Monday, February 18, 2008

Simplicity Challenge

When it comes to art, I like to think of myself as a minimalist, but the truth is: I do tend to complicate things. The end product may end up looking simple, but it usually has nothing to do with the process of getting there.
For this reason, I was drawn to Jen Worden's latest weekly challenge, The Spirit of Simplicity. To play, you create either a collage, or an assemblage—whatever you do less of—check Jen’s blog for the complete details.
I decided to do an assemblage because I’ve been working a lot with mixed media and Photoshop recently. As soon as I started, I got bogged down trying to create something simple from my large stash of assemblage material. Where is the Spirit in that? So I made up my mind I’d do something that involved just three different elements, and then stop.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll remember that I was posting set-ups in August and September of 2006. (Set-ups are assemblages that can be disassembled because I don’t use any glue, nails or screws). I’ve missed doing them and decided this was the perfect opportunity to get back to basics.
For The Spirit of Simplicity, I chose a large marble, a plastic wedding cake pillar and a mirrored stand for crystal ornaments I bought at the dollar store. The cool thing about this stand is that when you put in some AAA batteries, pulsing different colored lights travel up the hollow pillar and illuminate the marble. It looks great in the dark!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love how you really throttled back and used the barest of supplies. Excellent work Susan!

azirca said...

Oh my! that is really neat, I especially like how the marble glows at night.

jo said...

This is just too cool, love it. Love the simplicity.
Jo