Our Creative Spirit Michele Laughing-Reeves

Our Creative Spirit

By Michele Laughing-Reeves

BBack in December, we were all looking forward to the coming new year, especially since 2019 did not live up to its expectations, having been riddled with political conflict and the uncertainty that it created. So, when we lit the firecrackers and rang in the year 2020, we hoped for prosperity and a new beginning. No one could have guessed that four months later, the entire country would come to a screeching halt; that we would find ourselves staying home—and stay home we did. For most of us, it seemed that the real enemy was boredom. Whether we are alone or with our family, what do we do with all this time confined to our homes?

As seen in the news and on social media, people are coming up with all sorts of ways to express their creativity. People of all ages are sharing their artistic ideas, helping the rest of us to cope with our “stuck at home” syndrome. People have done this by using whatever is laying around the house. Is it not the way in which art originated? The people

Rock painting by one of my students

of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods expressed their creativity by using what little they had, and it resulted in stone carvings like the Venus of Willendorf and the wall paintings at the Caves of Lascaux. Now, little kids are channeling their creative spirits and painting rocks and sidewalks.

The ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Minoan evolved rock painting into frescoes that depicted important aspects of their culture, and they developed architecture to honor their gods and their pharaohs. Today during the quarantine, people are being imaginative and using materials that they have plenty of, like the

DIY cacti sculpture made of cardboard (Chehalem Culture Center) Forest carved out of toilet paper tubes (hometone.com)

Toilet paper wall art (www.forumaski.com); use the doorway to the left as a size reference.

cardboard boxes from online shopping and, of course, toilet paper, because we panic bought two truckloads.

As 3D art was emerging in the Western hemisphere of ancient civilization, the Chinese and Tibetan had invented paper in the Eastern hemisphere. The use of paper and ink was spreading throughout Asia along with the Buddhist religion. Ironically enough, it was not the Silk Road that brought paper into Europe. The Chinese Empire clashed with Pixel Art made of toilet paper tubes (www.architectureartdesigns.com) the Abbasid Empire in 751 and consequently lost the battle, and the paper-making master was capture. Once back in Europe, paper spread across the continent,

Our Creative Spirit

and the Moors of Spain became the first paper millers, and the rest is history, as they say. So naturally, paper is readily available for quarantine artwork.

Eric Carle inspired scrap paper mosaic animals (www.notimeforflashcards.com)

Family pictures printed in black and white and converted into Warhol art with markers (meaningfulmama.com)

This brings us to the unique art of paper quilling, an artistic technique that originated during the Renaissance of the 15th century. The rolling, bending, folding, and shaping of metal was transferred to paper, which was called paper filigree at the time, and it was a popular pastime of nuns and women of the upper class. In fact, King George III of Great Britain had several furnishings which were decorated with paper filigree, and it caught the interest of his daughter Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth. Paper quilling is a very intricate, highly impressive skill. Most of us will become admiring onlookers, but it might be worth a try, since we have paper and time.

Basic paper quilling (www.mybluprint.com)

Paper quilling for beginners (twitchetts.com); more my level.

(mymodernmet.com)

Perhaps the most impressive paper quiller is Julia Brodskaya. Her work has reached a new level of artistry, and, in my opinion, her products are instant masterpieces.

(mymodernmet.com)

Much like the unexpected change in our lives in the last few months, we will not know what the next four months will bring. For some of us, we had time to become imaginative, innovative, and spontaneous within our homes, and as a result, we created. We did not create artwork to be hung in a museum or gallery to be critiqued or analyzed, we created something that says, “This is me.” It may have been a rock painted as it was done in pre-historic times. Perhaps it was a ziggurat recreation built out of cardboard boxes from Amazon. You could have unleashed your inner child while making paper mosaic animals or monsters. Then, you wondered if Queen Elizabeth was quilling paper while quarantined in her castle? That is the positive side of boredom, it forces us to find something to do, whether alone or as a family.