  To me this is the value of art.  I am a man that has to create.  I have to create for myself based on my aesthetics and personality, otherwise creation just becomes a non-paying job.

So yeah, thanks for reading guys,

Raygun

New Self Portrait

I found another no name gem of student artwork in the scrap box today.  The student made a whole page of skin tones (most likely by accident), with the exception of one giant blue spot in the upper center of the page.  I saw this, and knew it was begging for a close up self portrait.  I think I'm going to start hanging some of these projects in the classroom to help motivate students to take second looks at their projects, and not give up on them so easily. 

 

 "Creeper"  9x12in  crayon and ball point pen on discarded student artwork

The eye seems a bit massive, but I had to work with the giant blue spot I was given and still include enough additional features to have it read as my face.  I'm pretty happy with the result.

Thanks for reading,

Raygun

Random Art Word: Smoke

It's Wednesday.  Time for a new word.  The art work has trickled down a bit since I started restoring my 1961 VW Beetle.  Still getting to it though.  More stuff to come.

Here's the word and I'm sure you don't need a definition:

Smoke

So, yeah.  You guys know the rules.  If you feel like making something, send it to artwithstrangers at gmail dot com

Thanks for reading,

Raygun

Another Round of Portraits

Here are two more self portraits I made today.  The green portrait was from an older photograph and the yellow portrait was made while looking in a mirror.

Green Self Portrait: 5x7 in  Tempera, ball point pen and Sharpie on corrugated cardboard

Yellow Self Portrait:  3x4in  Ball point pen on yellow construction paper

As always, thanks for viewing.

Raygun

Self Portrait #2 and a Piece of Random Art

Made a couple quick sketches today.  I'm enjoying making smaller pieces of artwork on discarded pieces of paper.  Since I teach art, I have a lot of students that will crumple up their "unsuccessful" projects and throw them in my scrap paper box.  Since I know for a fact that the students will avoid a crumpled paper like the plague when there are tons of non-crumpled options, I will usually root through the pile, see if there is a name on the wadded up piece, then place it in the proper bin.  Today, I found a wadded up, barely started, self portrait in the box.  Of course there was no name.  If there was, I would give the student partial credit, since they are the one that determined the shape of my head in this portrait.

The other piece was drawn on the back of a random pizza shop flyer that was also cruising around work today.  I did these drawings while I was on my lunch break.  The view is from my classroom into a small park that leads up to a neighborhood.  Anyway, here are the drawings:

Self Portrait #2 Ball point pen, marker, pencil on discarded student artwork

 

View From My Window at Work: Ball Point Pen and Marker on discarded pizza flyer

Thanks for reading,

Raygun

Self Portraits: Day One

I have decided to start posting random, quick study self portraits on the blog.  This is intended to be an exercise in which I loosen up a bit, since I have been taking my work way too seriously.  To break away from the frustration, and hopefully help me solidify a style, I've decided to make frequent quick pictures of myself.  I will be posting the results here, whether I find them appealing or terrible.

Since today is the first day of this venture, I figure I'll share a little of my artistic timeline. The first image is a wood block print entitled "Incognito".  I made this image in a printmaking class in 2009.  Please excuse the quality, as the images were taken via cell phone camera circa 2009.

The second image is from the same printmaking class.  This print is actually the basis of this entire blog.  This was the project that required me to take two randomly drawn words, and come up with a visual solution.  My words were, "shotgun," and "haven".   This is an aquatint /chin colle made in 2009 entitled "Git".

The next image is a tiny color study I did based of a random photo my wife took of me acting like an ass.  I intended to make a painting from the color study, but again, I couldn't get it to come out the way I wanted, so I gave up.  This picture was created earlier this year (2012).

And finally, here is today's quick study.  This is a pencil drawing on computer paper.  Today's date is August, 29, 2012.

So here's to the start of a new venture.  I swear the next updates won't be nearly as long winded.

Thanks for reading,
 Raygun

Project #4: Nexus

Here we are at another random word posting.  Drawn at random today, we have the word Nexus.

Here is the dictionary.com definition of the word:

noun, plural nex·us·es, nex·us.
 

1. a means of connection; tie; link.

 

2. a connected series or group.

 

3. the core or center, as of a matter or situation.

