Mothering Invention

As a reuse artist, my mind is trained to go straight from brokenness (aack, my favorite serving bowl! 😲) to reincarnation (more mosaic materials! 🙌🏽). This doesn’t take the sting out of all kinds of losses, but it helps. Sometimes even the smallest scraps can be repurposed.

up·cy·cle /ˈəpˌsīkəl/ (v.) reuse (discarded objects or material) in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original.

The End is Also a Beginning

In this final dispatch of heART❤️SCHOOL I’m offering up some visual meditations on Loss in the form of up-cycled artwork. I encourage you to spend a few moments pondering the damage, neglect, overproduction, or breakdown that the materials encountered before they were reimagined into something new.

How might we apply the same type of creative transformation in our own lives, or in service to the wider world?

Guess what the wool dots are covering up?

Hmm, what’s manila colored, comes pre-folded, and is easy to cut?

Any idea what the black triangular shards used to be? They’ve got tiny grooves…

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

I’m kinda done spending energy fighting to put broken things back together. I’d rather direct my life force toward imagining how the useable pieces (of, say, our institutions) could be reshaped into more beautiful, equitable, and viable structures and practices.

This is the work of a creative life, and it’s available to (required of?) each of us.

As you’ve heard:

Thanks for being with me on this heART❤️SCHOOL journey, whether you just arrived or have been following along since last August. Showing up here three times per month using different modalities — words, pictures, and sound — has kept me on my creative toes, so to speak. (Find info on heART❤️SCHOOL here.) It’s been an adventurous ride on my end, and engaging, I hope, for you.

I plan to keep landing in your inbox on the 3rd, 13th, and 23rd of each month, and might take the summer to highlight past articles or podcast episodes that seem timely. (That counts as creative reuse, right? 😉) Also look for news of art workshops, both virtual and in-person, like the ones below.

Keep imagining the world you want to inhabit. That’s the only way to make it so. ✨
Love,
Pam
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Upcoming Workshops
TONIGHT the Doodling Lunatics 🖍🌙 will gather over Zoom! That’s Friday the 13th 🧙🏼‍♀️ at 5:30 pm Pacific Time. The Zoom link is at the end of this email. All are welcome, especially those who feel “creatively anxious.”

TOMORROW I’m teaching a mosaic workshop at the ReBuilding Center in N Portland at 1 pm, and I hear there are a few spots remaining. Click here for info and registration, and check out the June calendar as well.

Tuesday, June 14th I’ll be back at Belle Flower Farm in Vancouver, WA leading a workshop called Where Mosaic Meets Collage. Guided by a spectacular collection of random doo-hickeys and colorful baubles, we’ll create one-step mosaics (no grouting required) with a variety of textures and materials. Info is here.