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1/21 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

A fun assortment for this week’s creativity contest prompt: “wool.” And not a baa-d entry among them. (Sorry!) Our winner is Kelly Warren, for a creative project she and her daughters sent in. Kelly writes: “I was stumped on this one until I started going through a pile of sweaters I was taking to Goodwill, and then the perfect little mom and daughters art day idea hit me. The girls and I were home for the MLK Jr holiday and created these pieces. The ‘wool’ came from the purple wool sweater I felted and then cut flower petals from. The girls followed my steps as I created my piece, each putting their own little spin on it. They actually added the rhinestones to theirs before I added any on mine! I love the freedom of their pieces! Makes mine look a little boring! We had paper and glue everywhere and had a great art day together. This morning, the girls wanted to take their pieces to school to show their art teacher, Ms. Haddon. When we showed her and I told her about our process, she literally had tears in her eyes. She said it meant so much to her to know that at least some parents were making art at home with their children and asked me to please bring in any other pieces we make together for them to share. Very sweet.” Nice work, Kelly, Livvie, and Sarah! (Shown in that order.) Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is en route.

From Bec Thomas: A photo of her sumptuous collection of handspun yarn. Don’t you want to curl up in that pile, face down? Although if you closed your eyes, you’d miss the spectacular colors. Bec writes: “There is a lot of different fibers in that lot, wool, mohair, alpaca, camel, silk, yak, and feathers. Many of my yarns are a blend of various fibers and are usually one of a kind.”

From Cathy Coley, a poem:

Wool

I used to live in wool
the smell of it damp against my face
scarf breathed warm
a shield against New England winter wind

hat scratchy pulled low on my forehead
sweater over turtle neck under coat
I even had a wool poncho, hooded
great for fat flaked snowy days
and gloves
all of it wool

wooly knickers or tights under my jeans, too
one last pair of socks with a hole in one heal
all that remains of my wooly days
before Virginia

no fat flakes hover suspended
upon my shoulders or top of my hat
no shoveling the heavy plump,
heart pumping big
breath of wool warm and damp
against my raw cheekbones
no comfort in this unusual cold.

From Karen Winters, a painting entitled “Yorkshire Pals.” Karen writes: “I painted this in watercolor a few years ago using two different copyright-free reference photos. I liked the picture of the sheep but the background was poor. So I found a background landscape from the same region that I preferred. When I am painting, whether en plein air or in studio, I don’t let reality get in the way of my creative vision. Just because a tree is growing THERE doesn’t mean we have to paint it. And if the sheep are lovely but on an uninspiring background … well … we can make it different. Creativity is the process of inspiration plus innovation. The late Milford Zornes, watercolorist, once said ‘Don’t paint it how it is … paint it how it could be.’ So these Yorkshire pals are how they could be.”

From me (Miranda): A scarf. A mohair scarf. A very long mohair scarf — considerably longer than it needed to be, largely due to the fact that I don’t know how to cast off and I needed my mother to assist me. So I just kept on knitting while I waited. I think I waited, and knitted, for a few months before she finished it off. Last year I thought the thing looked a little loose-knit and I decided to wash it for that boiled-wool look. Uhm, didn’t really work out like I’d intended. Still, I’m proud of my poor straggly scarf, because it’s the first thing I ever knitted, and it’s actually a finished project.

This week’s prompt: “Hope”
Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, January 27, 2009. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.