#@gallery

[mamagraf]

[hauteng]

Going to turn my room into a gallery.

[artsunbound]

We’ve got the power!

by Amy Charmatz

Don’t know if this will date me, but I have to say that one of my favorite shows on Saturday morning TV when I was a kid, was “Sandy Becker” and my favorite part of the show was a man named “Fred Hall.”  Fred would say that he could take any five lines and make a picture.  So people all over the country would send in lines so Fred could connect them so they made sense.

Connecting lines is a neat game to play.  It shows you the power you have to make something out of nothing!  This is the reason I love art - because it gives me control over something when I don’t have that much control in my life; it makes me feel powerful and it gives me hope when I am feeling rather hopeless.

I find art to be a very empowering thing.  It give me a feeling unlike any other because I have almost complete control over what happens!  I love the feeling of making something out of nothing - of letting lines and colors and size define an image.  When I let myself go I can make some pretty neat things and they don’t have to be realistic or look like what they are, just the way I want them to be!  And even if it doesn’t turn out exactly the way I want it to, if I look really hard, I can see what I meant it to be!

I always have an easier time when I come up with with an “environment” for my picture to take place in; the room, house, or a place that makes suggestions to me of how things should be.  I find I can be naturalist without knowing much about nature, and an architect without a degree, a creator when I’m only human!  I can make things as realistic as I want  and, when I look at it that way, I can see how to proceed in my own way.  Nobody can tell me what to paint or draw.  Doing something in an artful way can let me express how I’m feeling and always tells the story in my own way.

1 - It makes me proud of myself that I made got off my duff and did something!

2 - It gives me a good feeling because did something I wanted to do!

3 - It feels good that I made my own decisions; I decided where to put the lines, what colors to use and where to put them!

4 - I’m proud of myself because I took control!

5 - I feel powerful that I created something out of nothing, something that didn’t exist before I made it!

6 - That I actually made something tangible!

I know how hard it can be to start, to think of what it is you want to draw, paint or put together, how scary it can be to try something new, to be afraid of failing before I start, and to just feel powerless to do anything!

This is when I always try to pick up a pencil, take out a paint brush, take out my tools, and think of what it is that I want to express.

This is where I remember that I HAVE THE POWER! That I HAVE THE CONTROL THAT  I CAN AND I WILL!

I can’t help but think that this feeling is like being in a  “Twilight Zone” of your own making, an alternate universe that only you can direct!

When I look at the wonderful, imaginative, expressive art in Art Unbound’s gallery and shows I know that other people are feeling the same way I feel and coming up with the same ideas!