Tend Your Garden

So I've been working on an art project.  I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and bursts of time working on it, and a big stretch of time the last couple of days to actually finish.  Due date is next Monday, but I'm taking a class that day (another personal push!) so I had to have it done by tomorrow to take it to someone else who can deliver it for me.

This is Rooted.  I'm pretty happy with it, although I wish I'd polished the text I wrote more, but I just kept re-writing and re-writing and finally had to just do it.

Sheba insisted on being in the picture.

Inside is a book I altered, and all the paper that you see is the extra pages from the book.  The flowers are two pages glued together and painted with artist's acrylics.  The text around the edge is "The garden of our life is rooted in our heart."

The stuff hanging down from the lid is "roots", or string, if you want to be exact.  It actually does look quite root-like when you first open the box.  And I textured the "paint" with gel medium, so it's not just flat brown, but more dirt-like.

"Where does activism come from? Local people see a local problem."

"The common people see a common problem.  It is not ROOTED in pity."

"Pity has no roots, no staying power.  Faith. Compassion. Love.  These have roots."

"We must be ROOTED in the faith that there is a difference to be made and one person can begin it."

"Compassion has both sympathy and change. Compassion does not stop at feeling, but moves to action."

"Whether the ROOTS of activism begin in religion or morals or stubborness, self-interest is not enough."

"There must be faith and compassion for deep ROOTS to grow.  Then, the endeavor can grow and flourish and change the world."

The final "page" is actually a shallow niche cut into a bunch of pages glued together, so it's very 3-D.

I'm really happy with the way the flowers and the box itself came out, and I ended up liking my painted pages way more than I thought I would.  The quotes are on vellum, and I'm reasonably happy with those, they fit with the theme and flow pretty well.  My text is kind of hokey, and I'm not thrilled with the pen I used (paint pens), but it was the only thing I had that would write on the painted pages.  I took the whole thing to a rubber stamping workshop and got my friends to critique it last night.  They all thought it was really beautiful, and gave me some good suggestions.  All the people in the book arts group are "real" artists, though (at least in my head) so I am somewhat nervous.  But I also think I haven't embarrassed myself.

The auction isn't until March 13th, so we'll have to wait to see what happens.  I'm debating about bidding on my own piece so I can take it home - don't know if that's "done".  Or what I would do with it afterwards.  But I've accomplished what I set out to, so I'm feeling pretty satisfied with that.