Saturday, January 3

My Dad's favorite Uncle, Carl passed away earlier in the week. Once again my sister Sara and I find ourselves at the Duffy Funeral in Cumberland. Carl was eighty, twelve years younger than my grandmother, his sister, who passed away last month.  It is the third funeral for this family in four months.  It is a somber morning.

This afternoon some friends are coming over to make vision boards for the New Year.  A vision board is an artistic representation of your goals and dreams for the coming year.  It is to be hung in a place where you will notice it often, to remind yourself of what you are working towards.

I had seen a blog post about vision boards and posted it on facebook to see if anyone was interested in making one.  A few people responded, so I need to get thing set up for our project.  Unfortunately, when my basement flooded, I threw out a pile of magazines.  Of course now I wish I hadn't.  I have asked people to bring some with them, hopefully everyone else has not been on a cleaning tear.

I have plenty of pretty papers, paints, colored markers, stickers, pencils and crayons.  I set them up on tables around the house, so people can help themselves to whatever they need.  I also have glue, poster board, scissors and tape.  The only thing I can't find is glitter.

By three o'clock, people start to arrive.  I am in the kitchen making soup, just in case we run into dinner time.  I have asked people to bring snacks along with their magazines, creativity takes a lot of nourishment!

There ends up being twelve of us and we don't all fit in the dining room.  Some people move into the living room to the daycare table.  I find a place on the floor using the couch as a table. It isn't long before my floors are covered with scraps of magazines.  People are busy planning and cutting.  Occasionally questions pop up like, "Who needs a crocodile?" or "Does someone want a dinosaur?"



 It takes a while for people to collect words and pictures to represent all they want to say.  There is a lot of thinking that has to go on to make things fit.  Some people prefer to go with simple straight forward designs, while others delight in filling their boards with pictures and color.  By six o'clock some people are done and ready to leave.  Others continue to work until much later.  I am not the last to finish close to nine.

I have included two pictures in my collage I painted earlier last year.  The technique I used is simple; paint lines and squiggles onto paper, and then try and find the picture.  As I explain it to one of my friends, she is curious to try it. Alex, Kaileigh and Steven join us. I find it very meditative and relaxing, and after creating a few, they all agree.  It is a soothing way to end a creative evening.