I enjoyed art and craft time when I was in elementary school. I loved getting out my scissors, pencils, crayons and glue and making something special. I was never critical of my work. I don’t think the word “mistake” ever entered my mind while I was creating. Now I think about my mistakes a lot. The altered ballerina doll is a great example.
I broke 2 other containers before I finally decided to just go ahead and finish this one. The heck with my little boo boos and big mistakes.
I used vintage images from a variety of sources including Dover Publications and the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. I took a skeleton chest image (front view) and glued it inside the tic tac-like container. The legs and arms are just images decoupaged to card stock. I did “fix” the images with a fixative. The image of the head is glued inside a rearranged upholstery button (I’ll have to explain some other time).
You can see some of the mechanisms if you click on the photo above and look at the largest photo. I made wire loops at the shoulders and crotch so that I could attach legs and arms. The arms and legs are attached with little pink heart brads. I have a wire loop behind her head to use for hanging her up on a wall.
On my wall or a friends wall she’ll remain for a while. She’s not of the quality I would put in my store. That doesn’t mean that I will throw her away, that she isn’t beautiful, or that she isn’t valuable. I did enjoy making her. I had a great time experimenting with new material. Most importantly she made me stop thinking about mistakes and gave me a few hours of pure creative joy.
As the old Chinese proverb says “The journey is the reward”.
