Teaching collage as Art Therapy - Camp Ronald McDonald

This past year, just before I was getting too pregnant to leave town comfortably,  I was given the opportunity to teach a collage art therapy workshop for 30 grieving parents. It was in Idylwild at Camp Ronald McDonald and the group I was working with was a very nurturing group for parents who had lost children to brain cancer.  Talk about wanting to be prepared to say and do the right things as I led. I felt like my own (lesser) experiences with grief and loss over these past few years and how art and collage had helped me to work through a lot of it - gave me a place to work from as I instructed these families. I brought in a couple of my own works - specifically ones that showed my healing process over losing baby G and prepared a mix of music to work with that was both thoughtful and cheerful for promoting the creative process.

 It was a very moving and precious afternoon. It was also the largest group I've taught and some of the participants had to be won over to the activity as it wasn't really something that they had specifically paid for or signed up for.  In fact, some of the dads were really skeptical at first and attended a bit begrudgingly, but as the afternoon progressed, they were the ones that got the most out of the experience (at least from what they told me).
 

They loved it and the time went quickly. There were tears and laughter and at the end, I received many hugs and thank yous. If I were able to post the un-cropped versions of these pics, you'd see the huge smiles on their faces. To know I was even a small part of bringing that was really special.
I love sharing art with others and these people deserved those moments of joy so much.
 

I've taught a bunch of collage, art, drawing, and silk painting classes to groups now,  and I have to say that this was definitely the most challenging and rewarding class I have ever taught. I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity.

Advent collages

About 4 years ago, I was invited to have a solo art show at a gallery in North Hollywood.  The show was to be advent themed, and I made 10 collages for it. They were all made from junk mail and catalogs, then blown up really big onto canvases. I haven't pulled them out or looked at them for a while, but I thought now would be the perfect time to bring them back out. 

This one is called "Messenger"

Daring Adventures in Paint

My friend, Tori, encouraged me to take an online painting class with her by an artist named Mati Rose. The class is called "Daring Adventures in Paint" and it's really well organized - a daily email comes to your inbox, encouraging you to try a new technique, read about an artist, watch a video.
Honestly, I've fallen way behind with the core material, but it has motivated me to get the canvases and brushes out and just do some art.
These are all pics of some mid-progress work, none that I absolutely love quite yet, but we are getting there....

collage class - the first few weeks

Collage class started up again at Art Center. It was an interesting decision for me to try and figure out if I could go take the class without Franklyn as my teacher this time around. His passing left a major hole. It was especially noticable the first class. But Mary, who is also an amazing (and much less moody) Art Center professor - has been good for me.
She has each of us working on numerous small projects - one each week - which will end up quilt-like by the end of class. The funny thing for me is that I have years' (I'm not exaggerating when I say at least a decade's) worth of collected and half prepared materials for collages. Before I ever took collage out here in Los Angeles, I had a couple of amazing years of classes in Chicago as a student at the Art Institute continuing education program. I was even in a collage guild there.  I was in a certificate program, with an advisor and everything, and then had a baby and fell off the educational wagon for a few years- though my art never disappeared. Nor my love for collage.

Anyhow - all that comes together with my personality and makes my putting work together a really speedy process. In a way, it seems speedy - because I often leave class with 2-3 wet, finished pieces each night. I was feeling guilty about that for a while, but then I had a few thoughts... 1- my quilts, especially the hand quilted ones - take MONTHS to finish. Many of them take over 40 hours of work. So it's not that I am afraid of working hard or involved hours. And I'm an impulsive person - this is the good side of that! and 2 - the materials I have been using lately have been years in the making - I have about 100lbs of supplies that I bring to each class - many of them are treated materials, that I work on, put a layer of paint into - sew something onto - and then shove it back into the "file" to be used at a later date. Which means that it's not actually only 20 minutes to put together the piece - it's hours of work, paint drying, etc - just spread out over months.
So I'm feeling less guilty about that. Franklyn never liked how quickly I could work - but Mary doesn't frown on it. I've been told by many of my art teachers that I am PROLIFIC. I think sometimes that is meant well and sometimes it's looked down on as an artist. And I know that to be true for me from my very first foray into art. I never make one of something - I always make at least 5. I need that for my brain to settle.

