The Art Of Being Creative

Last Saturday my friend Sharee and I went to the Warren County Arts Festival. Although we battled the thunderstorms all day, we did get a good two hours in of strolling the streets of historic Lebanon Ohio and viewing all the wonderfully creative items for sale. Most of the booths were jewelry, paintings and photographs. Though these were quite lovely there were two booths that immediately caught my attention. The first was Koko's Kreepies. Koko and her partner are local artists who make dolls and soft sculpture with well... a rather creepy theme. They are just wonderful. My neighbor bought "Tiffani" a doll dressed in her Prom finery who was stood up by her date and subsequently threw herself in the lake....hence her rather moldy green appearance. Koko gives a personality and biography for each of her doll. You can see Tiffani here in a photo from Koko's website taken at the Art Festival. She is to the right of the large sign with the reddish yarn hair. Another favorite was "Chef Jeff". Dressed in all the regulation chef attire, Jeff is splattered with blood and food stains and looks like he had a pretty rough day in the kitchen. His bio states that he has made several attempts at opening his own restaurant but has always been shut down by the Board of Health! Unfortunately Jeff was already sold so I went home and tried to make my own interpretation of him. This is "Uncle Ben Gone Bad". Those of you familiar with the famous American brand of rice will know Uncle Ben is the fictional character on the company logo. My Uncle Ben seems to have gotten a bit to close to the cooking flame. I am going to tea-dye his clothing and add a few burn holes and food splatter to complete him.

The second booth is where my friend and I also made a purchase. The gentleman running the booth made all sorts of lawn/garden sculptures of various sizes from recycled tools, nails, garden implements etc., and welded them into whimsical animal figures. Here is the grasshopper I purchased. You can see his head is a large adjustable wrench! Joe thinks he looks more like a mosquito. These cement-casted mushrooms are the work of my friend Sharee. She makes tons of these and decorates them with various marbles, polished rocks and pieces of colored glass. Aren't' they wonderful!?

My own bit of "creativity" today includes making some patriotic cupcakes for my junior gymnastics group. Better get to work..................