Artists/Crafters/Creative Projects?

[Set-In-Stone]

I thought this may be a good thread to (re)start for the community regarding all that is creative. If you are an artist, a craftsman, like to 'up-cycle', are into design, a writer, or create larger-unique projects then this may be a good thread for you to participate in or follow…

Hopefully there are members within the community who like to create, and would feel comfortable enough to post pictures of their work(s). Perhaps talk about why you got you into your hobby? How long have you been doing your craft? Discuss techniques and lessons learned?

This may be a good thread to share a recent project you have been working on and ask for insight?
Whatever your purpose is, be sure to keep in mind that the members sharing their work are sharing something they feel passionate about. You may not enjoy a certain creation, a 'style' of art, or even understand it. You might even think "my little girl could create that garbage" -- but we are a different community. With that said, lets keep it positive, keep inspiring and try to build each other up in our endeavors. THANKS all and ENJOY !

 

[Set-In-Stone]

I started my own small business a couple years back but have been in the field for about 15yrs. I am a mason by trade and recently have started to do more creative projects on the side regarding stone carvings. I hope to one day take my business into this more creative aspect but that will come in time. I like to work with locally sourced stone in my creations. Most of them are what I call "Stone Planters", but recently I have been getting a little more creative with other designs. Below is a pic of the type of creative work I do when I get home from a long day and just can't seem to 'turn it off'. Enjoy.

 

[bfreebern]

That's a cool planter. It's stone, but you incorporated a zipper? At first glance, I thought it was a duffle bag, nice job!

 

[MNBrian]

This is an awesome idea!

So I spent a lot of time playing music and touring as an indie band. Loved it. But the hours were LONG. We did it well enough to have music be the full time gig for a while (and got to play with some of my favorite bands), which was fantastic, but once the label came along it was looking like we'd have to start over to keep going. We'd built just enough capital to have negotiating power, and yet not enough to have the kind of negotiating power we'd need to continue. We got jobs, some of us got married, and I moved on to writing books over writing music -- (well, I still write music but just for me and for fun). Now I work for a literary agent in NYC part time (reading pitches for books and reading unpublished manuscripts to help pick which authors the agent should represent). And of course I write my own books and am seeking a literary agent myself. Mostly I write thrillers with a speculative fiction twist.

Anywho - here's some wonderful youtube videos of the last album I wrote/recorded. These are likely my two favorite songs.

I can probably share a few pages of my current work in progress too, but it's still pretty rough so I'd probably be better off holding that one hostage for a bit.

Really excited to see what other creatives are doing! Thanks for starting this thread and I love the work you're doing on planters set in rocks. That's crazy good. I legitimately thought it was a handbag too. Really creative and neat!

Edited to add: one more link because I fell down a hole of old album music.

 

[Succubus]

Very cool, I also thought it was some sort of old bag. I'd love to see more!

and @MNBrian, how many times did you trip on that jump rope?? Lol

 

[MNBrian]

@MNBrian, how many times did you trip on that jump rope?? Lol

Ha! I don't know what you're talking about! I never tripped once.

 

[Undegreed]

Very cool, I also thought it was some sort of old bag. I'd love to see more!

and @MNBrian, how many times did you trip on that jump rope?? Lol

Technically the video never shows him actually jumping the rope.
Great music MNBrian.
I will have to relegate myself to just reading this thread because I don't have an artistic bone (or anything else) in my body. For me it's all parallel and perpendicular - columns and rows.

 

[thinde]

Nice planter Austin. It deffinetly resembles a masons bags that’s been faux painted, I like it, sweet garden ornament. I’ve played with various projects over the years on my own to pass the time and to get yer ya-ya’s out! The dark granite bench was made with street curbing off a job site. I forced my daughter to help me set it when she was about 9, she pissed and moaned through the hole thing but now being almost 30 I’ve heard her tell more than one person, with pride, how she help install it. I carved wood for a while, nothing too big, just stuff I could do in front of the tv. We kept a couple of pices and gave the rest away to relatives.

I’ve also done some really fun stuff with my wife. She teaches art for a living so take one guess on who’s giving the orders. The hanging slate is another product from the job site. I cut it to size, chisel the edges and dill the mounting holes. She paints the backs of some ferns leafs and rolls them on the slate and then finishes the painting by hand. We’ve made 6 or 8 stained glass windows. She’s the designer of course along with the cutter of the glass, she assembling the pieces and solders them. I grind each piece smooth, wash each piece clean and wrap the edges with copper tape. I also size and router all of the wood for custom frames.
The garden leaf is cast. A large fern leaf laid over sand and covered with a mixture of Portland cement, perlite and peat-moss. It weighs about 10 pounds. Looks great but deteriorates after 3 or 4 winters so we pick them up with all of the other garden accessories and put them away for winter.

Over the passed 35 years we’ve done hundreds of creative projects; alone and together. Some I’d like to do again and some probably not but you can do no harm by throwing caution to the wind and getting into it. Whatever it may be!