Telling Stories

Last week, I set up the first of ten new weekly art projects. When Amy asked me if I was interested, I jumped at the chance of stretching my paper sculpture legs. But I must admit that I am a tad overwhelmed, too.

Each week, my work is supposed to illustrate a story from the Old Testament. When Amy first gave me her plan for the ten weeks, I have to admit that I did know or completely forgot several of the stories. The burning bush and parting of the Red Sea was pretty easy to remember, but I wasn’t so sure of the others. I finally sat down to look them up. I silently panicked when I thought how I was going to possibly illustrate these stories.

The first week (last week) was easy. It was the story of when Jacob wanted to marry Rachel and her dad tricked him into marrying his older sister Leah. I don’t have a sister, but I would be pretty upset if that happened to me. Anyway, I knew immediately that I could transform my paper doll from Penland, which I also call my creativity princess, into a bride. She has a colorful crown on her head, plus these alien like swirls on top of her head, which also hold up a colorful necklace. I slide her antenna down a little lower so they weren’t so obvious. She was lovely. The display – easy peasy. And I received tons of compliments on how beautiful she was.

As for this week, it is Jacob wrestling God. The whole thought caused me a restless night. I bought some paper, balled it up into a figure, and got seriously depressed as I saw it lifeless on the living room floor. On to the next plan…

Next I was going to create a giant cut out of the angel and Jacob. But then somehow we started talking about shadow puppets. I wasn’t really certain how to set up a shadow puppet. But I looked up Owly Shadow Puppets, one of my favorite from Crafty Bastards.

So I made Henry draw a picture of Jacob and the angel for me. Then I spent most of yesterday cutting and creating hinges. I am pretty pleased by the final piece. I haven’t attached any sticks, so they aren’t fully functioning shadow puppets. But they were really fun to pose for a series of photos that are being used for the bulletin cover.

But this week’s art still isn’t set. That may be the reason for the mild headache that hasn’t left me all day. Or my cutback on my coffee intake this morning. So the verdict is still out on how to display the work. It does involve the screen and more cutting on my part. But you can see the final work at 11 am on Sunday.