Faith in the New Year!

So, I have slumped into the dreaded blogging taboo of disappearing! And I didn't just disappear for a day, or a week, I was M.I.A. for a few months! For those viewers I still have, thank you for sticking with me. Like many, it has been a "tough economy" and I hate to even mutter those words as if it is any excuse for my neglect to my blog, but it seems to sum everything up perfectly. I do however, feel I have legit reasons for being out of the blogging world for awhile. First my camera broke...I mean what is a creative blog without pictures?! Anyone who knows me knows how much I value pictures, so the loss of my camera hit hard. Then my Mac died (gasp!) and while I can blog on my husband's PC (doing now because I gave in), it just felt like I was cheating. Rest assured I am getting back into commission and LUCKILY it is a new year. 2010 is definitely a new year of greater and brighter things to come. I have faith in this upcoming new year. Faith things will happen as they should. Faith the pieces will fall into place appropriately.

Believe it or not, this artwork piece has taken on many looks before I completed it with full satisfaction. I don't have any pictures of the original state this project started in (again, sans camera), but when given to me, it was a simple frame with a white canvas in the middle. I think it use to hold a horizontal picture (the hanging wires were backwards than how I used them) that got ripped out or something, but needless to say, I had high hopes for this piece.

The first transformation this frame held was something simple, and since I have no pictures, obviously didn't appeal to my liking at the time. I turned it horizontal and painted the definition of 'family' on it. It was OK, but just not what I was going for so I scrapped that and started over.

I then turned it vertical and decided that I would fill the blank space with some sort of wrapping paper or design and hang it in our guest room. Satisfied with this idea, I went searching for some cool paper. Sometime in early December I came across this little botique with some awesome handmade paper. The texture was amazing and the pattern matched perfectly with the blacks, golden/tan colors I have in the guest room. Without hesitation I purchased the sheet of paper and rushed back home to place it in.

Unfortunately (but really fortunate in hindsight), the paper was too short and left a huge white gap at the bottom. To solve this a piece of scrap metal was placed in that spot, which also matched the colors in the paper and room so worked out perfectly. Unfortunately (again) the metal was a tad too narrow. To correct this, I had my husband cut and place a tiny block of wood to the far right and to cover the seams of the paper and metal meeting, we placed a small shelf.

Now, I just had to decide how to make that random block to the right and the metal blend with the design. It then came to me...I would continue with the Asian/Zen inspired piece by painting a character of some word in the metal and the english word in the block. But what word? I tossed out a ton of words...Hope, Grace, Destiny...etc. When I came to the word 'Faith' I sat and thought about that simple word in its entirety... FAITH. How perfect! Much like this project, where all the pieces fell into place perfectly, life is just like that. You have to have 'faith' that life will fall into place perfectly and as it is suppose to. The pieces of life will become seamless in time. Much like the pieces of this project, some pieces may stand out on their own and not seem to fit, but each will soon blend once the other pieces line up as planned. It isn't until the project is completed, or the story is told that you see the greater, bigger picture of things.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1