The Switch is on!

I don't know what it is about buttons... I have hundreds of them. And light switch plates... Maybe because people buy them? I am finishing up a dozen  for Street Scene and these three, part of a bird series, were so much fun to do! I love playing in alcohol inks and Lumieres, bringing sticks in from the yard, and grunging scraps of papers and beads; the challenge of a small 'canvas.' 

I visit blogs to soak in the depth and extraordinary feeling of creation, whether it be dark or whimsical, and I keep saying I'm going to pour my soul onto journal pages, alter with abandon, collage wildly, paint with huge fat brushes on giant, well, a space bigger than 3 x 5, but, always after I get the switch plates done. I don't make a lot of money (obviously) on these, but it is very gratifying to know that people enjoy them enough to put them in their homes and that I'm paying for a portion, even if it is tiny, of my art supplies. 

I just read a great quote by Dorothy Parker: "If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people He gave it to." Actors, sports superstars, pundits and pol's... It's seriously out of whack when you think about the way we reward teachers, police officers and fire fighters, clergy...  But, if we didn't live in a capitalist country I'd probably be wading in a rice paddy or hammering on an assembly line. 

So, I have the freedom to choose what I create, to wander around ebay looking for lots of vintage buttons or jewelry parts; and there's the satisfaction of knowing that most of the embellishments have already been used at least once before - bottle caps, scraps of fabric and rick rack, stray earrings. I like to think that compiling stories from bits of other tales is only one benefit of creating recycled art. Now if only these buttons could talk...