Creativity and Craft

In my view anyone can be creative, but when you combine creativity with craft you can produce fine art!

I create my artwork with paper. I've learned that creating with paper requires the skillful use of an array of tools such as scissors, knives and rulers. The first piece I can ever remember making was a paper daisy chain surrounding the title of the Beatle's song, 'Come Together'. I remember with pride because my 5th Grade teacher, Ms. Carmola, put it up on our classroom's wall!

During my freshman year of college I attended a 2-dimensional art class. For one of the assignments I painted an abstract composition on a card board pizza plate. After class ended I mindlessly tossed it in a trash can outside the Fine Art's building. A few weeks later I was invited to see the graduate student, teacher's assistant studio. Upon entering the studio I noticed my pizza plate assignment displayed prominently on a wall. When I exclaimed' 'I made that!', Charlie, the teacher's assistant told me that he rescued it because when he had lifted the trash can lid and 'the colors leapt up at me'!

The following semester Charlie and the other graduate student assistants invited me to move off campus withthem in a farm house. That became the best experience of my college years!

After reading many essays in Glenn Adamson's marvelous anthology, 'The Craft Reader.', my art improved significantly. Many of the authors of these essays make the argument that craft has unfairly been relegated to a lower status than art, and they strive to change that. The appearance of my own art improved significantly after I read them. For example, I started to paste and cut paper much more carefully treating those actions as acquired skills rather than ordinary tasks.

After college I created reproductions of fashion magazine photographs using colorful, hand cut construction paper. I think I prefer to use paper rather than paint for the mundane reason that paper is easier to clean up afterwards. I had just spent a Summer washing dishes at a big resort in Arizona and guess I had about enough of cleaning up big messes!

About 15 years ago I had an epiphany: I envisioned producing greeting cards that resembled books. I believed that a book format would motivate people to write more than cliche inscripted commercial cards do. When I began production I used a Fiskar's Corner Punch to make decorative corner's which I pasted to the covers. I even inserted additional pages for to accomodate more writing. But, I soon discovered that the book format took too much time, effort and material to be commercially viable.

I then switched to a standard single fold format and instead of book covers I created colorful, ornate patterns consisting of hand-cut pieces of hand-made marbled paper. One thing I quickly learned is that marbled paper is an excellent medium for that kind of work. It's durable enough so that I could cut the most intricate forms without it tearing! At the center of these patterns I'd paste a reproduction of a Victorian Era Advertisement. These are also known as Trade Cards and many of these are works of art in themselves!

I discovered that with the Fiskar's finger-fitting knife I could do the most intricate, detailed cutting. And for the larger pieces I use the Fiskar's Easy Action non stick scissors, with a specially designed handle to reduce strain. These large compositions often required several straight hours of cutting to complete and the reduction of strain on my finger's is a welcome relief!

After much practice and producing many cards I achieved a point where these large, preliminary compositions had merit of their own. I began exhibiting these at local libraries and art galleris. To date I've had at least 15 such shows and have more scheduled for later this year. I was recently honored when the Waltham, Massachusetts Public Library asked me for permission to include images of my art in their permanent archives! And I've had much success selling my cards at local arts and craft fairs.

Oddly, my art productivity has increased dramatically since the beginning of the Covid Pandemic.That's likely due to having many public places I frequent being closed resulting in me staying home much more. Having my hobby has been a blessing in a big way because it keeps me busy and safe! I recently self published a book that contains 25 photographs of the art I produced during that time. The book, which I titled, 'I Have My Work Cut Out for You', doubles as a marketing tool to interest people in purchasing my art and interest galleries in displaying it.

I see mine as a kind of Horation Alger 'rags to riches' tale. But, though I've achieved neither fame, nor fortune considering where I began I've accomplished far, far more than my wildest expectations!