How Can I Mess This Up?



Sabra Sowell Necklace

 Things are a mess in the world today and we don’t like it. After all, messes are messy, chaotic, and not easily understood. But making a mess is not always bad. I’ve always loved to make messes, much to my parents dismay, but messy is way more interesting that tidy.
I realize that I have reluctantly followed the artsy/craftsy trend toward slick and perfect. This has been escalating since the late 1960s when tie-dyed shirts and macramé were in. But after I attended a workshop in Houston last month with the metal artist Sabra-Sowell Lovejoy, everything changed.

In her workshop, Shape, Texture, Color, Smash I learned that bent, flawed, scarred metal can be beautiful (you can see in an example of her work in the photo on the left). She "made" all of these found object pendants from scratch by torching, hammering, folding and adding patinas to metals.


Now, when I see something smooth, pristine, shiny and new I ask "How can I mess this up?" How can I smash it, bend it, burn it or rust it and what will happen?? I also learned that old tools that have sat in a box in some farmers shed for 80 years are way more interesting than a $60 Fretz texturing hammer.

Now, I play around with materials and get wonderful results and I know that you don’t always have to have a plan or even a design in mind when you start something. You just need a general sense of where you want to go, some basic tools and a desire to explore and discover along the way. How freeing!