I'm a Re-Crafter...

I've spent a lot of time and energy (not to mention money) on crafty things. My mom is probably the most creative person I know, even though she likes to pretend that anyone can do what she does. Sometimes she gets ideas from other people, but most often things come straight from her head. She is the queen of making an idea come to life. I really envy that trait of hers.

Me, I'm a "re-crafter" and yes, I totally made that term up. I can take things that exist and that I see elsewhere, and then I make them. Sometimes I can remake them better than the original, sometimes not so much. I've just recently realized this seems to be my artistic calling. I should have realized it much much sooner. My first big hope as an artist started because I thought I was really good at "redrawing" things from a Lisa Frank coloring book. Seriously, I was amazing at putting a piece of paper next to one of those drawings and redrawing it (and NO I don't mean tracing it). Yet, I could never just draw on my own from ideas in my own head. It would always turn out a mess.

One great example of this would be the cover of the Aaron Williams Band "special edition" CD I did this past summer. Blogger seems to be having some difficulties this morning, so I can't share pictures, but I'll add them later. I had the intial version of the CD, and we wanted to do a similar, although not completely identical screen printed version for the special edition. So I stared at it for a while, and eventually came up with a workable design by working with the medium of choice (Gocco scrreen printer). It turned out wonderfully! But it wasn't my original idea, and I surely couldn't have come up with it all on my own.

My current project is similar. I fell in love with some cool bottle cap magnets, jewlery etc. at the One of A Kind Show in Chicago last year. After a few months of thinking about it, I'm doing something similar, but with different images that I personally find a lot more appealing and intersting. I'm taking the best of what they did and making it my own.

I'm a Re-Crafter... and I'm proud of it.

Weather in Ashley's Brain: Cloudy with a Chance of Rain

Today is one of those days where my brain can't seem to focus on any of the million and one tasks at my desk. I'm trying to muddle through some serious changes to one of our Union contracts, and it's like my brain is two steps behind my body. I'm here, I'm looking at the contract, but my brain can't quite seem to focus and figure out what it needs to do to get this thing done. Not to mention the million OTHER things I have floating around me... phone calls, e-mails, newsletters, questionable committee actions.... it makes me want to crawl under my desk and cry. Really mature hey?

I keep trying to come up with something more interesting to say about this... but it just isn't there. I guess that's how it goes when your brain isn't firing... I can't be witty or even come up with something productive to say. Other than, suck it up woman and quit your whining.

Well, that helped.