Entries Tagged as: language

Telling Stories in Art

April 13th, 2012, Comments (22)


Another fun way to explore language in your art is through telling stories. I was on the Subway a few years back, when I had an idea. I was watching the people in passing Subway cars thinking how each person I saw had their own story, how each person had a dialogue running through their heads. And all these simultaneous stories were just whooshing by each other at fast speeds all day long. I wanted to capture that in art and so the Subway Stories series was born.


In the background, I'd collage subway maps and train station times along with bits of phone book pages. Over that I would paint a subway scene. And then in each figure I would write a bit of their story through the dialogue I imagined was running through their heads.


How do you tell stories through your art?

:::

Art above is Green Line, Park Street, and St. Mary's, all named after Boston T stops.
 

Inspired by Poetry

April 6th, 2012, Comments (11)

How fun that the theme is language this month and it is also National Poetry Month! I'm often inspired by poetry. Poems are often so visually rich, that I see great images in my mind as I read them. This happened when reading "The Guest House" by Rumi. I read the line, "a crowd of sorrows," this image immediately popped into my head and I had to create it.


Do you have a favorite poem? Have you created work based on a line of poetry or a whole poem? Tell me about it!

Creative Every Day Theme for April: Language

March 27th, 2012, Comments (10)


At the end of each month I will announce the totally optional theme for the following month. For the month of April 2012, the theme will be Language.

As always, this month's theme for the Creative Every Day Challenge is totally optional. Use it if it inspires you, continue being creative every day in your own way if it doesn't, or do something in between. You can sign up for the 2012 Creative Every Day Challenge anytime. More info can be found here and the sign-up page is here.

I'll be posting about the theme throughout the month on the blog to help keep you inspired. You can use the posts here for jumping off points or interpret the theme in your own creative way. If you need some suggestions, here are a few ideas to get you started. You could:

  • *Include writing in your native tongue or a foreign language in your work.
  • *Let the origins of a word inspire you.
  • *Write a poem and speak it out loud.
  • *Use pages of a book in a mixed media piece.
  • *Write a children's story.
  • *Express an idea in the language you imagine an object (chair, tree, cloud) would speak if it could.
  • *Try expressing yourself through the language of movement.
  • *Let what you wear tell a story today.

How to use the CED themes:

If you're feeling creatively stuck or blocked at any point during the month, use the theme as a source of inspiration to get you moving. Feel free to focus on the theme in your creative activities for the entire month or as much as you'd like.

Using the theme is entirely optional for CED participants. Use it if it inspires you, ignore it if it doesn't. I'll be sharing posts throughout the month around the theme (among other things) to get you thinking about how to incorporate it into your life. I'd love to hear how you use the theme in your creative world.

And have fun with it!

Art is a language, an instrument of knowledge, an instrument of communication. ~Jean Dubuffet