Yesterday I spend the day working in my art studio on a small wall hanging for a group called “Lost N Lava-Cowboy Poetry”. This group meets up in Shoshone, Idaho sometime in September. My take on them is that they have a great time swapping stories, playing music and just plain having fun. So this year I volunteered to do a wall hanging for them with a western theme so they could raise money for their organization and to help build community involvement. Now I am not by any means a cowboy type person, but every so often my artistic side wants to do something cowboy. If I could have been born 10 years earlier, maybe I would be designing fancy western wear for men and women. All of those sequined, corded and embroidered yokes fascinate me. Of course, in my opinion painting pictures on the back and front yokes would be awesome too. Fortunately for me, as you can see, their advertising poster is perfect content for the wall hanging. Two years ago I actually met my first cowboy poetry person. His name was Ernie Sikes and he was performing for a fundraiser for one of Idaho’s historical society groups. I was so impressed by him (and the fact he was born in Idaho) I gave him my art quilt “Idaho Pride”. This art quilt now resides in his home in New York. Who knows where this “Lost N Lava- Cowboy Poetry” art quilt wall hanging will end up. I thought maybe you would like to see how a design idea happens and then bringing it together to represent something. So for the next few posts you will see a timeline of how I get from the original posters to the finished work hopefully worthy of auctioning off. Sometimes giving away my work is more meaningful to me than selling it. Don’t get me wrong I love to sell my art quilt pieces but the freedom to give something away brings me great joy. Looking back at my art journey it is uncanny how most of my art quilts went to the right person. Just like I had them in mind but not really knowing who they were at the time. Being creative sometimes is letting the idea develop and then being open to the finished outcome. To me it is the art quilt process that is most important. So come follow me on the “Lost N Lava-Cowboy Poetry” journey. Hopefully it will inspire you to do more and would like to hear if anyone has worked on similar projects? What inspires you to start your projects and what it felt like at completion. Now off to the art studio……..
