Creative Process or Obsession?

Am I obsessed with Chunky Books?

I can't get enough of them. And it seems that I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get them. Everyone I know seems to think that making 40 pages is torture. I rather enjoy the process. The painful part is to come up with an idea I like that is reproducible that many times in a practical way. The really hard part is to find a project that fires up my creative juices!

One night after dinner we stumbled across the movie, "Frida", with Salma Hayek. I've been interested in Frida Kahlo ever since. I'd heard of her and knew she was an artist but knew nothing else until the movie showed me how interesting she was. I've never cared that much for the surrealists, especially the modern ones, so it wasn't surprising that I didn't know about her sooner. I've always found Salvador Dali, for instance, to be more of a clown sort of character along the lines of Phyllis Diller gone completely over the top and not even funny. I always liked Hieronomus Bosch's work because it is so incredibly detailed with many "jokes" as I think of the anomalies in surrealist art. Frida's work is so literal. And talk about obsessive! Woah!

Somehow in one of my groups, I heard that Vickie Enkoff was hosting a Frida Chunky Book. it's not really like me, but I emailed her after the deadline and asked if I could be in it or if I could be an alternate since someone always flakes out. Ever since I saw that movie and was introduced to this kind of art-making, I'd wanted to be part of a Frida-themed Chunky Book! Vickie kindly said yes, I could be an alternate, and starting including me in the emails. I figured that it would make a nice one-off standalone piece of art even if I didn't get into the exchange in the end. So I started the design process which included reading everything I could easily get my hands on about Frida and her world. I wanted to be in this book so badly that I just don't understand how I missed Vickie's email telling me that I could send in pages.

I'm in! Yippee!

Here's the prototype of my Frida page. When I start out designing, I never know what direction I will end up going. While I really wanted to do an original stamp for the centerpiece, when I saw this one at Frenzy Stamper a couple of weeks ago, I knew it would give me the look I wanted. (This doesn't look square because it is a photo rather than a scan. I've got four scanners here and none I could use for this hooked up to one of my computers. I don't use Dan's computers and he doesn't use mine though we do share music and photo directories.)

I double stamped a Frida rubber stamp (purchased) onto some deli wrap, once in red Staz-On and once in black Versafine pigment ink and I think it looks like a woodcut print. Then I sprayed more deli wrap with Lemon Head yellow Color Mist intense liquid watercolor and layered the print over that and then that whole thing over a piece of dull purple card stock. The background has Twinkling H2Os dabbed on watercolor paper and then misted with water to make the colors run together. After they dried, I cut them up into my 4 x 4” squares and stamped around the outside edge with a stamp I made with toothpicks and foam core board in Green Gold Golden Fluid Acrylics, then layered the other piece in the center. This one just needs its flower added. I’m nearly done and want to get them in the mail tomorrow or Thursday.

I love making all originals by which I mean using no copies. I might copy my central element, but I would probably just print it out on my printer and try to use unusual paper. For some reason, I find it sort of soothing to go into production and make 40 of the same page. I might get over that. I know that Keri and others I know just are sick to death of it. But I love fat books and I enjoy the production part. The challenge for me is to come up with a design that I like and that is reproducible as an original. It's a win-win-win situation. I enjoy producing the pages. I get another fat book for my effort.

And I get the excitement of going through the creative process.