A week ago I woke up and looked in the mirror to find the left half of my face entirely paralyzed. After a trip to the ER and a week of steroids my face is still sagging and shows no sign of improvement. Even better the (confidence inducing) doctors have literally no prognosis. It might be better tomorrow. It might never get better. Needless to say, I'm feeling a down. But, after a morning of sewing pillows, hanging light fixtures, and baking cookies, I found that was feeling a bit better despite my face.
I've had a plain white canvas sitting on the floor of the craft room since summer just waiting for inspiration and to be hung on the wall. I sifted through my pinterest boards looking for the right quote to image to hang up, but I just couldn't get inspired. All of the things I'd pinned in the past suddenly felt hokey or wordy and I couldn't find anything on my own boards worth replicating. Eventually I ended up looking through the board of a Georgia art teacher named Laurie (who I want to be friends with now, naturally) and found this image.
Obviously, this is too many words to hang on the wall, and the "you are probably an artist" had that hokey feel to it that I just can't deal with, but something about it really resonated with me. That's the message I need: not a cliche about creativity and courage, not an inspirational message about taking chances. Make something. You will feel better.
Aside from all of the words, I ran into a problem with the ugly factor of this piece. This is not something I want on my wall. So, with 6 days left on my InDesign license I tried my hand a little typography and came up with this:
So, I gave the canvas an intentionally rough coat of gold acrylic paint and, using my quilting rulers and a pencil, sketched out the words. I went back over it all with Sharpie, did a little touch up, and alas, felt better.
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