 

4. Cell Biology . a specialized area of the cell membrane involved in intercellular communication and adhesion.

 

 

Starting today, there will no longer be a timeline for finishing your submission.  If you have an idea and want to share it, get it to me whenever you can.

 

I will also be putting results in this posting.  There will no longer be a separate post for the submissions.  

 

As for the submission guidelines, those are the same.  Email me at artwithstrangers at gmail dot com to submit artwork or random word ideas.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Raygun

A Lot of News

Hi there readers.  It's been a couple weeks and I still haven't been able to bring myself to finish my meat themed art project.  I only received one other submission, which I deemed just a little over the line for the blog here.  I appreciate the humor, but I want to keep this blog R rated at a maximum.  Needless to say I've been a little bummed about my lack of motivation.  Hence, this plethora of updates.  Let's get started shall we?

Update 1:  I will continue posting a new theme every two weeks starting today....Wednesday, for some reason.  I will no longer post a deadline with the theme, nor will I have a separate post with the results.  Any submissions I receive for the project will be posted under the word reveal post.  I'm doing this because I'm tired of needless structure in my life.  I get enough of that outside of this blog.  I'm not going to lie to you either.  I'm a pretty unorganized guy.  Not in the, "I can't remember where I left the dog," kind of way, but more in the, "wasn't I supposed to do something today," way.  So, yeah.  There's that.  This gives people a chance to go back and do other word projects as well.  No pressure, no rush.

Update 2:  I've decided to turn this into my collaborative art blog and a personal art blog as well.  On occasion I make things that don't necessarily go along with the theme, and would like a place to post them outside of facebook.  At this point, I don't think I produce enough to need a separate art blog for myself, so I will be posting here.  You may also see pics of art that I've purchased, reviews (personal thoughts, really) of galleries or shows that I've attended, or random writing that I feel would work well on this blog.  Hopefully it will make me get out and do more of the gallery hopping and museum visiting that have been lacking in my life.  It's going to start getting a lot more random around here. 

Update 3:  I would like to start an actual collaborative project with someone via the mail.  Even if you are a friend that I see on a regular basis, I only want to send our project to each other via the mail.  I did this to a certain extent when I was in college with a friend that lived three miles away.  It was fun, and the postal system working the picture over and cramming it into mail boxes gave it a certain charm.  Of course the project will have to be a mailbox friendly size, so no crazy murals or anything. If you're interested in participating, send me an email. artwithstrangers at gmail dot com.

Update 4:  I am going to start doing frequent quick study self portraits, and will post them here whether they are successful or not.  I have started focusing on being technical in my art.  I have been doing a lot of planning, practice sketching, picture referencing and all of the other things that drive me crazy.  For certain works of art, this is important.  However, I want my artwork right now to be freeing, not exhausting.  I thought about doing one every day, but I don't want to be disappointed if I fail to meet my goal.  The artwork will be loose, experimental, and hopefully satisfying.  If not, I'll post it anyway.  No more frustration if the end product isn't exactly what I had in mind.  Personal failures are my gateway drug to being inactive. 

Also, if anyone else is interested in doing self portraits, I'd be more than happy to post them here.  The same deal as always: if you want your name, media, size, blog link, website, etc. posted, just include that info in your email.

So there it is.  A lot of new stuff is on the horizon.  I hope my modest page hit counter at least stays the same.  If not, I'll keep doing it anyway.  That's just how I roll.

Thanks for reading and being patient,

Raygun

Update and Break Time

I'm sure that most of you that follow this blog with any regularity have noticed the lack of posts lately.  The last project theme was Meat/Meet.  Due to a lack of participation on this theme (and some technical difficulties with my project), I have yet to post results.  Since I am teacher, I am also in the midst of going to in-service meetings, setting up classrooms, setting up  a curriculum, and all of those other fun teacher things that come with the start of a new school year.  Due to all of the things going on right now, I'm doing another two week extension of the Meat/Meet themed project.

I would encourage anyone who has not submitted work in the past, to go back and take a look at the other themes.  This would be a great time for everyone to have an opportunity to make something if they didn't get a chance the first time around.  I will always be willing to edit a post and put up artwork for the finished themes if someone sends in some more work. 

