Teaching and Trading Art

In about two weeks I'll be teaching a painting class at the Salvation Army Northern Division's Creative Arts Retreat.

Now I know this of myself:  I'm not much of a painter.  I'm no great shakes.  I won't revolutionize. I won't scandalize. I won't shock the art world.  I won't create a scene or a movement or a school. 

But I do enjoy what I do.  

Take for instance these cards.  They're 2" square (more or less) ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) that I made for my freind, Dena, who is hosting a swap of these little gems.  Her artsy-fartsy friends from across the country (and even a few from that socialist paradise, Canada) are sending them to her  - and she will in turn, shuffle them and mail them back out to everyone who participated in the swap, everyone getting a few of someone else's work. 

I made these on heavy watercolor paper using white acrylic paint (apparently I can't follow instructions) that I mixed with powdered pencil lead to make a steel / blue/grey color.  Brown and white paint were added later as accent and detail.  I also used cut outs from old and new magazines, old photos and cartoons, and scraps of pages from an old dictionary.

The theme of the swap was "Dictionary" and Dena asked everyone to use actual pages from a dictionary - not a photocopy or a scan, and to include the definitions as part of the art, though none of mine have a complete entry.  (See what I mean about instructions?)

These ATCs are pretty ephemeral.  They're not going to hang in a museum someday.  They're not going "to be worth something someday."  ((By the way --- don't say that your artist friends when they give you a painting or a drawing.  Seriously.  It should mean something to you today.))  Most likely these little squares will be put away at the bottom of a drawer, or in a box at the back of some dark closet and never recalled.

But I think they do look nice.  I like the texture of them.  I like the ragged layers of overlapping colors.  I like the torn edges and the blurring between foreground and background.

I like the sense of nostalgia.  (what a dork.)

But all that aside.  I'm supposed to be teaching this stuff to a class in 17 days.  I don't know who will be participating yet.  I imagine that it will be little old ladies who want to paint pretty flowers and birds.  (or perhaps they'll want to paint "happy trees" with Bob Ross.  I miss that guy)  And I'm afraid that I'll have to disappoint them.  I don't paint like that. 

This is the kind of thing that I paint. I paint more like those anti-art artists, the Dada-ists than good 'ole Bob Ross with his happy trees and happy clouds.  So this will have to be the kind of thing that I teach.  

I've submitted my supply list for the class - asking the participants to have the usual: canvas boards, paints, and brushes, etc.... for the class. 

In addition to those, I'll be bringing a bunch of my my crud: old magazines, books, newspapers, and the like.  These I'll share with them.  I'll show them how I rip and tear and cut and glue these bits into my paintings.

And then, if they decide that they like that kind of work, they can continue it on their own back at home.  If they don't like it, well that's okay too.  They can go home and paint pretty trees and sad clowns on their own. That will be just fine.