Art week day 5: intution and a jar of buttons

It’s pretty amazing how well your inner voice can lead you in the right direction if you just trust yourself enough to listen. Sometimes at lunch I go to this antique store/flea market with friends. People rent booths there so the quality of what you may find varies but that’s just the way I like it. One day a few months ago, I picked up a jar of buttons and I stood there having an internal dialogue about the pros and cons of purchasing the aforementioned buttons. To be honest, there really weren’t any pros, other than I just couldn’t really make myself put them down. As a matter of full disclosure, I should point out at this juncture that I don’t sew. What would I do with a jar of buttons? They weren’t even pretty; by used button standards… they were mostly black.

A few weeks later, I was sitting at my desk wondering about the buttons. Because they only cost $3.50 and randomly popped in my head weeks later, I got in my car, went back to the store, marched down the aisle to the booth that is now the former home of the button-filled jar picked it up and went directly to the cash register. I had no idea what I would do with them, but at least now I knew where they were… on a very high shelf in my studio.

Because I don’t really need them.

Because I don’t sew.

This project with the clay hearts has been rolling around in my head for a couple of months, and like many art projects it became much more complicated as it went from theory to practice.

Over the last few days, I finally got the project figured out- except for one thing. I was having a really hard time trying to decide how to get the heart to “float” on a wire in the center of the shadow box. I knew I would run a wire through the middle, but I couldn’t figure out the best way to secure the wire to the outside… it actually needed to be run through something, then back into the wood of the shadow box. I was tired and frustrated and wondering if this was going to be one of those things that were a much better idea in my head than in reality. I leaned back in my chair, put my hands on top of my head, and looked up… where my eyes settled on the highest shelf, and a jar of mostly black buttons.