My favorite thing to do in elementary school was Art. Even when I had pink eye in second grade, and my mom sent me to school because she preferred possibly infecting my entire class to having me around for the day, and the teacher set up two long tables like the ones in the cafeteria, and I sat all alone making my collage at one table while the rest of the class crowded around the other table, I still loved Art!
I learned something from that pink eye experience, which is, making Art is a solitary thing. Even when you’re surrounded by other people making Art, you’re doing your own thing while they’re doing their own things. Which is why I love making Art with other people. You can work separately yet together. You can shoot the shit, listen to music, or gossip. Maybe it’s not so great to make Art with others all the time, like when you’re serious about producing, but working alongside others is Viagra for the creative process. Ideas! Feedback! Fun! It’s like being a kid again.
One Sunday in October I hosted a gathering of a dozen women at my place. They brought fixings for a quick and easy lunch, plus they came with unlimited enthusiasm for doing something completely new.
Ours was a resin playdate. Why resin? I’ve recently begun attending a resin night once a month with my sister and a group of her friends. Resin is so magical and fun that I wanted to turn around and share what I knew with my friends. A word of caution, however: Resin can be a messy and potentially harmful substance. Resin playdates are do-able as long as someone in the group knows what they’re doing and can assist during the process.
While resin may not be the best first playdate to host, there are plenty of creative activities that you could bring your friends together to do. This post is intended to offer ideas as to what some of those activities are and how to pull together the gathering so that everyone has fun. And, if readers are interested, I can follow this up with a later post specifically on hosting a resin playdate.
Just Play
If you’ve had a child in the past 20 years, you know exactly how playdates work. You call another parent, set up a time and place, drop your kids off or stick around and talk to the adults while the kids play, and for however long the playdate lasts, you forget about all your worries. Marvelous things, playdates. They’re not like birthday parties, where surely someone’s going to cry over not getting a gift or winning the prizes.
And so it goes with Art. Often I hear people say:
“I’m not artistic.”
“I don’t have a creative bone in my body.”
“I’m amazed by people who have artistic talent. I certainly don’t have any.”
With playdates, there’s no such thing as talent. It’s not a class nor a workshop. No one’s paying money (except maybe $5 or $10 to cover supplies) and expecting to get something out of it. It’s-just-play.
Don’t Eat the Glue
When you get people together, you gotta eat. It’s what you do. But when you get people together to play with Art, you gotta keep the Eating and the Art separate.
Come up with a simple menu—say, nachos—and ask folks to sign up for the different ingredients: shredded cheese, chopped onions, chile con queso, lettuce, tomatoes, chips. Our friend Linda, who hosts the monthly resin night, does it best. Her menus are easy yet coordinated. One night it’s Frito Pie. Another night, potato-leek soup and salad. Next month: tamales, posole, and taquitos. It’s served buffet-style, and if the weather’s nice, we eat on the patio. After all, we’ve taken up most of the table space for our art.
Once you’re done eating (and we always eat fast, because we want to get to the playing) clear the dishes, and you’re ready.
K.I.S.S.
Pick something you know how to do yourself. Or pick something you’ve always wanted to learn. You don’t have to be expert. There are many simple yet satisfying activities. Here are a few ideas:
- Collage: Tell your friends to bring a bunch of old magazines, scrapbook papers, doodles or watercolor dabblings that they don’t mind cutting up. It can be cheap picture books bought at garage sales, construction paper, photos that aren’t valuable. Provide a set of color markers, inks and rubber stamps, glue, and cardboard for making the collages. (TIP: ask your friends to bring scissors from home.)
- Paper products: Buy blank note cards and envelopes, a roll of white butcher paper for making homemade gift wrap, manila folders cut into gift tags. Carve shapes into Russet potatoes or sponges for stamping onto your cards and paper. Use the same basic materials as for collage. Walk away with enough items to hold you over through the holidays. Or swap with some of the others so you each go home with a wide variety.
- Decorate journals: Ask everyone to bring a composition book, and then do collage, stamping, and doodling or painting in those.
- Color mandalas.
