The elephants in this collage and the background were done by me. I don’t have any formal training in art and I don’t consider myself to be an artist in the traditional sense of the word. Even before I had retired from my day job, I started to have an urge to create. It came up just as subtly as was my desire to have a pet. I followed these urges and have been fortunate to have been able to try different expressions of this creative urge. Many people I am fortunate to know have always expressed themselves in artistic ways so I was somewhat lucky to have these kinds of friends to emulate. These feelings may have come from viewing the work of my friends. Otherwise, it was a longing of my soul.
Elephants have always been one of my favourite animals. I rode on an elephant in India and fed one in Thailand so I decided to do a project with elephants. I had fun choosing the colours for my elephants and being part of the evolving process as the work moved along.
At the very beginning, a project like this is often a bit messy and involves having lots of bits and pieces lying around. In this case, there were pieces of glass, jewelry, and one huge tile that I was working on. I also had a cutting tool and some paste for gluing the pieces on. This is the crafting part.
Any medium of expression lends itself to sharing. I now understand why the singer wants to sing, the poet or writer to write, and the sculptor to sculpt. Apart from the process of doing the singing, writing, or sculpting, comes the desire for others to enjoy what is created. We are indeed social creatures and need different avenues for expressing ourselves and sharing our endeavours with others.
The background for this elephant mosaic is a silk scarf that I painted. I like the vibrant colours and since my elephants are brightly coloured, I thought to make this creation entirely my own by using this as the background. It was fun putting this collage together and here’s hoping you enjoy in the sharing.
Here’s an interesting quote on the topic of Art and Craft that I found: “Art strives to express; craft strives for excellence. Good art has good craft, good craft is artistic. Within every craft there exists artists. Within every artist there is craft.” We may not have intended “art” but at the end of our creation, we have something we can call artistic.