Tuesday, January 22, 2013

I Missed the Blog Party...!

Goodness!
I have received many comments from new people this week (THANK YOU!) and it only today came to me that I had signed up for Two Bags Full Blog Party!


How could I forget? I had a whole post in mind and whoops! A Senior Moment? A sudden trip to Paris? A new Love?


No, hardly--I had knee replacement surgery on January 10th. I was home on 1/13 and got sick from the pain pills and got better and exercised 3 times a day and had a VNA nurse in every day and a hospital person twice a week for blood draws, and suddenly, it's January 22nd! Well, excuses aside~


Welcome to Sherry's Rustique Gallery! I started blogging about 3 years ago and made many lovely friends around the world! Friends who have inspired me with their stories, their arts and crafts, their homes, their pictures and their wonderful attitudes!


I had no idea when I started blogging that I would find an art colony of my own. I am a bit of a rebel in my area, I don't paint scenery like so many people here do, but I call myself an artist. Several years ago I received a couple of old family albums. I didn't know who most of the people were, and the ones that were identified were very distant, mostly from the late 1800's. The smaller album was made by Aunt Hallie, in the early 1900's, with my Grandma and her sisters and brother and their friends in it. What fun that one was! They had lots of fun with their friends, camping, hiking, mugging for the camera, dressing up and down--all the things I never would have imagined. They had fun like us!


I started to make up stories about them and if I didn't know their names, I made them up. I collected old pictures at yard sales and antique shops. Pretty soon I had a line of cheeky, slightly twisted greeting cards. I digitally enhanced them or made them big and put them on backgrounds and told their stories, as I imagined. I've had a lot of fun with that and have morphed into what I call my "Slightly Twisted" collage art. I am dreaming up bigger and more original ones now. I hope to have a body of gallery-ready pieces in the next 6 months to a year.



About the same time as the collage discovery, I started taking digital pictures. My friend Trisha and I took a trip out west and we each took over 1200 pictures. I finally got up the guts to enlarge and print some of them on my large format Epson, and WOW! Many of them were really good. How fun it is to actually make big prints that you can frame, not just stick in an album and forget about! Most of my pictures in the past were boring and dull. With digital, I came into my own. I started bringing my camera everywhere. It is so beautiful in and around my little town in Western Massachusetts and everywhere I go I see beauty! I show my photos in local venues and sell them and their corresponding note cards at craft fairs.


So, you see, we are all artists! Whether we stitch up something sweet, grow a kitchen garden, design a room or put a pretty bottle in a sunny window, recycle tee shirts into rugs, take pictures or paint them, we are creative!


I remember my Aunt E. telling me she wasn't at all creative and she decorated her little house so cute I just loved it. My Mom made pretty flowered curtains in our unfinished house even though the walls were ugly old gray wall board. My Grandma's quilt scraps and button jars are as beautiful to me as any fine art.

Circle of friends

And this is what blogging is about for me, sharing the beauty that is around us. Opening ourselves up to new friends and new experiences. Telling stories we might otherwise just forget. Meeting and getting to know YOU!

Remember, it's a wonderful world!

Hugs,
Sherry

6 comments:

  1. Honey, the party is still going on.......for me anyway. It will take me until next week sometime to read everyone's blogs. Thank you for visiting me earlier. I love your blog and am now your newest follower. Can't wait to get to know you better. ~Laurie

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  2. Thanks, Laurie~I just added pictures if you want to stop by again! It's a pleasure to "meet" you!
    Hugs,
    Sherry

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  3. It is interesting how some people have never heard of mixed media and how on occasion other fellow artists and I have discussed that we run into people who think what we do isn't "art-work" when it is collage or mixed media. My foot! I think sometimes we put more effort into it because we are mastering so many skills. Many of the great artists didn't strictly paint on canvas, they used whatever they could find to fulfill their passion - if others took the time to really study it! So great to find a new friend in our crafty world! I love what I have seen of your work so far. Looking forward to much more!

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  4. Dear Sherry, what a lovely and very inspiring post.;) Makes me want to really do something with my own photography interests, maybe one day.;)
    Hope your knee is healing well.;)
    xoxo

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  5. Hi Sherry, so nice to meet you and thank you for stopping by and visiting me! As for the blog party, I always say better late than never.

    I love your blog, love the font and also your collages. Very pretty! I also love your photography and I wanted to take the time and read all of your blog LOL

    Hope your knee is getting better! It was amazing all you did in the wheelchair and you made me laugh about what your Brother said about vacuuming lol

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  6. Hello Sherry

    How lovely to meet you via our dear friend Vicki's Grow Your Blog Party!
    Isn't she just the kindest person in blogland.

    What a lovely post - I feel like we've been sitting down chatting over a cup of tea - getting to know one another.
    You have told your story so beautifully.

    I'm not surprised the GYB party slipped your mind - I do hope things are getting a little easier for you each day.

    When I visited my daughter in France last year I took 3500 photos with my digital camera - took me an age editing them when i got home - to be honest I still have a few hundred to do - well worth it though.
    I would now love a more sophisticated camera with a better zoom, as I often see something in the distance but can't get the shot I want....

    That's such an interesting story about your family photos and wonderful for future generations that you have done something with them.

    I’m your newest follower.
    I do hope you'll pop over and see me too and enter my GYB Giveaway!
    Enjoy the party.
    Hugs
    Shane ♥
    http://roseslaceandbrocante.blogspot.co.nz/

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