Hopefully, a little down time will help all of the finished products in the end.  Also, for those who have participated, or have thought about participating, please send a comment letting me know what time frame works best for you.  I'm thinking about stretching the time between projects from two weeks to a month.  I want this to be fun for everyone, and not feel like a stressful obligation.

As always, thanks for reading,

Raygun

Project #3: Meat/Meet Deadline Extension

I have decided to add another week to the deadline for project #3.  There has been more interested, and I want to give everyone ample time to create a quality piece of artwork.  The new deadline for the Project will be Monday, August 4th at 11:59pm.

Keep sending in any comments, word suggestions, or artwork you would like to share.

Thanks,
Raygun

Project #3: Meat

Yep.  You read correctly.  The theme for Project #3 is going to be Meat.  Just for kicks, let's make it Meat/Meet.  We'll pretend that you were not given the chance to actually see the written word, but had it revealed to you audibly, with no explanation as to which spelling was used. 

I will go ahead and post the dictionary.com definitions for both versions of the word.

Meat

noun

1. the flesh of animals as used for food.

 

2. the edible part of anything, as a fruit or nut: Crack the walnuts and remove the meats.

 

3. the essential point or part of an argument, literary work, etc.; gist; crux: The meat of the play is the jealousy between the two brothers.

 

4. solid food: meat and drink.

 

5. solid or substantial content; pith: The article was full of meat, with few wasted words.

 

 

Meet 

 

verb (used with object)

 

1.  to come upon; come into the presence of; encounter: I would meet him on the street at unexpected moments.

 

2.  to become acquainted with; be introduced to: I've never met your cousin.

 

3.  to join at an agreed or designated place or time: Meet me in St. Louis.

 

4.  to be present at the arrival of: to meet a train.

 

5.  to come to or before (one's notice, or a means of noticing, as the eyes or ears): A peculiar sight met my eyes.

 

 

I hope the definitions help all participants come up with some good ideas.  I have to say that personally, there are many different directions that I never thought about going with this theme before I read the two different definitions.  However, feel free to ignore proper definitions.  Create what inspires you.

If you are unfamiliar with the blog and our projects, I recommend going back and looking through the previous posts.  I'll break it down quickly for everyone again.  Create one (or more) original pieces of artwork (or writing), based on the theme listed here in the project.  Take a good quality picture of the artwork and email it to me at artwithstrangers at gmail dot com.  

The tentative due date for this project will be Monday July, 30th at 11:59pm.  However, feel free to go back and create artwork for the previous projects if you wish.  I will continue to update and add anything to the blog, no matter when it comes in.  Remember to add your name and any website, blog, twitter, or otherwise, you want displayed with your artwork.

Until next time, take care and get creatin'.

Raygun

Project #2: Decay Submissions

Hello everyone.  Sorry that it has been a while since the last update.  I will keep this short and sweet.  Here are the submissions for Project #2: Decay.  Our number of participants has grown by one.  We're gaining steam....slowly, but still gaining.









Please excuse the gaps...can't let the images crash into my bio bar.

This piece was submitted by Alekx Schneebeck

This piece was submitted by my friend Amanda Blackman.  I appreciate her sense of humor quite a bit.

This was my solution for the project.

I will have to say that I was super excited about creating a piece of artwork for the word decay.  I immediately had an idea for the project, but had trouble getting it to come out the way I had it in my head.  I decided to try painting on wood, and now I have this 24x24" painting staring at me whenever I go into the kitchen.  I'm still not sure if I like it or not, but hey... not every piece can be a winner.  I'm glad I did it though.  I'm also glad to be moving on.

A random word drawing and post will be happening in short order, so keep reading.

Thanks again,

Raygun

Project #2: Decay

Well, here we are.  It's time to start another Art With Strangers project.  I just had my wife reach into the collection of words, and she pulled out the word, "decay".   Here is the dictionary.com definition for the word:

de-cay

verb (used without object)

1.

to become decomposed; rot: vegetation that was decaying.

2.

to decline in excellence, prosperity, health, etc.; deteriorate.

3.

Physics . (of a radioactive nucleus) to change spontaneously into one or more different nuclei in a process in which atomic particles, as alpha particles, are emitted from the nucleus, electrons are captured or lost, or fission takes place.

verb (used with object)

4.

to cause to decay or decompose; rot: The dampness of the climate decayed the books.

