Spiral Crone
What goes around, comes around.

When I was in junior high (that was what we had before there was Middle School, Grasshopper), there were classes in Arts and Crafts that focused mainly on watercoloring, drawing, and similar activities. The student body was rotated through a cycle of courses that also included Foods (now Home Ec?), Shop, Sewing, and maybe something else. (This was soooo long ago, it could have been Dinosaur Husbandry.)

So. I managed to get in a rogue Arts and Crafts class that included no sissy activities. Somebody made a mistake in the schedule, and there was a whole class of girls (the only ones allowed to take Foods or Sewing at that time) and there was only one teacher available. The Shop teacher. Oops.

Bless his heart, he did his best. He was initially horrified at the prospect of all those girls, but he stepped up to the plate. He taught us leatherworks, metal etching, and my most favorite, printing. He had a small letter press that came complete with a cabinet of type, and I know that having learned how to lay out a page manually makes it much easier for me to use Word to create a document, or edit the pages of others.

But. This was not "Art". Or so we thought. It reinforced my belief that I could not paint, could not draw, and therefore was "not artistic".

I began to suspect that Art might have a wider definition. I know that many efficient solutions to problems are referred to as "elegant". Isn't it an art to do that? Isn't it an art to be able to express oneself creatively?

I love this definition of art that I found:

"Human endeavor having meaning beyond simple description."

Oh, yeah.

Now, many years later and no more dinosaurs to keep and care for, I realize that I AM An Artist. I still can't draw, or paint, or do some things. But I am creative, and my work has aesthetic appeal. Check out the image at the top. I handmade the paper the images are stamped on, using tea leaves for texture and interest. I stamped the characters and embellished them with markers when the images were unclear due to the texture of the tea paper. I hand-minted the antique Chinese coins and stamped them for brass embossing powder. I mounted the papers on cardstock. This *is* Art.

I use my time and energy doing stamping and other projects to renew my creativity in writing, which is just as much an art as making pictures. I love it that I can see convergence in the two activities and enjoy them both.

Art is also the expression of the heart.

Bright Blessings,
Spiral Crone