Crafts and arts.

I've been taking a college level Collage course at Art Center this semester. It's taken me a while to figure out what I was going to do...I mean, my paper collages are fun, but my professor has been pressuring me to employ more techniques and one of the reasons I took the class was to try and bring together a marriage between my sewing and collage. I spent the first 12 weeks working on another series of painted textiles which may show up here someday, but currently I hate them and haven't been able to bring them to a place where I like them.... So not yet.
But these have happened in the last 3 weeks and I am loving them. They are starting as either family photos or random copies of my kids' artwork. This is just 5 of the 10 I am working on as I explore the concept of what it means to be a foster family. I've embroidered the kids' faces or artwork, or even an encouraging text message from J to me from our journey with Ace... Remember that nervous breakdown? Oy.... Where was I? Oh yeah, I'm embroidering these onto fabric and gauze and then turning them into weird mini quilts. In my mind I want them to look timeless, not current... Maybe a little aged and quirky- like something that you would find in your grandma's attic and wonder about. A series that together tells a story of a family that loves even when it hurts. They're not finished yet, I'm deciding on binding still... But they do make me happy.