outofdarkness

After living with a difficult family situation for nearly 60 years, I am free and find myself nearly overwhelmed by all of the opportunities to exercise my brain outside of "the box." I am a "retired" physician whose only "approved" creative outlet was participating in orchestral performances as a viola or violin player. I actually teach once a week in a studio. I only work with students who the other teachers don't want to work with. It can be challenging but also wonderful when a good lesson or performance happens.

Pets were discouraged, but I have a child who loves them as does her grandfather. So over the years we have clandestinely kept a pet worm, a small snake, a large snake (housed at a school classroom), fish, snails, hermit crabs, a few turtles, rats, ferrets, and a chinchilla. Now we openly have 2 cats.

I have been married to the same loving and supportive guy for 37+ years. A bet pool was run at our wedding with people guessing the longest we would stay married. The winning guess was my dad who picked 6 weeks.

Our eldest daughter (a lawyer) was born on our wedding anniversary. Our youngest daughter (a curriculum specialist and excellent teacher) was supposed to be born on Valentine's Day, but she moves to a different drummer...keeps us on our toes.

I always enjoyed all kinds of crafts although it was difficult to participate because of the family problem. I love to see and try all kinds of art forms and materials. I knit and crochet (if I need to in order to finish a project). I took some painting, etching, drawing, and sculpting lessons over the years in spite of disapproval and active discouragement. I can quilt and sew.

I am loving making ATCs, and participating in art challenges. Currently working on an altered book as part of a brown bag challenge where we were given 10 random items and we have to create something using them or parts of them... I recently made a domino "book" for a bird swap challenge. I look forward to trying other forms like book pages and other "found" art.

I am especially fond of flamingos and dragonflies, music themes.

I am trying to stay in budget and use materials I already have on hand. I have a lot of stuff on hand. I worked with Girl Scouts, 4 H, Boy Scouts, and religious education for many years. So I have all kinds of things stashed away. Oh, did I mention that I home-schooled the girls for 12 years? My budget is important because I would like to buy Copic pens and some of the beautiful inks, gelli, and other special materials and tools out there. Inka Gold is on my lust list.

While I use my computer extensively for various projects and activities in my life, I love the thrill of snail mail.

In short, I am trying to get out of my ruts and exercise the creative parts of my brain.

Likes: Flamingos, dragonflies, rich and intense colors. I actually like pretty much everything.
Don't particularly like country kitsch, but it may be because I can't really say what it is that I do't like about it....kind of circular isn't it? I guess I don't particularly care for those clay heads that are used in assemblage. I think they are kind of creepy. But that isn't a problem with ATCs, so not an issue.