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The Craft Phase

Thursday, March 27th, 2008 by Alyice

I must admit that the craft phase was probably the most enjoyable artistic endeavor. I wasn’t creating to escape my life, to run away from emotional baggage, or to “find myself”. There weren’t life altering decisions being made and the time we spent crafting wasn’t reflective of my life: past or present. No, our craft time was simply a fun way to bond with my kids.

It seemed that through our crafting projects we grew closer. We talked obsessively about any and everything. We laughed a lot more than usual. We got excited over the simplest of things. And we learned very valuable lessons about “not touching” hot glue guns!

There was even a year when we’d go out to restaurants just to eat muscles and clams. You see every year we made Christmas ornaments and that year we decided to use shells as our main material. You should have seen the puzzled looks on our waiters’ faces. The kids, of course, couldn’t wait to tell them all about the Christmas ornaments they were going to make with them. We even had one waitress ask us to return with an ornament for her tree and one for the restaurant.

It’s been a few years now since my kids and I crafted together and I miss it tremendously. But they’re teenagers now and craft projects just don’t interest them—no matter how much I bribe them!

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The T-shirt Phase

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 by Alyice

After a few years, my aunt ventured out to try new things and one of the crafts she picked up was creating hand-painted t-shirts and sweatshirts. Of course she had a natural talent for painting that carried right over into her hand-painted clothing that would make anyone envious.

She took classes to perfect her drawing and painting skills, then would call me over for a week-end of trial and error. Now, when I say trial and error, I mean it. I was horrible! That knack for drawing I had as a young child was lost and I just couldn’t seem to find it again. And believe me I tried.

Luckily, my family and friends were encouraging. They not only asked me to make them shirts, but they wore them! Yes, they wore them! Now, if I were a small child, I could see proudly wearing something I created, but as an adult or teen with fashion sense…

My biggest fan was my mother. She was very encouraging. She’d ask for very specific things like her favorite character, Garfield, or my childhood favorite, Tinkerbell. She’d even ask for holiday-themed sweatshirts. My mom had always been disappointed that I put my art aside as a young child and would often ask me to start back up so when my aunt got me back into painting and my mom saw how much it relaxed me, she encouraged me to keep moving forward with it.

Truth be told, I am not even sure why I stopped creating as a child. I don’t know if someone ridiculed me or teased me to the point of walking away, if I simply lost interest, or if I was really “anal compulsive” back then and couldn’t handle the stress of not getting everything “right”. All I know is that I stopped and that when I picked up painting clothing, I had discovered how “anal compulsive” I really was!

With painting statuary, it was relaxing, invigorating, and fun. There was already a shape that could be transformed with just a little imagination and lots of patience. But painting clothing was entirely different. There was this blank canvas that required some real talent on my part and as much as I loved the time with my aunt, I found painting clothing to be very stressful. I was so preoccupied with trying to get everything right that I zapped the fun out of the entire process.

Eventually, I walked away from painting clothing, but picked it back up five years later when my first child was born. He was a messy eater and spit up a lot—as all babies do. His clothes were constantly getting stained and I couldn’t see throwing them out simply because of a “stain”. But I also couldn’t see him wearing them so I bought a child’s t-shirt board and began creating little pieces of art.

I still wasn’t great at it, but my kids loved mommies’ new creations and eventually asked to get in on the act. Through painting with my children I learned to “just have fun” with the process and to appreciate the thought behind each piece. It was more important that we build memories than it was for me to “get it right”. After all, I wasn’t doing it for money—it was simply something fun to do with the kids and for the kids.

We had so much fun creating gifts for the grandparents; especially when it came to memorializing their little handprints. We continued painting clothing on an “on again, off again” basis for the next few years, but eventually moved on to other crafts.

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The Statuary Phase

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 by Alyice

When I was a young child, I loved to draw. I was actually quite good and my teachers really wanted me to pursue art more. Of course, I was only 11 years old and didn’t think all that highly of my drawings. As the years passed, I forgot all about doodling, sketching, and art. But then in 1983 my mom’s best friend, whom I affectionately called Aunt Sue, took up an interest in statuary. She was quite good, too!

On the week-ends she had me, we’d hit the nearest statuary store to find that “perfect” piece and pick up any colors of paint she didn’t already have at home. Then we’d have lunch and talk about what we were going to do to our pieces. After lunch, we’d sand the pieces down, pick out any imperfections, wipe them down with a damp cloth, paint them white, and then begin the painstaking journey of transforming a formed block of plaster into something beautiful.

We painted stuff to be hung on the walls, we painted stuff to decorate bookshelves and we painted Christmas ornaments. My aunt would even make little scenes complete with Christmas trees, presents, and snow.

We literally got lost in the moment and before we knew it the week-end was over. I’ll never forget those week-ends for as long as I live.

Those week-ends were stress-free and all about me and my relationship with my Aunt. In those painting sessions, I felt loved in a way that I didn’t always feel at home. My aunt was very loving, very encouraging, very patient, and she loved taking me under her wings and teaching me new things. She encouraged me to be true to myself and to believe in myself—even when no one else did. She showed me that mistakes happened and that they were (are) all a part of life and nothing to feel ashamed of or guilty over. She helped me deal with my need to be perfect by showing me that life was (is) full of imperfections and just like our art, those imperfections could actually turn into something beautiful.

Perhaps that’s why I’m finding art so therapeutic these days and why it feels so good to get back into that creative mojo! Not only does creating feel good for the soul but it is helping me deal with my sometimes compulsive need to be perfect and controlling. Through creating, I am reminded that my imperfections don’t make me less loveable and that just like art, there can sometimes be beauty in them.

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