Sunday, March 4, 2012

Art Inspires Art

Yesterday my husband and I went for an "urban hike" which is what I call finding an interesting place in town to go for a long (2+ hours) walk rather than driving to a park on the outskirts of town or some other farther location. We took a few laps around the trails in the central part of Santa Cruz that are part of Twin Lakes State Beach and then went out along the railroad tracks to the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor. When I walk along railroad tracks I am usually looking down at the uneven ground that my feet are landing on. The colors I see are brown, black and grey with some rust. Lining the tracks are trees most of the way, so add green.




Then out of nowhere, BOOM! COLOR! Someone or maybe many someones have painted this wooden fence. Since I didn't have a camera long, we used my phone. Since I wasn't wearing upclose glasses, Rick had to take the photo. I especially liked the M since it is the first letter of our last name and it reminded me somehow of us walking along holding hands as we like to do.

It was an inspiration to me. Add color to life to make it more interesting. So, with that inspiration, I decided to weave a guitar strap with some of the M colors. Then I had a terrible time getting the color to show correctly in the photo. Well, I'm not sure that you will see the resemblance, but I can still say that the strap was inspired by the graffiti.

5 comments:

  1. Nice graffiti, nice art, really nice interpretation--especially the holding-hands part!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Kathy. I'm glad to know that someone was able to follow my train-track of inspiration on this one!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a fun way to draw inspiration from your surroundings! This just makes me want to get outside and discover some too! I love that band.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Annie, I love the way you are able to incorporate your surroundings into your weaving, you're very good at it :).

    Do you mind if I ask you a cheeky question? You mention in this post that you use upclose glasses, and I've noticed your weaving position in previous posts with you holding the loom on your knee. I've been wondering whether you do your more intricate pick-up patterns like this too? I always find myself hunched over my loom, peering at the threads to see them properly, which ends up giving me a sore back! Maybe my eyesight's not as good as it should be!

    Carrie xx

    ReplyDelete
  5. JQ, you never know what you might run across!
    Carrie- Thanks! I use reading glasses for weaving that seem to be just right for the task. I have bi-focals that I use most of the time. I definitely need good light and proper magnification for doing close work like this and sewing. ~A

    ReplyDelete