- Decoupage something: My daughters taught me this—Mod Podge goes on white and sticky, but it dries clear and not sticky. All you have to do is glue images to, say, a small plain cardboard box like the kind you can pick up at a craft store. Once you have all the images and marker or paint decoration you want on the box, brush the entire thing in Mod Podge. Let the glue dry, brush it again. Let it dry and you’re done.
- The list is endless. You can work with recycled materials, beads, clay, Shrinky-Dinks, paper mache. Have you seen those beads that are rolled from magazine paper? Amazing.
Space Matters
Obviously, the amount of space you need depends on what you do, but whatever you do, make sure there’s plenty of space for each person to work. And protect the space by laying down plastic tablecloths or newspapers. If you’re using exacto knives, make sure people have surfaces to cut on.
I like the idea of putting the common supplies at one table so that everyone can access them. For example, if you’re doing collage, keep together all the paper materials.
Also, lighting is important. You may need to move lights from other parts of the house to sufficiently light up all the workspace. It doesn’t hurt to also ask your friends to bring desk lights if they have them.
Epilogue
This is basic stuff. I wouldn’t bother creating a post out of it if I didn’t know just how great it is to make Art with others.
When I hosted that resin playdate in October, at one point I went outside for something. I walked back into the house and the place was still. Everyone had heads down, working in quiet concentration. Some folks talked in low tones, and k.d. lang sang hymns on the stereo, but there was a calm energy in the room. I knew then that we were truly playing. Every one of us was a kid again.
Is the resin the Mod Podge or is the Mod Podge the first part and then the Clear Epoxy and Epoxy hardener brushed on the Mod Podged stuff? I want to have a play date for myself.
I want to admit that when I first see the snowflakes fall across the screen I think I’m having mini-strokes, but then I remember that like all of the magical things on red Ravine, the snow is more of the magic.
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I’ve always wanted to do something like this. Now I have time and space but no one to invite! I absolutely do not know anyone here!
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You know, Corina, another idea is to go to a rubber stamp store, or some small, locally owned crafts shop. I came upon a rubber stamp shop the other day and they offered very inexpensive workshops. Just half a day type thing, very low-key. You might end up meeting some interesting folks, too, assuming you can find such a place.
Bob, no, the Mod Podge is glue, white glue for crafts. The resin is something else. I started to write a Resin Playdate post, but it was too complex for the amount of time I had to write. I can send you the materials list, which I’ve already pulled together. Plus a good tutorial.
I’ve recently come across a new resin technique that looks very cool. It’s new to me. I want to bring it in to my monthly resin night group and see if anyone has tried it. I won’t be surprised if they have.
And yeah, the snow. It was snowing here this morning. Fun to see the snow on the screen and out the window.
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Bob, what a great thing to say…magic. 8)
Corina, I think ybonesy has a good idea there about taking a class. Liz and I went to a beading store the other day that offers classes on a regular basis. Anything you can think of from tinning to resin to beading. Some are only once a month. We were thinking that would be a great way to meet people who have like interests.
ybonesy, this is a fun post. And inspiring! Your enthusiasm for the art work you are doing these days is infectious. We’ve done these playdates in our studio a couple of times. Once we did the mandalas, a little more than coloring — adding buttons and whatever we wanted to them.
For us at home, space is a big issue. House is just too small. We do it in the studio space. You make a good point about the lighting, too. One thing I find is that good light is a must for any kind of art. I always keep my eyes open at second hand stores for used lamps or lights that might fit into a corner space or on the desk at the studio. I can’t get enough light.
You sound like you have a wonderful group of women that you meet with and who taught you about the resin. Rubber stamping is fun, too. One year I made my own Christmas cards, a printmaking process, and hung them across a clothes line with pins. Added a letter and a photo. I think it might have been the best card I ever sent.
I think these ideas are great things to do with nieces and nephews, too. Last year when I was home, I colored mandalas with my niece. This year we carved pumpkins. And with my nephew and other niece, we did Wii Beatles Rock Band. I’ve decided that kids keep you young.
