Days 6,7 & 8. Folk art and Story Time

Saturday & Sunday 6 & 7:

"Studying other forms of art is a classic way to inspire your own creativity. If folk art or its style doesn't resonate with you right away, give it time--assimilation of a new art may come gradually." 

Ain't that the truth. The next project is for the next two days and separated into two parts. The first part researching Folk Art. Well that was easy enough...I just typed in folk art in Google search and received a whole plethora of info. I looked at some exhibits in the Folk Art Museum in New York, some independent artists and I discovered a couple of things. First Folk Art tends to stay in the natural colors and tends to be in the categories of Quilting, Painting, Clay sculptures and the bizarre. Pretty much what Folk Art portrays is a very traditional art form. As the book describes it "Folk Art is the art of everyday". Well now that I researched and discovered kind of what to do, I had to figure out what was I going to do. Well...I can't quilt, I'm not very good at painting and clay is expensive so that's out of the picture....Well I had to go with my resources and that was lots and lots and LOTS of paper.
Side Note--As some of you know, for over 15 years my mom was involved in a major Scrapbooking company. Needless to say she has 15 or so years of scrapbooking stuff. When I moved out she unloaded a lot of that onto my sisters and I. I ended up with tons of paper which I am very thankful for.

So with my paper I decided to do kind of a collage of paper that looks like a quilt. Next, I just needed to find a subject. Well Folk Art usually expresses "cultural identity" of some sort. My cultural identity as I've found out the past few days is a mix of spirituality, stories and love. Hey! St. George is a mixture of spirituality, stories and love! What does St. George and I have in common? Well a lot actually. I have ancestors who helped found this area so my blood runs through this city (That might be stretching it a bit). The point is I decided to do something historically significant not only to the city but to me as well. I decided to do the Jacob Hamblin home. 
This historical sight was the first one my family and I ever visited when we first moved to the St. George area. I really enjoyed it then and still do to this day. It's a beautiful home sitting on top of this majestic hill with these fruit tree orchards surrounding it. I loved it and it looked simple to recreate. So pretty much all Sunday I worked on my collage. 

I'm pretty darn proud of it personally. The picture doesn't really do it justice and it looks tons better in real life. I just used the paper that I had, cut and pasted it onto some card board. It was fun. I dunno if I would call it Folk Art but it was inspired by Folk Art so I'm going to say mission accomplished!!

Monday day 8:
"A custom journal is a lovely gift, but don't forget to create art for yourself sometimes. Surrounding yourself with your own creations (rather than giving them away) can inspire new ideas, and remind you how creative you really are."
While I was working at Barnes and Noble I bought this book called "How to Make Books". I bought it with the intention that I would make my own kids books or just learn how to bind my own books and such. The thing is after I bought it, I never did anything with it. Today provided me the perfect opportunity to use this book. I decided to create kind of a mini journal with this idea that I've had for a while.

Front Cover of t

 I made the front cover and the pages about a couple of days ago but was stumped with the back cover and how it was going to come together. I took some inspiration from Saturday and Sundays Folk Art lesson and decided to use the resources I have. I took my National Geographic magazines and flipped through them till some sort of idea hit me. It did after the first magazine. Here is what I came up with:

Back Cover

There is a story behind it and you might not understand it or get excited about it as I did when I first thought of it. I love Greek Mythology and one of my favorite myths is the Kidnapping of Persephone. For those unfamiliar with the myth, it tells the story of the Harvest Goddess, Demeter's daughter Persephone. She is said to be of great beauty and very innocent and carefree. While she was playing in the garden of her Mothers, Hades looked up from his hellish throne, saw her beauty and fell in love. Hades, not being the most tactful or graceful god, kidnaps Persephone and made her the Queen of the Underworld. It didn't take long for Demeter to realize her daughter was missing. She searched for her every where and when she couldn't find her she fell weeping in her garden. The flowers and birds felt pity for her and told her of Hades misdeed. Demeter was furious and punished the Earth until she got her daughter back. Everything died, no harvest grew and people died. Zeus couldn't ignore the fact that people were dying so he demanded that Hades and Demeter come to some sort of agreement. They did with clenched teeth. Persephone was allowed to come above for 3 seasons but for 1 season was confined with Hades. So while she is above Earth Demeter is happy and everything blooms, hence spring, summer and fall and while she is away Demeter is sad and doesn't let anything grow, hence winter. My journal is modeled after this story. I picked a little girl to represent Persephone because little girls are naive and innocent. Then for Hades I picked a mechanical arm because the opposite of nature is technology and usually is destructive. I got really excited while I was doing this cause I loved the idea. This is my first time binding a book and I used the Japanese stab-stitch design.  I liked the idea that the story stretches across the covers. I'm proud of my little creation. It's not much but it was fun. :D