  

The deadline for project two will be Monday, July 2 at 11:59pm.  I have decided to keep this on a two week rotation, just to ensure that people don't feel rushed.  I will also consider posting late submissions for any of the projects if they are not turned in on time.  

Projects can be created in any media and digital copies of your work can be sent to artwithstrangers at gmail dot com.  Please keep the file sizes reasonable to ease in emailing and posting.  Feel free to include the media that you used, a title for your piece or any other info you would like relayed through the blog.

 

I have also determined to open these projects to writers too.  Smaller, scanned, hand written pieces work best for display on the blog, but I'd also be willing to display up to one typed page.  If your writings are more in depth, post them to a blog, and I will include a link with your name and blog site.

Again, the more you all help pass the word, the bigger and better this will become.  I have benefited greatly from this type of creative exercise, and I think others can too.  Help spread the word.

Thanks again for reading,

Raygun

Project #1: Venus Submissions

Hello blog followers.  Here are the submissions for our first art challenge.  Besides myself, there was only one other submission for the first project.  I was hoping to receive more artwork, but we have to start somewhere, and that's good enough.  So, here are the two pieces of artwork from Project #1: Venus.  There will be a new challenge posted later today.

This piece was submitted by Alekx Schneebeck.

This is my solution for this theme.

I am very excited that  I am creating artwork again.  There were a couple days where I treated this project as if it were my job.  So keep reading, as a new challenge will be posted later today.  If you didn't read the update, I am going to be keeping the time between projects at two weeks so participants will not feel rushed to create their artwork.

Thanks for reading,

Raygun

Deadline Coming Up!

The deadline for Project #1: Venus, is coming up this Friday.  If you want to submit a piece of artwork, email it to artwithstrangers at gmail dot com.  The deadline is 11:59pm Easern Standard time.  All artwork will be displayed on the blog.

I'm still accepting random words for the word draw to be used for upcoming projects.  Feel free to email word suggestions or leave them as comments to the posts.  Just, you know, let me know that they are word suggestions so I don't get confused.

Based on feedback from participants, I think I will keep the work time for each project around two weeks.  This will give everyone an ample amount of time to work out their ideas and get them down on paper, or whatever they are working on, without feeling rushed.  I want everyone to have a chance to do their best work.

Good luck artists, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

Raygun

Project #1: Venus

So, it seems we're off to a slow start.  In the first couple days of posting this blog, I received perhaps fifteen words.  After that, submissions dwindled down to an average of zero per day.  In the spirit of giving this project a good, swift kick in the backside, I've decided to go ahead and select our first word from the submissions.  I have literally written all of the words out, folded the paper and thrown them into a hat (I apologize for the sweat stained Mountain Dew baseball cap.... a guy has to have something to wear while he's mowing).


As I sit here writing this I have yet to select the word.  So without any further stalling, I am reaching into the hat, shuffling the papers around, closing my eyes and drawing our first word.

Ladies and Gentlemen,  the word for Project #1 is:  Venus, submitted by Alekx S.

 I figured I would include a dictionary.com definition of each word once they are drawn, so here you go:




Venus

noun, plural venuses

1. an ancient Italian goddess of gardens and spring, identified by the Romans with Aphrodite as the goddess of love and beauty.

 

2. an exceptionally beautiful woman.

 

3. ( sometimes lowercase ) Archaeology . a statuette of a female figure, usually carved of ivory and typically having exaggerated breasts, belly, or buttocks, often found in Upper Paleolithic cultures from Siberia to France.

 

4. Astronomy . the planet second in order from the sun, having an equatorial diameter of 7521 miles (12,104 km), a mean distance from the sun of 67.2 million miles (108.2 million km), a period of revolution of 224.68 days, and no moons. It is the most brilliant planet in the solar system.

 

5. Chemistry Obsolete . copper.

 

 

Since we are slowly building steam with this project, I am going to make the "due date" of Project #1, Friday, June 15th 2012.  Any submissions I receive before the end of the 15th (11:59pm EST), will be posted here on the blog.  After round one, I'll post another word and set another due date for Project #2.  The goal is to eventually have one new word, and one picture set of completed artwork posted each week.  As for the artwork itself?  Whatever comes to your mind is what you should create.  The word is merely here to spark inspiration.  Feel free to use any or none of the provided definitions.  Now, for the submission guidelines.