I've recently come to understand that I am most definitely ADD. And not in the "can't focus" way - but in the "hyper-focus" way. And that's just the way I am. It explains why I can't ever sit still, why I am easily distracted, why i have to have something to do with my hands even when I am watching tv and why I do a billion things at once. I'm okay with that.

All that to say, here are some pics of the works I have recently done in the first few weeks of class. By now you know that I am in love with the red and brown color families - words, signs and quotes, silhouettes, books, my kids' artwork, my husband, travel, iphone photography, my children, scraps of old textiles and wallpaper, poetry, and trees. So there are some basic themes that continue to surface. I like to think, though, that each one of these is different enough. Some of them are explorations into my grief of the past year. Some of them are me being thankful for what I have - a healthy family, a new beautiful home in an amazing neighborhood, a marriage that is epically wonderful. I hope you can see that all coming through as well.

"dreaming"

"to be choked with tears"

"I'm remembering"

"it was all there"

"i wanted to be alone with you"

9 women create

I have a great friend, Sarah, who urged me to join her last December, in putting up at a silent auction - a collage day, at her amazing house, with 8 spots for people to join us. We would feed them a nice lunch, then share our materials (sarah and I take a collage class together already and have a lot of materials between us) and teach some simple techniques to our attendees.
The spaces filled up fast! And with good friends! She and I have been working on this for the past few weeks and Saturday was the big day. We got everything ready and hoped everyone would show up and have a good time. One friend couldn't make it, but we saved supplies for her. The other 9 of us had a day full of creativity.

It was so much more fun than I even anticipated, and 4 hours to make art on a Saturday is always fun. But this was dear. And creative. And joy•building for sure.
Everyone walked away with finished art pieces, as well as some traded Artist Trading Cards - our first activity was to make artist trading cards to share with everyone else as a warm up and a commemorative keepsake. Of course I made goodie bags too, with candy, new scissors and glue sticks... (all three are vital to my collaging!)

I felt so blessed to know these women, or to meet the ones I hadn't yet met... We kept joking that now we were a collage clique and we have to do it again. I sure hope so.

Be Kind

I saw this post on Pinterest last night.

Source: tumblr.com via Liberty on Pinterest

it reminded me of the "Be Kind" cards I made up a few years ago. Remember these?

For some reason, I never listed them on etsy. Now you can get them, if you want. They're cheap enough to keep a pack in the car and have them on hand for a kindness emergency. Which we all have.

House collage

I was asked by my friend, Sarah, to donate a collage for a local charity auction. She's a close friend with whom I took my collage class at Art Center last spring (and I hope to join her again in it when life settles a little?).
Anyhow - there are a few of us who are friends who are collage artists that all attend church together. It's a funny thing to know other collage artists anyway, but I love that these other women are really incredible people, too. They are also mothers and one of them is also an entertainment industry wife, so we have lots to share about.
Anyhow - Sarah and I put up for auction a special luncheon at her house where we will do a collage workshop with 8 attendees.  Ironically, one of the 8 who signed up is a far more accomplished collage artist than Sarah or I - but it's going to be so much fun to do art together.

Sarah thought that putting collages up for auction right next to the Workshop bid sheet would be fun, so I whipped this one up in the last 2 days. We went to the auction last night and I literally had to have someone come pick it up from my house while the glaze was still drying. It looked good by bid time and actually ended up in the hands and home of some more fun friends.  So now I get to see it when I visit their house!

(yay)
On a side funny note, my husband ran into a college classmate of his at the auction (he never forgets a face) and when we were introduced to each other, she said, "wait? You're Liberty Worth, ... the charms and skirt girl? I've ordered from your website, years ago..." so random.
In spite of being in business for 7 years, I am still always amazed when people have heard of my stuff.... and even more when they've bought from me, not knowing me!

