The Joy of Shared Art

Fifteen women in Scotland are three months into a shared art exchange....and I couldn't be more tickled.  Susan is a blog reader and she and I chatted last fall about my love for shared art. She pitched the idea to her art group...and they're all on board! They started with their own sketchbook, decorated the cover and made a title page, then passed it to the next person on the list.  Each month they'll complete a page in that journal with a quote, saying, or poem and some sort of art.  They'll keep the person in mind who owns the book...but the rest is up to them.  This seems like just the right balance of structure and freedom.  I love it!  

Susan also has been playing around with torn paper flowers...and she sent a photo of a couple of her cards.  I'm double tickled.

Connecting...and creating...two of my favorite things!

Speaking of torn paper collage.....I had a little "oops" moment with my last experiment.  Do you see it?  

I DID intend to do just one row of decorative stitch....but I didn't intend the leaves to be upside down. 

This time I use a mixture of torn paper scraps collaged together giving a nod to a row of tulips.  Once I rearranged the strips and glued them down I thought why not add some stitch!  That would be different!

But I didn't match up the direction I was stitching...with the direction of the leaves....so then ended upside down.  Oops.

Maybe I'll just the whole thing upside down......or just chuckle about it.

Susan's art group is also going to share supplies as part of another creative exchange.  They're going to make up boxes of things from their stash and exchange them and see how many things that can make from the contents.  Her line was: "crafters don't think outside the box - they think what to do with the box."  How fun is that!  Oh the joy of shared art!