Articles

Find YOUR OWN artistic voice
by squidglass

People ask me, "Where do you get your fabulous ideas?"

"Oh, pish," I reply languidly. "I just go to some other glass person's shop, copy everything, and put it up on Etsy for $2 less!"

WAIT - I REALLY DON'T DO THAT. Really.

Why? Because it's wrong. And it diminishes me as a person and as an artist. And people who buy my knock-offs will feel cheated later. And it's an insult to the person I'm copying from. And I get that little flicker of shame when I am found out (I really hate that little flicker of shame.) And other crafters roll their eyes whenever my name is mentioned. Is all that worth $12 or $15? I don't think so.

Especially when great original ideas are all around us, free

Really. I'll prove it. So I'm sitting outside the chiropractor's office waiting for my girlfriend (I'd go in and wait in the comfy chairs in the air-conditioned yummy-smelling waiting room and visit with the perky staff, but it creeps me out). So I'm parked in front of this old apple tree. Design ideas are everywhere! Picket fence - I could make a series of pendants with little weeds or flowers sprouting at the base of a fence made of narrow strips of white glass. Or just use the repetition of stripes and shadows. Hmmm. The greens of the tree against the blue sky. The various greens of the leaves. At the base of the tree are fallen green apples casting long shadows in the afternoon sun. Hmmm. The tree turns out to be two trees grown together, a crab apple and a green apple. They intertwine, and the canopy is a mix of two different kinds of leaves, and little red and bigger green apples. That might be too complex for a pendant, but it sure is cool. Check out the shapes of the leaves, the way their stems curve, the glossy tops and the matte undersides. And the little green-apple butts poking out here and there. Hmmm. Check out the dappling light. And how about the bark? Bark is cool. Birch bark, sycamore bark, pine... hmmm. The green-apple tree has smooth grey bark with interesting wrinkles at the joins. The crab has rough bark. How about a series of pendants juxtaposing smooth with rough? Actual textures, or just visual ones. Hmmm. Crab apple. Wonder why they call it that? Would a crab eat an apple? What the heck do crabs eat? Slow little fishes? Hmmm.

So I've collected several promising ideas from one 20-minute wait in a parking lot.

OK, say I decided to brave the perkiness and wait inside. Hmmm. There's a guy with a hurt back and an interesting moustache. A series of pendants based on historic mustaches? Hmmm. A garden magazine. Check out the close-up of the lilies. The naughty bits in the center of the flower are ridiculous colors and interesting textures. And here's a news magazine with photos of old Prague. Check out that Art Nouveau building. Love those curves. Hmmm.

 Back home, the front garden is full of colors and textures and ideas. The brick walk has moss growing in the cracks. The bike casts interesting shadows. That cat spider is freckled and beautiful. And there must be something artistic we could do with that bowlegged puppy.

I can take these ideas and approach them lots of different ways. I could shoot a photo or make a drawing and do a transfer on glass. Or draw with frit. Or layer shards of glass confetti and maybe some stringer. Or cut and nip glass sheets into design elements. How about using irid or dichro? Shiny or etched surfaces? Tack fuse, full fuse or slump? And my pieces could be quite realistic, or loose and impressionistic, or quite abstract. Full of color, or monochromatic.

There are so many options I don't know where to start! So I'll go back to that apple tree, and try a few things. Maybe I'll make a pendant for that uberperky woman at the counter. She's pretty nice.

So that's where I get my ideas. My house, my yard, my town, my sky, an old book, light and shadows and green-apple butts. There aren't enough years to make all the things I'd like to make, to try out all my ideas. That's why I don't need to steal yours!

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