When the idea of a joint project came up in our Zoom meeting, we all loved the idea.
Thrashing out the “what” and the “how” was fun. As you can imagine, there were some interesting proposals for the subject, but we decided on the Houses Project. Now as you know, I don’t do normal and I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could approach this with a twist. I went through the options of tree house, dolls house, fairy house etc. but finally decided on a lighthouse. There is something about a lighthouse, isn’t there? The raw elements and being isolated, at one with nature. I like the nostalgic idea of the lighthouse keeper out there keeping the shipping safe with that shaft of light splitting the night sky. Of course, nowadays, things are very different with the whole system being automated, the lone man out there in the elements is just a long-faded dream…
With this in mind, and the fact that I could make life exceedingly difficult for my companions if I put my lighthouse in the middle of the picture, I placed it on the end. I hoped this wouldn’t restrict them with their own creations and the flow of their pictures. It took me an afternoon to design, draw and create and it was fun!
The next stage of course was sending it on to the next artist, and that posed its own problems, I can tell you. It is quite a large piece, and the paper is quality, good and thick. So… it wouldn’t roll and go in a tube, and it had to be flat; who wants to paint on paper that is creased? I had foam board in the loft, and this is simply perfect for sending artwork. It doesn’t bend or crease, it is very light, and it is waterproof when you seal the edges with parcel tape.
Postage is quite easy now too; I can do most of mine online and all that was left was physically posting it. With Lockdown, I didn’t want to go to the Post Office, it didn’t fit in the post box of course, so I had to accost the postman the next day. No worries about that, he is a sweetie and as he took it said, “Oh! What is this? One of your paintings?”
At that point, there was a roaring in my ears, the world stopped spinning, and I thought, “Oh my goodness, it is isn’t it! What if something happens to it?” And I watched without a word, nodding dumbly as he carried it away to the van, threw it in the back and drove away… Precious baby paintings all on their own, travelling to a new home all alone… what if… ?
We can be such Drama Queens about our art, can’t we? I waited anxiously for days until Denise messaged to say that it had arrived. This was equivalent to that dreadful day when I first put my 11- year-old son on a plane all alone! Anyway, I hope you enjoy the big reveal every week and the videos that go with it. We all had a great time… who knows what we will get up to next time?!