 

Your artwork can be created in any media, and be any size.  High quality photos or scanned images will work best to re-size and post on the blog.  A file size of 600-800KB would be the best for emailing and resizing.  Send images to artwithstrangers at gmail dot com.  Don't forget to include how you want to be recognized.  I can include names and am more than willing to post a link to your blog/website/facebook/twitter etc. All artwork received by the deadline will be posted.  

 

While I encourage artistic expression and freedom, I will not be able to post anything of illegal nature on this blog, so the, "using good judgement for submitting something to a website" rules apply.

Also, don't forget to keep sending in those words.  Once a word has been used, I'll toss it out to make room for new words and avoid repeats.  Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments as well.

artwithstrangers at gmail dot com

Thanks for reading,

Raygun

Here's The Plan

I started writing this first blog entry a week ago.  I think it's time to get back to it.

Well, here we go.  Hi everyone.  Thanks for stopping by this little corner of the internet.  I go by Raygun, and I will be your guide/ facilitator/ person who pretends that he knows what he's doing/ delusional visionary on this artistic social experiment.  I'd like to start by telling you a little about my motivation for this blog and all that I hope it brings forth.

I've lost my motivation.  There.  I said it.  Whenever I sit down to create some artwork, I'll take the ideas that have been brewing in the old noggin, put them on paper (or whatever the platform du jour happens to be), then conveniently forget about them before the first layer of paint dries.  I've learned in the almost nine years since I've been in college, that I need to disassociate from my "restful places," or have someone depending on me to create something in order to be productive as an artist.  In other words, working on a painting or print at my kitchen table usually winds up turning into looking for motorcycles on craigslist or watching random anime on netflix.  That's why I'm here.

In 2009 I had to take some college courses to renew my teaching license.  Since I'm an art teacher, I had the option of taking education courses or studio art courses.  Obviously, I went with studio art, and wound up in my first printmaking class that I've ever had.  I wound up loving printmaking and had a great deal of respect for my professor.  One of our final projects involved choosing two random words from two separate bags.  One bag contained words that were objects.  The other bag contained words that expressed a mood or idea.  Once we had our words, we had to create an image based on how we interpreted our two words together.  Mine were "shotgun," and "haven".

When the two words were presented to me, I could suddenly work at home.  I hadn't been given the mundane task of drawing a still life, or creating a self portrait.  I also wasn't tasked with with having to create a piece of art within a certain time frame with out any insight or suggestions towards content.  I had a puzzle that I had to solve.  That made it an artistic commitment that I was actually looking forward to seeing through to the end.

I guess I'm straying a little here.  The point is, two simple words ignited a ton of ideas.  It was a guide towards creativity that I have not experienced again in three years.  Of course I could create my own bags of words, but they would all be my own ideas.  Nothing in that scenario would force me to stray from my comfort zone of "familiarity". 

Here's where you come in.  Let's create a list.  We can collaborate to create a bank of words.  This could be a list of emotions, ideas, concepts, theories and objects.  Obviously, some words will be more awe inspiring than others.  For example, the word, "transportation," will bring a lot of immediate pictures to persons mind.   Alternatively, the phrase, "egg beater," would leave a lot of voids in terms of creative solutions.   Words that would require most people take a trip to Wikipedia are probably not in the best interest of the cause. 

I will post an email address to which words can be sent.  Submitters can chose to remain anonymous, or I can give them credit for their submission (with their name, a link to their blog, twitter or facebook page, etc.).  Once enough words have been compiled, I will randomly select a word out of a hat and post it on this blog.  That word will be the theme of the week.  Readers of the blog can participate by creating a piece of artwork based on the randomly drawn word, then send in a high quality photo or scanned image of the artwork.  There is no limit on the media, size, or how much work you put into your piece.  Heck, you don't even have to participate if you don't want to.  There will be a new word each week if you change your mind though.

I have another project that will be a little more hands on, which I'll describe in a later post.  It will involve people that sign up to work on a piece of artwork collaboratively via the mail.  Numbers of participants will be limited for each piece and the results will be posted here, but all of that is for a later date.

To send word suggestions, email me at artwithstrangers at gmail dot com.  Remember to include whether you would prefer to be left anonymous or given credit, and how you would like to be acknowledged.  Pass the word!