SENT

My church is doing a really fun art project this month - our pastor's wife is an amazing collage artist who specializes in recycled materials. (You know I love her artwork and her in general!)
So this month we gave out postcards to people with postage on them and asked them to design the backs with a representation of where they feel they've been "SENT"
And then when the piece is done, they just pop it in the mail to be a part of our group exhibit. I was finally able to do mine last night (last chance to do it, of course, as it had to go in the mail today!!!!)...

and of course, I wasn't able to stop at just one, so I made two.

Old Artwork - post 4

I'm not sure if this is a tree or coral, or what. But I loved using an old burlap coffee bag and sewing semi-precious stones onto it. I called  it the "Carnelian Tree" and it still makes me happy to look at this.

Old Artwork - post 3

More installments in my "old artwork" series:

I grouped these two together because they may or may not have happened around the same time, but it's clear the inspiration was the concept of embroidering scenery.

 This tiny piece was what I spent a rainy winter weekend on as we escaped the frigid Chicago winter for a visit to Arizona.  We stayed in a friend's vacation home and though it was rainy, the desert was gorgeous and I sat there inside, overlooking the endless pool as it dropped off into the cool and green valley. The desert had never looked so pretty to me.  Even looking at this now, I can remember more senses and feelings than I normally remember about that trip. Isn't that one of the great reasons we make art?

 This piece also was made on a vacation. It was the view of a valley below us at the home we stayed at in Hyderabad, India. I found it so funny that there were boulders in the yards of the homes below that were larger than the houses. I imagined this would be called, "The Boulders Come With the House" - I'm sure that the doors were probably that color, too - knowing India.

A Lenten Collage

I don't usually get super spiritual on my blog, but there is a pretty spiritual side to me that I use my art - especially collage - to express.
I was recently asked through my church to express my impressions of the Garden of Gethsemene and the Betrayal of Jesus as a part of an artist series celebrating the Lenten season this year.
Today my artwork was featured and shared and I wanted to share it with you here - as it is clearly still a part of what makes me tick creatively.

this collage was presented with the caption below as reference:

"Please - Let this cup pass from me"

God. As Jesus. In the Garden. Afraid.
Feeling the weight of a shattering world, the pain of betrayal. the agony ahead...
He surrendered to it willingly. For love.

 

Limited Edition Collages available

I've been meaning to post this for a long time - wanted to show images from the art shows that we had, but there weren't a lot of really great images from the shows themselves (see them below)... and then it was the holidays and busy life....

 well, I was finally able to list the collages onto etsy, since a lot of people had asked about buying editions of them and having copies for their own homes.... here they are... now available in large scale museum quality giclee on canvas prints. All will be limited editions. (click this link to see all of them)

Gifts of Gold and Silver

Today IS Cyber Monday, and yours truly has been so wrapped up in art and foster visits... I plum pudding forgot.
So here's my gift of gold/silver to you...
All December long... If you order either a mama skirt or a spinny skirt, you get a free sterling charm - personalized with a word of your choice.
Just mention your word in the comments section in checkout.
This works for my etsy site or my website.
And if you'd prefer a discount instead, just plug in BABYITSCOLD in as a discount code for 15% off.
Either one, it's your choice.
Silver or gold.
Thanks for being my awesome friends, readers, customers and generally great folks to write to.
Www.libertyworth.etsy.com
Www.libertyworth.com

New collages

I've been invited to have another art show in North Hollywood. (yay!) This time, I will be doing a themed show (solo) based on the Christmas story and will even be able to sell my big prints. (if you're local... It's Dec 17 and 19)
These two collages happened for me the other night and are going to be part of the show. 

