Last holiday season, I committed to creating something on each of the Twelve Days of Christmas.
I worked in paper collage, which is not my normal. But I loved it.
I cut several old watercolors and rearranged, glued, snipped and glued some more. I felt 7 years old again! It was sheer play. The old was re-purposed into something new, one could say.
On each of the Twelve Days of Christmas, a new collage was created. Each day I reflected on the season at hand.
And how it is symbolically portrayed in culture. . As I put together the traditional nativity scene, I thought much about poverty. And then also about the refugee crisis.
Fleeing and the need for shelter. What is it like to live in a war torn country, while we are surrounded by gifts and comfort? How can I even begin to understand?
The rose is a nod to the German hymn Es ist ein Ros' Entsprungen. On that day I thought of my mother and the fun German Christmas traditions she instilled in our home.
They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. The collage above had me thinking of first steps on long roads as new year's resolution season was underway. Mine was to increase my time painting. My productivity did increase but not as much as I had hoped. My inventory is still much lower than I'd like for it to be. And the ideas continue to come faster than I have time to execute them...
Anyway, I've been sorting through the collages this week. I'm actually making a postcard set out of them. I used to collect postcards when I was younger. I had shoe boxes full of them. I loved all the travels they depicted. The thoughtfulness of those who took time out of their vacation to send a note home impressed me. I wanted to capture this 12 Day Series in that format.
The printed cards have not yet arrived, but I'll post more about where you can find the sets soon.
Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to creating another Twelve Day Series this year. I have ideas already at work for the theme!
