It's My Party

Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week to you. 

It's not really my party today, but childhood birthday parties are the topic of my journal page.  Chris picked the theme When We Were Young for her challenge this month at Art Journal Journey, and that's where I went with this page.

I had some bits and pieces in my art fodder stash that I thought worked great for this theme. When I was in second grade ( I think I was  turning 7), I had a big birthday party with my friends, and I remember we played pinned the tail on the donkey. I don't think kids do play that game any longer, and especially since now so many kids have  parties at play places, pools, amusement parks and other places like that.

I  always had small family birthday parties during my childhood, but can only remember this one with friends. Of course my mother frequently worked when we were young as a substitute teacher at the elementary school where we went. It was weird the days I had her for a teacher as all the kids knew she was my mother, and she would get mad at me because I called her Mom instead of Mrs.___. Not that the kids in my  class were mean  to me about it, but it is weird having  Mom for a teacher. 

I made my page by inking my background blue and then stenciling blue dots over the blue ink. That created a little more depth than my plain inked page. Then I arranged and added my art fodder, including the TH girl. I had to add some pink sparkle to her dress because she is the birthday girl and wants everyone to know it.  Besides birthday cake, they are also having little ice cream cups. I haven't seen any of these little ice cream cups in ages.The ones we had were called Hoodsie cups, after the Hood milk dairy that made them. Basically you pulled the paper top off and ate the cup of ice cream  with the wooden spoon that came with the cup (Now they are probably plastic and nowhere near as eco friendly as what I had back in the 1960's at my party.)

Finally I stamped the cool stitch looking image and the birthday words. After that I also added some little foam confetti dots to finish off my page.

I thought I would also share some photos from one of the places I visited while away last week in the Berkshires.  This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. We went to  TurnPark Art Space, which is an outdoor sculpture park in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. You can read about it here if you're interested: Turnpark Art Space.

Turnpark Art Space was started by a Russian and also a Ukrainian immigrant.  I love how they had some art dedicated to ending the current war.  I was surprised that the park was bigger than I expected, and I really enjoyed a lot of the sculpture we saw. Here's a few things that caught my eye.

These fish were part of an exhibit called Make Fish, Not War.

A view from the grounds looking down towards one of the indoor galleries.

This wooden structure was called Eyeball. The  artist was a photographer who took some photos early on in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

Inside the eye shaped structure, he posted some photos he took.

And the eye itself was a fascinating weaving of twigs, with the pupil looking upward.

One artist covered bits of the tree bark in cloth painted blue and yellow. She then did some bark rubbings.

The wooden structure  on the left was built to represent a rock, and its organic shape. I'm not sure the rock shape had anything to do with the Ukrainian flag rubbings on the trees. 

And I liked these chairs.  They may have nothing to do with Putin's War, but can you visualize the people sitting in them? It is clearer in the second photo.

And finally for today, one last chair. This piece was called Balance, and this chair was really tall.

I hope your week is going well. I'll share more from this park another day.

Thanks for visiting. 😅