Their descriptions:

a close look at the "Star of Bethlehem" one shows that the hills are made of images of war and destruction (there are images of Haiti, Burma and WWII). Basically the idea is that this moment we depict in peace is actually way more revolutionary than we give it power to be. He came to a messed up, broken world as the Prince of Peace, and actually has the power to implement it.

The second one is kind of spun off of the idea of what role an olive branch would have played in the Nativity. I imagined Mary's viewpoint, looking out over the edge of town from the stable, tired from the long journey, but amazed at what was still to come. The olive tree is just a periphery bystander, but it's presence harkens back to the olive branch of mercy and hope after another long journey that God offered to Noah. Olive trees being everywhere in Israel, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine one stretching it's branches into Mary's line of sight as she pondered all she had been through and all yet to be. 

Catalogue love

You know how much I love using my junk mail catalogues for collages... There are times, though, when a catalogue is just too beautiful to cut into (usually it's Anthropologie...) ... Times when I wish I could
just sit inside the photography. I admit, it's not the clothes in the catalogue I salivate over, it's the overall tone, the experience, the sense. Sure, I love spending my money at said store, but I have to say- I don't think the catalogue itself has ever introduced me to an item I later bought... But the mood? Yes... I love the mood. This last one was too much for me to cut up. I just wanted to sit inside it. So I did. I began journaling on top of the images ... Words on top of the lovely... And I've drawn on some of the other
pictures... This one happens to be a drawing reproduction of a vintage fabric pattern from one of my yoyos.
(happy)

I should have been packing

There are so many things one should do before catching a flight in the morning... Sewing quilts isn't probably one of them, but I'm me and that's how it is. After making 16 squares for my spiderweb quilt, I
noticed that nowhere was there any leopard print. ("funny... My purse, current journal, iPhone cover, new clogs, and current fave Libby Dibby skirt are have leopard print, it's kind of funny to not have ANY in the quilt.") so last night, I remedied that... And also made a "mini-quilt" to exchange as part of next Monday's Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild meeting. I didn't exactly make a "quilt" - technically speaking- it's not got any batting or backing... But I tried to make something someone would enjoy getting in a trade. (at least I would like to get this! We shall see)
Now I'm off for the weekend by myself to a special retreat where I simply get to rest, see old friends and meditate. Headed to Chicago...
After Mimi's kindergarten graduation this morning, I drive myself to the airport and go on my first trip alone in many years.

Cake collage

Okay, how cute is this? The group that I made the "City Lights" artwork for used it to make a cake for their kickoff meeting. I hope it tastes as good as it looks! I should ask them to save me a piece just for royalties sake...

City Lights

I was asked by the leader of a group at our church to make a logo for his young adults meeting, which he's entitled "City Lights".  He'd seen a few of my collages and this is what we came up with. It was fun to head to church today and see this in all the bulletins and really big in poster form around the large campus.

The design director and art

Mimi looked at this just now and asked, "hey mom! Where is the other half of her?" I explained, well, mommy's friend, Tori, made it for me... It's inspired by a picture mommy took (show her the pic)... "so then, that's you?"

Collage... Streams of Mercy Never Ceasing

Um... Where have I been, you ask? (I'm still here.) What have I been doing, you ask? (trying to catch up on sleep and get over a sinus infection and a broken heart)
Nutshell: Ace is gone. Transferrred down to a home close to his momma, who thanked me profusely for all I'd done for her and her baby. Still, I'm exhausted... Emotionally and physically. Not thinking we will attempt fost/adopt another time after two heartbreaking situations with AJ and now Ace.
Today after Palm Sunday services (and a little detour to get a certain 5.5yo's ears pierced)... I came home and worked on collages, slept some while J took the kids out for dinner and then spent another 3 hours working on this collage.
It's based on the old hymn, "come thou fount of every blessing"... And the imagery is based on experiences I had while doing archeology one summer in Israel. We were digging in Northern Israel where the source of the Jordan River springs out of a dark cave in some cliffs not unlike this one I made. Today I felt the need for the "streams of mercy never ceasing"