Ordinary to Extraordinary II
Silk Purses – The Winners!
Given the choice of “Spooky or Kooky,” The Silk Purses Team (Marie Doyon, Jennifer Ethier, Debby Sovern, Lyn Wilson) immediately agreed to go with a macabre creation. The abundance of red and black materials in our bag of supplies, along with many wonderful images and gems suggesting castle decor, led us to recall a scene from Edgar Allen Poe’s famous short story, “The Masque of the Red Death.” Marie and Debby attacked the challenge of the castle walls and their adornment while Jennifer and Lyn worked on the caped, hooded, and masked figure, always trying to make him look as sinister as possible…because, of course, he represented the PLAGUE which could not be escaped by anyone, no matter how wealthy or entitled, and in the end, who would cause death and have “dominion over all.”
While working on this project, we often asked each other if some item would work to represent something specific in our scenario. We most always agreed with new ideas as they were presented. Then our quality control leader, Debby, emerged from our midst to make sure that we had used all of the required materials, and if we hadn’t, we discussed ways that we could incorporate them into our design. Overall, we all got into the “creative zone” while working on our own piece and were amazed and delighted by the design choices of the other teams. What a fun experience! THANK YOU, VAC (Kathy and Marj)!
The Left Brainers
The “bell” (or “yell”) went off and the four of us pawed through our bagful of supplies/surprises. We were taken by a magazine photograph of quirky shoes, and decided as the theme was “Kooky or Spooky”, our interpretation of kooky shoes (and who doesn’t love shoes???) would be a hit.
We all conned Susan Hertz into drawing our crazy shoes and discussion ensued. How about legs? Should our girl have an ankle bracelet? Maybe gloves to finish off her footwear and to incorporate that pink and blue wristwatch… and then off we went, each of us tackling a piece of the board to fill with our own creative style. We discovered that we had to work independently as two hours wouldn’t allow for lengthy conferences, and if any of us asked anyone else if it was okay to do something, the response was always a resounding YES!
But the real challenge was what to do with plastic straws? Or pom-poms that were more than vaguely suggestive of covid, which we are all trying to avoid…? As we are all of a generation of rule followers, we did, in fact, adhere to the directive that one of each item had to be used, and creative spurts exploded into laughs and silliness. It all worked and dang, we were proud of our efforts!
What did we take away? A challenge met, memories of a fun afternoon, lots of chat and laughs and of course, friendship.
Thank you for putting this event together and bringing us all together!
Salvador Dollies
The Salvador Dollies dove into their mixed bag of “treasures” and were immediately drawn to the spool of black raffia and all the beautiful and glossy art photos. The idea of a spider web and many captured bugs in the web began to gel, and we all got to work. Bugs made from feathers, cloth, and bottle caps began to pile up. We embraced the theme of spooky and worked as a team to use the art photos to fill the background of our poster board and the raffia to create a black web for the bugs. Having four creative minds working together produced a vivid, not too spooky or creepy giant web.
Ille Gals
The team of IlleGALS was illegal because we had a visiting artist on our team who is not eligible for VAC membership. We started out on the spooky side of the theme and the piece evolved from there to The Night Gallery. We managed to cover the entire substrate with various media, starting at the bottom with brown and gravestones. Working to up the board, we used blue fabric to look a bit like water. Next level was sky-like with bats and a witch and ghosts. We had great fun and learned much about working with mixed media.
Dirty Girls
“Fantasy Island” is a nostalgic reflection of our own beautiful island with a dock, boat, beach and beautiful palm trees and even a pink flamingo! There is a haunted house in the town village with spooky ghosts and eyes. The clock tower is in the center of the village just ahead of the gardens. Children are trick or treating at the homes and all is well in Fantasy Island!
Creative Victors
BOO to you from our crew!
The team of Ronnie Beidelman, Bobbi Weber, Laurie Nickerson and Dena Dardzinski created a spooky kookie out of all our given items. Right from the start it was decided to pursue this theme. Everyone contributed to the design and it was a fun afternoon. Kudos to Marj Shymske and Kathy McShane for bringing us together in this fun activity.
Art School Dropouts
The majority of our team, Art School Dropouts, are from California. We thought, “Can you get kookier or spookier than Hotel California?!?” Drawing inspiration from the line “you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave”, each fabric square of our hotel represents a person who checked in for an amazing experience and continues to dwell within the soul of the house. If you dare peek inside you will see the remains of some brave pioneers who chose to forever remain within the hotel. Yes, many were enticed to the hotel by the map displaying the way, the girl on the swing promising all a good time, the sparkling path over the exclusive moat entrance, and lastly the whimsical but sophisticated display of unique shrubbery surrounding the colorful hotel. Greeted at the door by our lady in green, “such a lovely place.” Dance in the courtyard but don’t think the bear is not watching…