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Kids do keep a person young, QM. Before I had them, I used to think having kids meant a person got old. I guess I only saw people who I thought of as being older than me having kids. They would tell me that it’s kept them young, but I didn’t understand that until I was surrounded by kids all the time. Some times I think I’m more immature and weirder than my own kids.
Re: playdates, yes, space is a big thing. And clean-up. I sometimes spread out on the long kitchen counter that we have, and then I’ll push my materials over to one end. Like they are now from two weekends ago. I really should just put everything away. But I think, I’m going to work on this next weekend, and then I don’t.
When I did my playdate, I cleaned up right away. Everything back in its place. And the monthly resin night, there’s always one or two people who do the dishes after dinner, clean up the tables after we’re done. It’s a lot of work for our host. She is extremely generous.
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QM, another thing I want to do this winter. I want to do two playdates in a row on two Saturdays in a row. The first day we’ll make our resin items. Then we set them out to cure. The next week, we finish them off. This way you can see the entire process, from raw materials to a piece of jewelry.
A friend was also telling me about a group she had met with that worked on the journals or composition books. Then at the end, I think, she said they traded.
This weekend one of our Moms/Daughters groups is doing a paper-products art gathering. We’re doing something similar to the second bullet in my list. Looking forward to doing it with our daughters!
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I have learned some amazing techniques from kids while “playing” with art projects.
This is a great post.
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Love this post YB. It sounds wonderful to have a whole group together for art bonding and eats. Ya know… I found while working with kids in the classes (we had in the gallery and then at my home)…they were the adults and I was the child. They taught me so much about being creative…and how to sit still…
I like the group bonding idea. My friends and I are having a cookie making night. Gifts are out for us in this economy. Cookies to share are in. My buddy has pulled together her “H-proof” recipes and has assured me that I cannot burn her kitchen down…although another photographer will be there to document it all… in case I do. He normally shoots riots, war zones and poverty…so I’m not sure what he’s anticipating. I think “cookie making” could be like resin art bonding… except being able to eat the end result…well at least some folks’ end result.
I had a good laugh at Bob’s comment about the mini strokes and snowflakes. When I pulled up your site I said “OMG…now what’s wrong with my eyes!”.
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yb, went to a craft store yesterday and purchased two kinds of resin to try. I will appreciate the list of products and the tutorial greatly. I plan to experiment with what I have so far tomorrow when the weather people say snow will fall.
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[…] explained some of the nuances of basketball banter in his poetry post Hoops. ybonesy wrote about art as play, community art, something dear to our hearts on red Ravine. The renga has heated up in the Daily Haiku. And we […]
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ybonesy, that’s a great idea, hosting one playdate to do the resin which seems pretty labor intensive. The second one to do the finish work. I like it.
Bob, Liz and I bought some resin, too, then ended up getting another kind after we talked to ybonesy. Liz did a bunch of research on the web, too. We have yet to sit down and try it. I think we need to be at the studio during the day when it’s not so dark. At least I do with my eyes. It’s great that you’re going to try the resin work. Can’t wait to hear how it goes.
Heather, your comments are always the best. You crack me up every time. Your life seems to have so much vitality. Or maybe it’s just the way you tell your stories. I like your voice.
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QM, I’m laughing because every phone conversation I have with a stranger always leaves them calling me “Sir”… 😉
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We had a fun playdate yesterday with Moms and Daughters over at one of the mom’s studio. That Mom taught us how to do monoprints. She has a press and all the materials. It was SOOOOO fun! And we also had a card-making collage area, so that we could work in two different areas, depending on what we wanted to do.
Monoprints, by the way, are exciting. You can do them so quickly. We worked with oils, which I’ve never worked with. Now I want to do more.
Speaking of learning from kids, lea and Heather, I am once again amazed by how fast they work. That Beginners Mind. They don’t over-analyze. Adults truly can learn a lot by observing them and trying to not think. It’s hard, though.
Bob, I sent you the tutorials and materials list via email. On the tutorials, notice when you look at the two YouTube ones that to the right there is a host of related videos. I clicked on some, and there is just a mass of information out there.
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