Telephone Game

Today is my birthday.  All day I have been playing telephone tag with family.  There are just too many ways for them to contact me and each one seems to be exactly where I am not when they try.  They get credit for trying.  I was really touched that John's son and his fiance called early this morning.  It was early for them since they are in CA and we are a few time zones later.  It was a really nice phone call.

John declared that since it was my day, we would do anything I wanted.  So we took another one tank day trip.  This time we traveled to Ann Arbor Michigan.  Ann Arbor is an interesting old town (1810) with great architecture and lots and lots of arty shops, great restaurants and all walkable.  

First stop was Hollander's, of course.  John had not been there before and as a former art teacher, he found the selection of decorative and handmade papers as fascinating as I do. We spent almost two hours in there and bought paper, a few books and some wonderful stationery.  

After a good lunch, we wandered around, enjoying the different shops and the freedom of enough warmth that we didn't need our jackets.  We ended up back at a shop near our car.  Called "Found", it specializes in vintage goods more for creating than just having and unique items made from found objects.  It is a small store but is beautifully designed to keep you there for awhile.  There are a number nooks and crannys.  There are many large vintage units with drawers.  Each drawer has the contents labeled and the customer is encouraged to forage.  There is product high and low, hanging, stacked and carefully staged.  All together it is very appealing.  John insisted on buying me a few Sally Jean baubles and a Sally jean knock-off.

I love them all, especially the little chef which I think will hang from something in my kitchen.  I am still walking around holding it up here and there looking for the perfect spot.

On the way home I was thinking about some of the pieces of artwork I saw in "Found" and was reminded of how inspiration should work.  It should be like that children's game called Telephone. Remember how the first person would whisper a phrase into the next person's ear and it would be repeated around the group.  When the last person said the phrase it was never anything like the original, but had morphed into something different as interpreted by each player as they listened and then repeated.  That is how inspiration should work.  As each person sees it, they should interpret it in their own way until the finished project only remotely resembles the original inspiration piece.  

Few can replicate the workmanship of the Sally Jean pieces, but the knock-offs I saw today really tried to replicate the art.  

I know I have been slow in adding blog entries the last two weeks, but remember when I said "those who can, create and those who can't re-organize"?  Well, lately I have been the latter. I have spent the last week or more using my afternoons to re-organize my art room.  It required emptying all the cabinets and drawers on one side of the room.  It required John's help to move the storage units around and it required putting everything back.  John suggested bolting the inexpensive white storage units together to give them more stability.  When he finished that little chore, I thanked him and told him it was a perfect solution.  He laughed and said it was perfect for him because they could no longer be moved around!

I moved the black unit down to the end of the wall and put all the white units together along with a tower of drawer units that had been scattered throughout the studio.  This configuration has a more cohesive look, gives me a long counter and all supplies are now right together and all will be labeled. It also allows a few more inches behind that side of my long table for pulling out the drawers, opening doors and pulling out the chairs at the table.  

Now maybe, just maybe I can settle down to some inspired art work and play.  Thank you for all your excellent solutions to creative dry spells.

Comments

[TACE]

Well first of all, HAPPPPPPPPPPPPPY BIRRRTTTTTTTTTHDAY!!!!!
You can interpret that text as song, sung way off key but with lots of enthusiasm! My husband and I are known for our....*unique* renditions of Happy Birthday. ha ha
Your craft room makes me sigh and more than a little envious. Very tidy but also cozy and decorated so it doesn't scream "work room" ya know? Very good job you do of melding the decorative display and the practical aspects of storing stuff.
Your one tank trip sounds like it was a lot of fun and from the tone of your blog post very inspiring. An excellent gift for yourself, inspiration. :)
Hope you got to indulge in some delicious birthday goody along the lines of something sweet and decadent at some point in the day as well. :)

[Linda Cain]

I love to organize. It's easier than creating something for me! And it keeps the bit of OCD monster I have quiet...ha!
Happy Bday!
Linda

[Chris]

Happy Birthday!! What a great guy John is! and Found sounds cool. I hope you had a great day!

[Reva S. (Los Angeles)]

Ginny - just wanted to add my congrats and Happy B'day wishes to you - sounds like you had the perfect day - thanks for sharing it with all of us - hugs - Reva (Los Angeles)

[KateinCleveland]

Happy, happy brithday (a day late)! Sounds like a perfect day. I've Ann Arbor on my list of day trips when the weather breaks. Ever since yuo mentioned Hollander's here on your blog I've bee dying to go! Hope the coming year is the best ever!

[Erin Perry]

What a deicious post - well worth waiting for. Happy Birthday - as a fellow February birthday girl, it does seem to me that so many wonderful people are born in our month! Isn't organizing the best? Everytime I do it, I find so many treasures that I had forgotten all about and I must admit, sometimes, ones that I don't even remember getting in the first place! Your one tank trips amaze me - they're all to different states - living on the central coast of California (and driving a Miata with a 10 gallon tank) there's no way I could get to a different state on one tank of gas! The studio looks set and ready to go - I'm sure the creative juices will flow soon.
Erin in Morro Bay

[pj dutton]

Happy Birthday! The game you call 'Telephone', we called 'Gossip'. It seems it was always played as a lesson - this is what happens when you ya da ya da..... That took all the fun out of playing.
When I have creative block I always reorganize. Most of the time it works.
pj

[lynnef]

Happy Belated B-Day!!!

[andrea]

Happy Birthday, Ginny!

[mary@found]

Hello Ginny - So glad you enjoyed FOUND. I just now discovered your blog and website (love them!) when Lynn from Kalamazoo emailed with a link to this post...small world!

The thing I always liked about that game was that a simple, unimaginative phrase would end up as something so totally different than how it began - often with a twist that would have everyone laughing or just shaking their heads in wonder. So it is with artists who work with vintage and recycled materials. I'm constantly amazed at what creative people can do with what I loving call art junk.

Stop in again - Mary

[NotSoccer Mom]

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY! i'm glad to hear you had a great day. the reorganizing looks like it's coming along wonderfully. soon it will all be labeled and ready for you to create again!

[heartartz]

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Ginny
Happy Birthday to you!!!

Sounds like you had a lovely day.
Best yet, You...Found a find!
or is it...You did find a Found.

[Seth]

Happy Birthday Ginny!!!

[Sally]

Happy Birthday Ginny! May you always be endlessly inspired by both the big...and the little...things that happily fall into your life!

[DAWN GOLD]

Glad you had a Happy Birthday, love the look of your studio...
Ann Arbour, I have always loved the sound of that place. The girls on my Paper Whimsy group are meeting there this year - I would so love to go, but it won't happen so I will dream.
Thanks for sharing thos pics with us they are fabulous.
And your telephone game, here in England we always called it "CHinese Whispers"... same game different name

HAVE A GREAT DAY

♥ ♥ ♥

[Judi]

Wow! It's gorgeous! Are you inspired? Can you send John out to CA to do the same for me? Kidding...Glad you had a great birthday.

[Jen crossley]

A very belated Happy Birthday Ginny
Hope you had a wonderful day
Jen