Beauty within Age

I have always been a creative soul and working with crafts has always been my safe haven . When I’m crafting I feel in my element, I enjoy it so much the precision you make to get to the end product such as adding layers, creating textures, deciding which materials to use, changing the shape and form of each material, making your own masterpiece. Creating ideas and making my vision come to life is the best part. I am so passionate about crafting because the possibilities is endless. The key element of crafting to me is imagination. Manifesting ideas and molding it into designs. I have created so many crafts, I’ve created furniture, party decorations, jewelry, clothing, and more the list goes on. I am continuously expanding my creative ability. Just recently I started working with clay and wood and made a couple of home decor pieces. Each piece has a significant importance to me because the time and care I put into perfecting my work is shown by the outcome. There are so many to choices to choose from but I decided to show you this piece. This piece is a table that I made from papier mache, wood, clay, aluminum foil, plastic and paint. One of my favorite features of this table is that it spins. I really wanted it to stand out. I obtain this table function by adding a wooden pencil organizer that rotated 360 degrees. On top of that I cut out pieces of wood to go around the base and lengthen it. After that I placed two plastic hexagon displays I got from the dollar tree and placed a sphere with spirals coming out from it into the hexagon. Also in order to make sure the pieces stayed secure I screwed nails to the base and surface of the hexagon into the wooden platform I created and added a wooden top that I cut out. Once I was done setting up the foundation of my table I began to polish it. I wanted to change the texture. So I choose to do make it look vintage and how I pertain this vintage look was by adding crinkled up aluminum foil for the first layer and then adding two to three layers of papier mache on top of that after it dried I wanted the wrinkles to pop out so I added gold leaf paint to highlight on the texture details and also giving it a nice shimmer. Then I painted the table surface gold. This miraculous piece came out so well . The most enjoyable part was that the design of the piece ended up being better then I imagined because I began freestyling it, I had a set planned at first then it changed as I was creating it. That’s probably one of my favorite reason why I love to craft because not everything is set and stone you have the chance to change it. Each piece is different each piece has it own significants, and each piece has a chance to be modify. Each piece I make has a reason and story behind it that’s also why I love crafting because its an outlet, I speak through my art and I wish for it to relate and resonate with other people. The meaning behind this piece is that there is beauty within aging, the more you grow the more you obtain, the more equipped you become, the more you begin to learn and understand, the more you get to stand out, each wrinkle is history being embeded into the skin. And the spiral sphere is a representation of our brain overflowing with memories and ideas. Creativity is a powerful tool and I attended to continue using it and sharing with others. Another reason why I love to design is not only creating it but having an audience who enjoys your work it brings me joy. I hope to receive this scholarship because it will go towards the university that I will be attending. The university I will be atending is VCU for the Crafts and material studies major. I hope to be around people who will open my eyes to new discoveries of creating crafts and who will understand my appreciation towards this art.